From dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk Sun Nov 1 06:53:30 2009 From: dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk (robert searle) Date: Sun, 1 Nov 2009 13:53:30 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [GJM] The Next Evolution in Economics: Rethinking Growth Message-ID: <324009.43261.qm@web27407.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> The Next Evolution in Economics: Rethinking Growth 1:30 PM Wednesday August 19, 2009 by Stan Stalnaker Tags:Economy, Strategy The credit crunch has forced people across many sectors to rethink their assumptions about how they do business, the roles of the individual in the larger system, and the very future of the system itself. These reflections are beginning to bear fruit. We've begun to see a shift from the old, linear transaction-based approach to business toward a new, circular view, in which shared resources can better benefit all in a way that adds depth (and value) to this future economy. Economists describe this new model in many ways. One way is to use human cellular structures as a metaphor for economic growth. Call it cellular economic theory. What do cells tell us about business? Well, consider that cells that grow continually and exponentially (like we've been taught our economies should grow) are a form of cancer. We know intuitively and logically that continuous growth can't be sustained in living things. It's likewise unsustainable (and undesirable) in business. But that's our current model--to just keep growing. And in this model there's no alternative to growth, only stagnation which leads to death. The result of this is policy at every level (micro, macro, corporate and public) that champions growth at all costs. Cellular economic theory suggests an alternative to linear growth: circular growth. In the body, cells grow. Cells die. New cells grow. New cells die. On and on. We sustain ourselves through regeneration. In business, a form of staged, regenerative growth could become the norm. The growth may not even change the size of the "economic body." Here, growth is not seen as the ultimate byproduct of an economic life cycle, but just an important one. Growth becomes one of several life cycle stages that are primarily about replenishment. Instead of growing in size and scope, companies grow in capabilities, processes and offerings. New ones come along. Old ones dies. Just like cells, growth becomes regenerative--only what needs replacing is replaced, reducing waste and improving society along the way. For example, a brewery in India is using cellular economic thinking to grow its bottom line without producing and selling more beer. Instead it's using chaff and grain detritus to create fertilizer and biofuels--regenerating resources to lower their own production costs while widening the life cycles of their inputs. KATIKA, a Swiss wood furniture maker, is reforesting at a rate greater than their production, using profits from their sales today to ensure the availability of resources later. In the meantime, their reforestation projects create local jobs and other sustainable benefits (home for wildlife and food, CO2 reduction) while increasing the value of formerly degraded land holdings. In a cellular economy, key metrics change. GDP growth is less important than GDP regeneration. Successful growth takes into account the sustainability of that growth. The most profound change in a cellular economy is the devaluation of the transaction. Today, economic value is determined primarily by the value of the transaction. To grow (even just to survive), we must keep trading, keep consuming--no matter how wasteful the process becomes--because success is creating more transactions. This keeps us locked into a linear, growth oriented paradox. Fortunately, (if not painfully), the Internet is exposing the impossibility of sustaining a transaction-based economy. As the net drives the cost of certain goods and services toward zero, it strips profit from transactions. In publishing, for example, the cost of information is falling while sources multiply. Same for music and other creative enterprises. Same for micro-lending versus traditional banking. Fashion and retail. Oil. Anywhere there's a middle man between the natural resource and the end consumer, the Internet is obviating the need for the middle man. And, in place of transactions and supply chains (which are, essentially, series of middle men), communities are gaining leverage and power from these shared commodities like news and gas. A low-level web of constant relationships, circular, cellular systems where shared, collaborative contributions are the norm, is developing. Here, the value resides with relationships, not transactions. Maybe, instead of buying and selling more and more in a mad race for grabbing the most growth, the future will be about a collaborative, community-oriented regenerative growth model. This "economy of shares" relies on crowd-sourced contributions, a free market, and a fair dose of incentives for sustainability. When it becomes bad business to waste resources in pursuit of profit, then the regenerative model takes hold and we can kiss goodbye to the things we know we don't need but can't seem to give up. Wasteful packaging. Super-sized food portions. Environmentally damaging newspapers. Gas-guzzling SUVs. Eventually, in a regenerative economy, we learn to focus on kaizen--constant improvements, as opposed to an ever expanding volume of low-quality transactions and markets. Call it the co-op economy. It's the kind of economic system we always say we want but can't bring ourselves to build. If the experts are right and we do indeed need to find more sustainable ways of living, and the bankers are right in saying that we have to live within our means, and the technologists are right saying that collaborative systems are the future, then it stands to reason that the next evolution in economics is to a more natural, life-like system. We are moving to a world where transactions will happen instantly, on demand, for free. We are moving to a time when transactions can't sustain an economy. We are realizing all systems are like biological systems--even economic ones. Growth-at-all-costs business is malignant. It's time to apply that broad realization in new ways to the situation at hand. Stan Stalnaker is the Founder and Creative Director of Hub Culture Ltd, a social network that merges online and physical world environments. * * * * * #loomiaWidget{border:1px solid #d9d9d9; margin:10px 0px; clear:both;} #loomiaWidget ul{margin:0px !important; padding:0px !important;} #loomiaWidget ul li{margin:0px 5px 5px 0px !important; padding:0px !important; width:300px !important;float:left;} #loomiaWidget h4.loomia_header{display:none;} #loomiaWidget div.loomia_promo1{font-size:90%;} #loomiaWidget h4{display:block; background-color: #d9d9d9; color: #000 !important; font: bold 1.3em Georgia, Times New Romans !important; margin: 0; overflow: hidden; padding: 5px 0px 3px 10px; text-transform: uppercase; width:642px;} #loomiaWidget div.loomiaWidgetContent{background-color: #fff; margin: 0 5px 7px 5px; overflow: hidden; padding:10px; width: 95%;} #loomiaWidget .loomia_pub_1684 .loomia_chunk {padding:0px;} #loomiaWidget div.loomia_logo{clear:both;} div.clearer {clear: left; line-height: 0; height: 0;} People who read this also read: People Who Like This Also Like How to Speak to an Unruly Crowd 27088660 John Baldoni Trend to Watch: Price Stability in Question 27287806 Eric Beinhocker -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk Sun Nov 1 06:59:31 2009 From: dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk (robert searle) Date: Sun, 1 Nov 2009 13:59:31 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [GJM] New School of Thought Brings Energy to "the Dismal Science." Message-ID: <153251.32540.qm@web27408.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> New School of Thought Brings Energy to 'the Dismal Science' function getSharePasskey() { return 'ex=1414036800&en=dc3beea399e316d2&ei=5124';} function getShareURL() { return encodeURIComponent('http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2009/10/23/23greenwire-new-school-of-thought-brings-energy-to-the-dis-63367.html'); } function getShareHeadline() { return encodeURIComponent('New School of Thought Brings Energy to 'the Dismal Science''); } function getShareDescription() { return encodeURIComponent('SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- The financial crisis and subsequent global recession have led to much soul-searching among economists, the ...'); } function getShareKeywords() { return encodeURIComponent(''); } function getShareSection() { return encodeURIComponent('business'); } function getShareSectionDisplay() { return encodeURIComponent('Business / Energy & Environment'); } function getShareSubSection() { return encodeURIComponent('energy-environment'); } function getShareByline() { return encodeURIComponent('By NATHANIAL GRONEWOLD of Greenwire '); } function getSharePubdate() { return encodeURIComponent('October 23, 2009'); } Sign in to Recommend Twitter Sign In to E-Mail Print Single Page By NATHANIAL GRONEWOLD of Greenwire Published: October 23, 2009 SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- The financial crisis and subsequent global recession have led to much soul-searching among economists, the vast majority of whom never saw it coming. But were their assumptions and models wrong only because of minor errors or because today's dominant economic thinking violates the laws of physics? Skip to next paragraph More News From Greenwire High-Speed Rail Effort Proceeds With Caution Senate Confirms Nominees for Interior, DOE White House Clears Habitat Protections for Polar Bear DOE, Siemens Begin Tests on Massive Wind Turbine Fake Reporters Part of Climate Pranksters' 'Theater' A blog about energy, the environment and the bottom line. Go to Blog ? A small but growing group of academics believe the latter is true, and they are out to prove it. These thinkers say that the neoclassical mantra of constant economic growth is ignoring the world's diminishing supply of energy at humanity's peril, failing to take account of the principle of net energy return on investment. They hope that a set of theories they call "biophysical economics" will improve upon neoclassical theory, or even replace it altogether. But even this nascent field finds itself divided, as evidenced by the vigorous and candid back-and-forth debate last week over where to go next. One camp says its models prove the world is headed toward a dramatic economic collapse as energy scarcity takes hold, while another camp believes there is still time to turn the ship around. Still, all biophysical economists see only very bleak prospects for the future of modern civilization, putting a whole new spin on the phrase "the dismal science." Last week, about 50 scholars in economics, ecology, engineering and other fields met at the State University of New York's College of Environmental Science and Forestry for their second annual conference on biophysical economics. The new field shares features with ecological economics, a much more established discipline with conferences boasting hundreds of attendees, but the relatively smaller number of practitioners of biophysical economics believe theirs is a much more fundamental and truer form of economic reasoning. "Real economics is the study of how people transform nature to meet their needs," said Charles Hall, professor of systems ecology at SUNY-ESF and organizer of both gatherings in Syracuse. "Neoclassical economics is inconsistent with the laws of thermodynamics." Like Hall, many biophysical economic thinkers are trained in ecology and evolutionary biology, fields that do well at breaking down the natural world into a few fundamental laws and rules, just like physicists do. Though not all proponents of the new energy-centric academic study have been formally trained in economics, scholars coming in from other fields, especially ecology, say their skills allow them to see the global economy in a way that mainstream economists ignore. Central to their argument is an understanding that the survival of all living creatures is limited by the concept of energy return on investment (EROI): that any living thing or living societies can survive only so long as they are capable of getting more net energy from any activity than they expend during the performance of that activity. For instance, if a squirrel burns energy eating nuts, those nuts had better give the squirrel more energy back then it expended, or the squirrel will inevitably die. It is a rule that lies at the core of studying animal and plant behavior, and human society should be looked at no differently, as even technologically complex societies are still governed by EROI. "The basic issue is very fundamental: Why should economics be a social science, because it's about stuff?" Hall said. 'Peak oil' embraced The modern biophysical economics movement may be relatively young, but the ideas at its roots are not. In 1926, Frederick Soddy, a chemist who was awarded the Nobel Prize just a few weeks before, published "Wealth, Virtual Wealth and Debt," one of the first books to argue that energy should lie at the heart of economics and not supply-demand curves. Soddy also criticized traditional monetary policy theories for seemingly ignoring the fact that "real wealth" is derived from using energy to transform physical objects, and that these physical objects are inescapably subject to the laws of entropy, or inevitable decline and disintegration. 1 2 Next Page ? For more news on energy and the environment, visit www.greenwire.com. Sign in to RecommendMore Articles in Business ? 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URL: From dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk Sun Nov 1 07:09:35 2009 From: dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk (robert searle) Date: Sun, 1 Nov 2009 14:09:35 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [GJM] Climate Change Venue at Windsor Castle!! Message-ID: <39788.48553.qm@web27407.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> ? Dear All, ? ????????? It appears that Windsor Castle is to have a conference of sorts on climate change. I expect Peter Challen knows about it as it involves faith groups. I? used to live near to the Castle itself, and Windsor town is very well-known to me as I used to live there near the Long Walk. Now though, I live in Chalvey which is close by. ? ? http://www.windsor2009.org/ ? There has been something about the above matter on the radio.... ? ? R.Searle -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mukhtaralam2000 at yahoo.com Sun Nov 1 07:13:01 2009 From: mukhtaralam2000 at yahoo.com (Dr.Muhammad Mukhtar Alam) Date: Sun, 1 Nov 2009 19:43:01 +0530 (IST) Subject: [GJM] Fw: [nrindians] Indian govt considers Islamic banking option Message-ID: <189976.23100.qm@web94907.mail.in2.yahoo.com> Dear all the distinguished members of GJM, This is a an interesting development .I think the clouds of Satanic ignorance are?getting destroyed and men and women are getting guidance for the steps that must be taken for safeguarding the temporal and?eternal interest of humanity. ?Dr.Muhammad Mukhtar Alam 58-C, Top Floor,DDA Janta Flats, Ashok Vihar-III,Delhi-110052,India Tel:+9968345380 http://muhammad_mukhtar_alam.tigblog.org http://slideshare.net/mukhtaralam http://transitionurbanindia.ning.com http://ecostrategiccommunicator.ning.com ----- Forwarded Message ---- From: Iqbal Soofi Sent: Sun, 1 November, 2009 1:33:18 PM Subject: [nrindians] Indian govt considers Islamic banking option RABNEWS REPORT Friday 30 October 2009 (12 Dhul Qa`dah 1430) ? Indian govt considers Islamic banking option P.K. Abdul Ghafour I Arab News source: http://www.arabnews.com/?page=6§ion=0&article=127905&d=30&m=10&y=2009 Indian Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee with H. Abdur Raqeeb and other ICIF delegates. ? JEDDAH: Indian Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee has assured a delegation of Indian Centre for Islamic Finance (ICIF) that he would soon discuss the feasibility of introducing an interest-free Islamic banking system in the country with RBI governor. ?Our talks with Mukherjee were very positive. He has taken note of the major points in our memorandum and promised to have detailed talks on the topic later. I am now very optimistic about Islamic banking in India after the talks,? said H. Abdur Raqeeb, general-secretary of ICIF who led the delegation. ? Raqeeb said the finance minister had informed him that he would meet the RBI governor next week and that he would discuss the matter with him. ?The minister also told me that he would be visiting Saudi Arabia shortly and would be available in the second week of November and then a meeting could be arranged for ICIF to interact with the secretaries and officials of the ministry?s banking department,? he added. Raqeeb said the minister was impressed when informed that Islamic banking would benefit not only Muslims but also non-Muslims in the country. ?About 40 percent of the clients of Islamic banks in Malaysia and 20 percent in Britain are non-Muslim,? he said. The Vatican has recommended Islamic finance because of its emphasis on ethical and socially responsible investments. ? The delegation also briefed Mukherjee on the Kerala government?s decision to launch an Islamic investment company with a capital of Rs.10 billion following a feasibility study conducted by Ernst & Young. The company could be developed into a global Islamic bank at a later stage with RBI?s consent. ? The Finance Minister went through the three-page ICIF memorandum and keenly read the recommendations of Raghuram Rajan Committee on Financial Sector Reforms. The Committee had advised the government to take measures to permit the delivery of interest-free finance on a larger scale, including through the banking system. The delegation convinced the minister that the introduction of Islamic banking and finance would help India attract huge funds in investments from oil-rich Gulf countries. It will also encourage many Muslims, who avoid dealing with interest because of religious instructions, to invest their money. ? ?In India billions of rupees earned in interest are kept in suspended accounts, as believers do not claim it,? Raqeeb said quoting an RBI journal report. ?The assets controlled by Muslims are estimated at $1.5 trillion and growing at 15 percent a year,? the journal said. In Kerala alone it is reported that this money could reach more than Rs 400 billion. ? The delegation urged the Reserve Bank to allow Islamic banking/products through subsidiaries of banks and amend the BR Act/RBI Act by way of insertion of a separate chapter exclusively dealing with all aspects of Islamic banking business/products. It also called for the setting up of Bharatiya Interest-Free Banking Company and a National Interest-Free Banking Corporation. ? Meanwhile, the Indian Friends Circle in Riyadh said they were intending to present a similar memorandum to Mukherjee during his visit to Riyadh to consider Islamic banking as an alternate financial channel. "As an experiment a Shariah-compliant fund can be started at State Bank of India's Jeddah branch," the circle said in a letter to the minister. ? "As Saudi Arabia has a large NRI base, of which many are followers of Islam and would like to invest their hard-earned money in financial schemes that are based on Islamic faith," said Ahmed Ali, its president. "This wealth can be used to enhance the economy of India," he said, adding that a copy of the letter has been presented to the Indian Embassy in Riyadh. ---------------------------------- --? Iqbal Soofi o? State of Kuwait o? Do not Forward or Print unless the need is felt --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ To post to this group, send email to nrindians at googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to nrindians+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~--- Now, send attachments up to 25MB with Yahoo! India Mail. Learn how. http://in.overview.mail.yahoo.com/photos -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From maryrose333 at att.net Mon Nov 2 13:59:08 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Mon, 2 Nov 2009 12:59:08 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: Top News: Undercover Police Provoke Riot, Swine Flu Cases Exaggerated, TARP on Steroids, More Message-ID: <005b01ca5bff$75bf2650$613d72f0$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS FYI From: PEERS: WantToKnow.info Email List [mailto:emaillist at peerservice.org] Sent: Monday, November 02, 2009 9:09 AM To: maryrose333 at att.net Subject: Top News: Undercover Police Provoke Riot, Swine Flu Cases Exaggerated, TARP on Steroids, More To subscribe to or unsubscribe from this list (one email every few days) or to reply to this message, see end of email This message is available online at http://www.WantToKnow.info/009/undercover_police_incite_riot_swine_flu_cases_exaggerated Dear friends, Below are key excerpts of important news articles you may have missed. These articles include revealing information on undercover police caught inciting a riot, the exaggeration of swine flu case numbers, new legislation described as 'TARP on steroids,' and more. Each excerpt is taken verbatim from the major media website listed at the link provided. If any link fails to function, click here . The most important sentences are highlighted for those with limited time. By choosing to educate ourselves and to spread the word , we can and will build a brighter future. With best wishes, Tod Fletcher and Fred Burks for PEERS and the WantToKnow.info Team Special note: Many claims are being made about millions of swine flu cases. Yet the CDC has told states to stop monitoring the number of cases, which CBS has shown to be exaggerated. CDC instructs health care providers to lump swine flu with the regular flu. For more reliable information on this, click here. And to see a very sad "rare case" of severe reaction to a flu shot, watch a Washington Redskins cheerleader in the Fox News clip available here. [Two friends have told me that friends of theirs were also hospitalized with Guillain-Barre Syndrome after taking the seasonal flu shot. Maybe these reactions are less rare than we think. F.B.] _____ Officers accused of inciting violence to testify before police ethics panel October 23, 2009, Globe and Mail (One of Canada's leading newspapers) http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/officers-accused-of-inciting-violence... Three undercover officers accused of inciting protesters to attack riot police at the 2007 North American leaders summit in Montebello are being summoned to testify before Quebec's independent police ethics committee. The decision from the committee released this week overrules an independent review that exonerated the officers. It also comes more than two years after the black-clad trio were first exposed on YouTube. Dave Coles, the union leader who confronted the men at the time and filed a complaint against the police ... said he suspects an inquiry would find there was political involvement. ?This is the big question: Who sent them in?? asked Mr. Coles. ?And don't give me some lame excuse that it was a low-level officer.? Video images of the incident posted on YouTube showed three officers disguised as protesters wearing black tops and camouflage pants. Their faces were covered by black and white bandanas. One of them, wearing a sideways ball cap marked with graffiti, held a large stone in his hand. Mr. Coles yelled at them to show their faces and the officer carrying the rock responded with a two-handed shove. Note: Click on the link above to watch the astonishing YouTube video of this police provocation. This is just one case that happened to be caught on film. Why are undercover police infiltrating activist groups and inciting violence at demonstrations around the world? _____ Police in ?9m scheme to log 'domestic extremists' October 25, 2009, The Guardian (One of the UK's leading newspapers) http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/oct/25/police-domestic-extremists-database Police are gathering the personal details of thousands of activists who attend political meetings and protests, and storing their data on a network of nationwide intelligence databases. The hidden apparatus has been constructed to monitor "domestic extremists". Detailed information about the political activities of campaigners is being stored on a number of overlapping IT systems, even if they have not committed a crime. Senior officers say domestic extremism, a term coined by police that has no legal basis, can include activists suspected of minor public order offences such as peaceful direct action and civil disobedience. Three national police units responsible for combating domestic extremism are run by the "terrorism and allied matters" committee of the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo). In total, it receives ?9m in public funding, from police forces and the Home Office, and employs a staff of 100. The main unit, the National Public Order Intelligence Unit (NPOIU), runs a central database which lists thousands of so-called domestic extremists. It filters intelligence supplied by police forces across England and Wales, which routinely deploy surveillance teams at protests, rallies and public meetings. Vehicles associated with protesters are being tracked via a nationwide system of automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras. Police surveillance units, known as Forward Intelligence Teams (FIT) and Evidence Gatherers, record footage and take photographs of campaigners as they enter and leave openly advertised public meetings. Surveillance officers are provided with "spotter cards" used to identify the faces of target individuals who police believe are at risk of becoming involved in domestic extremism. Targets include high-profile activists regularly seen taking part in protests. Note: This important article should be read in its entirety. For further revelations of the magnitude of this surveillance and "rebranding protest as extremism " program, click here . _____ Swine Flu Cases Overestimated? October 21, 2009, CBS News http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/10/21/cbsnews_investigates/main5404829.shtml If you've been diagnosed "probable" or "presumed" 2009 H1N1 or "swine flu" in recent months, you may be surprised to know this: odds are you didn?t have H1N1 flu. In fact, you probably didn?t have flu at all. That's according to state-by-state test results obtained in a three-month-long CBS News investigation. Why the uncertainty about who has and who hasn't had H1N1 flu? In late July, the CDC abruptly advised states to stop testing for H1N1 flu, and stopped counting individual cases. CBS News learned that the decision to stop counting H1N1 flu cases was made so hastily that states weren't given the opportunity to provide input. When CDC did not provide us [CBS News] with the material, we filed a Freedom of Information request with the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). More than two months later, the request has not been fulfilled. We also asked CDC for state-by-state test results prior to halting of testing and tracking, but CDC was again, initially, unresponsive. We asked all 50 states for their statistics on state lab-confirmed H1N1 prior to the halt of individual testing and counting in July. The vast majority of cases were negative for H1N1 as well as seasonal flu, despite the fact that many states were specifically testing patients deemed to be most likely to have H1N1 flu, based on symptoms and risk factors, such as travel to Mexico. With most cases diagnosed solely on symptoms and risk factors, the H1N1 flu epidemic may seem worse than it is. Note: Some states found that less than 2% of cases claimed to be swine flu turned out to be the real thing. The numbers have been greatly exaggerated. For more reliable information on this, click here . _____ TARP on steroids October 30, 2009, San Francisco Chronicle (San Francisco's leading newspaper) http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/10/30/EDTG1ACEDE.DTL It was 9/29/08 - a moment when a rare blast of populist democracy briefly singed the economic terrorists who hold the Capitol hostage. It had been a dark and stormy month of financial collapse, culminating in an attempted power grab. Pushed by his fellow Wall Street Ponzi schemers, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson - a former Goldman Sachs CEO - was threatening Armageddon unless Congress ratified his ... decree for a no-strings-attached bank bailout. Today, the episode seems merely to have set minimum standards for chicanery. As evidenced by two little-noticed sections of the Obama administration's Wall Street "reform" bill, presidents and their bank benefactors are back to thinking they can pilfer whatever they want by burying their demands in the esoterica of lengthier bills. Finding this latest giveaway means digging all the way down to sections 1109 and 1604 of the White House's mammoth proposal. At a recent hearing, Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Sherman Oaks (Los Angeles County), called the language "TARP on steroids," noting the provisions would deliberately let the executive branch enact even bigger, more unregulated bailouts than ever - and by unilateral fiat. TARP on Steroids includes no specific oversight or executive pay constraints. TARP on Steroids allows taxpayer cash to go only to the behemoths (which, not coincidentally, tend to make the biggest campaign contributions). TARP on Steroids would let [the Treasury Secretary] spend as much as he wants. Note: For many revealing reports from reliable sources on the continuing Wall Street bailout, click here. _____ Loosening of F.B.I. Rules Stirs Privacy Concerns October 29, 2009, New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/29/us/29manual.html After a Somali-American teenager from Minneapolis committed a suicide bombing in Africa in October 2008, the Federal Bureau of Investigation began investigating whether a Somali Islamist group had recruited him on United States soil. Instead of collecting information only on people about whom they had a tip or links to the teenager, agents fanned out to scrutinize Somali communities. The operation unfolded as the Bush administration was relaxing some domestic intelligence-gathering rules. The F.B.I.?s interpretation of those rules was recently made public when it released, in response to a Freedom of Information lawsuit, its ?Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide.? The disclosure of the manual has opened the widest window yet onto how agents have been given greater power in the post-Sept. 11 era. But the manual?s details have alarmed privacy advocates. ?It raises fundamental questions about whether a domestic intelligence agency can protect civil liberties if they feel they have a right to collect broad personal information about people they don?t even suspect of wrongdoing,? said Mike German, a former F.B.I. agent who now works for the American Civil Liberties Union . The manual authorizes agents to open an ?assessment? to ?proactively? seek information about whether people or organizations are involved in national security threats. Assessments permit agents to use potentially intrusive techniques, like sending confidential informants to infiltrate organizations and following and photographing targets in public. When selecting targets, agents are permitted to consider political speech or religion as one criterion. Note: To read the FBI's recently-released and redacted new "Domestic Investigations and Operation Guide", described by the New York Times as giving "F.B.I. agents the most power in national security matters that they have had since the post-Watergate era," click here . _____ Novartis Expects Swine Flu Boost In Q4 October 22, 2009, New York Times/Reuters http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2009/10/22/business/business-uk-novartis.html Swiss drugmaker Novartis said sales would grow faster than expected this year, even without a shot in the arm of up to $700 million from its H1N1 swine flu pandemic vaccine. Third-quarter net profit at Novartis ... nudged up 1 percent to $2.1 billion. This year is turning out to be better than initially feared for Novartis and other major pharmaceutical companies, thanks to hefty price increases and windfall sales arising from the H1N1 outbreak. Both Pfizer, the world's biggest drugmaker, and Eli Lilly topped earnings forecasts this week. Roche reported a sharp jump in sales of its Tamiflu drug for flu last week and analysts expect GlaxoSmithKline's Relenza will also see strong sales in the third quarter. On the vaccine front, Glaxo, Sanofi-Aventis and AstraZeneca are all expected to highlight an expected jump in fourth-quarter sales due to swine flu. The H1N1 flu vaccine is expected to contribute about $400-700 million of sales in the fourth quarter. Note: Donald Rumsfeld personally made millions as a direct result of the avian flu scare a few year ago. For more on this, click here . For more on pharmaceutical corporation profiteering from swine flu vaccines, click here. _____ Brother of Afghan Leader Said to Be Paid by C.I.A. October 28, 2009, New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/28/world/asia/28intel.html Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of the Afghan president and a suspected player in the country?s booming illegal opium trade, gets regular payments from the Central Intelligence Agency, and has for much of the past eight years, according to current and former American officials. The C.I.A.?s practices ... suggest that the United States is not doing everything in its power to stamp out the lucrative Afghan drug trade, a major source of revenue for the Taliban. The relationship between Mr. Karzai and the C.I.A. is wide ranging. He helps the C.I.A. operate a paramilitary group, the Kandahar Strike Force, that is used for raids against suspected insurgents. On at least one occasion, the strike force has been accused of mounting an unauthorized operation against an official of the Afghan government. Mr. Karzai is also paid for allowing the C.I.A. and American Special Operations troops to rent a large compound outside the city. ?He?s our landlord,? a senior American official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. A former C.I.A. officer with experience in Afghanistan said the agency relied heavily on Ahmed Wali Karzai, and often based covert operatives at compounds he owned. Note: To read an analysis of these revelations, which argues that there is a much bigger story of "heavy dependence by U.S. and NATO counterinsurgency forces on Afghan warlords for security", click here. _____ N.Y. Fed pushed AIG on contracts October 28, 2009, Washington Post http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/27/AR2009102703963.html The Federal Reserve Bank of New York said ... that it had no choice but to instruct American International Group last November to reimburse the full amount of what it owed to big banks on derivatives contracts, a move that ended months of effort by the insurance giant to negotiate lower payments. The New York Fed, led at the time by then-President Timothy F. Geithner, directed AIG to make the payments after it received a massive government bailout. The officials said AIG lost its leverage in demanding a better deal once the company had been saved from bankruptcy. Lawmakers and financial analysts critical of the payouts say it amounted to a back-door bailout for big banks. AIG, the recipient of a $180 billion federal rescue package, ended up paying $14 billion to Goldman Sachs over months and $8.5 billion to Deutsche Bank, among others. Before the New York Fed intervened, AIG had been trying to persuade the firms to take discounts. [A Bloomberg] report concluded that the government needlessly overpaid $13 billion. The Federal Reserve has declined to detail the terms of the deals and specifics about negotiations with creditors. The Bloomberg report quoted an unnamed AIG executive who said he was pressured by New York Fed officials to refrain from filing any documents with the Securities and Exchange Commission that would divulge the deals' details. Note: For many revealing reports from reliable sources on the realities of the Wall Street bailout, click here. _____ Wall Street Follies: The Next Act October 25, 2009, New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/25/weekinreview/25morgenson.html Hoping, perhaps, to persuade a dubious public that curbing reckless business practices is indeed a Washington priority, the Obama administration and Congress produced a hat trick of financial reforms last week. For all the apparent action in Washington, some acute observers say that it was much ado about little. Last week?s moves, they say, were tinkering around the edges and did nothing to prevent another disaster like the one that unfolded a year ago. The white-hot focus on pay, for example, looks like a way for the government to reassure an angry public that they are making genuine changes. But compensation is a trifling matter compared to, say, true reform of derivatives trading. ?The American public understands the immorality of paying people huge bonuses for failures that damaged the economy,? said Michael Greenberger, a law professor at the University of Maryland and a former commodities regulator. ?What they don?t understand is that those payments are only a small fraction of the irregularities that took place and that, in essence, the compensation problems, as bad as they are, are a sideshow to the casino-like nature of the economy as it existed, pre-Lehman Brothers, and as it exists today.? Regulating derivatives is far more important to those interested in eliminating the possibility of future billion-dollar bailouts. But the derivatives bill generated by the House Agriculture Committee contains a sizable loophole. Many derivatives would not trade in the light of day. Note: For many revealing reports from reliable sources on the realities of the continuing bank bailout, click here. _____ Man who shot Dziekanski video gets journalism award October 28, 2009, CBC News http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2009/10/28/bc-taser-video-cjfe.html The man who used a digital camera to record the death of Robert Dziekanski at the Vancouver airport says he feels guilty he didn't try to help the Polish immigrant. Dziekanski, 40, died Oct. 14, 2007, following several shocks from a Taser four RCMP officers used to subdue him after he caused a disturbance. The incident might never have received much attention if Paul Pritchard had not decided to grab his digital camera and start recording the actions of the distraught Dziekanski before police arrived. The release of the 10-minute video, which contradicted the police version of the incident, led to widespread public outrage around the world and diplomatic tensions between Canada and Poland. The 10-minute Pritchard video [showed that] four RCMP officers rushed in and confronted Dziekanski, who backed up toward a counter. Dziekanski then faced the officers with what later turned out to be a stapler in one hand. Immediately, there was a loud crack from a Taser, followed by Dziekanski screaming and convulsing as he stumbled and fell to the floor. Another loud crack can be heard, as an officer appears to fire the Taser at Dziekanski again. Then, as the officers kneel on top of Dziekanski and handcuff him, he continues to scream and convulse on the floor. One officer is heard to say, "Hit him again. Hit him again," and there is another loud cracking sound. Evidence at the inquiry revealed the Taser was eventually fired five times at Dziekanski. After he was subdued, the RCMP left him handcuffed on the floor, where he died before medical help arrived. Note: If these police would be so brutal in front of the public, imagine what they might have done when no one is looking. And note that the complete text of this article reveals that their brutal actions were covered up at high levels in the police department. _____ Mum's the Word for NASA's Secret Space Plane X-37B October 22, 2009, Fox News http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,569143,00.html You would think that an unpiloted space plane built to rocket spaceward from Florida atop an Atlas booster, circle the planet for an extended time, then land on autopilot on a California runway would be big news. But for the U.S. Air Force X-37B project ? seemingly, mum's the word. There is an air of vagueness regarding next year's Atlas Evolved Expendable launch of the unpiloted, reusable military space plane. This Boeing Phantom Works craft has been under development for years. Several agencies have been involved in the effort, NASA as well as the Defense Advanced Projects Research Agency (DARPA) and various arms of the U.S. Air Force. The tight-lipped factor surrounding the space plane, its mission, and who is in charge is curious. Such a hush-hush factor seems to mimic in pattern that mystery communications spacecraft lofted last month aboard an Atlas 5 rocket, simply called PAN. Its assignment and what agency owns it remains undisclosed. "The problem with it [X37-B] is whether you see it as a weapons platform," said Theresa Hitchens, former head of the Center for Defense Information's Space Security Program, now Director of the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR) in Geneva, Switzerland. "It then becomes, if I am not mistaken, a Global Strike platform. There are a lot of reasons to be concerned about Global Strike as a concept," Hitchens [said]. _____ VeriChip shares jump after H1N1 patent license win September 21, 2009, Reuters http://www.reuters.com/article/hotStocksNews/idUSTRE58K4BZ20090921 Shares of VeriChip Corp tripled after the company said it had been granted an exclusive license to two patents, which will help it to develop implantable virus detection systems in humans. The patents, held by VeriChip partner Receptors LLC, relate to biosensors that can detect the H1N1 and other viruses. The technology will combine with VeriChip's implantable radio frequency identification devices to develop virus triage detection systems. The triage system will provide multiple levels of identification -- the first will identify the agent as virus or non-virus, the second level will classify the virus and alert the user to the presence of pandemic threat viruses and the third level will identify the precise pathogen, VeriChip said in a white paper published May 7, 2009. Shares of VeriChip were up 186 percent. Note: Beware of efforts to scare you into getting microchipped for your own safety. Click here for more on this. For more on pharmaceutical corporation profiteering from swine flu vaccines, click here. _____ Netherlands to close prisons for lack of criminals May 20, 2009, NRC International (One of the Netherlands' leading newspapers) http://www.nrc.nl/international/article2246821.ece/Netherlands_to_close_prisons... The Dutch justice ministry has announced it will close eight prisons and cut 1,200 jobs in the prison system. A decline in crime has left many cells empty. During the 1990s the Netherlands faced a shortage of prison cells, but a decline in crime has since led to overcapacity in the prison system. The country now has capacity for 14,000 prisoners but only 12,000 detainees. Deputy justice minister Nebahat Albayrak announced on Tuesday that eight prisons will be closed. The overcapacity is a result of the declining crime rate, which the ministry's research department expects to continue for some time. Note: Isn't it interesting that this country, which is one of the very few to have legalized marijuana and prostitution, has a shortage of criminals? _____ Key Articles From Years Past _____ Leading Doctor: Vaccines-Autism Worth Study May 12, 2008, CBS News http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/05/12/cbsnews_investigates/main4086809.shtml Jordan King was a typical baby. His parents called him vocal and vivacious. Then just before age 2, after a large battery of vaccinations, he simply withdrew from the world. "The real scary thing was when I noticed he wasn't looking at us any more in the eyes," Mylinda King, Jordan's mother, said. William Mead was a Pottery Barn baby model and met all the typical milestones. Then, also at age 2, after a set of vaccinations, William became very ill and he, too, changed forever. In both children, batteries of tests revealed dangerous levels of the brain toxin mercury in their systems. Their only known exposure: the mercury preservative once widely used in childhood shots. Dr. Bernadine Healy is the former head of the National Institutes of Health, and the most well-known medical voice yet to break with her colleagues on the vaccine-autism question. In an exclusive interview with CBS News, Healy said the question is still open. "I think that the public health officials have been too quick to dismiss the hypothesis as irrational," Healy said. Healy goes on to say public health officials have intentionally avoided researching whether subsets of children are ?susceptible? to vaccine side effects - afraid the answer will scare the public. CBS News has learned the government has paid more than 1,300 brain injury claims in vaccine court since 1988, but is not studying those cases or tracking how many of them resulted in autism.? Note: For a powerfully revealing article by Robert Kennedy, Jr. showing a major cover-up of this issue, click here. For another suppressed article on a published University of Pittsburgh study with strong evidence of an autism-vaccine link, click here . _____ Safe websites let you embarrass people in high places May 8, 2008, New Scientist magazine http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19826555.400-safe-websites-let-you-embarrass... Just how accurate are GPS-guided precision bombs, and what is most likely to send them off-target? Now you can find out by simply reading the smart bomb?s tactical manual on the internet. No, the Pentagon didn?t slip up and post the instructions online. Rather, a whistle-blower leaked the manual via Wikileaks , a website that uses anonymising technology to disguise the source of leaked information. Launched online in early 2007, Wikileaks is run by an informal group of open government and anti-secrecy advocates who want to allow people living under oppressive regimes, or with something to say in the public interest, to anonymously leak documents that have been censored or are of ethical, political or diplomatic significance. Thanks to Wikileaks, potential whistle-blowers are now far more willing to come forward, says John Young, who runs the long-standing site Cryptome.org , which specialises in posting documents on espionage, intelligence and cryptography issues. ?We started getting a lot less information after 9/11 as people became more cautious when law enforcement agencies got more draconian powers. So we are very happy to see Wikileaks doing what they are doing so aggressively.? This flood of leaked documents has been made possible by internet technology that allows whistle-blowers to post documents online without revealing their identity or IP address. Note: To read the full article for free, click here . _____ Final Note: WantToKnow.info believes it is important to balance disturbing cover-up information with inspirational writings which call us to be all that we can be and to work together for positive change. Please visit our Inspiration Center at http://www.WantToKnow.info/inspirational for an abundance of uplifting material. See our archive of revealing news articles at www.WantToKnow.info/indexnewsarticles Your tax-deductible donations, however large or small, help greatly to support this important work. To make a donation by credit card, check, or money order: www.WantToKnow.info/donationswtk Explore the mind and heart expanding websites managed by the nonprofit PEERS network: www.peerservice.org - PEERS websites: Spreading inspiration, education, & empowerment www.momentoflove.org - Every person in the world has a heart www.personalgrowthcourses.net - Dynamic online courses powerfully expand your horizons www.WantToKnow.info - Reliable, verifiable information on major cover-ups www.weboflove.org - Strengthening the Web of Love that interconnects us all To respond to this message, visit www.WantToKnow.info/contactus.php To subscribe to or unsubscribe from the WantToKnow.info list (one email every few days): www.WantToKnow.info/subscribe _____ Change email address / Leave mailing list Powered by YourMailingListProvider -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From maryrose333 at att.net Mon Nov 2 14:21:09 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Mon, 2 Nov 2009 13:21:09 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: SpiritCrossing - Latest Newsletter Message-ID: <007101ca5c02$9458d4a0$bd0a7de0$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS D Don't miss Dr. Lipton's article in the Newsletter. From: Spiritcrossing [mailto:info at spiritcrossing.com] Sent: Monday, November 02, 2009 12:47 PM To: maryrose333 at att.net Subject: SpiritCrossing - Latest Newsletter Email not displaying correctly? View it in your browser. Hello friends. It seems such a short time ago we were welcoming in 2009 as a year of profound change, and from my vantage point it has been just that. Now we have the privilege and responsibility to end this year with a vision for the future. We have all been reminded of late that the changes we make personally in our lives are the most effective way of changing the world in which we live. I would like to add an encouragement to be more active in community building and participation. Until we are SEEN as a vibrant supportive and active community of change, our effect will be limited by our limited visibility. Every month we share our newsletter with many of your stories, yet I know there are many more to tell. Every month we ask you to spread the word forward by inviting others to join our list. The progress we have made together is truly gratifying. For 2010 I see our reach and effectiveness as teachers and communicators expanding exponentially. It's time to raise the roof with the cheers and tears of a mission nearly accomplished. In just a few days Bruce Lipton will be in Japan to receive the "Goi Peace Award". Please read his acceptance letter inside this issue. But also I want to share what Bruce told me recently because it moved me deeply. He said, "Doug, while I am honored to accept the award, it is important to remember that it is the Science that has been recognized". Well Bruce, humble friend, please hear from all of us, "We Love You, Recognize the Science, and appreciate deeply the gift you have brought us all. Together we will build the community of change Be sure to read all of our new articles in this month's newsletter. Love and light, This message was sent from Spiritcrossing to maryrose333 at att.net. It was sent from: Spirit 2000, SpiritCrossing P.O. Box 11736 , Murfreesboro, TN 37129-0035. You can modify/update your subscription via the link below. Email Marketing by iContact - Try It Free! To be removed click here -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From maryrose333 at att.net Mon Nov 2 14:32:43 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Mon, 2 Nov 2009 13:32:43 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: [globalnetnews-summary] Bill Moyers: Bring Back the Draft Message-ID: <007601ca5c04$30641390$912c3ab0$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS Food for thought here. But maybe what is needed is for a large number of young people to refuse to go fight this war that really only benefits rich white men with vested interests in preserving raw capitalism at any price. -----Original Message----- From: globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net [mailto:globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net] On Behalf Of TradingPostPaul Sent: Sunday, November 01, 2009 6:29 PM To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] Bill Moyers: Bring Back the Draft Bill Moyers: Bring Back the Draft By Heather Sunday Nov 01, 2009 1:00pm http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/bill-moyers-bring-back-draft Bill Moyers ended his show this week with an editorial comment on what he thinks we should do if President Obama chooses to escalate the war in Afghanistan by sending more troops--bring back the draft. I would agree with him if the end result wouldn't be what always happens when this country has had a draft. The poor go fight and the rich find a way out of it. If we could make sure every neocon war monger had to go first, I'd say hell yes, but that's not going to happen. BILL MOYERS: Watching the CBS Evening News on Afghanistan this week I thought for a moment that I might be watching my grandson playing one of those video war games that are so popular these days. REPORTER: An American military convoy traveling northwest-- BILL MOYERS: Reporting on the attacks that killed eight Americans, CBS turned to animation to depict what no journalists were around to witness. This is about as close to real war as most of us ever get, safely removed from the blood, the mangled bodies, the screams and shouts. October, as you know, was the bloodiest month for our troops in all eight years of the war. And beyond the human loss, the United States has spent more than 223 billion dollars there. In 2010 we will be spending roughly 65 billion dollars every year. 65 billion dollars a year. The President is just about ready to send more troops. Maybe 44 thousand, that's the number General McChrystal wants, bringing the total to over 100 thousand. When I read speculation last weekend that the actual number needed might be 600 thousand, I winced. I can still see President Lyndon Johnson's face when he asked his generals how many years and how many troops it would take to win in Vietnam. One of them answered, "Ten years and one million." He was right on the time and wrong on the number-- two and a half million American soldiers would serve in Vietnam, and we still lost. Whatever the total for Afghanistan, every additional thousand troops will cost us about a billion dollars a year. At a time when foreclosures are rising, benefits for the unemployed are running out, cities are firing teachers, closing libraries and cutting essential maintenance and services. That sound you hear is the ripping of our social fabric. Which makes even more perplexing an editorial in THE WASHINGTON POST last week. You'll remember the "Post" was a cheerleader for the invasion of Iraq, often sounding like a megaphone for the Bush-Cheney propaganda machine. Now it's calling for escalating the war in Afghanistan. In a time of historic budget deficits, the paper said, Afghanistan has to take priority over universal health care for Americans. Fixing Afghanistan, it seems, is "a 'necessity'"; fixing America's social contract is not. But listen to what an Afghan villager recently told a correspondent for the "Economist:" "We need security. But the Americans are just making trouble for us. They cannot bring peace, not if they stay for 50 years." Listen, too, to Andrew Bacevich, the long-time professional soldier, graduate of West Point, veteran of Vietnam, and now a respected scholar of military and foreign affairs, who was on this program a year ago. He recently told "The Christian Science Monitor," "The notion that fixing Afghanistan will somehow drive a stake through the heart of jihadism is wrong. .If we give General McChrystal everything he wants, the jihadist threat will still exist." This from a warrior who lost his own soldier son in Iraq, and who doesn't need animated graphics to know what the rest of us never see. So here's a suggestion. In a week or so, when the president announces he is escalating the war, let's not hide the reality behind eloquence or animation. No more soaring rhetoric, please. No more video games. If our governing class wants more war, let's not allow them to fight it with young men and women who sign up because they don't have jobs here at home, or can't afford college or health care for their families. Let's share the sacrifice. Spread the suffering. Let's bring back the draft. Yes, bring back the draft -- for as long as it takes our politicians and pundits to "fix" Afghanistan to their satisfaction. Bring back the draft, and then watch them dive for cover on Capitol Hill, in the watering holes and think tanks of the Beltway, and in the quiet little offices where editorial writers spin clever phrases justifying other people's sacrifice. Let's insist our governing class show the courage to make this long and dirty war our war, or the guts to end it. From rodney.shakespeare1 at btopenworld.com Thu Nov 5 11:41:01 2009 From: rodney.shakespeare1 at btopenworld.com (Rodney Shakespeare) Date: Thu, 5 Nov 2009 18:41:01 -0000 Subject: [GJM] Fall of the Republic (youtube) References: <007601ca5c04$30641390$912c3ab0$@net> Message-ID: <005f01ca5e47$8691c6f0$4001a8c0@your447023ae6b> Dear All, "Fall of the Republic" ( the successor to "The Obama Deception") is now available on youtube. Rodney Shakespeare -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jacklancaster at sbcglobal.net Thu Nov 5 12:21:56 2009 From: jacklancaster at sbcglobal.net (Jack Lancaster) Date: Thu, 5 Nov 2009 11:21:56 -0800 (PST) Subject: [GJM] Fall of the Republic (youtube) In-Reply-To: <005f01ca5e47$8691c6f0$4001a8c0@your447023ae6b> References: <007601ca5c04$30641390$912c3ab0$@net> <005f01ca5e47$8691c6f0$4001a8c0@your447023ae6b> Message-ID: <763129.99651.qm@web80009.mail.sp1.yahoo.com> ________________________________ From: Rodney Shakespeare To: Discussion Forum for Global Justice Sent: Thu, November 5, 2009 10:41:01 AM Subject: [GJM] Fall of the Republic (youtube) Dear All, "Fall of the Republic" ( the successor to "The Obama Deception") is now available on youtube. ? Rodney Shakespeare -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk Fri Nov 6 03:12:01 2009 From: dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk (robert searle) Date: Fri, 6 Nov 2009 10:12:01 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [GJM] No Reference to Binary Economic, or Kelso? Message-ID: <910331.6105.qm@web27407.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> ? ? ?This is directed to Rodney strictly speaking. I do not know whether it is me, or not but I was looking at two "respectable" reference sources on mainstream financial economics (notably the one published by the Economist). Both described ESOPs but no mention of Binary Economics, or even Kelso (or ofcourse interest free loans). Indeed, I have looked on the internet too, and the same "phenomenon" transpired. I suspect other mainstream reference works are likewise irrespective of whether they exist as books, or on the internet. It would not suprise me.... ? ? Comment! ? R.S. ? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rodney.shakespeare1 at btopenworld.com Fri Nov 6 03:24:45 2009 From: rodney.shakespeare1 at btopenworld.com (Rodney Shakespeare) Date: Fri, 6 Nov 2009 10:24:45 -0000 Subject: [GJM] No Reference to Binary Economic, or Kelso? References: <910331.6105.qm@web27407.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <004301ca5ecb$5c81e870$4001a8c0@your447023ae6b> Robert, Inter alia, existing ESOPs do not use interest-free loans from the central bank i.e. they are not true binary ESOPs. Binary economics uses an interest-free money supply for developing and spreading all aspects of the real economy so that producers and consumers are the same people This is fundamentally different from, and opposed to, 'free market' finance capitalism which is a rigged construct almost entirely devoted to the interests of a financial oligarchy not concerned with the real economy and its development and spreading. Binary economics is not within the existing left-right paradigm. That is basically why conventional economics does not understand, let alone welcome, it. Rodney Shakespeare. ----- Original Message ----- From: robert searle To: discussion at globaljusticemovement.net Sent: Friday, November 06, 2009 10:12 AM Subject: [GJM] No Reference to Binary Economic, or Kelso? This is directed to Rodney strictly speaking. I do not know whether it is me, or not but I was looking at two "respectable" reference sources on mainstream financial economics (notably the one published by the Economist). Both described ESOPs but no mention of Binary Economics, or even Kelso (or ofcourse interest free loans). Indeed, I have looked on the internet too, and the same "phenomenon" transpired. I suspect other mainstream reference works are likewise irrespective of whether they exist as books, or on the internet. It would not suprise me.... Comment! R.S. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ Discussion mailing list Discussion at globaljusticemovement.net http://globaljusticemovement.net/mailman/listinfo/discussion_globaljusticemovement.net -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk Sat Nov 7 02:57:00 2009 From: dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk (dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk) Date: Sat, 7 Nov 2009 04:57:00 -0500 Subject: [GJM] dharao4@yahoo.co.uk has shared something with you Message-ID: <1750900581.4203622.1257587820934.JavaMail.brainiac@v0104-08.clearspring.local> Rediculous! http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/6497081/4350-per-family-to-bail-out-Britains-banks.html --- This message was sent by dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk via http://addthis.com. Please note that AddThis does not verify email addresses. Make sharing easier with the AddThis Toolbar: http://www.addthis.com/go/toolbar-em From dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk Sun Nov 8 04:36:28 2009 From: dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk (robert searle) Date: Sun, 8 Nov 2009 11:36:28 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [GJM] Fw: Making history Message-ID: <541377.94455.qm@web27404.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> --- On Sun, 8/11/09, President Barack Obama wrote: From: President Barack Obama Subject: Making history To: "Robert Searle" Date: Sunday, 8 November, 2009, 6:51 Robert -- This evening, at 11:15 p.m., the House of Representatives voted to pass their health insurance reform bill. Despite countless attempts over nearly a century, no chamber of Congress has ever before passed comprehensive health reform. This is history. But you and millions of your fellow Organizing for America supporters didn't just witness history tonight -- you helped make it. Each "yes" vote was a brave stand, backed up by countless hours of knocking on doors, outreach in town halls and town squares, millions of signatures, and hundreds of thousands of calls. You stood up. You spoke up. And you were heard. So this is a night to celebrate -- but not to rest. Those who voted for reform deserve our thanks, and the next phase of this fight has already begun. The final Senate bill hasn't even been released yet, but the insurance companies are already pressing hard for a filibuster to bury it. OFA has built a massive neighborhood-by-neighborhood operation to bring people's voices to Congress, and tonight we saw the results. But the coming days will put our efforts to the ultimate test. Winning will require each of us to give everything we can, starting right now. Please donate $5 or whatever you can afford so we can finish this fight. Tonight's vote brought every American closer to the secure, affordable care we need. But it was also a watershed moment in how change is made. Even after last year's election, many insider lobbyists and partisan operatives really thought that the old formula of scare tactics, D.C. back-scratching and special-interest money would still be enough to block any idea they didn't like. Now, they're desperate. Because, tonight, you made it crystal clear: the old rules are changing -- and the people will not be ignored. In the final phases of last year's election, I often reminded folks, "Don't think for a minute that power concedes without a fight," and it's especially true today. But that's okay -- we're not afraid of a fight. And as you continue to prove, when all of us work together, we have what it takes to win. Please donate to OFA's campaign to win this fight and ensure that real health reform reaches my desk by the end of this year: https://donate.barackobama.com/History Let's keep making history, President Barack Obama Paid for by Organizing for America, a project of the Democratic National Committee -- 430 South Capitol Street SE, Washington, D.C. 20003. This communication is not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee. Monetary contributions to the Democratic National Committee are not tax-deductible. This email was sent to: dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk Change Email Address | Unsubscribe -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From maryrose333 at att.net Sat Nov 7 10:38:00 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Sat, 7 Nov 2009 09:38:00 -0800 Subject: [GJM] Must Read) FW: [globalnetnews-summary] GOP Folds On Unemployment Benefits Fight: 14-Week Extension Passes Message-ID: <002401ca5fd1$3a3c3bb0$aeb4b310$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS The bill passed this week extending unemployment benefits gives us a breather, but not much of one. It is critical that we aid the unemployed homeless in stabilizing themselves in communities. I saw the other day that Sacramento is erecting a tent city, but I do not as yet know whether this includes education on food-raising and becoming self-sufficient in ways that will allow the homeless to become independent. As I keep saying "food sovereignty" is the cornerstone of freedom -- without it, we are little more than serfs for the elite. So, it is critical that we provide land for food raising for the unemployed, rather than think in terms of "jobs" that only turn us into wage slaves of the capitalist elite, willing to do most anything to obtain food, medical care and shelter. In this regard, I want to recommend a book I consider to be "mandatory reading." Thomas Greco is one of those rare individuals with the ability to see "holodynamically" -- that is Tom has the ability to see all the different facets of any given situation and understand that there are no beginnings and no endings -- there is only the continiuum. And, since there is no separation anywhere, we are forced to deal with the whole. While particalizing may be necessary at times, in order to allow us to see more in depth, we must realize that in order to flow, information must be connected as a whole. And Tom does this so well in his book: THE END OF MONEY and the FUTURE OF CIVILIZATION I can't recommend this book highly enough and consider it mandatory reading for anyone concerned about the future. An important consideration is that Tom understands fully the Rule of 150, documented by Robin Dunbar, a British anthropologist, that due to the size of the neo-cortex of the brain the human is limited in the number of interpersonal relationships that can be handled to about 150 at any given time. So, we must begin to take this into account when configuring groups whether they be that of a single sustainable living community or of affinity groups linked together to make up a regional "network". But as you read this book it becomes clear that Thomas Greco is holistically aware of the dynamics of both relationships and money. A dynamic that sets him apart from "the maddening crowd." Tom also understands the dangers of a politicized monetary system and how we can get out of this bind. More on this later. m r -----Original Message----- From: globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net [mailto:globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net] On Behalf Of TradingPostPaul Sent: Wednesday, November 04, 2009 7:03 PM To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] GOP Folds On Unemployment Benefits Fight: 14-Week Extension Passes GOP Folds On Unemployment Benefits Fight: 14-Week Extension Passes Updated: 11- 4-09 07:47 PM http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/04/gop-folds-on-unemployment_n_346259. html&cp The GOP called for the check Wednesday night, having had enough of the fight over an extension of unemployment benefits that the party had held up for several weeks. While the Senate was stuck in parliamentary limbo, some 200,000 people actively looking for work lost their unemployment benefits. The bill extends unemployment benefits for an additional 14 weeks across the country, and in some states with the highest unemployment the extension goes to 20 weeks. More on the bill here. The extension itself was not controversial and passed 98-0. Getting there, however, was a Herculean parliamentary task that provides insight into just how hard it is to pass even popular legislation in the Senate with a minority party intent on opposing the majority's agenda step by laborious step. Earlier Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) called for the third cloture vote on the bill to break a GOP filibuster. It passed 97-1. (That would be one Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) as the lone Republican to object in public on this round.) At that point, the GOP could have elected to require 30 hours of debate, plus an intervening day, before moving to final passage -- as they had insisted several times before, even after the pot had been sweetened for them. But later in the evening, they called it quits and agreed to move to a final vote. Democrats charge that Republicans are chewing up the clock to oppose their overall agenda. But the Republicans say they weren't opposing unemployment or any other Democratic priority, but were rather standing up for their rights as senators in the minority. "What the Republican leader was objecting to was the Democratic leader picking our amendments. That's what he insisted on doing and that's why there was a hold up," Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) told HuffPost. "We believe that the essence of the Senate is the right to offer amendments. We understand about limiting amendments, making them relevant and agreeing to a time agreement so we can get our business done," said Alexander, a member of GOP leadership. Reid did, in fact, object to several GOP amendments aimed at ACORN and the financial industry bailout, arguing that the ACORN issue has been litigated to death and that the bailout amendment was an attempted distraction. On Wednesday, Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said she simply couldn't understand what constituency Republicans thought they were benefiting by holding up unemployment benefits. "Who are they representing?" she wondered. From ecotort at gn.apc.org Sat Nov 7 15:23:00 2009 From: ecotort at gn.apc.org (EcoTort) Date: Sat, 07 Nov 2009 22:23:00 +0000 Subject: [GJM] kills 12, wounds 30 at Ft. Hood Message-ID: <4AF5F344.1070002@gn.apc.org> Cougar Den wrote: > I dunno but after watching this incident on the Chinese, French, > British, and German news, it occurred to me that the people the man > shot were no innocent bystanders either. Seems like it was a severe > case of someone going postal after the proverbial straw breaking the > camel's back. The major knew the people he shot, so apparently it was > Columbine all over again -- just this time in the military rather than > a school. > > From what the foreign news could gather, this major was born in > Virginia, he's no foreigner period as Kay Bailey Hutchinson tried to > imply. According to foreign research into the matter, the man was > really quite a nice individual who was trying to get out of the > military due to the constant harassment he got from other soldiers > because of his islamic fait and Middle Eastern ethnicity. Instead of > either reining in the hatred on the part of his fellow soldiers or > letting him leave the military, the DoD decided to try to deploy him > to Afghanistan (which would have been deadly due to "friendly fire" > for him). > > I wonder why people who have no clue about the kind or rednecks we > have in our military would even comment on this issue -- particularly > that silly cow of a Texas senator, Kay Bailey Hutchinson. The foreign > news confirmed for me my suspicion that this might well have been yet > another case of endless taunting and harassment, which is something > Americans seem to be very good at for sure. When the hell will people > in this country ever learn that freedom of speech doesn't mean you > have a god-ordained right to harass the living daylights out of other > people with your stupid rattle trap. People really only can take so > much and then they'll go postal. > > I think instead of constantly harping around on freedom of speech, > Americans should really remind themselves that they do have the > inalienable right to remain silent. While I think it's sad that this > guy shot those people, that this shouldn't even have happened, don't > let the opportunity go by to learn from it that America really needs > to learn that talking is silver and silence is often gold. It's > really sad that a competent doctor like this major was driven over the > edge by a pile of idiotic and loudmouthed rednecks in the military who > psyched themselves into this insane hatred of moslems instead of > realizing that those two wars have absolutely nothing to do with the > islam but are a result of corporate greed and Bushian war-mongering. > > *EcoTort wrote:* Cougars are obviously very sensitive creatures with a good deal of common sense... ...when will the good 'ole USA/UK/ASHKENAZI/WHATEVER.... /bankers/politicians/RULERS etc.... realise that damaging and destroying the planet we all live on, has alienated not only Muslims, but ALL reasonable folk of EVERY faith, nationality, gender, social strata, etc, INCLUDING the Christian AND the Judaic ones...?...! ....how better to unite people in the common cause of LAWFULLY creating a beautiful Permaculture garden on the Earth... ....the spirits of the Dead are with us in the pursuit of Truth and Justice; -they can see from their elevated perspective the mistakes they have made, and that WE continue to make.... ....the architects of the Crop Circles are ACHING for us to become worthy of the advanced technology which they obviously possess... ...their technology will give us free clean energy, amazing medicine (probably from fresh organic ingredients! ), and interstellar travel..... from their perspective, looking at our behaviour so far, would YOU give us that technology? OR allow us to develop it?? (cf, the failure of the particle collider at CERN), until we learn to BEHAVE OURSELVES in a rather more civilized fashion??? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From maryrose333 at att.net Sat Nov 7 15:52:47 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Sat, 7 Nov 2009 14:52:47 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: [globalnetnews-summary] "THE LONG DESCENT": COMING UP SHORT ON REALITY? By Carolyn Baker Message-ID: <002e01ca5ffd$329439e0$97bcada0$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS For your information and consideration. Carolyn Baker is the hostess of the website: "Speaking Truth to Power." She is also a member of several of the Future Dawning Virtual Learning Center Portals and Pathways. -----Original Message----- From: globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net [mailto:globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net] On Behalf Of TradingPostPaul Sent: Friday, November 06, 2009 9:16 PM To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] "THE LONG DESCENT": COMING UP SHORT ON REALITY? By Carolyn Baker "THE LONG DESCENT": COMING UP SHORT ON REALITY? By Carolyn Baker Monday, 10 November 2008 http://carolynbaker.net/site/content/view/841/1/ Throughout the Peak Oil and collapse of civilization milieu, much speculation abounds regarding the speed with which collapse might occur. Some theorists insist or imply that the descent will be rapid and dramatic while others argue for a more "slow burn" scenario, less dramatic and more stair-step-like in progression. The tone of proponents of acute collapse reverberates with urgency while the tone of authors who perceive collapse as occurring in a more protracted fashion is notable for its moderation and skepticism of the rapid descent theory. Such is the perspective of John Michael Greer in The Long Descent: A User's Guide To The End Of The Industrial Age (New Society, 2008). Greer provides an excellent read and argues astutely for his theory of catabolic collapse which he describes as "the declining arc of industrial civilization's trajectory through time. Like the vanished civilizations of the past, ours will likely face a gradual decline, punctuated by sudden crises and periods of partial recovery. The fall of a civilization is like tumbling down a slope, not like falling off a cliff." (32) While Greer gives the intellect a robust workout, there is much in the Long Descent that must be rigorously questioned because of what is not addressed and because of the dangers I perceive are implicit in Greer's resolute, and I believe short-sighted, argument. First, Greer devotes merely a handful of sentences to the climate change phenomenon which starkly omits a conversation about the interplay of Peak Oil and climate chaos. He does mention the climate nightmare inherent in increased coal burning globally, but absent from a defense of the long descent theory is an analysis of the interplay of the two phenomena. In an excellent 2004 article "Global Climate Change and Peak Oil," geologist and Peak Oil researcher, Dale Allen Pfeiffer explains among other things, "how will Peak Oil and the North American natural gas cliff affect global climate change." But even without a consideration of the myriad ways in which energy depletion and climate change influence one another, how can one address the issue of collapse without an in-depth exploration of climate change? Professor James Lovelock's most recent research reveals the jaw-dropping speed with which climate change is unfolding. The Guardian reported in late 2007 that Lovelock "claims that even the most pessimistic outcomes predicted by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) fail to recognize the speed with which global warming will progress." The most recent research indicates that "global warming is accelerating at a faster rate than climate change experts had previously predicted...." Additionally perplexing in The Long Descent is little mention of species extinction or population overshoot. I found the scant attention paid to these issues by Greer astonishing and somewhat frightening. As is often the case in the Peak Oil research community, the energy depletion issue in The Long Descent appears to trump other collapse-exacerbating factors. Without a deeper exploration of them, one cannot feasibly argue for a strictly protracted collapse and assert unequivocally that "Nobody now alive will see the end of the process that is now underway." (34) Clearly, Greer is put off by the apocalyptic, drive-off-the-cliff perspective that postulates a rapid descent. In fact, his revulsion pervades the book. While I share the author's frustration, it inhibits the embrace of a perspective that could be more holistic. By that I do not mean Greer's assertion that the long descent will be protracted but also punctuated by sea-change points of not return. Rather, I mean that arguing for either apocalyptic demise or long-term dissolution eliminates the possibility of holding a both/and perspective. Why is this important? Because if one allows for the totality of consequences of Peak Oil, climate change, species extinction, and population overshoot, it is highly plausible, perhaps even likely, that a college student reading Greer's book in 2008 could witness or be a casualty of the completion of the collapse process. Notice my use of the word could. I'm not saying will or won't but could. I believe that the only viable perspective for facing collapse is one of openness to what could or might happen. To argue for either a fast or slow collapse, in my opinion, consumes precious psychic energy that could best be utilized to prepare and to be willing to err on the side of caution. The fact of the matter is that we are currently in the throes of collapse, and many of us have gardens to plant, food to store, skills to learn, and necessary items to make or buy. Horrific aspects of collapse may erupt in the next three years or the next thirty. My work, I believe, is to hold in my mind and body the eventualities of both, not only for intensely practical reasons, but as a mental and spiritual exercise which may well nurture incalculable resilience in the face of adversity. Moreover, if one considers the impact of the above three factors in addition to the consequences of Peak Oil, it becomes highly debatable that "If we accept that the Long Descent is inevitable and try to make it in a controlled manner...the way is open not only for bare survival, but for surviving in a humane and creative fashion while preserving as much of value as possible for the future." (131) This statement appears after Greer's consideration of three different ways of responding to collapse: political action, survivalism, or building lifeboat communities. The fundamental reason that political action untenable has to do with the central role of cheap and abundant energy in all modern political systems. Survivalism, says Greer, is not a viable option because one's prognosis for surviving alone in the woods is uncertain at best. On the other hand, he argues, building lifeboat communities may be risky in that they are likely to resemble, in his opinion, communes of the sixties and seventies comprised of spoiled young whites who had no concept of the physical rigor such endeavors would require. Therefore, Greer devotes a sizeable section to "Coping With Catabolic Collapse". In order to understand his guidelines for coping, it is first necessary to define catabolic collapse. According to Greer, "In a growing or stable society, the resource base is abundant enough that production can stay ahead of the maintenance costs of society's capital, that is, the physical structures, trained people, information, and organizational systems that constitute the society. Capital used up in production or turned into waste can easily be replaced." (79) Conversely, in a society in catabolic collapse, "resources have become so depleted that not enough is available for production to meet the maintenance costs of capital. As production falters, more and more of society's capital becomes waste, or is turned into raw material for production via salvage....if resource depletion continues, the catabolic process continues until all capital becomes waste." (79) Among the many suggestions Greer offers for navigating the descent are: drastic reduction of energy, choosing a viable profession, learning skills that will be in demand in a post-industrial age, and taking charge of one's own health. I believe that these are vital steps to take whether one adheres to a fast collapse, a protracted collapse, or what I have continually promoted, the holding of both opposites in one's consciousness without adherence to one scenario or the other. What I most appreciate from Greer's work is the distinction he makes between "problems" and "predicaments". A problem, he says, calls for a solution which once employed eliminates the problem. A predicament, however, has no solution. Faced with predicaments, people come up with responses which may fail, succeed, or fall in between, but none of them eliminates the predicament. The industrial era (or empire) has reframed many predicaments as problems that can be solved. For example, this culture's mythology of progress assumes that the goal of civilization is to eliminate poverty, illness, death, and other aspects of the human condition, which it believes can be eliminated with technology. On this Greer notes that: The difficulty with all this is that predicaments don't stop being predicaments just because we decide to treat them as problems. There are still plenty of challenges we can't solve and be done with; we have to respond to them and live with them. (23) As Greer states, civilization has repeatedly tried to turn all predicaments into problems to be solved. Three decades ago, energy, climate, population, and species extinctions were problems or potential problems that were ignored and eventually became predicaments. Greer's distinction of the two underscores the absurdity of questions like "How do we solve Peak Oil?" or "What can we do about climate change?" While there are absolutely no "solutions" to these predicaments, there are clearly responses that humans can make which is why for years I have been talking about "options" rather than "solutions." What is not only unsettling but downright disturbing about The Long Descent is the response to it that I have heard recently from folks who have read it. Comments such as "Well it sounds like collapse is going to take longer than we thought, so I'm feeling more relaxed about it and don't have a sense of urgency like I did before." I find this conclusion, strongly suggested by the books thesis, unequivocally frightening. Given the other key factors rapidly accelerating collapse that were not given sufficient attention in The Long Descent, this is an untenable response to the demise of civilization and demonstrates how seductively the book's fundamental premise can assuage humanity's intricately constructed denial system. I find this particularly disturbing at this juncture of the unraveling as the United States and other nations revel in the giddy inebriation of the messiah archetype which has captured collective consciousness with the election of Barack Obama. Surely now, everything will be different; our savior will deliver us. We can relax about collapse-in fact, we can go back to sleep. The Long Descent is very worth reading, but if you come away from it with some sense that a weight has been lifted, you have overlooked its rather startling omissions and would benefit from simply savoring its splendid literary qualities and then allowing it to find its rightful place among an assortment of outstanding works on collapse. My endorsement of The Long Descent is included among other endorsements in the book's first two pages, and I stand by it. At the same time, having given it another read and now hearing collective sighs of "relief" regarding the speed of collapse, I feel compelled to contribute this caveat. I invite you to read it carefully and critically yet not miss the brilliance of John Michael Greer and his research. From maryrose333 at att.net Sat Nov 7 16:46:39 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Sat, 7 Nov 2009 15:46:39 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: [globalnetnews-summary] A Day At The Freak Show: A Report From The Heart Of The Tea Party Protest Message-ID: <005501ca6004$bf598090$3e0c81b0$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS I cannot help but ask why with only 17% of the population registered as Republicans, the freak fringe continues to get so much media coverage. -----Original Message----- From: globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net [mailto:globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net] On Behalf Of TradingPostPaul Sent: Friday, November 06, 2009 1:19 PM To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] A Day At The Freak Show: A Report From The Heart Of The Tea Party Protest A Day At The Freak Show: A Report From The Heart Of The Tea Party Protest Updated: 11- 6-09 01:07 PM http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/06/a-day-at-the-freak-show-a_n_348559. html&cp The only thing more frightening than being caught in an angry mob of health care protesters is revealing to that angry mob that you work for the Huffington Post. On Thursday, I ventured down to Capitol Hill with a professional death wish. I was going to mingle with a group of tea partiers to get a sense of what, exactly, keeps their clocks ticking. For two-and-a-half hours, I got the Glenn Beck treatment -- accused of, among other things, subverting freedom, working for a communist propaganda outlet, and having a soulless devotion to slander and scandal. One woman picked up her items and moved away -- taking her family with her -- after I settled down on the Capitol's front lawn. At another point a man, who seemed generally concerned about my safety, whispered in my ear: "You're a sheep amidst the wolves in this crowd, son." And yet, a funny thing happened on the way to Rep. Michelle Bachmann's (R-Minn.) "Super Bowl of freedom." I was adopted -- in a way -- by a group of tea baggers. Sure, the politics they spoke seemed dripped in abject paranoia. But there was, at the very least, a sense of mutual respect. How else, after all, should one feel about people so devoted to a cause that they would skip work and travel hundreds of miles for a milquetoast protest? Getting to that point, however, involved some harrowing moments. I was admittedly too frightened to reveal my profession to one group of people after a man, pointing to the Capitol building, insisted that the crowd would "tar and feather these members" if they "voted for this health care bill." I did strike up a conversation with a physician named David Marx who quickly relayed that he was not related in any way to Karl. But the conversation fell flat after that. Walking closer to the Capitol building, I happened upon a group of interesting signs: one pictured the president next to Hitler, another had Obama's face below the words "No Marx, No Mao," and another announced the forthcoming "Attack of the Astroturf." "So," I asked a woman standing nearby, "who does Obama resemble more: Hitler or Mao?" I was bracing myself for some enthusiastic dissertation on 'All the President's Communists.' What I got, instead, were daggers. My reporter's notebook was conspicuously open. Story continues below "The media is filled with liberal hate," she said. "Take it someplace else." Her husband, clearly not paying attention, started talking, only to be told to "zip it" by his wife. After I didn't move from my spot of grass, they did, bringing their two children and signage with them. Zero for two. I walked closer to the Capitol as Bachmann was now whipping the crowd into a freedom-loving frenzy. By the time I settled down, however, Jon Voight had taken the stage. "This country is showing signs of his failed stimulus programs," the famed actor said. "His only success in his one-year term as president is taking America apart, piece-by-piece. Could it be, he has had 20 years of subconscious programming by Reverend Wright to damn America?" "THAT'S RIGHT!" screamed the protesters. I turned to a woman next to me. "So Obama has been indoctrinated?" I asked. "Oh yeah," she replied. "He sat in that church every Sunday. It's called Black Liberation Theology. Look it up." To my left, an Asian-American woman named Sarah noticed that I was writing down the response. "Are you a journalist?" she asked. "Yes." "Who do you work for?" "The Huffington Post." "No way." "Yes way." She demanded a business card, which I produced. "Oh. You're a Jew," she declared after reading my name. I was a bit taken aback. "Yep." A few seconds passed with only silence. "I'm a Jew too," she added. Relief. By that point, however, news of my professional affiliations had spread through the adjacent crowd. Expecting to be treated like a strand of H1N1, I found, however, that most people were simply curious. They all wanted my business card. A woman named Carolyne from Pennsylvania explained why she was there. "You can't fix stupid but you can vote them out." A Vietnam veteran named James pulled me close. "I have four words for you," he said (gulp). "Emperor has no clothes, sir." "That's five words," I responded, jokingly before thanking him for his service. "Drop the sir," he responded. "The point is I'm offering Obama clothes. I'm praying every night that he'll take the clothes." At that juncture, conservative radio talk show host Mark Levin took the stage and on cue, the crowd produced copies of his book -- "Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto" -- and pointed them up to the bright mid-day sun. "Mark Levin is my mentor," said Sarah, the Asian-American Jew. "I listen to him for three hours every day, 6 to 9 a.m." There was no apparent recollection that we had just discussed Obama's own supposed indoctrination. A sermon-like back-and-forth ensued between audience and speaker. "Having ruined the banking system," Levin screamed. "That's right!" the crowd yelled back. "The auto industry and the housing market" "That's right!" "Energy production" "That's right!" "Education system" "That's right!" "Having robed the social security trust fund" "That's right!" "The Medicare trust fund" "That's right!" "The highway trust fund" "That's right!" "Now they are telling us to trust them" "NOOOOO!!!" "Now they have their sights on the mother of all entitlements," Levin concluded. "They want to control you. They want to control your children, your parents, your doctors, your nurses... You in the press, are you getting all this down?" At least six sets of eyes turned to me. "He's talking to you," said a slyly smiling Carolyne. I was, indeed, taking notes. And continued to do so as the event progressed. There was some additional freak show weirdness. One woman asked whether I'd rather have a single apple pie to divide between a bunch of people, or apples, sugar, cinnamon and crust to make my own apple pie. I think it was a metaphor for the job market. Later a guy would walk by me with Lipton tea bags tied around each ear demanding that the government take its hands off his stethoscope. But, by and large, the conversation was genial. Was health care reform unconstitutional? You bet. Did it promote the rationing of care for the elderly? Of course. Were Republicans in Congress doing a good job promoting alternatives? Not really. Was Sarah Palin the answer? Too soon to tell. Was the government the enemy? Without a doubt. By 2:30 p.m. I had had enough. Hungry, I trekked through the crowd and into the actual Capitol building -- which protesters had earlier pledged they would storm. On my way in, I crossed paths with personnel from the Capitol physician's office -- an entity that, as The Washington Post's Dana Milbank would put it "could, quite accurately, be labeled government-run health care." Some protesters, apparently, had been trampled or sickened and required treatment. One person had had a heart attack. The government was needed. From maryrose333 at att.net Sat Nov 7 17:15:04 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Sat, 7 Nov 2009 16:15:04 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: [globalnetnews-summary] The Invisible Giant: Cargill and Its Transnational Strategies Message-ID: <005601ca6008$b4d0ad20$1e720760$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS We have discussed the Cargill Company previously on this list as a company owning its own fleet of ships, is able to buy subsidized grain produced in the U.S. and sell it in developing countries at prices lower than what the local farmers can produce it and sell it for thus putting the local farmers out of business. This is but only one of many ways 'raw capitalism' works to control the world. -----Original Message----- From: globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net [mailto:globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net] On Behalf Of TradingPostPaul Sent: Friday, November 06, 2009 12:02 PM To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] The Invisible Giant: Cargill and Its Transnational Strategies (To change your settings or unsubscribe please go to http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/globalnetnews-summary) The Invisible Giant: Cargill and Its Transnational Strategies http://www.whyhunger.org/news-and-alerts/why-speaks/510.html THE WHY SPEAKS BOOK REVIEW Agribusiness corporations have achieved enormous power in our present food system. We need to know how they operate. WHY Speaks is therefore gratified to reprint, with permission from CropChoice, Mary Hendrickson's review of Brewster Kneen's book on agribusiness giant Cargill. The Invisible Giant: Cargill and Its Transnational Strategies, 2nd edition, 2002. Brewster Kneen. Pluto: London and New Sterling, Virginia. Reviewed by Mary Hendrickson, Ph.D., University of Missouri, for CropChoice Anything one person wanted to know about Cargill - the world's largest grain trader, the largest privately held US company, one of the world's largest salt traders - can be found in one handy source, Brewster Kneen's Invisible Giant . An update of his 1995 Cargill expose of the same name, this book contains information on every aspect of Cargill's business - the known ones like grain trading and the obscure ones like salt and financial derivatives. It isn't hard to imagine that few people besides Cargill President Warren Staley and his top managers know more about Cargill's business than the Canadian farmer and writer, Brewster Kneen. As he demonstrates in tracking down corporate offices and conducting interviews with Cargill salesmen and middle managers across the world, few inside or outside the company know the extensive reach of Cargill. This book is intended to be "an outsider's guide to understanding how Cargill works, where it has been and where it is going." (1) The second edition of this book was motivated by Kneen's "renewed interest in the broad issue of increasing corporate concentration and control in every economic sector, but particularly in agribusinesses." (2) Kneen has proved an incredibly diligent researcher, logging onto Cargill's websites and looking for company press releases, talking to academics, reading trade journals, monitoring business magazines, and interviewing Cargill employees - all of which has become much more difficult since Invisible Giant was first published in 1995. This is a book of stories, strategies and information about one transnational corporation compiled into a somewhat indigestible whole. What is Cargill exactly? Who is Cargill? Where is Cargill? Perhaps more importantly, who resists Cargill? As many know, Cargill is an agribusiness giant operating across the globe. This mutant giant "continues to mutate, always with the objective of expanding the control of its business interests and our food." (3) It is involved in beef production and processing, pork production and processing, grain trading, cotton trading, fertilizer, feeds, peanuts, malting, sugar, corn milling, flour milling, transportation, storage, financial tools, orange juice, and e-commerce. Cargill controls ten percent of the world's salt production, is the largest cattle feeder in the US, provides one out of four further processed poultry products eaten in the UK, owns Costa Rica's largest meat processor, owns two of the five major cotton exporters in the US, has 30 percent of Europe's market in glucose and high-fructose corn syrup, is the largest purchaser of China's corn products, and maintains large meat processing and feed facilities in Indonesia and Thailand. Cargill produces 7 percent of the total US phosphate fertilizer supply, is the second largest phosphate fertilizer producer in the world, built one of the largest nitrogen fertilizer plants in the world in conjunction with the Saskatchewan government, ships about 42 percent of all US corn exports, 31 percent of soybeans, and 18 percent of wheat. Cargill Brazil - from where it, along with two other companies, provides 53 percent of the world's orange juice - is second only in size to Cargill's US operations. Remember, too, that this is the largest privately owned company in the US. So who is Cargill? Still essentially a family company, "in 1986, it was reported that Cargill's $2.6 billion in shareholder equity was held by fewer than 50 descendants of the Cargills and MacMillans, and 450 others, all current members of the company's management, who received about $10 million a year in dividends." (4) With such valuable assets concentrated among so few, Cargill is able to invest in - itself! "Cargill says that since 1981 it has reinvested 87 percent of its cash flow, with only 3 percent of the company's profits being paid out in dividends." (5) The essential aspect of what started as an upper Midwestern company that has grown and prospered for over 100 years is its flexibility and adaptability. Kneen calls these management structures "highly fluid....Cargill is neither structurally nor ideologically rigid." (6) In other words, those who would try to pigeonhole Cargill do so at their own peril. While flexible and adaptable, Kneen finds that Cargill's "structure and business are contradictory to decentralization and self-provisioning." (7) The details of this book are fascinating. However, the service Kneen provides is to lay out clearly the strategies a transnational agribusiness like Cargill uses to retain profitability and dominance. First, is the beachhead strategy. Cargill is a master at testing the water and seeing what happens. "The company's operating philosophy throughout the world is to begin with reasonably small capital investments...and to grow our business from that small beginning." (8) In other words, is this an industry sector or geographical region that is good for the firm's profitability? Second, the firm employs a valuable ecological perspective. In this vision, political jurisdictions are of little relevance as compared to the economics of inland waterways, crop production areas, climate and population centers. If only we would pay attention, the implications of such a perspective are indeed stark - especially as to how farmers, farm organizations and policy makers view exports. This could be one of the most important points in the book - Cargill's single-minded determination to view the world economically and not politically suggests a conflict with "free trade" ideology promoted in many circles. As Kneen puts it, "They live everywhere and nowhere in the world of markets." (9) Moreover, "Cargill appears to devote far more energy to establishing favourable national or regional business climates...than it devotes to international trade agreements. (It) has been developing its own internal global trading arrangements far longer than the World Bank and International Monetary Fund have been around." (10) A third strategy that Kneen attributes to Cargill is not particularly unique - the use of public money whenever possible to subsidize sales, construction or acquisitions. The author cites numerous examples from the historical - port facilities in Albany and Memphis, to the current - port facilities in Vancouver, a fertilizer plant in Saskatchewan, and tax deductions for donations of salt ponds to wildlife preserves in California. It helps that Cargill is intimately involved in public policy at many different levels in the US, Canada and around the world. Cargill presidents chair trade groups, are appointed to presidential advisory boards, and steer bills through Congress (a la William Pearce). Cargill executives are even appointed to lead restructuring efforts in Iraq - as is the case with Daniel Amstutz. It is clear that Kneen is respectful of Cargill's business acumen, its adaptability, it's patience and its unwillingness to act rashly. Indeed the author never underestimates the firm. But he does point out some who resist the firm's business strategy - from the Japanese and Korean business associations who have banded together to defend their territory, to the Indian farmers who stormed Cargill's office to protect their seeds. Kneen is sure that Cargill is not invincible. Indeed, even Pioneer (since acquired by DuPont) won a legal challenge to Cargill's appropriation of genetic material, a case that had to be settled before Cargill could sell it's North American seed business to Mycogen, a subsidiary of Dow, in 2000. While Kneen can turn a pithy phrase, the tendency clearly points out his political leanings. This is unsettling, because this thoroughly researched and documented book is too important a resource to be undermined by any critic's claims of lack of objectivity. These small asides do enliven the prose, which suffers from density. Discussing financial derivatives or beef packing or the Far East market for feed does not lend itself to lively writing. Thus, while engaging, the book is difficult to read in one or two sittings. There is simply too much information to digest, and that may put off some readers. However, the reader who pursues the book to the very end will find himself enlightened and well prepared to engage in public debates and dialogues about transnational agribusiness. At the final accounting, that is indeed the most important attribute of the book. It brings to the public information that is absolutely critical to know, but that is hidden from all but the most diligent researchers. In order for all of us to understand and engage in our food and agriculture system, we need to have this information. Read it for your own good! And then share it with your land-grant university president, agriculture committee staffers or your local cooperative elevator operators. Kneen's book deserves wide circulation. (1) P. ix. (2) P. viii. (3) P. 3. (4) P. 27. (5) P. 28. (6) P. 167. (7) P. 199. (8) P. 109. (9) P. 7. (10) P. 9. Reprinted with permission of CropChoice. Farm News from Cropchoice is an alternative news service for American farmers. Visit http://www.cropchoice.com for more information. May be reproduced freely for non-commercial purposes and with appropriate credit. From maryrose333 at att.net Sat Nov 7 17:34:16 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Sat, 7 Nov 2009 16:34:16 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: [globalnetnews-summary] "I Object": Tom Price Tries To Shut Down Democratic Congresswomen (VIDEO) Message-ID: <006601ca600b$5f7d3bb0$1e77b310$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS While President Obama may not do everything right, what the despicable behavior of the Republican/Christian Right reveals about the state of the health of the United States, is a sickness unto its self as this group demonstrates it will stoop to any lengths in order to maintain elite rule of the few over the many. -----Original Message----- From: globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net [mailto:globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net] On Behalf Of TradingPostPaul Sent: Saturday, November 07, 2009 1:05 PM To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] "I Object": Tom Price Tries To Shut Down Democratic Congresswomen (VIDEO) "I Object": Tom Price Tries To Shut Down Democratic Congresswomen (VIDEO) Updated: 11- 7-09 03:32 PM http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/07/i-object-tom-price-tries_n_349587.h tml&cp On Saturday morning, a group of House Republicans -- led by Rep. Tom Price (R-Georgia) -- attempted to stop the Democratic Women's Caucus from making their arguments about how the health bill would benefit women by screaming over them. Rep. Lois Capps (D-Calif.) only had time to say "Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to--," before Price shouted "I object." The presiding chair, Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.) made gestures to maintain control, declaring that "the request is not yet before the House" and that Price was "out of order," to little effect. Capps attempted to go on, but Price continued shouting "I object! I object! I object!" The same shouting tactics were used on Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy (D-Ohio), who asked angrily, "Do I not have the right to be able to continue my sentence without objections that are trying to censor my remarks here on the floor that I have a right to make as a member of this House?" Watch the compilation reel that Think Progress put together below. From maryrose333 at att.net Sat Nov 7 17:44:21 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Sat, 7 Nov 2009 16:44:21 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: [FixGov] Must Read) FW: [globalnetnews-summary] GOP Folds On Unemployment Benefits Fight: 14-Week Extension Passes Message-ID: <006701ca600c$c87279e0$59576da0$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS Todd, many thanks for filming this and sending it along. I forwarded it on to Facebook. From: FixGov at yahoogroups.com [mailto:FixGov at yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Todd Boyle Sent: Saturday, November 07, 2009 1:15 PM To: FixGov at yahoogroups.com Cc: Fixgov at yahoogroups.com; 'Discussion Forum for Global Justice' Subject: Re: [FixGov] Must Read) FW: [globalnetnews-summary] GOP Folds On Unemployment Benefits Fight: 14-Week Extension Passes Tom Greco spoke last Wednesday in Seattle, at Elliot Bay Books, I recorded the talk http://vimeo.com/7490027 Enjoy Todd Boyle toddboyle at comcast.net (425) 827-3107 9745 128th Avenue NE, Kirkland WA 98033-5286 retired CPA, web commerce, etc. http://rosehill.net antiwar At 09:38 AM 11/7/2009, mary rose wrote: >Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS > >The bill passed this week extending unemployment benefits gives us a >breather, but not much of one. It is critical that we aid the unemployed >homeless in stabilizing themselves in communities. I saw the other day that >Sacramento is erecting a tent city, but I do not as yet know whether this >includes education on food-raising and becoming self-sufficient in ways that >will allow the homeless to become independent. As I keep saying "food >sovereignty" is the cornerstone of freedom -- without it, we are little more >than serfs for the elite. So, it is critical that we provide land for food >raising for the unemployed, rather than think in terms of "jobs" that only >turn us into wage slaves of the capitalist elite, willing to do most >anything to obtain food, medical care and shelter. > >In this regard, I want to recommend a book I consider to be "mandatory >reading." Thomas Greco is one of those rare individuals with the ability to >see "holodynamically" -- that is Tom has the ability to see all the >different facets of any given situation and understand that there are no >beginnings and no endings -- there is only the continiuum. And, since there >is no separation anywhere, we are forced to deal with the whole. While >particalizing may be necessary at times, in order to allow us to see more in >depth, we must realize that in order to flow, information must be connected >as a whole. And Tom does this so well in his book: > > THE END OF MONEY and the FUTURE OF CIVILIZATION > >I can't recommend this book highly enough and consider it mandatory reading >for anyone concerned about the future. An important consideration is that >Tom understands fully the Rule of 150, documented by Robin Dunbar, a British >anthropologist, that due to the size of the neo-cortex of the brain the >human is limited in the number of interpersonal relationships that can be >handled to about 150 at any given time. So, we must begin to take this into >account when configuring groups whether they be that of a single sustainable >living community or of affinity groups linked together to make up a regional >"network". But as you read this book it becomes clear that Thomas Greco is >holistically aware of the dynamics of both relationships and money. A >dynamic that sets him apart from "the maddening crowd." > >Tom also understands the dangers of a politicized monetary system and how we >can get out of this bind. > >More on this later. > >m r > > > >-----Original Message----- >From: globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net >[mailto:globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net ] On Behalf Of >TradingPostPaul >Sent: Wednesday, November 04, 2009 7:03 PM >To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net >Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] GOP Folds On Unemployment Benefits Fight: >14-Week Extension Passes > > >GOP Folds On Unemployment Benefits Fight: 14-Week Extension Passes >Updated: 11- 4-09 07:47 PM >http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/04/gop-folds-on-unemployment_n_346259 . >html&cp > >The GOP called for the check Wednesday night, having had enough of the >fight over an extension of unemployment benefits that the party had held up >for several weeks. > >While the Senate was stuck in parliamentary limbo, some 200,000 people >actively looking for work lost their unemployment benefits. The bill >extends unemployment benefits for an additional 14 weeks across the >country, and in some states with the highest unemployment the extension >goes to 20 weeks. More on the bill here. > >The extension itself was not controversial and passed 98-0. Getting there, >however, was a Herculean parliamentary task that provides insight into just >how hard it is to pass even popular legislation in the Senate with a >minority party intent on opposing the majority's agenda step by laborious >step. > >Earlier Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) called for >the third cloture vote on the bill to break a GOP filibuster. It passed >97-1. (That would be one Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) as the lone Republican to >object in public on this round.) > >At that point, the GOP could have elected to require 30 hours of debate, >plus an intervening day, before moving to final passage -- as they had >insisted several times before, even after the pot had been sweetened for >them. But later in the evening, they called it quits and agreed to move to >a final vote. > >Democrats charge that Republicans are chewing up the clock to oppose their >overall agenda. But the Republicans say they weren't opposing unemployment >or any other Democratic priority, but were rather standing up for their >rights as senators in the minority. > >"What the Republican leader was objecting to was the Democratic leader >picking our amendments. That's what he insisted on doing and that's why >there was a hold up," Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) told HuffPost. > >"We believe that the essence of the Senate is the right to offer >amendments. We understand about limiting amendments, making them relevant >and agreeing to a time agreement so we can get our business done," said >Alexander, a member of GOP leadership. > >Reid did, in fact, object to several GOP amendments aimed at ACORN and the >financial industry bailout, arguing that the ACORN issue has been litigated >to death and that the bailout amendment was an attempted distraction. > >On Wednesday, Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said she simply couldn't >understand what constituency Republicans thought they were benefiting by >holding up unemployment benefits. > >"Who are they representing?" she wondered. > > > > > >------------------------------------ > >Yahoo! Groups Links > > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] __._,_.___ Reply to sender | Reply to group Messages in this topic (3) Recent Activity: ? New Members 1 Visit Your Group Start a New Topic MARKETPLACE Mom Power: Discover the community of moms doing more for their families, for the world and for each other Yahoo! Groups Switch to: Text-Only, Daily Digest ? Unsubscribe ? Terms of Use . __,_._,___ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From maryrose333 at att.net Sat Nov 7 18:02:59 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Sat, 7 Nov 2009 17:02:59 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: [globalnetnews-summary] Astroturf In Action: Right-Wing Billionaire David Koch Pays For 40 Buses To Haul In Protesters Message-ID: <001901ca600f$64da6250$2e8f26f0$@net> -----Original Message----- From: globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net [mailto:globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net] On Behalf Of TradingPostPaul Sent: Friday, November 06, 2009 10:10 AM To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] Astroturf In Action: Right-Wing Billionaire David Koch Pays For 40 Buses To Haul In Protesters Astroturf In Action: Right-Wing Billionaire David Koch Pays For 40 Buses To Haul In Protesters http://thinkprogress.org/2009/11/05/david-koch-astroturf/ Americans for Prosperity (AFP), the corporate front group founded in the 1980s by Koch Industries billionaire David Koch, worked closely with Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) to orchestrate the anti-health reform rally today. As ThinkProgress reported yesterday, AFP has been encouraging right-wing activists to board their buses - free of charge - to attend the rally. While AFP does not disclose all of its corporate donors, foundations controlled by David and Charles Koch provide millions in yearly funding, and David continues to chair the AFP foundation and preside over AFP's annual convention. ThinkProgress found at least a dozen AFP staffers standing at their designated bus drop off point near the Capitol, handing out signs, directions, talking points, petitions, and donuts to protesters. Many of the people who work at AFP are longtime Republican operatives, like Ben Marchi, the AFP Virginia director who previously worked for the National Republican Congressional Committee and for Rep. Tom Delay (R-TX). Victor Zapanta produced this video report of AFP staffers talking about their exploits at the rally today: AFP STAFFERS: We have 25 buses just from Pennsylvania, New Jersey we probably have 5 or 6 from Maryland. AFP STAFFERS: We have about 40 buses coming. Watch it: David Koch's AFP has a long history of marshaling "grassroots" support for GOP objectives. In the early 1990s, AFP, then known as Citizens for a Sound Economy, worked secretly with then-Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-GA) to organize angry crowds following the Clintons as they touted their health reform bill. Industry money from health insurance, telecommunications, oil, and other companies has flowed freely to AFP over the years to help AFP promote an agenda of boosting the rich, stripping consumer safeguards, and maintaining corporate monopolies. Phillip Morris rented out AFP from the Koch family, contributing millions to the organization in exchange for AFP to build opposition to tobacco regulations. AFP's daily activities are managed by Tim Phillips, an infamous astroturf lobbyist who built a career using Christian front groups to wage stealth campaigns. For example, his work includes fighting under the radar to promote energy deregulation for Enron and helping Jack Abramoff clients continue forced abortion sweatshops in the Northern Mariana Islands. Will the media report on the true driver of today's rally? Or will they leave David Koch out of the equation, despite his hand-in-glove involvement. Update This afternoon on the House GOP's live webcast, Rep. Bob Latta (R-OH) praised the anti-health reform protesters for arriving to the Capitol without any assistance paying for the buses. He also said no central organization was orchestrating the effort: LATTA: Some stakes took over 20 buses [...] You know, they're not rabble-rousers. KINGSTON: Who paid for them? LATTA: They all paid for themselves. You know, these people came down on their own. Watch it: From maryrose333 at att.net Sat Nov 7 18:05:25 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Sat, 7 Nov 2009 17:05:25 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: News from The International Academy of Holodynamics Message-ID: <001a01ca600f$bd33e070$379ba150$@net> From: The International Academy of Holodynamics [mailto:victorvernon at holodynamics.ccsend.com] On Behalf Of The International Academy of Holodynamics Sent: Friday, November 06, 2009 8:13 AM To: maryrose333 at att.net Subject: News from The International Academy of Holodynamics You're receiving this email because of your relationship with Vernon Woolf and The International Academy of Holodynamics. Please confirm your continued interest in receiving email from us. You may unsubscribe if you no longer wish to receive our emails. logo The International Academy of Holodynamics Latest News Join Our Mailing List In This Issue Workshop Schedule Reminder Monday Call A Word From Our Holons Coaching Program Expanded to Europe Workshop Schedule November 28 - Dec 6, 2009 -Vancouver, BC Jan. 30 - Feb. 7, 2010 - Workshop - Clarkdale, (near Sedona) Arizona Mar. 13 - 21, 2010 -- Workshop - New Jersey April 24 - May 2, 2010 - Workshop - Clarkdale, (near Sedona) Arizona Register for all courses online at www.holodynamics.com or call for details 928 634-3333 Quick Links... Our Website Products Services More About Us HolodynamicsForABetterWorld.com IAONS.org Coaching Program Virtual Holon Calls are every Monday Everyone is welcome to join our Monday Virtual Holon Call There is NO cost to attend and the calls are very informational. You may be a part of a live tracking session or ask questions of others who are learning to apply and incorporate Holodynamics. 5:30 PST 6:30 PM PST (Arizona) (-7.00 GMT) 9:30 PM EST The call will last an hour. Dial in number 712-432-0075 Access code 142260 To listen to last weeks call the playback number is 712-432-1085 access code 142260 Be sure to phone in a few minutes early. Dear Mary , On November 28th, 2009 join us for the 9 day "Transformation of Consciousness Journey" The stage is set and the timing is perfect. Just 9 Days to change your life is an investment that lasts a life-time. This is where you will find the energy, or the information in motion to transform any part of you and your life. The Life Changing Workshop will be held at the classic Fairmont Waterfront Hotel, Downtown Vancouver British Columbia. Book your Life Changing Workshop seat now! Early Bird Special! 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URL: From maryrose333 at att.net Sat Nov 7 18:10:41 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Sat, 7 Nov 2009 17:10:41 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: [globalnetnews-summary] The Fire Sale of America Message-ID: <001f01ca6010$755a8410$600f8c30$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS There is no longer anything that is sacred -- everything is for sale. -----Original Message----- From: globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net [mailto:globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net] On Behalf Of TradingPostPaul Sent: Thursday, November 05, 2009 9:35 PM To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] The Fire Sale of America Have We Got a Deal For You: Let's Privatize Government! The Fire Sale of America http://www.counterpunch.org/martens11052009.html By PAM MARTENS November 5, 2009 At a time when the corporate leaders of America have demonstrated an incurable proclivity to blaze a trail of scorched earth and looting across the banking, trading, housing, and mortgage industries, the public is now catching the whiff of a new smoldering stench just over the horizon. If corporate America has its way, everything from our parking meters, zoos, airports, toll roads and drinking water will be privatized in the biggest fire sale in the history of the industrialized world. In other words, let's send a powerful message to our children that the reward for corporate greed, incompetence and criminal behavior is to hand over what's left of the country's assets. The fire sale is being stoked by unprecedented state and local revenue shortfalls. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), "the worst recession since the 1930s has caused the steepest decline in state tax receipts on record.48 states have addressed or still face such shortfalls in their budgets for fiscal year 2010, totaling $178 billion.the largest gaps on record.Fiscal year 2011 gaps - both those still open and those already addressed - total $80 billion or 14 percent of budgets for the 35 states that have estimated the size of these gaps. These totals are likely to grow as revenues continue to deteriorate, and may well exceed $180 billion.These numbers suggest that when all is said and done, states will have dealt with a total budget shortfall of at least $350 billion for 2010 and 2011." Ironically, $350 billion is exactly half the amount the Federal government doled out to the Wall Street gang that proceeded to pay million dollar bonuses, fly staff to lush resorts, or slap logos on sports stadiums. Here's a rundown of what's up for corporate grabs around the country: Here in beautiful Southern New Hampshire, there's a recommendation to privatize the 143 year old historic Cheshire County Farm which holds some of the most cherished open space and farm land in the state. City kids can currently pet a cow or see an osprey or bald eagle soar with no admission fee. Out in Green Bay, Wisconsin this week, officials tried to hold a closed door meeting to discuss privatizing the Brown County planning department. (Isn't a key function of a planning department to police corporate interests? This sounds like the U.S. Treasury model, also known as regulatory capture.) In Grand Rapids, Kent County commissioners are weighing a recommendation from the Sheriff, Larry Stelma, to privatize the food service at the county jail. Following a Government Accountability Office (GAO) study at the end of October, finding it would be a waste of taxpayer dollars, the Army is backing off a plan (at least for now) to privatize carpentry, plumbing, grounds maintenance and other staff positions at West Point. Blaine Mogil, writing on November 3, 2009 in The Pride, the independent student newspaper of California State University at San Marcos, sums up the palpable mood there: "If the idea of a professor bidding you 'Good morning and welcome to McUniversity, may I take your order?' seems far-fetched, then the silent battle waged in Sacramento has not reached your mind space. It is time to awaken from political slumber and join the battle. Under attack are not only your educational opportunities, but also the future of educational opportunity for a wide swath of our friends and family on the lower levels of the socio-economic strata. This is a battle to save the California State University system from privatization.Everyone among us, struggling financially to attend this great institution, must be among the first wave to participate in preventing privatization, for if this battle is lost, we will be the first to wash away when the corporate yacht docks in our port." >From sea to shining sea, it's all up for corporate grabs: the prisons of Arizona; the libraries of Nevada County, California; the Milwaukee County Zoo; the tree cutters of Detroit; the Louis Armstrong International Airport in New Orleans; a youth shelter in Cape May, New Jersey; a sewage treatment plant in Marin County, California. The parking meters in Chicago have already been privatized. If the ongoing hard lessons of our country's blind trust in corporations to balance greed and profit against the greater public good cannot dissuade officials to sack these goofball plans to turn over essential government programs to the corporate profit motive, perhaps the recent example in Indiana might serve up an epiphany. In 2006, Governor Mitch Daniels of Indiana privatized the state's welfare services, handing a $1.34 billion contract to IBM. A computer company, engaged in gigabits and memory chips, was entrusted with getting food stamps and Medicaid and welfare payments into the hands of the hungry and the poor. The previous Indiana system of face to face meetings with case workers was sacked for automation and call centers. After legislators heard endless stories of life-saving prescriptions not being filled, people with less than $100 in assets not receiving food stamps in the legally mandated response time, call centers not picking up the phone or losing the calls, paperwork disappearing, together with a class action lawsuit being filed, Governor Daniels finally sacked IBM last month. But what about the people who may have died or been injured from this abhorrent judgment call. Should Governor Daniels be able to simply make the same sheepish admission, "I got it wrong," like Alan Greenspan and walk away. Hopefully, the voters will provide some accountability. Pam Martens worked on Wall Street for 21 years; she has no security position, long or short, in any company mentioned in this article other than that which the U.S. Treasury has thrust upon her and fellow Americans involuntarily through TARP. She writes on public interest issues from New Hampshire. From maryrose333 at att.net Sat Nov 7 18:24:50 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Sat, 7 Nov 2009 17:24:50 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: Transition US Special Announcement -- November Webinars Message-ID: <001701ca6012$717aee00$5470ca00$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS One of the most important things in planning for the future is getting organized. We need as many people as possible to get themselves into the Transition Movement. Here is some information From: Transition US [mailto:info=transitionus.org at mcsv6.net] On Behalf Of Transition US Sent: Thursday, November 05, 2009 10:58 AM To: maryrose333 at att.net Subject: Transition US Special Announcement -- November Webinars Transition US Greetings from Transition US, Thanks to all who were able to attend our most recent webinar, "The Nitty-Gritty of Getting Transition Rolling In Your Community." For those of you who were able to attend we would love to get your feedback . If you weren't able to participate we wanted to share with you a recording of the event in it's entirety. We are excited to announce our next two free webinars which will be presented by Starhawk. For those of you who do not know of her, Starhawk is a well-known Permaculture teacher and activist. Over the years she has honed her skills in group dynamics and process. The following are the webinars she will be providing: Decision-Making for Transition Groups: Part One November 11, 2009 from 1:00 - 2:30PM (PST) Decision-Making for Transition Groups: Part Two November 18, 2009 from Noon - 1:30PM (PST) Registration is required and we hope you are able to join us. We will continue to host online events at varying times of the day and week in an effort to make them accessible to the most people in the various time zones. All webinars will also be recorded for your future listening pleasure. Best regards, Transition US You are subscribed to the Transition US mailing list. Unsubscribe maryrose333 at att.net from this list | Forward to a friend | Update your profile Contact Us Transition US Email: info at transitionus.org Telephone: (707) 824-1554 447 Florence Ave., Ground Floor Sebastopol, CA 95472 www.transitionus.org Transition US is a 501(c)3 non-profit incorporated in the state of California (USA). -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ceasig at gmail.com Sun Nov 8 00:36:59 2009 From: ceasig at gmail.com (Centre For Ecological Audit, Social Inclusion & Governance) Date: Sun, 8 Nov 2009 13:06:59 +0530 Subject: [GJM] [se-clmt] QUERY: Urban Mobility and Climate Change- Experiences; Examples. Reply by 15 November, 2009 In-Reply-To: <47C98618901C462399FCF18F42211762@undp> References: <47C98618901C462399FCF18F42211762@undp> Message-ID: <31f677a30911072336u665eccefw41cca8dd99127253@mail.gmail.com> Dear members, Communicating for multiplying ecologicl audit of consumption, production,transport ,habitats and leisure http://ecostrategicommunicators.ning.com for mitigating the adverse impact of climate change, ensuring equity and ecological safety ,Centre for Ecological Audit,Social Inclusion and Governance ,Delhi http://centre4ecologicalaudit.blogpost.com has been involved in generating advisory and analytic outputs for transforming ecologically hostile leisure, ecologically hostile usurious and speculative finance system http://globaljusticemovent.net and governance for meeting the new realities emanating from the findings on climate change ,functioning of the finance institutions and the adoption of development policy that is responsible for accelerating the ecological and nuclear threats for nations and humanity . It is wonderful to learn that The Climate Resilience Centre at Community Enterprise Forum International (CEFI) is planning a stakeholders? discussion with local governments across the country regarding the urgent need for an effective and efficient urban transport system which utilizes about 10 per cent of the total energy used in the country and also contributes to global warming. While noting the projection of the World Bank report that 60 percent of humanity may live in cities across the World, in just 12 years due to increasing ecologically hostile Urbanization and infrastructure development that increases demand for transport, it is important to factor the decisions that people might as well take for safeguarding the ecologically sustainable habitats and move out of the cities .Therefore, this demand projected may not be real and a ruse for generating more ecologically hostile usurious money from thin year. Indeed the public transport system will fall short of the demand if strict adherence to the principles of equity and ecological safety in not brought in the urban and rural areas for mitigating climate change and realising social and ecological justice. It is not only that public transport need has fallen short of meeting the increasing demand and people are forced to rely on private vehicles, but also the fact that those with additional money are buying cars to show off and policies has been designed to let people buy as many cars as they please with easy loans despite knowing that neither they have place to keep them not there are free roads to ply them. Sidewalks in residential localities like Ashok Vihar where I live, are captured by cars and people have more than one car, buses are good enough though there could be some more. I have been living in this area for the last 14 years and decided not to buy a personal vehicle .My senior friend Dr.Ashok Jain teaching in the Department of Buddhist studies,University of Delhi also is using bus for reaching the university . Discussing the reasons that are responsible for increase in the number of personal vehicles, he said the people in Delhi were earlier more rooted and did not want to show off the wealth. Now, after getting money, they want to show off and one of the interesting reason for them to buy cars, according to Dr.Ashok Jain it is the expectation that in the marriage , they will get better cars as dowry for their sons. Thus, We need to note that the increase in the number of cars is more a demonstration of wealth and if this is pace of the increase in the number of cars on the roads, then never ever would any expansion of the public transport system would help in reducing the number of cars and reducing the emission of green house gases, if the factors for the purchase decisions were not addressed and rule for protecting the roads and sidewalks were not brought in for safeguarding the space for people in the areas specially the sidewalks and footpaths whose encroachments has been ignored across the city. Not to speak of the temples, cars, home owners in the residential arears who have encroached upon the sidewalks and footpaths, even the government in places such as Connaght Place has encroached on the footpath for creating parking space of the cars. The projection of the World Bank if it gets true would be quite ecologically hazardous and ,I am sure we need to beat these projections through collective efforts for ensuring that habitats are managed for surviving the end of fossil fuel services and utilities and ,what I call end of petro-modern times . A small endeavour in this regard is the creation of a network of organisations and citizens for transforming ecologically hostile habitats http://transitionurbanindia.ning.com for addressing peak oil, building self reliant ecologically safe communities and mitigating climate. This is working in close coordination with the initiation of Tranisition India network http://transitionindia.ning.comcreated by Les Squires, the cofounder of Transition US Movement http://transitionus.ning.com with more than 1600 members involved in creating city based communities. As per the findings about 30 percent of India?s population lives in urban areas and the number may cross 50 per cent by 2030, but that increase would not be ecologically safe and sustainable. The traffic indeed has become chaotic and most of us moving across the city of Delhi are witness to the change that has happened after the liberalisation of the policies for entry of the multinational corporations in the various sectors of economy. If we gets concerned about the face of Delhi after 2000 years in 40th century, we can imagine what could be support conditions for the ecologically hostile behmoth that is getting ready for hosting the Commonwealth Games, legacy of the slavery of the subcontinent. With these sharings, I am noting down the answers for the questions that has been presented for discussions: 1. What action is being undertaken by the governments (National and Local) to improve public transport in mega cities across the country? What are your experiences of successful implementation? I do not wish to answer this as this has been already responded by other members of the community. However, I would like to note even with linking all the locations with Metro Rail, now indeed the pride of the national capital, there hardly appears to be decrease in the number of personal vehicles that are moving on the road. 2. What is your experience of mobility in metro cities when compared to medium and smaller cities of the country? Metro and bus is good for long distances, cycle rickshaws are a boon for the small distances. When I need to move with family with lots of luggage ,I hire a taxi/auto when travelling for Bihar where my parents live at Mathurapur ( near Kahalgaon where NTPC is located in Bhagalpur district) and Patna ( my wife) . Traffic Jams in Kamla Nagar everyday for about 10 minutes near Shaktinagar Chowk is a matter of concern and there I wonder what more can be done for public transport .There are too many buses, but as I said earlier people have bought cars for showing off and not only for lack of public transport. If there is a study, it can be found that purchase of cars is also related to show off. There are people who like to take a car to vegetable shop instead of walking or taking a cycle rickshaw. Walking a bylane designed for walking gets difficult when one faces a car approaching and then there is no option but to wait for the car to move. Some of the photographs can be seen posted at http://transitionurbanindia.ning.com 3. What are the constraints you face while walking, cycling or using public transport? Walking is indeed a matter of great caution due to total encroachment of footpaths in several areas and use of the portion of road for parking the cars by the homeowners on the both side of the road. One has to be caution and many times I find advising my son not to look back as one needs to see the incoming traffic from the front assuming that those coming from behind would be careful in ensuring that they do not hit pedestrians like me, who for all the purpose walk the roads for buying provisions. Cycling on several roads appears to be easier ,but they have to be cautious as well from the motorists and automobiles. Pedestrians like me and cyclists would be better if all the encroachments with the residential areas were removed or adjusted to ensure fair space for pedestrians. I hope the above helps in enriching the deliberation with the local governments for an effective public transportation system with ecological limits. I would like to take this opportunity to invite all the members to join the network for the movement for transforming ecologically hostile urban habitats at http://transitionurbanindia.ning.com and make this safe for children of 40th century. With warmest regards and best wishes for generation of a policy that ensures safe walking and cycling on the roads of Delhi with carbon-neutral transport. For Centre for Ecological Audit, Social Inclusion and Governance,Delhi Dr.Muhammad Mukhtar Alam with inputs from Dr.Ashok Jain, P.D.Singh and Arshi Aftab On Wed, Oct 28, 2009 at 12:40 AM, Shubhangi Kitchloo wrote: > Dear Members, > > > > I am working with the Climate Resilience Centre at Community Enterprise > Forum International (CEFI). To know more about us you could visit > www.cefi.in. We are planning a stakeholders? discussion with local > governments across the country regarding the urgent need for an effective > and efficient urban transport system which utilizes about 10 per cent of the > total energy used in the country and also contributes to global warming. > > > > According to a recent World Bank report, 60 percent of humanity will live > in cities across the World, in just 12 years from now. Urbanization and > infrastructure development increases demand for transport? a demand that > most Indian cities have been unable to meet. Since the public transport > system in every city has fallen short of meeting the increasing demand, > people are forced to rely on private vehicles. > > > > Today, about 30 percent of India?s population lives in urban areas and the > number is likely to cross 50 per cent by 2030. It is observed that in most > of the Indian cities, the traffic has become chaotic. Often commuters use > their own cars for travel because of lack of an efficient public > transport which comprises primarily of overcrowded buses in most cities and > remains unattractive to those currently using private transport. > > * * > > I would request Climate Change Community members to share: > > > > 1. What action is being undertaken by the governments (National and > Local) to improve public transport in mega cities across the country? What > are your experiences of successful implementation? > > 2. What is your experience of mobility in metro cities when compared > to medium and smaller cities of the country? > > 3. What are the constraints you face while walking, cycling or using > public transport? > > > > The discussion will form the basis for discussions with the local > governments about the need for an effective public transportation system. > > > > Sincerely, > > > > Shubhangi Kitchloo, > > Climate Resilience Centre, > > Community Enterprise Forum International, > > New Delhi > > > -- Endeavoring for ecological safety ,social inclusion and distributive justice for the renewable resource based livelihoods and habitats, Centre For Ecological Audit, Social Inclusion and Governance (CEASIG) , an initiative of Labour League Foundation, Sewa and Sufi Trust , Delhi aims for socially inclusive and ecologically safe future for all through organizing and communicating carbon neutral neighborhood discussions/ consultations, building capacities in ecological audit, ecologically safe networking ,advocacy, interfaith dialogue & other related domains for multiplying personal, community , governmental and corporate actions for ecologically safe education, ecological audit ,and, ecologically safe and socially inclusive governance. Contact Details: 58-C,DDA Flats, Ashok Vihar-III, Delhi-110052 Phones: 0968345380 http://transitionurbanindia.ning.com http://ecostrategiccommunicators.ning.com http://slideshare.net/mukhtaralam -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From maryrose333 at att.net Sat Nov 7 17:26:59 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Sat, 7 Nov 2009 16:26:59 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: [globalnetnews-summary] U.N. Affirms Goldstone Report Message-ID: <006501ca600a$5c81a460$1584ed20$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS Again, more of the sickness that the U.S. has become under "rule by the few over the many". -----Original Message----- From: globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net [mailto:globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net] On Behalf Of TradingPostPaul Sent: Saturday, November 07, 2009 1:02 PM To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] U.N. Affirms Goldstone Report U.N. Affirms Goldstone Report http://www.countercurrents.org/deen071109.htm By Thalif Deen 07 November, 2009 Inter Press Service UNITED NATIONS, Nov 5 (IPS) - A 575-page blistering report by Justice Richard Goldstone detailing war crimes in Gaza last December is refusing to die despite an aggressive Israeli smear campaign to kill it. The report, which was favourably voted by the 47-member Human Rights Council in Geneva last month, received overwhelming support Thursday in the 192-member General Assembly. The vote was 114 in favour and 18 against, with 44 abstentions. The 18 countries that voted against the resolution included the United States, Australia, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy and Israel. Ambassador Riyad Mansour, Permanent Observer of Palestine to the United Nations, singled out Ireland, one of the few Western nations to vote for the resolution, for "supporting" it. He also noted that a "sizeable number of European nations" abstained on the resolution. Among the abstentions were Britain, France, Norway, Sweden, Spain, Luxembourg, New Zealand, Denmark and Greece. "The General Assembly sent a powerful message," he told reporters, adding that if Israelis do not comply, "We will go after them." The Assembly requested Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to report within three months on the implementation of the resolution. Among other things, the resolution calls upon both the Israelis and the Palestinians to undertake independent investigations of their own on the serious violations of international humanitarian and human rights laws during the 22-day conflict in Gaza in December. Still, Mansour said he rejects any equation of the "occupying power's aggression and crimes with actions committed in response by the Palestinian side". "We wish to clearly reaffirm that there is absolutely no symmetry or proportionality between the occupier and the occupied," he added. U.S. Ambassador Alejandro Wolff rejected the Goldstone report as "deeply flawed" and "unbalanced". He said the United States was fully committed to a two-state solution - Israel and Palestine - and will do nothing to hinder it. Last month, the 15-member Security Council debated the report but refused to take a vote primarily because of the opposition by the United States, a veto-wielding member of the Council. In Geneva, the Human Rights Council endorsed the report last month by a vote of 25 in favour, six against, 11 abstentions and five no-shows. The report was also the subject of a vote Tuesday by the U.S. House of Representatives, traditionally sympathetic towards Israel. That vote, condemning the report, was 344 in favour and 36 against. Nadia Hijab, senior fellow at the Washington-based Institute for Palestine Studies, told IPS the importance of the Goldstone Report is evident given the amount of effort Israel, the United States and their allies are investing in trying to bury it. She said irrespective of the strength or weakness of the General Assembly resolution, the report is important because of its very existence. Not only does it provide an authoritative basis for Palestinians seeking reparations and accountability, but it also puts the world on notice that international law must be upheld and impunity must end, she said. "It's simply not going to go away," said Hijab. The report, authored by a four-member international fact-finding mission headed by Justice Richard Goldstone, details war crimes charges against both Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas. The mission, and specifically Goldstone, has been politically crucified by pro-Israeli groups in the United States. The U.N. mission recommended that the Security Council require Israel to report to it, within the next six months, on investigations and prosecutions it should carry out with regard to the violations cited in the report. During the ruthless military operation, codenamed 'Operation Cast Lead,' the Israelis destroyed houses, factories, wells, schools, hospitals, police stations and other public buildings. The number of Palestinian killed during the conflict is estimated at between 1,387 and 1,417, mostly civilians, compared with four Israeli fatal casualties in southern Israel and nine soldiers killed during fighting, four of whom died as a result of friendly fire. The report also recommended that the Security Council set up its own body of independent experts to report to it on the progress of the Israeli investigations and prosecutions. "If the expert's reports do not indicate within six months that good faith, independent proceedings are taking place, the Security Council should refer the situation in Gaza to the Prosecutor in the International Criminal Court (ICC)," the report recommended. Hijab told IPS the Goldstone Report has already had an impact on the Israeli-Palestinian scene. "It will ensure that henceforth the Israeli state as well as Palestinian armed groups are more careful about the use of force," she said. In addition, she said, the initial misguided attempt by the leaders of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the Palestinian Authority (PA) to "postpone" consideration has strengthened the hand of political parties and civil society in setting limits on how far the PA/PLO can go in their alliance with the U.S. and its erosion of Palestinian human rights. In short, the Goldstone Report has had a significant before it even reached the General Assembly, and it continues to be discussed the world over, Hijab declared. From maryrose333 at att.net Sat Nov 7 19:13:23 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Sat, 7 Nov 2009 18:13:23 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: Mary, this info is scary but you need to see it Message-ID: <001c01ca6019$389e0750$a9da15f0$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS Everyone needs to read this report on medications being used to heal mental disorders. And, to consider the number of people who are mentally ill in our society today with the figures increasing. Due to my interaction with someone who suffers from Bipolar Disorder, I am now working to set up a research and education Foundation on Bipolar Disorder on his behalf. This is such a misunderstood disease and there needs to be more information disseminated on it in order for it to be handled more effectively. In my search for a way to help this person who has now become very dear to me, I ran into Ken Jensen. Ken Jensen, is the author of: "It Takes Guts To Be Me - How a former Marine Cured Himself of Bipolar Disorder, " and he sent this report to me. Ken and I are corresponding on this subject on a regular basis now. He is very excited that we are preparing to set up this foundation as the method Ken used in self-healing was a nutritional supplement distributed by the TrueHope company, after having had 100 prescription drugs prescribed for him in the six years prior to his own self-healing. And, one of the major things we will be doing is disseminating information on this nutritional supplement and its power to heal. Meanwhile, I continue to work with my friend to help him to get on the EMPowerPlus formula manufactured by TrueHope. And, I will continue to write on this subject and keep everyone posted on how we are doing. From: ittakesgutstobe at aweber.com [mailto:ittakesgutstobe at aweber.com] On Behalf Of Ken Jensen Sent: Thursday, November 05, 2009 12:28 PM To: Mary Rose Subject: Mary, this info is scary but you need to see it Hello Mary, Just a brief note today. Truehope compiled a hairy document that outlines clearly why you might want to reconsider taking meds as the only way to combat your bipolar disorder or depression. This report is derived from third party scientific sources, NOT Truehope's opinions. The following is a PDF and should at least cause you to want to know more about whatever meds you may be throwing down the hatch: The Long Term Dangers of Psychotropics You just ought to know these things. Be well, Ken 721 Broadway Kingston, NY 12401, USA To unsubscribe or change subscriber options visit: http://www.aweber.com/z/r/?LCycrJxstCysLEyc7GxMtGa0zKwsrBzM7A== -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From maryrose333 at att.net Sun Nov 8 09:46:42 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Sun, 8 Nov 2009 08:46:42 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: [globalnetnews-summary] American dream of home ownership morphs into nightmare Message-ID: <007401ca6093$3bd05b10$b3711130$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS If you feel the economic crisis is going to be over soon, then think again after reading this and learning how many more homes will go into foreclosure between now and 2012. And, I urge you again to read Thomas Greco's book: "The End of Money and the Future of Civilization" to gain more insight into the problems as well as how we may mitigate the circumstances we are currently in since there are no real solutions to the complex predicaments in which we find ourselves. However, we must also move into another level of consciousness from where we currently operate. This means, we must above all else, change the way we think about things in order to change the actions we take, beginning with the individual at the grass roots level. Change takes place on the edge of chaos and moves from micro to macro; therefore, it is impossible to manage a system from the macro level as the minority elite are attempting to do today. In the long run their attempts will only backfire as their corrupted structures come tumbling down around them like "Humpty Dumpty (who) sat on a wall, Then Humpty Dumpty had a great fall and all the kings horses and all the kings men couldn't put Humpty Dumpty together again." We must realize that there is no way back to the type of civilization in which we lived prior to this catastrophic event -- we must move forward into the future and "be the change we wish to see in our lives". We must leave the thinking associated with the industrialized society behind and move into a new era based on "doing more with less." The days of "big" are over and we are now into thinking associated with nanotechnology and bio-mimicry -- in living more simplified lifestyles that are organic in nature. We must now realize that life depends upon our designing systems that are "life-enhancing" and not "death-defining". Let us take the brutally bloodied Jesus down off of the cross and look to the "Christ-consciousness" that lies within us in the form of the holographic brain/mind. It is not "out there" somewhere -- it is all "in here," and each of us has the responsibility to take charge of our feelings -- our emotions -- and learn how to manage them effectively. -----Original Message----- From: globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net [mailto:globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net] On Behalf Of TradingPostPaul Sent: Sunday, November 08, 2009 7:31 AM To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] American dream of home ownership morphs into nightmare http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2009/1107/1224258281338.html American dream of home ownership morphs into nightmare AMERICA: African-American borrowers were 3.8 times more likely than whites to be given subprime loans, writes LARA MARLOWE MORE THAN one million Americans have lost their homes this year alone. Another seven million face foreclosure by 2012. The human and financial cost of the subprime disaster is mind-boggling. American Casino, a documentary by Irish-born writer and film-maker Andrew Cockburn and his American wife, Leslie, goes a long way towards explaining the origins and effects of the subprime crisis. As they point out, US taxpayers are paying $12 trillion (?8 trillion) to bail out the banks that created the catastrophe ? $42,000 for every American. Personally, I?d rather see my $42,000 go to one of the hapless homeowners interviewed in the Cockburns? film than to Wall Street. For example, there is Denzel Mitchell, the high-school teacher shown wandering through his house on the day he files for bankruptcy. There?s a poignant moment when Mitchell picks up a model aircraft and explains that he wanted to decorate his sons? bedroom on the theme of the Black Tuskegee airmen who fought so heroically in the second World War. Mitchell?s $135,000 loan originated with the Wall Street giant Goldman Sachs. Henry Paulson, the former US Treasury secretary who presided over the subprime crisis, owned $600 million in Goldman Sachs shares when he moved to the treasury in 2006. As Mark Pittman of Bloomberg News points out: ?A teeny, teeny, tiny piece of Hank Paulson?s compensation came from a mortgage that Denzel pays.? At the origin of the subprime crisis is a giant pool of more than $70 trillion in savings worldwide, looking for investments. Wall Street believed property values never went down, so mortgage-backed securities were a safe investment. Trouble was, by about 2003, everyone who qualified for a prime loan already had one. The banks aggressively peddled higher risk, higher interest subprime loans to America?s working poor. To reduce risk to themselves, the banks chopped up mortgages and packaged them like sausages into financial products called collateralised debt obligations (CDOs). They also invented credit default swaps (CDSs), a form of insurance on mortgage-backed securities that enabled investors to collect billions of dollars on bets that borrowers would default. You could apply for a mortgage over the phone or sign the forms on the bonnet of your car in a parking lot. Brokers fudged applicants? salaries to meet requirements. The brokers made big money on the transactions; by the time the borrower defaulted, as the brokers knew they would, the loan was somebody else?s problem. In June 2002, then US president George W Bush spoke of the ?home-ownership gap . . . between Anglo America and African-American and Hispanic home ownership?, and set the goal of increasing minority homeowners by at least 5.5 million by 2010. If rich, white America had set out to indebt and dispossess ethnic minorities, it would have acted no differently. ?Subprime lenders would target minority areas for their products that were bad,? civil rights attorney John Relman says in American Casino. ?It was essentially marketing bad products or poisonous products to minority communities. And they did that because they knew that those areas were particularly vulnerable . . . This is the civil rights issue of the 2000s.? Suddenly, communities who had previously been denied housing loans were offered the American dream, a home of their own, in exchange for signatures on contracts they couldn?t understand, the size of phone directories. ?The practice of literally targeting an area because of its racial make-up for a bad loan product is what we call reverse redlining,? Relman says. African-American borrowers were 3.8 times more likely than whites to be given subprime loans. In 2006, 61 per cent of subprime borrowers were actually qualified for lower interest prime rates. Amalene Emily Wade, an African-American pastor in Baltimore, lost the house she grew up in because she could not meet payments on a $28,000 home improvement loan. She now sleeps in a friend?s car. Payments on Patricia McNair?s $89,000 mortgage rose from an initial $800 a month to $2,000 a month. As a clinical therapist at John Hopkins Medical Centre, McNair spent her days counselling the depressed, then went home to wrestle with the bureaucracy of foreclosure. She lost her home in March. ?If interest rates had been reasonable, had subprimes not gone up to 12 or 13 per cent, people could have paid,? says Leslie Cockburn, the director of American Casino. ?There used to be laws against usury.? How did the US government let this happen and why does the US move so slowly towards bank regulation? The banks have from the outset exercised a form of blackmail: if they weren?t bailed out, we?d face a depression of cataclysmic proportions; if their executives weren?t paid a fortune, they?d go elsewhere. ?There are five bank lobbyists for every congressman,? says Michael Greenberger, a professor of law at the University of Maryland. Financial issues are presented in deliberately obscure terms, so public rage focuses on something we all understand: continuing high salaries and bonuses on Wall Street. ?It?s unAmerican to get paid for failure,? says Greenberger. From maryrose333 at att.net Sun Nov 8 10:42:46 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Sun, 8 Nov 2009 09:42:46 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: [globalnetnews-summary] The Evil Empire Message-ID: <008401ca609b$0c377980$24a66c80$@net> For your information and consideration. -----Original Message----- From: globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net [mailto:globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net] On Behalf Of TradingPostPaul Sent: Sunday, November 08, 2009 6:33 AM To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] The Evil Empire November 6-8, 2009 http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts11062009.html The Evil Empire By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS The US government is now so totally under the thumbs of organized interest groups that "our" government can no longer respond to the concerns of the American people who elect the president and the members of the House and Senate. Voters will vent their frustrations over their impotence on the president, which implies a future of one-term presidents. Soon our presidents will be as ineffective as Roman emperors in the final days of that empire. Obama is already set on the course to a one-term presidency. He promised change, but has delivered none. His health care bill is held hostage by the private insurance companies seeking greater profits. The most likely outcome will be cuts in Medicare and Medicaid in order to help fund wars that enrich the military/security complex and the many companies created by privatizing services that the military once provided for itself at far lower costs. It would be interesting to know the percentage of the $700+ billion "defense" spending that goes to private companies. In American "capitalism," an amazing amount of taxpayers' earnings go to private firms via the government. Yet, Republicans scream about "socializing" health care. Republicans and Democrats saw opportunities to create new sources of campaign contributions by privatizing as many military functions as possible. There are now a large number of private companies that have never made a dollar in the market, feeding instead at the public trough that drains taxpayers of dollars while loading Americans with debt service obligations. Obama inherited an excellent opportunity to bring US soldiers home from the Bush regime's illegal wars of aggression. In its final days, the Bush regime realized that it could "win" in Iraq by putting the Sunni insurgents on the US military payroll. Once Bush had 80,000 insurgents collecting US military pay, violence, although still high, dropped in half. All Obama had to do was to declare victory and bring our boys home, thanking Bush for winning the war. It would have shut up the Republicans. But this sensible course would have impaired the profits and share prices of those firms that comprise the military/security complex. So instead of doing what Obama said he would do and what the voters elected him to do, Obama restarted the war in Afghanistan and launched a new one in Pakistan. Soon Obama was echoing Bush and Cheney's threats to attack Iran. In place of health care for Americans, there will be more profits for private insurance companies. In place of peace there will be more war. Voters are already recognizing the writing on the wall and are falling away from Obama and the Democrats. Independents who gave Obama his comfortable victory have now swung against him, recently electing Republican governors in New Jersey and Virginia to succeed Democrats. This is a protest vote, not a confidence vote in Republicans. Obama's credibility is shot. And so is Congress's, assuming it ever had any. The US House of Representatives has just voted to show the entire world that the US House of Representatives is nothing but the servile, venal, puppet of the Israel Lobby. The House of Representatives of the American "superpower" did the bidding of its master, AIPAC, and voted 344 to 36 to condemn the Goldstone Report. In case you don't know, the Goldstone Report is the Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict. The "Gaza Conflict" is the Israeli military attack on the Gaza ghetto, where 1.5 million dispossessed Palestinians, whose lands, villages, and homes were stolen by Israel, are housed. The attack was on civilians and civilian infrastructure. It was without any doubt a war crime under the Nuremberg standard that the US established in order to execute Nazis. Goldstone is not only a very distinguished Jewish jurist who has given his life to bringing people to accountability for their crimes against humanity, but also a Zionist. However, the Israelis have demonized him as a "self-hating Jew" because he wrote the truth instead of Israeli propaganda. US Representative Dennis Kucinich, who is now without a doubt a marked man on AIPAC's political extermination list, asked the House if the members had any realization of the shame that the vote condemning Goldstone would bring on the House and the US government. The entire rest of the world accepts the Goldstone report. The House answered with its lopsided vote that the rest of the world doesn't count as it doesn't give campaign contributions to members of Congress. This shameful, servile act of "the world's greatest democracy" occurred the very week that a court in Italy convicted 23 US CIA officers for kidnapping a person in Italy. The CIA agents are now considered "fugitives from justice" in Italy, and indeed they are. The kidnapped person was renditioned to the American puppet state of Egypt, where the victim was held for years and repeatedly tortured. The case against him was so absurd that even an Egyptian judge ordered his release. One of the convicted CIA operatives, Sabrina deSousa, an attractive young woman, says that the US broke the law by kidnapping a person and sending him to another country to be tortured in order to manufacture another "terrorist" in order to keep the terrorist hoax going at home. Without the terrorist hoax, America's wars for special interest reasons would become transparent even to Fox "News" junkies. Ms. deSousa says that "everything I did was approved back in Washington," yet the government, which continually berates us to "support the troops," did nothing to protect her when she carried out the Bush regime's illegal orders. Clearly, this means that the crime that Bush, Cheney, the Pentagon, and the CIA ordered is too heinous and beyond the pale to be justified, even by memos from the despicable John Yoo and the Republican Federalist Society. Ms. deSousa is clearly worried about herself. But where is her concern for the innocent person that she sent into an Egyptian hell to be tortured until death or admission of being a terrorist? The remorse deSousa expresses is only for herself. She did her evil government's bidding and her evil government that she so faithfully served turned its back on her. She has no remorse for the evil she committed against an innocent person. Perhaps deSousa and her 22 colleagues grew up on video games. It was great fun to plot to kidnap a real person and fly him on a CIA plane to Egypt. Was it like a fisherman catching a fish or a deer hunter killing a beautiful 8-point buck? Clearly, they got their jollies at the expense of their renditioned victim. The finding of the Italian court, and keep in mind that Italy is a bought-and-paid-for US puppet state, indicates that even our bought puppets are finding the US too much to stomach. Moving from the tip of the iceberg down, we have Ambassador Craig Murray, rector of the University of Dundee and until 2004 the UK Ambassador to Uzbekistan, which he describes as a Stalinist totalitarian state courted and supported by the Americans. As ambassador, Murray saw the MI5 intelligence reports from the CIA that described the most horrible torture procedures. "People were raped with broken bottles, children were tortured in front of their parents until they [the parents] signed a confession, people were boiled alive." "Intelligence" from these torture sessions was passed on by the CIA to MI5 and to Washington as proof of the vast al Qaeda conspiracy. Amb. Murray reports that the people delivered by CIA flights to Uzbekistan's torture prisons "were told to confess to membership in Al Qaeda. They were told to confess they'd been in training camps in Afghanistan. They were told to confess they had met Osama bin Laden in person. And the CIA intelligence constantly echoed these themes." "I was absolutely stunned," says the British ambassador, who thought that he served a moral country that, along with its American ally, had moral integrity. The great Anglo-American bastion of democracy and human rights, the homes of the Magna Carta and the Bill of Rights, the great moral democracies that defeated Nazism and stood up to Stalin's gulags, were prepared to commit any crime in order to maximize profits. Amb. Murray learned too much and was fired when he vomited it all up. He saw the documents that proved that the motivation for US and UK military aggression in Afghanistan had to do with the natural gas deposits in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. The Americans wanted a pipeline that bypassed Russia and Iran and went through Afghanistan. To insure this, an invasion was necessary. The idiot American public could be told that the invasion was necessary because of 9/11 and to save them from "terrorism," and the utter fools would believe the lie. "If you look at the deployment of US forces in Afghanistan, as against other NATO country forces in Afghanistan, you'll see that undoubtedly the US forces are positioned to guard the pipeline route. It's what it's about. It's about money, its about energy, it's not about democracy." Guess who the consultant was who arranged with then Texas governor George W. Bush the agreements that would give to Enron the rights to Uzbekistan's and Turkmenistan's natural gas deposits and to Unocal to develop the trans-Afghanistan pipeline. It was Karzai, the US-imposed "president" of Afghanistan, who has no support in the country except for American bayonets. Amb. Murray was dismissed from the UK Foreign Service for his revelations. No doubt on orders from Washington to our British puppet. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.He can be reached at: PaulCraigRoberts at yahoo.com From maryrose333 at att.net Sun Nov 8 11:43:55 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Sun, 8 Nov 2009 10:43:55 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: [globalnetnews-summary] Pat Boone wants to rid the White House of its occupying vermin Message-ID: <009d01ca60a3$96da11d0$c48e3570$@net> Perhaps I should just ignore posts such as this, but as I contemplate the new lows to which those on the Republican/Christian Right stoop in order to condemn anything President Obama does or attempts to do, I cannot help but look at America as a whole and wonder if there is any chance of us emerging from the insanity into which we have devolved as the collective consciousness called "society" here in the U.S. Is there no longer any sense of decency and civility among us? What, I must ask is to be gained by the use of such actions and words from which the rest of society can only recoil in horror. I cannot help but think of the word's of the old song once sung by Patty Page: "Stop the World, I Want Off". -----Original Message----- From: globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net [mailto:globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net] On Behalf Of TradingPostPaul Sent: Thursday, November 05, 2009 8:41 PM To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] Pat Boone wants to rid the White House of its occupying vermin Pat Boone wants to rid the White House of its occupying vermin By David Neiwert Wednesday Nov 04, 2009 7:00am http://crooksandliars.com/node/32511 Well, we've known for some time that Pat Boone has gone wingnutty, but his latest column for the wingnutty WorldNetDaily is one of the most vile pieces of eliminationist rhetoric to come down the pike in awhile: In time, it seems to happen to all older houses, no matter how well tended they may be. All manner of parasites, vermin, roaches, rats, worms and termites find their way into the building. Long before they're detected, they infiltrate the walls, the floors, the roofs - and then chew their way into the structure, the supporting beams and the very foundation of the house itself. Silently, surreptitiously, whole communities of invaders make places for themselves, hidden but thriving, totally unknown by the homeowner. Then, in time, tell-tale signs are seen. Little droppings, discolored trails, proliferating piles of residue appear in corners, on tabletops, little hanging sacs from ceilings - alarming evidence that the grand old dwelling has been invaded. Decidedly unwelcome creatures have made this place their home, and by their very existence will eventually destroy the house and bring it to ruin. What can be done, when you learn that your house has already been invaded? Well, the tried and true remedy is tenting. Experts come in, actually envelope the whole dwelling in a giant tent - and send a very powerful fumigant, lethal to the varmints and unwelcome creatures, into every nook and cranny of the house. Done thoroughly, every last destructive insect or rodent is sent to varmint hell - and in a day or two, the grand house is habitable again. I believe - figuratively, but in a very real way - we need to tent the White House! For reasons only he can explain, the current occupant has purposely brought a whole flock of social and political voracious varmints with him into our House. He doesn't own it; he hasn't even rented it; we the people have simply given him the keys and invited him to live there for four years, making it convenient to serve us better, to carry out our expressed wishes for our country. To the dismay of millions of us, this occupant seems to think we need an emperor. Even though all polls show that the majority of Americans don't want a whole new government-run health-care system, detest the trillions of dollars in un-payable debt he has foisted on us, question the whole "global warming" scare and disagree with him on many other issues, he boldly announces: "We're going to fundamentally transform America!" And he makes it clear that he is going to cram things down our throats whether we want them or not. Boone then launches into a tirade based almost entirely on the Glenn Beck program (with a dash of Sean Hannity thrown in for good measure): A laundry list of the supposed Marxist radicals who have "infested" the White House, from Van Jones to Kevin Jennings. If you watch Fox, all this is familiar territory. But what's disturbing about all this is that Boone seems to want the White House "fumigated" right now -- though he's vague on the details of just how we do that. What matters is the vile "varmints" Obama has let into his administration: No, he wants people who think like this, in order to "radically transform America," as he has pledged. And they will do just that, drastically . unless we act, decisively and powerfully. Our White House is being eaten away from within. We urgently need to throw a "tent" of public remonstration and outcry over that hallowed abode, to cause them to quake and hunker down inside. And then treat the invaders, the alien rodents, to massive voter gas - the most lethal antidote to would-be tyrants and usurpers. We must clean house - starting with our own White House. Tyrants and usurpers? A duly elected president? And when, exactly, does Boone foresee applying the "massive voter gas"? Because, you know, 2012 is quite a ways off still. This kind of talk is an open invitation to violence; it creates permission for someone to act on this kind of exhortation, especially because it not only dehumanizes, it reduces people to the level of vermin, objects not only fit but desired for elimination. If Pat Boone is any kind of gauge of the state of mainstream conservatism, I think it's safe to say these people have gone over a cliff and into a deep, yawning abyss. Remember my discussion of this kind of rhetoric in The Eliminationists: How Hate Talk Radicalized the American Right: What motivates this kind of talk and behavior is called eliminationism: a politics and a culture that shuns dialogue and the democratic exchange of ideas in favor of the pursuit of outright elimination of the opposing side, either through suppression, exile, and ejection, or extermination. Rhetorically, eliminationism takes on certain distinctive shapes. It always depicts its opposition as beyond the pale, the embodiment of evil itself, unfit for participation in their vision of society, and thus worthy of elimination. It often further depicts its designated Enemy as vermin (especially rats and cockroaches) or diseases, and disease-like cancers on the body politic. A close corollary-but not as nakedly eliminationist-are claims that opponents are traitors or criminals and that they pose a threat to our national security. Eliminationism is often voiced as crude "jokes," a sense of humor inevitably predicated on venomous hatred. And such rhetoric-we know as surely as we know that night follows day-eventually begets action, with inevitably tragic results. From maryrose333 at att.net Sun Nov 8 14:59:06 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Sun, 8 Nov 2009 13:59:06 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: [globalnetnews-summary] 'The Least Bad of Many Bad Choices' Message-ID: <00d401ca60be$e59e9af0$b0dbd0d0$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS We have discussed previously the futility of choosing the lesser of the evils confronting us. What is necessary is a whole new way of thinking and a consequent change following. The crisis we now face cannot be solved from the inside using the same type of thinking that got us here in the first place -- what we have been doing for years and years was never based on life-enhancing policies -- it was always about creating debt and waste from which profits were earned. We must either create a "spontaneous remission" by injecting healthy solutions into the system, e.g., ending war now, or we will go the way of the dinosaurs. The choice is ours to make!!! -----Original Message----- From: globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net [mailto:globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net] On Behalf Of TradingPostPaul Sent: Sunday, November 08, 2009 1:15 PM To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] 'The Least Bad of Many Bad Choices' (To change your settings or unsubscribe please go to http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/globalnetnews-summary) 'The Least Bad of Many Bad Choices' http://www.financialarmageddon.com/ It's not quite K?bler-Ross' five stages of grief -- in fact, it's more like two -- but it seems that at least some mainstream media types have stopped drinking the Keynesian Kool-Aid. They are beginning to accept that an exponential increase in our nation's debt load could bring us to the point where our nation is forced make the kinds of "choices" -- I use that term loosely -- that used to be reserved for banana republics and failed states (as it happens, that shouldn't be too much of a surprise to those who read one of my earlier posts on the subject). As Newsweek economics columnist Robert J. Samuelson notes in "Up Against a Wall of Debt, Part II," when you owe too much to others, your options suddenly become limited. Are the United States, Japan, Great Britain, and other first-world nations in danger of defaulting on their debt? In my latest NEWSWEEK column, I suggested that the unthinkable had become thinkable: some advanced society?say, the United States, Spain, Italy, Japan, or Great Britain?might someday default on its government debt. It wouldn't pay its creditors all they were owed or wouldn't pay them on time. Just a few days later, and completely coincidentally, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) issued a report that, without saying so, added credence to this unsettling hypothesis. (Click here to follow Robert J. Samuelson). The report, done by IMF staff economists, comes with the forbidding title "The State of Public Finances Cross-Country Fiscal Monitor: November 2009." And it isn't much fun to read, because it's full of tables, charts, and various ratios. But the central conclusions, buttressed strongly by all the statistics, are simple enough: the economic and financial crisis has dramatically increased the deficits and debt of most countries, and many wealthy countries are in worse shape than major developing nations. The economic crisis both increased spending?mainly through government "stimulus" packages and bailouts for the financial system?and devastated tax revenues. Of these, the falling taxes are the most important, the IMF said, because they may last much longer. The tax losses are especially large for the United States and Britain, because they stem heavily from "taxation of the financial sector and real-estate activities." A look at the report's statistics reinforces the grim message. The table below shows government debt in relation to a country's gross domestic product (GDP), which is the output of its economy. The first column shows the debt-to-GDP ratio for 2007, the last pre-crisis year; the second column gives the IMF's projection for 2014. (Debt reflects government borrowing to cover annual budget deficits.) By this standard measure, many rapidly growing emerging-market countries are less indebted than wealthier nations. Govtdebtchart (Connoisseurs of budget statistics will notice that the figures for the United States differ from those published by the Office of Management and Budget and the Congressional Budget Office. The reason is this: the OMB and CBO figures cover only the federal government; the IMF statistics cover "general government," which includes states and localities. For example, the OMB and CBO debt-to-GDP ratio for fiscal 2007 was 37 percent. But in both series, the big driver of higher debt-to-GDP ratios is rapidly rising federal debt.) Just as sobering are estimates done by the IMF staff economists of so-called structural deficits?the hypothetical gaps between government spending and taxes, assuming that the economy has recovered from the crisis and that all crisis-related spending has ended. For the United States, this underlying deficit is 3.7 percent of GDP in 2010 and, in future years, would be driven higher by an aging society and increased spending on Medicare and Social Security. Some other countries' structural deficits for 2010 are even higher: 7.8 percent of GDP for Great Britain, 5.8 percent for Spain, 6.9 percent for Japan, and 8.2 percent for Ireland. The political implications of these dry numbers are chilling. To prevent an unending upward spiral of debt would require huge spending cuts or tax increases. The IMF report doesn't suggest that those be made immediately, because doing so might cripple the fragile economic recovery. But the report does argue that without these adjustments, government debts could become unmanageable. To show the size of needed changes, the IMF performed one final exercise. It estimated the spending cuts or tax increases needed over the next decade to return a country's debt-to-GDP ratio to 60 percent by 2030. For the United States, the changes would amount to 8.8 percent of GDP. In today's dollars, that's about $1.2 trillion and roughly a third of the existing federal budget. But again, some other countries would face even larger adjustments: 12.8 percent of GDP for Great Britain, 10.7 percent for Spain, 13.4 percent for Japan, 11.8 percent for Ireland, and 9 percent for Greece. For France and Germany, the required changes would total 6.1 percent and 3.4 percent of GDP, respectively. No one can doubt that changes along these lines would be politically, economically, and socially wrenching. Government benefits, especially for the elderly, would have to be trimmed, and there would have to be large, broad-based tax increases. As a practical matter, the IMF doesn't think that governments can easily inflate away their debt, in part because much of it is short-term and has to be rolled over constantly. The report estimates that increasing inflation to 6 percent annually would on average eliminate less than a quarter of projected increases in debt-to-GDP ratios. At the same time, defaulting on the debt could trigger a broader financial and economic crisis: many financial institutions, businesses, and individuals hold large amounts of government debt; their wealth would drop, and their solvency might be threatened. The simple and dispiriting point is that rapidly rising debt burdens confront most wealthy societies with deeply disturbing and damaging choices. My original column did not suggest that a debt default is imminent or that any country would eagerly go that route. The argument was that as debt rose and the ugly choices were clarified, some government?or governments?might decide that default was the least bad of many bad choices. If nothing else, the IMF report confirms that possibility. From maryrose333 at att.net Sun Nov 8 15:18:36 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Sun, 8 Nov 2009 14:18:36 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: [globalnetnews-summary] Noam Chomsky: 'US Foreign Policy is Straight Out of the Mafia' Message-ID: <00ec01ca60c1$97df9f50$c79eddf0$@net> We need to follow Chomsky -- As always, he tells it like it is, and pulls no punches. -----Original Message----- From: globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net [mailto:globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net] On Behalf Of TradingPostPaul Sent: Sunday, November 08, 2009 1:22 PM To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] Noam Chomsky: 'US Foreign Policy is Straight Out of the Mafia' Noam Chomsky: 'US Foreign Policy is Straight Out of the Mafia' http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/nov/07/noam-chomsky-us-foreign-policy by Seumas Milne Published on Saturday, November 7, 2009 by the Guardian/UK Noam Chomsky is the west's most prominent critic of US imperialism, yet he is rarely interviewed in the mainstream media. Seumas Milne meets him Noam Chomsky is the closest thing in the English-speaking world to an intellectual superstar. A philosopher of language and political campaigner of towering academic reputation, who as good as invented modern linguistics, he is entertained by presidents, addresses the UN general assembly and commands a mass international audience. When he spoke in London last week, thousands of young people battled for tickets to attend his lectures, followed live on the internet across the globe, as the 80-year-old American linguist fielded questions from as far away as besieged Gaza. But the bulk of the mainstream western media doesn't seem to have noticed. His books sell in their hundreds of thousands, he is mobbed by students as a celebrity, but he is rarely reported or interviewed in the US outside radical journals and websites. The explanation, of course, isn't hard to find. Chomsky is America's most prominent critic of the US imperial role in the world, which he has used his erudition and standing to expose and excoriate since Vietnam. [Noam Chomsky: 'Obama's campaign rhetoric was completely vacuous' Photograph: Rex Features]Noam Chomsky: 'Obama's campaign rhetoric was completely vacuous' Like the English philosopher Bertrand Russell, who spoke out against western-backed wars until his death at the age of 97, Chomsky has lent his academic prestige to a relentless campaign against his own country's barbarities abroad - though in contrast to the aristocratic Russell, Chomsky is the child of working class Jewish refugees from Tsarist pogroms. Not surprisingly, he has been repaid with either denunciation or, far more typically, silence. Whereas a much slighter figure such as the Atlanticist French philosopher Bernard Henri-L?vy is lionised at home and abroad, Chomsky and his genuine popularity are ignored. Indeed, his books have been banned from the US prison library in Guant?namo. You'd hardly need a clearer example of his model of how dissenting views are filtered out of the western media, set out in his 1990's book Manufacturing Consent, than his own case. But as Chomsky is the first to point out, the marginalisation of opponents of western state policy is as nothing compared to the brutalities suffered by those who challenge states backed by the US and its allies in the Middle East. We meet in a break between a schedule of lectures and talks that would be punishing for a man half his age. At the podium, Chomsky's style is dry and low-key, as he ranges without pausing for breath from one region and historical conflict to another, always buttressed with a barrage of sources and quotations, often from US government archives and leaders themselves. But in discussion he is warm and engaged, only hampered by slight deafness. He has only recently started travelling again, he explains, after a three-year hiatus while he was caring for his wife and fellow linguist, Carol, who died from cancer last December. Despite their privilege, his concentrated exposure to the continuing injustices and exorbitant expense of the US health system has clearly left him angry. Public emergency rooms are "uncivilised, there is no health care", he says, and the same kind of corporate interests that drive US foreign policy are also setting the limits of domestic social reform. All three schemes now being considered for Barack Obama's health care reform are "to the right of the public, which is two to one in favour of a public option. But the New York Times says that has no political support, by which they mean from the insurance and pharmaceutical companies." Now the American Petroleum Institute is determined to "follow the success of the insurance industry in killing off health reform," Chomsky says, and do the same to hopes of genuine international action at next month's Copenhagen climate change summit. Only the forms of power have changed since the foundation of the republic, he says, when James Madison insisted that the new state should "protect the minority of the opulent against the majority". Chomsky supported Obama's election campaign in swing states, but regards his presidency as representing little more than a "shift back towards the centre" and a striking foreign policy continuity with George Bush's second administration. "The first Bush administration was way off the spectrum, America's prestige sank to a historic low and the people who run the country didn't like that." But he is surprised so many people abroad, especially in the third world, are disappointed at how little Obama has changed. "His campaign rhetoric, hope and change, was entirely vacuous. There was no principled criticism of the Iraq war: he called it a strategic blunder. And Condoleezza Rice was black - does that mean she was sympathetic to third world problems?" The veteran activist has described the US invasion of Afghanistan as "one of the most immoral acts in modern history", which united the jihadist movement around al-Qaida, sharply increased the level of terrorism and was "perfectly irrational - unless the security of the population is not the main priority". Which, of course, Chomsky believes, it is not. "States are not moral agents," he says, and believes that now that Obama is escalating the war, it has become even clearer that the occupation is about the credibility of Nato and US global power. This is a recurrent theme in Chomsky's thinking about the American empire. He argues that since government officials first formulated plans for a "grand area" strategy for US global domination in the early 1940s, successive administrations have been guided by a "godfather principle, straight out of the mafia: that defiance cannot be tolerated. It's a major feature of state policy." "Successful defiance" has to be punished, even where it damages business interests, as in the economic blockade of Cuba - in case "the contagion spreads". The gap between the interests of those who control American foreign policy and the public is also borne out, in Chomsky's view, by the US's unwavering support for Israel and "rejectionism" of the two-state solution effectively on offer for 30 years. That's not because of the overweening power of the Israel lobby in the US, but because Israel is a strategic and commercial asset which underpins rather than undermines US domination of the Middle East. "Even in the 1950s, President Eisenhower was concerned about what he called a campaign of hatred of the US in the Arab world, because of the perception on the Arab street that it supported harsh and oppressive regimes to take their oil." Half a century later, corporations like Lockheed Martin and Exxon Mobil are doing fine, he says: America's one-sided role in the Middle East isn't harming their interests, whatever risks it might bring for anyone else. Chomsky is sometimes criticised on the left for encouraging pessimism or inaction by emphasising the overwhelming weight of US power - or for failing to connect his own activism with labour or social movements on the ground. He is certainly his own man, holds some idiosyncratic views (I was startled, for instance, to hear him say that Vietnam was a strategic victory for the US in southeast Asia, despite its humiliating 1975 withdrawal) and has drawn flak for defending freedom of speech for Holocaust deniers. He describes himself as an anarchist or libertarian socialist, but often sounds more like a radical liberal - which is perhaps why he enrages more middle-of-the-road American liberals who don't appreciate their views being taken to the logical conclusion. But for an octogenarian who has been active on the left since the 1930s, Chomsky sounds strikingly upbeat. He's a keen supporter of the wave of progressive change that has swept South America in the past decade ("one of the liberal criticisms of Bush is that he didn't pay enough attention to Latin America - it was the best thing that ever happened to Latin America"). He also believes there are now constraints on imperial power which didn't exist in the past: "They couldn't get away with the kind of chemical warfare and blanket B52 bombing that Kennedy did," in the 1960s. He even has some qualified hopes for the internet as a way around the monopoly of the corporate-dominated media. But what of the charge so often made that he's an "anti-American" figure who can only see the crimes of his own government while ignoring the crimes of others around the world? "Anti-Americanism is a pure totalitarian concept," he retorts. "The very notion is idiotic. Of course you don't deny other crimes, but your primary moral responsibility is for your own actions, which you can do something about. It's the same charge which was made in the Bible by King Ahab, the epitome of evil, when he demanded of the prophet Elijah: why are you a hater of Israel? He was identifying himself with society and criticism of the state with criticism of society." It's a telling analogy. Chomsky is a studiedly modest man who would balk at any such comparison. But in the Biblical tradition of the conflict between prophets and kings, there's not the slightest doubt which side he represents. From maryrose333 at att.net Mon Nov 9 15:12:26 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Mon, 9 Nov 2009 14:12:26 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: [globalnetnews-summary] A New World Architecture Message-ID: <016b01ca6189$e77a5b90$b66f12b0$@net> -----Original Message----- From: globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net [mailto:globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net] On Behalf Of TradingPostPaul Sent: Monday, November 09, 2009 1:47 PM To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] A New World Architecture A New World Architecture George Soros http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/soros52 NEW YORK - Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of communism, the world is facing another stark choice between two fundamentally different forms of organization: international capitalism and state capitalism. The former, represented by the United States, has broken down, and the latter, represented by China, is on the rise. Following the path of least resistance will lead to the gradual disintegration of the international financial system. A new multilateral system based on sounder principles must be invented. While international cooperation on regulatory reform is difficult to achieve on a piecemeal basis, it may be attainable in a grand bargain that rearranges the entire financial order. A new Bretton Woods conference, like the one that established the post-WWII international financial architecture, is needed to establish new international rules, including treatment of financial institutions that are too big to fail and the role of capital controls. It would also have to reconstitute the International Monetary Fund to reflect better the prevailing pecking order among states and to revise its methods of operation. In addition, a new Bretton Woods would have to reform the currency system. The post-war order, which made the US more equal than others, produced dangerous imbalances. The dollar no longer enjoys the trust and confidence that it once did, yet no other currency can take its place. The US ought not to shy away from wider use of IMF Special Drawing Rights. Because SDRs are denominated in several national currencies, no single currency would enjoy an unfair advantage. The range of currencies included in the SDRs would have to be widened, and some of the newly added currencies, including the renminbi, may not be fully convertible. This would, however, allow the international community to press China to abandon its exchange-rate peg to the dollar and would be the best way to reduce international imbalances. And the dollar could still remain the preferred reserve currency, provided it is prudently managed. One great advantage of SDRs is that they permit the international creation of money, which is particularly useful at times like the present. The money could be directed to where it is most needed, unlike what is happening currently. A mechanism that allows rich countries that don't need additional reserves to transfer their allocations to those that do is readily available, using the IMF's gold reserves. Reorganizing the world order will need to extend beyond the financial system and involve the United Nations, especially membership of the Security Council. That process needs to be initiated by the US, but China and other developing countries ought to participate as equals. They are reluctant members of the Bretton Woods institutions, which are dominated by countries that are no longer dominant. The rising powers must be present at the creation of this new system in order to ensure that they will be active supporters. The system cannot survive in its present form, and the US has more to lose by not being in the forefront of reforming it. The US is still in a position to lead the world, but, without far-sighted leadership, its relative position is likely to continue to erode. It can no longer impose its will on others, as George W. Bush's administration sought to do, but it could lead a cooperative effort to involve both the developed and the developing world, thereby reestablishing American leadership in an acceptable form. The alternative is frightening, because a declining superpower losing both political and economic dominance but still preserving military supremacy is a dangerous mix. We used to be reassured by the generalization that democratic countries seek peace. After the Bush presidency, that rule no longer holds, if it ever did. In fact, democracy is in deep trouble in America. The financial crisis has inflicted hardship on a population that does not like to face harsh reality. President Barack Obama has deployed the "confidence multiplier" and claims to have contained the recession. But if there is a "double dip" recession, Americans will become susceptible to all kinds of fear mongering and populist demagogy. If Obama fails, the next administration will be sorely tempted to create some diversion from troubles at home - at great peril to the world. Obama has the right vision. He believes in international cooperation, rather than the might-is-right philosophy of the Bush-Cheney era. The emergence of the G-20 as the primary forum of international cooperation and the peer-review process agreed in Pittsburgh are steps in the right direction. What is lacking, however, is a general recognition that the system is broken and needs to be reinvented. After all, the financial system did not collapse altogether, and the Obama administration made a conscious decision to revive banks with hidden subsidies rather than to recapitalize them on a compulsory basis. Those institutions that survived will hold a stronger market position than ever, and they will resist a systematic overhaul. Obama is preoccupied by many pressing problems, and reinventing the international financial system is unlikely to receive his full attention. China's leadership needs to be even more far-sighted than Obama is. China is replacing the American consumer as the motor of the world economy. Since it is a smaller motor, the world economy will grow slower, but China's influence will rise very fast. For the time being, the Chinese public is willing to subordinate its individual freedom to political stability and economic advancement. But that may not continue indefinitely - and the rest of the world will never subordinate its freedom to the prosperity of the Chinese state. As China becomes a world leader, it must transform itself into a more open society that the rest of the world is willing to accept as a world leader. Military power relations being what they are, China has no alternative to peaceful, harmonious development. Indeed, the future of the world depends on it. From maryrose333 at att.net Mon Nov 9 19:13:30 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Mon, 9 Nov 2009 18:13:30 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: [globalnetnews-summary] Despite Censorship By Beef Magnate, Michael Pollan Spreads Message About the Real Price of Cheap Food Message-ID: <01b401ca61ab$958edc30$c0ac9490$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS When I read some of these articles, it just cracks me up because most of them portray the future as being a duplicate of the present. That we are just going to keep on doing things the same old way, raising thousands and thousands of acres of grain to be fed to beef cattle, driving cars with the same old engines in them consuming the same amount of gas and on and on it goes. Doesn't anyone get it that we have to change the way we think about things so that we change our behavior and create systems that are life-enhancing instead of death-defining. We must move into another level of consciousness because if nothing changes, nothing changes. -----Original Message----- From: globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net [mailto:globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net] On Behalf Of TradingPostPaul Sent: Monday, November 09, 2009 10:19 AM To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] Despite Censorship By Beef Magnate, Michael Pollan Spreads Message About the Real Price of Cheap Food Despite Censorship By Beef Magnate, Michael Pollan Spreads Message About the Real Price of Cheap Food http://www.alternet.org/healthwellness/143718/despite_censorship_by_beef_mag nate%2C_michael_pollan_spreads_message_about_the_real_price_of_cheap_food?pa ge=entire AlterNet. Posted November 9, 2009. Pollan took on Big Ag and cheap food in a panel discussion, after the protests of a meat industry chairman led to his speech at a University being canceled. Award-winning food journalist Michael Pollan was invited to speak on October 15 at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo but after pressure from a university donor who is chairman of the Harris Ranch Beef Co., the university changed his speech to a panel discussion. Pollan, whose works include The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals and In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto is the Knight Professor of Environmental Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley. He's also no stranger to attacks from Big Ag. Pollan used the forum to continue to challenge people to think about the ways in which we are growing food in our current fossil-fuel dependent system of agriculture. "We're producing ourselves into a hole," he warned the audience. Joining him on the panel was Gary Smith, the Monford Endowed Chair of meat science at the University of Colorado and Myra Goodman, the co-founder of Earthbound Farm. What follows is a transcript of the discussion, edited by the AlterNet staff for length and clarity. Moderator: What is sustainability? Michael Pollan: I would be remiss if I didn't address a little bit the circumstances surrounding this event, which I don't think we can let pass in silence. But one of the reasons we're doing the panel and not a conventional speech is that there was a real challenge to the university posed by the government, and what is potentially a real threat to academic freedom. And as much as agriculture is what we want to talk about today, academic freedom under girds the ability to have the kind of conversation about agriculture we want to have. Let me tie this back to sustainability. One of the things we understand from the science of ecology is that the best way to achieve resilience, in any system, is by diversity: biodiversity and intellectual diversity. And that having a diversity of views on this campus -- you know, because universities are the place where these conversations should take place, without any kind of bullying, without any kind of threats. It's critical to trying to figure out how to deal with the challenges that we have. You could have a monoculture of a university -- one that only tolerated one kind of thinking - and when the world changes, as it inevitably does, you would find yourself in serious trouble. But when you have a lot of different ideas, and they're all nurtured, and they're all brought into contact with one another as we hope to do today, that is where you get the resources to withstand shocks to the system. And god knows those shocks are coming. Let me just talk about sustainability and the agricultural format, because I really do believe that it's connected. You know, sustainability is a complex concept in one way, but it's also very simple: A sustainable system is one that can go on indefinitely, without destroying the conditions on which it depends -- or without depending on conditions it can't depend on. So take for example fossil fuels: a system that is highly dependent on cheap oil may not be a sustainable system when oil prices go up. A system that depends on large quantities of free or cheap water has a problem when those situations change. So sustainability is really -- it's an ideal. There are sustainable systems. A forest. A prairie. I mean, these are sustainable systems; they can go on year after year. They don't need inputs. They don't destroy the conditions on which they depend. But as soon as we get involved and start changing things to feed ourselves, we get into more complicated relationships. So it's a matter of degree, I would say. Now the question is, 'is the system we have sustainable today?' I just want to offer one little prop to tell you where I think the problem is. I brought along something [laughter] from McDonald's. This is a double quarter-pounder with cheese. Those of you in front can probably smell it. Anyone is welcome to have it [laughter]. Moderator: I believe the students might. MP: Whoever asks the first question. And I've got some glasses here. Each of these glasses holds six ounces, Okay? It takes a lot of oil to make a modern fast food hamburger. An astonishing amount of oil. And I did a little research to find out just how much went into this. The oil comes in in several different stages. There is the biggest part, probably: the petroleum needed to create the fertilizer to grow the corn, which is the diet, typically, of these animals. But there's also the moving of that corn, the moving of the burger, the processing, you know, and getting it to a McDonald's near you. So oil. Six ounces. Six more ounces. Eighteen. Twenty-four. Twenty-six. That's a lot of oil to make the burger! And you have to ask yourself: Is the system that produces that burger sustainable? Moderator: Thanks, Michael. Myra, sustainability. Could you define it? Myra Goodman: How do you follow that? MP: With milk, maybe [laughter]. MG: To me, sustainability is protecting and preserving our resources so that they are there for our children, you know? And I think it feels almost impossible for me as a farmer and a manufacturer of a food product to not be consuming a lot of fossil fuels to get our food to market. And I think a big part of this conversation is the population that we're supporting now on this planet, and I think if you look at ... these perfect systems Michael talks about, I think that those little farms work well in a much less populated planet. But New York City is our biggest market, and they don't have the ability to grow any fresh greens there for more than half the year. And we know that eating healthy organic food -- organic produce -- is a great thing for them to be eating, versus eating this burger with...how many ounces? MP: Twenty-six. MG: Twenty-six ounces of oil. So for our company, you know, we feel that we have made great strides in terms of how to farm on a large scale successfully, organically, without all these synthetic inputs, and we work really hard to reduce our use of fossil fuels and water and a lot of valuable resources. And then we've made some great strides -- mostly with post consumer recycled materials. We've switched to post-consumer recycled cardboard and post-consumer recycled plastics with our clam shells. We were the first company to do that. But we're still using a tremendous amount of resources. So I ask myself: Am I leaving this planet better for future generations -- I think in certain ways I am, we are. But in certain ways, we're not, and I don't know how to accomplish that. Gary Smith: Well, the concept of sustainability has been around a long time. We really only started to use the word in the last five years. If you look in a dictionary, the definition is: "to provide nourishment for." And the second definition is: "to be able to prolong or continue." So basically, if you put it together, can you in fact provide nourishment for the foreseeable future? The word sustainability, unless you qualify it, means nothing because it's anything you could keep going. So you have to put some words in front of it. It's really interesting. There's a wonderful article by Liz Sloan in the last issue of Food Technology. She cited nine studies where they had actually gone up to people and said, "Do you use 'sustainability' or 'green' in making purchasing decisions?" Fifty-four to 82 percent of them said yes, we do. They then asked, "What does it mean? What does the word 'sustainability' mean?" Sixty percent of them said, "Huh. I really don't know." And so they said in many of these studies, "Well, what do you think it means?" Of all the answers they were given, the number one answer was "natural." Second was "organic." Third was "locally grown." Fourth was "humanely treated." And then it got into small carbon footprint and so on. So as those of us in universities begin to tackle sustainability, we say there is a "food supply sustainability;" there is an "agriculture sustainability;" And I like commissions like the Pew commission when they said: "What does sustainability mean to animal agriculture?" And the Pew Commission said: "The management of animal agriculture so that it can be maintained indefinitely." Now that doesn't mean forever. And so our task, as people who are involved in agriculture is: We know things are going to change. We know how we're doing at the moment. We want to be able to do the things that are necessary to make sure that we are able to feed 9.1 billion people in the year 2050. So to us, agricultural sustainability is food security: Can we continue to do this the best we can, with all the science and technology we can put into the action, can we continue to feed the world's hungry people? [...] Moderator: What do you believe are the biggest challenges facing the industry? How do we change, or move toward that ideal, that place that you might see out there that's sustainable? MP: Yeah, getting from here to there is a tremendous challenge, and I'm sympathetic to any producer who operates under a system that may or may not be working well for them, but it's very hard to picture how to do it differently. One of the key challenges -- just continuing with this oil issue - T. Boone Pickens says we're going to have $350 a barrel oil within 10 years. We all saw what that did to the food system in 2008. It threw everybody's input system through the roof. And transportation costs. You had big growers out here, when the price of broccoli went from three dollars per box to ten dollars per box to get it to New York City ... buying agricultural land on the east coast to shorten the food supply. So I think one of the metrics that's worth thinking about is, to what extent you can squeeze fossil fuel out of your business model, and replace it with the only source of sustainable energy we really have which is to say solar energy. And the more sun in a system - the more energy that's derived from sun and less from oil, you're moving in the right direction. So I think that's very important. But it's also very important for people to understand that I'm not an agronomist. I'm not a scientist. I teach writing; I teach journalism. And everything I have learned, I have learned by talking to producers and to academics. This is where my information comes from. And I am out looking for models, you know? Good, bad, medium. And I think this is really where the university comes in. I think it is the university's job to be the kind of antenna of the industry. The antenna, you know, looking at what's next, testing new models. Figuring out, you know, how productive could you be putting cows back on grass? How well could local food systems -- foodsheds -- feed a given area? What happens to agriculture at $350 a barrel oil? And it's a reason we all need to support the university, as a place where those questions -- scary as they may be, threatening as they may seem, get tried out. Where we do our test tube experiments. But as an organizing principle, think about that idea of ... just to take you back to your grandparents' age. Pre-war farming: For every calorie of fossil fuel energy we put into the system -- the farm system on the farm -- we got back two calories of food energy. Calories are just measurements of food energy; they could be anything -- could be a Twinkie, could be oil. The modern industrial food system, which I completely acknowledge its achievements in terms of making food really, really cheap ... that is quite an achievement, but you have to look at cost, also. As in everything in life, it's a trade-off. That modern food system, it takes ten calories of fossil fuel energy to produce one calorie of fast food, or processed food. So that again ... can we count on that? I don't think we can. [...] I don't think it's about "Do we want?" This isn't about taste. This isn't about "I like this kind of food and I like that kind of food." This is about the fact that we're entering a kind of scary time characterized by less fossil fuel, less water, climate change -- which is an enormous threat to agriculture. It introduces a whole new level of uncertainty. There are already wine makers in the Napa Valley ... they're already saying it's changing their economy, and they have to adapt and figure out new varieties. So that change is coming whether we want it or not. And the challenge is, do you kind of go into it willing to be experimental, or do you fight? Now, let's take the oil example with the oil industry. Detroit did a fantastic job of defending itself against change. And they have the Congress of the United States, and all the representatives fighting back all the forces that said, "You know, you really need better gas mileage. This is a mistake." And they won. But they lost by winning. And we have to make sure agriculture -- big agriculture, little agriculture, all different types of agriculture -- doesn't find itself in that boat. [...] Moderator: Myra ... what do you see as the challenges you're going to face, and how do you think we might be addressing those? MG: On the macro scale, of course, knowing that our fossil fuel resources are limited and are going to get more expensive, going to get more limited. We're going to get huge water problems in the state. Climate change terrifies me, especially as an organic farmer, because we don't have these silver bullets to deal with pests. And everyone talks about climate change making pests a much bigger problem. I also think when you're a business owner, you also have to look at financial sustainability. And have to look at making an ethical profit, so you can afford to pay your workers a living wage, and get them to return to the farmers that they stay in business. And I think especially in California, what's happening now is that retail has consolidated so much that the last thing I heard was five major retailers own eighty percent of the supermarket space, and there's so many different farmers, and we have no power in these negotiations. There's an auction system for a lot of this business, and you're seeing our margins get really squeezed, and so I think our agenda for financial survival is something that we need to balance with these long term threats. And it would be great, like you were saying, in universities like this, where you're not trying every day to make ends meet and make your payroll and make your company happy, to have some help with some of those big issues that we'll be facing in the future. [...] GS: There's no question that fossil fuels, and the emissions that are called greenhouse gases, are a huge problem. EPA did a study in 2009, and they said, "Where is most of the fossil fuel used, and in which sectors are the most greenhouse gas emissions created?" Number one on that list was the electricity generation. Number two on that list was transportation. Number three on that list was manufacturing. Number four on that list was eight percent of fossil fuels from agriculture. It's very, very difficult for those of us in agriculture - and I have owned a wheat farm; I own part of a natural beef company; I own a laboratory testing company that serves the food industry. Why do we out of our eight percent have to make the price of food increase in order to save fossil fuel? No. Let's don't have a "meatless Monday." Let's have a "no electricity Tuesday." Let's have a "nobody can drive a car Thursday." Why do we focus on eight percent of fossil fuels? I want to feed people. And to tell them we're going to solve their problems by making the cost of food higher? Thirty-one states increased the level of poverty in this last economic downturn. Increasing the price of food is not the route by which to provide food security to us and the world. [... ] MP: It's not as if this system is working so well for farmers. If you look at ... what dairy farmers are doing -- the fact that hog farmers today are losing forty-six bucks for every hog they're growing. Corn and bean farmers this year are projected to lose eight dollars per acre on what they're planting. This regime, based on high efficiency, expensive inputs and overproduction -- sometimes done in the name of feeding the world -- does not really serve the farmer very well. We're producing ourselves into a hole. And yes, there is a larger population coming, but according to the UN, last year, we grew enough food in the world to feed -- as things stand now -- to feed 11 billion people, if we used it as food. We didn't. We put a lot of it in our cars, in our gas tanks. And we fed a lot of it to animals. So we have to look at this question of overproduction. It's almost like built into the DNA of how we do it in America. All of our foreign policies are about "faster, quicker, cheaper." Has that really served us? Has it served us as eaters, and has it served us as growers? The people who have managed to get out of that commodity trap ... figured out another product -- something that was, at the time you started, a really specialized niche, and found new markets. They built new markets. The problem is, over time, you're another commodity, and it's hard to keep innovating that way. Also, cheap food. We all like cheap food. But if you look at what cheap food has done to us, it's not all good. It's true that we spend less than any people who have ever lived on this planet on food. As a percentage of income, it's under 10 percent. I don't know what other industry boasts about the fact that their products are so cheap. And cheap food has given us all sorts of health care problems. Three quarters of the money we spend on health care in this country goes to treat preventable, chronic diseases. And not all of those are food related, but most of them are. So we can pay the farmer, or we can pay the doctor. We're moving toward paying the doctor ... and wouldn't it be better to pay the farmer? From ecotort at gn.apc.org Tue Nov 10 07:28:42 2009 From: ecotort at gn.apc.org (EcoTort) Date: Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:28:42 +0000 Subject: [GJM] 10 Suicides a Month at Ft. Hood -- War Stress Is Taking Soldiers to the Brink Message-ID: <4AF9789A.6020503@gn.apc.org> http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=R0HqwVX7%2BsGEjxQvFAMOoJyEoYKfQSHR PHOENIX, Arizona - While investigators probe for a motive behind the mass shooting at the Fort Hood military base in Texas last Thursday, in which an army psychiatrist killed 13 people, military personnel at the base are in shock as the incident "brings the war home". "We're all in shock," said Specialist Michael Kern, an active-duty veteran of the Iraq war, told Inter Press Service (IPS) by telephone. Kern, who is based at Fort Hood, served in Iraq from March 2007 to March 2008. "Every single person that I've talked to is in shock," Kern added. "I'm surprised this hits so close to home, but at the same time, I knew something like this was going to happen given what else is happening - the war is coming home, and something needs to be done. Innocent civilians are being wounded and killed here at home by soldiers, and this is completely unacceptable," he said. The gunman, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, entered a Soldier Readiness Center (SRC), where troops get medical evaluations and complete paperwork just prior to being deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, and opened fire with two non-military issued handguns. Hasan killed 13 people, 12 of them soldiers, and wounded over 30 others, before being shot four times by a civilian police officer. Hasan is now in stable condition in a local hospital, where he is in the custody of military authorities. Colonel John Rossi, a spokesman at Fort Hood, told reporters that Hasan was "stable and in one of our civilian hospitals". Rossi added, "He's on a ventilator." Hasan, 39, joined the army just out of high school. He had counseled wounded war veterans at Walter Reed Hospital, and was transferred to Fort Hood in April. He had recently received orders to deploy to Afghanistan. His cousin, Nader Hasan, has said in media interviews that Hasan was very reluctant to be deployed overseas and had agitated not to be sent. "We've known over the last five years that was probably his worst nightmare," he said. Responding to the allegations in the media that the attack was based on his Muslim faith, Kern told IPS that he did not know of anyone on the base who felt this was the case. "We all wear the same uniform here, it's all green. I've seen the news, but most folks here assume it's just a soldier that snapped," Kern explained. "I have not talked to anyone who thinks what he did has anything to do with him being a Muslim. There are thousands of Muslims serving with dignity in the US military, in all four branches." Fort Hood, located in central Texas, is one of the largest US military bases in the world. It contains up to 50,000 soldiers, and is one of the most heavily deployed to both occupations. Tragically, Fort Hood has also born much of the brunt from its heavy involvement in the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. Fort Hood soldiers have accounted for more suicides than any other army post since the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. This year alone, the base is averaging over 10 suicides each month - at least 75 have been recorded through July of this year alone. In a strikingly similar incident on May 11, 2009, a US soldier gunned down five fellow soldiers at a stress-counseling center at a US base in Baghdad. Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the US military's Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters at a news conference at the Pentagon at the time that the shootings had occurred in a place where "individuals were seeking help". Mullen added, "It does speak to me, though, about the need for us to redouble our efforts, the concern in terms of dealing with the stress ... It also speaks to the issue of multiple deployments." Commenting on the incident in nearly parallel terms, US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said that the Pentagon needs to redouble its efforts to relieve stress caused by repeated deployments in war zones that is further exacerbated by limited time at home in between deployments. The condition described by Mullen and Gates is what veteran health experts often refer to as post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. While soldiers returning home are routinely involved in shootings, suicide and other forms of self-destructive violent behaviors as a direct result of their experiences in Iraq, we have yet to see an event of this magnitude on a base in the US. To many, the shocking story of a soldier killing five of his comrades did not come as a surprise considering that the military has, for years now, been sending troops with untreated PTSD back into the US occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. According to an Armed Forces Health Surveillance Center analysis, reported in the Denver Post in August 2008, more than "43,000 service members - two-thirds of them in the army or army reserve - were classified as non-deployable for medical reasons three months before they deployed" to Iraq. In April 2008, the Rand Corporation released a stunning report revealing that, "Nearly 20% of military service members who have returned from Iraq and Afghanistan - 300,000 in all -- report symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder or major depression, yet only slightly more than half have sought treatment." President Barack Obama, speaking during an event at the Department of the Interior in Washington, said that the mass shooting at Fort Hood was a "horrific outburst of violence". He added: "It is horrifying that they [US soldiers] should come under fire at an army base on American soil." Victor Agosto, an Iraq war veteran who was discharged from the military after publicly refusing to deploy to Afghanistan, has had first-hand experience with the SRC at Fort Hood, where he too was based. "I knew there would be a confrontation when I was there, because the only reason to do that process is to deploy," Agosto, speaking to IPS near Fort Hood, explained. Agosto was court-martialed for refusing an order to go to the SRC to prepare to deploy to Afghanistan. "I was court-martialed for refusing the order to SRC in that very same building. I didn't enter the building, but I didn't go in because I was refusing the process," Agosto continued. "It's a pretty important place in my life, so it's interesting to me that this happened there." From mukhtaralam2000 at yahoo.com Wed Nov 11 03:42:31 2009 From: mukhtaralam2000 at yahoo.com (Dr.Muhammad Mukhtar Alam) Date: Wed, 11 Nov 2009 16:12:31 +0530 (IST) Subject: [GJM] Call for accelerating action by the government for getting the money back to India In-Reply-To: <231042.15118.qm@web112111.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <231042.15118.qm@web112111.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <143483.99508.qm@web94916.mail.in2.yahoo.com> Dear Milap ji, Thanks for sharing . We need to get this back as this belongs to people of India?and ensure that ecolgocically safe health,education?and trade support systems are created in rural India. Earlier, the government had?assured that actions are underway.?Let us call for accelerating the process of retrieving all the money that has been earned illegally and deposited in foreign banks. All this money can be used for ecologically safe projects and we can be free from the usurious debt based ecologically hostile money from IFIs. I am marking a copy of this letter for the honorable President and Prime Minister of India for the needful. ?Dr.Muhammad Mukhtar Alam 58-C, Top Floor,DDA Janta Flats, Ashok Vihar-III,Delhi-110052,India Tel:+9968345380 http://slideshare.net/mukhtaralam http://transitionurbanindia.ning.com http://ecostrategiccommunicators.ning.com http://muhammad_mukhtar_alam.tigblog.org ________________________________ From: Milap Choraria To: rti-times at lists.riseup.net Sent: Wed, 11 November, 2009 6:47:48 AM Subject: [rti-times] G20 Finance Minister's Meeting Let-down the Promises. G20 Meeting Let-down November 9, 2009 Author: Clark Gascoigne Clark Gascoigne is the new media coordinator at the Task Force on Financial Integrity & Economic Development. He also serves as the new media coordinator for Global Financial Integrity. The G20 Finance ministers met in St. Andrews, Scotland on Friday and Saturday, culminating with the release of a fairly weak communiqu?. ?Action Aid had the following comments on the joint statement: At today?s G20 meeting, Finance Ministers have failed to keep the promise they made to developing countries in April, ActionAid says. >At the London summit in April, the G20 made a commitment to deliver proposals on tax havens to benefit developing countries by the end of 2009. But today?s communiqu? merely suggests ?the possible use of a multilateral instrument? for this purpose. >ActionAid?s Martin Hearson, who is at the summit, said: ?This is a real disappointment. The communiqu? is vague and unsubstantiated and leaves developing nations out in the cold as far as tackling tax evasion is concerned. >?We now have a two two-tier system: tax havens must exchange information with rich countries or face the threat of powerful sanctions, but there is no pressure on them to do the same with poorer nations, which suffer the most from tax evasion. >?The G20 promised that developing countries would not be left out of the tax haven crackdown, and today was their last chance. They?ve gone back on that promise ? at least for now. Task Force member Christian Aid echoed Action Aid?s sentiment, calling the statement a ?broken promise?: G20 Finance ministers today forfeited an historic opportunity to enable developing countries to claw back the billions of dollars that they currently lose each year to tax dodgers, says Christian Aid. >In April, G20 Ministers promised to produce a plan by the end of this year to help developing countries benefit from global cooperation on tax matters. >The meeting in St Andrews was the last chance for them to fulfil their pledge. They have failed to deliver anything concrete ? only that a global deal is a vague possibility. >Christian Aid calculates that at present, tax dodging by multinational companies is robbing poor countries of at least $160 billion every year. >This money, if spent in the same way as existing tax revenues, would save the lives of 350,000 children under the age of five every year. >?We understand the that the UK government did everything in its power to push for a multilateral deal on tax information sharing, but were unable to ensure concrete progress,? says Dr David McNair, Christian Aid?s Senior Economic Adviser. >?We are disappointed but this means there is an even more urgent need to ensure progress going forward. >?A multilateral deal would have been better than the present situation, in which tax havens do bilateral deals with other countries, almost all of which are rich. This does nothing for developing countries. >?A global agreement is now a possibility, but it is incumbent on the G20 to ensure rapid progress, towards *multilateral *and *automatic *sharing of tax information, with a review process to ensure that the system is working. >?Only then are poor countries likely to get the information they need in order to claw back some of the billions of dollars that they lose each year to tax dodgers ? money they urgently need in order to improve public services such as health and education.? Tax Justice Network unveils haven blacklist Written by Becky Ashall Accountancy Age, 10 Nov 2009 The Tax Justice Network has compiled a league table of what it considers to be the world?s most secretive tax havens, including the USA (Delaware), Luxembourg and Switzerland. The Financial Secrecy Index ,evaluates the transparency of each haven and their willingness to cooperate with other countries tax operations. Christian Aid was also involved in the project, which saw researchers with a concern about the harmful impacts of tax avoidance, tax competition and tax havens draw up the index. John Christensen, director of the Tax Justice Network?s international secretariat, believed secrecy was a core feature of the global financial system and jurisdictions compete with each other to provide it in order to attract financial flows. "But this comes at a price," said Christensen. "Financial secrecy provides cover for all manner of crimes and abusive practices: money laundering, tax evasion and avoidance, insider trading, terrorist financing, embezzlement, Ponzi schemes, illicit financial flows, fraud and much more." "The Financial Secrecy Index shows just how entrenched the problem of financial secrecy is. The index is an important tool that highlights the desperate need for new rules in international finance that would make the disclosure of information between different tax jurisdictions automatic." OPACITY SCORE/ Global Scale Weight/ Opacity Financial Secrecy Index Value / Financial Secrecy 92 0,17767? 84,6? 1503,80? 187 0,14890? 75,7? 1127,02? 2100 0,05134 100,0? 513,40??? 392 0,04767?? 84,6??403,48??? 442 0,19716?? 17,6??347,79???? 562 0,03739?? 38,4? 143,73???? 692 0,01445?? 84,6? 122,30??? 779 0,01752?? 62,4? 109,34??? 873 0,01475?? 53,3? 78,60????? 962 0,01986???38,4? 76,34?? 1087 0,01007 75,7 76,22 1191 0,00511 82,8 42,32 1279 0,00580 62,4 36,20 1392 0,00278 84,6 23,53 1458 0,00689 33,6 23,18 1592 0,00177 84,6 14,98 1692 0,00146 84,6 12,36 1775 0,00206 56,3 11,59 1892 0,00128 84,6 10,83 1990 0,00128 81,0 10,37 2083 0,00126 68,9 8,68 2175 0,00136 56,3 7,65 22100 0,00072 100,0 7,20 2383 0,00084 68,9 5,79 2483 0,00074 68,9 5,10 2575 0,00073 56,3 4,11 2691 0,00032 82,8 2,65 27100 0,00026 100,0 2,60 2887 0,00025 75,7 1,89 2987 0,00024 75,7 1,82 3092 0,00018 84,6 1,52 3196 0,00013 92,2 1,20 32100 0,00011 100,0 1,10 3392 0,00006 84,6 0,51 34100 0,00005 100,0 0,50 3583 0,00004 68,9 0,28 36100 0,00002 100,0 0,20 3775 0,00002 56,3 0,11 38100 0,00001 100,0 0,10 joint 39100 0,00001 100,0 0,10 joint 39100 0,00001 100,0 0,10 joint 39100 0,00001 100,0 0,10 joint 39100 0,00001 100,0 0,10 joint 39100 0,00001 100,0 0,10 joint 39100 0,00001 100,0 0,10 joint 3992 0,00001 84,6 0,08 joint 4692 0,00001 84,6 0,08 joint 4692 0,00001 84,6 0,08 joint 4692 0,00001 84,6 0,08 joint 4692 0,00001 84,6 0,08 joint 4692 0,00001 84,6 0,08 joint 4692 0,00001 84,6 0,08 joint 4692 0,00001 84,6 0,08 joint 4690 0,00001 81,0 0,08 5487 0,00001 75,7 0,08 joint 5587 0,00001 75,7 0,08 joint 5583 0,00001 68,9 0,07 5780 0,00001 64,0 0,06 5879 0,00001 62,4 0,06 5967 0,00001 44,9 0,04 60 FINANCIAL SECRECY INDEX - FINAL RANKING - EMBARGOED UNTIL 00h01 01-11-2009 Secrecy Jurisdiction Component Value/ Index Rank USA USA (Delaware)?? Luxembourg????????????????? Switzerland????????????????? (India should not forget that Switzerland is still amongst 3 top Haven Centers, that is why Politicain like Madhu Koda reportedly choosen it for transfer his illegal ) Cayman Islands??????????? United Kingdom (City of London)??????????????????? Ireland??????????????????????????? Bermuda??????????????????????? Singapore????????????????????? Belgium????????????????????????? Hong Kong??????????????????? Jersey Austria Guernsey Bahrain Netherlands British Virgin Islands Portugal (Madeira) Cyprus Panama Israel Malta Hungary Malaysia (Labuan) Isle of Man Philippines Latvia Lebanon Barbados Macao Uruguay United Arab Emirates (Dubai) Mauritius Bahamas Costa Rica Vanuatu Aruba Belize Netherlands Antilles Brunei* Dominica* Samoa* Seychelles* St Lucia* St Vincent & Grenadines* Turks & Caicos Islands* Antigua & Barbuda* Cook Islands* Gibraltar* Grenada* Marshall Islands* Nauru* St Kitts & Nevis* US Virgin Islands* Liberia* Liechtenstein* Anguilla* Andorra* Maldives* Montserrat* Monaco* * Jurisdictions marked with an asterix are ranked according to their opacity score. Banking Secrecy Is Alive and Well, Claim Supporters Wall Street Journal, November 9, 2009 When UBS, the Swiss bank, agreed in August to hand over some 4,450 names of U.S. account holders as part of a tax settlement between the Swiss and U.S. authorities, it appeared to sound the death knell for banking secrecy in Switzerland - one of the main selling points for the country's financial institutions. However, Swiss politicians and local bankers said that the agreement did not mean the U.S. authorities would be given information on all the offshore accounts held by Americans in Switzerland. Instead, information would only be supplied when tax authorities from another country had provable evidence of a tax fraud by an offshore account holder. Swiss foreign minister, Micheline Calmy-Rey, was instrumental in negotiating a settlement between the US and UBS. TRUTH SHALL ALWAYS PREVAIL Milap Choraria? Editor: Suchna Ka Adhikar / RTI TIMES National Convenor : Movement for Accountability to Public (MAP) http://milapchoraria.tripod.com/msp The INTERNET now has a personality. YOURS! See your Yahoo! Homepage. http://in.yahoo.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk Wed Nov 11 05:32:39 2009 From: dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk (Robert Searle) Date: 11 Nov 2009 04:32:39 -0800 Subject: [GJM] Bank " open-minded" about more stimulus  - Yahoo! News UK Message-ID: Robert Searle (dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk) has sent you a news article X-Originating-IP: 77.238.190.41 -------------------- Personal message text: Might be of interest. -------------------- Bank "open-minded" about more stimulus?? http://uk.news.yahoo.com/22/20091111/tuk-uk-britain-bank-fa6b408.html ============================================================ From maryrose333 at att.net Tue Nov 10 17:35:52 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Tue, 10 Nov 2009 16:35:52 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: [globalnetnews-summary] Scientific American's Path to Sustainability: Let's Think about the Details Message-ID: <005601ca6267$17428770$45c79650$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS As indicated by the Ecological Footprint, by the year 2030, we will need the equivalent of 1 more earth in order to provide all of the resources necessary to supply 9 billion people on the Earth. Which means we are at the present time ecologically-bankrupt. We definitely need a more down to earth approach to tomorrow. While mining the waste dumps and retrieving some resources will ease the pressure, there is a question as to how many dumps can be mined and what equipment will be used to do the job. While Dr. Vernon Woolf has a plasmic field generator that will do the job, the question is how many of these can be built and put into service by the time the materials are desperately needed. Check out "the Phoenix Project" on the menu on his website www.holodynamics.com for more information. What is so sad about articles like this one is that the authors cannot even seem to conceive of any new technology that could come on line that would begin to ease the problem. And here again, the author uses the words "local agriculture" when the trend is toward "local permaculture". What is readily apparent, at least to me, is that we cannot continue to rely on "jobs" to provide people with incomes with which to purchase the necessities of life. The reason being that what we refer to as "jobs" are changing so rapidly that it will be difficult for people to retrain quickly enough to apply their skills for very long. And, the more practical way to get things done as nanotechnology and bio-mimicry quickly replace "industrial human labor" is to use advanced technology which is far more appropriate for the job as human hands are too large to handle the small parts associated with nanotechnology. Indeed, some articles I have been reading are predicting that technology will change so fast that manufacturers will have to train any human laborers necessary "on the job" as there will be no time to train people in schools and get them in place when the technology is ready. We must quickly change the way we "think" about jobs and the new technology because we cannot solve the challenges we face today with the same type of thinking that created them. Yet, I don't really experience much 'new think' as I read the hundreds of articles that cross my desktop each day. -----Original Message----- From: globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net [mailto:globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net] On Behalf Of TradingPostPaul Sent: Monday, November 09, 2009 8:02 PM To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] Scientific American's Path to Sustainability: Let's Think about the Details "The problem is that we really don't have 50 years to make a transition. We already are on the downslope. We should have started back in the 1960s with a project like this... Instead of the high tech approach advocated by Scientific American, we may want to find solutions that can be done locally, with local materials. For example, we may want to encourage local agriculture." Scientific American's Path to Sustainability: Let's Think about the Details by Gail Tverberg http://www.theoildrum.com/node/5939 Published Nov 8 2009 by The Oil Drum, Archived Nov 9 2009 Scientific American presents "A Path to Sustainable Energy by 2030" in its November issue. In many ways, it sounds good. But let's think about the details: What would the end result look like? Would it really be sustainable? What would the costs really be? Is there any way we could afford to do what is proposed? The authors of the article, Mark Jacobson and Mark Delucchi, propose substituting wind, water, and solar (WWS) energy for all other forms of energy by 2030, not for just the US, but for the world. The types of energy sources that would be eliminated include the following: . Petroelum (including gasoline, diesel, propane, heating oil, etc.) . Natural gas . Coal . Liquid biofuels, such as ethanol . Wood and other biomass . Nuclear All that would remain would be wind, wave power, tidal energy, hydroelectric, geothermal, and solar. Because of the ambitious timeframe, the only techniques that can be used are ones that work at large scale today, or are very close to working. What would we end up with? Essentially, we would need to change all of the world's infrastructure to use either electricity or solar or water power directly--by 2030. What might this mean? . Airplanes. The authors propose that airplanes be powered by hydrogen powered fuel cells (with the hydrogen be made by hydrolysis using WWS energy sources). I understand that hydrogen is three times as bulky as gasoline, explodes easily, and escapes fairly quickly from its holding tanks, making it difficult to store for very long. It seems like airplanes and helicopters would need to look more like blimps, to hold the necessary fuel. Unless the explosion issue is solved, the popularity of hydrogen fuel cells would likely be pretty low. . Ships. The authors don't tell us how ships would be powered. Clearly sailing ships would meet the criteria, but would be quite slow. Because of their slow time for passage, we would need a lot more sailing ships than the types of ships we use now, because so many would be in transit at a given time. Barges could float down rivers, and if the current isn't too strong, could perhaps be towed back in some way (boat with fuel cell?). Ships powered by hydrogen fuel cells might also work, but they would have the same issues as for airplanes. Because of their long trips, leakage would be more of an issue than on airplanes. . Automobiles and Trucks. According to the authors, these would be powered by batteries or hydrogen powered fuel cells. There are several issues--the technology is only barely there for automobiles and trucks--for example, I don't know of anyone working on battery-powered technology for long distance trucking. Fuel cell technology is very expensive. David Strahan in The Last Oil Shock says that the current cost is about $1 million dollars per car. He quotes the chief engineer at Honda as saying it would take 10 years to get the cost down to $100,000 a car. Minerals shortages are also likely to be a problem for converting autos and trucks to batteries or to hydrogen fuel cells. The Scientific American article mentions following materials as being in short supply: rare-earth metals for electric motors, lithium for lithium-ion batteries and platinum for fuel cells. The article mentions recycling as a partial solution. Analyses published at The Oil Drum, such as this one, indicate that we would likely run out of rare materials fairly quickly, even with recycling. . Farm equipment; bulldozers; cement mixers; and other heavy equipment. Would need to be converted to electric. It is not clear that the technology (or rare materials needed for the technology) exist to do so. . Heating of buildings; heating for cooking and baking; hot water heating; commercial heating; heating of grains to remove excess moisture. Would need to be converted to electric, or in some cases solar. This would be true, even where heating is now done over wood or charcoal fires, such as in Africa or China. . Mining and manufacturing. Would need to be converted to all electric. Presumably oil and natural gas extraction would continue, but at possibly lower rates, because of their uses for non-energy uses, such as textiles, asphalt, plastics and lubrication. Drilling for oil and gas would be converted to electric as well. What steps would be needed to build all of these things? It seems like we would first need to figure out what the end point would look like, and then work backwards. We are told that the authors of the Scientific American article think we would need the following: . 3.8 million large wind turbines . 90,000 solar electricity generating plants . "Numerous geothermal, tidal, and rooftop photovoltaic installations" Besides these, we would need to build all of the new airplanes, ships, cars, trucks, heavy equipment, and new appliances that would be needed under the new regime. Individual homeowners would need to get their homes rewired for the larger amount of electricity they would use--especially if they are converting to electric home heating. One thing we need to plan for is a greatly expanded and improved electrical grid. The Scientific American article indicates that the variability in generation would be mostly smoothed out by combining electrical transmission of many different types--wind, hydroelectric, solar, geothermal, and wave--over a wide geographical area. To do this will require considerable long distance transmission, often between different countries--including some that may not be friendly with each other. The grid will also need to be upgraded to be "smart," so automobiles can draw electric power at the times of day when it is not needed elsewhere. Once we have figured out what the new system will look like, we will need to figure out what kind of factories are needed to build all of the devices for the new system, and what raw materials the factories will need. Some of the raw materials can perhaps be obtained by recycling, and some factories can perhaps be obtained by converting other factories, but this won't always be the case. It is likely that new factories will need to be built, and new mines opened, especially for the rare minerals. By the time we start seeing many finished good produced, it is likely that we will be at least half way through the 20 year period. In part, this is because we are still working out technology details (for example, how to efficiently build a hydrogen fuel cell powered airplane). Also, once we get those details worked out, we need to build mines for raw materials and build the factories to make the new devices. It is only when we get those steps taken care of that we can build what we really want--the airplanes, the new ships, the wind turbines, the solar PV, and all of the rest. When sizing the factories, we will need to size them not for "normal" production levels, but for converting the economy quickly to use the new power sources. For example, under normal circumstances, if earth-moving equipment is expected to last for 40 years, we would expect to need factories to make 1/40 of the world's needed earth-moving equipment in a given year. But if we need to ramp up to replacement in 10 years, we will need 4 times as many factories. (What do we do with the excess factories at the end?) How much would this all cost? The authors tell us that they expect the cost of the new WWS energy generation equipment would be $100 trillion over 20 years. But that doesn't include the cost of all the new infrastructure to go with it--the new airplanes and ships and cars and trucks, or the electrical transmission lines. In total, the cost will be far higher than $100 trillion--lets guess $200 trillion--to be paid for over the next 20 years. The Scientific American article gives the impression that the costs will be low, because it looks only at the cost the new electricity generation, and assumes that cost of generation will go down with volume and with additional research. It also implicitly assumes that debt financing over a long period, such as 40 years, will be used, so we don't have to pay for the cost of the new system before we start using it. But how realistic is that? The cars, trucks, boats, airplanes, coal fired power plants, etc. we are currently using won't have much trade-in value once power is generated by WWS, and the new equipment will likely be fairly expensive. So we will be faced with buying new high priced equipment, with little trade-in value from what we used previously. In many cases, businesses would not normally be replacing equipment this soon. The debt that was taken on to pay for all of our current equipment won't magically go away either--it will still need to be paid. So how will we pay for all of the new equipment? The governments of the world are pretty much maxed out for borrowing. Companies are not going to be able to take on a project of this magnitude either, especially since they already have debt to service. It seems to me that the only way a program such as the program of WWS fuels replacing other fuels can be financed is through increased taxes that would cover each year's expenditures, as they are made. So let's think about how much this would cost. $200 trillion over 20 years amounts to $10 trillion a year, spread over world economies. The US share of this would be something around 21%, based on the ratio of US GDP to world GDP. So let's say that the US would need to fund $2.1 trillion a year. Let's compare this to current taxes. In 2008, US Federal, State, and Local taxes combined amounted to $4.1 trillion according to the US Bureau of Economic Analysis. In order to collect $2.1 trillion more, a tax increase equal to slightly more than 50% of all taxes currently paid would be required. If the additional tax were collected as a percentage of "personal income" (which includes wages, social security income, rents, dividends, etc.), it would amount to 17% of personal income. It seems unlikely that a tax of this magnitude, or even half of this magnitude, would be agreed to by tax payers. If such a tax were passed, after a few years there would be benefits that would start offsetting its cost, and might lead to a lower tax, and after 2030, perhaps lower costs overall, because it is no longer necessary to purchase fossil fuels. The benefits that would start offsetting costs would be sales of electricity and other energy, and sales or leasing of vehicles and other goods produced. Many of the sales of goods would be going to replace automobiles that had worn out, factories beyond their useful life, and ships that no longer had value to the owners. But there is a remaining issue. There will be a lot of assets which would still have considerable value in 2030, if it weren't for the new law. For example, a new car with an internal combustion engine that was manufactured in 2028 will still have considerable value, and a gas fired stove a homeowner owns will still have value, even though he needs to replace it with an electric one. A coal fired power plant built in 1980 is likely to still have value, apart from this law, and so will all of the tankers used for international transport of oil, and all of the natural gas pipelines. Should the owners of these assets be compensated for value of their otherwise-useful assets? There is nothing built into the tax to do so. It would seem to me that these owners should be compensated, even if it takes a higher tax to do so. In part, this compensation could come in the form of "trade in" value, if a new automobile or electric stove or other item is purchased. But suppose the assets that lose value belong to businesses, and aren't easily traded in for corresponding asset--such as a coal fired power plant, or natural gas pipelines. I would argue that compensation for the remaining value of these is really needed as well. The assets that will lose value because of the new law are typically owned by a company. The stocks and bonds of these companies will generally have a wide variety of owners--very often pension plans, insurance companies, endowment funds, and individuals saving for their retirements. If the otherwise-useful assets of these companies are taken without compensation, the companies are likely to default on their bonds, and the stocks of these companies will lose value. This will mean that some pension funds will not be able to pay their promised payments, and some life insurance policies will not pay as promised. If there is no compensation to these companies by a tax or some sort, the loss will flow through the system and hit others--with retirees likely hit the hardest. So there will be a loss to the system, one way or another. How sustainable would this system be? There are a number of weak areas in this system: . There are not likely to be enough rare minerals (and even not-so-rare minerals), to make all of the desired high-tech end products. Recycling will help, but it is likely that the system will run into a bottleneck in not very many years. . The system will use a huge number of electrical transmission lines. These transmission lines are subject to all kinds of disturbances--hurricane or other windstorm destruction, forest fires, land or snow slide, malicious destruction by those not happy for some reason (perhaps those unhappy by wealth disparities). Fixing lines that need repair will be challenging. We currently use helicopters and specialized equipment. These would need to be adequately adapted to a system without fossil fuels. . If electricity is out in an area, pretty much all activity in an area will stop (except that powered by local PV), and there will be no back-up generators. Residents will not be able to recharge vehicles, so they will quickly become useless. Even vehicles coming into an area may get stranded for lack of recharge capability. Food deliveries and water may be a problem. The current system at least offers some options--back-up generators, and cars and trucks powered by petroleum that one can drive away. . Operating the system will require a huge amount of international co-operation, because the transmission system will cross country lines. If one country becomes unable to pay its share, or fails to make repairs, it could be a problem. . All of the high tech manufacturing will require considerable international co-operation and trade. This could be interrupted by debt defaults by major players, or by countries hoarding raw materials, or by difficulty in producing enough ships and airplanes to handle international trade. . The system clearly can't continue forever. It could be stopped by a lack of rare minerals, or international disputes, or lack of adequate international trade. The system doesn't provide any natural transition to a truly sustainable future. For example, food production is likely to still be done using industrial agriculture, with the food that is produced shipped to consumers a long distance away. It will be difficult to transition to a system which is truly sustainable at the point the system stops working. What would a reasonable timeframe for transition be? It seems to me that a reasonable timeframe for a transition such as that discussed in the Scientific American article would be 50 years, rather than 20 years suggested in the Scientific American article. With such a timeframe, there will be a little more time to fine tune technology, so as to find cost-efficient solutions that scale well. We also have more time to use the factories that are built, so that we don't have to overbuild, just to meet a deadline. Costs are likely to much easier to handle, since there will not be as much of an overlap issue. In addition, there will be much less problem of having to dispose of other-wise useful assets. The problem is that we really don't have 50 years to make a transition. We already are on the downslope. We should have started back in the 1960s with a project like this. It seems to me that all we can do is a very much reduced version of an approach such as the one described in the Scientific American article. Given the timing, we may not even want to do an approach such as described in the article. The approach described assumes a high level of international trade continuing long-term. This is a fairly optimistic assumption, given the difficulty of air and ship transportation without fossil fuels. Instead of the high tech approach advocated by Scientific American, we may want to find solutions that can be done locally, with local materials. For example, we may want to encourage local agriculture. For industry, we may want to look at solutions that have worked in the past, such as wind powered factories, as discussed in this recent post. These were built with local materials, and were used to power factories directly, without conversion to electricity. With such solutions, a transition to a truly sustainable future will be much more of a possibility. From mukhtaralam2000 at yahoo.com Wed Nov 11 04:15:11 2009 From: mukhtaralam2000 at yahoo.com (Dr.Muhammad Mukhtar Alam) Date: Wed, 11 Nov 2009 16:45:11 +0530 (IST) Subject: [GJM] Allah , The Master of Universes and Muhammad, Science in Islamic Khilafah/Nations and Spain in 15-16 century In-Reply-To: <996567.99174.qm@web45502.mail.sp1.yahoo.com> References: <996567.99174.qm@web45502.mail.sp1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <172671.39153.qm@web94909.mail.in2.yahoo.com> Dear Mr.Yousuf Tabish and those who do not understand the difference between the Creator and the creation,?expereince of sceintific work in Islamic societies and Spain in 15-16 century AD ? Greeting?for peace, ? With praises to Allah/...../ known with various names and salam?to the messengers, I request?you to see your post dated 10 October?in which you demonstrate your serious misunderstanding?about the?existence of?Allah?,understanding of the concept of?the?Creator and the?mission of messenger who?were chosen?among the human beings across the time and across the lands. I think recognising the fact of the practice of Muslims of?sending salam to all the?messengers should be?able to delete your misunderstanding that?Muslims and Muslimas of the world only recognise Muhammad, the last messenger of Allah. Muslim recognise and believe in the continuity of the message for defining the aspects of daily life, deeds,thoughts, consumption etc.?? Muslims and Muslimas are nearly are one third of the world population and that is?a big number. If?you are following the?ethos of democracy, multiculturalism then you should honor this rather than?presenting your horrendous falsehoods and abusive and offensive ignorance about Allah and the last messenger?in this email thread that includes, I?guess, some of?the key communicators of Islamic standards. Even, Dr.Shabbir?and Muhammad Irtaza who are advocating?fresh interpretations?of the Holy Qur?an would denounce you for?insinuating a human?like existence of 'Allah' in interrogative mode.?Do?you choose keyboard while drunk? It is likely as even those supporting atheistic communism among non-Muslims and those advocating the atheistic neo-liberal 'western' ethos involved in the design of political-cultural order within and across the nations largely do not have?this misunderstanding. ? ???? ?There are some who have misunderstanding on this among the polytheists. I recall late Prof.Anima Sen, my teacher who liked my paper on history of experimental psychology and once shared about Muslims that they worship Moon. I know for sure, that you would not have this misunderstanding as you perhaps know about Tawhid and Raslat being the first and foremost faith of the Muslims and all those who followed the Islam of earlier messengers. Are you following some atheistic feminist writers, who have this misunderstanding of the Allah, the Master of the Day of Judgment and who think that prohibitions and prescription that are gender neutral in Islam are part of constitutive elements of Abrahamic ?patriarchy?? Sister Zeenat, a scholar of the Holy Qur?an may cite verses that are addressed to Muslims and Muslimas together with the good news for them. Even I?have sharing?my academic conclusion for global adoption of monotheistic frameworks in the forums of UNDP http://capacity.org/undp ,World Bank, Global Justice Movement http://globaljusticemovement.net International Simultaneously Policy Organisation http://simpol.org and others, but, never ever, I had?came across such?an offensive and abusive demonstration of? the ignorance of Islam.? I do not know what is your age and academic background.?I would be grateful to learn about that in order to make my response more meaningful for you as, there are times, when Muslims and Muslimas are likely to get in the atheistic neo-liberal?and atheistic communist traps in certain contexts?due to various reasons. In early nineties, I?had?fallen in that trap. You may like to see a reflection of this?in some of drawings that I?would send for you?, in case ,you are?interested. ? You may see that I greeted peace for you recognising the great Islamic teaching, practice of Muslims and Muslimas?and then with a prayer that you may get teh guidance from the Creator of universes. M. Shafiq Khan saheb has presented the rules for the existence of galactic bodies, planetary systems and asked a question as to the entity, who has the last control. Allah has control of the visions and knows the deepest desire of our hearts. Discovery of the rules?that exist in the material world?has never been a matter of Islamic prohibition.?Elsewhere, I appear to defending inter-faith commons, recognizing the activities of some church leaders for people like Galileo and Bruno created a slew of writings that called for separation of state and religion and then among the philosopher, there emerged some who sought liberation from the prohibitive church. Do you share me of on Muslim ruler or your so-called 'Mullah'?who killed people for generating works for improving the human condition. Would you blame all following Jesus, as Muslims understand him as messenger for the persecution of Galileo?? Sunnahof Allah?does not change and it changes following the will of the Almighty. Please understand the need for one unifying framework for addressing the global challenges that we face. Do you have one? I have denounced Richard Falk as?while calling for the adoption of the mode of 'citizen pilgrim', he did not understand the?lack of unanimity among?psychiatrists and psychologists?about?the understanding of homosexuality and called for generation of affirmative legal regulatory regime for its adoption?among men and women. My Marxist friend told me that even for Karl Marx, it was an abomination.? Please forgive me, if I?have sounded offensive some where. I am saying this in?abidance to the commands for using the best means of dialogue and seeking forgiveness for the violation of ''.?Ibadhuququl ????????? Please know the distinction of the Criterion for the issues that are clearly articulated and the deeds of people like me endeavouring to be on the path. My sins are mine and your sins are yours. I am not responsible for your sins. , you are responsible for mine. I am writing specially to address the misunderstanding of Islam based on the misdeeds of some who were and are identified with following Islam.Mary Rose, an advocate of holodynamicconsciousness and Christ like consciousness has issues with the followers and the religion. Even then, I have been arguing for the adoption of culture of prayer 5 times a day for transforming ecologically hostile leisure, building climate resilient local self reliant communities across the nations as Muslims and Muslimas are practicing this across the nations reducing their carbon prints and securing eternal wellbeing. Neither Please understand that adoption of Eternal Islam of the messengers and sheep herders is an ecological imperative. Leisure use patterns need to change with the adoption of faith based carbon-neutral measures. Usurious finance system has to be demolished for halting the expansion of ecologically hostile habitats, securing ecologically sustainable habitats in the rural areas, and transforming ecologically hostile habitats in the urban areas. Government of Britain, you may see has been calling for traveling 5 km less every day. How does this happen? You see faith based carbon neutral measures works the best along with other activities at home and in the neighbourhoods. ????????? You may choose to repent and feel better. The door of repentance is open till death only and we never know the time of death. It is better to repent now. You may repeat this 100 times. It is better to repent now. ????????? With?earnest prayers for your temporal and eternal wellbeing, I seek a shower of grace and guidance for you. May the guidance to all increase day by day and may more and more start praying for the same. ? Yours sincerelyDr.Muhammad Mukhtar Alam 58-C, Top Floor,DDA Janta Flats, Ashok Vihar-III,Delhi-110052,India Tel:+9968345380 http://slideshare.net/mukhtaralam http://transitionurbanindia.ning.com http://ecostrategiccommunicators.ning.com http://muhammad_mukhtar_alam.tigblog.org ________________________________ From: Yousuf Tabish To: M Shafiq Khan ; rishidwivedi1 at gmail.com; mikeghouse at aol.com; Yousuf Tabish ; saleem khan ; zina.khan at yahoo.com; mukhtaralam2000 at yahoo.com; badshahkha at gmail.com; bintwaleed at yahoo.com; tarekfatah at rogers.com; farrukhabidi at yahoo.com; Atif Sahib ; butshikan at msn.com; drshabbir at comcast.net; zakhum at hotmail.com; yunussidira at yahoo.com; Doctor Sohail ; shariq.hamid at yahoo.co.in; Abdul Aziz Khattak ; badshahanizer at gmail.com; ahumanb at yahoo.com Sent: Tue, 10 November, 2009 11:36:15 PM Subject: Re: Science v/s religion ! Followers of arab religion always use mohammed and allah together.Is?their allah gay?They always use "peace be upon him" for mohammed.Is their allah screwing mohamed very hard?Just a question you know. Yousef Tabish --- On Mon, 11/9/09, M Shafiq Khan wrote: >From: M Shafiq Khan >Subject: Re: Science v/s religion ! >To: "saleem khan" , zina.khan at yahoo.com, mukhtaralam2000 at yahoo.com, badshahkha at gmail.com, bintwaleed at yahoo.com >Cc: rishidwivedi1 at gmail.com, mikeghouse at aol.com, "Yousuf Tabish" , tarekfatah at rogers.com, farrukhabidi at yahoo.com, "Atif Sahib" , butshikan at msn.com, drshabbir at comcast.net, zakhum at hotmail.com, yunussidira at yahoo.com, "Doctor Sohail" , shariq.hamid at yahoo.co.in, "Abdul Aziz Khattak" , badshahanizer at gmail.com, ahumanb at yahoo.com >Date: Monday, November 9, 2009, 12:11 PM > > >We muslims?believe in science?more than atheists as these were muslims scientists who made its foundation. But we should not only rely on science?that is why for the guidance of human science can't do anything.?For guidance religion plays its role. Can you give me answer to a question if you believe so much only in logic and science? >? >Question:??? In solar system each planet controls each other within its respective orbits through a gravitational force. A body will have positive charge attracts a body with negative charge. So earth, moon and sun and other planets in the solar system have this phenomena. If there is a charge on solar system, so to control it there should be an other system which will maintain that system. That is what which exists. Then a few systems form a galaxy which is maintained and controlled by other galaxy. Then a few galaxies make a universe. Now you have to prove how this universe exists?in the absence of an other universe having an opposite charge for its balancing and control. If we apply scientific rules?everywhere then?there should be an other universe which actually does not exist. It means you?logical scientific?proofs fail here to reach Allah Mighty.?This is Allah who control each and everthing?sometimes logical?while at other time illogical.?Science is the slave of Allah?and Allah is the creator of science.?When science was needed somewhere Allah adopted it for that thing when it was not?required Allah declined in?that particular thing. > > >May Allah Almighty guide us to the right path, ameen > >Muhammad Shafiq? > >----- Original Message ----- >From: saleem khan >>To: zina.khan at yahoo.com ; shafiq at giki.edu.pk ; mukhtaralam2000 at yahoo.com ; badshahkha at gmail.com ; bintwaleed at yahoo.com >>Cc: rishidwivedi1 at gmail.com ; mikeghouse at aol.com ; Yousuf Tabish ; tarekfatah at rogers.com ; farrukhabidi at yahoo.com ; Atif Sahib ; butshikan at msn.com ; drshabbir at comcast.net ; zakhum at hotmail.com ; yunussidira at yahoo.com ; Doctor Sohail ; shariq.hamid at yahoo.co.in ; Abdul Aziz Khattak ; badshahanizer at gmail.com ; ahumanb at yahoo.com >>Sent: Monday, November 09, 2009 12:52 PM >>Subject: RE: Science v/s religion ! >> >>Freedom, wisdom, liberty, open and?broadmindness, logical, rational approach, proveable facts and events and theories which human senses can grasp. >>? >>Beliving in unproveable ungraspable facts , events, thoughts,?dogmas such as?god,life after death, day of judgement, hell,?paradise, angels, jins, devil, divinity and sancticity of something like a god, book etc are not faculties of common sense &intelligence instead are all sensless items to be discarted?rejected by wise, intellectuals, knowledgeable humans. >>? >>________________________________ Date: Thu, 5 Nov 2009 22:04:16 -0800 >>From: zina.khan at yahoo.com >>Subject: Science v/s religion ! >>To: shafiq at giki.edu.pk; mukhtaralam2000 at yahoo.com; badshahkha at gmail.com; brilliant005 at hotmail.com; bintwaleed at yahoo.com >>CC: mirza.syed at gmail.com; rishidwivedi1 at gmail.com; ummaabroadcasting at rollanet.org; mikeghouse at aol.com; assadiq at gmail.com; yousuftabish at yahoo.com; mnaquvi at yahoo.com; farzanaqazi at yahoo.com; hasniessa at yahoo.com; minayet at yahoo.com; doctorforu123 at yahoo.com; azam.sikandar at gmail.com; tirmidhi at hotmail.com; alishaban952 at yahoo.com; tarekfatah at rogers.com; farrukhabidi at yahoo.com; atif98 at yahoo.com; butshikan at msn.com; yasminsurani at hotmail.com; great72000 at yahoo.com; hassan_javid at hotmail.com; aleem.faizee at gmail.com; rafiq786 at cbn.net.id; mustafvi at gmail.com; faruquealamgir at yahoo.com; drshabbir at comcast.net; irtaza1 at yahoo.com; salsabeel65 at yahoo.com; khasif235e at yahoo.com; zakhum at hotmail.com; ank2000pk at yahoo.com; firasat777 at yahoo.com; anwerkhurshid at hotmail.com; yunussidira at yahoo.com; fidvi at hotmail.com; premsadani at hotmail.com; ssmeezan at hotmail.com; wyeknotusa at aol.com; rial982000 at yahoo.com; ahlam_albahr at yahoo.com; amino66 at hotmail.com; k2411871 at hotmail.com; pk4318 at yahoo.com; sohail972002 at yahoo.co.in; afg_fitnesstrainer at hotmail.com; april702 at cox.net; auzyxkhan at yahoo.co.uk; arjumand_82 at yahoo.co.in; shariq.hamid at yahoo.co.in; aeisha_786 at yahoo.com; bushra_meraj at yahoo.com; cherylin_bas at yahoo.com; ddnsai at gmail.com; doctor_aliasghar at yahoo.com; engrbbkarube at yahoo.com; khattak99 at yahoo.com; knowledge4all00 at yahoo.com; kristonia7 at yahoo.com; hussain at nifty.com; ghulammuhammed3 at gmail.com; ahmadtotonji at yahoo.com; juan.suquillo at gmail.com; fayyaz at reading.org; sarwar at muslim-ed-trust.org.uk; jawed at dailymuslims.com; ibramsha7 at yahoo.com; badshahanizer at gmail.com; znanwalla at gmail.com; ahumanb at yahoo.com; akbar at mostmerciful.com; mohanofchenai at googlemail.com; jennifer at akfc.ca; karimsamani at yahoo.com; Multiculturalism-PluralismGroup at yahoogroups.com >> >> >>Saleem, >> >>What "common sense" are you talking about Khan? Let me know if there is >>such a thing as heat first ??Conversely is there such a thing as cold ? Why do we all say i"its cold' ? >> >>let me know first ! and whilst you are figuring out the answers because you seem to be some sort of an atheist scientist count backwards from 10 until you reach One...and then let me know what is before ONE ? >> >>Lets begin here Sir ! you want to discuss science with us right? okay...be my guest ...first answer my questions and then I ask you some counter questions and then you explain to us this common sense theory that you so felicitously rave about... >> >>--- On Fri, 11/6/09, Bint Waleed wrote: >> >> >>>From: Bint Waleed >>>Subject: RE: HOLY QURAN is the guide for humanity >>>Date: Friday, November 6, 2009, 5:05 AM >>> >>> >>> >>> >>>The very definition of Allah is that He is NOT created. >>>If he is created by someone then who created >>>him is Allah. >>> >>>--- On Thu, 11/5/09, saleem khan wrote: >>> >>> >>>>From: saleem khan >>>>Subject: RE: HOLY QURAN is the guide for humanity >>>>Date: Thursday, November 5, 2009, 9:00 PM >>>> >>>> >>>>science is common sense which religionists lack, they cannot comprehend ratinality, wisdom and liberty. they are entangled in strong web of ideology. >>>>can u let me kno who is the creator of allah? if nothing can be created itself, than?male allah?must also have been created . >>>>? >>>> >>>>? >>>>________________________________ From: shafiq at giki.edu.pk >>>>Subject: Re: HOLY QURAN is the guide for humanity >>>>Date: Tue, 3 Nov 2009 15:56:11 +0500 >>>> >>>> >>>>Why you believe in Science and don't believe in Allah who is the creator of all sciences. Can you prove that only science is real. Please explain that science is real. Prove that everything was made by itself with the help of science. I say this the Allah Almighty who made a law for this universe which is called science. Now prove that science came into existence by itself. >>>>? >>>>shafiq >>>>----- Original Message ----- >>>>>From: saleem khan >>>>>Sent: Tuesday, November 03, 2009 12:42 PM >>>>>Subject: RE: HOLY QURAN is the guide for humanity >>>>> >>>>>no i do not want to , i do not need it. look if u think that my posts are worth less than why u people read? and reply what is the concern??why r u worried? but come up if there is any logical scintific answers or points and dont just blame and adopt apologetic behaviour. >>>>>? >>>>>________________________________ >>>>> >>>>>? >>>>>On Mon, Oct 26, 2009 at 1:30 AM, M Shafiq Khan wrote: >>>>> >>>>>Ok if you are not believing in any religion. then at least why are you here to spread mischief in the minds of other people who are relgious and on the straight path. Those who are on straight path are not funded and those who are deviated from the straight path are paid this is what common sense feel. so either come on the straight path i.e. Islam or leave the forum of straight people to avoid further deteriorating the minds of innocent muslims from you superstitious ideology and hollow dogma. You might have your own dogma about religion if you have created yourselt but as you have not been created by yourself then you have no right to announce devilish dogma and propagate it. If you are not funded by some jewish organization then you are a psycho case and you consider that you will die if you stop attacking Islam. Your heart is sealed and I think you are the most unfortunate person who after getting that much education is far from the reality. You failed to understand the philosophy of life. Just imagine and ponder, the truth is a few steps away from you but you have developed a curtain in between these. >>>>>>? >>>>>>May Allah Almighty guide you and your family to the right path. >>>>>>? >>>>>>Muhammad Shafiq >>>>>>----- Original Message ----- >>>>>>>From: saleem khan >>>>>>>Sent: Sunday, October 25, 2009 10:28 AM >>>>>>>Subject: RE: HOLY QURAN is the guide for humanity >>>>>>> >>>>>>>I have already mentioned that i am a regionless person, I condem a religion which is a result of baseless, senseless, illogocal, unproven, unscientific, unrealistic dogmas against ground realiites, and created on supersticious concepts. I do not belive in concept of a humanly male diety a supreme power controlling universe which u and other religionist have given various names such as allah, bhagwan, eshwar, yahowa, god, aherman, yazdan etc.?and why should one belive it untill he/she is a blind follower of ancestors.society and does not uses?common sense, wisdom, freedom, logic, reason. >>>>>>>? >>>>>>>If u call and lable such a religion;less and god less person as athiest, or something else than its ur choice, i?and my wisdomfull, intellegent, sensible, liberal open minded freinds?consider? to be a lable free persons and dont want to be identified w.r.t an ideology, cult or creed like a muslim.?Though we were born in muslim families and societies, but have quit islam, allah and quran. We do not beleive in sancticity and divinity of anything, we do not belive in jannat jahanum, life after?deaths, day of judgment, mortality of humans, spirit, jins, angels etc. >>>>>>>? >>>>>>>________________________________ Date: Wed, 21 Oct 2009 16:42:28 +0530 >>>>>>>From: mukhtaralam2000 at yahoo.com >>>>>>>Subject: Re: HOLY QURAN is the guide for humanity >>>>>>> >>>>>>>Dear Saleem saheb,?Greetings for peace, >>>>>>> >>>>>>>Noting?your affliation to the atheistic modernist project that has been denounced by the postmodernists?, I would like to point out that your language is extremely hostile?to the interests of global peace. You? remind me of the atheistic communist leaders who wished to eradicate Islam= mental and physical state of submission to the commands of Allah. There are multiple narratives on aesthetics,ethics,epistemology?and there are inter-faith commons among the monotheistic and?polytheistic narratives. Are u an atheistic neo-liberal?like Michael Foucault or like Stalin,Bukharin? >>>>>>>?Dr.Muhammad Mukhtar Alam >>>>>>>58-C, Top Floor,DDA Janta Flats, Ashok Vihar-III,Delhi-110052,India >>>>>>>Tel:+9968345380 >>>>>>>http://muhammad_mukhtar_alam.tigblog.org >>>>>>>http://slideshare.net/mukhtaralam >>>>>>>http://transitionurbanindia.ning.com >>>>>>>http://ecostrategiccommunicator.ning.com >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> ________________________________ From: saleem khan >>>>>>>Sent: Wed, 21 October, 2009 3:26:56 PM >>>>>>>Subject: RE: HOLY QURAN is the guide for humanity >>>>>>> >>>>>>>Mr. Shafique , neither I m a jew or any other religionist. I do not believe in a religion and do not want to follow it. I m a rebellion to my ancestral ideology i.e islam., I m an ex muslim,I dont want to be recognized with a particular label, but as a humanist, universalit, secularist. I beleive in sceince and logic which can be proved practically. I m also not funded by any individual or group or community.?I m godless, relogion less person with liberal, free, wisdomfull thoughts now. These r all ur speculations u have mentioned. I believe that for maintaining peace in world this ugly cult of islam must be ereadicated from tyhe surface of earth. This fire of islamic dogmas must be extinguished with the tools and instruments of science. logic, freedom, liberty, wisdom. >>>>>>>? >>>>>>>________________________________ From: shafiq at giki.edu.pk >>>>>>>To: mirza.syed at gmail.com; rishidwivedi1 at gmail.com >>>>>>>CC: brilliant005 at hotmail.com; ummaabroadcasting at rollanet.org; mikeghouse at aol.com; assadiq at gmail.com; yousuftabish at yahoo.com; amongbelievers at yahoogroups.com; mnaquvi at yahoo.com; farzanaqazi at yahoo.com; hasniessa at yahoo.com; minayet at yahoo.com; doctorforu123 at yahoo.com; azam.sikandar at gmail.com; tirmidhi at hotmail.com; alishaban952 at yahoo.com; tarekfatah at rogers.com; farrukhabidi at yahoo.com; dailymuslims at gmail.com; atif98 at yahoo.com; butshikan at msn.com; yasminsurani at hotmail.com; great72000 at yahoo.com; hassan_javid at hotmail.com; mukhtaralam2000 at yahoo.com; aleem.faizee at gmail.com; ihro at yahoogroups.com; rafiq786 at cbn.net.id; mustafvi at gmail.com; faruquealamgir at yahoo.com; drshabbir at comcast.net; irtaza1 at yahoo.com; salsabeel65 at yahoo.com; khasif235e at yahoo.com; zakhum at hotmail.com; ank2000pk at yahoo.com; firasat777 at yahoo.com; anwerkhurshid at hotmail.com; yunussidira at yahoo.com; fidvi at hotmail.com; premsadani at hotmail.com; ssmeezan at hotmail.com; wyeknotusa at aol.com; rial982000 at yahoo.com; ahlam_albahr at yahoo.com; amino66 at hotmail.com; k2411871 at hotmail.com; pk4318 at yahoo.com; sohail972002 at yahoo.co.in; afg_fitnesstrainer at hotmail.com; april702 at cox.net; auzyxkhan at yahoo.co.uk; arjumand_82 at yahoo.co.in; gul_badshah at yahoo.com; shariq.hamid at yahoo.co.in; aeisha_786 at yahoo.com; bushra_meraj at yahoo.com; cherylin_bas at yahoo.com; ddnsai at gmail.com; doctor_aliasghar at yahoo.com; egyptmuseum at hotmail.com; engrbbkarube at yahoo.com; khattak99 at yahoo.com; knowledge4all00 at yahoo.com; kristonia7 at yahoo.com; masmoudi at islam-democracy.org; hussain at nifty.com; ghulammuhammed3 at gmail.com; ahmadtotonji at yahoo.com; juan.suquillo at gmail.com; fayyaz at reading.org; sarwar at muslim-ed-trust.org.uk; jawed at dailymuslims.com; ibramsha7 at yahoo.com; badshahanizer at gmail.com; znanwalla at gmail.com; badshahkha at gmail.com; ahumanb at yahoo.com; akbar at mostmerciful.com; mohanofchenai at googlemail.com; zina.khan at yahoo.com; bintwaleed at yahoo.com; jennifer at akfc.ca >>>>>>>Subject: Re: HOLY QURAN is the guide for humanity >>>>>>>Date: Thu, 15 Oct 2009 10:46:30 +0500 >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>>From the emails of Mirza and Saleem, it is?clear that the names adopted by them are islamic?and they only criticize Islam for making money. The people who abuse their God for the sake of their bread winning, how can one trust such a devilish mind.?They got education on the money of the jews and now they are being used against Islam so as to spread hatred among the world against the muslims. But Islam?spreads more when it is suppressed by?devils like saleem and mirza. Mirza also writes syed with his name?which is shameful. Actually these people can do any thing for getting money. Muslims may die?of hunger but will never attack on the religion of any person. Those who seem terrorists are the outcome of the proxy war made by jews.?Some mean people like apparently mirza and saleem can be easily hired by the jews as they have no religion at all. They can even sell their children for getting money.These types of mean people are the machinery being used by the jews for the ill objectives and try to harm muslims and Islam as they know that the ultimate?success is that of the muslims. Even?George Burnard Shah said that?the futural relgion of Europe is?Islam.?Islam is spreading in USA and Europe like a fire in the forest. This all is due to its?suppression by jews. >>>>>>>? >>>>>>>? >>>>>>>? >>>>>>>? >>>>>>>----- Original Message ----- >>>>>>>From: Syed Mirza >>>>>>>>To: Rishi Dwivedi >>>>>>>>Cc: M Shafiq Khan ; saleem khan ; ummaabroadcasting at rollanet.org ; mikeghouse at aol.com ; assadiq at gmail.com ; Yousuf Tabish ; amongbelievers at yahoogroups.com ; mnaquvi at yahoo.com ; farzanaqazi at yahoo.com ; hasniessa at yahoo.com ; minayet at yahoo.com ; doctorforu123 at yahoo.com ; azam.sikandar at gmail.com ; tirmidhi at hotmail.com ; alishaban952 at yahoo.com ; tarekfatah at rogers.com ; farrukhabidi at yahoo.com ; dailymuslims at gmail.com ; Atif Sahib ; butshikan at msn.com ; yasminsurani at hotmail.com ; great72000 at yahoo.com ; hassan_javid at hotmail.com ; mukhtaralam2000 at yahoo.com ; aleem.faizee at gmail.com ; ihro at yahoogroups.com ; rafiq786 at cbn.net.id ; mustafvi at gmail.com ; faruquealamgir at yahoo.com ; drshabbir at comcast.net ; irtaza1 at yahoo.com ; salsabeel65 at yahoo.com ; khasif235e at yahoo.com ; zakhum at hotmail.com ; ank2000pk at yahoo.com ; firasat777 at yahoo.com ; anwerkhurshid at hotmail.com ; yunussidira at yahoo.com ; fidvi at hotmail.com ; premsadani at hotmail.com ; ssmeezan at hotmail.com ; wyeknotusa at aol.com ; rial982000 at yahoo.com ; ahlam_albahr at yahoo.com ; amino66 at hotmail.com ; k2411871 at hotmail.com ; pk4318 at yahoo.com ; Doctor Sohail ; afg_fitnesstrainer at hotmail.com ; april702 at cox.net ; auzyxkhan at yahoo.co.uk ; arjumand_82 at yahoo.co.in ; gul_badshah at yahoo.com ; shariq.hamid at yahoo.co.in ; aeisha_786 at yahoo.com ; bushra_meraj at yahoo.com ; cherylin_bas at yahoo.com ; ddnsai at gmail.com ; doctor_aliasghar at yahoo.com ; egyptmuseum at hotmail.com ; engrbbkarube at yahoo.com ; Abdul Aziz Khattak ; knowledge4all00 at yahoo.com ; kristonia7 at yahoo.com ; masmoudi at islam-democracy.org ; hussain at nifty.com ; ghulammuhammed3 at gmail.com ; ahmadtotonji at yahoo.com ; juan.suquillo at gmail.com ; fayyaz at reading.org ; sarwar at muslim-ed-trust.org.uk ; jawed at dailymuslims.com ; ibramsha7 at yahoo.com ; badshahanizer at gmail.com ; znanwalla at gmail.com ; badshahkha at gmail.com ; ahumanb at yahoo.com ; akbar at mostmerciful.com ; mohanofchenai at googlemail.com ; zina.khan at yahoo.com ; bintwaleed at yahoo.com ; jennifer at akfc.ca >>>>>>>>Sent: Wednesday, October 14, 2009 4:39 PM >>>>>>>>Subject: Re: HOLY QURAN is the guide for humanity >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>Good reply to Safique. Atheism is much superior than all those false religions like Islam. World will be much better place without any of these stupid religions. >>>>>>>>? >>>>>>>>SKM >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>On Tue, Oct 13, 2009 at 2:25 PM, Rishi Dwivedi wrote: >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>If you don't believe in any religion of the world then you resemble beasts says. Mohd Saffique >>>>>>>>>FYI Mr Safiqque: I'd prefer a pagan or a athiest anytime?over a Muslim. >>>>>>>>>In fact Muslims are behaving like beasts all over the world. >>>>>>>>>? >>>>>>>>>Rashid. >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>On Thu, Oct 8, 2009 at 6:48 AM, M Shafiq Khan wrote: >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>Your arguments are foolish and baseless. The names you mentioned who changed the world were also religious. Science and Technology was initiated by the muslim scientists. If your parents were ignorant (Jahil) and they gave you a muslim name then you must have changed it to pagan name as all the names of the world relates to one or the other religion. If you are self grown and you developed paganism and followed satan then certainly you are spreading satanic lessons to misguide the innocent people through the spell of your intriguing discussion. I am sure you are not losing?paradise for free but you are taking a great price for gaining the hell. If you don't believe on religion then tell me how this universe came?into being. Once?a munazira was scheduled between a?pagan scholar and Imam Abu Hanifa. Imam Abu Hanifa intensionally came?some 3 hours late.?On the start of the?discussion the pagan asked?the Imam why was he late. Imam Abu Hanifa?told?him that he was standing on the?beach of the river and there was no boat available to take me. the pagan asked then how he came. Abu?Hanifa said that while he was waiting suddenlty a tree fell down, then planks were separated from the tree. Nails were fixed in those planks automatically.?Then a boat was built by itself and it came on the beach in which the Imam sat and went away to his destination. That was the reason of his being late. The pagan said how can?a boat be made by itself, it is unbelievable. Some one should be there to make a boat. Imam Abu Hanifa asked him that you are pagan and?don't believe in Allah (God) and if you don't believe?that a boat was made by itself then?howcomes that the whole universe came?into being by itself. >>>>>>>>>>? >>>>>>>>>>Pagans like you have very limited intellect and knowledge. They read thousands of books but can not reach the reality. Satan always guide them in all of their activities. >>>>>>>>>>??? >>>>>>>>>>----- Original Message ----- >>>>>>>>>>>From: saleem khan >>>>>>>>>>>To: shafiq at giki.edu.pk ; ummaabroadcasting at rollanet.org ; mikeghouse at aol.com >>>>>>>>>>>Cc: assadiq at gmail.com ; Yousuf Tabish ; mirza.syed at gmail.com ; amongbelievers at yahoogroups.com ; mnaquvi at yahoo.com ; farzanaqazi at yahoo.com ; hasniessa at yahoo.com ; minayet at yahoo.com ; doctorforu123 at yahoo.com ; azam.sikandar at gmail.com ; tirmidhi at hotmail.com ; alishaban952 at yahoo.com ; tarekfatah at rogers.com ; farrukhabidi at yahoo.com ; dailymuslims at gmail.com ; Atif Sahib ; butshikan at msn.com ; yasminsurani at hotmail.com ; great72000 at yahoo.com ; hassan_javid at hotmail.com ; mukhtaralam2000 at yahoo.com ; aleem.faizee at gmail.com ; ihro at yahoogroups.com ; rafiq786 at cbn.net.id ; mustafvi at gmail.com ; faruquealamgir at yahoo.com ; drshabbir at comcast.net ; irtaza1 at yahoo.com ; salsabeel65 at yahoo.com ; khasif235e at yahoo.com ; zakhum at hotmail.com ; ank2000pk at yahoo.com ; firasat777 at yahoo.com ; anwerkhurshid at hotmail.com ; rishidwivedi1 at gmail.com ; yunussidira at yahoo.com ; fidvi at hotmail.com ; premsadani at hotmail.com ; ssmeezan at hotmail.com ; wyeknotusa at aol.com ; rial982000 at yahoo.com ; ahlam_albahr at yahoo.com ; amino66 at hotmail.com ; k2411871 at hotmail.com ; pk4318 at yahoo.com ; Doctor Sohail ; afg_fitnesstrainer at hotmail.com ; april702 at cox.net ; auzyxkhan at yahoo.co.uk ; arjumand_82 at yahoo.co.in ; gul_badshah at yahoo.com ; shariq.hamid at yahoo.co.in ; aeisha_786 at yahoo.com ; bushra_meraj at yahoo.com ; cherylin_bas at yahoo.com ; ddnsai at gmail.com ; doctor_aliasghar at yahoo.com ; egyptmuseum at hotmail.com ; engrbbkarube at yahoo.com ; Abdul Aziz Khattak ; knowledge4all00 at yahoo.com ; kristonia7 at yahoo.com ; masmoudi at islam-democracy.org ; hussain at nifty.com ; ghulammuhammed3 at gmail.com ; ahmadtotonji at yahoo.com ; juan.suquillo at gmail.com ; fayyaz at reading.org ; sarwar at muslim-ed-trust.org.uk ; jawed at dailymuslims.com ; ibramsha7 at yahoo.com ; badshahanizer at gmail.com ; znanwalla at gmail.com ; badshahkha at gmail.com ; ahumanb at yahoo.com ; akbar at mostmerciful.com ; mohanofchenai at googlemail.com ; zina.khan at yahoo.com ; bintwaleed at yahoo.com ; jennifer at akfc.ca >>>>>>>>>>>Sent: Friday, October 02, 2009 3:08 PM >>>>>>>>>>>Subject: RE: HOLY QURAN is for ALL Muslims & Non-Muslims >>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>Look! a human does not need a religion. Religions are?manmade ,created on the basis?of self created superstocious baseless unrealistic? and unscintific and illogical ideoligies and concept which are followed blinded without using common sense. In a religion a huamanly male diety is created?and than worshipped foolishly consisting of false fabricated stupid acticvities of bowing, prostrating, kissing stones, pillars, rocks, doms, walls, icons and a certain specific jockery outfit is adopted and that diety is appeased by aniaml sacrifizing, imploring circumssion , in which resources, time, energy. money are just wasted. >>>>>>>>>>>? >>>>>>>>>>>A man can never be happy if want or wish to make god happy. Humanity?can only flourish and develop in a religionless enviornment and society, a secular wisdomfull free society. GOD must be killed and burried deeply and get rid of its concept to attain and achieve long lasting peace tranquiality in world. >>>>>>>>>>>? >>>>>>>>>>>People like einstien, Graham bell, Marconi, Newton, Copernicus, Jhon Loui beard, george stephon son, etc are real "REHMATLIL ALAMIN|"?THEY HAVE CHANGED THE WORLD.?Inventors of mobile phone, T.V, computer, A?C, aeroplanes, trains, cars, fridge, microwaveovens, and what not, discoverors of electricity, magnetism, X-rays, various scintific laws on the basis of which to day we have such a huighly scntifically and technologically advanced wolrd , are real messengers of nature and universe and not those obsolete devider of humanity in belivers of a certain impractacable ideology and non belivers, who at one place marries their daughter in laws iand on the other hand children of 6 years in lust of sex?. >>>>>>>>>>>? >>>>>>>>>>>Quran,Zaboor, bible etc are all obselete unscintific impractable books of yester years with no specific value. >>>>>>>>>>>? >>>>>>>>>>>The days of muahammd, mossa, isa are gone. >>>>>>>>>>>? >>>>>>>>>>>Islam, christianity, jewsism, hinduism, janeism,taosim,shintism,budhism, zorostrianaism, all are devider of humans and cause of enemity, hatered, destruction, killing, murdering, deaths, grouping, fights, quarrels, disputes. >>>>>>>>>>>? >>>>>>>>>>>Sanctification of a religion, diety, person, house, rock, doom, room, wall , icon, place, city, language is just naked foolishness. >>>>>>>>>>>? >>>>>>>>>>>I m very happy anf relaxed?to be a religionless humanist and delighted to see that ur hlepless unworthy Arabic Saudi national unscintific god cant do any thing. >>>>>>>>>>>? >>>>>>>>>>>I M not funded by any?individual or group, name has no importance its just?a mean of ?identification moreover i m not responsible for my name, it was given to me by my ignorant parents, but?my wisdom, intellectuality and mental conciousness?are self grown. >>>>>>>>>>>? >>>>>>>>>>>The process of evolution?has escalted?, and soon all religions including ur islam will automaitically pesrish soon one day as well all other religions, which cannot stand in front of science and logic and reason. Nature demands that only logical, wisdomfull, reasonable concepts will survive, whereas islam and other religions are quantrary to it. >>>>>>>>>>>? >>>>>>>>>>>There is no question of another life after death, no day of judgment, u live a life of?fear and terror and greed. >>>>>>>>>>>? >>>>>>>>>>>Please come up wit realistic, logical and scintific answers to my questions. >>>>>>>>>>>? >>>>>>>>>>>A humanist,universalist,secularist >>>>>>>>>>>? >>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>? >>>>>>>>>>>________________________________ From: shafiq at giki.edu.pk >>>>>>>>>>>To: brilliant005 at hotmail.com; ummaabroadcasting at rollanet.org; mikeghouse at aol.com >>>>>>>>>>>CC: assadiq at gmail.com; yousuftabish at yahoo.com; mirza.syed at gmail.com; amongbelievers at yahoogroups.com; mnaquvi at yahoo.com; farzanaqazi at yahoo.com; hasniessa at yahoo.com; minayet at yahoo.com; doctorforu123 at yahoo.com; azam.sikandar at gmail.com; tirmidhi at hotmail.com; alishaban952 at yahoo.com; tarekfatah at rogers.com; farrukhabidi at yahoo.com; dailymuslims at gmail.com; atif98 at yahoo.com; butshikan at msn.com; yasminsurani at hotmail.com; great72000 at yahoo.com; hassan_javid at hotmail.com; mukhtaralam2000 at yahoo.com; aleem.faizee at gmail.com; ihro at yahoogroups.com; rafiq786 at cbn.net.id; mustafvi at gmail.com; faruquealamgir at yahoo.com; drshabbir at comcast.net; irtaza1 at yahoo.com; salsabeel65 at yahoo.com; khasif235e at yahoo.com; zakhum at hotmail.com; ank2000pk at yahoo.com; firasat777 at yahoo.com; anwerkhurshid at hotmail.com; rishidwivedi1 at gmail.com; yunussidira at yahoo.com; fidvi at hotmail.com; premsadani at hotmail.com; ssmeezan at hotmail.com; wyeknotusa at aol.com; rial982000 at yahoo.com; ahlam_albahr at yahoo.com; amino66 at hotmail.com; k2411871 at hotmail.com; pk4318 at yahoo.com; sohail972002 at yahoo.co.in; afg_fitnesstrainer at hotmail.com; april702 at cox.net; auzyxkhan at yahoo.co.uk; arjumand_82 at yahoo.co.in; gul_badshah at yahoo.com; shariq.hamid at yahoo.co.in; aeisha_786 at yahoo.com; bushra_meraj at yahoo.com; cherylin_bas at yahoo.com; ddnsai at gmail.com; doctor_aliasghar at yahoo.com; egyptmuseum at hotmail.com; engrbbkarube at yahoo.com; khattak99 at yahoo.com; knowledge4all00 at yahoo.com; kristonia7 at yahoo.com; masmoudi at islam-democracy.org; hussain at nifty.com; ghulammuhammed3 at gmail.com; ahmadtotonji at yahoo.com; juan.suquillo at gmail.com; fayyaz at reading.org; sarwar at muslim-ed-trust.org.uk; jawed at dailymuslims.com; ibramsha7 at yahoo.com; badshahanizer at gmail.com; znanwalla at gmail.com; badshahkha at gmail.com; ahumanb at yahoo.com; akbar at mostmerciful.com; mohanofchenai at googlemail.com; zina.khan at yahoo.com; bintwaleed at yahoo.com; jennifer at akfc.ca >>>>>>>>>>>Subject: Re: HOLY QURAN is for ALL Muslims & Non-Muslims >>>>>>>>>>>Date: Thu, 1 Oct 2009 10:05:39 +0500 >>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>If you don't believe in any religion of the world then you resemble beasts. I would like to give a reference from Bible (New testament): " To educate men without religion and you make them clever devil". I think not believing in any religion of the world has made you devil accoring to Bible. We muslims believe that all books Bible (Old and new testament), Zaboor and Quran are the Books of Allah. When Quran was revealed on Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him) all the other books were abrogated. I think you live in fool's paradise. Think if you are revived on the Day of Judgement what will you do in front of Allah Almighty who is the creator and owner of this universe. If there is no hereafter then it's ok for you but what will you do then if u r reborn there. Then u ll not even go to the fool's paradise but to the clever's hell. Even you are taking with you your children and family. People like you don't care about their family and kids. Do you?like to take you kids to fire in this world. Then why?your eyes are closed towards that reality. Your pagan ideas can not prevent your family members having ideas?like you from the fire of the hell. It means you r feeding them by the money of pagan organizations but you are putting them on fire. It shows that you don't?like goodness for your family. A person who is not good for his family and kids?how can he give better advice to the people of the world. This is extremely embarrasing. >>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>Muhammad Shafiq? >>>>>>>>>>>----- Original Message ----- >>>>>>>>>>>>From: saleem khan >>>>>>>>>>>>To: shafiq at giki.edu.pk ; ummaabroadcasting at rollanet.org ; mikeghouse at aol.com >>>>>>>>>>>>Cc: assadiq at gmail.com ; Yousuf Tabish ; mirza.syed at gmail.com ; amongbelievers at yahoogroups.com ; mnaquvi at yahoo.com ; farzanaqazi at yahoo.com ; hasniessa at yahoo.com ; minayet at yahoo.com ; doctorforu123 at yahoo.com ; azam.sikandar at gmail.com ; tirmidhi at hotmail.com ; alishaban952 at yahoo.com ; tarekfatah at rogers.com ; farrukhabidi at yahoo.com ; dailymuslims at gmail.com ; Atif Sahib ; butshikan at msn.com ; yasminsurani at hotmail.com ; great72000 at yahoo.com ; hassan_javid at hotmail.com ; mukhtaralam2000 at yahoo.com ; aleem.faizee at gmail.com ; ihro at yahoogroups.com ; rafiq786 at cbn.net.id ; mustafvi at gmail.com ; faruquealamgir at yahoo.com ; drshabbir at comcast.net ; irtaza1 at yahoo.com ; salsabeel65 at yahoo.com ; khasif235e at yahoo.com ; zakhum at hotmail.com ; ank2000pk at yahoo.com ; firasat777 at yahoo.com ; anwerkhurshid at hotmail.com ; rishidwivedi1 at gmail.com ; yunussidira at yahoo.com ; fidvi at hotmail.com ; premsadani at hotmail.com ; ssmeezan at hotmail.com ; wyeknotusa at aol.com ; rial982000 at yahoo.com ; ahlam_albahr at yahoo.com ; amino66 at hotmail.com ; k2411871 at hotmail.com ; pk4318 at yahoo.com ; Doctor Sohail ; afg_fitnesstrainer at hotmail.com ; april702 at cox.net ; auzyxkhan at yahoo.co.uk ; arjumand_82 at yahoo.co.in ; gul_badshah at yahoo.com ; shariq.hamid at yahoo.co.in ; aeisha_786 at yahoo.com ; bushra_meraj at yahoo.com ; cherylin_bas at yahoo.com ; ddnsai at gmail.com ; doctor_aliasghar at yahoo.com ; egyptmuseum at hotmail.com ; engrbbkarube at yahoo.com ; Abdul Aziz Khattak ; knowledge4all00 at yahoo.com ; kristonia7 at yahoo.com ; masmoudi at islam-democracy.org ; hussain at nifty.com ; ghulammuhammed3 at gmail.com ; ahmadtotonji at yahoo.com ; juan.suquillo at gmail.com ; fayyaz at reading.org ; sarwar at muslim-ed-trust.org.uk ; jawed at dailymuslims.com ; ibramsha7 at yahoo.com ; badshahanizer at gmail.com ; znanwalla at gmail.com ; badshahkha at gmail.com ; ahumanb at yahoo.com ; akbar at mostmerciful.com ; mohanofchenai at googlemail.com ; zina.khan at yahoo.com ; bintwaleed at yahoo.com ; jennifer at akfc.ca >>>>>>>>>>>>Sent: Wednesday, September 30, 2009 4:24 PM >>>>>>>>>>>>Subject: RE: HOLY QURAN is for ALL Muslims & Non-Muslims >>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>Can u give correct understanding of my questions if i m misguiding people please? >>>>>>>>>>>>? >>>>>>>>>>>>People like u are living in fools paradise just blindly following ancestors and society without using head, senses and wisdom. ur unrealistic, illogical, supersticious, false fabricated beliefs and dogmas have no value and base in to days age of reason, justification and scintifically technologically advanced world . ur allah, quran, islam are all false and ficticious creeds and thoughts. neither i am being funded by any group nor i do belive in any sect or religion, that is why i m enjoying fear free life, and people like me have killed diety fear and worshipping and burried?that god deeply. >>>>>>>>>>>>? >>>>>>>>>>>>U r just a slave of Arabs and thier religion, wasting ur time, money, resources , energy in sanctifying self created thoughts, icons, persons and trying to live?in a backward world of 1500 years ago when no one knew that eartrh is round, and following an?unscintific book with many contradictions and un implementable concepts. >>>>>>>>>>>>? >>>>>>>>>>>>Thanks >>>>>>>>>>>>? >>>>>>>>>>>>A humanist >>>>>>>>>>>>? >>>>>>>>>>>>________________________________ From: shafiq at giki.edu.pk >>>>>>>>>>>>To: brilliant005 at hotmail.com; ummaabroadcasting at rollanet.org; mikeghouse at aol.com >>>>>>>>>>>>CC: assadiq at gmail.com; yousuftabish at yahoo.com; mirza.syed at gmail.com; amongbelievers at yahoogroups.com; mnaquvi at yahoo.com; farzanaqazi at yahoo.com; hasniessa at yahoo.com; minayet at yahoo.com; doctorforu123 at yahoo.com; azam.sikandar at gmail.com; tirmidhi at hotmail.com; alishaban952 at yahoo.com; tarekfatah at rogers.com; farrukhabidi at yahoo.com; dailymuslims at gmail.com; atif98 at yahoo.com; butshikan at msn.com; yasminsurani at hotmail.com; great72000 at yahoo.com; hassan_javid at hotmail.com; mukhtaralam2000 at yahoo.com; aleem.faizee at gmail.com; ihro at yahoogroups.com; rafiq786 at cbn.net.id; mustafvi at gmail.com; faruquealamgir at yahoo.com; drshabbir at comcast.net; irtaza1 at yahoo.com; salsabeel65 at yahoo.com; khasif235e at yahoo.com; zakhum at hotmail.com; ank2000pk at yahoo.com; firasat777 at yahoo.com; anwerkhurshid at hotmail.com; rishidwivedi1 at gmail.com; yunussidira at yahoo.com; fidvi at hotmail.com; premsadani at hotmail.com; ssmeezan at hotmail.com; wyeknotusa at aol.com; rial982000 at yahoo.com; ahlam_albahr at yahoo.com; amino66 at hotmail.com; k2411871 at hotmail.com; pk4318 at yahoo.com; sohail972002 at yahoo.co.in; afg_fitnesstrainer at hotmail.com; april702 at cox.net; auzyxkhan at yahoo.co.uk; arjumand_82 at yahoo.co.in; gul_badshah at yahoo.com; shariq.hamid at yahoo.co.in; aeisha_786 at yahoo.com; bushra_meraj at yahoo.com; cherylin_bas at yahoo.com; ddnsai at gmail.com; doctor_aliasghar at yahoo.com; egyptmuseum at hotmail.com; engrbbkarube at yahoo.com; khattak99 at yahoo.com; knowledge4all00 at yahoo.com; kristonia7 at yahoo.com; masmoudi at islam-democracy.org; hussain at nifty.com; ghulammuhammed3 at gmail.com; ahmadtotonji at yahoo.com; juan.suquillo at gmail.com; fayyaz at reading.org; sarwar at muslim-ed-trust.org.uk; jawed at dailymuslims.com; ibramsha7 at yahoo.com; badshahanizer at gmail.com; znanwalla at gmail.com; badshahkha at gmail.com; ahumanb at yahoo.com; akbar at mostmerciful.com; mohanofchenai at googlemail.com; zina.khan at yahoo.com; bintwaleed at yahoo.com; jennifer at akfc.ca >>>>>>>>>>>>Subject: Re: HOLY QURAN is for ALL Muslims & Non-Muslims >>>>>>>>>>>>Date: Mon, 28 Sep 2009 12:31:07 +0500 >>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>? >>>>>>>>>>>>Divisions?among human races is not due to Quran or Islam but it is the Quran and Islam which unite the humanity under one and the only?umbrella provided they believe in Allah and?His last?and true messenger Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihe Walihe Wasallam. Divisions in humanity and ummah are only the outcome of satanism, corruption and misunderstanding of Islam and Quran.?Those who understand?Quran and Islam would never deviate from the chosen path?selected by?Allah for His most beloved prophet and humanity i.e. Islam. Even the scholars of other relgions knew at time of Muhammad (S.A.W.W) that He was the only true and last messenger of Allah and all other religion were abrogated. The writer is spreading misinterpretation of ayas of Quran and message of Islam as narrated by the below email.?I personally know people who are paid by ismailis and qadianis. These people have been time and again defeated by Islamic scholars in munaziras but they are shameless and only worship wealth given to them by?jews and other pagans.? >>>>>>>>>>>>?A person used to come to Imam Abu Hanifa and asked him daily to prove Allah's existance. When Imam Abu Hanifa gave him 99 arguments but the person?was not convinced. Imam Abu Hanifa saw a dream?in which Allah Almighty told him?that the person is satan and get rid of him by saying thaty I believe in Allah without any argument. When Imam Abu Hanifa told?satan that he believes in Allah without any proof and argument, this made him?got rid of satan. So there is no need of discussion and arguments with satans.? I consider myself degraded to?do?discussion with such a mean and ill natured person. As it is mentioned in Sura Baqara,?"For believers there is no need of evidence and for disbelievers no evidence is?sufficient." If the moon?is?carried down on earth for the disbelievers like saleem khan they?would?still not be convinced. Either saleem khan is a jew having a muslim name or he is funded by jews and preaching qadyaniat or ismailiat. Such people are bad stains on the clothes of the pure muslims.????? >>>>>>>>>>>>? >>>>>>>>>>>>Muhammad Shafiq???? >>>>>>>>>>>>----- Original Message ----- >>>>>>>>>>>>>From: saleem khan >>>>>>>>>>>>>To: shafiq at giki.edu.pk ; ummaabroadcasting at rollanet.org ; mikeghouse at aol.com >>>>>>>>>>>>>Cc: assadiq at gmail.com ; Yousuf Tabish ; mirza.syed at gmail.com ; amongbelievers at yahoogroups.com ; mnaquvi at yahoo.com ; farzanaqazi at yahoo.com ; hasniessa at yahoo.com ; minayet at yahoo.com ; doctorforu123 at yahoo.com ; azam.sikandar at gmail.com ; tirmidhi at hotmail.com ; alishaban952 at yahoo.com ; tarekfatah at rogers.com ; farrukhabidi at yahoo.com ; dailymuslims at gmail.com ; Atif Sahib ; butshikan at msn.com ; yasminsurani at hotmail.com ; great72000 at yahoo.com ; hassan_javid at hotmail.com ; mukhtaralam2000 at yahoo.com ; aleem.faizee at gmail.com ; ihro at yahoogroups.com ; rafiq786 at cbn.net.id ; mustafvi at gmail.com ; faruquealamgir at yahoo.com ; drshabbir at comcast.net ; irtaza1 at yahoo.com ; salsabeel65 at yahoo.com ; khasif235e at yahoo.com ; zakhum at hotmail.com ; ank2000pk at yahoo.com ; firasat777 at yahoo.com ; anwerkhurshid at hotmail.com ; ... >>>>>> >>>>>>[Message clipped]?? >>>>> >>>>>________________________________ Now, send attachments up to 25MB with Yahoo! India Mail. Learn how. >>>>>________________________________ Bing brings you maps, menus, and reviews organized in one place. Try it now. >>>>________________________________ Windows 7: Unclutter your desktop. Learn more. >>> >> >>________________________________ Hotmail: Trusted email with powerful SPAM protection. Sign up now. The INTERNET now has a personality. YOURS! See your Yahoo! Homepage. http://in.yahoo.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From maryrose333 at att.net Wed Nov 11 09:07:14 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Wed, 11 Nov 2009 08:07:14 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: [globalnetnews-summary] 10 Suicides a Month at Ft. Hood -- War Stress Is Taking Soldiers to the Brink Message-ID: <007b01ca62e9$3542e940$9fc8bbc0$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS When one considers the number of suicides per month at Ft. Hood, is it any wonder that the tragedy which left 13 people dead and 30 injured occurred there? And, I must question the word "incomprehensible" used by President Obama to describe this act. That we are an insane society certainly cannot be denied when one considers what we are doing to our life support system (and to other members of the human family) as the human family. And, our insanity caused by the endless pain which we cause ourselves when we indulge in acts of violence toward either ourselves or the environment in which we live, particularly in the name of "money" which has become our God as all our acts become subservient to it. As David Ray Griffin writes in: "Introduction to Suny Series in Constructive Postmodern Thought:" Modernity, rather than now being regarded as the norm toward which all history has been aiming and into which all societies should be ushered--forcibly if necessary--is instead increasingly seen as an aberration. A new respect for the wisdom of traditional societies is growing, as we realize that they have endured for thousands of years and that, by contrast, the existence of modern society for even another century seems doubtful. And, while wars may have served a useful purpose in the past for some, the time has now arrived when we must consider the benefits to all of humanity as modern communications technology has united us as the human family living in a small global village. We must stand together as one people and demand the end to what has now become an "endless" war. The insanity will only increase as people are forced from their homes in this economic crisis, and we must be prepared to deal with the inevitable outcome of forcing people out of their comfort zone and into war zones whether fought on the battlefields in distant countries by military forces, or by acts of humanity embroiled in money and greed here at home. It is time for we-the-people to stand up and just say "NO MORE" as we bring our monetized political system under control and bring a more life-enhancing form of governance into being. Some are calling this new form of governance: "Design by conscious choice"-- something far different than monetized politics as found within the system of raw and unbridled capitalism as touted by the Republicans, et al. The choice is ours to make. -----Original Message----- From: globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net [mailto:globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net] On Behalf Of TradingPostPaul Sent: Tuesday, November 10, 2009 8:11 PM To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] 10 Suicides a Month at Ft. Hood -- War Stress Is Taking Soldiers to the Brink 10 Suicides a Month at Ft. Hood -- War Stress Is Taking Soldiers to the Brink http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/KK10Df07.html By Dahr Jamail, Asia Times. Posted November 10, 2009. The shooting tragedy at Fort Hood on Friday points to a much larger problem of combat stress and overdeployment in Iraq and Afghanistan. Editor's Note: This Tuesday, President Obama attended a memorial service for the shootings at Ft. Hood last Friday. He called the attack "incomprehensible," when in fact it's quite easy to comprehend. Obama would do well to consider that the war policies he's continuing, extending the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, are the underlying cause of acts of madness and desperation by soldiers at Ft. Hood. As Dahr Jamail illustrates in the article below, this one military post alone is averaging 10 suicides a month so far this year. PHOENIX, Arizona - While investigators probe for a motive behind the mass shooting at the Fort Hood military base in Texas last Thursday, in which an army psychiatrist killed 13 people, military personnel at the base are in shock as the incident "brings the war home". "We're all in shock," said Specialist Michael Kern, an active-duty veteran of the Iraq war, told Inter Press Service (IPS) by telephone. Kern, who is based at Fort Hood, served in Iraq from March 2007 to March 2008. "Every single person that I've talked to is in shock," Kern added. "I'm surprised this hits so close to home, but at the same time, I knew something like this was going to happen given what else is happening - the war is coming home, and something needs to be done. Innocent civilians are being wounded and killed here at home by soldiers, and this is completely unacceptable," he said. The gunman, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, entered a Soldier Readiness Center (SRC), where troops get medical evaluations and complete paperwork just prior to being deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, and opened fire with two non-military issued handguns. Hasan killed 13 people, 12 of them soldiers, and wounded over 30 others, before being shot four times by a civilian police officer. Hasan is now in stable condition in a local hospital, where he is in the custody of military authorities. Colonel John Rossi, a spokesman at Fort Hood, told reporters that Hasan was "stable and in one of our civilian hospitals". Rossi added, "He's on a ventilator." Hasan, 39, joined the army just out of high school. He had counseled wounded war veterans at Walter Reed Hospital, and was transferred to Fort Hood in April. He had recently received orders to deploy to Afghanistan. His cousin, Nader Hasan, has said in media interviews that Hasan was very reluctant to be deployed overseas and had agitated not to be sent. "We've known over the last five years that was probably his worst nightmare," he said. Responding to the allegations in the media that the attack was based on his Muslim faith, Kern told IPS that he did not know of anyone on the base who felt this was the case. "We all wear the same uniform here, it's all green. I've seen the news, but most folks here assume it's just a soldier that snapped," Kern explained. "I have not talked to anyone who thinks what he did has anything to do with him being a Muslim. There are thousands of Muslims serving with dignity in the US military, in all four branches." Fort Hood, located in central Texas, is one of the largest US military bases in the world. It contains up to 50,000 soldiers, and is one of the most heavily deployed to both occupations. Tragically, Fort Hood has also born much of the brunt from its heavy involvement in the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. Fort Hood soldiers have accounted for more suicides than any other army post since the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. This year alone, the base is averaging over 10 suicides each month - at least 75 have been recorded through July of this year alone. In a strikingly similar incident on May 11, 2009, a US soldier gunned down five fellow soldiers at a stress-counseling center at a US base in Baghdad. Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the US military's Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters at a news conference at the Pentagon at the time that the shootings had occurred in a place where "individuals were seeking help". Mullen added, "It does speak to me, though, about the need for us to redouble our efforts, the concern in terms of dealing with the stress ... It also speaks to the issue of multiple deployments." Commenting on the incident in nearly parallel terms, US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said that the Pentagon needs to redouble its efforts to relieve stress caused by repeated deployments in war zones that is further exacerbated by limited time at home in between deployments. The condition described by Mullen and Gates is what veteran health experts often refer to as post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. While soldiers returning home are routinely involved in shootings, suicide and other forms of self-destructive violent behaviors as a direct result of their experiences in Iraq, we have yet to see an event of this magnitude on a base in the US. To many, the shocking story of a soldier killing five of his comrades did not come as a surprise considering that the military has, for years now, been sending troops with untreated PTSD back into the US occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. According to an Armed Forces Health Surveillance Center analysis, reported in the Denver Post in August 2008, more than "43,000 service members - two-thirds of them in the army or army reserve - were classified as non-deployable for medical reasons three months before they deployed" to Iraq. In April 2008, the Rand Corporation released a stunning report revealing that, "Nearly 20% of military service members who have returned from Iraq and Afghanistan - 300,000 in all -- report symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder or major depression, yet only slightly more than half have sought treatment." President Barack Obama, speaking during an event at the Department of the Interior in Washington, said that the mass shooting at Fort Hood was a "horrific outburst of violence". He added: "It is horrifying that they [US soldiers] should come under fire at an army base on American soil." Victor Agosto, an Iraq war veteran who was discharged from the military after publicly refusing to deploy to Afghanistan, has had first-hand experience with the SRC at Fort Hood, where he too was based. "I knew there would be a confrontation when I was there, because the only reason to do that process is to deploy," Agosto, speaking to IPS near Fort Hood, explained. Agosto was court-martialed for refusing an order to go to the SRC to prepare to deploy to Afghanistan. "I was court-martialed for refusing the order to SRC in that very same building. I didn't enter the building, but I didn't go in because I was refusing the process," Agosto continued. "It's a pretty important place in my life, so it's interesting to me that this happened there." From maryrose333 at att.net Wed Nov 11 09:11:53 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Wed, 11 Nov 2009 08:11:53 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: [globalnetnews-summary] Lawsuit alleges that New York Post DC bureau chief's goal was 'to destroy' Obama Message-ID: <007c01ca62e9$e179d340$a46d79c0$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS What are we-the-people to do when one group deliberately sets out to destroy the government that we have overwhelmingly voted into office by a large majority? Perhaps it is time we consider the system itself and whether or not it really serves our needs as the human family. -----Original Message----- From: globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net [mailto:globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net] On Behalf Of TradingPostPaul Sent: Wednesday, November 11, 2009 6:53 AM To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] Lawsuit alleges that New York Post DC bureau chief's goal was 'to destroy' Obama Lawsuit alleges that New York Post DC bureau chief's goal was 'to destroy' Obama http://thinkprogress.org/2009/11/10/post-destroy-obama/ NYPost-Logo2The Huffington Post's Sam Stein reports today that a fired New York Post employee, Sandra Guzman, has filed a complaint against the Post, the paper's parent company News Corp., and Post editor-in-chief Col Allan "alleging harassment as well as 'unlawful employment practices and retaliation.'" Stein reports that Guzman "paints the Post newsroom as a male-dominated frat house and Allan in particular as sexist, offensive and domineering. Guzman alleges that she and others were routinely subjected to misogynistic behavior." But in addition to horrible workplace conditions, the Post's news division is operating with a clear partisan bias, according to Guzman. She said the Post's Washington D.C. bureau chief vowed to bring down President Obama: She says that hiring practices at the paper - as well as her firing - were driven by racial prejudices rather than merit. And she recounts the paper's D.C. bureau chief stating that the publication's goal was to "destroy [President] Barack Obama." Guzman's revelation isn't all that surprising considering that a Senior Vice President at Fox News, also a News Corp. subsidiary, admitted earlier this year that the network is consciously aiming to be "the voice of opposition" to the Obama administration "on some issues." From maryrose333 at att.net Wed Nov 11 09:17:48 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Wed, 11 Nov 2009 08:17:48 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: [globalnetnews-summary] On Bush's Watch, U.S. Suffered Its "Electronic Pearl Harbor" Message-ID: <008b01ca62ea$b3c0d970$1b428c50$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS Perhaps if we weren't so busy plotting against one another and united in an effort to save our life support system, we wouldn't need to break into one another's security systems. Please don't try to tell me that the U.S. has not done this to other countries but yet cries "foul" when it is done to us. -----Original Message----- From: globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net [mailto:globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net] On Behalf Of TradingPostPaul Sent: Tuesday, November 10, 2009 12:37 PM To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] On Bush's Watch, U.S. Suffered Its "Electronic Pearl Harbor" (To change your settings or unsubscribe please go to http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/globalnetnews-summary) On Bush's Watch, U.S. Suffered Its "Electronic Pearl Harbor" Updated: 11-10-09 11:25 AM http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/10/on-bushs-watch-us-suffere_n_352204. html Sunday's 60 Minutes featured a pretty terrifying report on the potential threat the United States faces from cyberterrorism. It's territory that the show has mined before. As Steve Kroft pointed out at the outset of the report, the show had "less than a decade ago" gone to the Pentagon to learn more about how computers could be used by hackers "as a weapon." "Much of it was still theory," Kroft related, "But we were told that before too long, it might be possible for a hacker with a computer to disable critical infrastructure in a major city, and disrupt essential services, to steal millions of dollars from banks all over the world, infiltrate defense systems, extort millions from public companies, even sabotage our weapons systems." Eep! Sounds like someone better get on that, before something terrible happens! Except guess what, something terrible already did. "Plus a lot that we don't even know about," Kroft said. Great. Enter Jim Lewis, who directs the Center for Strategic and International Studies, who says that the United States experienced its "electronic Pearl Harbor" in 2007: LEWIS: Some unknown foreign power, and honestly, we don't know who it is, broke into the Department of Defense, to the Department of State, the Department of Commerce, probably the Department of Energy, probably NASA. They broke into all of the high tech agencies, all of the military agencies, and downloaded terabytes of information. Lewis goes on to point out that the entire Library Of Congress is the equivalent of 12 terabytes, so that sort of puts things in perspective, doesn't it? And it's not like hackers were making off with William Faulkner novels! And last November, according to Lewis, "someone was able to get past the firewall and encryption devices of one of the most sensitive U.S. military computer systems and stay inside for several days." That system? The CENTCOM network, which you might know as "the people who are fighting all of our wars." The hackers were able to sit inside the network, tracking information and documents "like they were part of military command." This, Lewis said, is the "most significant" breach of security ever "acknowledged by the Pentagon." Not acknowledging this, however, is the Bush administration, on whose watch all of this happened. Asked why the public was never told about the extent to which the United States had already suffered significant cyber-casualties, Lewis said: "You know, I've been trying to figure out why that is. And some of it is the previous administration didn't want to admit that they had been rolled in 2007." Worse yet, in Lewis' estimation, the seriousness of the threat, even now, "doesn't seem to be sinking in." Hopefully, Liz Cheney will find some way to waterboard the Internet! From maryrose333 at att.net Wed Nov 11 10:12:04 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Wed, 11 Nov 2009 09:12:04 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: [FixGov] Launch of the Fifth Annual UsuryFree Week ... Message-ID: <009d01ca62f2$43e2dfb0$cba89f10$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS For your consideration, thanks to Tom. From: FixGov at yahoogroups.com [mailto:FixGov at yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Tom J. Kennedy Sent: Monday, November 09, 2009 9:53 PM To: undisclosed-recipients Subject: [FixGov] Launch of the Fifth Annual UsuryFree Week ... Greetings: This information is posted at The UsuryFree Eye Opener at this URL: http://usuryfree.blogspot.com/2009/10/on-usuryfree-day-friday-november-13th html Friday, November 13th 2009 Conspiracy Culture presents... http://www.conspiracyculture.com/events_usuryfree5.html ~ An Event for UsuryFree Day ~??You're invited to attend a special workshop to launch the 5th annual UsuryFree Week In mid-November 2009 (November 13th to 19th) usuryfree creatives from all walks of life will gather in meetings - at kitchen tables, in living rooms, in restaurants, in small boardrooms, in community halls, In church basements, in retail store fronts etc. They will either watch DVDs or videos in front of computer monitors or TV screens or listen to guest speakers and have follow up discussions about topics related to (a) our orthodox economic system of usury-based, debt money and/or (b) the usuryfree community currency movement. Anyone and everyone is invited to participate and help us to celebrate this Fifth Annual UsuryFree Day and Week. These gatherings commonly begin with a brief history about the birth and evolution of UsuryFree Day (November 13th, 2005) and UsuryFree Week since its initial launch five years ago. The concept of UsuryFree Day and Week was born in a small town, Tamworth, Ontario, Canada. Tamworth is situated in the rural, eastern and economically deprived area of the province. The initial idea was to celebrate the 1st anniversary of the launch of the usuryfree time currency called Tamworth Hours which commenced on November 13th, 2004. Since its launch in Tamworth, UsuryFree Day and Week has evolved to its present state in 2009 where there will be a multitude of meetings/gatherings in local communities anywhere and everywhere on Planet earth. The purpose of these get-togethers is to re-educate those people who are ready and willing to be re-educated about (a) the many problems associated with the design flaw of usury and how its function causes the positive feedback within our orthodox system of debt money and (b) the optimal solutions as offered by the innovative models of usuryfree community currency that are being perfected with the intent of re-building local community so that everyone can experience the reality of usuryfree living. At many of these gatherings the pioneering usuryfree creatives will assume leadership roles as they share their information and resources with those who choose to participate. Since the early 1980s, when the usuryfree LETS (Local Employment Trading System) software was created by Michael Linton, numerous usuryfree creatives have held the vision for usuryfree living and they have blazed (and continue to blaze) the trail for others to follow. Part seminar, part inter-active workshop, part re-education, part brainstorming, the events of UsuryFree Day and Week always attract prospective usuryfree creatives to the usuryfree community currency Movement. It has been said that the activities of UsuryFree Day and Week offer an opportunity for people from anywhere/everywhere to communicate and interact with usuryfree thinkers and charge or re-charge their economic battteries - whether they be alternative or 'complementary. This year, usuryfree creatives are expecting the largest ever number of participants to celebrate the Fifth Annual UsuryFree Week, because it is now nearly impossible to be ignorant of whats been happening in Our orthodox economci system of usury-based, debt money. It is the hope of usuryfree creatives that a heightened awareness of the many problems associated either directly and/or indirectly with the design flaw of usury as exacted by greedy creditors, will motivate the formerly subservient debtors to individual and collective action. Rather than withdrawing and throwing in the towel and portraying a defeatist attitude, usuryfree creatives implore debtors everywhere to attend (or create) an event in your local area to commemorate UsuryFree Day, Friday, November 13th, 2009. Otherwise, an event can be planned for any time during this Fifth Annual UsuryFree Week - scheduled from November 13th to 19th. Hopefully, debtors everywhere will be motivated to participate and thereby commit to following a self-imposed course on how money creation really works in our orthdox system of usury-based, debt money and why they ought to seek to eventually live a usuryfree lifestyle. The optimal path to follow is to assume the role of a becoming usuryfree creative and lead the way in your respective local community. Do your own research and then take an active role in helping to launch a usuryfree community currency with a goal to re-build the local economy. Eventually, you will choose to become an active usuryfree creative and commit yourself to doing whatever you can do to help shift the individual and global consciousness towards creating a usuryfree lifestyle for everyone on this planet. Usuryfree creatives advocate shopping locally. A new word locavores has been created to describe those consumers who choose to shop locally. The obvious, supporting catalyst that encourages consumers to shop locally is the networking of family, friends, neighbours, working colleagues, small to medium-sized retail businesses and home-based enterprises so that a database of products, services, talents, etc. Can be listed for inter-trading. All who choose to participate will be re-educated about how they can create and spend their own usuryfree community currency. Armed with their re-education, they will be motivated to action with the spirit of re-building their respective local community. This sort of activity is being likened to launching your own economic lifeboats and thereby being ready to abandon the usury-based, Titanic of orthodox, debt money when their (the bankers) faltering, economic system goes down. It is this spirit of re-building our respective, local communities that usuryfree creatives are celebrating during this Fifth Annual UsuryFree Week. Our collective hope is that by the end of this Fifth Annual UsuryFree Week, we will have more usuryfree creatives talking not about the gloom and doom of usury-based, orthodox economics, but rather about the possibility of joy and love, peace and prosperity for everyone on this planet as we shift our collective consciousness and move ahead to a world of usuryfree living. To read more background information about UsuryFree Day and Week in general do a search at any search engine for UsuryFree Day and Week. For more specific information about the Fifth Annual UsuryFree Day and Week in particular, you are invited to read these articles which are posted at The UsuryFree Eye Opener: http://usuryfree.blogspot com/2009/08/fifth-annual-usuryfree-dayweek-nov-13th.html http://usuryfree.blogspot com/2009/08/invitation-to-participate-and-celebrate.html http://usuryfree.blogspot com/2009/10/fifth-annual-usuryfree-day-week-looking.html http://usuryfree.blogspot.com/2009/10/debtors-revolt-and-usuryfree-resolve html http://usuryfree.blogspot.com/2009/09/winged-lion-awards.html And do check The UsuryFree Eye Opener for any updated details that may be posted between now and November 13th, 2009. http://usuryfree.blogspot.com NOTE: If you live within driving distance of Toronto, Ontario, Canada do make plans now to attend a special event on UsuryFree Day, Friday, November 13th, 2009 at 7:00 PM at Conspiracy Culture, 1696, Queen St. W. Peter Jon Simpson, researcher, publisher, seminar leader will be the keynote guest speaker. Peter has been enlightening audiences relative to economic truth, personal sovereignty and related matters for over 38 years. We are pleased that Peter has generously travelled to assist us in re-educational and specific usuryfree community currency initiatives here in Ontario. Peter resides in Atwater, Minnesota. What's the Cost of Admission?? Attendees are invited to pay-what-they-think-it-is-worth to be present and learn from those who are making the presentations. Cash, cheques, money orders and any usuryfree community currency accepted. The expenses to be covered are: (a) a gift to Conspiracy Culture for offering to share the space for the meeting (b) advertising (c) gifts or donations to the guest speaker to cover his travel expenses and his time investment for any preparation and the presentation. Obviously, the advertising costs and the travel costs of the speaker will require federal cash. Attendees are encouraged to be generous with 'gifts' or 'donations' so that this workshop model can be copied or duplicated in any community in Ontario or elsewhere. Remember, RSVP's are requested for this Special Workshop in honour of our Fifth Annual UsuryFree Day. The first 45 RSVP's will be accepted. Please request your seat for this event by telephoning: 1.416.916.1696 The event will start at 7:00 PM and will end at roughly 9:00 PM. The event location is Conspiracy Culture: 1696 Queen St. W. Toronto, ON. Canada M6R 1B3??NOTE: (There are only 45 spaces available so call your RSVP to Patrick to confirm your intent to attend sooner than later as the event is sure to fill up). NOTES: There will be an event at City Hall in Kitchener, Ontario on Saturday, November 14th. For complete details of this event forward an email to: garyanne at sympatico.ca There will be an event in Ottawa, Ontario on Sunday, November 15th. For complete details of this event forward an email to: tom at cyberclass.net There will be a second event in Toronto, Ontario on Tuesday, November 17th. For complete details of this event forward an email to: ralph.idema at gmail com Look for details of other events to be posted at The UsuryFree Eye Opener. http://usuryfree.blogspot.com [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] __._,_.___ Reply to sender | Reply to group Messages in this topic (1) Recent Activity: . New Members 1 Visit Your Group Start a New Topic MARKETPLACE Parenting Zone: Your community resource for family and home Yahoo! Groups Switch to: Text-Only, Daily Digest . Unsubscribe . Terms of Use . __,_._,___ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From maryrose333 at att.net Wed Nov 11 16:48:03 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Wed, 11 Nov 2009 15:48:03 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: [globalnetnews-summary] Kucinich: Why Is It We Have Finite Resources for Health Care but Unlimited Money for War? Message-ID: <003801ca6329$98430b20$c8c92160$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS While I agree with Mr. Kucinich on the idea of unlimited money for war, I also disagree with him that we can continue to create jobs and preserve the environment at the same time. The economy on which we have based our living since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution has been an aberrant one based on "death-defining" social systems which consider neither the well-being of the people nor our life support system. The only consideration has been for "what makes money" for a few while moving the rest of us into a fascist state as wage slaves so that what I term "raw capitalism" can continue. We must recognize that capitalism requires continual growth to survive and that on a finite planet continual growth is not possible. It is time for change. -----Original Message----- From: globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net [mailto:globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net] On Behalf Of TradingPostPaul Sent: Wednesday, November 11, 2009 2:42 PM To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] Kucinich: Why Is It We Have Finite Resources for Health Care but Unlimited Money for War? Kucinich: Why Is It We Have Finite Resources for Health Care but Unlimited Money for War? November 6, 2009 http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2009/11/06-3 WASHINGTON - November 6 - Following a statement on the Floor of the House of Representative, Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) today made the following statement: "Why is it we have finite resources for health care but unlimited money for war? "The inequities in our economy are piling up: trillions for war, trillions for Wall Street and tens of billions for the insurance companies. Banks and other corporations are sitting on piles of cash of taxpayer's money while firing workers, cutting pay and denying small businesses money to survive. "People are losing their homes, their jobs, their health, their investments, their retirement security; yet there is unlimited money for war, Wall Street and insurance companies, but very little money for jobs on Main Street. "Unlimited money to blow up things in Iraq and Afghanistan, and relatively little money to build things in the US. "The Administration may soon bring to Congress a request for an additional $50 billion for war. I can tell you that a Democratic version of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is no more acceptable than a Republican version of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. "Trillions for war and Wall Street, billions for insurance companies... When we were promised change, we weren't thinking that we give a dollar and get back two cents." From maryrose333 at att.net Thu Nov 12 21:17:49 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Thu, 12 Nov 2009 20:17:49 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: [globalnetnews-summary] Chinese adapt to changing economic climate Message-ID: <009d01ca6418$70cac4d0$52604e70$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS The words "things will never be the same again" from Sandy Wang at a trade show in China at the Canton Fair foretell of the change that the future portends as everything changes around us due to worldwide economic collapse, resource depletion, end of cheap oil, end of the Industrial Age, end of need for human labor, and global climate change. While there is talk of moving into new emerging markets in the developing world, e.g. those of Latin America and Australia, again we must be reminded of resource depletion which mining waste dumps may be able to alleviate over the short term, but we must soon come to the realization that even resources found in dumps will soon be depleted as well. Real hope for a future for our children and grandchildren lies in our ability to design a future constructed from conscious choice to move into simpler yet more fulfilling lifestyles. The days of the military-industrial complex must soon end if we are to be a viable human family. -----Original Message----- From: globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net [mailto:globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net] On Behalf Of TradingPostPaul Sent: Thursday, November 12, 2009 8:54 AM To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] Chinese adapt to changing economic climate (To change your settings or unsubscribe please go to http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/globalnetnews-summary) Chinese adapt to changing economic climate U.S. orders have been hurt by the economic crisis, so the Asian nation's manufacturers are targeting emerging markets such as Latin America November 12, 2009 http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-tc-biz-china-1111-1112-nov12,0,35 42342.story GUANGZHOU, China - -- With 190,000 foreign buyers roaming 12 million square feet of showroom floor, Sandy Wang hoped there would be plenty of orders for her company's steel-toe work boots and leather loafers. But despite recent signs of an uptick in global trade, Wang's booth at the Canton Fair saw little action. There were plenty of lookers, she said, but few takers. "Things will never be the same again," said Wang, who has seen her U.S. orders drop 20 percent in the last year. "We're all very worried." As President Barack Obama prepares for his trip to China this weekend, the anemic Chinese economy could complicate his push to "rebalance" the global economy. The U.S. would like the Chinese government to allow its currency to appreciate, a move that could help U.S. companies ship goods to China. But China has resisted letting the yuan to rise again and hurt China's exports by making them more expensive. At one of the world's largest trade fairs last week, exhibitors said they were adjusting to doing business in a world where the ubiquitous "Made in China" label has been humbled by the economic crisis. Many said they were targeting new markets such as Latin America to make up for the diminished role of U.S. consumers. Others spoke of having to drop prices or use cheaper materials to stay competitive. It has been a difficult year for China's light manufacturers -- the mostly private enterprises that, for years, have produced the nation's baseline exports such as clothes, shoes and household items. Fallen demand has exposed their vulnerability to foreign markets. And when policymakers discuss China's continuing economic development, they speak of shifting from being the world's cheap factory floor. The future, they say, is in value-added products. "Light manufacturing is still very important, but it is a little anachronistic," said Ben Simpfendorfer, chief China economist for the Royal Bank of Scotland. "It's less relevant than it was a decade ago." Between 2002 and 2008, the share of China's light industrial products fell from 45 percent to 30 percent of the nation's total exports, according to research company Dragonomics. On the other hand, exports of heavy industrial goods such as steel and chemicals grew from 29 percent to 40 percent in the same period. The remaining balance was made up of electronic goods. The 52-year-old Canton Fair, in more recent times, has been considered a barometer for the health of China's light manufacturing industries that make the everyday goods that fill the likes of Wal-Mart, Target and Sears. There may be no better place than the biannual event in Southern China to witness the scope of the Chinese manufacturing machine. Tens of thousands of goods are showcased inside seemingly endless lanes of stalls -- everything from velvet yarmulkes and bags of MSG to a leather massage chair that plays the theme song to the movie "Titanic." At the end of the three-week session, exhibitors said it will be difficult to return to the heady days before the financial crisis. In dollar terms, China's exports between January and September decreased about one-fifth compared with the same period last year, according to Global Trade Information Services. Manufacturers said they're seeing some improvement in orders as retailers replenish their inventories for Christmas. The demand for factory labor also has rebounded. Chinese exports fell 15.2 percent year-on-year in September -- the slowest decline of any month this year and a significant improvement from the August decline of 23.4 percent. Many producers are turning to emerging markets, where competition between Chinese products is not as fierce as in the U.S. or Europe. Simon Cheng of Xiamen Funchain Garments Co. makes board shorts and athletic pullovers for Wal-Mart and Sears, and since the financial crisis orders have been down. The lesson Cheng took was to diversify. He's looking into South American and Australian markets. His biggest leap was when he opened his own retail store in China. "We have to balance things," Cheng said from his booth at the trade show. "We can't rely on the U.S. forever." From maryrose333 at att.net Thu Nov 12 21:22:18 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Thu, 12 Nov 2009 20:22:18 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: [globalnetnews-summary] Common Sense for the Clean Energy and Climate Debate Message-ID: <009e01ca6419$0d3c3510$27b49f30$@net> -----Original Message----- From: globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net [mailto:globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net] On Behalf Of TradingPostPaul Sent: Wednesday, November 11, 2009 2:48 PM To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] Common Sense for the Clean Energy and Climate Debate Common Sense for the Clean Energy and Climate Debate http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-redford/common-sense-for-the-clea_b_353 750.html Robert Redford Actor, Director, and Environmental Activist Posted: November 11, 2009 11:07 AM In January of 1776, Philadelphia essayist Thomas Paine published a 47-page pamphlet that changed the world. Within three months, Common Sense had sold 150,000 copies -- in a land of just 2.5 million people -- framing the terms of debate for the American colony's epic break from British rule. By July of that year, the national conversation charged by Paine's work culminated in the Declaration of Independence. In that hallowed tradition, Frances Beinecke, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council, has penned a modern classic in revolutionary thought. Titled Clean Energy, Common Sense, this book calls on us, as a nation, to rise to the challenge of climate change while there's still time to act. Time is of such essence, Frances writes, that every American of conscience must be engaged. Reading this essay is an essential first step. Like Paine's pamphlet, Clean Energy, Common Sense is small enough to fit into your pocket and brief enough to read in two hours. It is accessible and timely and destined to shape the climate conversation now, when it matters most. Because right now, the Senate is debating the single most important environmental bill of this generation: a clean energy and climate act that could generate millions of jobs and slash our global warming emissions. But the stakes are higher still. In a few days, President Obama will travel to China, where climate change and clean energy will be top of the agenda. No doubt both nations will be positioning themselves for the international climate talks in Copenhagen in December. This is a pivotal moment in our nation's history, a time when complex and fateful decisions must be made. There are people of good will who hear claims on both sides of the climate change debate and aren't sure what to believe. If that feels familiar, this little book is for you. In a clear and compelling tone, Beinecke draws from the most current and authoritative sources anywhere to lay out the case for American action against world climate change. She outlines solutions that can help get American workers back on their feet, strengthen our country and set us on the path to a clean energy future. And she calls on each of us to take up paper and pen to urge Congress to act. This is what I find so inspiring about Beinecke's book. I believe that the act of making our voices heard is the best of American politics. I have seen it work time and again -- I have seen citizens, neighborhoods, entire communities carry the weight of truth to our lawmakers. But in order to succeed, we must raise our voices loudly and fully. This is what Beinecke moves us to do. I have known Beinecke for more than 35 years, and I admire her unwavering commitment to protecting the environment. Beinecke's dedication and intelligence make her a formidable fighter, but she is also an optimist. She trusts that green solutions and smart policies can diffuse the climate crisis. And she believes that we can create a cleaner, healthier planet for our children. This is the spirit that infuses her book. Beinecke writes: This book is a call to action, one citizen's honest appeal. It is not a political treatise. It is not a partisan screed. Maybe that's because my politics on this are simple. I believe Democrats and Republicans alike have a real chance here to lead, to look to the future and show us the way to a brighter future. Two centuries ago, Paine wrote, "I offer nothing more than simple facts, plain arguments, and common sense." That's precisely the approach Beinecke has taken in her stand against climate change. Simple facts, plain arguments, and common sense. It's all there in her book. From maryrose333 at att.net Thu Nov 12 21:24:46 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Thu, 12 Nov 2009 20:24:46 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: A hunger scandal Message-ID: <009f01ca6419$64de7120$2e9b5360$@net> From: Luis Morago - Avaaz.org [mailto:avaaz at avaaz.org] Sent: Wednesday, November 11, 2009 3:00 PM To: maryrose333 at att.net Subject: A hunger scandal Dear Friends, The economic crisis has poverty and hunger skyrocketing in poor countries. World leaders meeting in Rome next week are in danger of backing out on a $20 billion pledge to fund life-saving food production -- sign the petition calling on them to keep their promise: Sign The Petition! 1 in 6 people worldwide go hungry everyday. With the recent financial crisis, poverty is skyrocketing, but our governments are failing to take significant action. In a few days, leaders meet at the World Food Summit in Rome to tackle this growing crisis. The best solution is funding to boost sustainable agriculture in poorer countries, but France, Germany, UK, Italy and Japan are backing out on a $20 billion promise made earlier this year. Millions of lives are on the line and this is our chance to hold them to their word. Sign the petition below and it will be delivered directly to world leaders and through a spectacular stunt at the Roman Colosseum on the eve of the Summit: http://www.avaaz.org/en/world_hunger_pledges The world produces enough food to feed everyone. Yet the number of people suffering from chronic hunger across the planet has reached the record-high figure of 1 billion this year. Hundreds of billions are spent by wealthy governments to bail out banks and financial institutions, but the G8 countries are trying to cut a promised $20 billion agriculture fund for the poorest countries to only $3 billion in new money. With literally millions facing life-threatening hunger, this is a scandal. The Rome summit is our best opportunity to push governments to promote small holder food production -- growing evidence shows that intensive farming models are not effectively countering hunger and have a highly damaging impact on our environment. We are teaming up with anti-poverty organisation ActionAid and global farmers networks to show our governments that we refuse to accept a world where people die every minute from hunger. Sign the petition to the Rome Summit -- every signature will be represented at a stunning delivery event at Rome's Colloseum: http://www.avaaz.org/en/world_hunger_pledges The economic crisis and climate change are hitting the poorest hardest and pushing millions to the very brink of survival. It?s at times like these when we must stick closer together and show that we care for those whose most basic rights are denied. Sign the petition below: http://www.avaaz.org/en/world_hunger_pledges With hope, Luis, Alice, Benjamin, Graziela, Ricken, Pascal, Iain, Paula, Paul, Veronique and the entire Avaaz Team Sources Global Hunger worsening, warns UN: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8306556.stm Only 15% of G8 pledge is new money, Reuters: http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSL3424540 ActionAid's HungerFREE Scorecard: Small scale farming systems critical in tackling hunger and poverty: http://www.hungerfreeplanet.org/what-we-do/world-food-day More information about ActionAid?s HungerFREE global campaign at: http://www.hungerfreeplanet.org/ World Food Day: There is enough food grown in the world for everyone (Op-ed), Oxfam International: http://www.oxfam.org/en/pressroom/pressrelease/2009-10-16/world-food-day About the World Food Summit: http://www.un-ngls.org/spip.php?article1399 ---------------------------------------- Want to support Avaaz? We're entirely funded by donations and receive no money from governments or corporations. Our dedicated online team ensures even the smallest contributions go a long way -- donate here . ABOUT AVAAZ Avaaz.org is an independent, not-for-profit global campaigning organization that works to ensure that the views and values of the world's people inform global decision-making. (Avaaz means "voice" in many languages.) Avaaz receives no money from governments or corporations, and is staffed by a global team based in Ottawa, London, Rio de Janeiro, New York, Buenos Aires, and Geneva. Click here to learn more about our largest campaigns. Don't forget to check out our Facebook and Myspace and Bebo pages! You can also follow Avaaz on Twitter! You are getting this message because you signed "Stand with Tibet - Support the Dalai Lama" on 2008-03-30 using the email address maryrose333 at att.net. To ensure that Avaaz messages reach your inbox, please add avaaz at avaaz.org to your address book. To change your email address, language settings, or other personal information, click here: https://secure.avaaz.org/act/index.php?r=profile &user=a98a963da1ffa62878f25e4ba46af430&lang=en or simply click here to unsubscribe. To contact Avaaz, please do not reply to this email. Instead, write to us via the webform at http://www.avaaz.org/en/contact. You can also call us at +1-888-922-8229 (US) or +55 21 2509 0368 (Brazil). -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From maryrose333 at att.net Fri Nov 13 07:04:29 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Fri, 13 Nov 2009 06:04:29 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: [globalnetnews-summary] Goldman To Private Insurers: No Health Care Reform At All Is Best Message-ID: <000201ca646a$652a6a70$2f7f3f50$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS The only solution to this imho is for "we-the-people" to take charge of our own lives by "eating to live" instead of "living to eat" as most of us now do. And to couple this with a total energy management system exercise like Tai Chi or Qigong which the Chinese spent between three and four thousand years perfecting. Changing the way we eat will result in changing the way we raise our food and eliminate many of the problems associated with our agriculture system resulting in loss of topsoil at 17% faster than it can be replaced worldwide. Civilization was built on topsoil and without it we cannot restore our fragile ecosystems to peak efficiency so that their carrying capacity can be increased to meet the demands of the number of people on Earth today. Disease prevention is the answer, not making insurance companies rich at our expense through payment of insurance premiums. We need to start "thinking straight" here, not playing into their hands. -----Original Message----- From: globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net [mailto:globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net] On Behalf Of TradingPostPaul Sent: Thursday, November 12, 2009 8:58 PM To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] Goldman To Private Insurers: No Health Care Reform At All Is Best Goldman To Private Insurers: No Health Care Reform At All Is Best http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/12/goldman-to-private-insure_n_355998. html Updated: 11-12-09 11:31 PM A Goldman Sachs analysis of health care legislation has concluded that, as far as the bottom line for insurance companies is concerned, the best thing to do is nothing. A close second would be passing a watered-down version of the Senate Finance Committee's bill. A study put together by Goldman in mid-October looks at the estimated stock performance of the private insurance industry under four variations of reform legislation. The study focused on the five biggest insurers whose shares are traded on Wall Street: Aetna, UnitedHealth, WellPoint, CIGNA and Humana. The Senate Finance Committee bill, which Goldman's analysts conclude is the version most likely to survive the legislative process, is described as the "base" scenario. Under that legislation (which did not include a public plan) the earnings per share for the top five insurers would grow an estimated five percent from 2010 through 2019. And yet, the "variance with current valuation" -- essentially, what the value of the stock is on the market -- is projected to drop four percent. Things are much worse, Goldman estimates, for legislation that resembles what was considered and (to a certain extent) passed by the House of Representatives. This is, the firm deems, the "bear case" scenario -- in which earnings per share for the top five insurers would decline an estimated one percent from 2010 through 2019 and the variance with current valuation is projected to be negative 36 percent. What the firm sees as the best path forward for the private insurance industry's bottom line is, to be blunt, inaction. The study's authors advise that if no reform is passed, earnings per share would grow an estimated ten percent from 2010 through 2019, and the value of the stock would rise an estimated 59 percent during that time period. The next best thing for the insurance industry would be if the legislation passed by the Senate Finance Committee is watered down significantly. Described as a "bull case" scenario -- in which there is "moderation of provisions in the current SFC plan" or "changes prior to the major implementation in 2013" -- earnings per share for the five biggest insurers would grow an estimated ten percent and the variance with current valuation would rise an estimated 47 percent. The report, a Goldman official stressed, was analytic not advocacy-based. Their job was to provide a sober assessment of the market realities facing private insurers under various versions of health care reform. Story continues below "If no reform at all happens you would see the largest rise in EPS," a Goldman official acknowledged. "But what we are doing is just analyzing what the stocks would do under different scenarios." The study does note on the front page that the firm "does and seeks to do business with companies covered in its research reports." Those companies include Aetna, Wells Point and United Health. goldman - In the context of the current health care debate, the findings provide a small window into the concerns that have driven the private insurance industry's opposition to reform legislation. Simply put: health care reform is going to hurt their bottom line. No less a prestigious voice than Goldman Sachs is telling them so. Some insurers, in the end, will be hit harder than others. CIGNA is the lowest of the big five, for instance, because it does little business providing insurance plans to Medicare patients, individuals and families buying health plans directly, or small employers that offer health plans to their workers. In addition, some reforms are going to hurt the industry more than others. Regulatory changes -- such as prohibiting the prejudice against consumers with pre-existing conditions -- will have an impact across the board, as will the funding cuts to Medicare Advantage. Overall, Goldman calculates the probability of reform passing Congress at 75 percent. Though the limitations of Goldman's political prognostications were on full display earlier in the document: By mid-late October, we expect a cloture vote (60 votes) to bypass a potential filibuster followed by several weeks of debate over proposed amendments on the Senate floor (with a similar process under way in the House). If both the Senate and House are able to pass legislation (perhaps before the Thanksgiving recess), a House-Senate conference negotiation should produce combined legislation for final approval (perhaps by mid-December). From maryrose333 at att.net Fri Nov 13 13:39:36 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Fri, 13 Nov 2009 12:39:36 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: [globalnetnews-summary] Oil: future world shortages are being drastically underplayed, say experts Message-ID: <003e01ca64a1$94ab0a70$be011f50$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS Just as some are playing games with instituting a health care plan that is affordable for all, others are playing games with both the amount of oil that will be available and the onset of climate change. Yet, if ever there was a time for truth it is now! We cannot move forward on these issues based on falsified information -- we must have a clear picture upon which to base intelligent decisions. -----Original Message----- From: globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net [mailto:globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net] On Behalf Of TradingPostPaul Sent: Friday, November 13, 2009 10:54 AM To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] Oil: future world shortages are being drastically underplayed, say experts Oil: future world shortages are being drastically underplayed, say experts http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/nov/12/oil-shortage-uppsala-aleklett Thursday 12 November 2009 19.57 GMT . Swedish academics slate IEA's report as 'political document' for countries with vested interest in low prices . Oil production 'likely to be 75m barrels a day rather than 105m' A leading academic institute has urged European governments to review global oil supplies for themselves because of the "politicisation" of the International Energy Agency's figures. Uppsala University in Sweden today published a scathing assessment of the IEA's annual World Energy Outlook, saying some assumptions drastically underplayed the scale of future oil shortages. Kjell Aleklett, professor of physics at Uppsala and co-author of a new report "The Peak of the Oil Age", claims oil production is more likely to be 75m barrels a day by 2030 than the "unrealistic" 105m used by the IEA in its recently published World Energy Outlook 2009. The academic, who runs a Global Energy unit at Uppsala, described the IEA's report as a "political document" developed for consuming countries with a vested interest in low prices. The report from Aleklett and others, including Simon Snowden from the University of Liverpool, says: "We find the production outlook made by the IEA to be problematic in the light of historical experience and production patterns. The IEA is expecting the oil to be extracted at a pace never previously seen without any justification for this assumption." There is particular concern about high future production rates from "unconventional" sources such as tar sands, with the Uppsala report saying there is a lack of information about the figures in the 2008 Outlook and largely repeated in the latest one. "We must therefore regard the IEA production figure as somewhat dubious until it is explained more fully," added the Swedish report, which is to be published in the journal Energy Policy. The Uppsala findings come days after the Guardian reported that IEA whistleblowers had expressed deep misgivings about the way energy statistics were being collected and interpreted at the Paris-based organisation. Insiders questioned whether US influence and fears of stock market "panic" were encouraging the IEA to downplay the potential for future oil scarcity. Aleklett, whose latest work was funded by the state-owned Swedish Energy Agency, said he had experience of similar internal worries about the IEA. "The Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) gave me the task of writing the report, Peak Oil and the Evolving Strategies of Oil Importing and Exporting Countries. This report was one of those discussed at a round-table meeting that was held in the IEA's conference room in Paris. At that opportunity, in November 2007, I had a number of private conversations with officers of the IEA. The revelations now reported in the Guardian were revealed to me then under the promise that I not name the source. I had earlier heard the same thing from another officer from Norway who, at the time he spoke of the pressure being applied by the USA, was working for the IEA." The energy agency dismissed the suggestions of political influence on its analysis as "groundless". It said the annual document was reviewed by 200 different and independent experts. The IEA was always trying to find ways to make its estimates even stronger, a spokeswoman said: "We would be happy to see any initiative to improve the data quality on reserves and decline rates. We believe our World Energy Outlook 2008 opened an important door to have more field data and transparency and would very much welcome similar efforts to help improve transparency in the oil sector." Meanwhile, Steve Sorrell, author of a recent oil supply report for the UK Energy Research Centre, which also warned of British government complacency on the issue, said the Uppsala paper was a "useful contribution" to the debate on "peak oil" - the period at which maximum levels of crude output is reached after which there will be terminal decline. "The IEA has taken some useful steps in recent years to give more information about how it is arriving at certain conclusions and that is to be welcomed. But its [oil supply/demand] scenarios have also changed radically and that deserves greater explanation. We still need greater access to the data that provides these assumptions," he said. Aleklett added: "I am a scientist, not an economist or a politician. I believe in the facts and if someone can prove me wrong I will happily change my mind." From maryrose333 at att.net Fri Nov 13 15:51:50 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Fri, 13 Nov 2009 14:51:50 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: [globalnetnews-summary] The great global land grab Message-ID: <005d01ca64b4$12752b40$375f81c0$@net> -----Original Message----- From: globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net [mailto:globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net] On Behalf Of TradingPostPaul Sent: Thursday, November 12, 2009 9:06 PM To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] The great global land grab (To change your settings or unsubscribe please go to http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/globalnetnews-summary) Published Nov 7 2009 by Red Pepper, Archived Nov 11 2009 The great global land grab http://www.redpepper.org.uk/The-great-global-land-grab News of another big land deal between a rich nation and a poor developing country is becoming a common occurrence. In August a group of Saudi investors said that they would be investing $1 billion in land in Africa for rice cultivation. They are calling it their '7x7x7 project', since they are aiming to plant 700,000 hectares of land to produce seven million tonnes of rice in seven years. The land will be distributed over several countries: Mali, Senegal and maybe Sudan and Uganda. A few weeks earlier South Korea acquired 700,000 hectares of land in Sudan, also for rice cultivation. India is funding a large group of private companies to buy 350,000 hectares in as-yet unspecified countries in Africa. A group of South African businessmen is negotiating an 8 million hectare deal in the Democratic Republic of Congo. And so it goes on. The United Nations believes that at least 30 million hectares (about 74 million acres, well over the size of the UK) were acquired by outside investors in the developing world during the first half of this year alone. The land grab was indirectly spawned by the international financial crisis. It's interesting to trace the investors' train of thought because it says a lot about the kind of world we're heading towards. Some two years ago many financial players - the investment houses that manage workers' pensions, private equity funds, hedge funds, big grain traders and so on - saw that the sub-prime mortgage bubble was about to burst and moved money into the safer commodities market. Although there was no real shortage of food, food prices (especially of cereals, but also of dairy and meat) rose dramatically. Countries dependent on food imports were badly hit, with a big increase in the domestic price of some food staples, particularly rice. People coped by changing their eating habits, in many cases cutting back on meals, but they also took to the streets to demand government action. By early 2008 riots had broken out in nearly 40 countries, instilling fear among the world's political elite. Panic-stricken governments rushed to increase their food imports, leading several food-producing nations to restrict exports, fearful that they too could be hit by shortages. The big winners from the crisis were not the farmers, as one might have expected. They enjoyed a big increase in the prices they were paid at the farm gate, but all their potential income gains were gobbled up by higher production costs. The people who made a real killing were the suppliers of agricultural inputs. With their quasi-monopoly control over seeds, pesticides, fertilisers and machinery, these giant companies made obscene profits out of the higher prices squeezed out of largely poor populations. Close on their heels in the ranking of the profiteers came the world's largest grain traders. These companies played a role in artificially creating the food scare in the first place, so they made sure they were well placed to profit from it. Cargill, the world's largest grain trader, reported an increase in profits in 2008 of nearly 70 per cent over 2007, a 157 per cent rise in profits since 2006. Profits for ADM, the world's second largest grain trader, showed a lower rate of increase in 2008, partly because of its heavy investments in the sinking ethanol market, but the company's profits were still more than 200 per cent higher than they were in 2006. Going abroad The crisis eventually eased, at least temporarily, but by then its impact on rich, food-insecure nations had been profound. Take Saudi Arabia. Since the late 1970s the country had been seeking to become self-sufficient in some foods, particularly wheat. But just before the food crisis erupted, the government reluctantly decided that this strategy was doomed, largely because the country simply didn't have enough water to irrigate crops. In a radical change of tack, it decided that it would cover all of its grain consumption through imports by 2015. But this, of course, left the country completely reliant on the world market, just at a time that this market was showing itself to be alarmingly unreliable. Not surprisingly, a rather panic-stricken government sent out a directive to private businessmen instructing them to invest in agricultural production abroad. Adnan al-Naiem, secretary general of the Asharqia Chamber in the Eastern Province, put it succinctly in a briefing: 'The objective is to achieve long-term food security for Saudi Arabia and to secure a continuous supply of food to the kingdom at low and fair prices.' China is another example. While self-sufficient in food at the moment, it has a huge population, its agricultural lands have been disappearing to industrial development and its water supplies are under serious stress. With 40 per cent of the world's farmers but only 9 per cent of the world's farmland, it should surprise no one that food security is high on the Chinese government's agenda. And with more than $1.8 trillion in foreign exchange reserves, China has deep pockets from which to invest in its own food security abroad. As many farmers' leaders and activists in south-east Asia know, Beijing has been gradually outsourcing part of its food production since well before the global food crisis broke in 2007. Through China's new geopolitical diplomacy, and the government's aggressive 'Go Abroad' outward investment strategy, some 30 agricultural cooperation deals have been sealed in recent years to give Chinese firms access to 'friendly country' farmland in exchange for Chinese technology, training and infrastructure development funds. Other countries, such as South Korea, Egypt, Libya, Kuwait, India and Japan, have also decided for their own reasons that, faced with the prospect of a world shortage of food in the future, it makes sense to find reliable sources outside their own borders for at least part of their food supply. This is what is driving the current land grab, comparable in a way to the 'scramble for Africa' in the late 19th century. Huge areas of the world are being taken over by foreign powers, but they are no longer using military force - they are waving chequebooks, which in today's world can be an even more powerful weapon. Although land is being grabbed in many different parts of the world, Africa is under heavy assault. Many impoverished governments in sub-Saharan Africa are sorely tempted by the offer of money up-front, and the foreign investors know that if the deals go sour in the future the weak governments will find it hard to expel them. Not that the foreign investors are leaving much to chance. There have already been reports of some of the leased land being protected by private security firms. There is much to worry us about the new carve-up. Some of the world's poorest countries are letting go of land that they need to feed their own populations. The Sudanese government has sold a 99-year lease on 1.5 million hectares of prime farmland to the Gulf states, Egypt and South Korea. But Sudan is also the world's largest recipient of foreign aid, with 5.6 million of its citizens dependent on food packages from abroad. All principles of basic justice tell us that Sudan should be using this land to feed its own people. At the moment, the foreign investors speak of a win-win situation, in which both occupying and occupied countries benefit. Take the 7x7x7 Saudi project mentioned earlier. 'West Africa has an annual deficit of about 2 million tonnes of rice,' according to the Foras International Investment Company, one of the partners in the scheme. 'Our project will confront the food shortage crisis, increase agricultural output and improve rice productivity.' In other words, there will be enough rice to feed the local population and to send abroad. Yet the day may come when there isn't enough rice for both Arabs and West Africans. It is hard to imagine that the investors will put the needs of impoverished African families before the needs of their own, much richer, more powerful people. The day the food runs out The day that the food starts to run out in the world may come far more quickly than most of us imagine. At present, there are more than a billion people going hungry even though there is no shortage of food. The very poor don't eat enough because they don't have enough money. The underlying problem is one of social inequality, of the highly skewed distribution of financial resources in the world. Over the next century much worse food shortages may emerge. The climate crisis is already arriving far more quickly than scientists expected and proving far more dangerous. For a while, many scientists believed that the increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would be partly compensated for by an increase in plant growth, caused by the greater availability of CO2. But now it seems that carbon fertilisation, as it is called, will not happen or will happen far less reliably than was once imagined. One of the most comprehensive models of the impact of climate change, carried out in 2007 by William R Cline, predicts that, without carbon fertilisation, crop productivity in the developing world is likely to decline drastically, by 21 per cent over the next 80 years. And these predictions may also be underestimates, as they haven't taken into account all the so-called 'positive feedbacks' - the melting of the ice sheets in the Arctic and the Antarctic, the melting of the glaciers, the much greater frequency of forest fires, the growing water shortage and so on - which will make everything worse. Indeed, many of the nations that are scouring the world for arable land will have been warned by their own scientists that a world of dire shortages lies ahead. Yet, in this dog-eat-dog world, the very actions that the rich countries are taking will increase the likelihood of a global food shortage. The land being grabbed by outside powers has its own precious ecosystems and much of it is used, at least for parts of the year, by local people. Even though governments say that they are only selling 'empty' or 'marginal' land, such a concept simply does not exist for many of the traditional peasant and indigenous communities in Africa, Asia and Latin America. And the world destroys its biodiversity at its peril, for it is hugely important to have genetically varied populations and species-rich natural and agricultural ecosystems, particularly at times of environmental stress. Biodiversity plays a crucial role in supplying the raw materials and the genes that make possible the emergence of the new plant varieties on which we all depend. Such new varieties will be urgently required as the world heats up. The outside investors, however, working with large private companies, are destroying existing ecosystems and creating huge areas of monoculture crops dependent on chemical fertilisers and pesticides. With the destruction of the ecosystems comes the dispersal of the peasantry and other traditional communities of farmers and herders, who have a profound knowledge of the local biodiversity. These communities could play a crucial role in combating climate change. To give just a single example, with adequate financial support they could be linked together in a vast network of seed markets, stretching across the whole of the African continent, that would help plants to 'migrate' as climatic conditions change. They are perhaps mankind's greatest hope of coping with the climatic cataclysms that lie ahead. Yet the current breakneck land grab is destroying the very basis of their livelihoods. And it is all of us, throughout the world, who will pay the price. From maryrose333 at att.net Fri Nov 13 15:55:33 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Fri, 13 Nov 2009 14:55:33 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: Transition US webinars - Decision-Making Part One recording with Part Two on Wednesday, 18th Message-ID: <005e01ca64b4$8c674730$a535d590$@net> FYI and consideration. It is a good thing to get involved with the Transition Movement. If we are to accomplish anything ?wholesome? for our future, we must become organized and learn how to change our social systems so they are ?life-enhancing?. Think about the future of our children and grandchildren to whom we owe a debt ? we have robbed them of a meaningful future unless we act now to ensure they have one. From: Transition Ohio [mailto:mail at transitionohio.ning.com] Sent: Friday, November 13, 2009 7:49 AM To: maryrose333 at att.net Subject: Transition US webinars - Decision-Making Part One recording with Part Two on Wednesday, 18th Transition Ohio Community Resilience, Self-Reliance, Renewable Energy & Cooperation A message to all members of Transition Ohio Also posted on Transition Ohio http://transitionohio.ning.com/profiles/blogs/transition-us-webinars Decision-Making for Transition Groups: Part One (1:00 - 2:30 PST) Webinars Date: November 11, 2009 View a recording of this event. ~*~*~ How can Transition groups function effectively, democratically in ways that empower members and also get stuff done? Starhawk presents her Five-Fold Path of Productive Meetings: Right People, Right Container, Right Process, Right Facilitation, Right Agenda. Part One will focus on who should be at the meeting, how to choose the right container, and how to decide which process is right for your group. She'll introduce ways to make Consensus and Modified Consensus work for you. In Part Two (on November 18th), she'll focus on the Facilitator's Toolbox, how to create agendas that work, and what to do when groups get stuck. Starhawk has been training groups in consensus and facilitation for over twenty-five years. She is an activist, permaculture designer and teacher, and author of eleven books, including The Fifth Sacred Thing, The Earth Path, and her latest, The Last Wild Witch. She teaches Earth Activist Trainings, permaculture design courses with a grounding in spirit and a focus on organizing and activism. www.earthactivisttraining.org. Her website is www.starhawk.org and her blog, Dirt Worship, is www.starhawksblog.org. Visit Transition Ohio at: http://transitionohio.ning.com To control which emails you receive on Transition Ohio, click here -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From maryrose333 at att.net Fri Nov 13 15:56:39 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Fri, 13 Nov 2009 14:56:39 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: Shaping Tomorrow Insight Newsletter Message-ID: <006301ca64b4$b2fe46a0$18fad3e0$@net> For your convenience. From: Bruce Lloyd [mailto:info at shapingtomorrow.com] Sent: Friday, November 13, 2009 9:39 AM To: maryrose333 at att.net Subject: Shaping Tomorrow Insight Newsletter If you have trouble viewing our newsletter via email please click here to view it online: http://www.shapingtomorrow.com/newsletter.cfm Click here to go to the website Insight Newsletter 13 November 2009 Edited by Bruce Lloyd _____ Algae - Miracle or Mirage? Algae Interest in and optimism about the potential of algae to produce bio-fuels has been growing for several years. Investment and research have been followed by pilots and now scale ups. While many big name companies are involved in these projects, there are one or two lone voices which dissent on its viability to deliver profitably. We have written a summary of what is changing in the world of algea as a fuel source and why we think it is important. Author: Sheila Moorcroft, Director of Research _____ Latest Insights Welcome to our latest Insight newsletter. Read the trend alerts, article and video links below to find your Trends before others do. Our weekly newsletter is just a gentle reminder of what's maybe changing imperceptibly around you. The website itself contains a much larger selection of structured content, with likely high relevance to you and your organisation, and is updated daily. We have added 360 new links this week including Can Technology Persuade Us To Save Energy? Future "machines designed to change humans", also known as persuasive technology, could save us huge amounts of energy and money Comment Marketing Drugs: The Pitfalls Of Direct To Consumer Researchers believe pharma companies could take several steps to make their ads more effective, emphasizing they should find new ways to connect meaningfully with patients Comment Global Environmental Change: The Threat To Human Health Over the past two-to-three hundred years, humanity?s ecological footprint has ballooned to such an extent that we are now fundamentally altering the planet. Comment GE Reveals Phone-Sized Ultrasound Device GE CEO and Chairman Jeff Immett debuted a pocket sized ultrasound scanner a few weeks ago at the Web2.0 conference in San Francisco. The Vscan is aimed at enhancing the level of diagnostic power of the average doctor, helping detect dangerous conditions before they get worse. Comment Augmented Reality Goes Mobile The market for AR applications on smartphones is so new that it has gone from virtually no users in 2008 to an expected 600,000 by the end of 2009. By 2012 there will be 150 million to 200 million users. That would make up only about 3% of the world's mobile-user base but still a high percentage of smartphone users. Comment Smart Meter Installations To Reach 250 Million Worldwide By 2015, Says Pike Research Smart meters are the vanguard of Smart Grid deployments Comment Space Hotel Says It's On Schedule To Open In 2012 A company behind plans to open the first hotel in space says it is on target to accept its first paying guests in 2012 despite critics questioning the investment and time frame for the multi-billion dollar project. Comment Malware Inc.: The Criminals Behind the Attacks Malware makers?the criminals responsible for viruses and worms ?have become increasingly organized and sophisticated Comment Europe Plots Black Boxes For Cars The European Commission's study into feasibility of fitting black box recorders to cars to record 20 types of data in case of accidents looks set to recommend the devices are fitted to all European cars. Comment Futurists' Report Acknowledges Dangers Of Smart Robots Scientists are preparing to publish a report this month that examines, in part, whether robots could eventually become so smart they pose a threat to society. The report will include concerns some researchers have voiced about the legal and ethical use of artificial intelligence Comment _____ A Guide to Practical Foresight: Part 47 - Benefits Part 47 of a year long series on how to use Practical Foresight for competitive advantage: The measure of excellence for scanning is use of the resulting information in planning and decision-making. An appropriate Horizon Scanning process will provide content, search mechanisms, updating processes, and a host environment that: * Several key benefits to the ultimate success of a robust Horizon Scanning system accrue from adopting all four modes of continuous scanning and a robust, collaborative framework. * Users can find much more relevant material to their everyday work, thus encouraging greater usage of the Horizon Scanning system. * Users can comment on and tag upcoming change creating a people-driven view of expected future change. * Researchers can quickly see new serendipitous discoveries of previously unseen linkages between factors. * A wider range of material can be sourced and time-lined to provide evidence of the issue's changing signal strength. * Conditioned viewing is improved by the earlier addition of new factors, modifying existing issues, and the retirement of old ones as things change dynamically. * It becomes far less likely that narrow searching in only one or two scanning modes misses major issues and innovations and therefore reduces potential for future criticism or threat. * The system can be kept continually up-to-date and remain topical. * The resulting knowledge base brings an integrated approach to Horizon Scanning and improves an organization's ability to offer a comprehensive futures intelligence service to its management. You can read the full guide or contact us to learn how to improve Practical Foresight in your organisation. _____ Environmental scanning Maree Conway Join Maree Conway for this second webinar on environmental scanning! This webinar will help you understand what environmental scanning (ES) is in the context of strategy development and strategic planning, and help you get started with scanning in your own work. She will cover: what environtmental scanning is, where it fits in the strategy cycle, why you must do it, how to do it, and how to get started when you go back to work. Register here Contents ? Algae - Miracle or Mirage? <> ? Latest Insights <> ? A Guide <> to Practical Foresight: Part 47 - Benefits ? Environmental scanning <> ? China <> ? Recession: What recession? <> ? Situation vacant <> ? Global Megacrisis Survey <> China Shaping Tomorrow is looking for more researchers with strong connections and past experience of China. We have a number of clients who are seeking to better understand this exciting market. Contact kerry at shapingtomorrow.com for details. Recession: What recession? Quick Asian trip report Some enduring memories of Mike Jackson?s latest trip to Asia. Recession Watch Use this social network graph to see which way our contributors think the world is heading. Last updated 10th November 2009. Take advantage of any upturn or prepare for a further downturn, ahead of the pack, by reading our 'what to do now' recession tips for how to survive and get to more positive futures, faster. Read more Situation vacant Emerging markets futurist and/or Africanist position at Stanbic/Standard Bank. Contact mike.jackson at shapingtomorrow.com for details. Global Megacrisis Survey Make a point of looking at the " Global Megacrisis Survey" under hot issues on Please also take the survey at the end. Mike Marien and Bill Halal are having this published in the Futurist, World Future Review, Futures, Foresight, Shaping Tomorrow and other places to make it a little "mega-study". If you no longer wish to receive this newsletter, please click here -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From maryrose333 at att.net Fri Nov 13 18:52:33 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Fri, 13 Nov 2009 17:52:33 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: [globalnetnews-summary] Why Are Hawkish Lawmakers Willing To Pay For An Escalation Of The War But Not For Health Care? Message-ID: <009301ca64cd$51980130$f4c80390$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS This question needs to be answered!!!! -----Original Message----- From: globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net [mailto:globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net] On Behalf Of TradingPostPaul Sent: Friday, November 13, 2009 3:22 PM To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] Why Are Hawkish Lawmakers Willing To Pay For An Escalation Of The War But Not For Health Care? Why Are Hawkish Lawmakers Willing To Pay For An Escalation Of The War But Not For Health Care? Nov 12th, 2009 at 3:45 pm http://thinkprogress.org/2009/11/12/health-care-afghanistan/ lolieberman In recent days, heated policy discussions in Washington have largely focused on two topics: a possible escalation of the war in Afghanistan and health care legislation. Both a troop escalation and health care legislation carry significant price tags: roughly $100 billion and $80-$100 billion a year respectively. (It should be noted that health care reform, unlike a troop surge, would cut the deficit.) In his New York Times column today, columnist Nicholas Kristof asks why hawks claim health reform is "fiscally irresponsible" while enthusiastically supporting a troop surge in Afghanistan, given the fact that fixing our broken health care system is, unlike a troop surge, essential to the health and well-being of Americans: The health care legislation pays for itself, according to the Congressional Budget Office, while the deployment in Afghanistan is unfinanced and will raise our budget deficits and undermine our long-term economic security. So doesn't it seem odd to hear hawks say that health reform is fiscally irresponsible, while in the next breath they cheer a larger deployment of troops in Afghanistan? Meanwhile, lack of health insurance kills about 45,000 Americans a year, according to a Harvard study released in September. So which is the greater danger to our homeland security, the Taliban or our dysfunctional insurance system? Indeed, hawkish legislators have lined up to both demand a costly surge in U.S. troops in Afghanistan while at the same time claiming that deficit-cutting health care legislation would simply be too expensive: - Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) has called for providing the "resources [needed]" for a "significant increase in U.S. forces" while warning that he is "really worried about what [health care reform] would do to the deficit." [9/13/09, 10/26/09] - Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has complained that passing health care legislation would "expand government spending even more," while also boasting of his Republican caucus's "broad support" for any troop increase in Afghanistan. [10/21/09, 10/11/09] - Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) wrote a letter to President Obama stating that we "urgently need more resources" in Afghanistan, "including more combat troops," while at the same time claiming that passing health care legislation would be tantamount to "generational theft" that would run up "unconscionable and unsustainable deficits." [11/10/09, 8/27/09] Kristof's question bears answering. Why is it that hawkish lawmakers are so willing to spend such enormous resources in both lives and treasure on a troop surge in Afghanistan that is increasingly opposed by Americans and Afghans, but are so quick to bark at the price tag of health care legislation that could save the lives of the 45,000 Americans who die every year because they don't have access to health care? As Glenn Greenwald notes, "Urging that more Americans be sent into endless war paid for with endless debt, while yawning and lazily waving away with boredom the hordes outside dying for lack of health care coverage, is one of the most repugnant images one can imagine." From maryrose333 at att.net Sat Nov 14 06:12:40 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Sat, 14 Nov 2009 05:12:40 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: FW: [globalnetnews-summary] Why Are Hawkish Lawmakers Willing To Pay For ... Message-ID: <001801ca652c$509922a0$f1cb67e0$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS Peter Van Zandt writes: Indeed, why are these lawmakers taking these positions? If we don't understand, perhaps it's because we know less than they about what the true stakes are. The official line is that the Taliban protect potential Al Qaeda terrorists who might attack us. Personally, I almost immediately dismiss this. Several other possibilities I have seen or heard: 1. In the 1990s, we were negotiating with the Taliban for a pipeline to bring Caucusus oil to where we could use it. Negotiations broke down, for reasons not entirely clear. Some say that it was because the Taliban refused to turn Osama Bin Laden over to us, others say it was because negotiating with such an obviously sexist regime became an embarrassment. Any way, that oil is still there, although, as I understand it, it has turned out to be a much smaller quantity than originally thought. it seems unlikely that this is the motive. 2. We want to control Afghanistan's opium trade, since dealing heroin is a major source of financing for the CIA. Plausible, I've seen it before. 3. We want a base to counter the power of a future Russia/China alliance. Also plausible. M R comments: Perhaps it is because the U.S. economy is dependent upon war to keep it going. Since war is the most lucrative business for the elite capitalists to indulge themselves in, then their focus is on keeping the military-industrial complex involved so that all the larger corporations serve this end. But ultimately it is based in the state of the collective human consciousness at this point in time. If we want to change the world, then we must change the collective consciousness one person at a time. Changing the collective consciousness means changing the way we think about things as a society. And, while this is happening it is not happening quickly enough - we the people do not as yet have a "collective" voice. Meanwhile the world is run via monetized politics. So, where we must turn our attention is to ending monetized politics and instituting a new form of governance that is focused on creating life-enhancing social systems that work in the best interests of all concerned. This may mean changing the Constitution because the Constitution as it stands today was written to serve the interests of those who wanted to develop corporate power in the interests of the elite of that time. Remember that signers of the Constitution were wealthy men and slave owners who disenfranchised women, people of color, and non-land owners. And ever since, while there have been many attempts to reinstate the rights of those disenfranchised, it has never happened - and even in today's world it has been impossible to get an equal rights amendment passed for women - we are still considered second class citizens. We still operate under the "dominator paradigm" instituted by the Church and going back as far as 1600 A.D. This has to change. We must be the change we wish to see in our lives. M Gandhi From: Krunkles at aol.com [mailto:Krunkles at aol.com] Sent: Friday, November 13, 2009 7:34 PM To: maryrose333 at att.net Subject: Re: FW: [globalnetnews-summary] Why Are Hawkish Lawmakers Willing To Pay For ... In a message dated 11/13/2009 5:54:17 P.M. Pacific Standard Time, maryrose333 at att.net writes: Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS This question needs to be answered!!!! -----Original Message----- From: globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net [mailto:globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net] On Behalf Of TradingPostPaul Sent: Friday, November 13, 2009 3:22 PM To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] Why Are Hawkish Lawmakers Willing To Pay For An Escalation Of The War But Not For Health Care? Why Are Hawkish Lawmakers Willing To Pay For An Escalation Of The War But Not For Health Care? Nov 12th, 2009 at 3:45 pm http://thinkprogress.org/2009/11/12/health-care-afghanistan/ lolieberman In recent days, heated policy discussions in Washington have largely focused on two topics: a possible escalation of the war in Afghanistan and health care legislation. Both a troop escalation and health care legislation carry significant price tags: roughly $100 billion and $80-$100 billion a year respectively. (It should be noted that health care reform, unlike a troop surge, would cut the deficit.) In his New York Times column today, columnist Nicholas Kristof asks why hawks claim health reform is "fiscally irresponsible" while enthusiastically supporting a troop surge in Afghanistan, given the fact that fixing our broken health care system is, unlike a troop surge, essential to the health and well-being of Americans: The health care legislation pays for itself, according to the Congressional Budget Office, while the deployment in Afghanistan is unfinanced and will raise our budget deficits and undermine our long-term economic security. So doesn't it seem odd to hear hawks say that health reform is fiscally irresponsible, while in the next breath they cheer a larger deployment of troops in Afghanistan? Meanwhile, lack of health insurance kills about 45,000 Americans a year, according to a Harvard study released in September. So which is the greater danger to our homeland security, the Taliban or our dysfunctional insurance system? Indeed, hawkish legislators have lined up to both demand a costly surge in U.S. troops in Afghanistan while at the same time claiming that deficit-cutting health care legislation would simply be too expensive: - Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) has called for providing the "resources [needed]" for a "significant increase in U.S. forces" while warning that he is "really worried about what [health care reform] would do to the deficit." [9/13/09, 10/26/09] - Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has complained that passing health care legislation would "expand government spending even more," while also boasting of his Republican caucus's "broad support" for any troop increase in Afghanistan. [10/21/09, 10/11/09] - Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) wrote a letter to President Obama stating that we "urgently need more resources" in Afghanistan, "including more combat troops," while at the same time claiming that passing health care legislation would be tantamount to "generational theft" that would run up "unconscionable and unsustainable deficits." [11/10/09, 8/27/09] Kristof's question bears answering. Why is it that hawkish lawmakers are so willing to spend such enormous resources in both lives and treasure on a troop surge in Afghanistan that is increasingly opposed by Americans and Afghans, but are so quick to bark at the price tag of health care legislation that could save the lives of the 45,000 Americans who die every year because they don't have access to health care? As Glenn Greenwald notes, "Urging that more Americans be sent into endless war paid for with endless debt, while yawning and lazily waving away with boredom the hordes outside dying for lack of health care coverage, is one of the most repugnant images one can imagine." Indeed, why are these lawmakers taking these positions? If we don't understand, perhaps it's because we know less than they about what the true stakes are. The official line is that the Taliban protect potential Al Qaeda terrorists who might attack us. Personally, I almost immediately dismiss this. Several other possibilities I have seen or heard: 1. In the 1990s, we were negotiating with the Taliban for a pipeline to bring Caucusus oil to where we could use it. Negotiations broke down, for reasons not entirely clear. Some say that it was because the Taliban refused to turn Osama Bin Laden over to us, others say it was because negotiating with such an obviously sexist regime became an embarrassment. Any way, that oil is still there, although, as I understand it, it has turned out to be a much smaller quantity than originally thought. it seems unlikely that this is the motive. 2. We want to control Afghanistan's opium trade, since dealing heroin is a major source of financing for the CIA. Plausible, I've seen it before. 3. We want a base to counter the power of a future Russia/China alliance. Also plausible. Peter Van Zant -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From maryrose333 at att.net Sun Nov 15 01:47:13 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Sun, 15 Nov 2009 00:47:13 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: A Must See Documentary Film... Message-ID: <009401ca65d0$637f98f0$2a7ecad0$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS I am most appreciative of Dr. Bruce H. Lipton's endorsement of this program. From: David Wolfe [mailto:Dave at longevitynowprogram.com] Sent: Saturday, November 14, 2009 12:59 PM To: maryrose333 at att.net Subject: A Must See Documentary Film... What do the actor Woody Harrelson, peak performance coach Tony Robbins, Rev Michael Beckwith from "The Secret," Morgan Spurlock from "Super Size Me," Dr. Gabriel Cousens and myself all have in common... We're all featured in the powerful raw food documentary film "Simply Raw: Reversing Diabetes in 30 Days." If you haven't yet seen this film it is something that you absolutely must check out. You Can See The Trailer For The Film Here Today, Saturday November 14th, 2009 is World Diabetes Day, a United Nations sanctioned event. This is a huge worldwide event with one major flaw... it is funded by over a dozen drug companies who have a strong interest in seeing that information about reversing diabetes through raw and living food is kept quiet. That's why on this World Diabetes Day I have teamed up with the producers of the film Simply Raw to help spread accurate information about how to reverse diabetes. For 6 day only the producers of the film are giving away "Simply Raw: Reversing Diabetes in 30 Days" and the companion "Raw for Life" 2 disc DVD set for 50% OFF the regular price in an effort to raise awareness on how to reverse diabetes with raw and living foods. They're also giving away a laundry list of amazing bonuses if you pick up a copy in the next 6 days. So take a minute to watch the trailer for this amazing film by visiting the site below. http://www.rawfor30days.com/WorldDiabetesDay2009.html And remember, diabetes is a pandemic situation with over 246 million people today suffering from diabetes. If you or anyone you know is suffering with diabetes make sure that they watch this film. It just may save their life... David "Avocado' Wolfe This message was sent from David Wolfe to maryrose333 at att.net. It was sent from: leonard foley, 9 Carlito Rd NM , Sante Fe, NM 87508. You can modify/update your subscription via the link below. Email Marketing by iContact - Try It Free! Manage your subscription -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From maryrose333 at att.net Sun Nov 15 01:44:19 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Sun, 15 Nov 2009 00:44:19 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: FW: FW: [globalnetnews-summary] Why Are Hawkish Lawmakers Willing To Pay ... Message-ID: <008f01ca65cf$fd2a6490$f77f2db0$@net> From: Krunkles at aol.com [mailto:Krunkles at aol.com] Sent: Saturday, November 14, 2009 1:27 PM To: maryrose333 at att.net Subject: Re: FW: FW: [globalnetnews-summary] Why Are Hawkish Lawmakers Willing To Pay ... It could be that the corporate state just goes on inventing reasons for war because war is profitable, but I think the Afghanistan war is more mundane than that. It may be to control the opium trade and finance the CIA, and it may be to counter the power of a Russia/China alliance. In any case, the proximity to the Persian gulf, and some 72% of the world's known oil reserves is certainly relevant. Peter Comment from m r: Peter, while you are correct here, what you are attempting to do is to ?particalize? this. But, in fact, it is part of the same wave of mentality ? war is war however you try to slice it or dice it. message dated 11/;14/2009 5:14:12 A.M. Pacific Standard Time, maryrose333 at att.net writes: Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS Peter Van Zandt writes: Indeed, why are these lawmakers taking these positions? If we don't understand, perhaps it's because we know less than they about what the true stakes are. The official line is that the Taliban protect potential Al Qaeda terrorists who might attack us. Personally, I almost immediately dismiss this. Several other possibilities I have seen or heard: 1. In the 1990s, we were negotiating with the Taliban for a pipeline to bring Caucusus oil to where we could use it. Negotiations broke down, for reasons not entirely clear. Some say that it was because the Taliban refused to turn Osama Bin Laden over to us, others say it was because negotiating with such an obviously sexist regime became an embarrassment. Any way, that oil is still there, although, as I understand it, it has turned out to be a much smaller quantity than originally thought. it seems unlikely that this is the motive. 2. We want to control Afghanistan's opium trade, since dealing heroin is a major source of financing for the CIA. Plausible, I've seen it before. 3. We want a base to counter the power of a future Russia/China alliance. Also plausible. M R comments: Perhaps it is because the U.S. economy is dependent upon war to keep it going. Since war is the most lucrative business for the elite capitalists to indulge themselves in, then their focus is on keeping the military-industrial complex involved so that all the larger corporations serve this end. But ultimately it is based in the state of the collective human consciousness at this point in time. If we want to change the world, then we must change the collective consciousness one person at a time. Changing the collective consciousness means changing the way we think about things as a society. And, while this is happening it is not happening quickly enough ? we the people do not as yet have a ?collective? voice. Meanwhile the world is run via monetized politics. So, where we must turn our attention is to ending monetized politics and instituting a new form of governance that is focused on creating life-enhancing social systems that work in the best interests of all concerned. This may mean changing the Constitution because the Constitution as it stands today was written to serve the interests of those who wanted to develop corporate power in the interests of the elite of that time. Remember that signers of the Constitution were wealthy men and slave owners who disenfranchised women, people of color, and non-land owners. And ever since, while there have been many attempts to reinstate the rights of those disenfranchised, it has never happened ? and even in today?s world it has been impossible to get an equal rights amendment passed for women ? we are still considered second class citizens. We still operate under the ?dominator paradigm? instituted by the Church and going back as far as 1600 A.D. This has to change. We must be the change we wish to see in our lives. M Gandhi From: Krunkles at aol.com [mailto:Krunkles at aol.com] Sent: Friday, November 13, 2009 7:34 PM To: maryrose333 at att.net Subject: Re: FW: [globalnetnews-summary] Why Are Hawkish Lawmakers Willing To Pay For ... In a message dated 11/13/2009 5:54:17 P.M. Pacific Standard Time, maryrose333 at att.net writes: Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS This question needs to be answered!!!! -----Original Message----- From: globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net [mailto:globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net] On Behalf Of TradingPostPaul Sent: Friday, November 13, 2009 3:22 PM To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] Why Are Hawkish Lawmakers Willing To Pay For An Escalation Of The War But Not For Health Care? Why Are Hawkish Lawmakers Willing To Pay For An Escalation Of The War But Not For Health Care? Nov 12th, 2009 at 3:45 pm http://thinkprogress.org/2009/11/12/health-care-afghanistan/ lolieberman In recent days, heated policy discussions in Washington have largely focused on two topics: a possible escalation of the war in Afghanistan and health care legislation. Both a troop escalation and health care legislation carry significant price tags: roughly $100 billion and $80-$100 billion a year respectively. (It should be noted that health care reform, unlike a troop surge, would cut the deficit.) In his New York Times column today, columnist Nicholas Kristof asks why hawks claim health reform is "fiscally irresponsible" while enthusiastically supporting a troop surge in Afghanistan, given the fact that fixing our broken health care system is, unlike a troop surge, essential to the health and well-being of Americans: The health care legislation pays for itself, according to the Congressional Budget Office, while the deployment in Afghanistan is unfinanced and will raise our budget deficits and undermine our long-term economic security. So doesn't it seem odd to hear hawks say that health reform is fiscally irresponsible, while in the next breath they cheer a larger deployment of troops in Afghanistan? Meanwhile, lack of health insurance kills about 45,000 Americans a year, according to a Harvard study released in September. So which is the greater danger to our homeland security, the Taliban or our dysfunctional insurance system? Indeed, hawkish legislators have lined up to both demand a costly surge in U.S. troops in Afghanistan while at the same time claiming that deficit-cutting health care legislation would simply be too expensive: - Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) has called for providing the "resources [needed]" for a "significant increase in U.S. forces" while warning that he is "really worried about what [health care reform] would do to the deficit." [9/13/09, 10/26/09] - Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has complained that passing health care legislation would "expand government spending even more," while also boasting of his Republican caucus's "broad support" for any troop increase in Afghanistan. [10/21/09, 10/11/09] - Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) wrote a letter to President Obama stating that we "urgently need more resources" in Afghanistan, "including more combat troops," while at the same time claiming that passing health care legislation would be tantamount to "generational theft" that would run up "unconscionable and unsustainable deficits." [11/10/09, 8/27/09] Kristof's question bears answering. Why is it that hawkish lawmakers are so willing to spend such enormous resources in both lives and treasure on a troop surge in Afghanistan that is increasingly opposed by Americans and Afghans, but are so quick to bark at the price tag of health care legislation that could save the lives of the 45,000 Americans who die every year because they don't have access to health care? As Glenn Greenwald notes, "Urging that more Americans be sent into endless war paid for with endless debt, while yawning and lazily waving away with boredom the hordes outside dying for lack of health care coverage, is one of the most repugnant images one can imagine." Indeed, why are these lawmakers taking these positions? If we don't understand, perhaps it's because we know less than they about what the true stakes are. The official line is that the Taliban protect potential Al Qaeda terrorists who might attack us. Personally, I almost immediately dismiss this. Several other possibilities I have seen or heard: 1. In the 1990s, we were negotiating with the Taliban for a pipeline to bring Caucusus oil to where we could use it. Negotiations broke down, for reasons not entirely clear. Some say that it was because the Taliban refused to turn Osama Bin Laden over to us, others say it was because negotiating with such an obviously sexist regime became an embarrassment. Any way, that oil is still there, although, as I understand it, it has turned out to be a much smaller quantity than originally thought. it seems unlikely that this is the motive. 2. We want to control Afghanistan's opium trade, since dealing heroin is a major source of financing for the CIA. Plausible, I've seen it before. 3. We want a base to counter the power of a future Russia/China alliance. Also plausible. Peter Van Zant -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From maryrose333 at att.net Sun Nov 15 02:07:38 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Sun, 15 Nov 2009 01:07:38 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: Will supplements be legal next year? Mock Turkey, special offer on DVD, & listen to me on a radio show Message-ID: <00a501ca65d3$3ea2c540$bbe84fc0$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS How we think effects the economic factor and until we are thinking about changing our lifestyles to be ?life-enhancing? instead of based on the death-defining ways of war and waste, we will continue to sink into what many call ?hell?. So, let?s get on the right track here and move into TOTAL WELLNESS. I know it isn?t easy to accomplish change especially when the media, bought and paid for by Big Pharma and other corporate interests, tempts us into going in the wrong direction with sugar-coated propaganda designed to lure us into the hell we have created by selling us on the idea that war and waste are good for us in order to line their own pockets. Let?s just turn off the TV, stand up and say ?no more? ? it really isn?t as difficult as you think it is. I mean what are a few soap operas, sports entertainments, and false news reporting events missed compared to having it all when the threats of dis-ease are removed from one?s life by just learning to ?think differently?. I?m going to try this ?mock turkey? recipe for Thanksgiving. How about you? From: 147068 at bizmailtoday.com [mailto:147068 at bizmailtoday.com] On Behalf Of The Live Food Factor Newsletter Sent: Saturday, November 14, 2009 11:06 AM To: Mary Hampton Subject: Will supplements be legal next year? Mock Turkey, special offer on DVD, & listen to me on a radio show You've received this email because you signed up or made a purchase at http://www.livefoodfactor.com Listen to my 1.5 hour interview with Joe Kasper of www.FireYourDiet.com Call 712 432-1280 access code 709529# for recording There is no charge. It will be up for only one week. Today, Saturday November 14th is World Diabetes Day. The theme for the years 2009 to 2013 is "Diabetes Education and Prevention." It's funny though how "Education and Prevention" can mean totally different things to different people. For the International Diabetes Organization and the over 12 drug companies that sponsor World Diabetes Day it means educating people about how they can "manage" their diabetes with insulin. For the team that made the film "Simply Raw: Reversing Diabetes in 30 Days" it means educating people on how they can prevent and even reverse diabetes with a raw and living foods diet. Now don't get me wrong, insulin is an absolutely amazing thing that has saved countless lives, but it's not something you want to use regularly. The goal should always be to get off of medication whenever possible. And if that's the case how come there's no mention of eating a raw and living foods diet on the World Diabetes Day website? Kind of crazy don't you think... To help with the real meaning of "Education and Prevention" for World Diabetes Day the team behind the film "Simply Raw: Reversing Diabetes in 30 Days" is offering a huge 50% OFF discount on their film and the companion "Raw for Life" 2 disc DVD set. You can see the trailer for the film and what they're doing here: http://rawfor30days.com/cmd.php?af=874463 Also, when you pick up a copy of Simply Raw or Raw for Life today you'll also get ALL of the bonuses listed below. One of the really cool things about theraw food community is how we all come together to support a cause like reversing diabetes. A lot of people have stepped up to contribute amazing bonuses for this event. Don't miss out on getting all of these bonuses... * Bonus 1: "Kitchen Gadgets" 40 Minute Instructional Video by Raw Food Chef Cherie Soria of The Living Light Institute($14.99 Value) * Bonus 2: Jennifer Cornbleet's Favorite 5 Recipes from her Book "Raw Food Made Easy"($4.99 Value) * Bonus 3: A One Month Raw Menu Planner by Tera Warner of "The Raw Divas" ($14.99 Value) * Bonus 4: Audio Interview with Ani Phyo on How to Stay Raw While Traveling ($4.99 Value) * Bonus 5: The entire "The Raw Life: Becoming Natural in an Unnatural World" E-Book by Paul Nison ($14.99 Value) * Bonus 6: The entire "Revealing the Physical Changes" E-Book by Angela Stokes - 63 Pages! ($19.95 Value) * Bonus 7: The entire "Revvellutionize Your Life In 30 Days" E-Book by Revvell Revati of Rawkin Radio ($19.95 Value) * Bonus 8: The entire "Raw Success " book, written by Matt Monarch - ($15.95 Value) plus a 15% Discount Coupon for his Raw Food World Online Store * Bonus 9: Chapter 1 of Susan Schenk's book "The Live Food Factor" ($4.95 Value) That's a lot of great extra health insight and education... and you get it all FR at E when you purchase the Simply Raw or Raw for Life for 50% off. Go here right now to see all the details and get your copies: http://rawfor30days.com/cmd.php?af=874463 Until next time... Much love, Susan P.S. - This special half off World Diabetes Day Sale ends at midnight on Friday, November 20th. If you'd like to get this revolutionary film that so many people are raving about... and save 50%, then go here now: http://rawfor30days.com/cmd.php?af=874463 A LONG-STANDING NOTICE FOR ALL OUR RAW-FOOD ENTHUSIASTS: Victoria BidWell and I want you to make use of and enjoy the fun and life-saving information, the live-food inspiration and how-to-do-raw motivation, the raw recipes and money-saving offers at www.4livefoodfactorfriends.com. Her first 7 e-newsletters are now posted in a single document along with 6 other finished documents, including her download "WELCOME 4LIVEFOODFACTORFRIENDS" gift: The Fruit & Vegetable Lovers' Calorie Guide. Victoria writes several times a month, always with notes and recipes from her unfinished manuscript: The Health Seekers' BeverageBook! CHEERS! T WILL SUPPLEMENTS BE LEGAL AFTER 12/31/09? I saw Brian Clemment talk last week. He is the director of Hippocrates Institute in Florida. He had just gotten word that Codex Alimentarius will NOT pass. They have planned this since 1962?to ban all supplements except for weak ones available only by MD prescription. However, it did not pass. (Brian thinks it will in 2 years, but I am hopeful that awareness is rising too quickly.) In Europe it passed a few years ago, and alternative health has had a great set back. It gets confusing at times, because we are told that green smoothies are so important as they maintain the fiber. (And of course, they are so much faster and easier to make than juicing!) Yet Brian says that 85% of the nutrients are destroyed by the heavy duty blender! If you juice, on the other hand, 90% of the nutrients are maintained as long as you drink it immediately. Brian is convinced that disease begins with self depreciation. He says to remedy that, keep a journal an d before you sleep, write down 7 things you liked about yourself or what you did that day?what makes you feel good about yourself. After 3 months, take 30 minutes every night and read what you?ve written. You will have about 600 things by then and can start to see patterns and repetitions. Then go back to the 7 things a day. After one year you will have 2,400 good things about yourself. Then your self-confidence will soar! You can do greater things. You will love yourself! When you love yourself, your health automatically improves. Also, you are intuitively guided to find the right foods, supplements, and healing modalities. Listen to this RAW FOOD RAP SONG by the Segei Boutenko & friends! http://tinyurl.com/ykw5g4u Mock Turkey Loaf Adapted from Alissa Cohen's book Living on Living Food Alissa said her recipe was adopted from Leslie Kenton's book The New Raw Energy. Things You'll Need: ? 1 cup cashews ? 1 cup pumpkin seeds ? 1/2 cup Brazil nuts ? 5 stalks celery ? 1 scallion or several green onions ? 1 teaspoon or more of sage (or use Thanksgiving blended spices) ? 1 cup cranberries ? Honey to taste In a food processor, grind the cashews, pumpkin seeds, Brazil nuts until fine. Add celery, scallion, and sage and blend until smooth. Remove from food processor and place on large plate. Form into a loaf. Cranberries for the Cranberry Sauce 1 cup cranberries Honey or agave to taste Blend the cranberries in a blender. Add honey or agave to taste. Blend until Smooth. Spread cranberry sauce over the loaf. Garnish with pecans. | | | www.livefoodfactor.com www.livefoodfactor.com/specialoffer The Live Food Factor PO Box 712423 San Diego, CA 92171-2423 US If you no longer wish to receive communication from us: Cancel To update your contact information: Update -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From maryrose333 at att.net Sun Nov 15 02:51:12 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Sun, 15 Nov 2009 01:51:12 -0800 Subject: [GJM] ABSOLUTELY MUST READ: Thriving in the Age of Collapse. Message-ID: <00bc01ca65d9$59766380$0c632a80$@net> Moving Into TOTAL WELLNESS Unfortunately, ending the centuries of the U.S. economy which have been little more than pyramid schemes built on continual bursting bubbles, will cause a lot of discomfort. Perhaps we might consider it a little like recovering from cancer -- a healing that must take place before wellness can set in -- the accumulated pus of corruption must drain from the sore before recovery can take place. War and waste must be replaced by health and wellness. Let us begin the job now and get it over with no more procrastination -- it's back to basics for everyone. -----Original Message----- From: globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net [mailto:globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net] On Behalf Of TradingPostPaul Sent: Saturday, November 14, 2009 2:21 PM To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] Thriving in the Age of Collapse Thriving in the Age of Collapse by Dmitry Orlov http://docs.google.com/View?docid=dtxqwqr_19gjjvp8 A while ago Matt Savinar proposed that I write an article that specifically addresses the situations and concerns of some of the visitors to his Web site. He was also kind enough to provide me with three profiles, each of which is a composite of many people. One profile is of a young professional, another is of a middle-aged couple, and a third is of a high school student. My task was to adapt my knowledge of the circumstances in which people in Russia found themselves after the Soviet economy collapsed to the needs of diverse people in the United States. This I have tried to do. Keep in mind, however, that these are not real people, and that although I sometimes offer them detailed advice on subjects such as education, law, finance, and medicine, I do not practice any of these professions, and what I express here is mere opinion. My premise is that the U.S. economy is going to collapse, that this process has already begun, and will run its course over a decade or more, with ups and downs here and there, but a consistent overall downward direction. I neither prognosticate nor wish for such an outcome; I just happen to see it as very likely. Furthermore, I do not see it as altogether bad. There are some terrible aspects to the current state of affairs, and some wonderful aspects to the post-collapse environment. For example, the air will be much cleaner, there will be no traffic jams, and people will have plenty of time to devote to their children and to people within their immediate community. Wildlife will rebound. Local culture will make a comeback. People will get plenty of exercise walking around, carrying things, and performing manual labor. They will eat smaller and healthier diets. I could go on and on, but that is not the point. Since such a scenario might seem outlandish to some people, I would like to sketch out why I find it entirely plausible. There is an ever-increasing amount of mainstream media attention being paid to the looming energy crisis. At this point, very few people still argue that there is not a problem with the energy supply, immediately for natural gas, eventually for oil. There is also a viewpoint, which is ever more closely and persuasively argued, that what we have to look forward to is a permanent energy shortfall, which will cause economic and societal dislocations that will be monumental in scope, and will transform the patterns of everyday life. The current, consumer-friendly economy would be no more, replaced with a subsistence economy characterized by a good deal of privation and austerity. This viewpoint is usually served up under the rubric of ?Peak Oil? - the all-time global peak in the rate of extraction of conventional crude oil. The connection between the inability to goose up oil production beyond some already icecap-melting number, and the immediate trotting out of the four horsemen of the apocalypse, is not immediately obvious. But apparently the U.S. economy is a sort of pyramid scheme, based on nothing more than faith in its growth potential, and can only continue to exist while it continues to expand, by sucking in ever more resources, particularly energy. Even a small energy shortage is enough to undermine it. So Peak Oil is hardly the problem ? it is the foolish notion that infinite economic growth on a finite planet is possible. Collapse can be triggered when any one of many other physical limits is exceeded - drinkable water, breathable air, arable land, and so on ? and so the limit to sustained oil production is only one of many physical limits to growth. I do not feel the need to argue for the inevitability of a permanent energy crisis, not only because others have already done so quite persuasively, but also because it involves arguing with people who do little more than shout slogans. The slogans that are heard most often range from the simplistic ?There is plenty of oil!? to the ideologically hidebound ?The free market will provide!? to the somewhat more nuanced but technologically implausible ?Technology will provide!? to the perennially hopeful but unrealistic ?Other sources of energy will be found!? There is even the refreshingly irrational ?People have said that oil would run out before, and they were wrong!? repeated endlessly by Daniel Yergin, an oil historian who believes that history repeats itself endlessly, even the history of nonrenewable resource extraction. Facile notions of this sort will remain popular for some time yet, but I feel that it is already quite safe to start ignoring them. It bears pointing out that most of us would prefer to remain blissfully unaware of any and all such arguments and notions, perhaps choosing to concern ourselves with topics less likely to depress our libido. Awareness of topics of global import is certainly not compulsory, and may not even be beneficial. Why worry about disasters we can do nothing to avert? Why not just enjoy our day in the sun, come what may? Also, large groups of people can be dangerous when panicked, and so I do not wish to panic them. As for the few of us who are concerned, my message to you is a cheerful one, because I believe that you can still exercise some measure of control over your destiny. So, if you want some help thinking things through with a positive attitude, read on. If not, do not concern yourself unduly. Instead of reading this, you could lift your spirits by going for a drive, or going shopping, or taking a nap. Rest assured that these are all good things for you to do, the nap especially. Rather than you being menaced by some issue of global importance, any number of other unpleasant eventualities could bring about your untimely demise, on which you should likewise refrain from dwelling morbidly. Your participation in this program is optional. The first step in this program is admitting that what is looming on your horizon is economic collapse ? that the economy, as you are used to thinking about it, will cease to serve your needs. You will not hear about it on the evening news, and there will be no signs in shop windows that read ?Out of business due to economic collapse.? The traditional array of experts will be on hand, claiming that prosperity is just around the corner, and offering this or that short-term fix, which, for all we know, might even work for a little while. An economy collapses one person, one family, one community at a time. First, the dreams evaporate: the future starts looking worse than the present, and ever more uncertain. Then people are forced to withstand ever greater indignities and privations, which they tend to accept as their personal failings. The resulting stress causes them to experience a variety of physical and psychological symptoms. Our pride, our habits and expectations, and our unwillingness to adapt, can kill us faster than any physical hardship. But eventually something has to give, and even if life does not get any easier, one morning we wake up, and not only has life all around us been transformed out of all recognition, but everyone we encounter recognizes that times have changed. And we realize that none of this is about us personally, and feel better. I feel qualified to write on this subject because I had the opportunity to observe an economic collapse firsthand. I did some of my growing up in the Soviet Union, and the rest in the United States. I have visited Russia repeatedly, on personal trips and on business, during the years of Perestroika, the ensuing collapse, and the lean years of the 1990s. I feel equally at home, or, on occasion, lost, in both places. Unlike most Russian ?migr?s who witnessed the collapse, I was fascinated rather than traumatized by my experiences there, and have not tried to blot them out of my memory, as many of them have. Also unlike most ?migr?s, I know quite a lot about the United States, its society and its economy, see its fateful weaknesses, and care about what happens here. When peering apprehensively into the unknown, it is useful to have as your guide someone who has already been there. Since no such guide is available, you will have to make do with someone who has been someplace vaguely similar. Transportation The main use of oil in the United States is for transportation. Once the crisis gets underway, there will be much less transportation available, of goods as well as of people, at any price, exacerbated by the lack of public transportation infrastructure. The U.S. Gross Domestic Product turns out to be almost strictly proportional the number of vehicle miles traveled, and this implies that large reductions in the availability of transportation will translate into similar-sized reductions in the size of the economy overall. A few years on, roads and bridges will start falling into disrepair, making travel slow and difficult even when enough fuel for the trip can be found. People will be forced to stay put most of the time, perhaps making seasonal migrations, and to make use of what they have available in the immediate vicinity. To see what that will be like for you, all you have to do is to give up driving; not cut down on driving, but sell your car, and refuse to ride in one on a regular basis. If this forces you relocate, or to switch jobs or careers, you should probably do so now. You will be forced to do so, when everyone else tries to do it at the same time. I sold my car a few years ago, and my life got better, not worse. Now I work within bicycling distance from home. I am physically fit because I ride for at least an hour a day, and I am saving more money than I was before because I do not have the expense of keeping a car. If you have children that ride the school bus to school, assume that the school bus will not run any more. You might be able to work out a home schooling arrangement, or find another school closer to home that the kids can walk or bicycle to. Food and Clothing Consumer society, as it currently exists in the United States, is propped up by the still relatively cheap and accessible energy, and by the fact that the Chinese, and other nations, are still willing to dispense goods to us on credit. This credit is secured by the promise of future economic growth in the United States, which is already being whittled down by the high energy prices. Thus, the energy crisis will in due course translate into a consumer goods crisis. Therefore, as part of your exercise, assume that every supermarket and big box store is out of business, driven bankrupt by the high cost (and low availability) of diesel, electricity, and natural gas. Shop only at the local farmer's markets, small neighborhood groceries, and thrift stores. Buy as few new things as possible: trash-pick what you can, and repair items instead of replacing them. Learn to grow or gather at least some of your food. If you do not wish to go strictly vegetarian, raising chickens and rabbits is not so hard. To buy staples such as rice, travel into town and buy them in bulk from small immigrant-owned groceries ? you can be sure that these will be around even after the supermarkets are gone. Shelter If your lease or mortgage requires you to have a full-time job in order to afford it, find a way to change your living situation to one that you can keep even when there is no more work. If you can cash out your equity and buy a place that is smaller, but that you can own free and clear, do so. Pay particular attention to how difficult a place will be to heat; do not assume that heating oil, natural gas, or large quantities of firewood will be available or affordable. Also, pay very close attention to the neighbors. Are they people you know and trust? Will they help you? Do not assume that there will be police protection or emergency services. If you live in an area with a history of ethnic strife, how sure are you that you will be able to find a common language and make peace with everyone there, even people whose culture and background are vastly different from yours? Know where to escape to in case your primary residence becomes unlivable, either permanently or for a time. Your arrangements might be as simple as a friend's couch, or a campsite that you rent by the season, or some land where you know you can camp, or an unused farm, ranging all the way to an alternative residence somewhere else in the world that you can relocate to. Medicine If you have or foresee significant ongoing medical needs, staying in the United States will pose a unique set of problems; you might even consider seeking refuge in one of the many countries that provide free basic and emergency medical care to their entire population. The United States is a very special case in having made basic medicine into a profit-making industry rather than a social service. The medical system here has become a parasite, bloated and ineffectual. The doctors are saddled with unreasonable regulations and financial liabilities. When it comes to medicine, almost any country in the world will be better than one that is full-up with unemployed medical specialists, insurance consultants, and medical billing experts. In Belize, which is quite a poor country, I received prompt and excellent free emergency medical care from a Cuban medic. In the U.S., in similar circumstances, I had to wait 8 hours at an emergency room, then was seen for five minutes by a sleep-deprived intern who scribbled out a prescription for something that is available without a prescription almost everywhere else in the world. Then there ensued a paper battle between the hospital and the insurance company, lasting for many months, over whether the hospital could charge for a doctor's visit on top of the emergency room visit. Apparently, in U.S. emergency rooms, doctors are optional. There are specific steps you may be able to take to avoid having to depend on the medical system. Do whatever you can to be in good health, by getting enough sleep and exercise, and by avoiding unnecessary stress. Avoid processed food and junk food. If you do not feel well, get plenty of rest, instead of medicating yourself and attempting to keep to your schedule. Unless your life is in danger, try to do without maintenance regimens of prescription drugs, keeping in mind what will happen when you lose access to them. Be sure to have a living will that allows your family to have control of your medical care. Look for alternative medicines for symptomatic relief of minor complaints. Money For several decades now, the U.S. Dollar has been able to keep its value in the face of ever larger trade and fiscal imbalances largely because it is the currency most of the world uses when buying oil. Other nations are forced to export products to the United States because this is the only way for them to gather the dollars they need to purchase oil. This has produced a continuous windfall for the U.S. Treasury. This state of affairs is coming to an end: as more and more oil-producing nations find alternative ways of doing business with their customers, trading oil for Euros, or for food, the U.S. Dollar erodes in value. As the Dollar drops in value, the price of an ever-increasing list of essential imports goes up, driving up inflation. At some point, inflation will start to feed on itself, and will give rise to hyperinflation. If your immediate thought is, ?Hyperinflation in the U.S.? Impossible!? then you are not alone. A lot of people have trouble thinking about the possibility of hyperinflation, economists among them. Hyperinflation, they say, requires the government to emit vast amounts of money, which, being a good, prudent government, it simply will not do. But this government is drowning in red ink, and will do what desperate governments have always done: opt for inflating its debt away rather than defaulting on it, to retain at least some spending ability in the face of a collapsing tax base and dried-up foreign credit. The people at the Fed do have to be kept fed, after all. Alan Greenspan, Chairman of the Fed, has voiced the viewpoint that since oil expenditure is such a small percentage of the overall economy, increased oil prices will have little effect on it, and, of course, he is right. I am, however, still a bit concerned about lower overall quantities of oil, regardless of the price, because these would result in less economic activity. What I would like Mr. Greenspan to reassure me on is, How is a small national economy going to be able to support a big national debt? By the way, I have an idea: print some money. Others who doubt the inevitability of hyperinflation point to the weakness of trade unions, and say that workers in the U.S. are too badly organized to bargain collectively and secure cost of living adjustments that would propel the economy along an inflationary spiral. These people seem to feel that the workers will somehow continue to be able to work even as their entire paycheck disappears as they buy gasoline for their daily commute. They remind me of the proverbial farmer who trained his horse to stop eating, and almost succeeded, but unfortunately the horse died first. Those who have work that needs to be done will have to make it physically possible for someone to do it. There are also plenty of people in this country ? the ones who are closer the top of the economic food chain, or just feel like they are ? who will pay themselves whatever they require, giving themselves, and those upon whose loyalty they must depend, any cost of living adjustment they deem necessary. They will continue doing so until they are bankrupt. Because wealth is distributed so unevenly, these people make a disproportionately large difference. Lastly, there is a large group of people who feel that such matters are for economists to decide. But decide for yourself: in March of 1999, The Economist magazine ran an article entitled ?Drowning in Oil.? In December of the same year, it was compelled to publish a retraction. Economists are starting to look a bit ridiculous, as their predictive abilities are repeatedly shown to be quite feeble. Moreover, the whole discipline of economics is starting to become irrelevant, because its main concern is with characterizing a system ? the fossil fuel-based growth economy ? which is starting to collapse. Perhaps the difficulty in reconciling oneself to such a possibility stems from history and culture, not economics. Unlike the Russians or the Germans, whose historical memory includes one or more episodes of hyperinflation, it is hard for Americans to imagine living in a time when their paper money is not worth its weight in toilet paper. But such conditions have been known to occur. Savings boil off into the ether. People who still receive paychecks or retirement checks cash them immediately, and do their best to buy the things they need to survive as quickly as they can, before the prices go up again. There are some steps you can take to prepare yourself for life without money. For a time, you might not have an income at all, or an income so meager it will not be enough for even one meal a day, so find out just how little money you need to stay active and healthy. Learn to rely on family, friends, and acquaintances. Find out what you can take from them, and what you have to offer in return. Perhaps most importantly, assume that your retirement income, whether government or private, will in due course become quite close to zero, and make some other arrangements for your old age. If you have children, start buttering them up now ? you will need their help to survive in your dotage. If you do not have children, then think about having some, or adopting one or two. If you do not have or want children, then be sure to have some good friends who are younger than you. For each economic arrangement involving money, try to come up with an alternative arrangement that does not involve money. For example, if you pay a baby-sitter, try to find a baby-sitter who is willing to work in exchange for lessons. If you pay rent, find a caretaker situation where you pay with your labor. If you pay for food, start growing your own food. As you are learning to live with less and less money, you will inevitably find that the money system works to your disadvantage. If you have debt, it becomes harder and harder to make the payments. If you own property, it becomes harder and harder to afford the taxes. The money system takes a bite out of everything you do. But this is true only if your economic relationships are monetized ? if they have monetary value and involve the exchange of money. As you try to reduce your dependence on the money economy, you will need to invent ways to demonetize your life, and that of the people around you. Savings and personal property can be transformed into the stock in trade of human relationships, which then give rise to reciprocal flows of gifts and favors ? efficient, private, and customized to personal needs. This requires a completely different mindset from that cultivated by the consumer society, which strives to standardize and reduce everything, including human relationships, to a client-server paradigm, in which money flows in one direction, while products and services flow in the opposite direction. Customer A gets the same thing as customer B, for the same price. This is very inefficient from a personal perspective. Resources are squandered on new products whereas reused ones can work just as well. Everyone is forced to make do with mediocre, off-the-shelf products that are designed for planned obsolescence and do not suit them as well as one crafted to suit their specific needs. A commodity product can be manufactured on the opposite side of the planet, whereas a custom one is likely to be made locally, providing work for you and the people in your community. But this is also very efficient, from the point of view of extracting profits and concentrating wealth while depleting natural resources and destroying the environment. However, this is not the sort of efficiency you should be concerned with: it is not in your interest. This, then, is the correct stance vis ? vis the money economy. You should appear to have no money or significant possessions. But you should have access to resources, such as food, clothing, medicine, places to stay and work, and even money. What you do with your money is up to you. For example, you can simply misplace it, the way squirrels do with nuts and acorns. Or you can convert it into communal property of one sort or another. You should avoid getting paid, but you should accept gifts, and, of course, give gifts in return. You should never work for money, but always donate your time and effort charitably. You should have a minimum of personal possessions, but plenty to share with others. Developing such a stance is hard, but, once you do, life actually gets better. Moreover, by adopting such a stance, you become collapse-proof. Law The American justice system favors the educated, the corporations, and the rich, and takes unfair advantage of the uneducated, the private citizen, and the poor. It would seem that almost any legal entanglement can be resolved through the judicious application of money, while almost any tussle with the law can result in financial penalties and even imprisonment for those who are forced to rely on public defenders. Many people na?vely believe that a criminal is someone who commits a criminal act. This is not true, at least not in the American system of justice. Here, a criminal is someone who has been accused of committing a criminal act, tried for it, and found guilty. Whether or not that person has in fact committed the act is immaterial: witnesses may lie, evidence can be fabricated, juries can be manipulated. A person who has committed a criminal act but has not been tried for it, or has been tried and exonerated, is not a criminal, and for anyone to call him a criminal is libelous. It therefore follows that, within the American justice system, committing a crime and getting away with it is substantially identical to not committing a crime at all. Wealthy clients have lawyers who are constantly testing and, whenever possible, expanding the bounds of legality. Corporations have entire armies of lawyers, and can almost always win against individuals. Furthermore, corporations use their political influence to promote the use of binding arbitration, which favors them, as the way to resolve disputes. This state of affairs makes it hopelessly na?ve for anyone to confuse legality with morality, ethics, or justice. You should always behave in a legal manner, but this will not necessarily save you from going to jail. In what manner you choose to behave legally is between you and your conscience, God, or lawyer, if you happen to have one, and may or may not have anything to do with obeying laws. Legality is a property of the justice system, while justice is an ancient virtue. This distinction is lost on very few people: most people possess a sense of justice, and, separate from it, an understanding of what is legal, and what they they can get away with. The U.S. legal system, as it stands, is a luxury, not a necessity. It is good to those who can afford it, and bad for those who cannot. As ever-increasing numbers of people find that they cannot pay what it takes to secure a good outcome for themselves, they will start to see it not as a system of justice, but as a tool of oppression, and will learn to avoid it rather than to look to it for help. As oppression becomes the norm, at some point the pretense to serving justice will be dispensed with in favor of a much simpler, efficient, streamlined system of social control, perhaps one based on martial law. People have been known to get along quite happily without written law, lawyers, courts, or jails. Societies always evolve an idea of what is forbidden, and find ways to punish those who transgress. In the absence of an official system of justice, people generally become much more careful around each other, because running afoul of someone may lead to a duel or give rise to a vendetta, and because, in the absence of jails, punishments tend become draconian, coming to include dispossession, banishment, and even death, which are all intended to deter and to neutralize rather than to punish. When disputes do arise, lay mediators or councils may be appealed to, to help resolve them. The transition to a lower-energy system of jurisprudence will no doubt be quite tumultuous, but there is something we can be sure of: many laws will become unenforceable at its very outset. This development, given our definition of what is criminal, will de facto decriminalize many types of behavior, opening new, relatively safe avenues of legal behavior for multitudes of people, creating new opportunities for the wise, and further tempting the evil and the foolish. As a safety precaution, you might want to distance yourself from the legal system, and, to the extent that this is possible, find your own justice. As an exercise, examine each of your relationships that is based on a contract, lease, deed, license, promissory note, or other legal instrument, and look for ways to replace it with relationships that are based on trust, mutual respect, and common interest. Think of ways to make these relationships work within the context of friendships and familial ties. To protect yourself from getting savaged by the justice system as it degenerates into oppression, try to weave a thick web of informal interdependency all around you, where any conflict or disagreement can be extinguished by drawing in more and more interested parties, all of them eager to resolve it peaceably, and none of them willing to let it escalate beyond their midst. Struggle for impartiality when attempting to mediate disputes, and be guided by your wisdom and your sense of justice rather than by laws, rules, or precedents, which offer poor guidance in changing times. From maryrose333 at att.net Sun Nov 15 03:11:53 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Sun, 15 Nov 2009 02:11:53 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: Another MUST READ - The Fallacy of Alternative Energy Message-ID: <00bd01ca65dc$38e76620$aab63260$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS IMHO, the TOTAL WELLNESS community of tomorrow will look nothing like that of today. And, we simply must stop attempting to put the second story on the house by taking the building blocks of the basement and trying to use them in this way. BTW, please note that I never use the term: "sustainable development" and instead write: "sustainable living." Perhaps instead of "alternative energy" we should be thinking in terms of how to create and maintain sustainable energy sources. And I do believe that Zero Point Energy can be harnessed for our use - we only need to FOCUS our efforts on learning how to do this and stop mucking around with trying to maintain the current flawed economic system that benefits only a few. -----Original Message----- From: globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net [mailto:globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net] On Behalf Of TradingPostPaul Sent: Saturday, November 14, 2009 1:36 PM To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] The Fallacy Of Alternative Energy The Fallacy Of Alternative Energy http://www.countercurrents.org/goodchild141109.htm By Peter Goodchild 14 November, 2009 Countercurrents.org The term "alternative energy" starts its life as something like an oxymoron. A "source of energy" either exists or it does not. If it exists, it is being used, and the word "alternative" is therefore at best confusing if not deliberately misleading. If it does not exist, it is not being used. There is no mysterious borderland between those two states of existence and nonexistence. It is not possible for an "alternative energy" to exist somehow in a virginal state, to be utterly undetected and unused. Refusing to deal with overpopulation directly, humans live in a world of ubiquitous destitution, and they have incessantly tried to find ways of relieving the pressures of resource consumption. In such a milieu, the search for an untouched form of "alternative energy" is irrational. There is an air of both desperation and credulity in the quest for such an elixir, a mad scrambling for something that is basically an object of blind faith. To "desperation and credulity" could even be added "intemperance," replacing "elixir" with "elixirs": How many forms of "alternative energy" would humans need to find and utilize before they were happy? The above principles can be extended even further. There is a rough positive correlation between the "sustainability" or future longevity -- as well as the practicality -- of a "source of energy" and the number of years to which this source has already been put to use. A thousand years from now, firewood will no doubt be harvested to some extent, but uranium is unlikely to be a major item of trade. As with "source of energy," I am putting the words "alternative energy" in quotation marks to emphasize that it is a highly problematic term, perhaps one that should be avoided. As a close cousin to an oxymoron, "alternative energy" is in the same league as "sustainable development [or growth]" and "eco-village" or "transition town" (which, contrary to my previous understanding, is not a town where donkeys are ridden). In terms of logic, or the lack thereof, the use of the term "alternative energy" can also be seen as incorporating a petitio principii, which Webster's defines as "the fallacy of assuming in the premise of an argument the conclusion which is to be proved." Something else resembling an oxymoron, in the same class as the others above, and used for similar fallacious purposes, would be "cutting-edge technology," as the term frequently appears in my email in-box: "Peter, you're ignoring the exciting trends in cutting-edge technology." As is often said, it's curious how these exciting trends only pop up when human beings are suddenly facing the reality of expensive cars with no gasoline. But I generally just refer my correspondent to Dmitry Orlov's statement in "Our Village": "There is an element to American culture that never ceases to amuse me. Even when grappling with the idea of economic disintegration, Americans attempt to cast it in terms of technological or economic progress: eco-villages, sustainable development, energy efficiency and so on. Under the circumstances, such compulsive techno-optimism seems maladaptive. I love the new advances in organic farming, which I find fascinating and very useful, but why do people seem incapable of doing the simplest things without making them into projects, preferably ones that involve some element of new technology? Thousands of years of happy composting using heaps and pits are behind us: now we need bins -- and plastic, oil-based ones at that!" Plastic compost bins are the tip of a gigantic pyramid, the summit of a vast infrastructure composed of government, education, and extensive division of labor. When that huge edifice is no longer in place to create those plastic compost bins, we can stop dreaming such back-to-nature dreams. Piling garden refuse into such containers might be pleasant, and it may even have a purpose, but by using these things one is hardly following the precepts of Rousseau and Thoreau. A high-tech solution is precisely no solution. Let us return, however, to the term "source of energy." As it is generally used, it suffers from a lack of scientific rigor. Is there any objective, unprejudiced collection of empirical evidence that the planet Earth, or parts thereof, should be looked upon as "sources of energy"? >From what perspective do we derive this term? The geologist's? The astronomer's? Certainly it is not that of the physicist. Yes, a physicist might use such a term, but not as if it were a universally recognized label meaning "coal, oil, natural gas, and so on." The label might suit the purposes of the historian or sociologist, but only with the understanding that these disciplines are those of the humanities, not of the sciences. The label would also suit the purposes of the engineer, but again only in terms of human goals. "Source of energy," in other words, has meaning from the perspective of human needs, but as it is now used it is questionable as a term reflecting an objective event in external reality. The planet Earth, if I may be forgiven for belaboring the obvious, was not designed and built with "sources of energy" as parts of its structure. (I would be inclined to say that it was not designed and built at all, but that would be a digression.) If, by some quirk of geology or biology, there was plant material, or falling water, or uranium, that could, with human ingenuity, be used to produce heat and light, then that was lucky for humanity, but it says nothing else. The major "sources of energy," using the term in that subjective and non-scientific sense, are fairly obvious: oil, coal, and natural gas, as well as -- much further down the list -- nuclear power and hydro. These sources now allow us to "produce energy" (in the humanistic sense) at the rate of about 16 terawatts. All other sources of "energy" amount to far less than 16 terawatts, and that will always be the case. (Yes, solar energy reaching the Earth is considerable, but it is spread out so thinly that it is not very useful.) Descending from these Aristotelian heights, what grand conclusions can we draw? Perhaps the most important deduction is that the Earth is not an infinite repository of "sources of energy" for the delectation of mankind. The Earth is just a rock, floating in space. If a "source of energy" was not there at the beginning of the Earth, then all the "cutting-edge technology" with which we are so enamored is not going to put it there. We, as humans, are not in a position either to create or to redesign a planet that has an equatorial diameter of about 12,756 kilometers but is, in essence, nothing more than an accident of Nature. If anything appears on Earth that is of use to us, then we are fortunate. If such a thing does not appear on Earth, perhaps contrary to our expectations, then we must be resigned to the fact. I sympathize with those who, since about the 1960s, have been putting all their money into the bottomless pit of the "alternative energy" industry, but my compassion does not extend to prevarication. There is really no sense in devoting vast amounts of time in trying to prove that 2+2=5. But the case is worse than that: unfortunately, so many people who get into discussions over "alternative energy" have simply never bothered to do their basic homework. The kind of writing I look for could be roughly described as follows. We might consider the 11 points listed below. Then we might ask: What would points 12 and 13, etc. be? At the same time, of course, we should not be brooding perpetually over points 1 and 2, or acting as if 1 and 2 were great new discoveries. 1. The entire world's economy is based on oil and other fossil fuels. These provide fuel, lubricants, asphalt, paint, plastics, fertilizer, and many other products. In the year 2000 alone, about 30 billion barrels of oil were consumed. 2. In 1850, before commercial production began, there were about 2 trillion barrels of oil in the ground. By about the year 2008, half of that oil had been consumed, so about 1 trillion barrels remained. 3. By the year 2030, oil production will be down to about half of its peak production. 4. "Unconventional oil" is not very useful. Oil can be produced from tar sands, for example, but 2 barrels of conventional oil must be burned as fuel in order to produce 3 barrels of tar-sands oil. 5. The amount of energy that can be derived from "alternative energy" is not sufficient to replace that of 30 billion annual barrels of oil -- or even to replace more than a small fraction of that amount. In addition, "alternative energy" itself requires "oil energy," even if only as an infrastructure. 6. "Alternative energy" has a host of other problems. Fuel cells require hydrogen derived from fossil fuels. Biofuels require enormous amounts of land. Hydroelectric dams are reaching their practical limits. Solar, wind, and geothermal power require prodigious amounts of equipment, a self-defeating process. Nuclear power faces a shortage of fuel, and it creates serious environmental dangers. 7. Modern agriculture depends on fossil fuels for fertilizers, pesticides, and for the operation of machines for harvesting, processing, and transporting. Without fossil fuels, it will be impossible to feed a global population of several billion people. Widespread famine is inevitable. 8. The global economy is highly dependent on metals, including iron, copper, and aluminum. The mining industry faces two problems: huge requirements of energy (derived from fossil fuels), and a shortage of high-quality ore. 9. The global economy also uses enormous amounts of electricity. (Electricity is not a source of energy; it is just a means of carrying energy.) Electricity is almost entirely derived from disappearing sources: fossil fuels, water power, or nuclear energy. 10. Without oil, metals, and electricity, modern forms of transportation and communication will disappear. Without transportation and communication, the social structure in turn will disappear: government, education, and large-scale division of labor. 11. Small human communities will survive, but they will be relying on primitive technology, since their daily needs will have to be provided mainly by resources in the immediate environment. These communities may need to defend themselves against - or isolate themselves from - groups that are less able or less willing to be self-sufficient. To say that the coming centuries will be a challenge would be an enormous understatement. Perhaps in a future scriptorium, when the facts and legends about the present era are being scratched onto parchment, there will be a chance to reflect on the foolishness of spending time on electric toys and magic tricks, when so much of more practical value could have been done to mitigate the ravages of famine, plague, and war. Peter Goodchild is the author of Survival Skills of the North American Indians, published by Chicago Review Press. From maryrose333 at att.net Sun Nov 15 11:20:23 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Sun, 15 Nov 2009 10:20:23 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: [globalnetnews-summary] How the Lobby Made Mincemeat of the Obama Administration Message-ID: <010001ca6620$756ced60$6046c820$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS While we have in the past, discussed the role of AIPAC in setting U.S. policy, it appears to me that we have underestimated it. And I suspect that while it is not prominently known, the Mormons of Utah play a huge role in providing funding for AIPAC. It should be noted that Utah is mainly a Republican State. I also learned today that there is now a group called "Post - Mormons" who are now taking exception to the policies of the Mormon Church. Co-incidentally along these lines I saw a huge billboard sign on the way into San Diego, placed strategically near the San Diego State University exit which reads: "SO, YOU DON'T BELIEVE IN GOD? You Are Not Alone." Unfortunately, I was unable to get the contact information on that trip but plan to go back and obtain it. As time passes, I am getting the message that more and more people are becoming aware of religion as a "social engineering program" largely constructed by the Holy Roman Catholic Church in order to control the world. And while there are many groups that have broken off from the original and created their own version, there still remains the mythology of Jesus and God passed off as "the gospel truth" but, in reality, constructed as a control mechanism to provide the basis underlying this belief system. -----Original Message----- From: globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net [mailto:globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net] On Behalf Of TradingPostPaul Sent: Saturday, November 14, 2009 10:23 AM To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] How the Lobby Made Mincemeat of the Obama Administration "When the dollar finally goes, so will the government's ability to conduct wars of aggression, underwrite Israel, finance its red ink and pay for imports. That's when the printing press will really get going." How the Lobby Made Mincemeat of the Obama Administration America's Dismal Future http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts11122009.html By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS It did not take the Israel Lobby long to make mincemeat out of the Obama administration's "no new settlements" position. Israeli prime minister Netanyahu is bragging about Israel's latest victory over the US government as Israel continues to build illegal settlements on occupied Palestinian land. In May President Obama read the Israelis the riot act, telling the Israeli government that he was serious about ending the Israeli conflict with the Palestinians and that a lasting peace agreement required the Israeli government to abandon all construction of new settlements in the occupied West Bank. On November 10 Obama's White House chief of staff, Rahm Israel Emanuel, surrendered for his boss at the annual conference of the United Jewish Communities. The ongoing Israeli settlements, he said, should not be a "distraction" to a peace agreement. Allegedly, the US is a superpower and Israel is a client state whose very existence depends entirely on US military and economic aid and diplomatic protection. Yet, in the real world it works the other way. Israel is the superpower and the US is its client state. This true fact is proved to us at least once every week and sometimes two or three times in one week. A few days ago the US House of Representatives voted 344 to 36 in favor of disavowing the UN report by the distinguished Jewish judge Richard Goldstone that found that Israel had committed war crimes in its attack on the civilian population in the Gaza Ghetto. The Israel Lobby demanded that the House repudiate the fact-filled report, and the servile House did as its master ordered. US Rep. Dennis Kucinich spoke to his colleagues for 2 minutes in an effort to make them see that their vote against the Goldstone report would be a great embarrassment to the US government and demean the House in the eyes of the world. But none of that matters when Israel gives its servants an order. The US House of Representatives preferred to demean itself and to embarrass the US Government rather than to cross the Israel Lobby. Retribution quickly fell upon Kucinich for his 2 minute speech. On November 9, Kucinich was forced to withdraw as the keynote speaker for the Palm Beach County (Florida) Democratic Party's annual fundraising dinner. The Israel Lobby gave the order--dump Kucinich or there's no money and no one is coming to the dinner. County Commissioner Burt Aaronson called Kucinich "an absolute horror." Kucinich is the rare Democrat who stands up for his party's principles, the working class, and tried to get health care for those Americans the corporations have thrown out on the street. But helping Americans doesn't count. Israel uber alles. Meanwhile, the US dollar continues to decline relative to other traded currencies. Since spring, anyone could have made a double-digit rate of return betting on most any currency against the US dollar. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) recently expressed concern that despite the dollar's continuing slide, it might still be over-valued. The Federal Reserve's low interest rate policy encourages speculators to use the dollar for the "carry trade." Speculators, whether individuals or financial institutions borrow dollars at rock bottom interest rates and use the almost free capital to purchase higher yielding instruments in other countries. The demand for dollars to finance the "carry trade" keeps the dollar higher than it would otherwise be. Last year it was the Japanese Yen that was used for the "carry trade" due to the practically zero Japanese interest rates. The next scare that unwinds the "carry trade" will cause another big drop in financial asset values. This means that the stock market is very volatile. It is based on speculation, not on fundamentals. When the "carry trade" next unwinds, the demand for US dollars to pay off the loans will temporarily boost the dollar. But don't be fooled. The large US trade and budget deficits are the dollar's death warrant. When the dollar finally goes, so will the government's ability to conduct wars of aggression, underwrite Israel, finance its red ink and pay for imports. That's when the printing press will really get going. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.He can be reached at: PaulCraigRoberts at yahoo.com From maryrose333 at att.net Sun Nov 15 11:27:06 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Sun, 15 Nov 2009 10:27:06 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: [globalnetnews-summary] Financial crisis investigators are taking Wall Street names Message-ID: <010801ca6621$6afc3d30$40f4b790$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS My question here is as to whether this commission will do a better job than that appointed to investigate 9-11? Since we are faced with dealing with monetized politics and "the best government money can buy," my intuition tells me this will be another "white wash" unless we the people stay on top of this like a dog on a racoon's trail never lifting our sniffer from the ground until the perpetrator's are caught and prosecuted. -----Original Message----- From: globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net [mailto:globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net] On Behalf Of TradingPostPaul Sent: Saturday, November 14, 2009 10:05 AM To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] Financial crisis investigators are taking Wall Street names http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/78883.html Financial crisis investigators are taking Wall Street names WASHINGTON - Leaders of a congressional commission investigating the causes of the recent financial crisis are threatening to publicly identify any company or government agency that stalls in voluntarily producing requested documents. Phil Angelides, the chairman of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, told McClatchy in an interview that the panel would investigate the role that Wall Street firms played in causing the crisis to mushroom. McClatchy reported earlier this month that Goldman Sachs, the nation's premier investment bank, sold more than $40 billion in securities backed by risky mortgages in 2006 and 2007 while secretly betting on a housing market downturn that would depress the value of those securities. After purchasing those bonds from Goldman, pension funds, insurance companies and other institutions are facing bigger losses from the financial meltdown. Angelides, a Democrat, and Republican Bill Thomas, the vice chairman, vowed that they wouldn't let the subjects of their inquiry "run out the clock on us." The special commission is patterned after the bipartisan 9/11 Commission, which exhaustively investigated the causes of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. While Congress gave the financial commission subpoena powers, legislators also required the panel to submit its report by December 2010. To issue a subpoena, a supermajority of at least seven commissioners is required on a panel of six Democrats and four Republicans. Angelides stressed that he is treating Thomas like "a co-chairman" and the two said they are united in their efforts. The panel has begun investigating, but has issued no subpoenas and is starting with voluntary requests for information, Angeles said. "Our biggest concern, and we won't let people do it, is that there will be some people with trillions of dollars at stake that they want to protect," he said. "They'll try to run out the clock on us. Both Bill and I have watches with dates on them, and we understand that we have to move." "You'd like to think that the threat of the use of the tools we have will get people to comply," Thomas said. Both men promised to shame those who don't cooperate voluntarily. "We're going to be aggressive in our pursuit of information," Angelides said. "We'll be more than happy to share with people the names of those who are not forthcoming." The commission's reporting deadline next year follows what are expected to be closely contested congressional mid-term elections, and the commission's probe parallels efforts in Congress to pass the most sweeping revamp of financial regulation since the Great Depression. There's public and congressional skepticism about the panel, partly because many of the broad contributing factors in the financial meltdown are well known and have been covered in dozens of congressional hearings. These contributing factors include weakened mortgage lending standards, faulty performance of the credit-rating agencies, overextended investment banks, insufficient and at times nonexistent federal regulation, as well as secret, insurance-like bets that encouraged risk taking. In addition, the Federal Reserve Board's efforts to keep lending rates unusually low for an extended period of time led to an era of cheap borrowing for financial firms and consumers. That fed interest in high-yield mortgage-backed securities and fueled Wall Street's role in buying $2 trillion in risky mortgages. "Everyone's got their theories about what went wrong," Angelides said. "It's our job, as best as we can as an official government inquiry, to try to bring clarity to the American people. And while there are many theories out there, and while I would say the elites in the country think they know what went wrong, there is not a broad understanding for most Americans about what the heck happened." The commission faces numerous hurdles, not the least of which is a compressed time frame that weakens some of the benefit of having the power to subpoena documents or witnesses. Thomas, a former California congressman and a former chairman of the powerful tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, acknowledged a race against time because "to do a first-rate job, it takes more than 18 months, and now it is 12 months" until the panel must submit its report. To probe a crisis that cost Americans more than $11 trillion in wealth, the commission must work within an $8 million budget to cover staff, offices and investigative expenses while taking on Wall Street giants such as Goldman Sachs. "It's a small, thin budget. Goldman will probably spend more on attorneys alone," joked Angelides, a former California state treasurer and rainmaker in California Democratic politics. The commission won an important tool - the ability to have personnel from the Securities and Exchange Commission and bank regulatory agencies available to the panel through next December. "It certainly helps, because it gives us expertise without having to spend dollars, Thomas said. No government agency or Wall Street titan is off limits, the pair insisted. "It would be hard not to drive to the root without looking at the major government agencies. It would be hard not to drive to the root without looking at major Wall Street firms," Angelides said. "We will obviously look at the most significant players in this marketplace." From maryrose333 at att.net Sun Nov 15 12:23:03 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Sun, 15 Nov 2009 11:23:03 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: [globalnetnews-summary] Health Care: Winning a Battle, Losing the War Message-ID: <011501ca6629$36f5c850$a4e158f0$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS Making the SHIFT today means moving into TOTAL WELLNESS which also means we must look objectively at our collective social systems and ask whether they are life-enhancing or not, and, if not, reconfigure them so they are. And, when we have the ability today to produce all of the goods and services necessary for the 6.5 billion people on the planet using only 30% of the total available labor force, then how are we to provide enough jobs to employ the other 70% of the labor force? The U.S. has accomplished this, of course, by producing luxury goods which not only use up resources at an unprecedented rate while at the same time failing to include the "exterior" (read environmental) costs and deferring them to future generations, but has failed to take note that as we move deeper into nanotechnology and bio-mimicry even less of the human labor force will be needed to produce the things we need today. In his book, "The End of Work" Jeremy Rifkin forecasts that when we are fully into bio-mimicry and nanotechnology, it will take only 3-4% of the total available workforce to produce all of the goods and services we need. And while statisticians keep putting up the information that we can create more jobs, the ultimate truth over the long run says "no" this is not possible because we must look at the facts which tell us that advanced technology is far more effective and efficient in accomplishing these jobs than is human labor. What we are talking about here is "using less to provide more" but this is bound to be reflected in number of people needed in the human labor force. What we need to do is to think about ways other than job creation as a means of providing people with the ability to live here on Earth. We might begin by thinking about "food sovereignty" as being the cornerstone of freedom. With this comes the recognition that "land use reform" must be a key priority in reconfiguring our social systems in ways that make them "life-enhancing" for everyone. -----Original Message----- From: globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net [mailto:globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net] On Behalf Of TradingPostPaul Sent: Saturday, November 14, 2009 10:37 AM To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] Health Care: Winning a Battle, Losing the War Change You Can't Believe In Health Care: Winning a Battle, Losing the War http://www.counterpunch.org/ridgeway11092009.html By JAMES RIDGEWAY November 9, 2009 On the House floor Saturday night, Nancy Pelosi managed to muster enough votes to pass a health reform bill, in what's being widely celebrated as a great victory for the Democrats. (Pelosi herself has even compared it with the passage of the Social Security Act in 1935 and the Medicare Act in 1965.) But while Republicans may have lost this battle, they continue to take their shots in what's clearly a larger war. Lindsay Graham has already pronounced the bill "dead on arrival" in the Senate. And in the House, as the debate wore on, one after another, GOP members of Congress rose to denounce the Democratic health care plan as a socialistic plot that will lead to government-run medicine and bankrupt the country. While they were at it, many also took the opportunity to blame Democratic policymaking for the rising unemployment figures and the continuing recession. It's the height of gall, of course, for Republicans to lay any of our economic woes at the feet of the current administration. The frenzy of deregulation and speculation that have left a reported 10 percent of Americans without jobs (and in reality, closer to twice that figure) can be traced directly to conservative policies, which got a leg-up during the Clinton years and flourished under Bush. So why can't the Democrats seem to fight back? In part, perhaps, because they aren't willing to engage in the kind of all-out, brazen, incendiary lying that's become commonplace within the GOP. But there are other reasons, as well. I know the prevailing opinon among the mainstream punditocracy is that Obama is in trouble because he is trying to do too much, too fast. I think it's the other way around. There's no doubt that the president faces tough opposition, much of it fueled by the kind of ignorance and racism that nearly impossible to quell. But they still do, after all, control a majority, both in Congress and among the American public. What makes Democrats most vulnerable to conservative attacks is the fact that they have no compelling message of their own to offer-and nothing to match the soaring rhetoric of the Obama campaign. Instead, they tiptoe cautiously down the middle of the road, and wonder why no one feels terribly inspired to follow them. Take their health care legislation. When Obama addressed the Democratic caucus on the Hill this morning, they reportedly responded with "scattered chants of 'Fired up, ready to go." But fired up is exactly what reform supporters are not. There's nothing in the bill to inspire any fervor on the left that could rival the tea parties. In fact, Republicans are partly right when they say that it won't do much of anything but run up the deficit. The reason for this is not, as they claim, because it's a socialistic big-government plot to take over the private medical system; the reason is that it isn't any of those things-not by a long shot. The Democratic legislation is a costly, futile mess precisely because it refuses to rein in the industries that have been ripping off the American public year after year. Obama and the Democrats have no real vision for a transformed health care system, so they've gone for a slightly modified version of business as usual. They've cut backroom deals that win a few meager concessions toward the public good, while at the same time ensuring the profits of the insurance companies, Big Pharma, and other health care profiteers by maintaining their basic control of the health care system and rewarding them with bigger assured markets and more and more money. (To make matters worse, at the last minute they also cut a deal with anti-choice members of their own party that will further undermine women's access what was, when I last checked, still a legal medical procedure.) In other words, they're doing what Democrats have done since at least the Clinton years-acting like kinder, gentler Republicans, rather than like the defenders of the common people. A whole lot of Americans don't like the current health care system, and a whole lot more hate insurance companies. The Democrats might have been able to translate that into some sort of populist support for real change. Instead, they dithered and compromised, and failed to invoke any compelling ideology. Health care ought to have nothing to do with profits. It should be a basic human right in a civilized society. But that's precisely the kind of statement the Democrats are unwilling to make-so they end up saying nothing at all. Likewise, the Obama White House has yet to take any strong, principled action against the forces responsible for wrecking the economy. And how could it, since it is staffed by the old Clinton economic team that set the financial debacle in motion a decade ago? At the root of the economic mess was the decision to rip down Glass-Steagall, the law that separated Wall Street from commercial banking. One of the men at the center of that endeavor was Larry Summers. And having been a prime cause of the recession, where is Larry Summers today? Ensconsed in the White House, running the Obama economic program. There was a time, shortly after Obama took office, when a rising populist rage at Wall Street greed might have been harnassed to fuel some genuinely meaningful regulatory action. Instead, with men like Summers and Tim Geithner at the helm, we've seen Wall Street recover while Main Street continues to suffer. We've seen a large portion of the stimulus funds chanelled through the private sector, where they've yet to trickle down to the people who need help most. Obama says his goal is for every American who wants a job to have one. So why not start creating government-funded jobs, as FDR did in the early years of the Depression? Why not launch federal projects to create a new green energy industry, instead of waiting for the energy monopolies to come up with a way of making a killing off it? Obama was elected because people took him seriously when he said sought real change. So why won't he take bold action on any of these fronts? Is it because if he did, the Republicans would abandon him and crush his dream of bipartisanship? Or because he doesn't want the Democratic party to lose electoral ground among the so-called swing voters? Or because he's afraid of being branded a crazy maniacal socialist? Oh, wait-all those things have happened already. So what does the president have to lose? If he's going to be called a radical when he's acting like a timid moderate, why not be a little more radical (or mildly progressive, even) in service of the public good? Then he might actually bring about some change we could believe in. From maryrose333 at att.net Sun Nov 15 15:57:12 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Sun, 15 Nov 2009 14:57:12 -0800 Subject: [GJM] Homeless Held Hostage by Catholic Church in D.C. Fight for Gay Marriage Message-ID: <013b01ca6647$201049d0$6030dd70$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS Much of the homosexuality in the U.S. today is caused by estrogen being released into the environment and into our water supply. Men in particular are affected with some developing larger breasts and having a reduced sperm output. I will be posting more on this, but most of the estrogen appears to be coming from the production of plastics. The Catholic Church needs to get itself into today's world and stop being so judgmental of things they have no real knowledge about. With its record of child abuse by priests, and their attempts to cover up this aberration, I simply do not understand how the Church can take this position. Time to get real. Homeless Held Hostage by Catholic Church in D.C. Fight for Gay Marriage BY SHANNON MORIARTY CATEGORIES: CHURCH, GOVERNMENT, IGNORANCE, LGBTQ, POLICY, USA PUBLISHED NOVEMBER 12, 2009 @ 08:19AM PT . . Share99 . 1972 Views http://www.change.org/photos/wordpress_copies/homelessness/2009/11/picture-2 4.pngThe Catholic Church is holding the vulnerable citizens hostage in a battle over gay marriage in Washington D.C. If gay couples are allowed to marry in our nation's capitol, the Catholic Diocese of D.C. will cut off social services to the city's homeless. This cruel ultimatum calls into question the Church's motives for serving the poor in the first place. In the Church's eyes, are the poorest among us people? Or simply pawns for advancing a cruel, intolerable political agenda? D.C.'s same sex marriage is slated for a vote next month. If passed, religious organizations would not be required to perform or make space available for same-sex weddings. They would simply have to obey city laws prohibiting discrimination against GLTB individuals. According to the Post, the Church is fearful that a new marriage law would force the Church to "extend employee benefits to same-sex married couples, among other things." Thus, church officials said they would have no choice but to abandon their contracts with the city. Mike Jones, over at Change.org's Gay Rights blog, dispels the Church's claims even further, pointing out that a change in same sex marriage laws would not require the Church to be secular. It's easy to get caught up in the he-said, she-said, spin, fear-spreading myths. But the bigger question here is this: how many people will be impacted if the Catholic Diocese of DC follows through with this threat? According to the Post, roughly one-third of the city's homeless population currently receive services from Catholic Charities, the Church's charity arm. That's about 68,000 people who will be cut off from shelters, medical services, food programs. Based on the cold, remorseless, matter-of-fact statements issued by the Catholic Diocese of DC, this decision to pit social services and gay marriage one another is being made without batting an eye. The church seems to have no problem leaving vulnerable men, women, and children out in the cold simply to make a point. While providing social services is often considered a benevolent activity, holding those reliant on these services hostage to advance a political agenda is an obscene abuse of power. Why must the poor pay for the church's intolerance? Author Twitter Feed Shannon Moriarty Shannon has worked in homeless shelters and service organizations in San Francisco, the Triangle region of North Carolina, and currently in the greater Boston area. She is a graduate student studying housing and urban policy at Tufts University. Your Logo, Inc. FutureDawning.org Mary Rose, www.futuredawning.org CEO and Founder - Agent for social transformation Future Dawning.org dustysummerrose at gmail.com Always have my latest info Want a signature like this? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/png Size: 3598 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/jpeg Size: 3003 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/gif Size: 177 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/jpeg Size: 7784 bytes Desc: not available URL: From maryrose333 at att.net Sun Nov 15 18:34:32 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Sun, 15 Nov 2009 17:34:32 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: [globalnetnews-summary] The New Farm Owners Message-ID: <014c01ca665d$1ef62540$5ce26fc0$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS This article talks about "food sovereignty" and issues related to land. -----Original Message----- From: globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net [mailto:globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net] On Behalf Of TradingPostPaul Sent: Sunday, November 15, 2009 12:11 PM To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] The New Farm Owners Published on Sunday, November 15, 2009 by GRAIN The New Farm Owners Corporate Investors Lead the Rush for Control over Overseas Farmland http://www.grain.org/ by GRAIN With all the talk about "food security," and distorted media statements like "South Korea leases half of Madagascar's land,"1 it may not be evident to a lot of people that the lead actors in today's global land grab for overseas food production are not countries or governments but corporations. So much attention has been focused on the involvement of states, like Saudi Arabia, China or South Korea. But the reality is that while governments are facilitating the deals, private companies are the ones getting control of the land. And their interests are simply not the same as those of governments. "This is going to be a private initiative." - Amin Abaza, Egypt's Minister of Agriculture, explaining Egyptian farmland acquisitions in other African nations, on World Food Day 2009 Take one example. In August 2009, the government of Mauritius, through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, got a long-term lease for 20,000 ha of good farmland in Mozambique to produce rice for the Mauritian market. This is outsourced food production, no question. But it is not the government of Mauritius, on behalf of the Mauritian people, that is going to farm that land and ship the rice back home. Instead, the Mauritian Minister of Agro Industry immediately sub-leased the land to two corporations, one from Singapore (which is anxious to develop the market for its proprietary hybrid rice seeds in Africa) and one from Swaziland (which specialises in cattle production, but is also involved in biofuels in southern Africa).2 This is typical. And it means that we should not be blinded by the involvement of states. Because at the end of the day, what the corporations want will be decisive. And they have a war chest of legal, financial and political tools to assist them. "What started as a government drive to secure cheap food resource has now become a viable business model and many Gulf companies are venturing into agricultural investments to diversify their portfolios." - Sarmad Khan, "Farmland investment fund is seeking more than Dh1bn", The National, Dubai, 12 September 2009 Moreover, there's a tendency to assume that private-sector involvement in the global land grab amounts to traditional agribusiness or plantation companies, like Unilever or Dole, simply expanding the contract farming model of yesterday. In fact, the high-power finance industry, with little to no experience in farming, has emerged as a crucial corporate player. So much so that the very phrase "investing in agriculture", today's mantra of development bureaucrats, should not be understood as automatically meaning public funds. It is more and more becoming the business of ... big business. The role of finance capital GRAIN has tried to look more closely at who the private sector investors currently taking over farmlands around the world for offshore food production really are. From what we have gathered, the role of finance capital -- investment funds and companies -- is truly significant. We have therefore constructed a table to share this picture. The table outlines over 120 investment structures, most of them newly created, which are busy acquiring farmland overseas in the aftermath of the financial crisis.3 Their engagement, whether materialised or targeted, rises into the tens of billions of dollars. The table is not exhaustive, however. It provides only a sample of the kinds of firms or instruments involved, and the levels of investment they are aiming for. Private investors are not turning to agriculture to solve world hunger or eliminate rural poverty. They want profit, pure and simple. And the world has changed in ways that now make it possible to make big money from farmland. From the investors' perspective, global food needs are guaranteed to grow, keeping food prices up and providing a solid basis for returns on investment for those who control the necessary resource base. And that resource base, particularly land and water, is under stress as never before. In the aftermath of the financial crisis, so-called alternative investments, such as infrastructure or farmland, are all the rage. Farmland itself is touted as providing a hedge against inflation. And because its value doesn't go up and down in sync with other assets like gold or currencies, it allows investors to successfully diversify their portfolios. "We are not farmers. We are a large company that uses state-of-the-art technology to produce high-quality soybean. The same way you have shoemakers and computer manufacturers, we produce agricultural commodities." Laurence Beltr?o Gomes of SLC Agr?cola, the largest farm company in Brazil But it's not just about land, it's about production. Investors are convinced that they can go into Africa, Asia, Latin America and the former Soviet bloc to consolidate holdings, inject a mix of technology, capital and management skills, lay down the infrastructures and transform below-potential farms into large-scale agribusiness operations. In many cases, the goal is to generate revenue streams both from the harvests and from the land itself, whose value they expect to go up. It is a totally corporate version of the Green Revolution, and their ambitions are big. "My boss wants to create the first Exxon Mobil of the farming sector," said Joseph Carvin of Altima Partners' One World Agriculture Fund to a gathering of global farmland investors in New York in June 2009. No wonder, then, that governments, the World Bank and the UN want to be associated with this. But it is not their show. >From rich to richer "I'm convinced that farmland is going to be one of the best investments of our time. Eventually, of course, food prices will get high enough that the market probably will be flooded with supply through development of new land or technology or both, and the bull market will end. But that's a long ways away yet." - George Soros, June 2009 Today's emerging new farm owners are private equity fund managers, specialised farmland fund operators, hedge funds, pension funds, big banks and the like. The pace and extent of their appetite is remarkable - but unsurprising, given the scramble to recover from the financial crisis. Consolidated data are lacking, but we can see that billions of dollars are going into farmland acquisitions for a growing number of "get rich quick" schemes. And some of those dollars are hard-earned retirement savings of teachers, civil servants and factory workers from countries such as the US or the UK. This means that a lot of ordinary citizens have a financial stake in this trend, too, whether they are aware of it or not. It also means that a new, powerful lobby of corporate interests is coming together, which wants favourable conditions to facilitate and protect their farmland investments. They want to tear down burdensome land laws that prevent foreign ownership, remove host-country restrictions on food exports and get around any regulations on genetically modified organisms. For this, we can be sure that they will be working with their home governments, and various development banks, to push their agendas around the globe through free trade agreements, bilateral investment treaties and donor conditionalities. "When asked whether a transfer of foreign, 'superior', agricultural technology would be welcome compensation for the acquisition of Philippine lands, the farmers from Negros Occidental responded with a general weariness and unequivocal retort that they were satisfied with their own knowledge and practices of sustainable, diverse and subsistence-based farming. Their experience of high-yielding variety crops, and the chemical-intensive technologies heralded by the Green Revolution, led them to the conclusion that they were better off converting to diverse, organic farming, with the support of farmer-scientist or member organisations such as MASIPAG and PDG Inc." - Theodora Tsentas, "Foreign state-led land acquisitions and neocolonialism: A qualitative case study of foreign agricultural development in the Philippines", September 2009 Indeed, the global land grab is happening within the larger context of governments, both in the North and the South, anxiously supporting the expansion of their own transnational food and agribusiness corporations as the primary answer to the food crisis. The deals and programmes being promoted today all point to a restructuring and expansion of the industrial food system, based on capital-intensive large-scale monocultures for export markets. While that may sound "old hat", several things are new and different. For one, the infrastructure needs for this model will be dealt with. (The Green Revolution never did that.) New forms of financing, as our table makes plain, are also at the base of it. Thirdly, the growing protagonism of corporations and tycoons from the South is also becoming more important. US and European transnationals like Cargill, Tyson, Danone and Nestl?, which once ruled the roost, are now being flanked by emerging conglomerates such as COFCO, Olam, Savola, Almarai and JBS.4 A recent report from the UN Conference on Trade and Development pointed out that a solid 40% of all mergers and acquisitions in the field of agricultural production last year were South-South.5 To put it bluntly, tomorrow's food industry in Africa will be largely driven by Brazilian, ethnic Chinese and Arab Gulf capital. Exporting food insecurity Given the heavy role of the private sector in today's land grabs, it is clear that these firms are not interested in the kind of agriculture that will bring us food sovereignty. And with hunger rising faster than population growth, it will not likely do much for food security, either. One farmers' leader from Syn?rgie Paysanne in Benin sees these land grabs as fundamentally "exporting food insecurity". For they are about answering some people's needs - for maize or money - by taking food production resources away from others. He is right, of course. In most cases, these investors are themselves not very experienced in running farms. And they are bound, as the Coordinator of MASIPAG in the Philippines sees it, to come in, deplete the soils of biological life and nutrients through intensive farming, pull out after a number of years and leave the local communities with "a desert". "Entire communities have been dispossessed of their lands for the benefit of foreign investors. (...) Land must remain a community heritage in Africa." - N'Diogou Fall, ROPPA (West African Network of Producers and Peasant Organisations), June 2009 The talk about channelling this sudden surge of dollars and dirhams into an agenda for resolving the global food crisis could be seen as quirky if it were not downright dangerous. From the United Nations headquarters in New York to the corridors of European capitals, everyone is talking about making these deals "win-win". All we need to do, the thinking goes, is agree on a few parameters to moralise and discipline these land grab deals, so that they actually serve local communities, without scaring investors off. The World Bank even wants to create a global certification scheme and audit bureau for what could become "sustainable land grabbing", along the lines of what's been tried with oil palm, forestry or other extractive industries. Before jumping on the bandwagon of "win-win", it would be wise to ask "With whom? Who are the investors? What are their interests?" It is hard to believe that, with so much money on the line, with so much accumulated social experience in dealing with mass land concessions and conversions in the past, whether from mining or plantations, and given the central role of the finance and agribusiness industries here, these investors would suddenly play fair. Just as hard to believe is that governments or international agencies would suddenly be able to hold them to account. "Some companies are interested in buying agricultural land for sugar cane and then selling it on the international markets. It's business, nothing more" Sharad Pawar, India's Minister of Agriculture, rejecting claims that his government is supporting a new colonisation of African farmland, 28 June 2009 Making these investments work is simply not the right starting point. Supporting small farmers efforts for real food sovereignty is. Those are two highly polarised agendas and it would be mistaken to pass off one for the other. It is crucial to look more closely at who the investors are and what they really want. But it is even more important to put the search for solutions to the food crisis on its proper footing. References 1 - It was not South Korea, but Daewoo Logistics. 2 - See GRAIN, "Mauritius leads land grabs for rice in Mozambique", Oryza hibrida, 1 September 2009. http://www.grain.org/hybridrice/?lid=221 (Available in English, French and Portuguese.) 3 - The table covers three types of entities: specialised funds, most of them farmland funds; asset and investment managers; and participating investors. We are aware that this is a broad mixture, but it was important for us to keep the table simple: http://www.grain.org/m/?id=266 4 - COFCO is based in China, Olam is based in Singapore, Savola is based in Saudi Arabia, Almarai is based in Saudi Arabia, and JBS is based in Brazil. 5 - World Investment Report 2009, UNCTAD, Geneva, September 2009, p. xxvii. Most foreign direct investment takes place through mergers and acquisitions. ? 2009 GRAIN GRAIN is a small international non-profit organisation that works to support small farmers and social movements in their struggles for community-controlled and biodiversity-based food systems. Their support takes the form of independent research and analysis, networking at local, regional and international levels, and fostering new forms of cooperation and alliance-building. From maryrose333 at att.net Sun Nov 15 18:37:07 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Sun, 15 Nov 2009 17:37:07 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: [globalnetnews-summary] Gretchen Morgenson: Lobbyists Win Again In Securing Tax Break For Home Builders Message-ID: <014d01ca665d$7b6049a0$7220dce0$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS We must do something to stop this!!!! -----Original Message----- From: globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net [mailto:globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net] On Behalf Of TradingPostPaul Sent: Sunday, November 15, 2009 3:02 PM To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] Gretchen Morgenson: Lobbyists Win Again In Securing Tax Break For Home Builders Gretchen Morgenson: Lobbyists Win Again In Securing Tax Break For Home Builders http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/15/gretchen-morgenson-lobbyi_n_358389. html First Posted: 11-15-09 01:11 PM | Updated: 11-15-09 03:10 PM The New York Times's Gretchen Morgenson points out that lobbyists have won another victory that will lead to billions in taxpayer dollars being handed over to firms that helped spur the economic crisis. The Worker, Homeownership and Business Assistance Act of 2009, which President Obama just signed into law, contains "a tax break that lets big companies offset losses incurred in 2008 and 2009 against profits booked as far back as 2004," Morgenson reports. (Read the full story here.) The administration estimates that the tax breaks will be worth some $33 billion, and home builders -- who analysts say were key players in the financial crisis by building and financing too many homes -- stand to benefit enormously. One of the more shocking elements of Morgenson's piece is just how large a rate of return these home builders got for the money they spent on lobbying for this tax break: Securing this tax break was a top priority for home builders, lobbying records show. The Center for Responsive Politics reports that through Oct. 26 of this year, home builders paid $6 million to their lobbyists. Last year, the industry spent $8.2 million lobbying... ...Among individual companies, Lennar spent $240,000 lobbying while companies affiliated with Hovnanian Enterprises spent $222,000. Pulte Homes spent $210,000 this year. That's some return on investment. After spending its $210,000, Pulte will receive $450 million in refunds. And Hovnanian, after spending its $222,000, will get as much as $275 million. Even as unemployment continues to rise and the Obama administration's foreclosure plan appears to be failing, Congress and the White House are signing off on tax breaks that reward those who are partly responsible for our financial predicament. From maryrose333 at att.net Mon Nov 16 07:58:10 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Mon, 16 Nov 2009 06:58:10 -0800 Subject: [GJM] Message from Cari L. Murphy, author of CREATE CHANGE NOW. Message-ID: <002001ca66cd$61d4b820$257e2860$@net> >From Cari L. Murphy: author of CREATE CHANGE NOW Subject: Create a Powerful Intention to Begin Your Week! The prime of our lives is right now-- in the moment. We keep this premise alive by searching for reasons to feel good all the time. We always have the option to consistently choose appreciation and tune ourselves into the energy of gratitude and love. In doing so, we create lives filled with JOY. As you begin your week, create an intention. It can be as simple as "I intend to create and feel joy today." The following is a beautiful intention I wrote a while back that can really bring us back into alignment with who we really are. It may be a bit lengthy, but if you have a few extra minutes, its worth your time. Today, my intention is to have the courage to carry the truth within me in all that I do. I intend to fully stand in my own truth and I intend to honor the spirit within. May I re-member both who I am and who I am not. I will remind myself that who I am is magnificent, while also reminding myself that to carry a facade of who I am NOT only serves to distract me from my magnificence. Today I will accept the truth of my own limitations, and fully clear the path to carrying my true power. I know that holding my power is only possible when I am fearless and when I am not afraid to be vulnerable and purely honest. Today I will balance my ego by consciously checking it often and being aware of my true motivations. I intend on accepting the power that is rightfully mine, from deep within myself, and I intend to allow the infinite love within me to continue to create Home on this side of the veil as long as I'm here. Today I will allow spirit to emanate from me as I encounter each and every individual that enters my path. I intend to be a perfect mirror so that they may see the infinite love within themselves. May I touch their hearts with my own love and allow them to re-member Home and who they really are, just as I continue to re-member who I am. As spirit walks with me today I will be certain to remember to give sincere thanks for the gift of my spiritual safety, my personal power, my intuition, and my ability to create whatever I wish to create. May I always use my infinite abilities to the highest good for all concerned. I commit to enjoying this day to it's fullest and I commit to laughing at every opportunity! Today I will play the wonderful Game And I will carry the vibrations of Home in every move on the precious Game board of Life. Today I will Re-member. I will BE infinite love. May your week be filled with moments to cherish and feel grateful for. Choosing an attitude of gratitude paves the way for even more reasons to be grateful. Expect that great things will happen for you. Remember, thought precedes action, and you are the only one responsible for creating the world you live in---- from the inside-out. Much love to you! Cari Warmest Regards, Cari LaGrange Murphy Best-Selling Author of Create Change Now Get Cari's Latest Book: http://www.facebook.com/l/6895b;www.Create-Change-Now.com Become a Fan: http://www.facebook.com/l/6895b;tinyurl.com/CariLMurphyFANPAGE http://www.facebook.com/l/6895b;www.CariLaGrangeMurphy.com http://www.facebook.com/l/6895b;tiny.cc/CreateBestSellerNow http://www.facebook.com/l/6895b;CariLMurphy.wordpress.com -BLOG http://www.facebook.com/CariLaGrangeMurphy Facebook Group, http://www.facebook.com/l/6895b;tiny.cc/CreateChangeNow http://www.facebook.com/l/6895b;www.twitter.com/CariLMurphy Linked in: http://www.facebook.com/l/6895b;tiny.cc/CariLMurphy370 http://www.facebook.com/l/6895b;www.youtube.com/user/AuthorCariLMurphy Your Logo, Inc. FutureDawning.org Mary Rose, www.futuredawning.org CEO and Founder - Agent for social transformation Future Dawning.org dustysummerrose at gmail.com Always have my latest info Want a signature like this? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/gif Size: 177 bytes Desc: not available URL: From maryrose333 at att.net Mon Nov 16 08:52:08 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Mon, 16 Nov 2009 07:52:08 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: [globalnetnews-summary] Climate Rage Message-ID: <002d01ca66d4$e8d9fae0$ba8df0a0$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS For many years now, the American lifestyle that former President George W. Bush called "non-negotiable" has been taking from the developing world in order to maintain the aberrant grandiose lifestyle of many of those who inhabit the developed world. Now the developing countries are growing up and coming into their own and are no longer willing to carry the burden for this lifestyle. But yet, at the same time, these countries want what they feel is their right to the same type of grandiosity the developed world has indulged in, having been sold on "the American Way" by the media. We see this in the demand for automobiles, new McDonald franchises, and other Westernized paraphernalia that is now in demand by many of those who are potentially "on their way up" in the Eastern world. Sooner or later, and preferably sooner, the reality of living on a finite planet has to set in with humanity adapting to the circumstances of the environment in which we live or face the dire consequences of our actions. In another message, Mary Nelson posted a quote from Utah Phillips: "The earth is not dying. It is being killed, and the people killing it have names and addresses." - Utah Phillips Love, MaryN Perhaps it is time for some of us to begin looking up these names and addresses, grabbing these people by the nap of their neck, looking them straight in the eye, and starting to kick butt on violators of what must be a sacred trust if we are to not only survive but thrive here on planet earth as the human family. We have no time to waste and it's time to start calling a "spade" a "spade". -----Original Message----- From: globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net [mailto:globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net] On Behalf Of TradingPostPaul Sent: Sunday, November 15, 2009 11:32 AM To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] Climate Rage Climate Rage The only way to stop global warming is for rich nations to pay for the damage they've done - or face the consequences http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/30841581/climate_rage/ NAOMI KLEIN Posted Nov 11, 2009 8:29 AM One last chance to save the world - for months, that's how the United Nations summit on climate change in Copenhagen, which starts in early December, was being hyped. Officials from 192 countries were finally going to make a deal to keep global temperatures below catastrophic levels. The summit called for "that old comic-book sensibility of uniting in the face of a common danger threatening the Earth," said Todd Stern, President Obama's chief envoy on climate issues. "It's not a meteor or a space invader, but the damage to our planet, to our community, to our children and their children will be just as great." [Illustration by Tim Bower]Illustration by Tim Bower That was back in March. Since then, the endless battle over health care reform has robbed much of the president's momentum on climate change. With Copenhagen now likely to begin before Congress has passed even a weak-ass climate bill co-authored by the coal lobby, U.S. politicians have dropped the superhero metaphors and are scrambling to lower expectations for achieving a serious deal at the climate summit. It's just one meeting, says U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu, not "the be-all and end-all." As faith in government action dwindles, however, climate activists are treating Copenhagen as an opportunity of a different kind. On track to be the largest environmental gathering in history, the summit represents a chance to seize the political terrain back from business-friendly half-measures, such as carbon offsets and emissions trading, and introduce some effective, common-sense proposals - ideas that have less to do with creating complex new markets for pollution and more to do with keeping coal and oil in the ground. Among the smartest and most promising - not to mention controversial - proposals is "climate debt," the idea that rich countries should pay reparations to poor countries for the climate crisis. In the world of climate-change activism, this marks a dramatic shift in both tone and content. American environmentalism tends to treat global warming as a force that transcends difference: We all share this fragile blue planet, so we all need to work together to save it. But the coalition of Latin American and African governments making the case for climate debt actually stresses difference, zeroing in on the cruel contrast between those who caused the climate crisis (the developed world) and those who are suffering its worst effects (the developing world). Justin Lin, chief economist at the World Bank, puts the equation bluntly: "About 75 to 80 percent" of the damages caused by global warming "will be suffered by developing countries, although they only contribute about one-third of greenhouse gases." Climate debt is about who will pick up the bill. The grass-roots movement behind the proposal argues that all the costs associated with adapting to a more hostile ecology - everything from building stronger sea walls to switching to cleaner, more expensive technologies - are the responsibility of the countries that created the crisis. "What we need is not something we should be begging for but something that is owed to us, because we are dealing with a crisis not of our making," says Lidy Nacpil, one of the coordinators of Jubilee South, an international organization that has staged demonstrations to promote climate reparations. "Climate debt is not a matter of charity." Sharon Looremeta, an advocate for Maasai tribespeople in Kenya who have lost at least 5 million cattle to drought in recent years, puts it in even sharper terms. "The Maasai community does not drive 4x4s or fly off on holidays in airplanes," she says. "We have not caused climate change, yet we are the ones suffering. This is an injustice and should be stopped right now." The case for climate debt begins like most discussions of climate change: with the science. Before the Industrial Revolution, the density of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere - the key cause of global warming - was about 280 parts per million. Today, it has reached 387 ppm - far above safe limits - and it's still rising. Developed countries, which represent less than 20 percent of the world's population, have emitted almost 75 percent of all greenhouse-gas pollution that is now destabilizing the climate. (The U.S. alone, which comprises barely five percent of the global population, contributes 25 percent of all carbon emissions.) And while developing countries like China and India have also begun to spew large amounts of carbon dioxide, the reasoning goes, they are not equally responsible for the cost of the cleanup, because they have contributed only a small fraction of the 200 years of cumulative pollution that has caused the crisis. In Latin America, left-wing economists have long argued that Western powers owe a vaguely defined "ecological debt" to the continent for centuries of colonial land-grabs and resource extraction. But the emerging argument for climate debt is far more concrete, thanks to a relatively new body of research putting precise figures on who emitted what and when. "What is exciting," says Antonio Hill, senior climate adviser at Oxfam, "is you can really put numbers on it. We can measure it in tons of COv(2) and come up with a cost." Equally important, the idea is supported by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change - ratified by 192 countries, including the United States. The framework not only asserts that "the largest share of historical and current global emissions of greenhouse gases has originated in developed countries," it clearly states that actions taken to fix the problem should be made "on the basis of equity and in accordance with their common but differentiated responsibilities." The reparations movement has brought together a diverse coalition of big international organizations, from Friends of the Earth to the World Council of Churches, that have joined up with climate scientists and political economists, many of them linked to the influential Third World Network, which has been leading the call. Until recently, however, there was no government pushing for climate debt to be included in the Copenhagen agreement. That changed in June, when Angelica Navarro, the chief climate negotiator for Bolivia, took the podium at a U.N. climate negotiation in Bonn, Germany. Only 36 and dressed casually in a black sweater, Navarro looked more like the hippies outside than the bureaucrats and civil servants inside the session. Mixing the latest emissions science with accounts of how melting glaciers were threatening the water supply in two major Bolivian cities, Navarro made the case for why developing countries are owed massive compensation for the climate crisis. "Millions of people - in small islands, least-developed countries, landlocked countries as well as vulnerable communities in Brazil, India and China, and all around the world - are suffering from the effects of a problem to which they did not contribute," Navarro told the packed room. In addition to facing an increasingly hostile climate, she added, countries like Bolivia cannot fuel economic growth with cheap and dirty energy, as the rich countries did, since that would only add to the climate crisis - yet they cannot afford the heavy upfront costs of switching to renewable energies like wind and solar. The solution, Navarro argued, is three-fold. Rich countries need to pay the costs associated with adapting to a changing climate, make deep cuts to their own emission levels "to make atmospheric space available" for the developing world, and pay Third World countries to leapfrog over fossil fuels and go straight to cleaner alternatives. "We cannot and will not give up our rightful claim to a fair share of atmospheric space on the promise that, at some future stage, technology will be provided to us," she said. The speech galvanized activists across the world. In recent months, the governments of Sri Lanka, Venezuela, Paraguay and Malaysia have endorsed the concept of climate debt. More than 240 environmental and development organizations have signed a statement calling for wealthy nations to pay their climate debt, and 49 of the world's least-developed countries will take the demand to Copenhagen as a negotiating bloc. "If we are to curb emissions in the next decade, we need a massive mobilization larger than any in history," Navarro declared at the end of her talk. "We need a Marshall Plan for the Earth. This plan must mobilize financing and technology transfer on scales never seen before. It must get technology onto the ground in every country to ensure we reduce emissions while raising people's quality of life. We have only a decade." A very expensive decade. The World Bank puts the cost that developing countries face from climate change - everything from crops destroyed by drought and floods to malaria spread by mosquito-infested waters - as high as $100 billion a year. And shifting to renewable energy, according to a team of United Nations researchers, will raise the cost far more: to as much as $600 billion a year over the next decade. Unlike the recent bank bailouts, however, which simply transferred public wealth to the world's richest financial institutions, the money spent on climate debt would fuel a global environmental transformation essential to saving the entire planet. The most exciting example of what could be accomplished is the ongoing effort to protect Ecuador's Yasun? National Park. This extraordinary swath of Amazonian rainforest, which is home to several indigenous tribes and a surreal number of rare and exotic animals, contains nearly as many species of trees in 2.5 acres as exist in all of North America. The catch is that underneath that riot of life sits an estimated 850 million barrels of crude oil, worth about $7 billion. Burning that oil - and logging the rainforest to get it - would add another 547 million tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. Two years ago, Ecuador's center-left president, Rafael Correa, said something very rare for the leader of an oil-exporting nation: He wanted to leave the oil in the ground. But, he argued, wealthy countries should pay Ecuador - where half the population lives in poverty - not to release that carbon into the atmosphere, as "compensation for the damages caused by the out-of-proportion amount of historical and current emissions of greenhouse gases." He didn't ask for the entire amount; just half. And he committed to spending much of the money to move Ecuador to alternative energy sources like solar and geothermal. Largely because of the beauty of the Yasun?, the plan has generated widespread international support. Germany has already offered $70 million a year for 13 years, and several other European governments have expressed interest in participating. If Yasun? is saved, it will demonstrate that climate debt isn't just a disguised ploy for more aid - it's a far more credible solution to the climate crisis than the ones we have now. "This initiative needs to succeed," says Atossa Soltani, executive director of Amazon Watch. "I think we can set a model for other countries." Activists point to a huge range of other green initiatives that would become possible if wealthy countries paid their climate debts. In India, mini power plants that run on biomass and solar power could bring low-carbon electricity to many of the 400 million Indians currently living without a light bulb. In cities from Cairo to Manila, financial support could be given to the armies of impoverished "trash pickers" who save as much as 80 percent of municipal waste in some areas from winding up in garbage dumps and trash incinerators that release planet-warming pollution. And on a much larger scale, coal-fired power plants across the developing world could be converted into more efficient facilities using existing technology, cutting their emissions by more than a third. But to ensure that climate reparations are real, advocates insist, they must be independent of the current system of international aid. Climate money cannot simply be diverted from existing aid programs, such as primary education or HIV prevention. What's more, the funds must be provided as grants, not loans, since the last thing developing countries need is more debt. Furthermore, the money should not be administered by the usual suspects like the World Bank and USAID, which too often push pet projects based on Western agendas, but must be controlled by the United Nations climate convention, where developing countries would have a direct say in how the money is spent. Without such guarantees, reparations will be meaningless - and without reparations, the climate talks in Copenhagen will likely collapse. As it stands, the U.S. and other Western nations are engaged in a lose-lose game of chicken with developing nations like India and China: We refuse to lower our emissions unless they cut theirs and submit to international monitoring, and they refuse to budge unless wealthy nations cut first and cough up serious funding to help them adapt to climate change and switch to clean energy. "No money, no deal," is how one of South Africa's top environmental officials put it. "If need be," says Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, speaking on behalf of the African Union, "we are prepared to walk out." In the past, President Obama has recognized the principle on which climate debt rests. "Yes, the developed nations that caused much of the damage to our climate over the last century still have a responsibility to lead," he acknowledged in his September speech at the United Nations. "We have a responsibility to provide the financial and technical assistance needed to help these [developing] nations adapt to the impacts of climate change and pursue low-carbon development." Yet as Copenhagen draws near, the U.S. negotiating position appears to be to pretend that 200 years of over-emissions never happened. Todd Stern, the chief U.S. climate negotiator, has scoffed at a Chinese and African proposal that developed countries pay as much as $400 billion a year in climate financing as "wildly unrealistic" and "untethered to reality." Yet he put no alternative number on the table - unlike the European Union, which has offered to kick in up to $22 billion. U.S. negotiators have even suggested that countries could fund climate debt by holding periodic "pledge parties," making it clear that they see covering the costs of climate change as a matter of whimsy, not duty. But shunning the high price of climate change carries a cost of its own. U.S. military and intelligence agencies now consider global warming a leading threat to national security. As sea levels rise and droughts spread, competition for food and water will only increase in many of the world's poorest nations. These regions will become "breeding grounds for instability, for insurgencies, for warlords," according to a 2007 study for the Center for Naval Analyses led by Gen. Anthony Zinni, the former Centcom commander. To keep out millions of climate refugees fleeing hunger and conflict, a report commissioned by the Pentagon in 2003 predicted that the U.S. and other rich nations would likely decide to "build defensive fortresses around their countries." Setting aside the morality of building high-tech fortresses to protect ourselves from a crisis we inflicted on the world, those enclaves and resource wars won't come cheap. And unless we pay our climate debt, and quickly, we may well find ourselves living in a world of climate rage. "Privately, we already hear the simmering resentment of diplomats whose countries bear the costs of our emissions," Sen. John Kerry observed recently. "I can tell you from my own experience: It is real, and it is prevalent. It's not hard to see how this could crystallize into a virulent, dangerous, public anti-Americanism. That's a threat too. Remember: The very places least responsible for climate change - and least equipped to deal with its impacts - will be among the very worst affected." That, in a nutshell, is the argument for climate debt. The developing world has always had plenty of reasons to be pissed off with their northern neighbors, with our tendency to overthrow their governments, invade their countries and pillage their natural resources. But never before has there been an issue so politically inflammatory as the refusal of people living in the rich world to make even small sacrifices to avert a potential climate catastrophe. In Bangladesh, the Maldives, Bolivia, the Arctic, our climate pollution is directly responsible for destroying entire ways of life - yet we keep doing it. >From outside our borders, the climate crisis doesn't look anything like the meteors or space invaders that Todd Stern imagined hurtling toward Earth. It looks, instead, like a long and silent war waged by the rich against the poor. And for that, regardless of what happens in Copenhagen, the poor will continue to demand their rightful reparations. "This is about the rich world taking responsibility for the damage done," says Ilana Solomon, policy analyst for ActionAid USA, one of the groups recently converted to the cause. "This money belongs to poor communities affected by climate change. It is their compensation." From maryrose333 at att.net Mon Nov 16 09:00:05 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Mon, 16 Nov 2009 08:00:05 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: [globalnetnews-summary] World Leaders Put Off a Climate Change Treaty Message-ID: <002e01ca66d6$097fded0$1c7f9c70$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS If putting off a Global Climate Change Treaty leads to a more realistic approach than what was being considered, this should be considered a victory of sorts as new information requires even more dire action. I am holding the field for the fullest potential to unfold in this event now in the best interests of all concerned. m r -----Original Message----- From: globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net [mailto:globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net] On Behalf Of TradingPostPaul Sent: Sunday, November 15, 2009 2:53 PM To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] World Leaders Put Off a Climate Change Treaty World Leaders Put Off a Climate Change Treaty http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1939573,00.html#ixzz0WyHu3m4T The annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit (APEC) isn't generally the place for earth-shaking diplomacy. The event's biggest achievement is usually getting world leaders to dress up in the native garb of the hosting country, which is why President Barack Obama, Chinese Premier Hu Jintao and others found themselves wearing colorful designer shirts from Singapore this weekend. It's fitting, then, that some of the most significant diplomatic news coming out of APEC in Singapore was an agreement not to do something. Confirming doubts that had been growing for months, the world leaders in attendance at APEC - along with Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen - announced on Sunday morning that a legally binding deal on climate change would be impossible to achieve at the U.N. summit on global warming in Copenhagen next month. (Read "On the Copenhagen Agenda, Reducing Deforestation May Still Succeed") Instead, in Copenhagen, diplomats will aim to reach a less aggressive - and much less specific - "politically binding" agreement, with the hope that hard numbers and legal obligations to reduce climate change would be added soon, in a two-step approach. "There was an assessment by the leaders that it was unrealistic to expect a full internationally legally binding agreement to be negotiated between now and when Copenhagen starts in 22 days," said Mike Froman, Obama's deputy national security adviser. The news comes as little surprise to climate change experts, who have watched as the ultimate goal of the Copenhagen summit has been steadily scaled back to meet political realities. A year ago, the expectation was for diplomats in Copenhagen to negotiate - and sign - a true global successor to the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. Today, the best the world can hope for are more words about the importance of fighting climate change. The reason is simple: the deadlock between developed nations and developing ones. Developing nations refuse most responsibility for climate change, arguing that warming is primarily the fault of rich industrialized countries, and want the developed world to take on strict short-term emissions reduction targets. Developed nations, led by the U.S., argue that fast-growing developing nations like China and India will emit the vast majority of future carbon emissions, and that any deal that exempts them from action - as the Kyoto Protocol did - is a farce. Despite months of negotiations in Barcelona, Bangkok and other world cities, that gap remains vast. (See pictures "Fragile Planet") At the same time, the failure of the U.S. Senate to pass carbon cap legislation leaves American negotiators in a difficult position at Copenhagen. The Obama Administration has been very clear that it will not accept binding emissions targets on a global deal until Congress has accepted domestic cuts at home. (Any climate treaty would have to be endorsed by the Senate.) With the legislative calendar packed, there was no chance that the Senate would act before Copenhagen begins next month. The deal was already dead - the decision at APEC just made it official. If there is a bright side, however, the deliberate downshift in expectations for Copenhagen could make it easier for world leaders, including Obama, to attend the summit and draft a stronger political agreement. In addition, diplomats could build out the framework of a future agreement, with the hope that, should the Senate pass carbon legislation early next year, a deal with real numbers could be finalized relatively quickly. But there's no getting around the fact that as the science of climate change grows more dire, the global political system seems increasingly unable to deal with that reality. "We don't want a global suicide pact," said Mohamed Nasheed, the president of the Maldives, a low-lying Indian Ocean nation that could be swamped by global warming-caused flooding. "We want a global survival pact." But the world's most influential leaders still aren't ready for that. From maryrose333 at att.net Mon Nov 16 09:16:01 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Mon, 16 Nov 2009 08:16:01 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: [globalnetnews-summary] Paper and Fuel Wood Biggest Stresses on Forests Message-ID: <003b01ca66d8$45ca85f0$d15f91d0$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS An excerpt from this article reads: "The use of paper, perhaps more than any other single product, reflects the throwaway mentality that evolved during the last century." Perhaps now is a good time to review "The Story of Stuff" video by Annie Leonard. www.storyofstuff.com You know people to put this very bluntly: If we all take on a positive attitude about restoring our life support system so that it will continue to support us, then we have a chance at continued life here on earth as the human family. However, if we continue to act in denial and drag our feet with regard to making changes then we reduce our chances of survival to "0". So, let's get off our butts and do everything we can to make this happen. And there is no better time to begin than now. The first thing we need to do is to delink ourselves from reliance on God, the government and the present monetary system and reclaim our independence by taking responsibility for ourselves. So, let's get going by first of all turning off the mind-programming coming out of the TV set. I am again holding the field for the fullest potential to unfold in this event now in the best interests of all concerned. mary rose -----Original Message----- From: globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net [mailto:globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net] On Behalf Of TradingPostPaul Sent: Tuesday, April 21, 2009 11:04 AM To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] Paper and Fuel Wood Biggest Stresses on Forests http://ipsnorthamerica.net/news.php?idnews=2151 Paper and Fuel Wood Biggest Stresses on Forests Analysis by Lester R. Brown* WASHINGTON, 14 Apr (IPS) - Protecting the earth's nearly 4 billion hectares of remaining forests and replanting those already lost are both essential for restoring the earth's health, an important foundation for the new economy. Reducing rainfall runoff and the associated flooding and soil erosion, recycling rainfall inland, and restoring aquifer recharge depend on simultaneously reducing pressure on forests and on reforestation. There is a vast unrealised potential in all countries to lessen the demands that are shrinking the earth's forest cover. In industrial nations the greatest opportunity lies in reducing the quantity of wood used to make paper, and in developing countries it depends on reducing fuel wood use. The rates of paper recycling in the top 10 paper-producing countries range widely, from China and Finland on the low end, recycling 33 and 38 percent of the paper they use, to South Korea and Germany on the high end, at 77 and 66 percent. The United States, the world's largest paper consumer, is far behind South Korea, but it has raised the share of paper recycled from roughly one fourth in the early 1980s to 50 percent in 2005. If every country recycled as much of its paper as South Korea does, the amount of wood pulp used to produce paper worldwide would drop by one third. The use of paper, perhaps more than any other single product, reflects the throwaway mentality that evolved during the last century. There is an enormous possibility for reducing paper use simply by replacing facial tissues, paper napkins, disposable diapers, and paper shopping bags with reusable cloth alternatives. The largest single demand on trees - the need for fuel - accounts for just over half of all wood removed from forests. Some international aid agencies, including the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), are sponsoring fuelwood efficiency projects. One of USAID's more promising projects is the distribution of 780,000 highly efficient wood cook stoves in Kenya that not only use far less wood than a traditional stove but also pollute less. Kenya is also the site of a solar cooker project sponsored by Solar Cookers International. These inexpensive cookers, made from cardboard and aluminum foil and costing 10 dollars each, cook slowly, much like a crockpot. Requiring less than two hours of sunshine to cook a complete meal, they can greatly reduce firewood use at little cost. They can also be used to pasteurise water, thus saving lives. Over the longer term, developing alternative energy sources is the key to reducing forest pressure in developing countries. Despite the high value to society of intact forests, only about 290 million hectares of global forest area are legally protected from logging. Forests protected by national decree are often safeguarded not so much to preserve the long-term wood supply capacity as to ensure that they continue to provide invaluable services such as flood control. Countries that provide legal protection for forests often do so after they have suffered the consequences of extensive deforestation, such as in China and the Philippines. Although nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) have worked for years to protect forests from clearcutting, sustainable forestry is now seen as another way to protect forests. If only mature trees are felled, and on a selective basis, a forest and its productivity can be maintained in perpetuity. In 1997, the World Bank joined forces with the World Wide Fund for Nature to form the Alliance for Forest Conservation and Sustainable Use. By 2005 they had helped designate 55 million hectares of new forest protected areas and certify 22 million hectares of forest. In mid-2005, the Alliance announced a goal of reducing global net deforestation to zero by 2020. There are several additional forest product certification programmes that inform environmentally conscious consumers about the sustainable management of the forest where wood products originate. The most rigorous international programme, certified by a group of NGOs, is the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). Some 88 million hectares of forests in 76 countries are certified by FSC-accredited bodies as responsibly managed. Forest plantations can reduce pressures on the earth's remaining forests as long as they do not replace old-growth forest. As of 2005, the world had 205 million hectares in forest plantations, an area equal to nearly one third of the 700 million hectares planted in grain. Tree plantations produce mostly wood for paper mills or for wood reconstitution mills. Increasingly, reconstituted wood is substituting for natural wood as the world lumber and construction industries adapt to a shrinking supply of large logs from natural forests. Production of roundwood (logs) on plantations is estimated at 432 million cubic meters per year, accounting for 12 percent of world wood production. This means that the lion's share, some 88 percent of the world timber harvest, comes from natural forest stands. Projections of future growth show that plantations can sometimes be profitably established on already deforested, often degraded, land, but they can also come at the expense of existing forests. There is competition with agriculture as well, since land that is suitable for crops is also good for growing trees. Water scarcity is yet another constraint, as fast-growing plantations require abundant moisture. Nonetheless, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) projects that as plantation area expands and yields rise, the harvest could more than double during the next three decades. It is entirely conceivable that plantations could one day satisfy most of the world's demand for industrial wood, thus helping to protect the world's remaining forests. South Korea is in many ways a reforestation model for the rest of the world. When the Korean War ended, half a century ago, the mountainous country was largely deforested. Beginning around 1960, under the dedicated leadership of President Park Chung Hee, the South Korean government launched a national reforestation effort. Relying on the formation of village cooperatives, hundreds of thousands of people were mobilized to dig trenches and to create terraces for supporting trees on barren mountains. Today forests cover 65 percent of the country, an area of roughly 6 million hectares. In Niger, farmers faced with severe drought and desertification in the 1980s began leaving some emerging acacia tree seedlings in their fields as they prepared the land for crops. As these trees matured they slowed wind speeds, thus reducing soil erosion. The acacia, a legume, fixes nitrogen, enriching the soil and helping to raise crop yields. During the dry season the leaves and pods provide fodder for livestock. The trees also supply firewood. This approach of leaving 20 to 150 seedlings per hectare to mature on some 3 million hectares has revitalised farming communities in Niger. Shifting subsidies from building logging roads to planting trees would help protect forest cover worldwide. The World Bank has the administrative capacity to lead an international programme that would emulate South Korea's success in blanketing mountains and hills with trees. In addition, FAO and the bilateral aid agencies can work with individual farmers in national agroforestry programmes to integrate trees wherever possible into agricultural operations. Reducing wood use by developing more efficient wood stoves and alternative cooking fuels, systematically recycling paper, and banning the use of throwaway paper products all lighten pressure on the earth's forests. But a global reforestation effort cannot succeed unless it is accompanied by the stabilisation of population. With such an integrated plan, coordinated country by country, the earth's forests can be restored. *Lester Brown is president of the Earth Policy Institute. This article is adapted from Chapter 8, "Restoring the Earth", of Brown's "Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization" (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2008), available for free downloading and purchase at www.earthpolicy.org/Books/PB3/index.htm. A slideshow summary of Plan B 3.0 is available at www.earthpolicy.org/Books/PB3/presentation.htm. From mukhtaralam2000 at yahoo.com Tue Nov 17 10:27:48 2009 From: mukhtaralam2000 at yahoo.com (Dr.Muhammad Mukhtar Alam) Date: Tue, 17 Nov 2009 22:57:48 +0530 (IST) Subject: [GJM] Fw: 10 Suicides a Month at Ft. Hood -- War Stress Is Taking Soldiers to the Brink Message-ID: <975921.24075.qm@web94914.mail.in2.yahoo.com> Dr.Muhammad Mukhtar Alam 58-C, Top Floor,DDA Janta Flats, Ashok Vihar-III,Delhi-110052,India Tel:+9968345380 http://slideshare.net/mukhtaralam http://transitionurbanindia.ning.com http://ecostrategiccommunicators.ning.com http://muhammad_mukhtar_alam.tigblog.org --- On Tue, 17/11/09, UMMAA Broadcasting wrote: From: UMMAA Broadcasting Subject: 10 Suicides a Month at Ft. Hood -- War Stress Is Taking Soldiers to the Brink To: "UMMAA Broadcasting" Date: Tuesday, 17 November, 2009, 4:41 PM ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: UMMAA Broadcasting Date: Mon, Nov 16, 2009 at 3:49 PM Subject: 10 Suicides a Month at Ft. Hood -- War Stress Is Taking Soldiers to the Brink To: UMMAA Broadcasting Cc: info at cair.com, info at allahmademefunny.com, info at amin-ahsan-islahi.org, brasstacks , info at conservativewomen.org.uk, info at ccr-ny.org, info at canadianwomen.org, info at carnegieendowment.org, info at carolinahaven.org, info at churchofchristscientist.org, info at clairbourn.org, info at darululoom-deoband.com, info at dw-world.de, info at desistuff.co.uk, info at dinarstandard.com, info at expressnews.it, info at europediawaz.com, info at fopglobal.com, info at freemedia.at, info , info at geo.tv, info at globaljusticemovement.org, info at gpc.com, info at gatesfoundation.org, info at heritage.org, info at hashmi.com, info at hashmitrust.com, info at hccna.com, info at historians.org, info at hytecgroup.com, info at humanconcern.org, info at iiccentre.org, info at icj.org, info at iis.ac.uk, pakistan_karachi at yahoogroups.com, info at isgh.org, info at islamic-games.com, I NEWS , info at ifrej.org, info at inp.net.pk, info at islamiclearningfoundation.com, info at icecf.com, info at iecoc.org, info at iwanttohelpafrica.com, info at jinsa.org, info at kashmiri.com, info at losangeles.cair.com, info at livermoretemple.org, info at lochmann-verlag.com, info at lokhitmovement.com, info at leathertex.com.pk, info at leo.com.pk, info at muslimsunnah.com, info at meccacenter.com, info at meco.org.uk, info at mahrgroup.com, info at masjidtucson.org, info at nfrw.org, info at nrk.no, info at onejax.org, info at ok.cair.com, info at omaracademy.com, info at pal-c.org, info at shia12.net, info at ssgwi.org, info at sandiego.cair.com, info at sikhfoundation.org, info at switchworks.com, Tri-State Muslim News , info at thesaturdaypost.com, info at thesoftedge.com, info at thewcmp.org, info at tuliptowers.com, info at umaamerica.net, info at ummatpublications.com, info at worldslastchance.com, info at waccglobal.org, saja at columbia.edu, sree at sree.net, Sree Sreenivasan , ecotort at gn.apc.org Ladies & gents: ? Very SADLY, Below Press-release from Eco-Tort Explains Every Thing with FACTS & Names, as follows: ? 1) Ten[10] soldiers every month are committing suicide at Ft Hood....which means, our Hundreds of innocent soldiers are committing Suicide in our Military at ALL?its Forts & Bases, due to Our attacks on Afghanistan & iraq....which also means that Our Military Drs/Psychiatrists{Dr Hasan & all other Military?Drs} have been mentally DEVASTED.....? ? 2) US-military Specialist Michael Kern stated at Ft Hood:??? Innocent civilians are being wounded and killed here at home by soldiers, and this is completely unacceptable," 3) US-military Specialist Michael Kern told IPS{inter press service}?that, Responding to the allegations in the media that the attack was based on his[Major Hasan]?Muslim faith, Kern told IPS that he did not know of anyone on the base who felt this was the case... ? 4) In a strikingly similar incident on May 11, 2009, a US soldier gunned down five fellow soldiers at a stress-counseling center at a US base in Baghdad.... ? etc, etc....please review below press-release from Eco Tort.... ? Arshad Ali Khan, UMMAA Broadcasting, Rolla, MO-65401 [Listed under media @ www.rollachamber.org ][published @ yahoo, msn, google, www.ummaabroadcasting.org & www.ummaabroadcasting.com ] ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: EcoTort Date: Tue, Nov 10, 2009 at 5:44 PM Subject: 10 Suicides a Month at Ft. Hood -- War Stress Is Taking Soldiers to the Brink To: ummaabroadcasting at rollanet.org http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=R0HqwVX7%2BsGEjxQvFAMOoJyEoYKfQSHR PHOENIX, Arizona - While investigators probe for a motive behind the mass shooting at the Fort Hood military base in Texas last Thursday, in which an army psychiatrist killed 13 people, military personnel at the base are in shock as the incident "brings the war home". "We're all in shock," said Specialist Michael Kern, an active-duty veteran of the Iraq war, told Inter Press Service (IPS) by telephone. Kern, who is based at Fort Hood, served in Iraq from March 2007 to March 2008. "Every single person that I've talked to is in shock," Kern added. "I'm surprised this hits so close to home, but at the same time, I knew something like this was going to happen given what else is happening - the war is coming home, and something needs to be done. Innocent civilians are being wounded and killed here at home by soldiers, and this is completely unacceptable," he said. The gunman, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, entered a Soldier Readiness Center (SRC), where troops get medical evaluations and complete paperwork just prior to being deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, and opened fire with two non-military issued handguns. Hasan killed 13 people, 12 of them soldiers, and wounded over 30 others, before being shot four times by a civilian police officer. Hasan is now in stable condition in a local hospital, where he is in the custody of military authorities. Colonel John Rossi, a spokesman at Fort Hood, told reporters that Hasan was "stable and in one of our civilian hospitals". Rossi added, "He's on a ventilator." Hasan, 39, joined the army just out of high school. He had counseled wounded war veterans at Walter Reed Hospital, and was transferred to Fort Hood in April. He had recently received orders to deploy to Afghanistan. His cousin, Nader Hasan, has said in media interviews that Hasan was very reluctant to be deployed overseas and had agitated not to be sent. "We've known over the last five years that was probably his worst nightmare," he said. Responding to the allegations in the media that the attack was based on his Muslim faith, Kern told IPS that he did not know of anyone on the base who felt this was the case. "We all wear the same uniform here, it's all green. I've seen the news, but most folks here assume it's just a soldier that snapped," Kern explained. "I have not talked to anyone who thinks what he did has anything to do with him being a Muslim. There are thousands of Muslims serving with dignity in the US military, in all four branches." Fort Hood, located in central Texas, is one of the largest US military bases in the world. It contains up to 50,000 soldiers, and is one of the most heavily deployed to both occupations. Tragically, Fort Hood has also born much of the brunt from its heavy involvement in the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. Fort Hood soldiers have accounted for more suicides than any other army post since the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. This year alone, the base is averaging over 10 suicides each month - at least 75 have been recorded through July of this year alone. In a strikingly similar incident on May 11, 2009, a US soldier gunned down five fellow soldiers at a stress-counseling center at a US base in Baghdad. Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the US military's Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters at a news conference at the Pentagon at the time that the shootings had occurred in a place where "individuals were seeking help". Mullen added, "It does speak to me, though, about the need for us to redouble our efforts, the concern in terms of dealing with the stress ... It also speaks to the issue of multiple deployments." Commenting on the incident in nearly parallel terms, US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said that the Pentagon needs to redouble its efforts to relieve stress caused by repeated deployments in war zones that is further exacerbated by limited time at home in between deployments. The condition described by Mullen and Gates is what veteran health experts often refer to as post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. While soldiers returning home are routinely involved in shootings, suicide and other forms of self-destructive violent behaviors as a direct result of their experiences in Iraq, we have yet to see an event of this magnitude on a base in the US. To many, the shocking story of a soldier killing five of his comrades did not come as a surprise considering that the military has, for years now, been sending troops with untreated PTSD back into the US occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. According to an Armed Forces Health Surveillance Center analysis, reported in the Denver Post in August 2008, more than "43,000 service members - two-thirds of them in the army or army reserve - were classified as non-deployable for medical reasons three months before they deployed" to Iraq. In April 2008, the Rand Corporation released a stunning report revealing that, "Nearly 20% of military service members who have returned from Iraq and Afghanistan - 300,000 in all -- report symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder or major depression, yet only slightly more than half have sought treatment." President Barack Obama, speaking during an event at the Department of the Interior in Washington, said that the mass shooting at Fort Hood was a "horrific outburst of violence". He added: "It is horrifying that they [US soldiers] should come under fire at an army base on American soil." Victor Agosto, an Iraq war veteran who was discharged from the military after publicly refusing to deploy to Afghanistan, has had first-hand experience with the SRC at Fort Hood, where he too was based. "I knew there would be a confrontation when I was there, because the only reason to do that process is to deploy," Agosto, speaking to IPS near Fort Hood, explained. Agosto was court-martialed for refusing an order to go to the SRC to prepare to deploy to Afghanistan. "I was court-martialed for refusing the order to SRC in that very same building. I didn't enter the building, but I didn't go in because I was refusing the process," Agosto continued. "It's a pretty important place in my life, so it's interesting to me that this happened there." The INTERNET now has a personality. YOURS! See your Yahoo! Homepage. http://in.yahoo.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From maryrose333 at att.net Mon Nov 16 18:30:25 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Mon, 16 Nov 2009 17:30:25 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: [globalnetnews-summary] 100 new militia groups since Obama elected; watchdog alarmed Message-ID: <004a01ca6725$b3cd0850$1b6718f0$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS Were it not for the venom spouted out by people like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Lou Dobbs and others calling themselves Patriots, who keep inciting this fear and hatred with their rabble-rousing phobia, we would not be seeing this rise up of the militia born out of ignorance and the need for the Republican Party to try and hang on to what little power it can. A party that might have fared better were it not for the likes of those mentioned above whose tirades have become so despicable that only about 17% of the population of the U.S. now wants to admit to being a member. -----Original Message----- From: globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net [mailto:globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net] On Behalf Of TradingPostPaul Sent: Monday, November 16, 2009 7:51 AM To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] 100 new militia groups since Obama elected; watchdog alarmed 100 new militia groups since Obama elected; watchdog alarmed http://rawstory.com/2009/11/100-new-militia-groups/ By David Edwards and Daniel Tencer Monday, November 16th, 2009 -- 10:20 am 100 new militia groups have formed since the election of President Barack Obama, says the Southern Poverty Law Center. In a re-run of the phenomenon seen when President Bill Clinton took office, gun-rights advocates, libertarians, survivalists and others are forming militias as a symbol of their resistance to what they see as an administration that threatens to restrict their right to bear arms and expand government control over the lives of private citizens. "The truth is that these groups are popping up like mushrooms after a spring rain," said Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center, a social-justice group that has been tracking the rise of militias over the past year. Potok's group put out a report earlier this year raising the alarm about the resurgence of armed militias. Since then, he told CNN, the group has counted about 100 new groups formed across the country. "There really is this terrible fear mixed with fury about the idea that President Obama is somehow leading a socialistic takeover of America," Potok said. Story continues below... A CNN news crew that visited the Southeast Michigan Volunteer Militia found a group that sees itself as a "deterrent" to any attempts to restrict gun use, and otherwise sees itself as a place to learn survival skills. "Just the simple fact that we are out here and we are doing this, will give somebody pause, will make them think twice," said militia member Michael Lackomar, who added that he thought Obama "could be dangerous for the nation." "Anytime we get a Democratic president in the office, people become concerned, including myself, and we get a resurgence out here," said one militia member, identified only as Brian. But CNN's Jim Acosta points out that gun control "is unrealistic in many ways, because the Obama administration and the Democrats know that it would be political suicide for them to go after gun control measures. Even the attorney general has indicated he won't go back to the assault weapons ban enacted in the Clinton administration." In its report from August, the Southern Poverty Law Center pointed out that the most recent wave of militia groups differs slightly from the wave seen under President Clinton in one respect. "A key difference this time is that the federal government - the entity that almost the entire radical right views as its primary enemy - is headed by a black man," the report states. "That, coupled with high levels of non-white immigration and a decline in the percentage of whites overall in America, has helped to racialize the Patriot movement, which in the past was not primarily motivated by race hate." This video is from CNN's American Morning, broadcast Nov. 16, 2009. From maryrose333 at att.net Mon Nov 16 19:07:53 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Mon, 16 Nov 2009 18:07:53 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: [globalnetnews-summary] Why This Crisis May Be Our Best Chance to Build a New Economy Message-ID: <006001ca672a$f1f7b2b0$d5e71810$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS While I have a great deal of respect for David Korten, I do not see that creating jobs and re-establishing the large white middle class as being part of the solution. This is not "building a new economy" at all, but just repeating the mistakes of old. As I have written earlier, it was the creation of the white middle class via rape the developing countries in order to create "the great American Dream" that created the mess we are in today -- please let us not try to solve this problem with the same type of thinking that created it. -----Original Message----- From: globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net [mailto:globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net] On Behalf Of TradingPostPaul Sent: Monday, November 16, 2009 12:50 PM To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] Why This Crisis May Be Our Best Chance to Build a New Economy (To change your settings or unsubscribe please go to http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/globalnetnews-summary) Why This Crisis May Be Our Best Chance to Build a New Economy http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/the-new-economy/why-this-crisis-may-be-our -best-chance-to-build-a-new-economy by David Korten posted Jun 19, 2009 Wall Street is bankrupt. Instead of trying to save it, we can build a new economy that puts money and business in the service of people and the planet-not the other way around. Whether it was divine providence or just good luck, we should give thanks that financial collapse hit us before the worst of global warming and peak oil. As challenging as the economic meltdown may be, it buys time to build a new economy that serves life rather than money. It lays bare the fact that the existing financial system has brought our way of life and the natural systems on which we depend to the brink of collapse. This wake-up call is inspiring unprecedented numbers of people to take action to bring forth the culture and institutions of a new economy that can serve us and sustain our living planet for generations into the future. The world of financial stability, environmental sustainability, economic justice, and peace that most psychologically healthy people want is possible if we replace a defective operating system that values only money, seeks to monetize every relationship, and pits each person in a competition with every other for dominance. >From Economic Power to Basket Case Not long ago, the news was filled with stories of how Wall Street's money masters had discovered the secrets of creating limitless wealth through exotic financial maneuvers that eliminated both risk and the burden of producing anything of real value. In an audacious social engineering experiment, corporate interests drove a public policy shift that made finance the leading sector of the U.S. economy and the concentration of private wealth the leading economic priority. Corporate interests drove a policy agenda that rolled back taxes on high incomes, gave tax preference to income from financial speculation over income from productive work, cut back social safety nets, drove down wages, privatized public assets, outsourced jobs and manufacturing capacity, and allowed public infrastructure to deteriorate. They envisioned a world in which the United States would dominate the global economy by specializing in the creation of money and the marketing and consumption of goods produced by others. As a result, manufacturing fell from 27 percent of U.S. gross domestic product in 1950 to 12 percent in 2005, while financial services grew from 11 percent to 20 percent. From 1980 to 2005, the highest-earning 1 percent of the U.S. population increased its share of taxable income from 9 percent to 19 percent, with most of the gain going to the top one-tenth of 1 percent. The country became a net importer, with a persistent annual trade deficit of more than three-quarters of a trillion dollars financed by rising foreign debt. Wall Street insiders congratulated themselves on their financial genius even as they turned the United States into a national economic basket case and set the stage for global financial collapse. All the reports of financial genius masked the fact that a phantom-wealth economy is unsustainable. Illusory assets based on financial bubbles, abuse of the power of banks to create credit (money) from nothing, corporate asset stripping, baseless credit ratings, and creative accounting led to financial, social, and environmental breakdown. The system suppressed the wages of the majority while continuously cajoling them to buy more than they could afford using debt that they had no means to repay. A Defective Operating System The operating system of our phantom-wealth economy was written by and for Wall Street interests for the sole purpose of making more money for people who have money. It makes cheap money readily available to speculators engaged in inflating financial bubbles and financing other predatory money scams. It makes money limited and expensive to those engaged in producing real wealth-life, and the things that sustain life-and pushes the productive members of society into indebtedness to those who produce nothing at all. Money, the ultimate object of worship among modern humans, is the most mysterious of human artifacts: a magic number with no meaning or existence outside the human mind. Yet it has become the ultimate arbiter of life-deciding who will live in grand opulence in the midst of scarcity and who will die of hunger in the midst of plenty. The monetization of relationships-replacing mutual caring with money as the primary medium of exchange-accelerated after World War II when growth in Gross National Product, essentially growth in monetized relationships, became the standard for evaluating economic performance. The work of the mother who cares for her child solely out of love counts for nothing. By contrast, the mother who leaves her child unattended to accept pay for tending the child of her neighbor suddenly becomes "economically productive." The result is a public policy bias in favor of monetizing relationships to create phantom wealth-money-at the expense of real wealth. In the world we want, the organization of economic life mimics healthy ecosystems that are locally rooted, highly adaptive, and self-reliant in food and energy. Information and technology are shared freely, and trade between neighbors is fair and balanced. In a modern economy, nearly every relationship essential to life depends on money. This gives ultimate power to those who control the creation and allocation of money. Five features of the existing money system virtually assure abuse. 1. Money issuance and allocation are controlled by private banks managed for the exclusive benefit of their top managers and largest shareholders. 2. Money issued by private banks as debt must be repaid with interest. This requires perpetual economic growth to create sufficient demand for new loans to create the money required to pay the interest due on previous loans. The fact that nearly every dollar in circulation is generating interest for bankers and their investors virtually assures an ever-increasing concentration of wealth. 3. The power to determine how much money will circulate and where it will flow is concentrated and centralized in a tightly interlinked system of private-benefit corporations that operate in secret, beyond public scrutiny, with the connivance of the Federal Reserve. 4. The Federal Reserve presents itself as a public institution responsible for exercising oversight, but it is accountable only to itself, operates primarily for the benefit of the largest Wall Street banks, and consistently favors the interests of those who live by returns to money over those who live by returns to their labor. 5. The lack of proper regulatory oversight allows players at each level of the system to make highly risky decisions, collect generous fees based on phantom profits, and pass the risk to others. A Values-Based Operating System To get ourselves out of our current mess and create the world we want, we must reboot the economy with a new, values-based operating system designed to support social and environmental balance and the creation of real, living wealth. We have seen what happens when government and big business operate in secret. The new system must be open to public scrutiny and democratic control. Globalization and the harshest form of capitalism have eroded the bonds of community and created vast gaps in wealth between the richest and the poorest. The new system must be locally rooted in strong communities and distribute wealth equitably. Our environment and our infrastructure have paid a terrible price for the belief that private interests must always win over public ones. A viable system must balance public and private interests. Unregulated speculation is at the root of the current crisis. Society is better served by a system that favors productive work and investment, limits speculation, and suppresses inflation in all forms-including financial bubbles. The following are five essential areas of action. 1. Government-Issued Money. There is urgent need for government action to create living wage jobs, rebuild public infrastructure, and restore domestic productive capacity. It is folly, however, for government to finance those projects by borrowing money created by the same private banks that created the financial mess. The government can and should instead issue debt-free money to finance the stimulus and meet other public needs. Properly administered, this money will flow to community-based enterprises and help revitalize Main Street market economies engaged in the production of real wealth. 2. Community Banking. Under the bailout, the government is buying ownership shares in failed Wall Street banks with the expectation of eventually reselling them to private interests. So far, the money has disappeared or gone to acquisitions, management bonuses, office remodeling, and fancy vacations with no noticeable effect on the freeing up of credit. A better plan, as many economists are recommending, is to force bankrupt banks into government receivership. As part of the sale and distribution of assets to meet creditor claims, these banks should be broken up and their local branches sold to local investors. These new, individual community banks and mutual savings and loan associations should be chartered to serve Main Street needs, lending to local manufacturers, merchants, farmers, and homeowners within a strong regulatory framework. 3. Real-Wealth Investment. Gambling should be confined to licensed casinos. Contrary to the claims of Wall Street, financial speculation does not create real wealth, serves no public interest, and should be strongly discouraged. Tax the purchase or sale of financial instruments and impose a tax surcharge on short-term capital gains. Make it illegal to sell, insure, or borrow against an asset you do not own, or to issue a financial security not backed by a real asset. This would effectively shut down much of Wall Street, which would be a positive result. The money that has been used for speculation must be redirected to productive investment that creates real wealth and meets our essential needs responsibly, equitably, and sustainably using green technologies and closed-loop production cycles. We can begin by eliminating subsidies for carbon fuels and putting a price on greenhouse gas emissions. We can revise trade agreements to affirm the responsibility of every nation to contribute to global economic security and stability by organizing for sustainable self-reliance in food and energy and managing its economy to keep imports and exports in balance. If we Americans learn to live within our means, we will free up resources others need to feed, clothe, and house themselves and their families. The notion that reducing our consumption would harm others is an example of the distorted logic of a phantom-wealth economy. 4. Middle Class Fiscal Policy. The ruling financial elites have used their control of fiscal policy to conduct a class war that has decimated the once celebrated American middle class and led to economic disaster. Markets work best when economic power is equitably distributed and individuals contribute to the economy as both workers and owners. Massive inequality in income and ownership assures the failure of both markets and democracy. To restore the social fabric and allocate real resources in ways that serve the needs of all, we must restore the middle class through equity-oriented fiscal policies. There is also a strong moral argument that those who profited from creating our present economic mess should bear the major share of the cost of cleaning it up. It is time to reinstitute the policies that created the American middle class after World War II. Restore progressive income tax with a top rate of 90 percent and favor universal participation in responsible ownership and a family wage. Because no one has a natural birth entitlement to any greater share of the real wealth of society than anyone else, use the estate tax to restore social balance at the end of each lifetime in a modern equivalent of the Biblical Jubilee, which called for periodically forgiving debts and restoring land to its original owners. Human-scale, locally owned businesses are essential to creating the new economy. 5. Responsible Enterprise. Enterprises in a market economy need a fair return to survive. This imposes a necessary discipline. Service to the community, however, rather than profit, is the primary justification for the firm's existence. As Wall Street has so graphically demonstrated, profit is not a reliable measure of social contribution. Enterprises are most likely to serve their communities when they are human-scale and owned by responsible local investors with an active interest in their operation beyond mere profit. Concentrations of corporate power reduce public accountability, and no corporation should be too big to fail. The new economy will use antitrust to break large corporations into their component parts and sell them to responsible local owners. There are many ways to aggregate economic resources that do not create concentrations of monopoly power or encourage absentee ownership. These include the many forms of worker, cooperative, and community ownership and cooperative alliances among locally rooted firms. Current proposals for dealing with the economic collapse fall far short of dealing with the deep conflict of values and interests at the core of the current economic crisis. We face an urgent need to expand and deepen the debate to advance options that go far beyond anything currently on the table. The World We Want The world of our shared human dream is one where people live happy, productive lives in balance with one another and Earth. It is democratic and middle class without extremes of wealth or poverty. It is characterized by strong, stable families and communities in which relationships are defined primarily by mutual trust and caring. Every able adult is both a worker and an owner. Most families own their own home and have an ownership stake in their local economy. Everyone has productive work and is respected for his or her contribution to the well-being of the community. In the world we want, the organization of economic life mimics healthy ecosystems that are locally rooted, highly adaptive, and self-reliant in food and energy. Information and technology are shared freely, and trade between neighbors is fair and balanced. Each community, region and nation strives to live within its own means in balance with its own environmental resources. Conflicts are resolved peacefully and no group seeks to expropriate the resources of its neighbors. Competition is for excellence, not domination. The financial collapse has revealed the extreme corruption of the Wall Street financial system and created an extraordinary opening for change. We cannot, however, expect the leadership to come from within the political system. There is good reason why both the Bush and Obama administrations, different as they are, have responded to the Wall Street crash with bailouts for the guilty rather than face up to the need for a radical restructuring of the financial system. No president can stand up against Wall Street absent massive popular demand. To move forward, we the people must build a powerful popular political movement demanding a new economy designed to serve our children, families, communities, and nature. It begins with a conversation to demystify money and expose the lie that there is no alternative to the present economic system. It continues with action to rebuild our local economies based on sound market principles backed by national political action to transform the money system and broaden participation in ownership. This is our moment of opportunity. David Korten wrote this article as part of The New Economy, the Summer 2009 issue of YES! Magazine. David is co-founder and board chair of YES! His most recent book is Agenda for a New Economy: From Phantom Wealth to Real Wealth. From maryrose333 at att.net Mon Nov 16 20:15:48 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Mon, 16 Nov 2009 19:15:48 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: [globalnetnews-summary] FROM THE WILDERNESS TO THE END OF CIVILIZATION, Carolyn Baker Reviews "Collapse" Message-ID: <001f01ca6734$709e18d0$51da4a70$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS For your information and consideration. Carolyn Baker is a member of Future Dawning and Michael Ruppert was once a member of the Co-learner's list. -----Original Message----- From: globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net [mailto:globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net] On Behalf Of TradingPostPaul Sent: Monday, November 16, 2009 11:21 AM To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] FROM THE WILDERNESS TO THE END OF CIVILIZATION, Carolyn Baker Reviews "Collapse" "Buy gold, insulate your house, restore the soil around you and grow food in the restored soil; get organic seeds and store them; get a land line and realize that your cell phone will not be available as the system's collapse exacerbates. Local food production is the most fundamental key to human survival in the collapse of industrial civilization. " FROM THE WILDERNESS TO THE END OF CIVILIZATION, Carolyn Baker Reviews "Collapse" Monday, 09 November 2009 http://carolynbaker.net/site/content/view/1380/1/ Why would someone go to a movie that is essentially an interview of someone else? Don't we go to movies to be entertained or watch documentaries in order to be inundated with voluminous information and breath-taking cinematography? What would compel anyone to sit for 82 minutes watching some guy chain smoking while he's being interviewed about the collapse of industrial civilization in a room that looks like a bunker? If incessant adrenalin rushes enhanced by stupefying special effects are what you desire, seeing "Collapse" should be postponed until you are ready to hear, see, and feel how Director Chris Smith's uncanny discernment is brilliantly conveyed in one of the most poignant, but inspiring movies of this decade. When was the last time you saw a movie that opened with a plea for revolution-no, not the kind with bullets and bombs, but the kind Thomas Jefferson said should happen every twenty years-a revolution in our thinking? In fact, the kind of revolution Mike Ruppert calls for in the opening scenes is one that takes place inside us. In fact, that kind of revolution is one he's lived since he was a political science major at UCLA in the seventies. Whether you like him or not, whether you agree with him or not, you cannot argue that every word that comes out of his mouth in "Collapse", issues from bone-marrow experience-the kind none of us would ever welcome, the kind some of us would have long since committed suicide over, the kind most of us would gladly walk away from. Yet, Mike Ruppert is still alive, still speaking his truth, and amazingly, still able to laugh and play music. >From this point forward in this review, I will refer to Mike Ruppert as simply "Mike." That's because despite the fact that we've had our disagreements in the past and not a few "come to Jesus" moments, this guy named Mike--"Ruppert", "MCR", the LAPD narc, the investigative journalist, and "batshit insane conspiracy theorist" as he has been derisively labeled, is still my friend, and has been for almost a decade. So what kind of movie opens with the main character coming in, sitting down, lighting a cigarette, and being asked, "So who are you?" Shortly, the viewer may be thinking, "Wish they hadn't asked that question because I really don't want to know." That means that by the time you've heard three minutes of Mike's personal story, you are already appalled and prepared to plug your ears and do anything but hear more. Your first response may be, "That can't be true", yet his story is fully documented in writing and by verified numerous eyewitnesses. In summary, his was no ordinary childhood and certainly no ordinary law enforcement career. All roads led to that career as a highly decorated Los Angeles Police Department detective, and everything after has been impacted by it. For as Mike very clearly states in the movie, that clean, dedicated, twenty-seven year-old cop is still alive in him and has always wanted some answers-and yes, some justice. But to the same extent the conscientious cop lives within him, so does the cartographer, the map maker, whose life depended on finding out how the world really works as opposed to how we've been told it works. I would say that at least 80% of his work has evolved out of an attempt to save his own life. That brings it down from ivory tower speculation to a cellular, soul level. PEAK OIL So if you're still hanging out with doubts about the validity of Peak Oil, you won't be after you watch this movie's second segment. I've heard and read volumes on Peak Oil, but Mike's explanation always rings in my ears more loudly than that of any other because of its clarity and simplicity. However, he admittedly stands on the shoulders of numerous Peak Oil researching giants such as Dale Allen Pfeiffer and what he calls "The Three Wise Men": Colin Campbell, Matt Simmons, and Richard Heinberg. Mike explains that it requires the mind of a cop to understand how Peak Oil fits into the rest of the map of events in terms of motive, means, and opportunity. It is now the fundamental underpinning of foreign policy-not only that of the United States, but of all industrial nations. Institutionalized denial of Peak Oil or the refusal by our government to tell the truth about it is nothing less than criminal, according to Mike, because it means that we are building our future as if Peak Oil doesn't exist-sacrificing the lives of future generations so that we can live comfortable lives based on a lie. As for "alternative energy options", I've yet to hear anyone surpass Mike's explanations of how futile and farcical this notion is in terms of sparing us from a global energy crisis. On a small, local scale, renewable energy is necessary and useful, but it is an untenable solution for the long-term, big picture reality of the end of the age of oil. THE DEADLY ACCURATE MAP About the same time that Mike's newsletter, From The Wilderness began publishing stories about Peak Oil, he started connecting the dots between a number of other issues, and several articles published on the website at that time by Catherine Austin Fitts and by Mike, revealed the likelihood of a massive housing and debt bubble that would inevitably burst and result in a global economic meltdown. In his numerous articles and lectures, Mike began admonishing people to get out of debt, buy gold, pay off credit cards, and learn to grow their own food. It is illumining to return to the >From The Wilderness website from time to time and revisit the economic forecasts made there which predicted the current crisis superbly. Some aspects of timing and minor details may have fallen short of accuracy, but for the most part, the forecasts were spot-on in terms of the larger picture. Others, including myself, read, wrote for, and published aspects of the >From The Wilderness map which at the time resulted in being scorned and called crazy. Those years from 2001 to the beginning of the economic crash in September, 2008 were especially tough for many of us in terms of being labeled inveterate doom and gloomers. Some of my close friends who got it were calling me "Cassandra Baker" and with good reason. But neither Mike nor I have broken out the champagne to celebrate how right on target we were during those years because the collapse of civilization and all of its attendant horrors is not something to celebrate. However, we are both buoyed by the number of people who paid attention and acted accordingly and are still doing so today. Likewise, we are inspired and encouraged by the people who have awakened more recently and all those who are just now connecting the dots and experiencing in their bones, the same revolution to which Mike refers in the opening moments of "Collapse." Fiat Currency, Fractional Reserve Banking, and Compound Interest-these are the only three things you need to know, says Mike, about money. These three inherently comprise a pyramid scheme; in fact, the entire global economy is a pyramid scheme. It is based on the infinite growth paradigm which has now collided with something much more powerful. Our economy is collapsing, but many other countries in the world are collapsing much more rapidly. In summary, the people who have been running the planet are now losing control. POPULATION Anyone who has been researching the collapse of industrial civilization understands, as Mike clearly reminds us, that a global population explosion occurred almost simultaneously with the discovery of oil as the 19th century moved into the 20th . Population has steadily increased as the availability of oil has increased, and it is axiomatic that as access to oil decreases, so must the population. A question that naturally arises from these disturbing realities is whether or not the human race can understand them and change its behavior in time to avert catastrophe. At this point, Mike reminds us of three types of responses to a Titanic-like situation. One is the deer-in-the-headlights response in which one is frozen with fear and surprise and begins to ask, "What does this mean? What do I do?" Another kind of response is, "We know this is happening, we know we're all going to die unless we build lifeboats, so let's get busy doing it." Another group says, "This is the Titanic; it's unsinkable." Everything is going to break down differently in different places, according to Mike. Currently, we are seeing the bumpy plateau of energy prices which fluctuate wildly. The critical, lethal point of the plateau for the human race is when oil prices spike again, and no one can afford to buy the oil, at which point, everything will shut down. THE TRANSITION PHASE What is critical now is for us to begin to put new structures in place before the old infrastructure completely crumbles. That phase could last between 20 years (which would be incredibly fast) to 50 or 100 years. What is crucial is that we don't panic but rather analyze our own local situation to see what structures must be put in place there. Shortages will occur, but most likely, gradually as opposed to abruptly. Specific shortages will happen in specific places for a specific period. Thus, what is important is not to prepare for the end result of collapse, but to prepare for the transition. When asked if a collapse be "prevented" by human ingenuity, Mike pensively responds with, "No amount of technology, no amount of human ingenuity can overturn the laws of physics and the laws of the universe." Humankind's greatest peril, he asserts, is to believe that it can overturn the law of the universe and "become God." He very directly admonishes us to: Buy gold, insulate your house, restore the soil around you and grow food in the restored soil; get organic seeds and store them; get a land line and realize that your cell phone will not be available as the system's collapse exacerbates. Local food production is the most fundamental key to human survival in the collapse of industrial civilization. For example, when the Soviet Union collapsed, North Korea and Cuba were desperately dependent on Soviet oil. The two nations adapted to the loss differently. North Korea maintained its rigid communist system, and millions starved. The Cuban government, however, adapted by growing organic food almost everywhere, abandoning the agribusiness model. The idea was to grow food where people were going to eat food, and the result was remarkable resilience-and survival. The phenomenon to which Mike is referring in this section of "Collapse" is extremely well documented in the 2006 film, "The Power of Community". In summary, in the new human paradigm, everything will be local, and as all animals species know, survival must occur in community, not in isolation. Director Chris Smith has succeeded in capturing the essence of Mike Ruppert, and one aspect of that essence is the monumental load of grief he carries regarding having spent three decades crying "from the wilderness" to humanity to awaken and embrace the new paradigm. Yet even as the grief is poignantly revealed to us through Mike's tears, so is the balance he maintains through savoring love, fun, play, and making people smile-all of which are very instructive to those of us who are consciously preparing for collapse. Mike reminds us of Kubler-Ross's Five Stages of Grief and comments that currently, our society appears to be caught in the Anger stage. Ironically, the day I began this review was the same day in which the Ft. Hood massacre occurred, followed by another terrifying shooting rampage in Orlando, Florida. The protracted debate on healthcare over the course of 2009 has been punctuated with numerous violent outbursts at town meetings and insane rages against "socialism" by thousands of hurting middle class Americans. Caustic vitriol pervades our crumbling culture, and that chilling reality is exacerbated by mainstream media's massive lies, distortions, and omissions. How we get through this phase, according to Mike, is critical, and unfortunately, we have little in the culture to assist us in moving through it. However, once we do, and once we begin experiencing acceptance, we are then able to discover like-minded "passengers" on the Titanic with whom we can ally to build lifeboats. I was recently asked if I thought it was possible that I could be "wrong" about Peak Oil and climate change. My response is that it's possible to be wrong about anything. But as Mike so powerfully comments in "Collapse", there is no longer anything to debate. Engaging in debate on these issues is very much like debating whether the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. Peak Oil and climate change are happening; what's to debate? For those who expend energy with political solutions, Mike points out that capitalism, socialism, and communism are terms "that need to be put in the trash can immediately." The only thing the human race will be concerned with in the future is survival, and ideologies and political parties are showing us less than nothing about how to do this. Engaging in large-scale political processes is not only futile, but deprives us of the energy we need to be investing in survival. All these ideologies were created on the premise of infinite resources, and none offer a balance with the planet's resources and other species. Yes, we have a sincere, likeable guy in the White House, but, says Mike: He's a prisoner-a prisoner of the government, of politics, of the Federal Reserve, of a system that's archaic. Don't make success or failure rest on his shoulders. The only thing any of us can possible change is our minds. Stop running from your fear, Mike admonishes us, and starting moving toward embracing your fear because therein lies our ability to survive. This will be, he optimistically reminds us, the greatest evolution in human thinking our species has ever known. Do not run away from your fear, your love, or any emotion because that is the life experience. In those emotions we find the richness of art, music, poetry, and all human creations. Our greater work, he says, is to pull that richness out of the rubbish of civilization's paradigm--a comment which bears uncanny resemblance to what I have written in Sacred Demise: Walking The Spiritual Path of Industrial Civilization's Collapse. Asked if he would ever "walk away" from three decades of work, Mike asks: If there was a German in 1932-33 who had the foresight to look ahead and see what the end result of the Third Reich would be, could they have in good conscience turned around and walked away? We are collectively as a species responsible for what may be the greatest holocaust in human history-our own suicide. While I have no negative comments regarding "Collapse", I do have concerns about two issues which could be interpreted as contradictions. One is Mike's statement in the movie that during the Bush administration, he believes Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld were paying very close attention to his work. The viewer is left to wonder about his rationale for this bold statement, especially as he concludes the comment with, "that's all I care to say." Three decades of persecution by the powers that be does not, in itself, indicate that any two members of those powers were intensely interested in Mike and his work. So I'm left wondering what he knows that we don't. Those of us who have been close associates of Mike in the past witnessed his dramatic exodus from Los Angeles to Ashland, Oregon in 2006, based as he said at the time on what a horrible place he believed L.A. would turn out to be in collapse. Yet it is precisely to that city that he returned in 2008. One may be tempted to accuse him of hypocrisy, but only if one does not understand that Mike spent most of his life in L.A., and it is for him "home" in every sense of the word. Some people preparing for collapse choose to relocate to exotic locations; some choose what is familiar and comforting. The movie draws to a close with Mike's recounting in detail the Hundredth Monkey story. For all its poignancy and sad moments, "Collapse" leaves us with great optimism, joy, possibility, and inspiration. While the logistical focus of the movie is on Mike Ruppert, the ultimate focus is on each of us-on that part of us that knows in every cell of our bodies that we are now in the throes of collapse and that our survival and the meaning of our very existence lies in embracing and to some extent living the Michael C. Ruppert that abides in all of us. From maryrose333 at att.net Mon Nov 16 20:50:18 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Mon, 16 Nov 2009 19:50:18 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: [globalnetnews-summary] The Greatest Danger Message-ID: <002701ca6739$404d3940$c0e7abc0$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS Feeling and dealing with our grief must be a part of our journey into total wellness. There is a need for us to mourn over what we have done as the collective consciousness to ourselves and our life support system. At a deeper level there is also a growing awareness that times like these are inevitable, for as we look back in history we see that these times come and go in cycles, and are an integral part of the great turning with the bad times being the catalyst for the change that inevitably must come as what author and research scientist, Itzhak Bentov called the "the wild pendulum" as he acknowledged the swing from one state to another as change that is as regular as ocean waves take place. -----Original Message----- From: globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net [mailto:globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net] On Behalf Of TradingPostPaul Sent: Monday, November 16, 2009 11:07 AM To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] The Greatest Danger The Greatest Danger If you're really paying attention, it's hard to escape a sense of outrage, fear, despair. Author, deep-ecologist, and Buddhist scholar Joanna Macy says: Don't even try. Document Actions http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/climate-solutions/the-greatest-danger by Joanna Macy How do we live with the fact that we are destroying our world? What do we make of the loss of glaciers, the melting Arctic, island nations swamped by the sea, widening deserts, and drying farmlands? Because of social taboos, despair at the state of our world and fear for our future are rarely acknowledged. The suppression of despair, like that of any deep recurring response, contributes to the numbing of the psyche. Expressions of anguish or outrage are muted, deadened as if a nerve had been cut. This refusal to feel impoverishes our emotional and sensory life. Flowers are dimmer and less fragrant, our loves less ecstatic. We create diversions for ourselves as individuals and as nations, in the fights we pick, the aims we pursue, and the stuff we buy. Of all the dangers we face, from climate chaos to permanent war, none is so great as this deadening of our response. For psychic numbing impedes our capacity to process and respond to information. The energy expended in pushing down despair is diverted from more crucial uses, depleting the resilience and imagination needed for fresh visions and strategies. Zen poet Thich Nhat Hanh was asked, "what do we most need to do to save our world?" His answer was this: "What we most need to do is to hear within us the sounds of the Earth crying." Cracking the Shell How do we confront what we scarcely dare to think? How do we face our grief, fear, and rage without "going to pieces?" It is good to realize that falling apart is not such a bad thing. Indeed, it is as essential to transformation as the cracking of outgrown shells. Anxieties and doubts can be healthy and creative, not only for the person, but for the society, because they permit new and original approaches to reality. What disintegrates in periods of rapid transformation is not the self, but its defenses and assumptions. Self-protection restricts vision and movement like a suit of armor, making it harder to adapt. Going to pieces, however uncomfortable, can open us up to new perceptions, new data, and new responses. Speaking the truth of our anguish for the world brings down the walls between us, drawing us into deep solidarity. That solidarity is all the more real for the uncertainty we face. In our culture, despair is feared and resisted because it represents a loss of control. We're ashamed of it and dodge it by demanding instant solutions to problems. We seek the quick fix. This cultural habit obscures our perceptions and fosters a dangerous innocence of the real world. Acknowledging despair, on the other hand, involves nothing more mysterious than telling the truth about what we see and know and feel is happening to our world. When corporate-controlled media keep the public in the dark, and power-holders manipulate events to create a climate of fear and obedience, truth-telling is like oxygen. It enlivens and returns us to health and vigor. Belonging to All Life Sharing what is in our heartmind brings a welcome shift in identity, as we recognize that the anger, grief, and fear we feel for our world are not reducible to concerns for our individual welfare or even survival. Our concerns are far larger than our own private needs and wants. Pain for the world-the outrage and the sorrow-breaks us open to a larger sense of who we are. It is a doorway to the realization of our mutual belonging in the web of life. Many of us fear that confrontation with despair will bring loneliness and isolation. On the contrary, in letting go of old defenses, we find truer community. And in community, we learn to trust our inner responses to our world-and find our power. You are not alone! We are part of a vast, global movement: the epochal transition from empire to Earth community. This is the Great Turning. And the excitement, the alarm, even the overwhelm we feel, are all part of our waking up to this collective adventure. As in any true adventure, there is risk and uncertainty. Our corporate economy is destroying both itself and the natural world. Its effect on living systems is what David Korten calls the Great Unraveling. It is happening at the same time as the Great Turning, and we cannot know which way the story will end. Let's drop the notion that we can manage our planet for our own comfort and profit-or even that we can now be its ultimate redeemers. It is a delusion. Let's accept, in its place, the radical uncertainty of our time, even the uncertainty of survival. In primal societies, adolescents go through rites of passage, where confronting their own mortality is a gateway to maturity. In analogous ways, climate change calls us to recognize our own mortality as a species. With the gift of uncertainty, we can grow up and accept the rights and responsibility of planetary adulthood. Then we know fully that we belong, inextricably, to the web of life, and we can serve it, and let its strength flow through us. Uncertainty, when accepted, sheds a bright light on the power of intention. Intention is what you can count on: not the outcome, but the motivation you bring, the vision you hold, the compass setting you choose to follow. Our intention and resolve can save us from getting lost in grief. During a recent visit to Kentucky, I learned what is happening to the landscape and culture of Appalachia: how coal companies use dynamite to pulverize everything above the underground seams of coal; how bulldozers and dragline machines 20-stories high push away the "overburden" of woodlands and top soil, filling the valleys. I saw how activists there are held steady by sheer intention. Though the nation seems oblivious to this tragedy, these men and women persist in the vision that Appalachia can, in part, be saved and that future generations may know slopes of sweet gum, sassafras, magnolia, the stirrings of bobcat and coon, and, in the hollows, the music of fiddle and fresh flowing streams. They seem to know-and, when we let down our guard, we too know-that we are living parts of the living body of Earth. This is the gift of the Great Turning. When we open our eyes to what is happening, even when it breaks our hearts, we discover our true size; for our heart, when it breaks open, can hold the whole universe. We discover how speaking the truth of our anguish for the world brings down the walls between us, drawing us into deep solidarity. That solidarity, with our neighbors and all that lives, is all the more real for the uncertainty we face. When we stop distracting ourselves by trying to figure the chances of success or failure, our minds and hearts are liberated into the present moment. This moment then becomes alive, charged with possibilities, as we realize how lucky we are to be alive now, to take part in this planetary adventure. From maryrose333 at att.net Mon Nov 16 21:56:04 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Mon, 16 Nov 2009 20:56:04 -0800 Subject: [GJM] Absolutely Must See: FW: THE WARNING documentary, & Upcoming free seminars by AMI Message-ID: <000901ca6742$6e9a2a20$4bce7e60$@net> From: AMI [mailto:ami at taconic.net] Sent: Monday, November 16, 2009 5:47 PM To: AMI Subject: THE WARNING documentary, & Upcoming free seminars by Dear Friends of the American Monetary Institute: Please circulate this message. Two things: First - FRONTLINE has produced a remarkable documentary titled "The Warning" which has aired on PBS Television across the nation and which will now force major changes in the Obama administration. It documents how Lawrence Summers, Greenspan and Ruben attacked and blocked Mrs. Brooksley Born, who was in charge of the CFTC (Commodity Futures Trading Commission) when she warned of the derivatives danger in the mid 90s and heroically fought to regulate them. This is really HOT stuff and if the President is at all conscious, Sumners and Geithner will be driven from his administration! This brilliant presentation takes the problem that created the crisis back through the mentally challenged Greenspan, to its origin in his philosophical mentor, Ayn Rand. A must see show. You can watch this highly recommended documentary at http://video.pbs.org/video/1302794657 OR google: frontline the warning for a more direct link. Second - We have 4 free monetary seminars in November and December. Participate if you can, and Please forward this announcement to your friends in those cities. Washington, DC: November 17-19; various private meetings. Some limited time slots still open. Congressional Aides and organization leaders please call 224-805-2200 to arrange an appointment. Chatham, in Columbia County, upstate New York, a public meeting: Tuesday, November 24th, 6: 30 PM at the Morris Memorial Building, at 21 Park Row, Chatham, NY, 12037 New York City a public Ami Chapter meeting discussing the monetary problem and its solution: At the Henry George School, 121 E. 30th St., NY, 10016. November 30, at 6:00 PM. Cleveland, Ohio, a free public meeting on the monetary and banking crisis. Saturday December 12th at 10 am - 1 pm, at the Peace House, 10916 Magnolia Ave., University Circle, Cleveland, Ohio 44106 Hope to see you and your friends at these meetings. Warm regards, Stephen Zarlenga Director, American Monetary Institute Confirm at 224-805-2200 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From maryrose333 at att.net Tue Nov 17 10:31:35 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Tue, 17 Nov 2009 09:31:35 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: [globalnetnews-summary] The Worst is yet to Come: Unemployed Americans Should Hunker Down for More Job Losses Message-ID: <005801ca67ab$fcf58da0$f6e0a8e0$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS For those talking about creating more jobs, this should be a good indicator of what is in store. Roubini writes here that many of the jobs that are being lost at this time are not coming back. The reason being that new advances in technology are rapidly replacing jobs requiring human labor as we move into nanotechnology and bio-mimicry in the Age of Knowledge as the means of production associated with the Industrial Age fades away. And, the rapidity with which this is going to happen will only increase as we move further into these technologies that are capable of "producing more with less" and thus reducing waste. So, what we need is an alternative economy that enables people to live sustainably without an associated job structure. This is accomplished by using local currencies which act as a means of exchange in transactions conducted at the local level and within small groups of people who know one another and have built relationships based largely on knowing and trust. To understand this type of economy, I recommend reading "The End of Money and the Future of Civilization," by Thomas H.Greco, Jr. As we have mentioned previously, food sovereignty is the cornerstone of freedom, so what we want to do is ensure that people have sufficient land space around them in which to raise their own food supply even if they do not raise their food directly in the ground, but in "tiered" hanging gardens as demonstrated by Reinhold Ziegler of US Synergy. Gardens which can be constructed right outside one's kitchen door so that zero energy is consumed in transporting the food from the point of production to wholesale and retail outlets are the wave of the future. As well energy needed to cook and process the food is also abolished in the process. In this way, not only is less energy consumed, but no precious vitamins and minerals are lost in transit or in cooking. And, with much of it eaten raw, the enzymes so necessary to our health and well-being are preserved. Here we are practicing the art of moving into TOTAL WELLNESS as the practices we are talking about strengthen the immune system and build a wall against diseases. Let me also add that if we watch the alkaline and acidic factor (pH balance) so that we are maintaining an average of 80% alkalinity factor in our body by eating mainly alkaline foods, we are creating a condition in our body that makes it extremely difficult for disease to live. Not only are we saving energy here, we are doing away with the environmentally-costly packaging that accompanies food which is transported long distances and thus creating another energy-saving method as well as reducing use of materials required for packaging. By using the permaculture practice of planting "edible landscaping" we also assure "ambience" as well as a good supply of food. In addition we are moving into TOTAL WELLNESS for the land as we take measures to restore its balance worldwide simply by changing the way we eat, and thus reducing the stress factor associated with commercial agriculture practices, e.g., mono-cropping large areas of land which drives away the natural balance associated with forests and wild life occupants. We are also able to eliminate the unhealthy practice of raising corn and sorghum to mainly feed cattle, thus ending the practice of cycling grain through them which when fed directly to humans could feed many more people. However, the question now arises as to whether grain is an appropriate food for the human family in today's world. Many people are "gluten" intolerant and those investigating grain as food, e.g., Dr. Mercola, www.mercola.com, are advising against the consumption of grains to the extent we use them today. If we are going to contribute large acreages of land to raising grain, there are much more practical grains to raise which provide us with much more nutrition than does corn, wheat, and oats, e.g., quinoa, amaranth, and hemp. Hemp is a great source of protein and more and more cereals and breads are now on the market which use this as a main ingredient. However, as we have previously discussed, hemp can also be used in the manufacture of as many as 20,000 different products which would be not only long-lasting but bio-degradable -- so much more practical to raise. In addition, as we have previously discussed, hemp, amaranth, and buckwheat are grain products that need no tilling of the soil. Hemp, in particular, needs little or no fertilizer or water. Hence, long-grains such as these, can be harvested by cutting by hand with sythes, thus leaving the soil undisturbed. So, by looking at how and what resources we are using, we can contribute to a healthier "us" while at the same time contributing immensely to the health and well-being of the planet as we begin to restore our fragile ecosystems to pristine condition so that the carrying capacity of each is maximized. This is the most important thing we can do. And, in doing this, we need to create more walkable communities and begin to eliminate the automobile from our lifestyle while moving into mass transit systems which will be used more for moving people as visitors from one place to another rather than moving large loads of materials. So, the need for human labor that was once directed toward working a job as a wage slave in order to earn money to purchase food and gain shelter, etc., a practice which allowed a few to get wealthy off of the backs of "others" such as women, people of color and non-land owners, can now be directed toward raising one's own food and, in so doing, aid in reconnecting the human family to the Earth system, and attain sovereignty -- meaning that one is now able to subsist independent of a job created by a blood-sucking capitalist, while at the same time increasing one's health factor, while decreasing the need for medical care dramatically. While ownership of the land is desired by many, a more practical plan is to move boundaries so they define what is known as a "bio-region" rather than to be set up as independent states that compete against one another. Bio-regions are naturally defined by such things as water sheds, rivers and streams, and changing ecosystems. Then within these bio-regions we need to "map the territory" in order to determine where it is appropriate to do what and thus plan for sustainable living communities that are appropriately placed within the bio-region in order to preserve its integrity. (Eco-designer Jim Bell).The communities constructed then need to be on land that is either leased or owned by all those living within its boundaries, thus serving all equally. Bio-regions need to have CC&Rs which run with the land in perpetuity and thus define what can and cannot be done on it thus protecting it for all time to come from being used in ways that destroy its viability. More on this later. Now here is the article which inspired this. -----Original Message----- From: globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net [mailto:globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net] On Behalf Of TradingPostPaul Sent: Monday, November 16, 2009 11:25 AM To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] The Worst is yet to Come: Unemployed Americans Should Hunker Down for More Job Losses The Worst is yet to Come: Unemployed Americans Should Hunker Down for More Job Losses http://www.rgemonitor.com/roubini-monitor/257978/the_worst_is_yet_to_come_un employed_americans_should_hunker_down_for_more_job_losses Nouriel Roubini | Nov 15, 2009 Think the worst is over? Wrong. Conditions in the U.S. labor markets are awful and worsening. While the official unemployment rate is already 10.2% and another 200,000 jobs were lost in October, when you include discouraged workers and partially employed workers the figure is a whopping 17.5%. While losing 200,000 jobs per month is better than the 700,000 jobs lost in January, current job losses still average more than the per month rate of 150,000 during the last recession. Also, remember: The last recession ended in November 2001, but job losses continued for more than a year and half until June of 2003; ditto for the 1990-91 recession. So we can expect that job losses will continue until the end of 2010 at the earliest. In other words, if you are unemployed and looking for work and just waiting for the economy to turn the corner, you had better hunker down. All the economic numbers suggest this will take a while. The jobs just are not coming back. There's really just one hope for our leaders to turn things around: a bold prescription that increases the fiscal stimulus with another round of labor-intensive, shovel-ready infrastructure projects, helps fiscally strapped state and local governments and provides a temporary tax credit to the private sector to hire more workers. Helping the unemployed just by extending unemployment benefits is necessary not sufficient; it leads to persistent unemployment rather than job creation. The long-term picture for workers and families is even worse than current job loss numbers alone would suggest. Now as a way of sharing the pain, many firms are telling their workers to cut hours, take furloughs and accept lower wages. Specifically, that fall in hours worked is equivalent to another 3 million full time jobs lost on top of the 7.5 million jobs formally lost. This is very bad news but we must face facts. Many of the lost jobs are gone forever, including construction jobs, finance jobs and manufacturing jobs. Recent studies suggest that a quarter of U.S. jobs are fully out-sourceable over time to other countries. Other measures tell the same ugly story: The average length of unemployment is at an all time high; the ratio of job applicants to vacancies is 6 to 1; initial claims are down but continued claims are very high and now millions of unemployed are resorting to the exceptional extended unemployment benefits programs and are staying in them longer. Based on my best judgment, it is most likely that the unemployment rate will peak close to 11% and will remain at a very high level for two years or more. The weakness in labor markets and the sharp fall in labor income ensure a weak recovery of private consumption and an anemic recovery of the economy, and increases the risk of a double dip recession. As a result of these terribly weak labor markets, we can expect weak recovery of consumption and economic growth; larger budget deficits; greater delinquencies in residential and commercial real estate and greater fall in home and commercial real estate prices; greater losses for banks and financial institutions on residential and commercial real estate mortgages, and in credit cards, auto loans and student loans and thus a greater rate of failures of banks; and greater protectionist pressures. The damage will be extensive and severe unless bold policy action is undertaken now. Roubini is professor of Economics at the Stern School of Business at New York University and Chairman of Roubini Global Economics. From maryrose333 at att.net Tue Nov 17 15:18:48 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Tue, 17 Nov 2009 14:18:48 -0800 Subject: [GJM] Absolutely must read : Goldman Sachs Does God's Will While 49 Million Go Hungry Message-ID: <008101ca67d4$1a9d8920$4fd89b60$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS Does the figure of 49 million people in the U.S. going hungry shake you up at all? Or, that the actual unemployment rate is 17.4%? It certainly does me and just this past weekend I got a call from someone who was desperate and wanting to know if it were possible to get a few groceries to tide them over until the Albertson's Food Bank at the local VFW opened on Monday so they could get a supply that would hopefully last them until the next week when coupled with a local handout at the Community Center on the same day. And, at the Community Center the food ran out long before the end of the line was reached, but fortunately this friend had gotten up early and walked seven miles from where he and his wife lived in order to be one of the first in line. Another friend and I took the food out to the callers about 10 miles away and when I stopped at the local general store to pick up a loaf of bread for them, the owner there told us that there were a lot of people in this small town close to the Border in So. Calif. who were going hungry. Even the friend who accompanied me on the trip had his own story, having had to leave the L.A. area to seek shelter with me because he had been going without food there in order to keep his cell phone working so as not to miss an opportunity to pick up a filming gig now and then, but with most of what he was able to make going to pay for housing. But there is a solution to this you know. The solution is for small communities such as this to begin printing local currencies so there is a means of keeping track of the exchange so people can enter into barter and trade. But the first step is for the people in the community to begin growing their own food so there is something to exchange. Here where the temperature hardly ever drops down below 20 degrees in winter, it is possible to grow food by stacking up straw bales and then planting in containers in this sheltered space and covering the opening at night with a tarp or piece of greenhouse screen. But, of course it is going to take some kind of currency to acquire the materials necessary to do this as well as to acquire the seed to plant and the organic fertilizer with which to enrich the soil. And this is where people may have to resort to "Humanure" in order to get enough nitrogen into the soil to grow the food. I will go back as soon as possible and talk to the general store owner and suggest to him that he be the one to start the local currency program as he will benefit from it himself. He told me the person I was taking food to owed him money and I am sure that "J" is not the only one. If we are going to make it through this, having a local currency program in place and raising one's own food in the community is critical. More on this later. -----Original Message----- From: globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net [mailto:globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net] On Behalf Of TradingPostPaul Sent: Tuesday, November 17, 2009 12:03 PM To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] Goldman Sachs Does God's Will While 49 Million Go Hungry Goldman Sachs Does God's Will While 49 Million Go Hungry November 17, 2009 10:35 AM http://www.huffingtonpost.com/les-leopold/goldman-sachs-does-gods-w_b_360508 .html It's going from obscene to disgusting. Each day reveals how we've traded away our sense of decency and the common good in exchange for pure, unadulterated greed. Unemployment is a statistic. We hear it so often that, unless we are without work, it loses its meaning. Even when we learn that the U6 jobless rate hit 17.5 percent it doesn't really register. After all this isn't the 1930s. We have no bread lines or Hoovervilles. We're not lined up outside of banks praying we can get our savings. We've come a long way...or have we? We learn today that unemployment still means hunger. The Department of Agriculture reports that 49 million Americans don't have enough food. That's up 13 million over the last year and is highest number ever recorded since the survey began 14 years ago. Next time you hear people blame the crisis on poor people buying houses they couldn't afford, think about skipping meals because you don't have a job. Meanwhile, unemployment and hunger are rising because the very banks we bailed out are not lending money. As Ben Bernanke put it just yesterday: "Banks' reluctance to lend will limit the ability of some businesses to expand and hire. Because smaller businesses account for a significant portion of net employment gains during recoveries, limited credit could hinder job growth." And if that isn't enough, the TARP special inspector general reports that Tim Geithner completely botched the AIG negotiations, thereby showering billions of our dollars onto Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase and other large banks. This one is a beauty. If you recall, AIG was about to go under last fall and take down the global banking system. In response, the NY Fed, under Geithner, arranged for an $85 billion emergency loan. AIG got into trouble by insuring $450 billion dollars of toxic assets held by the largest banks in the worlds. Goldman Sachs alone was due $12.9 billion from AIG. But if AIG folded, Goldman Sachs and the other banks would have received pennies on the dollar, which in financial circles is called a "haircut." Geithner tried to get the big banks to take a voluntary haircut. Credit Suise was willing to take 98 cents on the dollar, which hardly seems like much of a compromise but at least showed some twinge of good faith negotiation. But not Goldman Sachs. No way. Goldman Sachs knew that Geithner was bluffing and didn't have the spine to really let AIG go into bankruptcy. Besides, "voluntary" and "Goldman Sachs" are two words that do not belong in the same sentence. As a result, Goldman Sachs did not have to visit the barber. Instead, we taxpayers got the haircut and the big banks got a "backdoor bailout."Here's how the New York Times put it: "There have been suggestions that the Fed chose to negotiate weakly, Mr. Barofsky said, to give a "backdoor bailout" to A.I.G.'s banks. He said Mr. Geithner and the Fed's lawyers had denied this, but added that "irrespective of their stated intent," there was no doubt about the result: "Tens of billions of dollars of government money was funneled inexorably and directly to A.I.G.'s counterparties." Now think about this as we head into the holiday season: The big banks that we bailed out (and that are not making loans, which is driving up the unemployment rate and hunger) are making record profits as a direct result of our bailouts, and are about to award themselves record bonuses -- again! This what the chairman of Goldman Sachs calls "doing God's will." He really did say that. In a just world, Congress and the president would be all over this. They would immediately pass a 90 percent windfall profits tax on the large banks that would go to feed the hungry right now. But we know that our leaders don't have the will or the guts to take on the Wall Street billionaires. In my own fantasy Christmas pageant, Wall Street would become haunted by the specter of 49 million Americans, mostly kids, going without the food they need. And in that dream, if there is a shred of decency left on Wall Street, they would decide to do God's will by donating their bonus pool to feed the hungry. But back in the real world, we know that Wall Street doesn't take haircuts even if the entire world economy is collapsing. They will continue to ignore the anguish of our own people until we force them to take notice. Welcome to the Billionaire Bailout economy. From maryrose333 at att.net Tue Nov 17 16:00:32 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Tue, 17 Nov 2009 15:00:32 -0800 Subject: [GJM] Please read: FW: [globalnetnews-summary] Let's Get Fiscal Message-ID: <009701ca67d9$edd53ea0$c97fbbe0$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS This inaugural Address by Franklin D. Roosevelt was made in a completely different time and under different circumstances than when he made it. Putting people back to work in the world of today that is fast moving into nanotechnology and bio-mimicry is not the answer because the kind of jobs needed to do this are simply not available today. And, we cannot simply continue to create "make work" jobs in order to pay people to continue to buy "stuff" that is not really necessary for our well-being and, in fact, may be detracting from it as we create bubble economies that are non-sustainable. Nor, can we continue to exclude the "exeterior (environmental) costs from the retail price and keep pushing these onto future generations because we are now that generation with the bill coming due in the form of global climate change. If anyone is going to "get fiscal" it must be "we-the-people" because the government and the bankers are surely not going to do this -- it simply is not in their best interests to do so and they are going to continue to try and put a second story on the house using the building blocks from the basement. Thus, we-the-people need to take things in our own hands and begin to create sustainable living communities that are life enhancing in all ways and which benefit both we-the-people and our life support system. We need to take our money out of "their" banks and put it into smaller community banks and credit unions. We need to create local currencies that provide all with a means of exchange. We need to move from supporting big agribusinesses to growing our own food in containers on our patios if necessary, and to stop patronizing the retailers who ship food 1500 miles on average from point of production to retail outlet. We need to dramatically change the way we eat and grow food moving into getting the most nutrition for the buck from the smallest amount of land possible, even moving into raising our food in tubes and other containers. In talking with Reinhold Ziegler, I find that we can grow food 800 percent more effectively in these tubes and out of the ground. He also tells me these are very water-saving ways in that they turn the water on for one minute 8 times a day. So, why are we buying food produced on huge farms using heavy equipment that takes a lot of energy to do the job along with inefficient water systems that create mega waste. We need to turn off the TV and stop listening to their mind-programming and turn inward to the "christed consciousness" within us for answers. We need to think more about "eating to live" rather than "living to eat" and whether or not we want our children and grand-children to have futures based on health and wellness or whether we want to continue on in the killing fields of war and waste which leave a few money rich but the rest of us bereft of soul. Think about it!!! -----Original Message----- From: globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net [mailto:globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net] On Behalf Of TradingPostPaul Sent: Tuesday, November 17, 2009 11:46 AM To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] Let's Get Fiscal More Stimulus, More Government Jobs Programs, More Debt Relief Let's Get Fiscal http://www.counterpunch.org/whitney11172009.html By MIKE WHITNEY November 17, 2009 "Our greatest primary task is to put people to work. This is no unsolvable problem if we face it wisely and courageously. It can be accomplished in part by direct recruiting by the Government itself, treating the task as we would treat the emergency of a war, but at the same time, through this employment, accomplishing greatly needed projects to stimulate and reorganize the use of our natural resources." Franklin D. Roosevelt, Inaugural Address, March 4, 1933 There's no reason why a sharp-witted politico like Barack Obama can't survey the wreckage around him and draw the same conclusions as FDR. The unemployment crisis should be the president's first order of business; Job 1. Instead, Obama is paralyzed by indecision, unable to settle on a policy that he's willing to stick with through Hell-or-high-water. His lack of resolve shows that he's got his priorities mixed up and that he's getting bad advice from his lieutenants. The economy needs more jobs to get back on track and make up for flagging demand. Those jobs are not going to come from the private sector which is struggling just to stay afloat. They'll have to be created by the government; major public works programs expressly designed to put millions of people back to work. These are precisely the kind of programs that conservatives and Libertarians despise, which is important, since it lays the groundwork for a national debate on the role of government. This is a debate that Obama can win, provided he stops waffling and shows some moxie. Unemployment has reached a 26-year high of 10.2 percent, but the "real" rate of joblessness (underemployment) is now hovering at 17.5 percent. These are Depression-era numbers. The Fed's zero-rate policy and liquidity-injection programs have sparked a 62 percent rally in the stock market since early March, but had no material effect on unemployment which is headed higher. A growing number of economists, including Paul Krugman, Nouriel Roubini and Marshall Auerback, are calling for bold action to stop the bleeding and put the country back to work. But the poll-driven Obama administration is afraid to break with the "pro growth" small-government dogma which has guided state policy for the last 30 years. Obama knows the economy needs another round of stimulus, but he's afraid to move forward for fear of offending Wall Street and fatcat party donors who see any expansion of government as a threat private profit-making. As a result, the economy continues to be whipsawed by rising joblessness, soaring defaults, and tighter credit. Here's a quote by Obama's chief economic advisor, Lawrence Summers, which helps to clarify the point: Indeed, in the current circumstances the case for fiscal stimulus -- policy actions that increase short-term deficits -- is stronger than ever before in my professional lifetime. Unemployment is almost certain to increase -- probably to the highest levels in a generation. Monetary policy has little scope to stimulate the economy given how low interest rates already are and the problems in the financial system. Global experience with economic downturns caused by financial distress suggests that while they are of uncertain depth, they are almost always of long duration. The economic point here can be made straightforwardly: The more people who are unemployed, the more desirable it is that government takes steps to put them back to work by investing in infrastructure or energy or simply by providing tax cuts that allow families to avoid cutting back on their spending. ("A Bailout Is Just a Start", Lawrence Summers, Washington Post) The article was written by Summers in September of 2008, which shows that he knew what needed to be done more than a year ago. That's impressive, but where are the infrastructure and green technology projects that were promised? Where are the new jobs? Originally, Obama assured the public that the $787 billion stimulus package (aka--The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act) would create 3.5 million new jobs. But--even by the administration's own calculations--less than 1 million jobs have been created so far. Too much of the ARRA money was devoted to tax cuts (to appease Republicans and Bluedogs) which diminished its overall effectiveness. Here's an excerpt from an article by Alec MacGillis in the Washington Post which gives a breakdown of the costs: "Two-thirds of the stimulus went toward tax cuts, fiscal aid to states, and expanded unemployment benefits and food stamps. These efforts helped cushion the recession's blow, saved public jobs and, by injecting demand into the economy, bolstered employment indirectly. The remaining third of the stimulus, however, was expected to be the real jobs generator: $250 billion for infrastructure - roads, transit, water treatment - and for investments in energy efficiency, broadband access and other areas. But it is becoming clear that much of that spending is not producing many new jobs." ("Unlike the New Deal, Obama's plan does not put people on the public payroll", Alec MacGillis, Washington Post) So, while $11.4 trillion has been used to prop up the financial system, a paltry $250 billion has gone to creating jobs. No wonder unemployment has zoomed to 17.5 percent. Here's Summers again: The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) will do some of the work that the nation has needed done for a long time-doubling renewable energy capacity in the next 3 years, supporting middle class incomes, modernizing ten thousand schools, and making the largest investment in the spine of our national economy - the nation's infrastructure - since Dwight Eisenhower's investment 50 years ago... Between 2000 and 2007 - a period of solid aggregate economic growth - the typical working-age household saw their income decline by nearly $2000. The decline in middle-class incomes even as the incomes of the top 1% skyrocketed has a number of causes, but one of them is surely rising asset prices and the fact that financial sector profits exploded to the point to where they represented 40% of all corporate profits in 2006. Confidence today will be enhanced if we put measures in place that assure that the coming expansion will be more sustainable and fair in the distribution of benefits than its predecessor. Summers sounds more like Huey Long than Milton Friedman, spouting populist blather about the growing inequality and the "fair distribution of benefits". What rubbish. Nearly all of the emergency government funding has been pumped into financial markets where the investor class is raking in bigger profits than ever before. Even worse, according to an article released last week by Politico.com, Team Obama is about to lunge even farther to the right. Here's a quote from Politico: "President Barack Obama plans to announce in next year's State of the Union address that he wants to focus extensively on cutting the federal deficit in 2010 - and will downplay other new domestic spending beyond jobs programs, according to top aides involved in the planning. The president's plan, which the officials said was under discussion before this month's Democratic election setbacks, represents both a practical and a political calculation by this White House." (politico.com) Uh, now who exactly is telling Obama that trimming the deficits (which involves raising taxes or cutting spending) in the middle of a severe economic downturn is a good idea? Summers, perhaps? This excerpt from Politico just highlights the yawning chasm between blabber and policy. If Obama decides to cut the deficits and jettison the jobs programs, the economy will slide right back into recession. Is that what he wants, or is he just an unwitting victim of Summer's crummy advice? Summers knows that the 3.5 percent surge in GDP in the 3rd Quarter was entirely the result of Obama's fiscal stimulus. He also knows that government jobs programs will increase demand, boost consumer confidence, add to state revenues, and spur growth. So why is he caving in to the deficit hawks and the dollar demagogues instead pushing Obama to rally the country to use the nation's vast resources to put its people back to work? The Fed can't do it. In fact, the Fed already has its back against the wall. It's balance sheet has ballooned to more than $2 trillion in the last year alone. It's getting no traction from its zero percent interest rates, and its $1.75 trillion quantitative easing program is set to end by the end of the 1st Quarter 2010. Fed chair Ben Bernanke has stabilized the financial markets, but the liquidity is still not getting to the people who need it most because the credit system is still gunked up with toxic paper. That's taken the "trickle" out of trickle-down, which is why the economy needs a lift, a direct infusion of stimulus to the jugular; to patch household balance sheets and perk-up consumer spending. The stimulus should be part of an aggressive reform agenda aimed at job creation. Otherwise things will only get worse. How bad will it get? Here's a clip from Nouriel Roubini's RGE Monitor, "The Worst is yet to Come": Think the worst is over? Wrong. Conditions in the US labor markets are awful and worsening.... The long-term picture for workers and families is even worse than current job loss numbers alone would suggest. Now as a way of sharing the pain, many firms are telling their workers to cut hours, take furloughs and accept lower wages. Specifically, that fall in hours worked is equivalent to another 3 million full time jobs lost on top of the 7.5 million jobs formally lost. This is very bad news but we must face facts. Many of the lost jobs are gone forever, including construction jobs, finance jobs and manufacturing jobs. Recent studies suggest that a quarter of U.S. jobs are fully out-sourceable over time to other countries... So we can expect that job losses will continue until the end of 2010 at the earliest. In other words, if you are unemployed and looking for work and just waiting for the economy to turn the corner, you had better hunker down. All the economic numbers suggest this will take a while. The jobs just are not coming back. There's really just one hope for our leaders to turn things around: a bold prescription that increases the fiscal stimulus with another round of labor-intensive, shovel-ready infrastructure projects, helps fiscally strapped state and local governments and provides a temporary tax credit to the private sector to hire more workers. Helping the unemployed just by extending unemployment benefits is necessary not sufficient; it leads to persistent unemployment rather than job creation." ("The Worst is yet to Come", Nouriel Roubini's RGE Monitor) This isn't the time for hemming-and-hawing. Obama should be using his clout to launch a trillion dollar "Get America Back to Work" campaign with all the public relations rigmarole to go along with it. 17.5 percent "real" unemployment is only part of the story, too. There's also 300,000-plus foreclosures every month, record personal bankruptcies, plummeting state revenues, and countless maxed out homeless shelters and food banks. We're in the throes of a low-grade depression that requires emergency mobilization aimed at expanding the public workforce and increasing wage-and-benefits packages to spark greater demand. The states should be given open-ended funding to cover losses in annual tax revenue as long as they agree to an across-the-board firing freeze for all state and local employees. Government resources should be provided in block grants to states for green technology, infrastructure projects, foreclosure relief, low income housing, and public health care facilities. Whatever it takes to rev up the industrial flywheel that keeps the economy purring; Do it! The Fed's monetary remedies have flopped. It's onto Plan B, which means bold New Deal-type jobs programs; direct public-service employment which eliminates the waste of tax credits for private sector hiring and misdirected stimulus which disappears down a black hole. Put money back in the hands of the people who will spend it (workers) and build a stronger economy where everyone benefits. The system needs to be rejiggered; everyone knows it. The essential balance between supply and demand has been upset and can't be restored without a larger public workforce. Much larger. Larger public workforce. Larger bureaucracy. Big government. From maryrose333 at att.net Tue Nov 17 16:09:31 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Tue, 17 Nov 2009 15:09:31 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: Fre*e Virtual Ticket to Longevity Experience Message-ID: <009801ca67db$2ebd5820$8c380860$@net> For your information. From: David Wolfe [mailto:Dave at longevitynowprogram.com] Sent: Tuesday, November 17, 2009 2:37 PM To: maryrose333 at att.net Subject: Fre*e Virtual Ticket to Longevity Experience I want to invite you to join me for the opening day of what many are anticipating to be the most revealing health transformation event of the year! And It's CompletelyFree As My Gift To You! Here's the best part... You can enjoy "front row seats" and watch from the comfort of your own computer! ********************************************** Here's How To Get Your Online Video Broadcast For Friday (100%Free) ********************************************** This friday, 700 health enthusiasts from all over the world will be discovering the latest research and health strategies for looking and feeling your best at the Longevity Experience Weekend. This 3 day event has been sold out for weeks, but we made arrangements to video stream the entire event so you can watch it live! The opening evening will completely blow your mind as you will learn the absolute key strategies to achieve the health, vitality and body you deserve! It's impossible to describe with just words, so I want to invite you to join me and our longevity faculty forFree. Register For Your FREELIVE Class Right Here And you'll be good to go :) Btw, this is NOT a normal video stream. It is a totally interactive experience where you will be able to submit questions to the speakers, view slides and a whole bunch of other cool features! So if you are ready make the greatest health transformation of your life, here's your chance! http://www.longevitynowexperience.com/webcast.html I'll see you Friday at the Longevity Experience! To your health, David "Avocado" Wolfe P.S. This friday's video broadcast requires No driving, No packing, No airplanes and No hotel fees! Grab your virtual seat right here! This message was sent from David Wolfe to maryrose333 at att.net. It was sent from: leonard foley, 9 Carlito Rd NM , Sante Fe, NM 87508. You can modify/update your subscription via the link below. Email Marketing by iContact - Try It Free! Manage your subscription -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From maryrose333 at att.net Tue Nov 17 16:11:07 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Tue, 17 Nov 2009 15:11:07 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: Congress: How many more will die before age 5? Message-ID: <009d01ca67db$64f30f70$2ed92e50$@net> FYI From: newsletters at motherjones.com [mailto:newsletters at motherjones.com] Sent: Tuesday, November 17, 2009 6:07 AM To: maryrose333 at att.net Subject: Congress: How many more will die before age 5? The following is a sponsored message: CARE - You can help save them from hunger - Take Action Dear friend, Almost 11 million children die before their fifth birthday each year, and malnutrition and hunger-related diseases cause 60 percent of these deaths. More children die from hunger each year than people die from AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined. Nearly one billion people go to bed every night - and wake up every morning - hungry. This is a moral and humanitarian disaster and we must not stand by and watch, or worse, look away. Right now, we have the opportunity to lead the way in alleviating the suffering of the countless men, women and children around the world by hunger. Ask Congress to give people all over the world the chance for a future free of hunger and poverty by supporting the Roadmap to End Global Hunger and Promote Food Security Act of 2009. The time to act is now - Tell Congress to help end global hunger - Take Action CARE, a leading humanitarian organization working in 72 countries around the world, has joined forces with other organizations to co-author the Roadmap to End Global Hunger and Promote Food Security Act of 2009 (H.R. 2817). This legislation outlines a comprehensive national plan to combat hunger and help build sustainable solutions that will enable families to provide food for themselves and their communities. The Roadmap will create a special White House Office on Global Hunger and re-establish the Congressional Select Committee on Hunger that will coordinate and implement strategies to tackle hunger and address its underlying causes. Please urge Congress to take action now on this critical piece of legislation. Global hunger has grave consequences for the safety and prosperity of our world. This bill will help create real change for those who are living in desperate poverty. We cannot wait any longer - the time to act is now. Thank you for your support. Sincerely, Helene D. Gayle, MD, MPH President and CEO, CARE This message was sent to maryrose333 at att.net. Visit your subscription management page to modify your email communication preferences or update your personal profile. To stop receiving Mother Jones' Offers, click to unsubscribe . To stop ALL email from Mother Jones Email Newsletters, click to remove yourself from our lists (or reply via email with "remove or unsubscribe" in the subject line). -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From maryrose333 at att.net Thu Nov 19 00:39:25 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Wed, 18 Nov 2009 23:39:25 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: [globalnetnews-summary] Hightower: Obscenely Rich Bankers Claim to Do God's Work -- They Can Go to Hell Message-ID: <003501ca68eb$96fa74c0$c4ef5e40$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS You know good friends, these bankers are really not the enemy -- in doing what they are doing and creating our indignation, they are forcing us to look at the truth of our failed economy -- it was never ever something we could take to the bank anyway so full of corruption and deceit it has been for so many years. So, thank the bankers for showing us the way in which we do not want to continue -- from out of the darkness will always come the dawn -- be there to receive the message and become the light. -----Original Message----- From: globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net [mailto:globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net] On Behalf Of TradingPostPaul Sent: Wednesday, November 18, 2009 12:39 PM To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] Hightower: Obscenely Rich Bankers Claim to Do God's Work -- They Can Go to Hell Hightower: Obscenely Rich Bankers Claim to Do God's Work -- They Can Go to Hell http://www.alternet.org/story/144026/hightower%3A_obscenely_rich_bankers_cla im_to_do_god%27s_work_--_they_can_go_to_hell By Jim Hightower, AlterNet. Posted November 18, 2009. Top executives were initially hurt by the public's moral outrage. But their sense of entitlement quickly kicked in, and now they claim they're the good guys. "Repent," the preacher cried out, startling those who heard him. This was no street evangelist ranting at the passing crowd, but the archbishop of Canterbury, head of the Church of England. His sharp admonition was pointed directly at a particular set of sinners, who undoubtedly had never given any thought to the morality of their actions: the barons of global banking. As in our country, people in Europe are enraged at those hustlers of high finance who wrecked the world's economies, then flexed their political muscle to get governments to replenish their bankrupt vaults. Infuriatingly, these bailed-out bankers have now returned to business as usual, including grabbing monstrous bonus payments for themselves. In Europe, such greed is not only being assailed politically, but it is also being cast as a matter of fundamental moral failure. As another of Britain's leading clergymen put it, "There is a general feeling that the level of bonuses we've seen have been obscene." While top executives of Barclays, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs and other big investment houses were initially puzzled and hurt by the public's moral outrage, their audacious sense of personal worth and entitlement quickly kicked back in. So Europeans are now witnessing the spectacle of bankers draping themselves in radiant robes of ethical purity. "Profit is not satanic," the CEO of Barclays recently proclaimed. "Size is not necessarily evil," asserted the head of Deutsche Bank. But leave it to Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of Goldman Sachs (and the world's highest-paid banker -- $68 million in 2007 alone) to combine self-pity with self-adulation in a grandiose PR effort to reposition financial thieves as paragons of social altruism. "I know I could slit my writs and people would cheer," he acknowledged in an interview published Nov. 8 in London's Sunday Times. But, he said of himself and his big banking brethren," We're very important. We help companies to grow by helping them to raise capital. Companies that create more growth and more wealth. This, in turn, allows people to have jobs that create more growth and more wealth. It's a virtuous cycle." And, just in case you missed the message of Blankfein's morality tale, he concluded by portraying himself as a mere banker "doing God's work." Wow. What a wrathful god he must worship! One wonders -- has Lord Blankfein even read about, much less visited, any of the millions of Americans who are out of work or out of business because of the financial schemes and scams that he and his peers conjured up? Who does he think he's fooling? Far from investing capital (including the trillions of dollars they took from us taxpayers) in companies and jobs, these financial whizzes continue to throw it into the global craps game of debt swaps and other speculative nonsense. The game enriches them and their super-wealthy clients, but it creates nothing whatsoever of social value. Nonetheless, this clueless clique is actually claiming that we commoners should be applauding the return of their multimillion-dollar bonus bonanzas. Why? Because, they aver, the rich payouts allow them to contribute to charity. Such narcissism reminds me of a story about a selfish, no-good rich man who died and tried to get into heaven. But you can't just walk through the Pearly Gates. An angel reviews your life, then St. Peter decides if you can enter. To counter the angel's negative review, the rich man argued that he had a history of charitable giving. He'd once tossed a nickel into a beggar's cup, he pointed out. Plus, some years later, he had aided a poor woman by giving her a nickel. Then there was the time he put a nickel into the Salvation Army kettle. Hearing all this, the angel turned to St. Peter and asked, "What in the world should we do with this man?" And St. Peter said, "Give him back his 15 cents, and tell him to go to hell!" Now that's a story that these big banksters need to hear -- and ponder. To find out more about Jim Hightower, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com. From maryrose333 at att.net Thu Nov 19 01:03:54 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Thu, 19 Nov 2009 00:03:54 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: FW: FW: FW: [globalnetnews-summary] Why Are Hawkish Lawmakers Willing To ... Message-ID: <003b01ca68ef$03399be0$09acd3a0$@net> From: Krunkles at aol.com [mailto:Krunkles at aol.com] Sent: Wednesday, November 18, 2009 8:52 PM To: maryrose333 at att.net Subject: Re: FW: FW: FW: [globalnetnews-summary] Why Are Hawkish Lawmakers Willing To ... In a message dated 11/15/2009 12:45:55 A.M. Pacific Standard Time, maryrose333 at att.net writes: From: Krunkles at aol.com [mailto:Krunkles at aol.com] Sent: Saturday, November 14, 2009 1:27 PM To: maryrose333 at att.net Subject: Re: FW: FW: [globalnetnews-summary] Why Are Hawkish Lawmakers Willing To Pay ... It could be that the corporate state just goes on inventing reasons for war because war is profitable, but I think the Afghanistan war is more mundane than that. It may be to control the opium trade and finance the CIA, and it may be to counter the power of a Russia/China alliance. In any case, the proximity to the Persian gulf, and some 72% of the world's known oil reserves is certainly relevant. Peter Comment from m r: Peter, while you are correct here, what you are attempting to do is to ?particalize? this. But, in fact, it is part of the same wave of mentality ? war is war however you try to slice it or dice it. Well, I do have some problem with that. The motive for war is not always control of some industrial resource, although it is much more often than is openly admitted. What I am getting at is that we can do something about the Middle East situation besides totally overthrow the Capitalist system. That would be so difficult that any project with that as a component is doomed. Peter Peter, I do not believe that this is about ?we? overthrowing the Capitalist system ? it is about the Capitalist system overthrowing itself for something so corrupt as it has become cannot survive much longer. In the process of change, It has to become something ?whole? again for the system itself to survive which it will do under a new name and with new entities as its basis. However at some point this new system will itself begin to corrode and fail and a new concept will again take form and replace the old ? this process is called ?progress? as the old begins to fail and the new moves in to take its place. This is the way it has always been and the way it will always be. What may be possible to change is the intensity of the event, that is, we may be able to make the events associated with change less violent. However, the darkness is always the catalyst necessary for change ? the new dawn ? to take place. And as both the ?creator? and ?the created? we, as a collective consciousness, play our roles in bringing this about. And, again ? war is war is it not whatever its cause may be? message dated 11/;14/2009 5:14:12 A.M. Pacific Standard Time, maryrose333 at att.net writes: Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS Peter Van Zandt writes: Indeed, why are these lawmakers taking these positions? If we don't understand, perhaps it's because we know less than they about what the true stakes are. The official line is that the Taliban protect potential Al Qaeda terrorists who might attack us. Personally, I almost immediately dismiss this. Several other possibilities I have seen or heard: 1. In the 1990s, we were negotiating with the Taliban for a pipeline to bring Caucusus oil to where we could use it. Negotiations broke down, for reasons not entirely clear. Some say that it was because the Taliban refused to turn Osama Bin Laden over to us, others say it was because negotiating with such an obviously sexist regime became an embarrassment. Any way, that oil is still there, although, as I understand it, it has turned out to be a much smaller quantity than originally thought. it seems unlikely that this is the motive. 2. We want to control Afghanistan's opium trade, since dealing heroin is a major source of financing for the CIA. Plausible, I've seen it before. 3. We want a base to counter the power of a future Russia/China alliance. Also plausible. M R comments: Perhaps it is because the U.S. economy is dependent upon war to keep it going. Since war is the most lucrative business for the elite capitalists to indulge themselves in, then their focus is on keeping the military-industrial complex involved so that all the larger corporations serve this end. But ultimately it is based in the state of the collective human consciousness at this point in time. If we want to change the world, then we must change the collective consciousness one person at a time. Changing the collective consciousness means changing the way we think about things as a society. And, while this is happening it is not happening quickly enough ? we the people do not as yet have a ?collective? voice. Meanwhile the world is run via monetized politics. So, where we must turn our attention is to ending monetized politics and instituting a new form of governance that is focused on creating life-enhancing social systems that work in the best interests of all concerned. This may mean changing the Constitution because the Constitution as it stands today was written to serve the interests of those who wanted to develop corporate power in the interests of the elite of that time. Remember that signers of the Constitution were wealthy men and slave owners who disenfranchised women, people of color, and non-land owners. And ever since, while there have been many attempts to reinstate the rights of those disenfranchised, it has never happened ? and even in today?s world it has been impossible to get an equal rights amendment passed for women ? we are still considered second class citizens. We still operate under the ?dominator paradigm? instituted by the Church and going back as far as 1600 A.D. This has to change. We must be the change we wish to see in our lives. M Gandhi From: Krunkles at aol.com [mailto:Krunkles at aol.com] Sent: Friday, November 13, 2009 7:34 PM To: maryrose333 at att.net Subject: Re: FW: [globalnetnews-summary] Why Are Hawkish Lawmakers Willing To Pay For ... In a message dated 11/13/2009 5:54:17 P.M. Pacific Standard Time, maryrose333 at att.net writes: Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS This question needs to be answered!!!! -----Original Message----- From: globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net [mailto:globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net] On Behalf Of TradingPostPaul Sent: Friday, November 13, 2009 3:22 PM To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] Why Are Hawkish Lawmakers Willing To Pay For An Escalation Of The War But Not For Health Care? Why Are Hawkish Lawmakers Willing To Pay For An Escalation Of The War But Not For Health Care? Nov 12th, 2009 at 3:45 pm http://thinkprogress.org/2009/11/12/health-care-afghanistan/ lolieberman In recent days, heated policy discussions in Washington have largely focused on two topics: a possible escalation of the war in Afghanistan and health care legislation. Both a troop escalation and health care legislation carry significant price tags: roughly $100 billion and $80-$100 billion a year respectively. (It should be noted that health care reform, unlike a troop surge, would cut the deficit.) In his New York Times column today, columnist Nicholas Kristof asks why hawks claim health reform is "fiscally irresponsible" while enthusiastically supporting a troop surge in Afghanistan, given the fact that fixing our broken health care system is, unlike a troop surge, essential to the health and well-being of Americans: The health care legislation pays for itself, according to the Congressional Budget Office, while the deployment in Afghanistan is unfinanced and will raise our budget deficits and undermine our long-term economic security. So doesn't it seem odd to hear hawks say that health reform is fiscally irresponsible, while in the next breath they cheer a larger deployment of troops in Afghanistan? Meanwhile, lack of health insurance kills about 45,000 Americans a year, according to a Harvard study released in September. So which is the greater danger to our homeland security, the Taliban or our dysfunctional insurance system? Indeed, hawkish legislators have lined up to both demand a costly surge in U.S. troops in Afghanistan while at the same time claiming that deficit-cutting health care legislation would simply be too expensive: - Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) has called for providing the "resources [needed]" for a "significant increase in U.S. forces" while warning that he is "really worried about what [health care reform] would do to the deficit." [9/13/09, 10/26/09] - Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has complained that passing health care legislation would "expand government spending even more," while also boasting of his Republican caucus's "broad support" for any troop increase in Afghanistan. [10/21/09, 10/11/09] - Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) wrote a letter to President Obama stating that we "urgently need more resources" in Afghanistan, "including more combat troops," while at the same time claiming that passing health care legislation would be tantamount to "generational theft" that would run up "unconscionable and unsustainable deficits." [11/10/09, 8/27/09] Kristof's question bears answering. Why is it that hawkish lawmakers are so willing to spend such enormous resources in both lives and treasure on a troop surge in Afghanistan that is increasingly opposed by Americans and Afghans, but are so quick to bark at the price tag of health care legislation that could save the lives of the 45,000 Americans who die every year because they don't have access to health care? As Glenn Greenwald notes, "Urging that more Americans be sent into endless war paid for with endless debt, while yawning and lazily waving away with boredom the hordes outside dying for lack of health care coverage, is one of the most repugnant images one can imagine." Indeed, why are these lawmakers taking these positions? If we don't understand, perhaps it's because we know less than they about what the true stakes are. The official line is that the Taliban protect potential Al Qaeda terrorists who might attack us. Personally, I almost immediately dismiss this. Several other possibilities I have seen or heard: 1. In the 1990s, we were negotiating with the Taliban for a pipeline to bring Caucusus oil to where we could use it. Negotiations broke down, for reasons not entirely clear. Some say that it was because the Taliban refused to turn Osama Bin Laden over to us, others say it was because negotiating with such an obviously sexist regime became an embarrassment. Any way, that oil is still there, although, as I understand it, it has turned out to be a much smaller quantity than originally thought. it seems unlikely that this is the motive. 2. We want to control Afghanistan's opium trade, since dealing heroin is a major source of financing for the CIA. Plausible, I've seen it before. 3. We want a base to counter the power of a future Russia/China alliance. Also plausible. Peter Van Zant -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From maryrose333 at att.net Thu Nov 19 01:36:47 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Thu, 19 Nov 2009 00:36:47 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: [globalnetnews-summary] New food price crisis a matter of time-UN Message-ID: <004901ca68f3$9962c890$cc2859b0$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS Again, the way to protect ourselves from the manipulations of the powers that be and avoid the "new food price crisis" is to take charge of our lives by raising our own food whether it be in gardens outside of our kitchen doors, by turning whatever lawn space we have into "edible landscaping," by growing in pots on patios and rooftops, and doing whatever we need to do to take back the power we have given to others by accepting "jobs" and giving up the sovereignty associated with one growing one's own food and providing for oneself." Jobs are something that the elite among us manufacture and control on a whim in their efforts to continually make more money as their bottom line goal. Which leaves us as 'wage slaves' having given up our right to provide for ourselves our own sustenance. However, with Reinhold Ziegler from US Synergy showing us "the way" to raise food most effectively (and I do wish to acknowledge that others beside Reinhold have participated in designing this new process) then we have released ourselves from "the land" itself and can most effectively and efficiently grow food in hanging tubes designed for this very purpose. The tubes are then filled with ingredients that increase production as much as 800%. So, in essence we have now released ourselves from dependency upon the land for food as we move away from 'agriculture' into what is known as 'permaculture.' And, permaculture is a form of 'nanotechnology' as it allows us to 'do more with less'. This freeing from agriculture practices leaves us with millions of acres once devoted to cattle-raising and large-scale crop growing available to again "reforest" and return to greater productivity as we naturally take care of the 'carbon factor' at the same time. This then, is the basis for the "revolution" necessary for our time. We must refuse to continue to be "consumers" and must become "prosumers". -----Original Message----- From: globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net [mailto:globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net] On Behalf Of TradingPostPaul Sent: Wednesday, November 18, 2009 7:51 PM To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] New food price crisis a matter of time-UN New food price crisis a matter of time-UN Consumption; Demand; Prices http://www.reuters.com/article/swissMktRpt/idUSLH70163320091117 Reuters Posted on Tuesday, November 17 ROME, Nov 17 (Reuters) - A new food price crisis is only a matter of time, the U.N. food envoy said on Tuesday, criticising world leaders for not tackling what he saw as the key factors behind price spikes in 2008 -- speculation and biofuels. The U.N. Special Rapporteur Olivier De Schutter also said a U.N. food summit in Rome failed to address the domination of global food markets by large agri-business corporations. "Maybe it will be April 2010, maybe April 2011, but we will have a new food price crisis because the direct causes of the 2008 spike are still there," De Schutter said in an interview. "There are indications already, because oil prices are going up and they are very closely linked to agricultural commodities prices. As soon as a big producer will be in difficulty ...speculation will set in," he told Reuters. He said commodity investment funds had invested massively in agricultural futures markets in late 2007, and were followed by a wave of speculative traders betting on continued food price rises. That contributed to pushing food prices to record highs last year, until the speculative bubble burst in the summer. An increase in the production and use of biofuels based on agricultural commodities was also instrumental in driving food and land prices up, he said. De Schutter said a Rome summit declaration was weak on both issues. He mentioned commodity reserves and quotas for biofuels as possible measures to keep a lid on prices. BIG FIRMS DOMINATE MARKET De Schutter also took issue with big food and agriculture corporations, saying they operated "without any sort of control and with often extremely high levels of concentration that represent a serious market failure". "Small producers, if they want to enter the global supply chain, face a very small number of actors who have a dominant position in the market and can basically dictate the prices," he said. "The small producers have no choice but to go through the large commodity buyers, the large food processors, the large retailers to get access to this high value market. They are in a very weak bargaining position, and their ability to get a fair price for their produce is very little." At a U.N. forum to drum up private sector support in the fight against hunger last week, food and agriculture majors said they were already investing millions of dollars in sustainable farm development to secure reliable supplies, cut costs and boost positions on new markets. Participants at the forum, which included Nestle (NESN.VX), Unilever (ULVR.L), Cargill [CARG.UL], Bunge (BG.N) and Syngenta (SYNN.VX), said the investments were not charity, but part of their business strategy. But De Schutter said that big groups were often "tempted" to cut agricultural labourers' wages and this undermined efforts to support small-scale and sustainable farming. "We cannot do without them but they are not accountable to anybody, for example in their buying and pricing policies, or in the way they include or exclude certain farmers," he said. "The declaration is entirely silent about how to address this," he said. "And it is silent about the right of agricultural workers to a living wage." For stories on the U.N. world food summit, click on [ID:nLD29049] From maryrose333 at att.net Thu Nov 19 02:17:03 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Thu, 19 Nov 2009 01:17:03 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: Nation's Fast Food Patrons No Longer Trusted To Dispense Own Ketchup Message-ID: <005301ca68f9$3c6248e0$b526daa0$@net> Personally, I have not eaten in a fast food 'drug-in' for years and years as I am very particular what I put in my body. Nor, do I use ketchup except on very rare occasions - I very much enjoy the taste of the good fresh foods I eat, so no need for pouring on condiments in order to cover up the cardboard taste of foods concocted and served in fast food chain restaurants which have a bottom line profit factor uppermost in mind rather than in serving good fresh nutritious food. When I am out and about and feel I will need something to eat, I carry an apple or two with me or pick up a salad at someplace trustworthy like Trader's Joe's. Then I find a scenic place to park and have a quiet relaxed lunch that nourishes my body and mind. And, I find that most of the people I associate with today will no longer lower themselves to indulge in food (if it can be called that) which benefits the chain restaurant owner financially while taking the customer to the cleaners nutritionally. While I don't mean to be "holier than thou" on this, I do feel that if we value our life and respect ourselves, then it is time we exercised a little concern for what we put into our bodies since "we are what we eat" and it is becoming more and more obvious that most of us are "living to eat" rather than "eating to live." Isn't it time to reverse this trend since so many of us are getting sick and dying from indulging in the former practice while making the fast food chains, the health care insurers, the morticians and others wealthy, while we get heart disease and cancer in ever greater numbers. Isn't it time to "stop the insanity"? From: David West [mailto:dgwest7 at gmail.com] Sent: Wednesday, November 18, 2009 6:42 PM To: Neil Duffy Cc: lammaboy1 at tiscali.co.uk Subject: Nation's Fast Food Patrons No Longer Trusted To Dispense Own Ketchup Thanks to Colin. This is the funniest thing I have read for years - I have tears rolling down my face as I type this. I curled up and fell on the floor when I read the line "Patrons requesting barbecue sauce................." Nation's Fast Food Patrons No Longer Trusted To Dispense Own Ketchup http://www.theonion.com/content/news/nations_fast_food_patrons_no?utm_source =EMTF_Onion Best regards David _____ Just stay open, and particularly stay healthy - eat right, sleep right, exercise right, get some sunshine, and love and be loved. _____ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From maryrose333 at att.net Thu Nov 19 02:39:12 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Thu, 19 Nov 2009 01:39:12 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: [globalnetnews-summary] The Food and Farming Transition Message-ID: <006101ca68fc$50c0cb60$f2426220$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS While I have a great deal of admiration for Richard Heinberg, in this article I find that he is still "tied to the land" and advocating farming practices which require oil and natural gas commodities in excess of what is "reasonable" in terms of today's fast changing world. We simply cannot afford the price associated with 'heavy equipment' in terms of food production and transportation. And this makes even the "small farmer" a thing of the past. We must now consider what practices allow us to reach maximum efficiency and productivity with regard to maximum nutritional output -- that is, we must learn to raise food in the smallest amount of space while at the same time producing the most nutritional products possible while including the maximum number of people possible in the process of growing and harvesting so they are gainfully employed in sustainable lifestyles. Being gainfully employed does not necessarily mean "having a job" but can also mean "providing for one's own sustenance". We must change the way we think and "be the change we want to see in our lives." One of the changes the "new age of information" requires of us is moving from "doing" into simply "being" who we really are. With love and appreciation m r -----Original Message----- From: globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net [mailto:globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net] On Behalf Of TradingPostPaul Sent: Wednesday, November 18, 2009 6:21 PM To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] The Food and Farming Transition Richard Heinberg's MuseLetter: The Food and Farming Transition 01 Nov 2008 November 2008 by Richard Heinberg http://www.globalpublicmedia.com/museletter_199_the_food_and_farming_transit ion The only way to avert a food crisis resulting from oil and natural gas price hikes and supply disruptions while also reversing agriculture's contribution to climate change is to proactively and methodically remove fossil fuels from the food system. The removal of fossil fuels from the food system is inevitable: maintenance of the current system is simply not an option over the long term. Only the amount of time available for the transition process, and the strategies for pursuing it, can be matters for controversy. Given the degree to which the modern food system has become dependent on fossil fuels, many proposals for de-linking food and fuels are likely to appear radical. However, efforts toward this end must be judged not by the degree to which they preserve the status quo, but by their likely ability to solve the fundamental challenge that will face us: the need to feed a global population of 7 billion with a diminishing supply of fuels available to fertilize, plow, and irrigate fields and to harvest and transport crops. If this transition is undertaken proactively and intelligently, there could be many side benefits-more careers in farming, more protection for the environment, less soil erosion, a revitalization of rural culture, and more healthful food for everyone. Some of this transformation will inevitably be driven by market forces, led simply by the rising price of fossil fuels. However, without planning the transition may be wrenching and destructive, since market forces acting alone could bankrupt farmers while leaving consumers with few or no options. The Transition To remove fossil fuels from the food system too quickly, before alternative systems are in place, would be catastrophic. Thus the transition process must be a matter for careful consideration and planning. In recent years there has been some debate on the problem of how many people a non-fossil fueled food system can support. The answer is still unclear. But we will certainly find out, because there is likely to be no alternative, given that substitute liquid fuels-including coal-to-liquids, biofuels, tar sands, and shale oil-are all problematic and cannot be relied upon to replace cheap crude oil and natural gas as these deplete. There are reasons for hope: a recent report on African agriculture from the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) suggests that "organic, small-scale farming can deliver the increased yields which were thought to be the preserve of industrial farming, without the environmental and social damage which that form of agriculture brings with it." Nevertheless, given that we do not know whether non-fossil fuel agriculture can in fact feed a population now approaching seven billion-and given that current fuels-based agriculture cannot be relied upon to do so for much longer, given the reality of fuel depletion-the prudent path forward would surely be to tie agricultural policy to population policy. Indeed, coordination will be essential also between agriculture policies and education, economic, transport, energy policies. The food system transition will be comprehensive, and will require integration with all segments and aspects of society. This document is intended to serve as the basis for the beginning of that planning process. Our aim is to develop a template that can be used to strategically plan the transition of food and farming across the world, region by region, and at all scales (from the farm to the community to the nation), beginning here in the UK. Elements of Transition The following are some key strategic elements of the food systems transition process that will need to be addressed at all levels of scale, from the household to the nation and beyond. Re-Localization In recent decades the food systems of Britain and most other nations have become globalized. Food is traded in enormous quantities-and not just luxury foods (such as coffee and chocolate), but staples including wheat, maize, meat, potatoes, and rice. The globalization of the food system has had advantages: people in wealthy countries now have access to a wide variety of foods at all times, including fruits and vegetables that are out of season (apples in May or asparagus in January), and foods that cannot be grown locally at any time of year (e.g., avocadoes in Scotland). Long-distance transport enables food to be delivered from places of abundance to areas of scarcity. Whereas in previous centuries a regional crop failure might have led to famine, its effects now can be neutralized by food imports. However, food globalization also creates systemic vulnerability. As fuel prices rise, costs of imported food go up. If fuel supplies were substantially cut off as the result of some transient event, the entire system could fail. A globalized system is also more susceptible to accidental contamination, as we have seen recently with the appearance of toxic melamine in foods from China. The best way to make our food system more resilient against such threats is clear: decentralize and re-localize it. Re-localization will inevitably occur sooner or later as a result of declining oil production, since there are no alternative energy sources on the horizon that can be scaled up quickly to take the place of petroleum. But if the transition process is to unfold in a beneficial rather than a catastrophic way, it must be planned and coordinated. This will require deliberate effort aimed at building the infrastructure for regional food economies-ones that can support diversified farming and reduce the amount of fossil fuel in the British diet. Re-localization means producing more basic food necessities locally. No one advocates doing away with food trade altogether: this would hurt both farmers and consumers. Rather, what is needed is a prioritization of production so that lower-value food items (which are typically staple calorie crops) are mostly sourced from close by, with most long-distance trade left to higher-value foods, and especially those that store well. This decentralization of the food system will result in greater societal resilience in the face of fuel price volatility. Problems of food contamination, when they appear, will be minimized. Meanwhile, revitalization of local food production will help renew local economies. Consumers will enjoy better quality food that is fresher and more seasonal. And transport-related climate impacts will be reduced. Each nation or region will need to devise its own strategy for re-localizing its food system, based on a thorough initial assessment of vulnerabilities and opportunities. The following are some general suggestions that are likely to be applicable in most instances: * The process will benefit enormously from policy support at both national and regional levels. This could include, for example, the provision of grants to towns and cities to build year-round indoor farmers' markets. * Food-safety regulations should be made appropriate to the scale of production and distribution, so that a small grower selling direct off the farm or at a farmers' market is not regulated as onerously as a multinational food manufacturer. While local food may have safety problems, these will inevitably occur on a smaller scale and will be easier to manage because local food is inherently more traceable and accountable.Governments can require that some minimum percentage of food purchases for schools, hospitals, military bases, and prisons are sourced within 100 miles of the institutions buying the food. Channelling even a small portion of institutional food purchasing to local growers would greatly expand opportunities for regional producers while improving the diet of people whom these institutions feed. * Cities and towns can rework their waste management systems so as to collect food scraps that can then be converted to compost, biogas, and livestock feed-which can in turn be made available to local growers. But government can do only so much. Consumers must develop the habit of preferentially buying locally sourced foods whenever possible, and they can be encouraged in this by "Buy Local" educational literature distributed by retailers-who can also assist by clearly labeling and prominently displaying local products. Growers themselves must rethink their business strategies. Instead of growing specialty crops for export, they must plan a transition to production of staple foods for local consumption. They must also actively seek local markets for their food. The Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) movement provides a business model that has proven successful in many communities. Small producers can also create informal co-ops to acquire machinery (such as small threshing machines for cereal and oilseed processing or micro hydro turbines for electricity). The strategy of re-localizing food systems will be more challenging for some nations and regions than others. Given that the food footprint of London encompasses essentially all of England, the challenge for Britain is greater than is the case for many other nations. More urban gardens and even small animal operations (with chickens, ducks, geese, and rabbits) within London and other cities should be encouraged, but even then it will be necessary to source most food from the countryside, delivering it to the city by rail. Thus re-localization should be seen as a process and a general direction of effort, not as an absolute goal. Energy As society turns away from fossil fuels, the energy balance of farming must once again become net positive. However, the transition process will be complex and problematic. Farms will still need sources of energy for their operations, and will need to provide much or all of that energy for themselves. Meanwhile, farmers could also take advantage of opportunities to export surplus energy to nearby communities as a way of increasing farm income. Farms must be powered with renewable energy. However, many energy needs on farms-such as fuel for tractors and other machinery-are currently difficult to fill with anything other than liquid fuels, which currently come in the form of diesel or petrol made from crude oil. Farmers should first look for ways to reduce fuel needs through efficiency or replacement of machines with animal power or human labor. This is most likely to be economically feasible in dairy, meat, vegetable, fruit, and nut operations. Where fuel-fed machinery is still required, which is likely to continue being the case for grain production, ethanol or biodiesel made on-site could supplement or replace petroleum. Farmers could aim to apportion one-fifth of their cropland to production of biofuels for their own use. Many other farm operations require electricity, and this can be generated on-site with wind turbines, solar panels, and micro-hydro turbines. Effort first must be devoted to making operations more energy-efficient. Because these technologies require initial investment and pay for themselves slowly over time, assistance from government and from financial institutions in the form of grants and low-interest loans could be instrumental in helping farmers overcome initial economic hurdles toward energy self-sufficiency. Eventually farmers are capable of being not just self-sufficient in energy, but of producing surplus energy for surrounding communities. Much of this exported energy is likely to come in the form of biomass-agricultural and forestry waste that can be burned to produce electricity. While farmers can also grow crops for the production of biofuels, the ecological and thermodynamic limits of this energy technology require that the scale of production be deliberately restricted. Otherwise, society's demand for fuel could overwhelm farmers' ability to produce food-and food must remain their first priority. In exporting biomass from the farm, growers must always keep in mind the productive capacity of sustainable agricultural systems, and they must strictly monitor soil health and fertility. The transition of farms to renewable energy will require planning. Farmers, ideally with the assistance of regional and national agencies, should plan to increase energy efficiency, to reduce fossil fuel inputs, and to grow renewable energy production according to a staged, integrated program designed for the unique needs and capabilities of each farm. As a general guideline, the plan should aim to reduce oil and natural gas inputs by at least half during the first decade. Soil Fertility In industrial agriculture, soil fertility is maintained with inputs provided from off-site. Of these inputs, the most important are nitrogen and phosphorus. Nitrogen comes from ammonia-based fertilizers made from fossil fuels-principally, natural gas. Phosphorus comes from phosphate mines in several countries. While sufficient low-quality phosphate deposits exist to supply world needs for many decades, high-quality deposits that are currently being mined are quickly depleting, which means that phosphate prices will likely rise within the next few years. [Phosphate Primer] Both nitrogen and phosphorus are essential to agriculture. And our current ways of supplying both are clearly unsustainable. Unless alternative ways of maintaining soil fertility are quickly found, a crisis looms. The long-term solution will surely depend on a two-fold strategy: designing farm systems that build fertility through crop rotations, and recycling nutrients. Crop rotation can help with maintaining nitrogen levels. Simply planting a cover crop after the fall harvest significantly reduces nitrogen leaching while cutting down on soil erosion. Meanwhile, introducing leguminous crops into the rotation cycle replaces nitrogen. Cleverly designed polycultures can sustainably produce large amounts of food, as has been shown not only by small-scale "alternative" farmers in Britain and America, but also by large rice-and-fish farmers in China and giant-scale operations (up to 15,000 acres) in Argentina. There, farmers employ an eight-year rotation of perennial pasture and annual crops: after five years grazing cattle on pasture, farmers then grow three years of grain without applying fertilizer. The need for herbicides is also dramatically reduced: weeds that afflict pasture cannot survive the years of tillage, and weeds of row crops don't survive years of grazing. Most industrial farmers have left behind the practice of cover cropping because commercial fertilizers have become the cheaper option. That cost equation is about to shift. It is therefore important that farmers begin planning for higher fertilizer prices now by gearing up their rotation cycles and building natural soil fertility ahead of the immediate need. In industrial agriculture, the soil is treated as an inert substance that holds plants in place while chemical nutrients are applied externally. Without efforts to maintain natural fertility, over time organic matter disappears from the soil, along with beneficial soil micro-organisms. In the future, as chemical fertilizers become more expensive, farmers will need to devote much more attention to the practice of building healthy soil. But rebuilding nutrient-depleted soil takes, at minimum, several years of effort. Traditional farmers increase organic matter in topsoil through the application of compost-which not only builds soil fertility, but also improves the soil's ability to hold water and thus withstand drought. There is also mounting evidence that food grown in properly composted soil is of higher nutritional quality. Currently, in typical modern cities, consumers, retailers, wholesalers and institutions discard enormous quantities of food. Some communities have already instituted municipal programs for composting of food and yard waste; such programs could be expanded and made mandatory, with compost being given free to local farmers. This would reduce the amount of garbage going to land fills, as well as farmers' needs for fertilizers and irrigation, while improving the nutritional quality of the British diet. In addition, recent research with "terra preta" (also known as "bio char"), a charcoal-like material that can be produced from agricultural waste, suggests that its introduction to soils could reduce plants' need for nitrogen by 20 to 30 percent while sequestering carbon that would otherwise end up in the atmosphere. The potential of composting and the use of terra preta to mitigate the climate crisis is hardly trivial: a one-percent increase of soil organic matter in the top 33.5cm of the soil is equivalent to the capture and storage of 100 tonnes of atmospheric CO2. per square kilometre of farmland. Ultimately, there is no solution to the phosphorus supply problem other than full-system nutrient recycling. This will entail a complete redesign of sewage systems to recapture nutrients so they can be returned to the soil-as Chinese farmers learned to do centuries ago. But if sewage systems (or simpler variants) are to become primary sources of phosphorus and other soil nutrients, they cannot continue to be channels for the disposal of toxic wastes. It is essential that separate waste streams be developed for the disposal of all pharmaceuticals, household chemicals, and industrial wastes. Thus the problem of soil fertility is one that farmers cannot solve on their own: it is a crisis of the food system as a whole, and must be addressed contextually and holistically. Diet The consumer is as important to the food system as the producer. During recent decades, consumer preferences have been shaped to fit the industrial food system through advertising and the development of mass-marketed, uniform, packaged food products that, while often nutritionally inferior, are cheap, attractive, in some cases even physically addictive. The advent and rapid proliferation of "fast food" restaurants has likewise fostered a diet that is profitable to giant industrial agribusiness, but disastrous to the health of consumers. However lamentable these trends may be from a public health standpoint, they are clearly unsustainable in view of the energy and climate crises facing modern agriculture. Because processed and packaged foods and fresh foods imported out of season add to the energy intensity of the food system, rich and poor alike must be encouraged to eat food that is locally grown, that is in season, and that is less processed. Public education campaigns could help shift consumer preferences in this regard. A shift toward a less meat-centered diet should also be encouraged, because a meat-based diet is substantially more energy intensive than one that is plant-based. Government can help with a shift in diet preferences through its own food purchasing polices (see "Re-Localization," above). The process can be helped even further by a more careful official government definition of "food." It makes no sense for government efforts intended to improve the nutritional health of the people to support the consumption of products known to be unhealthful-such as soda and other junk food. Farming Systems During the past few decades farming has become more specialized. Today, a typical farm may produce only meat of a single kind (turkey, chicken, pork, or beef), or only dairy, or a single type of grain, vegetable, fruit, or nut. This narrow specialization seemed to make economic sense in the era of cheap transport and cheap farm inputs. But because nature is diverse and integrated, the deliberate elimination of diversity on the farm has led to problems at every step. For example, animal feedlot operations (also known as concentrated animal feed operations, or CAFOs) produce enormous amounts of waste that end up in massive manure lagoons that pollute ground water and foul the air. Meanwhile, grain diets fed to the animals result in digestive problems requiring the large-scale administration of antibiotics that find their way into both the human food system and ground water, and that lead to antibiotic resistance among disease organisms that afflict humans. Farm specialization also impacts the grain or vegetable grower: soils that annually produce these crops need a regular replenishment of nitrogen; but if the farmer keeps few animals, there may be no option other than to import fertilizers from off-site. By switching to multi-enterprise diverse systems, farmers can often solve a range of problems at once. Feeding much less grain to livestock while giving them access to pasture that is in rotation with other crops maintains soil fertility while leading to better animal health and higher food quality. The farmer, the environment, and the consumer all benefit. The post-hydrocarbon food transition may also compel a rethinking of the size of farm operations. The mechanization of farm operations and the centralization of food systems favored larger farms. However, as fuel for farm machinery becomes more costly, and as farming once again involves more labor, smaller-scale operations will once again be profitable. In addition, a smaller scale of operations will be needed as farms become more diverse, since farmers will have more system elements to monitor. Agriculture will thus become more knowledge-intensive, requiring a curious, holistic attitude on the part of farmers. In urban areas, micro-farms and gardens-including vertical gardens and rooftop gardens that in some cases include small animals such as chickens and rabbits-could provide a substantial amount of food for growers and their families, along with occasional income from selling seasonal surpluses at garden markets. Farm Work With less fuel available to power agricultural machinery, the world will need many more farmers. But for farmers to succeed, some current agricultural policies that favor larger-scale production and production for export will need to change, while policies that support small-scale subsistence farms, gardens, and agricultural co-ops must be formulated and put in place-both by international institutions such as the World Bank, and also by national and regional governments. Currently the UK has 541,0001 farmers, depending on how the term is defined. In the UK in 1900, nearly 40 percent of the population farmed; the current proportion is less than one percent. Today, the average farmer is nearing retirement age. In nations and regions where food is grown without machinery, a larger percentage of the population must be involved in food production. For example, farmers make up more than half the populations of China, and India, Nepal, Ethiopia, and Indonesia. While the proportion of farmers that would be needed in Britain if the country were to become self-sufficient in food grown without fossil fuels is unknown (that would depend upon technologies used and diets adopted), it would undoubtedly be much larger than the current percentage. It is reasonable to expect that several million new farmers would be required-a number that is both unimaginable and unmanageable over the short term. These new farmers would have to include a broad mix of people, reflecting the UK's increasing diversity. Already growing numbers of young adults are becoming organic or biodynamic farmers, and farmers' markets and CSAs are also springing up across the country. These tentative trends must be supported and encouraged. In addition to Government policies that support sustainable farming systems based on smaller farming units, this will require: * Education: Universities and community colleges must quickly develop programs in small-scale ecological farming methods-programs that also include training in other skills that farmers will need, such as in marketing and formulating business plans. Apprenticeships and other forms of direct knowledge transfer will also assist the transition. * Financial Support: Since few if any farms are financially successful the first year or even the second or third, loans and grants will be needed to help farmers get started. * A revitalization of farming communities and farming culture: Over the past decades UK rural towns have seen their best and brightest young people flee first to distant colleges and then to cities. Farming communities must be interesting, attractive places if we expect people to inhabit them and for children to want to stay there. Seeds Today's seed industry is centralized and reliant upon the very fuel-based transport system whose future viability is in question. Most commercial seeds are of hybrid varieties, so that farmers cannot save seed but must purchase new supplies each year. Worldwide, a growing proportion of the commercial seeds that are available are genetically modified. GM seeds have primarily been developed by chemical companies to support the sale of their proprietary herbicides. The promise of more nutritious foods, or crops that can produce biofuels more efficiently, is years from realization. Given that the need for transition is immediate, efforts to build a post-fossil fuel food system cannot wait for new technologies that may or may not appear or succeed. In any case, the GM seed industry is based upon current systems of transport, and fuel-based inputs such as chemical fertilizers and herbicides, that are all inextricably tied to the wider fossil-fuel based provisioning systems of society. Thus GM crops would be unlikely to be of much help in the transition in any case. What is needed instead is a coordinated effort to identify open-pollinated varieties of food crops that are adapted to local soils and microclimates, and a program to make such seeds available to farmers and gardeners in sufficient quantities. In addition, local colleges must begin offering courses on the techniques of seed saving. Processing and Distribution Systems The transition process will undoubtedly be fraught with challenges to food processing and distribution systems, which currently rely on large energy inputs and long-distance transport. For example, the meat industry now depends upon centralized facilities for slaughtering livestock-which must be transported long distances to these facilities. Re-localizing food systems will entail creating incentives for the emergence of smaller, more localized slaughterhouses and butcher shops. One interim solution would be for a fleet of mobile abattoirs to go from farm to farm, processing animals humanely and inexpensively. Many health regulations were originally designed to check abuses by the largest food producers, but such regulations may now inhibit the development of smaller-scale and more localized processing and distribution systems. For example, farmers should be able to smoke a ham and sell it to their neighbours without making a huge investment in nationally approved facilities. A small producer selling direct from the farm or at a farmers' market should not be subject to the same food safety regulations as a multinational food manufacturer: while local food may occasionally have safety problems, those problems will be less catastrophic and easier to manage than similar problems at industrial-scale facilities. Food processors must look for ways to make their present operations more energy efficient, while government, consumers, and retailers find ways to reduce the need for food processing and also for food packaging. This gradual shift will require institutional support for families in storing, processing, cooking, and preserving food within the home. Meanwhile, in view of inevitable problems with existing transport systems, national and regional food storage systems must be reconsidered. Reserves of grain, sufficient to provide for essential needs during an extended food crisis, should be kept and managed to avoid spoilage. Packaging of food should be regulated to minimize the use of plastics, which will become more scarce and expensive as oil and gas deplete-and which are implicated as sources of toxins in any case. Government should institute policies that prioritize the distribution of food within the nation by rail and water, rather than by road, as trucks are comparatively energy inefficient. Supermarkets are currently the ultimate distribution sites for food in most instances. However, this model presupposes near-universal access to automobiles and petrol. A resilient food system will require smaller and more widely distributed access points in the forms of small shops and garden or farm markets. Government regulations and tax incentives can help accomplish that shift. Wholesalers and distributors will have a changed role in a transitioning food system. They will still be needed to manage the supplies of various seasonally produced foods moving from producers to consumers. However, rather than favoring large producers and giant supermarket chains, they must alter their operations to serve smaller, more distributed farms and gardens, as well as smaller and more distributed retail shops. Resilience Action Planning The transition process will succeed by creating more resilience in food systems. Resilient systems are able to withstand higher magnitudes of disturbance before undergoing a dramatic shift to a new condition in which they are controlled by a different set of processes. One quality of resilience is redundancy-which is often at odds with economic efficiency. Efficiency implies both long supply chains and the reduction of inventories to a minimum. This "just-in-time" delivery of products reduces costs-but it increases the vulnerability of systems to disturbances such as fuel shortages. As more attention is paid to resilience and less to economic efficiency, redundancy and larger inventories are seen as benefits rather than liabilities. Other resilience values include diversity (as opposed to uniformity), and dispersion (rather than centralization) of control over systems. Building resilience into our food systems as we move toward a post-fossil fuel economy will entail all of the Elements of Transition detailed above. It will also require planning at four levels: Government, Community, Business, and Individual or Family. At each level the planning process will necessarily be somewhat different. The purpose of this section is to delineate the main planning steps that will make sense at each of these levels. In some instances, steps within an action plan can or should be undertaken concurrently. In any case, what is offered here is merely a skeletal outline for a process that must be developed to fit unique needs of those it will serve. Government The following steps are applicable at any level of government-national, regional, or local. At the highest level of scale (the nation), each step will itself be the subject of planning and delegation. At the lowest level of scale (small villages), government may lack the capacity to undertake any of these steps and can do more than offer symbolic official support to volunteer citizen initiatives. 1. Assess the existing food system. Begin with a study of current systemic vulnerabilities and opportunities. How are farm inputs currently sourced? How much food is currently imported? What proportion of those food imports are staples, and what proportion are luxury foods? What are the environmental costs of current agricultural practices? How would the current food system be impacted by fuel shortages and high prices? 2. Review policies. How are current policies supporting these vulnerabilities and environmental impacts? How can they be changed or eliminated? Are there policies already in place that are likely to help with the transition? How can these latter policies be strengthened? 3. Bring together key stakeholders. Organizations of farmers, food processing and distributing companies, and retailers must all be included in the transition process. Many will wish simply to maintain the existing system; however, it must be made clear that this is not an option. Many companies involved in the food system will need to change their business model substantially. 4. Make a plan. The transition plan that is formulated must be comprehensive and detailed, and must contain robust but attainable targets with timelines and mechanisms for periodic review and revision. A scoping exercise must be undertaken to assess the impact of the plan on agricultural output and to quantify the changes in kinds of commodities produced and in their volumes and prices. Simon Fairlie's paper, "Can Britain Feed Itself?", is an initial attempt at such an exercise, and can be used as a model to be built upon and supplemented. 5. Educate and involve the public. The public must not only be informed about the government-led aspects of the transition process, but must be included in it to the extent that is practical. Citizens must be educated about food choices, gardening opportunities, and ways to access food from local producers. Their successes and challenges in adaptation will inform new iterations of the plan. 6. Shift policies and incentives. This is the key responsibility of government, as it either limits or enhances the ability of community groups, businesses, and families to engage in the transition process. Policy changes must reflect stakeholder input, but must nevertheless be designed primarily to further the Elements of Transition, rather than the short-term interests of any particular stakeholder group. 7. Monitor and adjust. An undertaking of this magnitude will inevitably have unforeseen and unintended impacts. Thus it is essential that progress be continually be reviewed with an eye to making adjustments to pace and strategy, while maintaining absolute adherence to the central task of methodically removing fossil fuels from the food system. Community The following are action steps for adoption by voluntary community groups, as opposed to governments (see above). The Transition Network provides an excellent model for this kind of community action. Such efforts seem to work best when the scale of community is such that meetings are manageable in size and meeting participants need not travel long distances. Thus in large cities, neighborhoods could apply Resilience Action Planning while sending delegates to occasional city-wide coordinating meetings. The overlap and mutual support between community organizations and local government efforts must be a matter for discussion and negotiation. 1. Assess the local food system. This assessment process should be undertaken in cooperation with government, so as not to duplicate tasks. Volunteer citizen groups are in position to provide perspectives that otherwise might elude government assessment efforts-such as opportunities for community gardens, or problems with access to food from local producers. 2. Identify and involve stakeholders. Local growers, shop owners, public kitchens, restaurants, schools, and other institutions that produce or serve food should all be contacted and invited to join a voluntary re-localization initiative and to offer input into the process. 3. Educate and involve the public. Community groups can stage public events to raise awareness about food transition issues. "Buy local" brochures and pamphlets, paid for and distributed by a consortium of local businesses (but organized by volunteer groups), can list local producers, farm markets, restaurants, and shops. 4. Develop a unique local strategic program. This can include farmers' markets, CSAs, school lunch programs, and public kitchens, networked with local producers, including community gardens. The program, based on input from stakeholders, should feature targets and timelines developed through a "backcasting" process, beginning with a collaborative exercise aimed at envisioning the local food system as it might look in 2025 after fossil fuels have ceased to play a role. 5. Coordinate with national programs. Local volunteer efforts can play a significant role in informing national government policies, and in implementing the national transition strategy. However, this will require the maintenance of open channels of communication, which in turn will be the responsibility of both government and the local groups. 6. Support individuals and families. Individuals are likely to change food habits and priorities only if they see others doing so as well, and if they feel that their efforts are supported and valued. Community groups can help by establishing new behavioral norms through public events and articles in local newspapers. Practical help can be offered via canning parties, garden planting and harvest parties, and gleaning programs. Local food and gardening experts can be made available to answer questions and concerns. Neighborhood food storage facilities can also be created to supplement household cupboards. 7. Monitor and adjust. All of these efforts must be continually adjusted to assure that all segments of the community are included in the transition process, and that the process is working as smoothly as possible for all. Business Relevant businesses include farms, shops, processors, wholesalers, and restaurants. However, the following steps could also be useful to organizations such as schools, colleges, and hospitals that dispense food as an ancillary part of their operations. 1. Assess vulnerabilities. Every business or organization that is part of the food system must take an honest look at the inevitable impacts of higher fuel prices, and fuel scarcity, on its operations. Examine scenarios based on a doubling or tripling of fuel costs to highlight specific vulnerabilities. 2. Make a plan. Develop a business model that works without-or with continually shrinking-fossil fuel inputs. Then "backcast" from that imagined future condition, specifying time-related targets. 3. Work with government and community groups. Given the fact that government will be developing regulations to reduce fuel use in the food system, and that community organizations will be offering support to local farmers and food shops that spearhead the transition, it makes good business sense to lead the parade rather than lagging at the rear. 4. Educate and involve suppliers and customers. No business is an island. The transition will flourish through strengthened relationships on all sides. 5. Monitor and adjust. For businesses, one obvious and essential criterion of success is profitability. The bottom line will help indicate which adaptive strategies are working, and which ones need work. However, negative financial feedback is no reason to abandon the essential goal of transition. Individual and Family 1. Assess food vulnerabilities and opportunities. Whether at a family meeting or by oneself over a cup of tea, take a long honest look at your typical monthly food purchases and give careful thought to the implications. How much of your food comes from within 100 miles? How much is packaged and processed? How many meals are meat-centered? Where do you shop? How would you be impacted if food and fuel prices doubled or tripled? 2. Make a plan. Create an ideal food scenario for yourself, including diet, shopping habits, and gardening goals. Then "backcast" a series of time-related goals. Write these prominently on a calendar and attach it to the front of your refrigerator. 3. Garden. Even if you don't have access to a plot of land, you can still grow sprouts in a jar or a few food plants in a window box. Look for opportunities to contribute work to a community garden. Develop your skills by seeking out gardening mentors. 4. Develop relations with local producers. Even if you have a large garden you probably can't grow all the food you eat. Rather than shopping at a supermarket, begin to frequent your local farmers' market, or join a CSA. 5. Become involved in community efforts. Get to know your neighbors and compare gardening experiences with them. Together, form a "tool library" from which members can check out garden tools and gardening books. Organize or participate in planting, harvesting, food-swapping, gleaning, and canning parties. 6. Monitor and adjust. At the end of each month, revisit your plan and revise it if necessary. (This essay is excerpted from a larger document-in-process, a co-publication of the Soil Association and Post Carbon Institute, that will be released in somewhat different versions in the UK and in the US, both in mid-November.) From maryrose333 at att.net Thu Nov 19 02:50:09 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Thu, 19 Nov 2009 01:50:09 -0800 Subject: [GJM] =?iso-8859-1?q?FW=3A_=5Bglobalnetnews-summary=5D_World_on_c?= =?iso-8859-1?q?ourse_for_catastrophic__6=B0_rise=2C_reveal_scienti?= =?iso-8859-1?q?sts?= Message-ID: <006201ca68fd$d6bc26f0$843474d0$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS We now have no other choice than to move into TOTAL WELLNESS in all areas of our lives as rebalancing systems and bringing them into alignment with the greater message of the Universe is now mandatory if we are to survive here on Earth as the human family. In order to accomplish this change of a magnitude unprecedented in prior human recorded history is required. Whether or not the human psyche can accomplish and manage a change of this magnitude is the question of the day. We must look ever more to faster and faster methods of reprogramming the sub-conscious mind if we are to meet these unprecedented challenges. -----Original Message----- From: globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net [mailto:globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net] On Behalf Of TradingPostPaul Sent: Wednesday, November 18, 2009 11:46 AM To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] World on course for catastrophic 6? rise, reveal scientists World on course for catastrophic 6? rise, reveal scientists http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/world-on-course-for- catastrophic-6deg-rise-reveal-scientists-1822396.html By Steve Connor and Michael McCarthy Wednesday, 18 November 2009 Fast-rising carbon emissions mean that worst-case predictions for climate change are coming true The world is now firmly on course for the worst-case scenario in terms of climate change, with average global temperatures rising by up to 6C by the end of the century, leading scientists said yesterday. Such a rise ? which would be much higher nearer the poles ? would have cataclysmic and irreversible consequences for the Earth, making large parts of the planet uninhabitable and threatening the basis of human civilisation. We are headed for it, the scientists said, because the carbon dioxide emissions from industry, transport and deforestation which are responsible for warming the atmosphere have increased dramatically since 2002, in a way which no one anticipated, and are now running at treble the annual rate of the 1990s. This means that the most extreme scenario envisaged in the last report from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, published in 2007, is now the one for which society is set, according to the 31 researchers from seven countries involved in the Global Carbon Project. Related articles * Steve Connor: Climate change is like a disaster in slow motion * Leading article: A climate change warning we ignore at our peril * Search the news archive for more stories Although the 6C rise and its potential disastrous effects have been speculated upon before, this is the first time that scientists have said that society is now on a path to meet it. Their chilling and remarkable prediction throws into sharp relief the importance of next month's UN climate conference in Copenhagen, where the world community will come together to try to construct a new agreement to bring the warming under control. For the past month there has been a lowering of expectations about the conference, not least because the US may not be ready to commit itself to cuts in its emissions. But yesterday President Barack Obama and President Hu Jintao of China issued a joint communiqu? after a meeting in Beijing, which reignited hopes that a serious deal might be possible after all. It cannot come too soon, to judge by the results of the Global Carbon Project study, led by Professor Corinne Le Qu?r?, of the University of East Anglia and the British Antarctic Survey, which found that there has been a 29 per cent increase in global CO2 emissions from fossil fuel between 2000 and 2008, the last year for which figures are available. On average, the researchers found, there was an annual increase in emissions of just over 3 per cent during the period, compared with an annual increase of 1 per cent between 1990 and 2000. Almost all of the increase this decade occurred after 2000 and resulted from the boom in the Chinese economy. The researchers predict a small decrease this year due to the recession, but further increases from 2010. In total, CO2 emissions from the burning of fossil fuels have increased by 41 per cent between 1990 and 2008, yet global emissions in 1990 are the reference level set by the Kyoto Protocol, which countries are trying to fall below in terms of their own emissions. The 6C rise now being anticipated is in stark contrast to the C rise at which all international climate policy, including that of Britain and the EU, hopes to stabilise the warming ? two degrees being seen as the threshold of climate change which is dangerous for society and the natural world. The study by Professor Le Qu?r? and her team, published in the journal Nature Geoscience, envisages a far higher figure. "We're at the top end of the IPCC scenario," she said. Professor Le Qu?r? said that Copenhagen was the last chance of coming to a global agreement that would curb carbon-dioxide emissions on a time-course that would hopefully stabilise temperature rises to within the danger threshold. "The Copenhagen conference next month is in my opinion the last chance to stabilise climate at C above pre-industrial levels in a smooth and organised way," she said. "If the agreement is too weak, or the commitments not respected, it is not 2.5C or 3C we will get: it's 5C or 6C ? that is the path we're on. The timescales here are extremely tight for what is needed to stabilise the climate at C," she said. Meanwhile, the scientists have for the first time detected a failure of the Earth's natural ability to absorb man-made carbon dioxide released into the air. They found significant evidence that more man-made CO2 is staying in the atmosphere to exacerbate the greenhouse effect because the natural "carbon sinks" that have absorbed it over previous decades on land and sea are beginning to fail, possibly as a result of rising global temperatures. The amount of CO2 that has remained in the atmosphere as a result has increased from about 40 per cent in 1990 to 45 per cent in 2008. This suggests that the sinks are beginning to fail, they said. Professor Le Qu?r? emphasised that there are still many uncertainties over carbon sinks, such as the ability of the oceans to absorb dissolved CO2, but all the evidence suggests that there is now a cycle of "positive feedbacks", whereby rising carbon dioxide emissions are leading to rising temperatures and a corresponding rise in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. "Our understanding at the moment in the computer models we have used ? and they are state of the art ? suggests that carbon-cycle climate feedback has already kicked in," she said. "These models, if you project them on into the century, show quite large feedbacks, with climate amplifying global warming by between 5 per cent and 30 per cent. There are still large uncertainties, but this is carbon-cycle climate feedback that has already started," she said. The study also found that, for the first time since the 1960s, the burning of coal has overtaken the burning of oil as the major source of carbon-dioxide emissions produced by fossil fuels. Much of this coal was burned by China in producing goods sold to the West ? the scientists estimate that 45 per cent of Chinese emissions resulted from making products traded overseas. It is clear that China, having overtaken the US as the world's biggest carbon emitter, must be central to any new climate deal, and so the communiqu? from the Chinese and US leaders issued yesterday was widely seized on as a sign that progress may be possible in the Danish capital next month. Presidents Hu and Obama specifically said an accord should include emission-reduction targets for rich nations, and a declaration of action plans to ease greenhouse-gas emissions in developing countries ? key elements in any deal. 6C rise: The consequences If two degrees is generally accepted as the threshold of dangerous climate change, it is clear that a rise of six degrees in global average temperatures must be very dangerous indeed, writes Michael McCarthy. Just how dangerous was signalled in 2007 by the science writer Mark Lynas, who combed all the available scientific research to construct a picture of a world with temperatures three times higher than the danger limit. His verdict was that a rise in temperatures of this magnitude "would catapult the planet into an extreme greenhouse state not seen for nearly 100 million years, when dinosaurs grazed on polar rainforests and deserts reached into the heart of Europe". He said: "It would cause a mass extinction of almost all life and probably reduce humanity to a few struggling groups of embattled survivors clinging to life near the poles." Very few species could adapt in time to the abruptness of the transition, he suggested. "With the tropics too hot to grow crops, and the sub-tropics too dry, billions of people would find themselves in areas of the planet which are essentially uninhabitable. This would probably even include southern Europe, as the Sahara desert crosses the Mediterranean. "As the ice-caps melt, hundreds of millions will also be forced to move inland due to rapidly-rising seas. As world food supplies crash, the higher mid-latitude and sub-polar regions would become fiercely-contested refuges. "The British Isles, indeed, might become one of the most desirable pieces of real estate on the planet. But, with a couple of billion people knocking on our door, things might quickly turn rather ugly." From maryrose333 at att.net Thu Nov 19 02:54:27 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Thu, 19 Nov 2009 01:54:27 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: [globalnetnews-summary] Too Late To Prepare For Peak Oil? Message-ID: <006301ca68fe$77f22420$67d66c60$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS All of these bulletins point to the obvious fact that we must quickly change the way we eat in order to change the way we raise our food. And, the change must be a dramatic one. -----Original Message----- From: globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net [mailto:globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net] On Behalf Of TradingPostPaul Sent: Wednesday, November 18, 2009 11:38 AM To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] Too Late To Prepare For Peak Oil? Too Late To Prepare For Peak Oil? By George Monbiot http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2009/11/16/if-nothing-else-save-farming/ 17 November , 2009 Monbiot.com I don't know when global oil supplies will start to decline. I do know that another resource has already peaked and gone into free fall: the credibility of the body that's meant to assess them. Last week two whistleblowers from the International Energy Agency alleged that it has deliberately upgraded its estimate of the world's oil supplies in order not to frighten the markets. Three days later, a paper published by researchers at Uppsala University in Sweden showed that the IEA's forecasts must be wrong, because it assumes a rate of extraction that appears to be impossible. The agency's assessment of the state of global oil supplies is beginning to look as reliable as Alan Greenspan's blandishments about the health of the financial markets. If the whistleblowers are right, we should be stockpiling ammunition. If we are taken by surprise, if we have failed to replace oil before the supply peaks then crashes, the global economy is stuffed. But nothing the whistle-blowers said has scared me as much as the conversation I had last week with a Pembrokeshire farmer. Wyn Evans, who runs a mixed farm of 170 acres, has been trying to reduce his dependency on fossil fuels since 1977. He has installed an anaerobic digester, a wind turbine, solar panels and a ground-sourced heat pump. He has sought wherever possible to replace diesel with his own electricity. Instead of using his tractor to spread slurry, he pumps it from the digester on to nearby fields. He's replaced his tractor-driven irrigation system with an electric one, and set up a new system for drying hay indoors, which means he has to turn it in the field only once. Whatever else he does is likely to produce smaller savings. But these innovations have reduced his use of diesel by only around 25%. According to farm scientists at Cornell University, cultivating one hectare of maize in the United States requires 40 litres of petrol and 75 litres of diesel. The amazing productivity of modern farm labour has been purchased at the cost of a dependency on oil. Unless farmers can change the way it's grown, a permanent oil shock would price food out of the mouths of many of the world's people. Any responsible government would be asking urgent questions about how long we have got. Instead, most of them delegate this job to the International Energy Agency. I've been bellyaching about the British government's refusal to make contingency plans for the possibility that oil might peak by 2020 for the past two years, and I'm beginning to feel like a madman with a sandwich board. Perhaps I am, but how lucky do you feel? The new World Energy Outlook published by the IEA last week expects the global demand for oil to rise from 85m barrels a day in 2008 to 105m in 2030. Oil production will rise to 103m barrels, it says, and biofuels will make up the shortfall. If we want the oil, it will materialise. The agency does caution that conventional oil is likely to "approach a plateau" towards the end of this period, but there's no hint of the graver warning that the IEA's chief economist issued when I interviewed him last year: "We still expect that it will come around 2020 to a plateau . I think time is not on our side here." Almost every year the agency has been forced to downgrade its forecast for the daily supply of oil in 2030: from 123m barrels in 2004, to 120m in 2005, 116m in 2007, 106m in 2008 and 103m this year. But according to one of the whistleblowers, "even today's number is much higher than can be justified, and the International Energy Agency knows this". The Uppsala report, published in the journal Energy Policy, anticipates that maximum global production of all kinds of oil in 2030 will be 76m barrels per day. Analysing the IEA's figures, it finds that to meet its forecasts for supply, the world's new and undiscovered oilfields would have to be developed at a rate "never before seen in history". As many of them are in politically or physically difficult places, and as capital is short, this looks impossible. Assessing existing fields, the likely rate of discovery and the use of new techniques for extraction, the researchers find that "the peak of world oil production is probably occurring now". Are they right? Who knows? Last month the UK Energy Research Centre published a massive review of all the available evidence on global oil supplies. It found that the date of peak oil will be determined not by the total size of the global resource but by the rate at which it can be exploited. New discoveries would have to be implausibly large to make a significant difference: even if a field the size of all the oil reserves ever struck in the US were miraculously discovered, it would delay the date of peaking by only four years. As global discoveries peaked in the 1960s, a find like this doesn't seem very likely. Regional oil supplies have peaked when about one third of the total resource has been extracted: this is because the rate of production falls as the remaining oil becomes harder to shift when the fields are depleted. So the assumption in the IEA's new report, that oil production will hold steady when the global resource has fallen "to around one half by 2030" looks unsafe. The UK Energy Research Centre's review finds that, just to keep oil supply at present levels, "more than two thirds of current crude oil production capacity may need to be replaced by 2030 . At best, this is likely to prove extremely challenging." There is, it says "a significant risk of a peak in conventional oil production before 2020". Unconventional oil won't save us: even a crash programme to develop the Canadian tar sands could deliver only 5m barrels a day by 2030. As a report commissioned by the US Department of Energy shows, an emergency programme to replace current energy supplies or equipment to anticipate peak oil would need about 20 years to take effect. It seems unlikely that we have it. The world economy is probably knackered, whatever we might do now. But at least we could save farming. There are two possible options: either the mass replacement of farm machinery or the development of new farming systems that don't need much labour or energy. There are no obvious barriers to the mass production of electric tractors and combine harvesters: the weight of the batteries and an electric vehicle's low-end torque are both advantages for tractors. A switch to forest gardening and other forms of permaculture is trickier, especially for producing grain; but such is the scale of the creeping emergency that we can't afford to rule anything out. The challenge of feeding seven or eight billion people while oil supplies are falling is stupefying. It'll be even greater if governments keep pretending that it isn't going to happen. From mukhtaralam2000 at yahoo.com Fri Nov 20 01:18:12 2009 From: mukhtaralam2000 at yahoo.com (Dr.Muhammad Mukhtar Alam) Date: Fri, 20 Nov 2009 13:48:12 +0530 (IST) Subject: [GJM] Hightower: Obscenely Rich Bankers Claim to Do God's Work -- They Can Go to Hell In-Reply-To: <003501ca68eb$96fa74c0$c4ef5e40$@net> References: <003501ca68eb$96fa74c0$c4ef5e40$@net> Message-ID: <790376.81439.qm@web94912.mail.in2.yahoo.com> their charities are indeed useless, if these are generated from usurious and speculative finance. Dr.Muhammad Mukhtar Alam 58-C, Top Floor,DDA Janta Flats, Ashok Vihar-III,Delhi-110052,India Tel:+9968345380 http://slideshare.net/mukhtaralam http://transitionurbanindia.ning.com http://ecostrategiccommunicators.ning.com http://muhammad_mukhtar_alam.tigblog.org ________________________________ From: mary rose To: Fixgov at yahoogroups.com; Discussion Forum for Global Justice Sent: Thu, 19 November, 2009 1:09:25 PM Subject: [GJM] FW: [globalnetnews-summary] Hightower: Obscenely Rich Bankers Claim to Do God's Work -- They Can Go to Hell Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS You know good friends, these bankers are really not the enemy -- in doing what they are doing and creating our indignation, they are forcing us to look at the truth of our failed economy -- it was never ever something we could take to the bank anyway so full of corruption and deceit it has been for so many years. So, thank the bankers for showing us the way in which we do not want to continue -- from out of the darkness will always come the dawn -- be there to receive the message and become the light. -----Original Message----- From: globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net [mailto:globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net] On Behalf Of TradingPostPaul Sent: Wednesday, November 18, 2009 12:39 PM To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] Hightower: Obscenely Rich Bankers Claim to Do God's Work -- They Can Go to Hell Hightower: Obscenely Rich Bankers Claim to Do God's Work -- They Can Go to Hell http://www.alternet.org/story/144026/hightower%3A_obscenely_rich_bankers_cla im_to_do_god%27s_work_--_they_can_go_to_hell By Jim Hightower, AlterNet. Posted November 18, 2009. Top executives were initially hurt by the public's moral outrage. But their sense of entitlement quickly kicked in, and now they claim they're the good guys. "Repent," the preacher cried out, startling those who heard him. This was no street evangelist ranting at the passing crowd, but the archbishop of Canterbury, head of the Church of England. His sharp admonition was pointed directly at a particular set of sinners, who undoubtedly had never given any thought to the morality of their actions: the barons of global banking. As in our country, people in Europe are enraged at those hustlers of high finance who wrecked the world's economies, then flexed their political muscle to get governments to replenish their bankrupt vaults. Infuriatingly, these bailed-out bankers have now returned to business as usual, including grabbing monstrous bonus payments for themselves. In Europe, such greed is not only being assailed politically, but it is also being cast as a matter of fundamental moral failure. As another of Britain's leading clergymen put it, "There is a general feeling that the level of bonuses we've seen have been obscene." While top executives of Barclays, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs and other big investment houses were initially puzzled and hurt by the public's moral outrage, their audacious sense of personal worth and entitlement quickly kicked back in. So Europeans are now witnessing the spectacle of bankers draping themselves in radiant robes of ethical purity. "Profit is not satanic," the CEO of Barclays recently proclaimed. "Size is not necessarily evil," asserted the head of Deutsche Bank. But leave it to Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of Goldman Sachs (and the world's highest-paid banker -- $68 million in 2007 alone) to combine self-pity with self-adulation in a grandiose PR effort to reposition financial thieves as paragons of social altruism. "I know I could slit my writs and people would cheer," he acknowledged in an interview published Nov. 8 in London's Sunday Times. But, he said of himself and his big banking brethren," We're very important. We help companies to grow by helping them to raise capital. Companies that create more growth and more wealth. This, in turn, allows people to have jobs that create more growth and more wealth. It's a virtuous cycle." And, just in case you missed the message of Blankfein's morality tale, he concluded by portraying himself as a mere banker "doing God's work." Wow. What a wrathful god he must worship! One wonders -- has Lord Blankfein even read about, much less visited, any of the millions of Americans who are out of work or out of business because of the financial schemes and scams that he and his peers conjured up? Who does he think he's fooling? Far from investing capital (including the trillions of dollars they took from us taxpayers) in companies and jobs, these financial whizzes continue to throw it into the global craps game of debt swaps and other speculative nonsense. The game enriches them and their super-wealthy clients, but it creates nothing whatsoever of social value. Nonetheless, this clueless clique is actually claiming that we commoners should be applauding the return of their multimillion-dollar bonus bonanzas. Why? Because, they aver, the rich payouts allow them to contribute to charity. Such narcissism reminds me of a story about a selfish, no-good rich man who died and tried to get into heaven. But you can't just walk through the Pearly Gates. An angel reviews your life, then St. Peter decides if you can enter. To counter the angel's negative review, the rich man argued that he had a history of charitable giving. He'd once tossed a nickel into a beggar's cup, he pointed out. Plus, some years later, he had aided a poor woman by giving her a nickel. Then there was the time he put a nickel into the Salvation Army kettle. Hearing all this, the angel turned to St. Peter and asked, "What in the world should we do with this man?" And St. Peter said, "Give him back his 15 cents, and tell him to go to hell!" Now that's a story that these big banksters need to hear -- and ponder. To find out more about Jim Hightower, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com. _______________________________________________ Discussion mailing list Discussion at globaljusticemovement.net http://globaljusticemovement.net/mailman/listinfo/discussion_globaljusticemovement.net The INTERNET now has a personality. YOURS! See your Yahoo! Homepage. http://in.yahoo.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk Sat Nov 21 02:42:51 2009 From: dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk (Robert Searle) Date: 21 Nov 2009 01:42:51 -0800 Subject: [GJM] Gang Held Over Human Body Fat Murders - Yahoo! News UK Message-ID: Robert Searle (dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk) has sent you a news article X-Originating-IP: 217.12.6.111 -------------------- Personal message text: I know this is totally relevant to the discussion group but I found the following ghoulish, and unbelievable!!! -------------------- Gang Held Over Human Body Fat Murders http://uk.news.yahoo.com/5/20091120/twl-gang-held-over-human-body-fat-murder-3fd0ae9.html ============================================================ From maryrose333 at att.net Thu Nov 19 08:52:01 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Thu, 19 Nov 2009 07:52:01 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: [globalnetnews-summary] Apocalypse Fatigue: Losing the Public on Climate Change Message-ID: <00b601ca6930$6b34a780$419df680$@net> -----Original Message----- From: globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net [mailto:globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net] On Behalf Of TradingPostPaul Sent: Wednesday, November 18, 2009 9:36 PM To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] Apocalypse Fatigue: Losing the Public on Climate Change (To change your settings or unsubscribe please go to http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/globalnetnews-summary) Apocalypse Fatigue: Losing the Public on Climate Change by Ted Nordhaus & Michael Shellenberger Published on Tuesday, November 17, 2009 by Yale Environment 360 http://www.e360.yale.edu/content/feature.msp?id=2210 Even as the climate science becomes more definitive, polls show that public concern in the United States about global warming has been declining. What will it take to rally Americans behind the need to take strong action on cutting carbon emissions? Last month, the Pew Research Center released its latest poll of public attitudes on global warming. On its face, the news was not good: Belief that global warming is occurring had declined from 71 percent in April of 2008 to 56 percent in October - an astonishing drop in just 18 months. The belief that global warming is human-caused declined from 47 percent to 36 percent. While some pollsters questioned these numbers, the Pew statistics are consistent with the findings by Gallup in March that public concern about global warming had declined, that the number of Americans who believed that news about global warming was exaggerated had increased, and that the number of Americans who believed that the effects of global warming had already begun had declined. The reasons offered for these declines are as varied as opinion about climate change itself. Skeptics say the gig is up: Americans have finally figured out that global warming is a hoax. Climate activists blame skeptics for sowing doubts about climate science. Pew's Andrew Kohut, who conducted the survey, says it's (mostly) the economy, stupid. And some folks have concluded that Americans, with our high levels of disbelief in evolution, are just too stupid or too anti-science to sort it all out. The truth is both simpler and more complicated. It is simpler in the sense that most Americans just aren't paying a whole lot of attention. Between being asked about things like whether they would provide CPR to save the life of a pet (most pet owners say yes ) or whether they would allow their child to be given the swine flu vaccine (a third of parents say no), pollsters occasionally get around to asking Americans what they think about global warming. When they do, Americans find a variety of ways to tell us that they don't think about it very much at all. Three years after it seemed that "An Inconvenient Truth" had changed everything, it turns out that it didn't. The current Pew survey is the latest in a series of studies suggesting that Al Gore probably had a good deal more effect upon elite opinion than public opinion. Public opinion about global warming, it turns out, has been remarkably stable for the better part of two decades, despite the recent decline in expressed public confidence in climate science. Roughly two-thirds of Americans have consistently told pollsters that global warming is occurring. By about the same majority, most Americans agree that global warming is at least in part human-caused, with this majority roughly equally divided between those believing that warming is entirely caused by humans and those who believe it to be a combination of human and natural causes. And about the same two-thirds majority has consistently supported government action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions since 1989. This would be good news for action to address climate change if most Americans felt very strongly about the subject. Unfortunately, they don't. Looking back over 20 years, only about 35 to 40 percent of the U.S. public worry about global warming "a great deal," and only about one-third consider it a "serious personal threat." Moreover, when asked in open-ended formats to name the most serious problems facing the country, virtually no Americans volunteer global warming. Even other environmental problems, such as air and water pollution, are often rated higher priorities by U.S. voters than global warming, which is less visible and is experienced less personally than many other problems. What is arguably most remarkable about U.S. public opinion on global warming has been both its stability and its inelasticity in response to new developments, greater scientific understanding of the problem, and greater attention from both the media and politicians. Public opinion about global warming has remained largely unchanged through periods of intensive media attention and periods of neglect, good economic times and bad, the relatively activist Clinton years and the skeptical Bush years. And majorities of Americans have, at least in principle, consistently supported government action to do something about global warming even if they were not entirely sold that the science was settled, suggesting that public understanding and acceptance of climate science may not be a precondition for supporting action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The more complicated questions have to do with why. Why have Americans been so consistently supportive of action to address climate change yet so weakly committed? Why has two decades of education and advocacy about climate change had so little discernible impact on public opinion? And why, at the height of media coverage and publicity about global warming in the years after the release of Gore's movie, did confidence in climate science actually appear to decline? Political psychology can help us answer these questions. First, climate change seems tailor-made to be a low priority for most people. The threat is distant in both time and space. It is difficult to visualize. And it is difficult to identify a clearly defined enemy. Coal executives may deny that global warming exists, but at the end of the day they're just in it for a buck, not hiding in caves in Pakistan plotting new and exotic ways to kill us. Second, the dominant climate change solutions run up against established ideologies and identities. Consider the psychological concept of "system justification." System justification theory builds upon earlier work on ego justification and group justification to suggest that many people have a psychological need to maintain a positive view of the existing social order, whatever it may be. This need manifests itself, not surprisingly, in the strong tendency to perceive existing social relations as fair, legitimate, and desirable, even in contexts in which those relations substantively disadvantage the person involved. Many observers have suggested that Gore's leading role in the global warming debate has had much to do with the rising partisan polarization around the issue. And while this almost certainly has played a part, it is worth considering that there may be other significant psychological dynamics at play as well. Dr. John Jost, a leading political psychologist at New York University, recently demonstrated that much of the partisan divide on global warming can be explained by system justification theory. Calls for economic sacrifice, major changes to our lifestyles, and the immorality of continuing "business as usual" - such as going on about the business of our daily lives in the face of looming ecological catastrophe - are almost tailor-made to trigger system justification among a substantial number of Americans. Combine these two psychological phenomena - a low sense of imminent threat (what psychologists call low-threat salience) and system justification - and what you get is public opinion that is highly resistant to education or persuasion. Most Americans aren't alarmed enough to pay much attention, and efforts to raise the volume simply trigger system-justifying responses. The lesson of recent years would appear to be that apocalyptic threats - when their impacts are relatively far off in the future, difficult to imagine or visualize, and emanate from everyday activities, not an external and hostile source - are not easily acknowledged and are unlikely to become priority concerns for most people. In fact, the louder and more alarmed climate advocates become in these efforts, the more they polarize the issue, driving away a conservative or moderate for every liberal they recruit to the cause. These same efforts to increase salience through offering increasingly dire prognosis about the fate of the planet (and humanity) have also probably undermined public confidence in climate science. Rather than galvanizing public demand for difficult and far-reaching action, apocalyptic visions of global warming disaster have led many Americans to question the science. Having been told that climate science demands that we fundamentally change our way of life, many Americans have, not surprisingly, concluded that the problem is not with their lifestyles but with what they've been told about the science. And in this they are not entirely wrong, insofar as some prominent climate advocates, in their zeal to promote action, have made representations about the state of climate science that go well beyond any established scientific consensus on the subject, hyping the most dire scenarios and most extreme recent studies, which are often at odds with the consensus of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. These factors predate but appear to have been exacerbated by recession. Pew's pollster Kohut points to evidence indicating that the recession has led many Americans to prioritize economic over environmental concerns and that this in turn has probably translated into greater skepticism about the scientific basis for environmental action. But notably, both the Pew and Gallup data show that the trend of rising skepticism about climate science and declining concern about global warming significantly predate the financial crisis. Pew found that from July 2006 to April 2008, prior to the recession, belief that global warming was occurring declined from 79 percent to 71 percent and belief that global warming was a very or somewhat serious problem declined from 79 percent to 73 percent. Gallup found that the percentage of Americans who believed that news of global warming was exaggerated rose from 30 percent in March of 2006 to 35 percent in March of 2008. So while these trends have accelerated over the last 18 months, they were clearly present in prior years. Perhaps we should give the American public a little more credit. They may not know climate science very well, but they are not going to be muscled into accepting apocalyptic visions about our planetary future - or embracing calls to radically transform "our way of life" - just because environmentalists or climate scientists tell them they must. They typically give less credit to expert opinion than do educated elites, and those of us who tend to pay more attention to these questions would do well to remember that expert opinion and indeed, expert consensus, has tended to have a less sterling track record than most of us might like to admit. At the same time, significant majorities of Americans are still prepared to support reasonable efforts to reduce carbon emissions even if they have their doubts about the science. They may be disinclined to tell pollsters that the science is settled, just as they are not inclined to tell them that evolution is more than a theory. But that doesn't stop them from supporting the teaching of evolution in their schools. And it will not stop them from supporting policies to reduce carbon emissions - so long as the costs are reasonable and the benefits, both economic and environmental, are well-defined. From maryrose333 at att.net Thu Nov 19 09:35:26 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Thu, 19 Nov 2009 08:35:26 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: From Paralysis to a World Record: A True Story of the Power of Determination Message-ID: <00c901ca6936$764da170$62e8e450$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS What is it that causes some of us to ?never give up? even when the challenge seems insurrmountable, while others cave in at the first sign of an obstacle in their path? From: PEERS: WantToKnow.info Email List [mailto:emaillist at peerservice.org] Sent: Thursday, November 19, 2009 8:12 AM To: maryrose333 at att.net Subject: From Paralysis to a World Record: A True Story of the Power of Determination To subscribe to or unsubscribe from this list (one email every few days) or to reply to this message, see end of email This message is available online at http://www.WantToKnow.info/050702powerofdetermination Dear friends, I've loved to run ever since I was a young boy. Besides a one-mile daily run, once a week I go for a refreshing one-hour run in the beautiful nature of a hilly park not far from my home. I clearly remember back in elementary school reading the incredible story of Glenn Cunningham and how it inspired me to welcome the joy of running and to believe that anything is possible. This short, amazing story of the boy who was supposed to die shows the incredible power of determination. I deeply believe that we are all much more powerful than we might ever imagine. May we find ways to tap into and use this power for the good of all. With best wishes, Fred Burks for PEERS and the WantToKnow.info Team The Power of Determination: Glenn Cunningham's Story by Burt Dubin The little country schoolhouse was heated by an old-fashioned, pot-bellied coal stove. A eight-year old boy named Glenn Cunningham had the job of coming to school early each day so that he could use kerosene to start the fire and warm the room before his teacher and his classmates arrived. One cold morning someone mistakenly filled the kerosene container he used with gasoline, and disaster struck. The class and teacher arrived to find the schoolhouse engulfed in flames. Terrified on realizing that Glenn was inside, they rushed in and managed to drag the unconscious little boy out of the flaming building more dead than alive. He had major burns over the lower half of his body and was taken to a nearby county hospital. >From his bed, the dreadfully burned, semi-conscious little boy faintly heard the doctor talking to his mother. The doctor told his mother that her son would surely die ? which was for the best, really ? for the terrible fire had devastated the lower half of his body. But the brave boy didn't want to die. Glenn made up his mind that he would survive. And somehow, to the amazement of the physician, he did survive. Yet when the mortal danger was past, he again heard the doctor and his mother speaking quietly. The mother was told that since the fire had destroyed so much flesh in the lower part of his body, it would almost be better if he had died, since he was doomed to be a lifetime cripple with no use at all of his lower limbs. His mother refused to let the doctors amputate. Once more this brave little boy made up his mind. He would not be a cripple. He would walk. But unfortunately from the waist down, Glenn had no motor ability. His thin, scarred legs just dangled there, all but lifeless. Ultimately Glenn was released from the hospital. Every day afterward his mother and father would massage his little legs, but there was no feeling, no control, nothing. Yet his determination that he would walk was as strong as ever. When he wasn't in bed, he was confined to a wheelchair. One sunny day his mother wheeled him out into the yard to get some fresh air. This day, instead of sitting there, he threw himself from the chair. Glenn pulled himself across the grass, dragging his legs behind him. He worked his way to the white picket fence bordering their lot. With great effort, he raised himself up on the fence. Then, stake by stake, he began dragging himself along the fence, resolved that he would walk. He started to do this every day until he wore a smooth path all around the yard beside the fence. There was nothing he wanted more than to develop life in those legs. Ultimately through his daily massages, Glenn's iron persistence and his resolute determination, he did develop the ability first to stand up, then to walk haltingly with help, then to walk by himself ? and then miraculously ? to run. Glenn began run to school and to run for the sheer joy of running. He ran everywhere that he could. The people in his town would often see him run by on his way to who knows where and smile. Later in college Glenn made the track team where his tremendous determination paid off. He eventually received the nickname the "Kansas Flyer." In February 1934, in New York City's famed Madison Square Garden, this young man who was not expected to survive, who would surely never walk, who could never hope to run ? this determined young man, Dr. Glenn Cunningham, ran the mile in four minutes and eight seconds, the world's fastest indoor mile! Later that same year in a presitigious outdoor track meet, he shaved another second off his record to run the world's fastest mile to that time. Note: To verify this amazing true story, see the Glenn Cunningham article on the Kansas Sports Hall of Fame's website at this link. Cunningham was inducted into the National Track and Field Hall of Fame in 1974. And for a powerfully inspiring, short video showing other determined individuals who had to overcome major obstacles to achieve great fame, click here. See our collection of inspirational resources at http://www.WantToKnow.info/inspirational Your tax-deductible donations, however large or small, help greatly to support this important work. To make a donation by credit card, check, or money order: http://www.WantToKnow.info/donationswtk Explore these empowering websites coordinated by the nonprofit PEERS network : http://www.momentoflove.org - Every person in the world has a heart http://www.WantToKnow.info - Reliable, verifiable information on major cover-ups http://www.inspiringcommunity.org - Building a Global Community for All http://www.weboflove.org - Strengthening the Web of Love that interconnects us all http://insightcourse.net - The Insight Course: Best of the Internet all in one free course Educational websites promoting transformation through information and inspiration To subscribe to or unsubscribe from this email list of inspiration and education (average one email every two weeks), visit http://www.weboflove.org/subscribewol. Subscribe to the list of news and information on deep cover-ups (one email every few days) by visiting http://www.wanttoknow.info/subscribe. _____ Change email address / Leave mailing list Powered by YourMailingListProvider -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From maryrose333 at att.net Thu Nov 19 13:01:18 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Thu, 19 Nov 2009 12:01:18 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: [globalnetnews-summary] Texas' gay marriage ban may have banned all marriages Message-ID: <001201ca6953$3b3854f0$b1a8fed0$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS This is an interesting legal conundrum. -----Original Message----- From: globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net [mailto:globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net] On Behalf Of TradingPostPaul Sent: Thursday, November 19, 2009 9:25 AM To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] Texas' gay marriage ban may have banned all marriages Texas' gay marriage ban may have banned all marriages Fort Worth Star-Telegram http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics/AP/story/1340136.html Posted on Wednesday, 11.18.09 AUSTIN - Texans: Are you really married? Maybe not. Barbara Ann Radnofsky, a Houston lawyer and Democratic candidate for attorney general, says that a 22-word clause in a 2005 constitutional amendment designed to ban gay marriages erroneously endangers the legal status of all marriages in the state. The amendment, approved by the Legislature and overwhelmingly ratified by voters, declares that "marriage in this state shall consist only of the union of one man and one woman." But the troublemaking phrase, as Radnofsky sees it, is Subsection B, which declares: "This state or a political subdivision of this state may not create or recognize any legal status identical or similar to marriage." Architects of the amendment included the clause to ban same-sex civil unions and domestic partnerships. But Radnofsky, who was a member of the powerhouse Vinson & Elkins law firm in Houston for 27 years until retiring in 2006, says the wording of Subsection B effectively "eliminates marriage in Texas," including common-law marriages. She calls it a "massive mistake" and blames the current attorney general, Republican Greg Abbott, for allowing the language to become part of the Texas Constitution. Radnofsky called on Abbott to acknowledge the wording as an error and consider an apology. She also said that another constitutional amendment may be necessary to reverse the problem. "You do not have to have a fancy law degree to read this and understand what it plainly says," said Radnofsky, who will be at Texas Christian University today as part of a five-city tour to kick off her campaign. 'Entirely constitutional' Abbott spokesman Jerry Strickland said the attorney general stands behind the 4-year-old amendment. "The Texas Constitution and the marriage statute are entirely constitutional," Strickland said without commenting further on Radnofsky's statements. "We will continue to defend both in court." A conservative leader whose organization helped draft the amendment dismissed Radnofsky's position, saying it was similar to scare tactics opponents unsuccessfully used against the proposal in 2005. "It's a silly argument," said Kelly Shackelford, president of the Liberty Legal Institute in Plano. Any lawsuit based on the wording of Subsection B, he said, would have "about one chance in a trillion" of being successful. Shackelford said the clause was designed to be broad enough to prevent the creation of domestic partnerships, civil unions or other arrangements that would give same-sex couples many of the benefits of marriage. Radnofsky acknowledged that the clause is not likely to result in an overnight dismantling of marriages in Texas. But she said the wording opens the door to legal claims involving spousal rights, insurance claims, inheritance and a host other marriage-related issues. "This breeds unneeded arguments, lawsuits and expense which could have been avoided by good lawyering," Radnofsky said. "Yes, I believe the clear language of B bans all marriages, and this is indeed a huge mistake." In October, Dallas District Judge Tena Callahan ruled that the same-sex-marriage ban is unconstitutional because it stands in the way of gay divorce. Abbott is appealing the ruling, which came in a divorce petition involving two men who were married in Massachusetts in 2006. Massive error? Radnofsky, the Democratic nominee in the Senate race against Kay Bailey Hutchison in 2006, said she voted against the amendment but didn't realize the legal implications until she began poring over the Texas Constitution to prepare for the attorney general's race. She said she holds Abbott and his office responsible for not catching an "error of massive proportions." "Whoever vetted the language in B must have been asleep at the wheel," she said. Abbott, a former state Supreme Court justice who was elected attorney general in 2002, has not indicated whether he will seek re-election and is known to be interested in running for lieutenant governor. Ted Cruz, who served as solicitor general under Abbott, is running for attorney general in the Republican primary. Radnofsky, who has not yet drawn a Democratic opponent, is scheduled to appear at the Tarrant County Young Democrats Gubernatorial Forum at 6:30 tonight at TCU. From maryrose333 at att.net Thu Nov 19 19:53:59 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Thu, 19 Nov 2009 18:53:59 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: [globalnetnews-summary] Thinly-Veiled Evangelical Christian Obama Death Threats Message-ID: <000001ca698c$dd22e530$9768af90$@net> FYI and consideration. -----Original Message----- From: globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net [mailto:globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net] On Behalf Of TradingPostPaul Sent: Thursday, November 19, 2009 1:41 PM To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] Thinly-Veiled Evangelical Christian Obama Death Threats Rachel Maddow, Frank Schaeffer Discuss The Latest In Thinly-Veiled Evangelical Christian Obama Death Threats http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/18/rachel-maddow-frank-schae_n_362415. html Updated: 11-18-09 02:18 PM Apparently, the latest thing in "Debasing The Institutions You Pretend To Hold Dear In Order To Suggest That President Barack Obama Should Be Murdered Without Actually Coming Right Out And Saying So" goes by a shorter name: Psalm 109:8. And Psalm 109:8 is just straight up memetastic, appearing on bumper stickers and T-shirts, all of which carry the benign sounding message, "Pray For Obama." But, as Gawker's John Cook points out, this is just one more in a "long line of cheekily coded Obama death threats." The verse in question reads: "May his days be few; may another take his place of leadership." That leads fairly naturally into the Psalm 109:9, "May his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow." You know, in case you miss the point. Rachel Maddow took up this issue last night, inviting Patience With God author and Huffington Post blogger Frank Schaeffer to explain whether or not the citation of this Biblical text "means something less threatening to people hearing this in a Biblical context." SCHAEFFER: No. Actually, it means something more threatening. I think that the situation that I find genuinely frightening right now is that you have a ramping up of Biblical language, language from the anti-abortion movement for instance, death panels and this sort of thing, and what it's coalescing into is branding Obama as Hitler, as they have already called him. And something foreign to our shores, we're reminded of that, he's born in Kenya. As brown, as black, above all, as not us. He is Sarah Palin's "not a real American." But now, it turns out, he joins the ranks of the unjust kings of ancient Israel, unjust rulers to which all these Biblical allusions are directed who should be slaughtered, if not by God, then by just men. So there's a parallel here with Timothy McVeigh's t-shirt on the day of the Oklahoma City bombing. He said the tree of liberty had to be watered by the blood of tyrants. That quote, we saw at a meeting where Obama was present carried on a placard by someone with a loaded weapon. What we're looking at right now is two things going on. We see the evangelical groups I talked about in my new book, Patience With God, enthralled by an apocalyptic vision that I go into in some detail there. They represent the millions of people who have turned the Left Behind series into best sellers. Most of them are not crazy, they're just deluded. But there is a crazy fringe to whom all these little messages that have been pouring out of Fox News, now on a bumper sticker, talking about doing away with Obama, asking God to kill him. Really, this is trolling for assassins. This is serious business. It's un-American. It's unpatriotic. And it goes to show that the religious right, the Republican far right have coalesced into a group who truly want American revolution. If it turns out to be blood in the streets and death, so be it. It's not funny stuff anymore. They cannot be dismissed as just crazies on the fringe. It only takes one. You know, look at the Boston Globe article from a few weeks ago that says the threat level faced by the Secret Service has gone up 400%, higher than any other time in 52 years, for any president, Democrat or Republican. These are no jokes. Schaeffer added, "Look, this is the American version of the Taliban... this is the Old Testament Biblical equivalent of calling for holy war." WATCH: From maryrose333 at att.net Thu Nov 19 20:20:17 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Thu, 19 Nov 2009 19:20:17 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: Mayan Calendar seen through an astrological structure - This Scorpio New Moon Message Message-ID: <000101ca6990$8de1e800$a9a5b800$@net> FYI and consideration. Thanks Robynne From: Rob McWayne [mailto:wrmcwayne at hotmail.com] Sent: Thursday, November 19, 2009 2:23 PM Subject: Mayan Calendar seen through an astrological structure - This Scorpio New Moon Message This is pretty - wow - maybe because I haven't kept up with Mayan Calendar and astrological readings of what's going on lately. It's complicated, but worth sticking with it to the end. Has interesting mentions of several books, Michael Calleman's and Dan Brown's latest. Bottom line: define what small or large breakthrough you had in your approach to life during this last year, and hold onto it, focus into and expand on it, and "use it as your lifeboat" during this next year. But do read the whole thing, (easier if you copy and paste it into a word file so it isn't so w i d e.) Elizabeth is in Portland, OR, and does amazing readings, too! _____ From: elizabeth at redlotus.org To: wrmcwayne at hotmail.com Subject: New Moon Message Date: Wed, 18 Nov 2009 16:15:51 -0700 Dear Friends, I needed to share this incredibly informative article from Barbara Hand Clow with all my friends here, as I pray and hope that all of us will merit from her genius message and regard the coming year as a process to Universal Ascension, not something to be feared. Please visit: http://redlotus.org/2009/11/ With Loving Blessings, Elizabeth ~.~ www.redlotus.org 971-252-2063 __________________ "Resolve to Evolve" Scorpio New Moon: November 16, 2009 The 2009 Scorpio New Moon chart is exceedingly complex and personally demanding, a genuine get-real-and-be-truthful moment. First of all, the chart emphasizes healing our emotions because Jupiter (personal expansion), Chiron (healing), and Neptune (spiritual access) are now all direct in Aquarius, and the New Moon squares them. This blocks Scorpio's natural tendency to be secretive, so we may experience revelations. Evocatively, Uranus in Pisces trines the lunation, so we look for spiritual solutions for our selves and the world. Night Six of the Galactic Underworld (1999-2011) just opened on November 8, which heralds the darkness before the New Dawn. Thus, this New Moon opens the dark night of the soul. With Obama leading the US during last days of the Galactic Underworld, isn't it fascinating that Mars (war and aggression) in the New Moon chart is exactly conjunct his Sun sign (personal integrity)? How are you doing with your Nobel Peace prize, President Obama? This New Moon reading suggests we are arrows in arched bows primed to enter cosmic space. So, we must begin with a brief recap of Day Six of the Galactic Underworld, which ended November 7. Then we need to look at the probable effects of the movement into Night Six on November 8, since the chart for the New Moon in Scorpio actually does not make much sense without putting it into the context of the Mayan Calendar. Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli, the lord before the Dawn is the deity of Night Six, the archetypal force of cosmic renewal. Yohualticitl, the goddess of birth, was the ruler of Day Six, so now we are living in a world in which the old ways are falling rapidly away. The powers-that-be will do everything possible to make it look like everything is all the same, but things are not. Millions of people following the time-acceleration process have already greatly changed. So, what did you birth during Day Six-November 15, 2009-November 8, 2009? During this period, each one of you has made monumental shifts, and you feel that you will never drop back to the previous level. So, what breakthrough did you accomplish? You must identify this year's personal leap because it will be your guide during Night Six. This leap will be your lifeboat, and I don't care how silly your move forward may seem to be. For example, one student said his big step was to learn how to putt well in golf! That may sound like nothing, but consider this: golf is the ultimate multidimensional game, and the reason most people can't sink the ball in the hole is because success brings up childhood psychological blocks. As for me, I discovered how to relax, a truly amazing feat for me! As for you, maybe like the lion in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, perhaps you won out over the forces of evil? During the Day Sixes of the previous Underworlds, we made critical evolutionary leaps-such as hominids standing up and splitting off from chimpanzees and apes 6-9 million years ago during the Familial Underworld (41 million years ago through AD 2011); or mammals developing a bi-lateral brain 190 million years ago when Pangea broke up into continents during the Mammalian Underworld (820 million years ago through AD 2011). [See my video, Exponential Evolution, for more info on Day Sixes over time.] So, now that we've just completed Day Six of the Galactic, what was your personal critical leap? During Night Six, chaos will reign in the fractal realms, and you will need to hold onto whatever special progress you made. Then you'll be ready to make the great alchemical breakthrough during Day Seven of the Galactic Underworld-November 3, 2010-October 28, 2011). For example, on the first drive, the golfer might make a hole-in-one, and I might open nine dimensions effortlessly just by meditating. Why do I begin with Chaos Theory? We each need to identify our Day Six attainments and intentionally hold them within the planetary field. During Night Six, this field will be in a state of perpetual flux as it rises to create new space for Day Seven's creative agenda, which is the fruition of the Galactic Underworld. For example, with no focus on your own progress, you could crumble into simpering fear-mongering and screaming idiocy when you go see the apocalyptic film, 2012. Are you afraid that Planet X, the Dark Star, or Nibiru is going to smash into Earth, or that the poles will flip? There is no doubt that the big boys are playing a very nasty game, but you can hold your place just by not collapsing into fear! The chart for the New Moon in Scorpio shows you how, so I will read it for guidance on how we can hold to our true path during Night Six. Before I read this chart, I have a few comments about events during previous Night Sixes, since this offers some past experiences that may reemerge now through November 2, 2010. We need to go way back to Day Six of the Regional Underworld (103,000 years ago to 2011); this time period was 21,700 to 13,800 years ago, and this was when our ancestors lived in the Global Maritime Civilization, the global sea-faring culture known as Atlantis in the collective memory. Then, when Night Six opened 13,800 years ago, major climate and earth changes destroyed Atlantis. [See Catastrophobia (2001).] The worst phase of the multiple cataclysms was 11,500 years ago, when Earth was nearly destroyed, and films like 2012 will revive these memories in people. During Night Six (AD 1225-1617) of the 5,125-year-long National Underworld, the Mongols swept into Europe after the Crusades failed, and Western Europe was very insecure while the East was rising in power. [See The Mayan Code: Time Acceleration and Awakening the World Mind.] In other words, the Night Sixes of the Regional and National Underworlds were physically cataclysmic, so the Western psyche will fear invasions and earth changes this year. By realizing that these are past memories, people can release the emotional aspects of these physical cataclysms during Night Six of the Galactic Underworld (November 8, 2009 through November 2, 2010). The probable resonance with past disasters is a big deal for two reasons: one, apocalyptic fundamentalists are going to try to scare you to death with things like 2012; and two, there will be a tendency for civilizations to self-destruct during this next year. Before getting all freaked out, let's remember that the Galactic Underworld agenda is to break down the National and Planetary Underworld structures while we recover lost memories from the Regional Underworld. This process will open space so that we can leap into enlightenment during the Universal Underworld in 2011! So, what am I really saying? I am saying that like the survivors of Atlantis hanging onto floating debris and washing on shore after the cataclysm, you must utilize your Day Six fruition fragment as your lifeboat. Yes, Night Six will feel like the fall of Atlantis for many, so just let it fall by releasing your emotions and your fear! We must surrender to this release so that the intuitive Regional brain can be accessed again. Now looking at our New Moon chart, the aspects to the Sun/Moon in 25 Scorpio are compelling. Regarding Jupiter, Chiron, and Neptune together in Aquarius, they were in 25-26 Aquarius during May through July 2009, and I'm sure you remember that period. We found ourselves plunging into deep inner wounds (Chiron), while our outer boundaries to the spiritual realms were melting our identities (Neptune), and we kept on expanding our minds and feelings (Jupiter). Many people fragmented this summer as if they were having a schizophrenic breakdown, yet actually they were merely shivering on the dangerous edge of enlightenment. This same pressure to grow will come on strong again during this December, when our spiritual growth will intensify even more to prepare us for the exact conjunctions of Chiron and Neptune during 2010. This New Moon in Scorpio, which pushes us into the darkest and most fecund parts of our consciousness, squares the three planets, so it is a clarion call for the personal attainment of enlightenment. Our species is evolving to receive Earth's cosmic consciousness, so during this critical lunation the cosmic jester, Uranus, is poised to dance on the game board. Uranus in Pisces trines the New Moon, easily probing Scorpio's dark caves. Isn't it amazing that Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol is in the reading public's mind right now, just as the apocalyptic film, 2012, arrives to scare the pants off the people on the first Friday the 13th of Night Six? [In The Mayan Code, I commented that the easiest way to imagine how the Global Elite pulled off 9/11 is to read Dan Brown's Angels and Demons. Now that I've read The Lost Symbol, I'd say he hints that the Global Elite knows all about the Mayan Calendar. Well, any possibility that the 2012 gang would sweep Calleman's discovery under the rug just ended with the publication of Calleman's latest book, The Purposeful Universe: How Quantum Theory and Mayan Cosmology Explain the Origin and Evolution of Life. It is brilliant, a quantum leap beyond his previous works, and you must read it right away.] As for me, I didn't learn anything new about how the Global Elite uses old bones, lost symbols, and musty feathers to control the world. But I bet the general public will be surprised to see what their tax dollars pay for in Washington, DC. Good for you, Dan Brown! I continue to honor you as the great revealer of secrets for the masses during the Galactic Underworld. Many people will easily see that Hollywood's timing for the release of 2012 shows that these glittery lizards also play games with old bones and symbols. Dan Brown missed only one thing in The Lost Symbol: The symbol on the dollar is the 13-storied pyramid of the Planetary Underworld (AD 1755-2011) with the Eye of God at the top and the lowest step dated 1776. The Big Boys have always attempted to divert the public from the real Mayan Calendar end-date-October 28, 2011. Now they're going all out for it in 2012, the Enlightenment Bypass. Uranus in Pisces trining the New Moon at the opening of this film suggests that the entertainment moguls have gone too far this time. Then, notice that Uranus in Pisces is in a Grand Trine-New Moon trine the lunar South Node in 23 Cancer trine Uranus. The South Node always reveals the past influences that are impacting the current moment, so we can be sure that Hollywood is serving up old, moldy archetypes. Well, the main developments in esoterica were during the Planetary Underworld, when the Elite utilized the old symbols of the 5,125-year National Underworld to control the world. The global elite uses arcane rituals, astrology, sexual deviance, and violence to control you, while they debunk all these techniques in the media. They keep these tools that successfully probe the synchronicity plane all to themselves. Ironically, you don't need skulls and bones or magic, just consult time acceleration in Calleman's model! This month will be a great time to access nature's great clarity and open your hearts. Have a good laugh at the big boys on the game board being swept away in their own self-created apocalypse. For example, how are they going to explain the Ft. Hood military massacre to the people in the armed services? Saturn in Libra exactly squares Pluto in Capricorn, so now the time has come to use your consciousness to move beyond the box in 3D. Recapping the current Saturn/Pluto cycle, which began in 1982/83 when Saturn conjoined Pluto in late Libra, the world economy was just emerging from a strong recession. A time of limitation and struggle was finishing, and a prosperous period began that lasted nineteen to twenty years. Saturn in late Aquarius came to the first squares to Pluto in late Scorpio in 1993-4, when the great Uranus/Neptune conjunctions occurred that began a new spiritual awakening cycle. Growth became more spiritual, and many people really felt the world was changing for the better. However, with the opposition of Saturn in Gemini to Pluto in Sagittarius in 2001/02, the force for growth broke with 9/11 and optimism came to a halt. During these oppositions, gloomy and fearful pessimism gripped the American public, so the Bushites duped America into a battle between East and West. Regardless of who actually pulled off 9/11, the neo-cons used it to create a systemic fear program to control the public will. They even invented a new cabinet based solely on fear, the neo-Nazi "Homeland Security". This fear-based time lock will not lift until the perpetrators are exposed, so America has been drowning in a weird backwater during the Galactic Underworld, while the world moves right along. Well, not much longer. The exact Saturn-square-Pluto in early Libra/Capricorn on the day before this New Moon will trigger the exposure of the economic basis of this whole cycle: the US is being bankrupted by the war economy that was invented in 1982/83 in order to dominate the East so as to control the world. This ancient struggle between East and West has been totally revivified, and this weird turn of events does not make sense without considering Calleman's analysis of history. During the 5,125-year National Underworld, nations have been pulled into struggles between East and West that are generated by the midline-12 degrees east longitude, the power line of the World Tree. [See The Mayan Calendar: Transformation of Consciousness by Calleman.] Well, the real truth about the battle between East and West will be revealed during the first Saturn-upper-square-Pluto in Libra/Capricorn, and during the second and third ones in January and August 2010. The East/West struggle, mostly perpetrated by the West (as can be seen by who is invading whose territory) has been the wasting force of the National Underworld for 5,125 years. Since the upper and final Saturn/Pluto squares all occur during Night Six of the Galactic Underworld, we can be sure that this great struggle will involve great death, mayhem, and plagues. Night Six of the National Underworld (AD 1225-1617) began with the end of the Crusades and the Mongol invasions and was characterized by the Inquisition and many wars and plagues. The Western powers adopted constant warfare as a defense, yet it is no defense. This can be seen by what happened at Ft. Hood as the Saturn-square-Pluto was building. In the New Moon chart, Mercury in wise early Sagittarius exactly sextiles Saturn in Libra, which means much new clarity and intelligence is coming in to loosen these locked-up old struggles. Mars and Venus in a tight square are very interesting during this lunation. Mars in Leo takes risks and wants attention for winning, while Venus in Scorpio favors deep feminine immersion. Venus in Scorpio has a strong will when faced with the pride of Mars in Leo, so this suggests personal battles between male and female partners and a tendency for aggression on the world stage. But, Venus in Scorpio means the truth will come out, that history will record who really wins and loses this time. Remember, the forces of the East tend to dominate the West during the Nights of the Underworlds, so Venus in Scorpio squaring Mars in Leo may mean the West backs down dramatically during this lunation. Yet, Mars in Leo is in a wide opposition to Jupiter in Aquarius, which hints at excess and grandiosity on the world's stage. The most obvious reading of these aspects would be that soon the West will have to accept reality as it is, which it has avoided for a long time. Saturn upper square Pluto announces an economic reckoning, so the financial collapse of the West is probably what will end the wars. Perhaps the New Moon's Mars in Leo conjuncting Obama's birth Sun is a sign of how things will play out? The point is, you are sovereign now, because we are in a chaos field. Maintain your truth and integrity while the Knights play out their games on the chessboard. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ceasig at gmail.com Thu Nov 19 22:58:11 2009 From: ceasig at gmail.com (Centre For Ecological Audit, Social Inclusion & Governance) Date: Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:28:11 +0530 Subject: [GJM] Zero-Carbon Carbon Scenarios for Children of 40th century/The Food and Farming Transition Message-ID: <31f677a30911192158r6c114ccayd71a4a9008db4680@mail.gmail.com> Wonderful Mary, you are indeed pointing out the things that Richard Heinberg needs to know. We need to envisage zero-carbon scenarios. You may find my presentation on the dreams for children of 40th century interesting at http://slideshare.net/mukhtaralam Lot us move into wellness reverently. Warmest regards Dr.Muhammad Mukhtar Alam On Thu, Nov 19, 2009 at 3:09 PM, mary rose wrote: > Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS > > While I have a great deal of admiration for Richard Heinberg, in this > article I find that he is still "tied to the land" and advocating farming > practices which require oil and natural gas commodities in excess of what > is > "reasonable" in terms of today's fast changing world. We simply cannot > afford the price associated with 'heavy equipment' in terms of food > production and transportation. And this makes even the "small farmer" a > thing of the past. We must now consider what practices allow us to reach > maximum efficiency and productivity with regard to maximum nutritional > output -- that is, we must learn to raise food in the smallest amount of > space while at the same time producing the most nutritional products > possible while including the maximum number of people possible in the > process of growing and harvesting so they are gainfully employed in > sustainable lifestyles. Being gainfully employed does not necessarily mean > "having a job" but can also mean "providing for one's own sustenance". > > We must change the way we think and "be the change we want to see in our > lives." > > One of the changes the "new age of information" requires of us is moving > from "doing" into simply "being" who we really are. > > With love and appreciation > > m r > > -----Original Message----- > From: globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net > [mailto:globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net] On Behalf Of > TradingPostPaul > Sent: Wednesday, November 18, 2009 6:21 PM > To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net > Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] The Food and Farming Transition > > > Richard Heinberg's MuseLetter: The Food and Farming Transition > 01 Nov 2008 > November 2008 by Richard Heinberg > > http://www.globalpublicmedia.com/museletter_199_the_food_and_farming_transit > ion > > The only way to avert a food crisis resulting from oil and natural gas > price hikes and supply disruptions while also reversing agriculture's > contribution to climate change is to proactively and methodically remove > fossil fuels from the food system. > > The removal of fossil fuels from the food system is inevitable: > maintenance of the current system is simply not an option over the long > term. Only the amount of time available for the transition process, and the > strategies for pursuing it, can be matters for controversy. > > Given the degree to which the modern food system has become dependent > on fossil fuels, many proposals for de-linking food and fuels are likely to > appear radical. However, efforts toward this end must be judged not by the > degree to which they preserve the status quo, but by their likely ability > to solve the fundamental challenge that will face us: the need to feed a > global population of 7 billion with a diminishing supply of fuels available > to fertilize, plow, and irrigate fields and to harvest and transport crops. > > If this transition is undertaken proactively and intelligently, there > could be many side benefits-more careers in farming, more protection for > the environment, less soil erosion, a revitalization of rural culture, and > more healthful food for everyone. > > Some of this transformation will inevitably be driven by market forces, > led simply by the rising price of fossil fuels. However, without planning > the transition may be wrenching and destructive, since market forces acting > alone could bankrupt farmers while leaving consumers with few or no > options. > > The Transition > > To remove fossil fuels from the food system too quickly, before > alternative systems are in place, would be catastrophic. Thus the > transition process must be a matter for careful consideration and planning. > > In recent years there has been some debate on the problem of how many > people a non-fossil fueled food system can support. The answer is still > unclear. But we will certainly find out, because there is likely to be no > alternative, given that substitute liquid fuels-including > coal-to-liquids, biofuels, tar sands, and shale oil-are all problematic > and cannot be relied upon to replace cheap crude oil and natural gas as > these deplete. > > There are reasons for hope: a recent report on African agriculture from > the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) suggests that "organic, > small-scale farming can deliver the increased yields which were thought to > be the preserve of industrial farming, without the environmental and social > damage which that form of agriculture brings with it." > > Nevertheless, given that we do not know whether non-fossil fuel > agriculture can in fact feed a population now approaching seven > billion-and given that current fuels-based agriculture cannot be relied > upon to do so for much longer, given the reality of fuel depletion-the > prudent path forward would surely be to tie agricultural policy to > population policy. > > Indeed, coordination will be essential also between agriculture > policies and education, economic, transport, energy policies. The food > system transition will be comprehensive, and will require integration with > all segments and aspects of society. > > This document is intended to serve as the basis for the beginning of > that planning process. Our aim is to develop a template that can be used to > strategically plan the transition of food and farming across the world, > region by region, and at all scales (from the farm to the community to the > nation), beginning here in the UK. > > Elements of Transition > > The following are some key strategic elements of the food systems > transition process that will need to be addressed at all levels of scale, > from the household to the nation and beyond. > > Re-Localization > > In recent decades the food systems of Britain and most other nations > have become globalized. Food is traded in enormous quantities-and not > just luxury foods (such as coffee and chocolate), but staples including > wheat, maize, meat, potatoes, and rice. > > The globalization of the food system has had advantages: people in > wealthy countries now have access to a wide variety of foods at all times, > including fruits and vegetables that are out of season (apples in May or > asparagus in January), and foods that cannot be grown locally at any time > of year (e.g., avocadoes in Scotland). Long-distance transport enables food > to be delivered from places of abundance to areas of scarcity. Whereas in > previous centuries a regional crop failure might have led to famine, its > effects now can be neutralized by food imports. > > However, food globalization also creates systemic vulnerability. As > fuel prices rise, costs of imported food go up. If fuel supplies were > substantially cut off as the result of some transient event, the entire > system could fail. A globalized system is also more susceptible to > accidental contamination, as we have seen recently with the appearance of > toxic melamine in foods from China. The best way to make our food system > more resilient against such threats is clear: decentralize and re-localize > it. > > Re-localization will inevitably occur sooner or later as a result of > declining oil production, since there are no alternative energy sources on > the horizon that can be scaled up quickly to take the place of petroleum. > But if the transition process is to unfold in a beneficial rather than a > catastrophic way, it must be planned and coordinated. This will require > deliberate effort aimed at building the infrastructure for regional food > economies-ones that can support diversified farming and reduce the amount > of fossil fuel in the British diet. > > Re-localization means producing more basic food necessities locally. No > one advocates doing away with food trade altogether: this would hurt both > farmers and consumers. Rather, what is needed is a prioritization of > production so that lower-value food items (which are typically staple > calorie crops) are mostly sourced from close by, with most long-distance > trade left to higher-value foods, and especially those that store well. > > This decentralization of the food system will result in greater > societal resilience in the face of fuel price volatility. Problems of food > contamination, when they appear, will be minimized. Meanwhile, > revitalization of local food production will help renew local economies. > Consumers will enjoy better quality food that is fresher and more seasonal. > And transport-related climate impacts will be reduced. > > Each nation or region will need to devise its own strategy for > re-localizing its food system, based on a thorough initial assessment of > vulnerabilities and opportunities. The following are some general > suggestions that are likely to be applicable in most instances: > > * The process will benefit enormously from policy support at both > national and regional levels. This could include, for example, the > provision of grants to towns and cities to build year-round indoor > farmers' markets. > * Food-safety regulations should be made appropriate to the scale > of production and distribution, so that a small grower selling direct off > the farm or at a farmers' market is not regulated as onerously as a > multinational food manufacturer. While local food may have safety problems, > these will inevitably occur on a smaller scale and will be easier to manage > because local food is inherently more traceable and accountable.Governments > can require that some minimum percentage of food purchases for schools, > hospitals, military bases, and prisons are sourced within 100 miles of the > institutions buying the food. Channelling even a small portion of > institutional food purchasing to local growers would greatly expand > opportunities for regional producers while improving the diet of people > whom these institutions feed. > * Cities and towns can rework their waste management systems so as > to collect food scraps that can then be converted to compost, biogas, and > livestock feed-which can in turn be made available to local growers. > > But government can do only so much. Consumers must develop the habit of > preferentially buying locally sourced foods whenever possible, and they can > be encouraged in this by "Buy Local" educational literature distributed by > retailers-who can also assist by clearly labeling and prominently > displaying local products. > > Growers themselves must rethink their business strategies. Instead of > growing specialty crops for export, they must plan a transition to > production of staple foods for local consumption. They must also actively > seek local markets for their food. The Community Supported Agriculture > (CSA) movement provides a business model that has proven successful in many > communities. Small producers can also create informal co-ops to acquire > machinery (such as small threshing machines for cereal and oilseed > processing or micro hydro turbines for electricity). > > The strategy of re-localizing food systems will be more challenging for > some nations and regions than others. Given that the food footprint of > London encompasses essentially all of England, the challenge for Britain is > greater than is the case for many other nations. More urban gardens and > even small animal operations (with chickens, ducks, geese, and rabbits) > within London and other cities should be encouraged, but even then it will > be necessary to source most food from the countryside, delivering it to the > city by rail. Thus re-localization should be seen as a process and a > general direction of effort, not as an absolute goal. > > Energy > > As society turns away from fossil fuels, the energy balance of farming > must once again become net positive. However, the transition process will > be complex and problematic. Farms will still need sources of energy for > their operations, and will need to provide much or all of that energy for > themselves. Meanwhile, farmers could also take advantage of opportunities > to export surplus energy to nearby communities as a way of increasing farm > income. > > Farms must be powered with renewable energy. However, many energy needs > on farms-such as fuel for tractors and other machinery-are currently > difficult to fill with anything other than liquid fuels, which currently > come in the form of diesel or petrol made from crude oil. Farmers should > first look for ways to reduce fuel needs through efficiency or replacement > of machines with animal power or human labor. This is most likely to be > economically feasible in dairy, meat, vegetable, fruit, and nut operations. > Where fuel-fed machinery is still required, which is likely to continue > being the case for grain production, ethanol or biodiesel made on-site > could supplement or replace petroleum. Farmers could aim to apportion > one-fifth of their cropland to production of biofuels for their own use. > > Many other farm operations require electricity, and this can be > generated on-site with wind turbines, solar panels, and micro-hydro > turbines. Effort first must be devoted to making operations more > energy-efficient. Because these technologies require initial investment and > pay for themselves slowly over time, assistance from government and from > financial institutions in the form of grants and low-interest loans could > be instrumental in helping farmers overcome initial economic hurdles toward > energy self-sufficiency. > > Eventually farmers are capable of being not just self-sufficient in > energy, but of producing surplus energy for surrounding communities. Much > of this exported energy is likely to come in the form of > biomass-agricultural and forestry waste that can be burned to produce > electricity. While farmers can also grow crops for the production of > biofuels, the ecological and thermodynamic limits of this energy technology > require that the scale of production be deliberately restricted. Otherwise, > society's demand for fuel could overwhelm farmers' ability to produce > food-and food must remain their first priority. In exporting biomass from > the farm, growers must always keep in mind the productive capacity of > sustainable agricultural systems, and they must strictly monitor soil > health and fertility. > > The transition of farms to renewable energy will require planning. > Farmers, ideally with the assistance of regional and national agencies, > should plan to increase energy efficiency, to reduce fossil fuel inputs, > and to grow renewable energy production according to a staged, integrated > program designed for the unique needs and capabilities of each farm. As a > general guideline, the plan should aim to reduce oil and natural gas inputs > by at least half during the first decade. > > Soil Fertility > > In industrial agriculture, soil fertility is maintained with inputs > provided from off-site. Of these inputs, the most important are nitrogen > and phosphorus. Nitrogen comes from ammonia-based fertilizers made from > fossil fuels-principally, natural gas. Phosphorus comes from phosphate > mines in several countries. While sufficient low-quality phosphate deposits > exist to supply world needs for many decades, high-quality deposits that > are currently being mined are quickly depleting, which means that phosphate > prices will likely rise within the next few years. [Phosphate Primer] > > Both nitrogen and phosphorus are essential to agriculture. And our > current ways of supplying both are clearly unsustainable. Unless > alternative ways of maintaining soil fertility are quickly found, a crisis > looms. > > The long-term solution will surely depend on a two-fold strategy: > designing farm systems that build fertility through crop rotations, and > recycling nutrients. > > Crop rotation can help with maintaining nitrogen levels. Simply > planting a cover crop after the fall harvest significantly reduces nitrogen > leaching while cutting down on soil erosion. Meanwhile, introducing > leguminous crops into the rotation cycle replaces nitrogen. > > Cleverly designed polycultures can sustainably produce large amounts of > food, as has been shown not only by small-scale "alternative" farmers in > Britain and America, but also by large rice-and-fish farmers in China and > giant-scale operations (up to 15,000 acres) in Argentina. There, farmers > employ an eight-year rotation of perennial pasture and annual crops: after > five years grazing cattle on pasture, farmers then grow three years of > grain without applying fertilizer. The need for herbicides is also > dramatically reduced: weeds that afflict pasture cannot survive the years > of tillage, and weeds of row crops don't survive years of grazing. > > Most industrial farmers have left behind the practice of cover cropping > because commercial fertilizers have become the cheaper option. That cost > equation is about to shift. It is therefore important that farmers begin > planning for higher fertilizer prices now by gearing up their rotation > cycles and building natural soil fertility ahead of the immediate need. > > In industrial agriculture, the soil is treated as an inert substance > that holds plants in place while chemical nutrients are applied externally. > Without efforts to maintain natural fertility, over time organic matter > disappears from the soil, along with beneficial soil micro-organisms. In > the future, as chemical fertilizers become more expensive, farmers will > need to devote much more attention to the practice of building healthy > soil. But rebuilding nutrient-depleted soil takes, at minimum, several > years of effort. > > Traditional farmers increase organic matter in topsoil through the > application of compost-which not only builds soil fertility, but also > improves the soil's ability to hold water and thus withstand drought. > There is also mounting evidence that food grown in properly composted soil > is of higher nutritional quality. Currently, in typical modern cities, > consumers, retailers, wholesalers and institutions discard enormous > quantities of food. Some communities have already instituted municipal > programs for composting of food and yard waste; such programs could be > expanded and made mandatory, with compost being given free to local > farmers. This would reduce the amount of garbage going to land fills, as > well as farmers' needs for fertilizers and irrigation, while improving > the nutritional quality of the British diet. > > In addition, recent research with "terra preta" (also known as "bio > char"), a charcoal-like material that can be produced from agricultural > waste, suggests that its introduction to soils could reduce plants' need > for nitrogen by 20 to 30 percent while sequestering carbon that would > otherwise end up in the atmosphere. > > The potential of composting and the use of terra preta to mitigate the > climate crisis is hardly trivial: a one-percent increase of soil organic > matter in the top 33.5cm of the soil is equivalent to the capture and > storage of 100 tonnes of atmospheric CO2. per square kilometre of farmland. > > Ultimately, there is no solution to the phosphorus supply problem other > than full-system nutrient recycling. This will entail a complete redesign > of sewage systems to recapture nutrients so they can be returned to the > soil-as Chinese farmers learned to do centuries ago. But if sewage > systems (or simpler variants) are to become primary sources of phosphorus > and other soil nutrients, they cannot continue to be channels for the > disposal of toxic wastes. It is essential that separate waste streams be > developed for the disposal of all pharmaceuticals, household chemicals, and > industrial wastes. Thus the problem of soil fertility is one that farmers > cannot solve on their own: it is a crisis of the food system as a whole, > and must be addressed contextually and holistically. > > Diet > > The consumer is as important to the food system as the producer. During > recent decades, consumer preferences have been shaped to fit the industrial > food system through advertising and the development of mass-marketed, > uniform, packaged food products that, while often nutritionally inferior, > are cheap, attractive, in some cases even physically addictive. The advent > and rapid proliferation of "fast food" restaurants has likewise fostered a > diet that is profitable to giant industrial agribusiness, but disastrous to > the health of consumers. However lamentable these trends may be from a > public health standpoint, they are clearly unsustainable in view of the > energy and climate crises facing modern agriculture. > > Because processed and packaged foods and fresh foods imported out of > season add to the energy intensity of the food system, rich and poor alike > must be encouraged to eat food that is locally grown, that is in season, > and that is less processed. Public education campaigns could help shift > consumer preferences in this regard. > > A shift toward a less meat-centered diet should also be encouraged, > because a meat-based diet is substantially more energy intensive than one > that is plant-based. > > Government can help with a shift in diet preferences through its own > food purchasing polices (see "Re-Localization," above). The process can be > helped even further by a more careful official government definition of > "food." It makes no sense for government efforts intended to improve the > nutritional health of the people to support the consumption of products > known to be unhealthful-such as soda and other junk food. > > Farming Systems > > During the past few decades farming has become more specialized. Today, > a typical farm may produce only meat of a single kind (turkey, chicken, > pork, or beef), or only dairy, or a single type of grain, vegetable, fruit, > or nut. > > This narrow specialization seemed to make economic sense in the era of > cheap transport and cheap farm inputs. But because nature is diverse and > integrated, the deliberate elimination of diversity on the farm has led to > problems at every step. For example, animal feedlot operations (also known > as concentrated animal feed operations, or CAFOs) produce enormous amounts > of waste that end up in massive manure lagoons that pollute ground water > and foul the air. Meanwhile, grain diets fed to the animals result in > digestive problems requiring the large-scale administration of antibiotics > that find their way into both the human food system and ground water, and > that lead to antibiotic resistance among disease organisms that afflict > humans. > > Farm specialization also impacts the grain or vegetable grower: soils > that annually produce these crops need a regular replenishment of nitrogen; > but if the farmer keeps few animals, there may be no option other than to > import fertilizers from off-site. > > By switching to multi-enterprise diverse systems, farmers can often > solve a range of problems at once. Feeding much less grain to livestock > while giving them access to pasture that is in rotation with other crops > maintains soil fertility while leading to better animal health and higher > food quality. The farmer, the environment, and the consumer all benefit. > > The post-hydrocarbon food transition may also compel a rethinking of > the size of farm operations. The mechanization of farm operations and the > centralization of food systems favored larger farms. However, as fuel for > farm machinery becomes more costly, and as farming once again involves more > labor, smaller-scale operations will once again be profitable. In addition, > a smaller scale of operations will be needed as farms become more diverse, > since farmers will have more system elements to monitor. Agriculture will > thus become more knowledge-intensive, requiring a curious, holistic > attitude on the part of farmers. > > In urban areas, micro-farms and gardens-including vertical gardens > and rooftop gardens that in some cases include small animals such as > chickens and rabbits-could provide a substantial amount of food for > growers and their families, along with occasional income from selling > seasonal surpluses at garden markets. > > Farm Work > > With less fuel available to power agricultural machinery, the world > will need many more farmers. But for farmers to succeed, some current > agricultural policies that favor larger-scale production and production for > export will need to change, while policies that support small-scale > subsistence farms, gardens, and agricultural co-ops must be formulated and > put in place-both by international institutions such as the World Bank, > and also by national and regional governments. > > Currently the UK has 541,0001 farmers, depending on how the term is > defined. In the UK in 1900, nearly 40 percent of the population farmed; the > current proportion is less than one percent. Today, the average farmer is > nearing retirement age. > > In nations and regions where food is grown without machinery, a larger > percentage of the population must be involved in food production. For > example, farmers make up more than half the populations of China, and > India, Nepal, Ethiopia, and Indonesia. > > While the proportion of farmers that would be needed in Britain if the > country were to become self-sufficient in food grown without fossil fuels > is unknown (that would depend upon technologies used and diets adopted), it > would undoubtedly be much larger than the current percentage. It is > reasonable to expect that several million new farmers would be required-a > number that is both unimaginable and unmanageable over the short term. > These new farmers would have to include a broad mix of people, reflecting > the UK's increasing diversity. Already growing numbers of young adults > are becoming organic or biodynamic farmers, and farmers' markets and CSAs > are also springing up across the country. These tentative trends must be > supported and encouraged. In addition to Government policies that support > sustainable farming systems based on smaller farming units, this will > require: > > * Education: Universities and community colleges must quickly > develop programs in small-scale ecological farming methods-programs that > also include training in other skills that farmers will need, such as in > marketing and formulating business plans. Apprenticeships and other forms > of direct knowledge transfer will also assist the transition. > * Financial Support: Since few if any farms are financially > successful the first year or even the second or third, loans and grants > will be needed to help farmers get started. > * A revitalization of farming communities and farming culture: Over > the past decades UK rural towns have seen their best and brightest young > people flee first to distant colleges and then to cities. Farming > communities must be interesting, attractive places if we expect people to > inhabit them and for children to want to stay there. > > Seeds > > Today's seed industry is centralized and reliant upon the very > fuel-based transport system whose future viability is in question. Most > commercial seeds are of hybrid varieties, so that farmers cannot save seed > but must purchase new supplies each year. > > Worldwide, a growing proportion of the commercial seeds that are > available are genetically modified. GM seeds have primarily been developed > by chemical companies to support the sale of their proprietary herbicides. > The promise of more nutritious foods, or crops that can produce biofuels > more efficiently, is years from realization. Given that the need for > transition is immediate, efforts to build a post-fossil fuel food system > cannot wait for new technologies that may or may not appear or succeed. In > any case, the GM seed industry is based upon current systems of transport, > and fuel-based inputs such as chemical fertilizers and herbicides, that are > all inextricably tied to the wider fossil-fuel based provisioning systems > of society. Thus GM crops would be unlikely to be of much help in the > transition in any case. > > What is needed instead is a coordinated effort to identify > open-pollinated varieties of food crops that are adapted to local soils and > microclimates, and a program to make such seeds available to farmers and > gardeners in sufficient quantities. In addition, local colleges must begin > offering courses on the techniques of seed saving. > > Processing and Distribution Systems > > The transition process will undoubtedly be fraught with challenges to > food processing and distribution systems, which currently rely on large > energy inputs and long-distance transport. > > For example, the meat industry now depends upon centralized facilities > for slaughtering livestock-which must be transported long distances to > these facilities. Re-localizing food systems will entail creating > incentives for the emergence of smaller, more localized slaughterhouses and > butcher shops. One interim solution would be for a fleet of mobile > abattoirs to go from farm to farm, processing animals humanely and > inexpensively. > > Many health regulations were originally designed to check abuses by the > largest food producers, but such regulations may now inhibit the > development of smaller-scale and more localized processing and distribution > systems. For example, farmers should be able to smoke a ham and sell it to > their neighbours without making a huge investment in nationally approved > facilities. A small producer selling direct from the farm or at a > farmers' market should not be subject to the same food safety regulations > as a multinational food manufacturer: while local food may occasionally > have safety problems, those problems will be less catastrophic and easier > to manage than similar problems at industrial-scale facilities. > > Food processors must look for ways to make their present operations > more energy efficient, while government, consumers, and retailers find ways > to reduce the need for food processing and also for food packaging. This > gradual shift will require institutional support for families in storing, > processing, cooking, and preserving food within the home. > > Meanwhile, in view of inevitable problems with existing transport > systems, national and regional food storage systems must be reconsidered. > Reserves of grain, sufficient to provide for essential needs during an > extended food crisis, should be kept and managed to avoid spoilage. > > Packaging of food should be regulated to minimize the use of plastics, > which will become more scarce and expensive as oil and gas deplete-and > which are implicated as sources of toxins in any case. > > Government should institute policies that prioritize the distribution > of food within the nation by rail and water, rather than by road, as trucks > are comparatively energy inefficient. > > Supermarkets are currently the ultimate distribution sites for food in > most instances. However, this model presupposes near-universal access to > automobiles and petrol. A resilient food system will require smaller and > more widely distributed access points in the forms of small shops and > garden or farm markets. Government regulations and tax incentives can help > accomplish that shift. > > Wholesalers and distributors will have a changed role in a > transitioning food system. They will still be needed to manage the supplies > of various seasonally produced foods moving from producers to consumers. > However, rather than favoring large producers and giant supermarket chains, > they must alter their operations to serve smaller, more distributed farms > and gardens, as well as smaller and more distributed retail shops. > > Resilience Action Planning > > The transition process will succeed by creating more resilience in food > systems. Resilient systems are able to withstand higher magnitudes of > disturbance before undergoing a dramatic shift to a new condition in which > they are controlled by a different set of processes. One quality of > resilience is redundancy-which is often at odds with economic efficiency. > Efficiency implies both long supply chains and the reduction of inventories > to a minimum. This "just-in-time" delivery of products reduces costs-but > it increases the vulnerability of systems to disturbances such as fuel > shortages. As more attention is paid to resilience and less to economic > efficiency, redundancy and larger inventories are seen as benefits rather > than liabilities. Other resilience values include diversity (as opposed to > uniformity), and dispersion (rather than centralization) of control over > systems. > > Building resilience into our food systems as we move toward a > post-fossil fuel economy will entail all of the Elements of Transition > detailed above. It will also require planning at four levels: Government, > Community, Business, and Individual or Family. At each level the planning > process will necessarily be somewhat different. The purpose of this section > is to delineate the main planning steps that will make sense at each of > these levels. In some instances, steps within an action plan can or should > be undertaken concurrently. In any case, what is offered here is merely a > skeletal outline for a process that must be developed to fit unique needs > of those it will serve. > > Government > > The following steps are applicable at any level of > government-national, regional, or local. At the highest level of scale > (the nation), each step will itself be the subject of planning and > delegation. At the lowest level of scale (small villages), government may > lack the capacity to undertake any of these steps and can do more than > offer symbolic official support to volunteer citizen initiatives. > > 1. Assess the existing food system. Begin with a study of current > systemic vulnerabilities and opportunities. How are farm inputs currently > sourced? How much food is currently imported? What proportion of those food > imports are staples, and what proportion are luxury foods? What are the > environmental costs of current agricultural practices? How would the > current food system be impacted by fuel shortages and high prices? > 2. Review policies. How are current policies supporting these > vulnerabilities and environmental impacts? How can they be changed or > eliminated? Are there policies already in place that are likely to help > with the transition? How can these latter policies be strengthened? > 3. Bring together key stakeholders. Organizations of farmers, food > processing and distributing companies, and retailers must all be included > in the transition process. Many will wish simply to maintain the existing > system; however, it must be made clear that this is not an option. Many > companies involved in the food system will need to change their business > model substantially. > 4. Make a plan. The transition plan that is formulated must be > comprehensive and detailed, and must contain robust but attainable targets > with timelines and mechanisms for periodic review and revision. A scoping > exercise must be undertaken to assess the impact of the plan on > agricultural output and to quantify the changes in kinds of commodities > produced and in their volumes and prices. Simon Fairlie's paper, "Can > Britain Feed Itself?", is an initial attempt at such an exercise, and can > be used as a model to be built upon and supplemented. > 5. Educate and involve the public. The public must not only be > informed about the government-led aspects of the transition process, but > must be included in it to the extent that is practical. Citizens must be > educated about food choices, gardening opportunities, and ways to access > food from local producers. Their successes and challenges in adaptation > will inform new iterations of the plan. > 6. Shift policies and incentives. This is the key responsibility of > government, as it either limits or enhances the ability of community > groups, businesses, and families to engage in the transition process. > Policy changes must reflect stakeholder input, but must nevertheless be > designed primarily to further the Elements of Transition, rather than the > short-term interests of any particular stakeholder group. > 7. Monitor and adjust. An undertaking of this magnitude will > inevitably have unforeseen and unintended impacts. Thus it is essential > that progress be continually be reviewed with an eye to making adjustments > to pace and strategy, while maintaining absolute adherence to the central > task of methodically removing fossil fuels from the food system. > > Community > > The following are action steps for adoption by voluntary community > groups, as opposed to governments (see above). The Transition Network > provides an excellent model for this kind of community action. Such efforts > seem to work best when the scale of community is such that meetings are > manageable in size and meeting participants need not travel long distances. > Thus in large cities, neighborhoods could apply Resilience Action Planning > while sending delegates to occasional city-wide coordinating meetings. The > overlap and mutual support between community organizations and local > government efforts must be a matter for discussion and negotiation. > > 1. Assess the local food system. This assessment process should be > undertaken in cooperation with government, so as not to duplicate tasks. > Volunteer citizen groups are in position to provide perspectives that > otherwise might elude government assessment efforts-such as opportunities > for community gardens, or problems with access to food from local > producers. > 2. Identify and involve stakeholders. Local growers, shop owners, > public kitchens, restaurants, schools, and other institutions that produce > or serve food should all be contacted and invited to join a voluntary > re-localization initiative and to offer input into the process. > 3. Educate and involve the public. Community groups can stage public > events to raise awareness about food transition issues. "Buy local" > brochures and pamphlets, paid for and distributed by a consortium of local > businesses (but organized by volunteer groups), can list local producers, > farm markets, restaurants, and shops. > 4. Develop a unique local strategic program. This can include > farmers' markets, CSAs, school lunch programs, and public kitchens, > networked with local producers, including community gardens. The program, > based on input from stakeholders, should feature targets and timelines > developed through a "backcasting" process, beginning with a collaborative > exercise aimed at envisioning the local food system as it might look in > 2025 after fossil fuels have ceased to play a role. > 5. Coordinate with national programs. Local volunteer efforts can > play a significant role in informing national government policies, and in > implementing the national transition strategy. However, this will require > the maintenance of open channels of communication, which in turn will be > the responsibility of both government and the local groups. > 6. Support individuals and families. Individuals are likely to > change food habits and priorities only if they see others doing so as well, > and if they feel that their efforts are supported and valued. Community > groups can help by establishing new behavioral norms through public events > and articles in local newspapers. Practical help can be offered via canning > parties, garden planting and harvest parties, and gleaning programs. Local > food and gardening experts can be made available to answer questions and > concerns. Neighborhood food storage facilities can also be created to > supplement household cupboards. > 7. Monitor and adjust. All of these efforts must be continually > adjusted to assure that all segments of the community are included in the > transition process, and that the process is working as smoothly as possible > for all. > > Business > > Relevant businesses include farms, shops, processors, wholesalers, and > restaurants. However, the following steps could also be useful to > organizations such as schools, colleges, and hospitals that dispense food > as an ancillary part of their operations. > > 1. Assess vulnerabilities. Every business or organization that is > part of the food system must take an honest look at the inevitable impacts > of higher fuel prices, and fuel scarcity, on its operations. Examine > scenarios based on a doubling or tripling of fuel costs to highlight > specific vulnerabilities. > 2. Make a plan. Develop a business model that works without-or > with continually shrinking-fossil fuel inputs. Then "backcast" from that > imagined future condition, specifying time-related targets. > 3. Work with government and community groups. Given the fact that > government will be developing regulations to reduce fuel use in the food > system, and that community organizations will be offering support to local > farmers and food shops that spearhead the transition, it makes good > business sense to lead the parade rather than lagging at the rear. > 4. Educate and involve suppliers and customers. No business is an > island. The transition will flourish through strengthened relationships on > all sides. > 5. Monitor and adjust. For businesses, one obvious and essential > criterion of success is profitability. The bottom line will help indicate > which adaptive strategies are working, and which ones need work. However, > negative financial feedback is no reason to abandon the essential goal of > transition. > > Individual and Family > > 1. Assess food vulnerabilities and opportunities. Whether at a > family meeting or by oneself over a cup of tea, take a long honest look at > your typical monthly food purchases and give careful thought to the > implications. How much of your food comes from within 100 miles? How much > is packaged and processed? How many meals are meat-centered? Where do you > shop? How would you be impacted if food and fuel prices doubled or tripled? > 2. Make a plan. Create an ideal food scenario for yourself, > including diet, shopping habits, and gardening goals. Then "backcast" a > series of time-related goals. Write these prominently on a calendar and > attach it to the front of your refrigerator. > 3. Garden. Even if you don't have access to a plot of land, you > can still grow sprouts in a jar or a few food plants in a window box. Look > for opportunities to contribute work to a community garden. Develop your > skills by seeking out gardening mentors. > 4. Develop relations with local producers. Even if you have a large > garden you probably can't grow all the food you eat. Rather than shopping > at a supermarket, begin to frequent your local farmers' market, or join a > CSA. > 5. Become involved in community efforts. Get to know your neighbors > and compare gardening experiences with them. Together, form a "tool > library" from which members can check out garden tools and gardening books. > Organize or participate in planting, harvesting, food-swapping, gleaning, > and canning parties. > 6. Monitor and adjust. At the end of each month, revisit your plan > and revise it if necessary. > > (This essay is excerpted from a larger document-in-process, a > co-publication of the Soil Association and Post Carbon Institute, that will > be released in somewhat different versions in the UK and in the US, both in > mid-November.) > > > > _______________________________________________ > Discussion mailing list > Discussion at globaljusticemovement.net > > http://globaljusticemovement.net/mailman/listinfo/discussion_globaljusticemovement.net > -- Endeavoring for ecological safety ,social inclusion and distributive justice for the renewable resource based livelihoods and habitats, Centre For Ecological Audit, Social Inclusion and Governance (CEASIG) , an initiative of Labour League Foundation, Sewa and Sufi Trust , Delhi aims for socially inclusive and ecologically safe future for all through organizing and communicating carbon neutral neighborhood discussions/ consultations, building capacities in ecological audit, ecologically safe networking ,advocacy, interfaith dialogue & other related domains for multiplying personal, community , governmental and corporate actions for ecologically safe education, ecological audit ,and, ecologically safe and socially inclusive governance. Contact Details: 58-C,DDA Flats, Ashok Vihar-III, Delhi-110052 Phones: 0968345380 http://transitionurbanindia.ning.com http://ecostrategiccommunicators.ning.com http://slideshare.net/mukhtaralam -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From maryrose333 at att.net Fri Nov 20 12:19:25 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:19:25 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: [globalnetnews-summary] 'Zombie Buildings': Are They The Next Economic Calamity? (VIDEO) Message-ID: <005001ca6a16$8fd66e20$af834a60$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS As I wrote at the beginning of the meltdown, we are seeing the largest transfer of wealth from we-the-people to the banking system ever accomplished. But the biggest question is: what are the bankers going to do with all this property that they will likely not find buyers for? -----Original Message----- From: globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net [mailto:globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net] On Behalf Of TradingPostPaul Sent: Friday, November 20, 2009 10:07 AM To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] 'Zombie Buildings': Are They The Next Economic Calamity? (VIDEO) 'Zombie Buildings': Are They The Next Economic Calamity? (VIDEO) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/20/zombie-buildings-are-they_n_365400. html Huffington Post Investigative Fund | Christine Spolar and Lagan Sebert First Posted: 11-20-09 12:16 PM | Updated: 11-20-09 12:42 PM While the overall U.S. financial system is showing signs of stability, a rapidly rising tide of troubled loans for commercial real estate threatens the survival of hundreds of the nation's small and medium-sized banks. Financial reports this month from federal regulators and industry analysts detail a new cycle of uncertainty that they fear could cripple the economic recovery. Billions of dollars in commercial debt will have to be paid back or refinanced at a time when property values have plummeted. About $500 billion will come due in 2010 alone and an equal amount every year through at least 2012, according to the Federal Reserve. Many banks that cater to regional and community developments were largely unscathed by the residential mortgage meltdown. But now they are facing huge numbers of possible defaults by builders who erected thousands of office towers, condominiums and shopping centers with the easy credit available five years ago. With few tenants, those developments are turning into what industry insiders call zombie buildings. WATCH: Huffington Post Investigative Fund's video report on the commercial real estate crisis: Commercial real estate loans generally have terms of five to seven years. Many of the loans issued at the height of the credit bubble are coming due. By mid-November, $150 billion worth of commercial properties, about 7,500 in total, were in distress, according to Real Capital Analytics Research Inc. Next year "looks like an unavoidable bloodbath for a multitude of 'zombie' borrowers, investors and lenders" and the shakeout could continue for "several years," says a recent report by PriceWaterhouseCoopers and the Urban Land Institute drawn from confidential interviews with industry experts. Stephen Blank, a principal researcher for the report, said that regional and smaller banks that made the loans are bracing for big losses that could overwhelm their resources. "The number on the street - what we hear - is that as many as 400 banks might fail before this is over," Blank said in an interview. As of mid-November, 123 banks had failed this year, largely split open by commercial debt. More than 400 banks now are on a problem list maintained by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Industry analysts, such as the Real Estate Roundtable trade group, point out that a sick commercial market hurts any hope for recovery. Local government revenues suffer. Construction jobs--and all sorts of ancillary jobs--disappear. Retirement funds are vulnerable. In recent Capitol Hill testimony, Roundtable President Jeffrey D. DeBoer pointed out that "a growing number of Americans have a stake in commercial property" because of their investments in pension plans, 401(k) plans and direct investments in real estate investment trusts. He estimated that $160 billion of retirement savings are invested in commercial real estate. In October, federal regulators issued a statement encouraging banks to work with borrowers to extend loans, rather than call them in. The federal government is also trying to entice investors to buy back bonds based on commercial mortgages through a government-run emergency fund aimed at salvaging the credit market. Despite those efforts, the banks' problems are continuing to grow, said Michael Stevens, senior vice president for regulatory policy at the Conference of State Bank Supervisors. "It's not the next big thing. It is the big thing," Stevens said. "We're dealing with it right now. We wouldn't be at 120 bank failures if we weren't seeing it now." From maryrose333 at att.net Fri Nov 20 12:40:38 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:40:38 -0800 Subject: [GJM] Must read? FW: [globalnetnews-summary] $4.8 trillion - Interest on U.S. debt Message-ID: <005e01ca6a19$7faab120$7f001360$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS Excerpt from this article: "In 2015 alone, the estimated interest due - $533 billion - is equal to a third of the federal income taxes expected to be paid that year, said Charles Konigsberg, chief budget counsel of the Concord Coalition, a deficit watchdog group." Question: There is currently a move on by what is called a Continental Congress to end the Federal Income Tax since it appears to have been illegally accessed. If this Congress is successful in accomplishing this, how is the interest on the debt noted in this article to be paid? -----Original Message----- From: globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net [mailto:globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net] On Behalf Of TradingPostPaul Sent: Friday, November 20, 2009 10:17 AM To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] $4.8 trillion - Interest on U.S. debt $4.8 trillion - Interest on U.S. debt Unless lawmakers make big changes, the interest Americans will have to pay to keep the country running over the next decade will reach unheard of levels. http://money.cnn.com/2009/11/19/news/economy/debt_interest/index.htm?section =money_topstories&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A +rss%2Fmoney_topstories+(Top+Stories)&utm_content=Netvibes By Jeanne Sahadi, CNNMoney.com senior writer Last Updated: November 19, 2009: 1:05 PM ET NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Here's a new way to think about the U.S. government's epic borrowing: More than half of the $9 trillion in debt that Uncle Sam is expected to build up over the next decade will be interest. More than half. In fact, $4.8 trillion. If that's hard to grasp, here's another way to look at why that's a problem. In 2015 alone, the estimated interest due - $533 billion - is equal to a third of the federal income taxes expected to be paid that year, said Charles Konigsberg, chief budget counsel of the Concord Coalition, a deficit watchdog group. On the bright side - such as it is - the record levels of debt issued lately have paid for stimulus and other rescue programs that prevented the economy from falling off a cliff. And the money was borrowed at very low rates. But accumulating any more interest on what the United States owes at this point is like extreme sport: dangerous. All the more so because interest rates will rise when private sector borrowers return to the debt market and compete with the government for capital. At that point, the country's interest payments could jack up very fast. "When interest rates rise even a small amount, the interest payments go up a lot because of the size of the debt," Konigsberg said. The Congressional Budget Office, which made the $4.8 trillion forecast, already baked some increase in rates into the cake. But there is always a chance those estimates may prove too conservative. And then it's Vicious Circle 101 - well known to anyone who has gotten too into hock with Visa and MasterCard. The country depends heavily on borrowing to fund what it wants to do. But the more debt it racks up, the more likely it becomes that creditors could demand a higher interest rate for making new loans to the government. Higher rates in turn make it harder to pay off the underlying debt because more and more money is going to pay off interest - money, by the way, which is also borrowed. And as more money goes to interest, creditors may become concerned that the country can't pay down its principal and lawmakers will have less to fund all the things government is supposed to do. "[P]olicymakers would be less able to pay for other national spending priorities and would have less flexibility to deal with unexpected developments (such as a war or recession). Moreover, rising interest costs would make the economy more vulnerable to a meltdown in financial markets," the CBO wrote in its most recent long-term budget outlook. So far, that crisis of confidence hasn't happened. And no one can predict with any certainty whether or when it could occur. But should it occur, the change could be abrupt. That's because the government frequently rolls over - or refinances - the debt it has issued as it comes due. In other words, when a Treasury bond or note matures, the government must pay the investor the face value on that debt. In order to do that, the Treasury borrows money to pay back the investor, which means the debt would be refinanced at whatever the going interest rates are at the time. Just how much churn is there? Of late, a fair bit it seems. A Treasury borrowing advisory committee reported in early November that "approximately 40 percent of the debt will need to be refinanced in less than one year." Since rates may well stay low over the next year, it's possible that debt could be refinanced at the same or even lower rates. But that situation won't last forever. So what will Washington do? To help mitigate the potential risk of rising rates, the Treasury has said it would start increasing the average maturity of the new debt it issues. That way the debt it refinances in the next couple of years will be locked in at lower rates for longer periods of time. And the Obama administration has promised to produce a deficit-reduction plan that would aim to bring down annual deficits to roughly 3% of GDP over the next several years, below the 4% to 5% currently projected. If that happens, the $4.8 trillion in interest payments that CBO estimates for the next decade could go down if interest rates don't increase as much as CBO expects. "There will be less debt outstanding than if we don't get the deficit down. It may also reduce [the average interest rate on the debt] since less debt means less pressure on interest rates," said William Gale, co-director of the Tax Policy Center. But whether they can do that within a few years of an economic recovery is another matter. "Even under the president's [2010] budget as evaluated by the CBO we do not get anywhere close to that," Gale said. That could mean the president's 2011 budget proposals would have to make a lot of changes to get closer to the 3% goal. Unpopular changes like tax hikes and spending cuts. Budget hawks hope the president will push for a deficit-reduction commission to come up with ways to cut the deficit and then propose legislation that lawmakers would only be able to vote for or against. The reason: There is no political will to make the tough calls. Especially in a mid-term election year. From maryrose333 at att.net Fri Nov 20 12:57:56 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:57:56 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: [globalnetnews-summary] WHICH WAY OUT? By Jerry Mander Message-ID: <006401ca6a1b$ebded130$c39c7390$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS While some are still haggling over whether the Democrats or the Republicans are going to be in control, when, in neither are or can be in monetized politics since the bankers are going to remain in control, others get down to the real nitty gritty of whether or not the human family can even survive this catastrophic time. -----Original Message----- From: globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net [mailto:globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net] On Behalf Of TradingPostPaul Sent: Thursday, November 19, 2009 9:04 PM To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] WHICH WAY OUT? By Jerry Mander WHICH WAY OUT? By Jerry Mander Thursday, 19 November 2009 http://carolynbaker.net/site/content/view/1395/1/ >From the International Forum on Globalization Reprinted from TRANSITION TIMES [From the foreword to "Searching for a Miracle: 'Net Energy' Limits and the Fate of Industrial Society," by Richard Heinberg, a joint project of the International Forum on Globalization and the Post Carbon Institute.] The report which follows here.by our longtime friend and colleague Richard Heinberg, an associate member of IFG and senior fellow of the Post Carbon Institute, is the first to use the newly emerging techniques of "life cycle technology assessment," and in particular "net energy" analyses, for in-depth comparisons among all presently dominant and newly touted "alternative" energy schemes. These include all the major renewable systems currently being advocated. For the first time we are able to fully realize the degree to which our future societal options are far more limited than we thought. With fossil fuels fast disappearing, and their continuing supplies becoming ever more problematic and expensive, hopes have turned to renewable sources that we ask to save "our way of life" at more or less its current level. Alas, as we will see, the "net energy" gain from all alternative systems-that is, the amount of energy produced, compared with the amount of energy I as well as money and materials) that must be invested in building and operating them-is far too small to begin to sustain industrial society at its present levels. This is very grim news, and demands vast, rapid adjustments by all parties, from governments to industries and even environmental organizations, that thus far are not clearly in the offing. There are, however, viable pathways forward, most importantly and urgently the need for a wide-ranging push for conservation; it is only a question of realism, flexibility, dedication, and more than a little humility. Our beloved "way of life" must be reconsidered and more viable alternatives supported. THE WRONG TREE We observe daily the tragic, futile official processes that continue to unfold among national governments, as well as global political and financial institutions, as they give lip service to mitigating climate change and the multiple advancing related global environmental catastrophes. Those crises include not only climate disruption, and looming global fossil fuels shortages, but other profound depletions of key resources-fresh water, arable soils, ocean life, wood, crucial minerals, biodiversity, and breathable air, etc. All these crises are results of the same sets of values and operating systems, and all are nearing points of extreme urgency. Even our once great hopes that world governments would rally to achieve positive collective outcomes in some arenas; for example, at the United Nations climate change talks in Copenhagen, as well as other venues, are proving sadly fatuous. But certain things are ever-more clear: Global institutions, national governments, and even many environmental and social activists are barking up the wrong tree. Individually and as groups, they have not faced the full gravity and meaning of the global energy (and resource) conundrums. They continue to operate in most ways out of the same set of assumptions that we've all had for the past century-that fundamental systemic changes will not be required; that our complex of problems can be cured by human innovation, ingenuity, and technical efficiency, together with a few smart changes in our choices of energy systems. Most of all, the prevailing institutions continue to believe in the primacy and efficacy of economic growth as the key indicator of systemic well-being, even in light of ever-diminishing resources. It will not be necessary, according to the dogma, to come to grips with the reality that ever-expanding economic growth is actually an absurdity in a finite system, preposterous on its face, and will soon be over even if activists do nothing to oppose it. Neither does the mainstream recognize that economic systems, notably capitalism, that require such endless growth for their own viability may themselves be doomed in the not very long run. In fact, they are already showing clear signs of collapse. As to any need for substantial changes in personal lifestyles, or to control and limit material consumption habits? Quite the opposite is being pushed-increased car sales, expanded "housing starts," and increased industrial production remain the focused goals of our economy, even under Mr. Obama, and are still celebrated when/if they occur, without thought of environmental consequences. No alterations in conceptual frameworks are encouraged to appreciate the now highly visible limits of nature, which is both root source of all planetary benefits, and inevitable toxic sink for our excessive habits. In this optimistic though self-deluding dominant vision, there is also dedicated avoidance of the need for any meaningful redistribution of the planet's increasingly scarce remaining natural resources toward more equitable arrangements among nations and peoples-to at least slightly mitigate centuries of colonial and corporate plunder of the Third World. And on the similarly ignored question of the continued viability of a small planet that may soon need to support 8-10 billion people? Some actually say it's a good thing. We should think of these billions as new consumers who may help enliven economic growth, so goes that argument. But only if we find a few more planets nearby, perhaps in a parallel universe somewhere, bursting with oil, gas, water, minerals, wood, rich agricultural lands, and a virginal atmosphere. The scale of denial is breathtaking. For as Heinberg's analysis makes depressingly clear, there will be NO combination of alternative energy solutions that might enable the long term continuation of economic growth, or of industrial societies in their present form and scale. Ultimately the solutions we desperately seek will not come from ever-greater technical genius and innovation. Far better and potentially more successful pathways can only come from a sharp turn to goals, values, and practices that emphasize conservation of material and energy resources, localization of most economic frameworks, and gradual population reduction to stay within the carrying capacities of the planet. THE PARTY'S OVER The central purpose of all our False Solutions documents, including this one, is to assert that this whole set of assumptions upon which our institutions have hung their collective hats, is tragically inaccurate, and only serves to delay, at a crucial moment, a major reckoning that must be understood immediately. We are emphatically not against innovations and efficiencies where they can be helpful. But we are against the grand delusion that they can solve all problems, and we are against the tendency to ignore overarching inherent systemic limits that apply to energy supply, material supply, and the Earth itself. For example, the grandest techno-utopian predictions at large today, such as "clean coal," via carbon sequestration, and "clean nuclear," via a new "safe 4th generation of reactor design," have already been revealed as little more than the wild fantasies of energy industries, as they peddle talking points to politicians to whom, on other days, they also supply with campaign cash. There is no persuasive evidence that clean coal, still in the realm of science fiction, will ever be achieved. Most likely it will occupy the same pantheon of technological fantasy as nuclear fusion, not to say human teleportation. In any case, the entire argument for clean coal, however absurd, still ignores what happens to the places from where it comes. Visit Appalachia sometime-now virtually desertified from mountain top removal, and its rivers poisoned to get at that soon-to-be "clean" coal. Clean nuclear offers similar anomalies-no currently contemplated solution for waste disposal is anywhere near practical-even if uranium supplies were not running out nearly as quickly as oil. To speak of nuclear as "clean" or "safe" is a clear sign of panic while, vampire-like, it's permitted to again rise from its grave. Okay, we know that some technological "progress" is useful, especially among renewable energy alternatives. Systemic transformations toward a highly touted new complex mix of "renewable" energy systems such as wind, solar, hydro, biomass, wave and several others, will certainly be positive, and together they could make meaningful contributions, free of many of the negative environmental impacts that fossil fuels have brought. But, as this report exquisitely explains, as beneficial as those shifts may be, they will inevitably fall far short. They will never reach the scale or capacity to substitute for a fossil fuel system that, because of its (temporary) abundance and cheapness, has addicted industrial nations to a 20th century production and consumption spree that landed us, and the whole world, into this dire situation. As Richard Heinberg has so eloquently said before, and used as the title of one of his very important books, "the party's over." So, those limitless supplies turned out not to be limitless, or cheap (or any longer efficient), and we are left with only one real option: to face the need for a thorough systemic transformation of our entire society to one that emphasizes less consumption of material resources and energy (conservation), less globalization (shipping resources and products back and forth wastefully across oceans and continents), and more localization which has inherent efficiencies and savings from the mere fact of local production and use, and far less processing and shipping. Such changes must be combined with achieving lower population in all global sectors, and the fostering of an evolution of personal, institutional and national values that recognize (even celebrate) the ultimate limits of the earth's carrying capacities, presently being dramatically exceeded. None of that vision has infected the Copenhagen process, nor those of the U.S. Congress, nor debates in national parliaments; anything short of that is just a self-protective, self-interested smoke screen, or, sheer denial of the realities at hand. THE NET ENERGY FACTOR Richard Heinberg's report makes its case by a methodical examination and comparison of many of the most important features inherent to the key energy systems of our time. His detailed summaries include "life cycle assessments" of the currently dominant systems such as oil, gas, coal, and nuclear-the very systems which built industrial society, and brought us to this grave historical moment. These systems are now each suffering advancing supply shortages and increased costs, making their future application dubious. Heinberg then explores and compares all the alternative systems now being hotly promoted, like wind, solar, hydro, geothermal, biomass and biofuels, incineration, wave energy and others. He delineates ten aspects of each system, including everything from direct monetary cost (can we afford it?), as well as "scalability" (will its benefits apply at a meaningful volume?). He also includes environmental impacts in the formula; the location of the resources; their reliability (the wind doesn't blow all the time and the sun doesn't shine); density-how compact is the source per unit?; transportability, etc. Most important is the tenth standard that Heinberg lists-and the bulk of this document is devoted to it: "net energy," or, the Energy Returned on Energy Invested (EROEI). Heinberg explores this revolutionary analytic terrain thoroughly, basing his reportage on the groundbreaking research of leading scientists, notably including Charles Hall of Syracuse University, who has been the pioneer explorer of the full import of "net energy" to the future of industrialism and economic growth. What is revealed from this process is that the once great advantages of fossil fuel systems, which in their heyday were able to produce enormous quantities of cheap energy outputs with relatively little investment of energy inputs or dollar investments-Heinberg puts the EROEI ratio at about 100:1-can no longer approach that level. And, of course, they continue to ravage the planet. Meanwhile, the highly promising alternative energy systems, which in most respects are surely far cleaner than fossil fuels, cannot yield net energy ratios that are anywhere near what was possible with fossil fuels. In other words, they require for their operation a significant volume of energy inputs that bring their energy outputs to a very modest level. Too modest, actually, to be considered a sufficient substitute for the disappearing fossil fuels. In fact, as Heinberg notes, there is no combination of alternative renewables that can compete with the glory days of fossil fuels, now ending. So, what does this portend for modern society? Industrialism? Economic growth? Our current standards of living? All prior assumptions are off the table. Which way now? Systemic change will be mandatory. Of course, there is a huge segment of the grassroots activist world that already instinctively understood all this some time ago, and has not waited for governments, separately or in collaboration with others, to do the right things. The world is now bursting with examples on every continent of enthusiastic efforts to transform communities into locally viable and sustainable economic systems. We see a virtual renaissance of local food systems, thus replacing the supplies of the industrial agriculture machine that often ships from across thousands of miles of land or ocean. And this burgeoning movement is directly supported by a parallel movement toward re-ruralization. We also see extraordinary efforts to limit the power of global corporations operating in local contexts. There is a growing effort by communities to assert control over their own local commons; to resist privatization of public services; and to return to local production values in manufacturing and energy systems to that conservation is placed ahead of consumption. A myriad other efforts also see to affirm local sovereignty. Among the most exciting expressions of these tendencies has been the birth and spread of an international "Transition Towns" movement. Originally launched a few years ago in southwest England, it has helped stimulate literally thousands of similar efforts in local communities, including hundreds in the U.S. All are trying to go back to the drawing board to convert all operating systems toward active conservation efforts that minimize material and energy flow-through, protecting scarce resources, while moving toward energy and production systems that are cognizant of and reactive to an entirely alternative set of values. So far, this is not yet threatening to the larger machines of industrialism and growth, nor to the primacy of corporate power, but time is definitely on the side of such movements. It behooves us all to align ourselves with them. In this case, it is mandatory that we build and take action at the local grassroots level, while also demanding change from our governing institutions, locally, nationally and internationally. But in any case, as the document you are about to read helps make exquisitely clear, the status quo will not survive. [Read the full report here.] http://www.postcarbon.org/new-site-files/Reports/Searching_for_a_Miracle_web 10nov09.pdf ------------ Jerry Mander, Founder and Distinguished Fellow for Long Range Strategic Planning (email) In addition to his role at IFG, Jerry Mander is the former program director for the Foundation for Deep Ecology, and is the former founder and executive director of the Public Media Center. Back in the 1960s Mander was president of a major San Francisco advertising company before turning his talents to environmental campaigns that kept dams out of the Grand Canyon, established Redwood National Park, and stopped production of the Supersonic Transport. His books include Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television (1977), In the Absence of the Sacred (1991), The Case Against the Global Economy And For a Turn Toward the Local, co-edited with Edward Goldsmith (1996), and Alternatives to Economic Globalization: A Better World is Posssible. http://www.ifg.org/about/staff.htm From maryrose333 at att.net Fri Nov 20 14:56:22 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Fri, 20 Nov 2009 13:56:22 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: [globalnetnews-summary] Economic Crisis Is Getting Bloody -- Violent Deaths Are Now Following Evictions, Foreclosures and Job Losses Message-ID: <007f01ca6a2c$7834c530$689e4f90$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS Several organizations I know of today are focused on: "changing normal" meaning that they are focused in moving beyond what is considered normal in our "modern society" that is largely based in artificiality instead of on the "natural values" that were inherent at the beginning of our social evolution, e.g., community, natural living, vitality, equality and a sense of belonging. Jay Earley, in his book: "Transforming Human Culture: Social Evolution and the Planetary Crisis," tells us how the loss of these qualities, which are considered to be feminine and which give basis to what we call "soul," has affected us as a society as these "basic qualities" of life have been replaced by the emptiness of technology, the artificiality of social systems design driven mainly by the monetary system, and the rationalization that has gone along with them. Left without a life that has meaning, Like the mice in the cage which has no built-in comforts, as a collective consciousness, we continually seek to suck on addictive substances which having no "fullness and meaning" within them only satisfy for a very short time before another fix is needed. Such is the stuff that the "bubble economies" we have subsisted on for so many years was made of -- full of promise but with no real substance -- offering little more than what a Las Vegas gambling casino would offer -- a thrill at the moment of winning and then it's all over. "So, what now?" so many are asking as the thrill of the moment of home ownership is over and the bank comes to repossess the property they mistakenly thought was their's for a lifetime, or at least felt that they would make a killing on and be able to buy a much nicer home at some point since it would always be appreciating wouldn't it? Funny how home ownership use to be considered "normal" and now how many are wondering how they got trapped into this kind of thinking as the trap door drops out from under them and Post-traumatic Stress Disorder begins to set in. -----Original Message----- From: globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net [mailto:globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net] On Behalf Of TradingPostPaul Sent: Friday, November 20, 2009 11:21 AM To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] Economic Crisis Is Getting Bloody -- Violent Deaths Are Now Following Evictions, Foreclosures and Job Losses Economic Crisis Is Getting Bloody -- Violent Deaths Are Now Following Evictions, Foreclosures and Job Losses http://www.alternet.org/rights/143990/economic_crisis_is_getting_bloody_--_v iolent_deaths_are_now_following_evictions%2C_foreclosures_and_job_losses By Nick Turse, AlterNet. Posted November 20, 2009. Despite ever rosier economic predictions and a surging stock market, the body count from the economic crisis is destined only to grow in the weeks and months ahead. In 2007, Jason Rodriguez was fired from his position at an Orlando, Florida engineering firm and ended up taking a job as a "sandwich artist" at a Subway restaurant. His salary was cut nearly in half and his debts mounted until, last May, he filed for bankruptcy, listing his assets at just over $4,600 and his liabilities at nearly $90,000. Although he lived only 30 minutes away, according to his former mother-in-law, America Holloway, Rodriguez barely saw his son. When the boy asked why his father didn't visit, Holloway said Rodriguez told him: "'Because I don't have any money. I don't have a job. I don't have anything to eat. When things get better, I'll come see you.'" Things never got better. On November 6th, the 40-year-old Rodriguez went back to the downtown high-rise office building where he had worked and reportedly opened fire, killing one person and wounding five others at his old firm. Asked to comment following the shooting, a local lawyer who represented Rodriguez in his bankruptcy proceedings, said "That's how it is right now. He's a very typical client. Of people that are suffering through the economy right now, there's nothing extraordinary about him. except that." In the wake of the massacre at Fort Hood -- which took place a day before the Florida incident -- there has, quite understandably, been a search for answers as to the cause of the shooting that left more than 50 dead or injured. Much less attention, however, has been devoted to uncovering the reasons for the much larger number of men and women -- including those allegedly shot by Jason Rodriguez -- who have fallen victim to violence stemming from the global economic crisis. An analysis of national, regional, and local news reports from 2008-2009 indicates a largely silent, nationwide epidemic of drastic measures and extreme acts for which the economy seems to have been a catalyst. News of such deeds linked to economic woes -- from armed robberies to pay the rent to financially-motivated suicides to familicides (murder/suicides in which both parents and their children die) in the face of financial ruin -- has filtered out of cities and towns in most U.S. states. Since only a fraction of these acts ever receive media coverage, what is being reported -- most of it in local newspapers -- is startling. And while it's impossible to know the myriad factors, including deeply personal ones, that contribute to people resorting to drastic measures, violent or otherwise, many press reports suggest that the global economic crisis has played no small part in a wide range of extreme acts. Going to Extremes Earlier this year, for example, "Binghamton Shooter" Jiverly Wong garnered front-page headlines nationwide and set off a cable news frenzy when, "bitter over job loss," he massacred 13 people at an immigration center in upstate New York. Similarly, coverage was brisk after Pittsburgh resident Richard Poplawski, "upset about recently losing a job," shot four local police officers, killing three of them. Many others have directed violence inward, sometimes shooting themselves as sheriff's deputies stood at the door with eviction papers, other times engaging in armed standoffs designed to end in a suicide-by-cop killing. One such case occurred recently when 64-year-old Kurt Aho of Phoenix, Arizona decided to take a stand. Aho had been struggling to find work and was preparing for his daughter and grandson -- who had lost their house to foreclosure -- to move in with him, but on September 29th, his own foreclosed home of 30 years was sold at auction. Vowing that he wouldn't just walk away, Aho cracked open a beer and had drink with neighbor Jeffrey Hobson who recalled, "He said, 'When the cops get here, either I'm gonna die by them or I'm gonna kill myself.'" When the two new owners arrived, Aho promptly shot out the tires of their trucks. He then retrieved a .357 Magnum from his house and chased the pair away. Next came the police who rolled up and ordered Aho to drop his weapon. Instead, the self-employed contractor ignored them and walked into his house to grab a few more beers. Neighbors warned the cops that Aho was suicidal and that he would fire on them if they advanced, but the SWAT team stepped up the confrontation by shooting Aho with rubber bullets. Aho responded by firing his pistol twice, striking the SWAT team's armored vehicle with one of the bullets. With that, a SWAT team member fired on Aho, killing him. In the days that followed, as they have all year long, other economically-motivated extreme acts were carried out across the country. In an attempt to save their home from foreclosure, Daniel Weston and Mary Ann Parmelee, both 52, hired a pair of loan modification agents. Believing they had been ripped off, the Los Angeles couple later lured the men into an ambush, on October 20th, in which "Weston and another man, Gustavo Canez, 36, allegedly beat and robbed them" using a handgun and wooden knuckles. On October 29th, in New Orleans, Louisiana, a man facing eviction armed himself with a rifle and barricaded himself inside his home. The act wasn't an isolated extreme for the area. "We've had a couple of suicides," Lambert Boissiere Jr., New Orleans's 1st City Court Constable remarked recently. "When the deputies get there, they find the person inside. Or sometimes you knock on the door and boom, they commit suicide." One such incident took place on November 5th when Patrick Sanchez of Irvine, California answered his door to find a sheriff's deputy serving him an eviction notice. Sanchez asked the deputy to wait, walked back into his home and shot himself. It was, reportedly, at least the third eviction-related suicide in that area this year. Elkhart Revisited Right now, having suffered 13 deaths at the hands of a lone gunman, Fort Hood, Texas is the media's anguished community du jour. In February, however, it was the former "RV capital of the world," Elkhart, Indiana -- a financially-devastated community where President Barack Obama made an appearance to push his economic recovery package. In his speech at Elkhart's town hall, Obama caught the town's plight dramatically: "[This] area has lost jobs faster than anywhere else in the United States of America, with an unemployment rate of over 15 percent when it was 4.7 percent just last year. We're talking about people who have lost their livelihood and don't know what will take its place. That's what those numbers and statistics mean. That is the true measure of this economic crisis." In reality, however, the "true measure" has only become clear as the year has ground on. As of early November there had been 22 confirmed suicides in Elkhart and two other likely self-inflicted deaths, outpacing the county average of 16. According to coroner John White, in more than a quarter of the suicides financial distress or job loss was a deciding factor for the victims. "They left notes specifically stating that the reason they did this was because of the economy," he said recently. He continued, "Everyone needs to be more aware with the stresses of 17 percent to 18 percent unemployment." People do need to be aware of the stresses -- and the dire costs associated with them, but the chances of that happening are slim. The massacre at Fort Hood is bound to produce volumes of analyses resulting from multiple government inquiries into the killings. But neither the FBI nor Congress nor any other government agency will ever convene an investigation into the slow motion bloodbath resulting from the global economic crisis. For this reason, there will never be anything approaching a full tally of all the victims who were killed or died or were wounded or psychologically devastated as a result of evictions, foreclosures, job losses, and other forms of financial distress over the last years. Nor will President Obama head back to Elkhart, or anywhere else for that matter, to attend a memorial service to the fallen from this less spectacular, but far deadlier bloodbath. As a result of the inattention, and despite ever rosier economic predictions and a surging stock market, the body count from the economic crisis is destined only to grow in the weeks and months ahead. From maryrose333 at att.net Fri Nov 20 15:09:38 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Fri, 20 Nov 2009 14:09:38 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: [globalnetnews-summary] California faces a projected deficit of $21 billion Message-ID: <008901ca6a2e$4e449dc0$eacdd940$@net> FYI and consideration. -----Original Message----- From: globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net [mailto:globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net] On Behalf Of TradingPostPaul Sent: Friday, November 20, 2009 1:31 PM To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] California faces a projected deficit of $21 billion (To change your settings or unsubscribe please go to http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/globalnetnews-summary) California faces a projected deficit of $21 billion The legislative budget analyst's projection, to be released Wednesday, threatens to send Sacramento back into gridlock and force more broad cuts to state programs. November 18, 2009 http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-budget-deficit18-2009nov18,0,7647152 .story Reporting from Sacramento - Less than four months after California leaders stitched together a patchwork budget, a projected deficit of nearly $21 billion already looms over Sacramento, according to a report to be released today by the chief budget analyst. The new figure -- the nonpartisan analyst's first projection for the coming budget -- threatens to send Sacramento back into budgetary gridlock and force more across-the-board cuts in state programs. The grim forecast, described by people who were briefed on the report by Legislative Analyst Mac Taylor, comes courtesy of California's recession-wracked economy, unrealistic budgeting assumptions, spending cuts tied up in the courts and disappearing federal stimulus funds. "Economic recovery will not take away the very severe budget problems for this year, next year and the year after," said Steve Levy, director of the Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy. In fact, after two years of precipitous revenue declines, the new report projects relatively stable tax collections for the state, said those who were briefed. But that won't stop the deficit from climbing to nearly $21 billion. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who will present his next proposed budget to Californians in January as he begins his last year in office, started sounding the alarm last week. "I think that there will be across-the-board cuts again," he said at a San Jose news conference. The task in 2010 could be even harder than it was this year, when record deficits and cash shortfalls drove California to issue IOUs for only the second time since the Great Depression. Lawmakers have already cut billions from education, healthcare and social services while temporarily hiking income, sales and vehicle taxes. "I can't think of any good solutions," said Assemblywoman Noreen Evans (D-Santa Rosa), who chairs the lower house budget committee. The current budget year accounts for $6.3 billion of the deficit, the nonpartisan analyst projects. Prisons spending will outstrip what has been budgeted by more than $1 billion, and K-12 schools were underpaid by $1 billion under the complex formula that governs education funding, the report says. Another $14.4 billion of the deficit is for the fiscal year that begins next summer, say those briefed on the report. The governor's next budget will have to account for both years. The state Department of Finance in August predicted a shortfall of at least $7.4 billion for fiscal 2010-11. But California's financial picture has darkened considerably since then, largely because the shaky summer budget pact relied heavily on borrowing, fiscal tricks and overly optimistic projections. It assumed receipts of nearly $1 billion from the federal government for Medi-Cal that the analyst questions. Another $1 billion was assumed from the sale of a quasi-public workers' compensation agency that has stalled. Next year's budget fight is expected to be as contentious as this year's. Republicans vow to block new taxes; Democrats say they are through with program cuts. Powerful interest groups are already girding for battle. "There is no more to cut from our schools," California Teachers Assn. President David Sanchez said Tuesday. "There is no more meat on this bone. . . . The next step is amputation." In higher education, Chancellor Charles Reed of the Cal State University system said this month that he will plead for $884 million in funds from Sacramento next year. The University of California will ask for $913 million more for its 10-campus system, President Mark Yudof has said. "If ever there was a time to fight for and invest in the institution best positioned to power this state from recession, now is that time," Yudof said in a statement. UC students, meanwhile, are coping with a staggering 32% fee hike. California's finances have been so bad that the governor's finance director, Mike Genest, told a budget forum in Washington last week that back in February he had combed through the U.S. Constitution to research whether California could legally declare bankruptcy -- or revert to some kind of territorial status. (Neither was realistic, he determined.) The state's financial problems predate the current recession and the gimmicks used to paper over the deficit, experts say. Year in and year out, state government spends roughly $10 billion more than it collects in tax revenue. Political divisions in Sacramento, where support from both parties is necessary to pass a budget, have repeatedly stymied efforts to plug that hole. The task probably won't be easier next year as various interests try to muscle one another to the sidelines. Some have even drafted potential ballot measures to aid themselves in the budget fight and are preparing to collect signatures in an effort to place the initiatives before voters. Among the ideas: raising tobacco taxes, curbing public pensions, repealing corporate tax breaks passed thisyear and last, splitting the tax rules for commercial and residential property, reducing the legislative votes needed to pass a budget and strengthening the firewall around local government and transportation money. "There's a lot of people putting chess pieces on the board right now," said Jon Coupal, president of the anti-tax Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn. "The question is which of those chess pieces will be moving." From hermann at picknowl.com.au Fri Nov 20 18:59:47 2009 From: hermann at picknowl.com.au (John Hermann) Date: Sat, 21 Nov 2009 12:29:47 +1030 Subject: [GJM] Why Are Hawkish Lawmakers Willing To ... In-Reply-To: <003b01ca68ef$03399be0$09acd3a0$@net> References: <003b01ca68ef$03399be0$09acd3a0$@net> Message-ID: <200911210159.nAL1xmOZ010862@mail14.tpg.com.au> When the pain is great enough, change will occur. - John Hermann At 06:33 PM 19/11/2009, you wrote: >From: Krunkles at aol.com [mailto:Krunkles at aol.com] >Sent: Wednesday, November 18, 2009 8:52 PM >To: maryrose333 at att.net >Subject: Re: FW: FW: FW: [globalnetnews-summary] >Why Are Hawkish Lawmakers Willing To ... > >In a message dated 11/15/2009 12:45:55 A.M. >Pacific Standard Time, maryrose333 at att.net writes: >From: Krunkles at aol.com [mailto:Krunkles at aol.com] >Sent: Saturday, November 14, 2009 1:27 PM >To: maryrose333 at att.net >Subject: Re: FW: FW: [globalnetnews-summary] Why >Are Hawkish Lawmakers Willing To Pay ... > >It could be that the corporate state just goes >on inventing reasons for war because war is >profitable, but I think the Afghanistan war is >more mundane than that. It may be to control the >opium trade and finance the CIA, and it may be >to counter the power of a Russia/China alliance. >In any case, the proximity to the Persian gulf, >and some 72% of the world's known oil reserves is certainly relevant. >Peter >Comment from m r: Peter, while you are correct >here, what you are attempting to do is to >???particalize??? this. But, in fact, it is >part of the same wave of mentality ? war is war >however you try to slice it or dice it. > >Well, I do have some problem with that. The >motive for war is not always control of some >industrial resource, although it is much more >often than is openly admitted. What I am getting >at is that we can do something about the Middle >East situation besides totally overthrow >the Capitalist system. That would be so >difficult that any project with that as a component is doomed. > >Peter > >Peter, I do not believe that this is about >???we??? overthrowing the Capitalist system ? it >is about the Capitalist system overthrowing >itself for something so corrupt as it has become >cannot survive much longer. In the process of >change, It has to become something ???whole??? >again for the system itself to survive which it >will do under a new name and with new entities >as its basis.? However at some point this new >system will itself begin to corrode and fail and >a new concept will again take form and replace >the old ? ? this process is called >???progress??? as the old begins to fail and the >new moves in to take its place.? This is the >way it has always been and the way it will >always be.? What may be possible to change is >the intensity of the event, that is, we may be >able to make the events associated with change >less violent. However, the darkness is always >the catalyst necessary for change ? the new dawn >? to take place. ? ? And as both the >???creator??? and ???the created??? we, as a >collective consciousness, play our roles in bringing this about. ? ? ? ? > >And, again ? war is war is it not whatever its cause may be? ? ? ? ? > > > message dated 11/;14/2009 5:14:12 A.M. Pacific > Standard Time, maryrose333 at att.net writes: > Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS > Peter Van Zandt writes: > >Indeed, why are these lawmakers taking these >positions? If we don't understand, perhaps it's >because we know less than they about what the >true stakes are. The official line is that the >Taliban protect potential Al Qaeda terrorists >who might attack us. Personally, I almost >immediately dismiss this. Several other possibilities I have seen or heard: > >1. In the 1990s, we were negotiating with the >Taliban for a pipeline to bring Caucusus oil to >where we could use it. Negotiations broke down, >for reasons not entirely clear. Some say that it >was because the Taliban refused to turn Osama >Bin Laden over to us, others say it was because >negotiating with such an obviously sexist regime >became an embarrassment. Any way, that oil is >still there, although, as I understand it, it >has turned out to be a much smaller quantity >than originally thought. it seems unlikely that this is the motive. > >2. We want to control Afghanistan's opium trade, >since dealing heroin is a major source of >financing for the CIA. Plausible, I've seen it before. > >3. We want a base to counter the power of a >future Russia/China alliance. Also plausible. > >M R comments: Perhaps it is because the U.S. >economy is dependent upon war to keep it >going. Since war is the most lucrative business >for the elite capitalists to indulge themselves >in, then their focus is on keeping the >military-industrial complex involved so that all >the larger corporations serve this end. > >But ultimately it is based in the state of the >collective human consciousness at this point in >time. If we want to change the world, then we >must change the collective consciousness one >person at a time. Changing the collective >consciousness means changing the way we think >about things as a society. And, while this is >happening it is not happening quickly enough ? >we the people do not as yet have a >???collective??? voice. Meanwhile the world is >run via monetized politics. So, where we must >turn our attention is to ending monetized >politics and instituting a new form of >governance that is focused on creating >life-enhancing social systems that work in the >best interests of all concerned. > >This may mean changing the Constitution because >the Constitution as it stands today was written >to serve the interests of those who wanted to >develop corporate power in the interests of the >elite of that time. Remember that signers of >the Constitution were wealthy men and slave >owners who disenfranchised women, people of >color, and non-land owners. And ever since, >while there have been many attempts to reinstate >the rights of those disenfranchised, it has >never happened ? and even in today???s world it >has been impossible to get an equal rights >amendment passed for women ? we are still >considered second class citizens. We still >operate under the ???dominator paradigm??? >instituted by the Church and going back as far >as 1600 A.D. This has to change. > > >We must be the change we wish to see in our lives. M Gandhi > > >From: Krunkles at aol.com [mailto:Krunkles at aol.com] >Sent: Friday, November 13, 2009 7:34 PM >To: maryrose333 at att.net >Subject: Re: FW: [globalnetnews-summary] Why Are >Hawkish Lawmakers Willing To Pay For ... > >In a message dated 11/13/2009 5:54:17 P.M. >Pacific Standard Time, maryrose333 at att.net writes: >Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS >This question needs to be answered!!!! > >-----Original Message----- >From: globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net >[mailto:globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net] On Behalf Of >TradingPostPaul >Sent: Friday, November 13, 2009 3:22 PM >To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net >Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] Why Are Hawkish Lawmakers Willing To Pay >For An Escalation Of The War But Not For Health Care? > >Why Are Hawkish Lawmakers Willing To Pay For An Escalation Of The War But >Not For Health Care? >Nov 12th, 2009 at 3:45 pm >http://thinkprogress.org/2009/11/12/health-care-afghanistan/ > >lolieberman In recent days, heated policy discussions in Washington have >largely focused on two topics: a possible escalation of the war in >Afghanistan and health care legislation. Both a troop escalation and health >care legislation carry significant price tags: roughly $100 billion and >$80-$100 billion a year respectively. (It should be noted that health care >reform, unlike a troop surge, would cut the deficit.) > >In his New York Times column today, columnist Nicholas Kristof asks why >hawks claim health reform is "fiscally irresponsible" while >enthusiastically supporting a troop surge in Afghanistan, given the fact >that fixing our broken health care system is, unlike a troop surge, >essential to the health and well-being of Americans: > > The health care legislation pays for itself, according to the >Congressional Budget Office, while the deployment in Afghanistan is >unfinanced and will raise our budget deficits and undermine our long-term >economic security. > > So doesn't it seem odd to hear hawks say that health reform is >fiscally irresponsible, while in the next breath they cheer a larger >deployment of troops in Afghanistan? > > Meanwhile, lack of health insurance kills about 45,000 Americans a >year, according to a Harvard study released in September. So which is the >greater danger to our homeland security, the Taliban or our dysfunctional >insurance system? > >Indeed, hawkish legislators have lined up to both demand a costly surge in >U.S. troops in Afghanistan while at the same time claiming that >deficit-cutting health care legislation would simply be too expensive: > > - Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) has called for providing the "resources >[needed]" for a "significant increase in U.S. forces" while warning >that he is "really worried about what [health care reform] would do to >the deficit." [9/13/09, 10/26/09] > > - Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has complained that passing health care >legislation would "expand government spending even more," while also >boasting of his Republican caucus's "broad support" for any troop >increase in Afghanistan. [10/21/09, 10/11/09] > > - Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) wrote a letter to President Obama stating >that we "urgently need more resources" in Afghanistan, "including >more combat troops," while at the same time claiming that passing health >care legislation would be tantamount to "generational theft" that would >run up "unconscionable and unsustainable deficits." [11/10/09, 8/27/09] > >Kristof's question bears answering. Why is it that hawkish lawmakers are >so willing to spend such enormous resources in both lives and treasure on a >troop surge in Afghanistan that is increasingly opposed by Americans and >Afghans, but are so quick to bark at the price tag of health care >legislation that could save the lives of the 45,000 Americans who die every >year because they don't have access to health care? As Glenn Greenwald >notes, "Urging that more Americans be sent into endless war paid for with >endless debt, while yawning and lazily waving away with boredom the hordes >outside dying for lack of health care coverage, is one of the most >repugnant images one can imagine." > >Indeed, why are these lawmakers taking these >positions? If we don't understand, perhaps it's >because we know less than they about what the >true stakes are. The official line is that the >Taliban protect potential Al Qaeda terrorists >who might attack us. Personally, I almost >immediately dismiss this. Several other possibilities I have seen or heard: > >1. In the 1990s, we were negotiating with the >Taliban for a pipeline to bring Caucusus oil to >where we could use it. Negotiations broke down, >for reasons not entirely clear. Some say that it >was because the Taliban refused to turn Osama >Bin Laden over to us, others say it was because >negotiating with such an obviously sexist regime >became an embarrassment. Any way, that oil is >still there, although, as I understand it, it >has turned out to be a much smaller quantity >than originally thought. it seems unlikely that this is the motive. > >2. We want to control Afghanistan's opium trade, >since dealing heroin is a major source of >financing for the CIA. Plausible, I've seen it before. > >3. We want a base to counter the power of a >future Russia/China alliance. Also plausible. > >Peter Van Zant -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From maryrose333 at att.net Sat Nov 21 08:16:50 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Sat, 21 Nov 2009 07:16:50 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: [globalnetnews-summary] Alan Grayson: "Today was Waterloo for Fed secrecy" Message-ID: <000801ca6abd$cf12a7f0$6d37f7d0$@net> -----Original Message----- From: globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net [mailto:globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net] On Behalf Of TradingPostPaul Sent: Friday, November 20, 2009 8:06 PM To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] Alan Grayson: "Today was Waterloo for Fed secrecy" Alan Grayson: "Today was Waterloo for Fed secrecy" By scarce Friday Nov 20, 2009 5:00pm http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/scarce/alan-grayson-today-was-waterloo-f ed-secrecy Ryan Grim at Huffington Post has the details on the intrigue going on in the House yesterday with efforts to finally audit the Federal Reserve and find out where all those trillions of dollars are going. In an unprecedented defeat for the Federal Reserve, an amendment to audit the multi-trillion dollar institution was approved by the House Finance Committee with an overwhelming and bipartisan 43-26 vote on Thursday afternoon despite harried last-minute lobbying from top Fed officials and the surprise opposition of Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.), who had previously been a supporter. The measure, cosponsored by Reps. Ron Paul (R-Texas) and Alan Grayson (D-Fla.), authorizes the Government Accountability Office to conduct a wide-ranging audit of the Fed's opaque deals with foreign central banks and major U.S. financial institutions. The Fed has never had a real audit in its history and little is known of what it does with the trillions of dollars at its disposal. The amendment expressly blocks Congress from interfering with the independence of monetary policy decision-making, but opponents of the measure said that the political pressure would inevitably follow. From maryrose333 at att.net Sat Nov 21 12:10:51 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Sat, 21 Nov 2009 11:10:51 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: [globalnetnews-summary] Hidden Costs of Industrial Agriculture Message-ID: <001c01ca6ade$7fe2e2a0$7fa8a7e0$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS By raising more of our own food and thus moving away from purchasing products at chain retail outlets, we can bring a great deal of pressure to bear on the reduction of large land holdings by corporate enterprises, thus slaying the dragons one field at a time. What we need to focus on at this time is raising the most nutritious foods in the smallest amount of space possible while using the most nutritious soil to do so; while also, as I have written previously engaging the largest number of people possible in this endeavor so that they are "gainfully employed". And, again: "gainfully employed" does not necessarily mean "employed in a job that makes one a wage slave" as does our present economic structure. Growing one's own food in a kitchen garden can mean one is "gainfully employed" when this endeavor is considered to be producing a part of the GNP. In this same vein, I just finished reading an article in the July 2009 INDIAN VOICES Paper published in Las Vegas and San Diego by BlackRose Communications entitled: "Help Save the Earth, Time to Substitute Hemp for Oil." I wish I could reprint this for everyone to read; however, it is two pages long and what I will do at some point is to take the highlights and incorporate them into a shorter version. But the important thing is to remember that we can do a tremendous amount to alleviate global climate change by not only growing hemp but abandoning big "Ag" practices. What this really means is using our fast-disappearing resources differently. -----Original Message----- From: globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net [mailto:globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net] On Behalf Of TradingPostPaul Sent: Saturday, November 21, 2009 10:15 AM To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] Hidden Costs of Industrial Agriculture Hidden Costs of Industrial Agriculture http://www.ucsusa.org/food_and_agriculture/science_and_impacts/impacts_indus trial_agriculture/costs-and-benefits-of.html Union of Concerned Scientists Much of the agriculture practiced in the United States today is industrial-style agriculture. That is, farms are often very large, highly specialized, and run like factories with large inputs of fossil fuels, pesticides and other chemicals, and synthetic fertilizers derived from oil. This industrial agriculture is sometimes considered a great success. But is it? It has had large, complex effects on our environment, our economy, and our urban and rural social fabric. A new awareness of the costs is beginning to suggest that the benefits are not as great as they formerly appeared. Many of the costs of industrial agriculture have been hidden and ignored in short-term calculations of profit and productivity, as practices have been developed with a narrow focus on increased production. The research establishment that underpins modern industrial agriculture has until recently paid little heed to the unintended and long-term consequences of these systems. Damage to Natural Systems Approaches to producing food must be measured partly by their impact on the natural ("life support") systems that we depend on. The currently dominant system of industrial agriculture - which voters and taxpayers have unknowingly promoted and subsidized through ill-considered government food and farm policy choices - impacts the environment in many ways. It uses huge amounts of water, energy, and chemicals, often with little regard to long-term adverse effects. But the environmental costs of agriculture are mounting. Irrigation systems are pumping water from reservoirs faster than they are being recharged. Toxic herbicides and insecticides are accumulating in ground and surface waters. Chemical fertilizers are running off the fields into water systems where they generate damaging blooms of oxygen-depleting microorganisms that disrupt ecosystems and kill fish. Unmanageable and polluting mountains of waste and noxious odor are the hallmarks of industrial-style CAFOs (confined animal feeding operations) for poultry and livestock. Many of the negative effects of industrial agriculture extend far from fields and farms. Nitrogen compounds from Midwestern farms, for example, travel down the Mississippi to degrade coastal fisheries and create a large "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico where aquatic life cannot survive. But other adverse effects are showing up within agricultural production systems themselves -- for example, overuse of herbicides and insecticides has led to rapidly developing resistance among pests that is rendering these chemicals increasingly ineffective. Economic Costs Estimating the economic costs of industrial agriculture is an immense and difficult task. A full accounting would weigh the benefits of the somewhat lower prices consumers pay for food and the profits of agri-business giants, including fertilizer and pesticide manufacturers, against the health and societal costs of environmental pollution and degradation, for instance. Such costs are difficult to assess for a number of reasons. One difficulty is our partial understanding of potential harms. A good example is the potential for endocrine disruption that many pesticides appear to have. Endocrine disrupters are molecules that appear able to mimic the actions of human and animal hormones and disturb important hormone-dependent activities like reproduction. More research is needed to determine the extent of the health and environmental damage done by such compounds and the relative contribution of agriculture and other sectors and activities. And in some instances, such as water pollution and global warming, agriculture is only one of several important contributors. Among the many environmental costs that need to be considered in a full cost accounting of industrial agriculture are * the damage to fisheries from oxygen-depleting microorganisms fed by fertilizer runoff * the cleanup of surface and groundwater polluted with CAFO waste * the increased health risks borne by agricultural workers, farmers, and rural communities exposed to pesticides and antibiotic resistant bacteria In addition, there are enormous indirect costs implicit in the high energy requirements of industrial agriculture. This form of agriculture uses fossil fuels at many points: to run huge combines and harvesters, to produce and transport pesticides and fertilizers, and to refrigerate and transport perishable produce cross country and around the world. The use of fossil fuels contributes to ozone pollution and global warming, which could exact a high price on agriculture and the rest of society through increased violent weather events, droughts and floods, and rising oceans. The full costs of industrial agriculture-including the hidden costs of CAFOs revealed by UCS in the recent report CAFOs Uncovered-call into question the efficiency of this approach to food production. Agriculture at a Crossroads It is time to transform agriculture into a sustainable enterprise, one based on systems that can be employed for centuries -- not decades -- without undermining the resources on which agricultural productivity depends. The question is how to do it. The choices are to stick with the current system and adjust around the edges or to fundamentally rethink it. UCS is aiming for the transformation of U.S. agriculture to a system that is both productive and practical over the long-term. Apparent advantages of the current, industrial approach - from high yields per acre, to chemical industry profits, to profitable CAFOs (confined animal feeding operations), to foreign sales by corporate giants like Sara Lee, ConAgra, and Cargill - look very different when considered in the light of the health and other problems the approach creates, as well as the many ways in which consumers actually subsidize the destructive system with their tax dollars. Sources R. Drury and L. Tweeten, Trends in Farm Structure into the 21st Century, American Farm Bureau Federation, citing USDA data, 1997. Environmental Protection Agency, Pesticides Industry Sales and Usage: 1992 and 1993 Market Estimates, 8-9, 1994. A.V. Krebs, The Corporate Reapers, Appendix C, "The Nation's 100 Largest Farms," Essential Books, 1992. P. Raeburn, The Last Harvest, Simon and Schuster, 37, 1995. S. Smith, "Farming -- It's Declining in the US," Choices, 8-11, (1992). Last Revised: 08/24/08 From maryrose333 at att.net Sat Nov 21 12:13:02 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Sat, 21 Nov 2009 11:13:02 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: [globalnetnews-summary] Toward a Stalemate in Copenhagen Message-ID: <001d01ca6ade$ca2448e0$5e6cdaa0$@net> -----Original Message----- From: globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net [mailto:globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net] On Behalf Of TradingPostPaul Sent: Saturday, November 21, 2009 10:07 AM To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] Toward a Stalemate in Copenhagen "Wherever nations have taken the first modest steps to stave off a looming environmental calamity for future generations, they've triggered a backlash from powers rooted in the economy of the past." Toward a Stalemate in Copenhagen How Industry Pressures and National Agendas Dim Prospects for a Climate Treaty By Marianne Lavelle | November 04, 2009 http://www.publicintegrity.org/investigations/global_climate_change_lobby/ov erview/ Washington - In the poor, but mineral-rich mountains of the eastern United States known as Appalachia, coal millionaire Don Blankenship hosts a rally for "Friends of America" to hear country music and "learn how environmental extremists and corporate America are both trying to destroy your jobs." On the other side of the globe, with an eye on his venture in an Australian port town known both as a gateway to the Great Barrier Reef and a smokestack industry haven, aluminum billionaire Oleg Deripaska battles that nation's program to address climate change as "destructive for jobs, destructive for new and existing investment." And in China, ambitious renewable electricity plans look like an important step toward tackling global warming, but progress lags due to built-in and deeply entrenched favoritism for cheaper fossil fuel. "There's no need for anyone to get over-excited," says Lu Qizhou, the government appointee who heads China's big power industry group. Change from the coal-fired energy system will be slow and won't outpace "the market's ability to cope." Around the world the story is the much same. Wherever nations have taken the first modest steps to stave off a looming environmental calamity for future generations, they've triggered a backlash from powers rooted in the economy of the past. Opponents of climate action may have different methods as they pressure different capitals, but the message is consistent: Be afraid that a cherished way of life may be lost. Be afraid that a better standard of living will never be had. >From Kyoto to Copenhagen Those fears will be center stage as negotiators from 192 nations gather in Copenhagen this December to forge one of the most challenging multi-national agreements ever. The daunting task: to reduce the pollution that the scientific consensus says has imperiled the planet - emissions from the burning of oil, coal, and gas that have fueled all economic development since the Industrial Revolution. The world, of course, already has a plan in place to cut carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases - an agreement reached at Kyoto, Japan in 1997. But that deal was marked by the decision made early on that developing countries, like China and India, where millions of people still lived without electricity, would not have binding obligations to reduce emissions. That accommodation was made in recognition of the need to eradicate poverty in countries where per capita emissions remain low, and that the bulk of greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere came from countries that grew wealthy in fossil-fueled economies. But as a result, Kyoto simply exempted the largest future source of the problem; the International Energy Agency projects that 97 percent of the increase in global emissions between now and 2030 will come from developing countries. And Kyoto's rich-poor nation divide on obligations made it politically impossible to get the United States - the largest historic source of greenhouse gas emissions - to agree to participate. Kyoto always was seen as just a first step, with new negotiations needed on a second phase of commitments to begin in 2012. But those talks for a new global warming agreement at Copenhagen have become freighted with significance, due to hope for both new leadership from the United States and for better ideas on how to bridge the gap between the world's haves and have-nots. "Copenhagen is not just about negotiations, it's a political policy event that will have a big impact on global consciousness on the state of climate change," says Rafe Pomerance, president of the U.S. non-profit Clean Air-Cool Planet and a former climate negotiator as deputy assistant secretary of state during the Clinton Administration. "It's so big that it's driving activity all over the world. And the process itself is almost as important as the outcome." It was in anticipation of Copenhagen that the leaders of the developed countries known as the Group of Eight (or G8) pledged at their July meeting in Italy to work to keep temperatures from rising more than 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) over pre-industrial levels. Beyond that threshold lie grave dangers for civilization, says the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the United Nations network of more than 2,000 scientists that reports the consensus view of peer-reviewed science. Risks include global sea-level rise, drought that reduces world food supply, loss of fresh water, and increased wildfire, insects, and disease. The Global Lobby: Vested Interests The G8 agreed that emissions should be cut 80 percent or more below 1990 levels by 2050, in line with IPCC targets, but the world leaders declined to name any short-term goals. And the IPCC views near-term action as crucial. In fact, it specifies that global emissions - which have been inexorably rising - should begin to fall by 2015 if the world hopes to stabilize the atmosphere. (Even that stabilizing point - at 450 parts per million (ppm) carbon dioxide - is well below the more aggressive target of 350 ppm that NASA scientist James Hansen and demonstrators around the world have called for.) In fact, none of the emissions reduction targets for Copenhagen announced so far by wealthy countries meets the 25 to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 that the IPCC said would be necessary to achieve stabilization. (See "Climate Goals Fall Short" to the right.) The cuts being eyed in the United States and Canada, for example, are just a few points less than a bare return to 1990 levels. Australia, Japan, and the European Union have voiced a willingness to do more, but contingent on action from other nations. Japan, especially, has an eye on the developing world. And that's the crux of the stalemate, because China, India, and the other developing nations refuse binding emissions reductions. This climate deadlock is nearly always framed as the clash between the national interests of wealthy countries that want to maintain their standard of living and the national interests of developing countries that need to lift millions out of poverty. But the arguments of the rich and poor nations actually have the same underpinning - that cheap fossil-fueled energy and other carbon-intensive activities like deforestation are keys to economic success. And all of those governments - no matter how far north or south - are feeling the pressure of the interests that have mobilized to keep this conviction alive. In China, for instance, wind turbines rising against the Xinjian Province mountains have become an iconic image of that country's growing commitment to cleaner energy. Severe crippling ice storms that marred Chinese New Year in early 2008 touched off a national dialogue on climate change. The government's goal is to achieve 20 percent renewable power by 2020, on the road to which it has doubled its installed wind power in each of the past four years. But China is also building coal plants so fast that it still gets just one percent of electricity from wind. The reality is that only one of the top 10 power companies - all of them state-owned enterprises - will meet the government's interim goal of three percent renewables by 2010. The power company executives, all quasi-governmental officials, have resisted proposals to help renewables by raising the price of coal. "There don't need to be 'lobbyists' when discussions can happen directly through the Party," says Beijing-based political commentator Zhao Jing. The pressure is less subtle in democratic developing countries. For example, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva recently said he will go to Copenhagen with an offer to reduce the pace of deforestation in the Amazon rain forest - one of the world's most important natural absorbers of carbon dioxide - by 80 percent by 2020. But Carlos Minc, Lula's environment minister, who has hands-on responsibility for the policy, has faced an onslaught from the powerful agriculture industry and its allies in elected office who want to maintain free rein on land use. One governor even threatened him with rape. "Many of those industries talk about zero deforestation, but when we press them they want to kill us, or make speeches declaring me persona non grata," he says. "They call me to speak in the Senate or the House and I stay for five hours under a massacre. They're favorable to zero deforestation, provided it doesn't affect .their own land." Rich Man, Poor Man The principle that developing countries shouldn't have binding treaty obligations is dearly held by businesses that have the ear of government in those nations. In Delhi, India, Bharat Wakhlu, resident director of the powerful Tata Group - that nation's largest business conglomerate with nearly 100 companies from power generation to autos - says the company recognizes it has a role in addressing global warming. But, he added, "We believe in a 'common but differentiated' approach, as we have to retain our competitiveness as well as ensure the planet is safe." United Nations climate change convention documents dating back as far as 1992 use the phrase "common but differentiated" to describe the responsibilities of rich and poor nations; the key differentiation has been that only wealthy nations need to cut emissions. Juan C. Mata Sandoval, Mexico's top climate official and a negotiator for Copenhagen, is frank that one of the business lobby's chief concerns has been that his nation remain a "non-Annex 1" country - one without required emissions cuts. "We need to communicate with them constantly to explain how the negotiations are going," he said. "The private sector also wants a voice and an opinion on how much is Mexico going to put on the table." But in its own way, Mexico - like China, India, and Brazil - is addressing climate change. Mexico has a national climate change plan with 86 specific goals it says will slow the growth of its carbon emissions, now at about 700 megatons a year, by about 50 megatons by 2012. In absolute terms, Mexico's carbon output would still rise in the short term, but the country also has mapped out a long-term pathway to reduce its emissions - if it receives technical and financial support from developed countries. Mexico has proposed a global Green Fund to which all nations would contribute based on a formula that takes into account all the factors that have divided rich and poor nations - both historical and current emissions, both gross domestic product and population. It's just one of the ideas that have been floated for breaking the climate stalemate. The idea of "nationally appropriate mitigations actions" - cuts that make sense given a country's state of development - was actually included in the roadmap for the Copenhagen talks that was adopted in Bali in 2007. Experts credit the Center for Clean Air Policy (CCAP), a Washington non-profit that has been working to bridge the rich-poor nation climate divide, for promoting the concept. In dialogues with 30 developing countries, CCAP found that many were taking steps to reduce electricity use and increase renewable power. "They had all these things they were doing on their own - not for money from [developed countries] but for good reasons in their own countries," says CCAP President Ned Helme. "We were trying to figure out a way to build on that momentum." South Korea and South Africa have proposed a system for harnessing that progress by tracking the actions by developing countries. Numerous world leaders have been working on ways that moves by the developing world could be made measurable, reportable, and verifiable so they can be built into an international agreement. U.S. climate negotiator Todd Stern sees these developments as cause for optimism, even while many view the Copenhagen talks as on a path toward stalemate. "All the major economies are prepared to lay down significant low-carbon development plans," he said at a recent U.S.-India energy forum in Washington. "This is big news. It's never happened before. It's important stuff." But it's a headline that hasn't registered in the climate politics of the United States or other developed nations. Europe has a history of green party political power not found across the Atlantic, and on paper it has ambitious climate goals for 2020. But the actual emissions cuts contemplated within the E.U.'s borders were significantly reduced due to lobbying by heavy industries that protested they would face unfair competition from the developing world, especially amid the economic downturn. Those themes are echoed by representatives of the so-called BINGOs, the Business and Industry Non-Governmental Organizations, that attend the negotiating sessions all over the world and have been a permanent presence in the United Nations' efforts on climate change for more than 20 years. These climate uber-lobbyists aren't there to make a hard-sell pitch, but to get to know the key players who congregate around the treaty talks, to ease their way into more specific policy discussions back home, where the real decisions are made. "We loiter," John Scowcroft of the European Union of the Electricity Industry remarked at the recent talks in Bangkok. "It's loitering with intent." Back home, manufacturing powerhouses like the aluminum industry of Australia argue they will lose jobs if developing country competitors like China don't face the same regime of emissions cuts. Such business opposition helped defeat climate legislation in the Australian Senate in August, even though polling showed a majority of citizens favored it. "An Epic Struggle" The business lobby has not been shy about pressing its views in Australia. The top 20 companies that are expected to receive assistance from the Australian government to reduce emissions employ 28 lobbying firms. More than half the lobbyists are former politicians, senior government bureaucrats, or political advisors. The business lobby has to be strong indeed to slow climate progress in Australia, the hottest and driest continent on earth, which is amid a years-long drought that contributed to deadly wildfires and is watching its climate-stressed tourism jewel, the Great Barrier Reef, on course to be "functionally extinct" by 2050. The administration of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, whose first official act in office in 2007 was to ratify Kyoto, is working with opponents on business-friendly amendments aiming to build support for a new vote on the legislation before Copenhagen. In the United States, the Senate also is advancing its climate legislation in the Copenhagen run-up, but popular support for the measure is easily shaken. Although a Washington Post/ABC News poll showed that three quarters of the Americans think the federal government should regulate greenhouse gases, only 52 percent supported the cap-and-trade program policymakers have chosen to address the problem. Only 44 percent said they would back a cap-and-trade system if it boosted monthly electricity bills by $25. Forty-four percent of Americans rated global warming as a "very serious" problem in the Pew Global Attitudes Project poll, putting the United States near the bottom of 25 nations surveyed, along with fellow major polluter China, at 30 percent. Some 90 percent of Brazilians, 68 percent of the French population, 67 percent of people in India, and 65 percent of Japanese viewed the issue as "very serious" in the international survey. A poll by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press found roughly half of Americans favor setting limits on carbon emissions and making companies pay for their emissions, even if this may lead to higher energy prices. But the poll's strongest finding was that the issue had not even registered with the public, with 55 percent said they had heard nothing at all of Congress's efforts to address the problem. If the public is unaware, more than 1,150 companies and advocacy groups are very tuned in, and they have deployed about 2,810 climate lobbyists to Capitol Hill, an increase of more than 400 percent from six years earlier, according to an analysis of disclosures filed with the Senate Office of Public Records. Spending on the lobbying this year so far in the United States is at least $47 million. Senate advocates aim to build support much as it was achieved in the legislation that narrowly passed the House this summer - by giving a boost to businesses that fear they'll be hurt by measures raising the cost of the coal that supplies half the nation's electricity. But the concessions have not won over opponents like Don Blankenship, chief executive of Massey Energy, the largest coal producer in central Appalachia, who forcefully disputes the science of global warming. Although that makes him an outlier in the public debate, his argument that the bill will cost jobs at the same time "it will increase global pollution by moving production to unregulated countries like China" causes worry on Capitol Hill. Blankenship is just one of the business opponents who have worked to rally citizen ire - a campaign that has resulted in hundreds of alarmed phone calls to Senate offices. Given the power of industry lobbying in Washington, advocates see the best hope for the legislation's passage as the competing U.S. businesses that support action, ranging from power companies that want predictable energy policy to high-tech firms that aim to market climate solutions. Dan Reicher, director of climate change and energy initiatives at Google, who also was a member of President Barack Obama's transition team, is confident climate action can gain support in the U.S. Congress, if it has plenty of flexibility and opportunity for businesses. But he is under no illusions it will be easy. "It shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that there's a major proportion of our economy that's built around traditional energy supplies, and would indeed feel some impact from controlling carbon emissions," he says. "So that's what has to be sorted out politically." At a recent conference in Washington on energy efficiency - a pursuit Google aims to advance by providing people real-time home electricity information - Reicher summed up the climate change politics succinctly: "This is going to be an epic, epic struggle." From maryrose333 at att.net Sat Nov 21 13:37:28 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Sat, 21 Nov 2009 12:37:28 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: [globalnetnews-summary] New Right-Wing Craze Prays That Obama's 'Days Be Few' Message-ID: <003801ca6aea$9971bd20$cc553760$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS What we are seeing here are "cries" from those who are embedded in the old ways of doing "business as usual" and care more for the money they make than about moving on into a healthier mode of living that is more "life-enhancing". If we are to move into TOTAL WELLNESS, we must move beyond monetized political parties which really represent "the best government money can buy," and into creating a future by conscious design in which all of the people are taken into consideration. I am holding the field for the fullest potential to unfold in this event now in the best interests of all concerned. -----Original Message----- From: globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net [mailto:globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net] On Behalf Of TradingPostPaul Sent: Saturday, November 21, 2009 10:59 AM To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] New Right-Wing Craze Prays That Obama's 'Days Be Few' New Right-Wing Craze Prays That Obama's 'Days Be Few' By Amanda Terkel on Nov 19th, 2009 at 5:00 pm http://thinkprogress.org/2009/11/19/pray-obama-psal/ Pray For Obama Merchandise The newest far-right craze is an anti-Obama slogan that is making its way onto t-shirts, bumper stickers, mugs, and even teddy bears: "Pray for Obama: Psalm 109:8," which reads, "Let his days be few; and let another take his office." The meme is also taking off on Twitter, with conservatives calling it "hilarious." Commentators have noted that it's unclear whether the intent is to hope for an end to Obama's time in office - or an end to his life. But a look at the lines in the rest of the psalm hint at the latter: Let his days be few; and let another take his office. Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow. Let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg: let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places. Let the extortioner catch all that he hath; and let the strangers spoil his labor. Let there be none to extend mercy unto him: neither let there be any to favor his fatherless children. Let his posterity be cut off; and in the generation following let their name be blotted out. Let the iniquity of his fathers be remembered with the LORD; and let not the sin of his mother be blotted out. Let them be before the LORD continually, that he may cut off the memory of them from the earth. Diana Butler Bass at Beliefnet explains that Psalm 109 is one of the "imprecatory" prayers, "a lament in the form of petition to destroy one's enemies." While perhaps intended to be a joke, she notes that the psalm actually "entreats God to destroy the president": It is the personal prayer of an individual, someone who has been dealt an injustice by another-and usually more powerful-person. The words of Psalm 109 are those of deep agony, the longings of a victim for retribution and justice. This psalm is considered one of the most difficult of all the psalms-full of violent images of vengeance and death. Quite a few of the "Pray for Obama" items are being sold at CafePress.com, although many of them have been taken off of the site (here's a cached version of some of them). Cafe Press representative Margene H. told ThinkProgress that while the site took down some of the "Pray for Obama" items today, it is now in the process of reinstating them: We initially pulled the Psalm 109:8 content from our products today because broader media dialog indicated that these designs potentially suggested violence towards the president. Based on current public discourse and further review of the actual content, we have determined that it is fair political commentary and we are in the process of reinstating this merchandise. As with all of our content, these designs will continue to be reviewed and if at any time their meaning is construed as advocating violence we will revisit our decision. On Tuesday, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow spoke with "Patience With God" author Frank Schaeffer, who said that while the psalm was "frightening" in a secular context, it's even "more threatening" in a biblical context. From maryrose333 at att.net Sat Nov 21 14:18:30 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Sat, 21 Nov 2009 13:18:30 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: Must read? FW: [globalnetnews-summary] $4.8 trillion - Interest on U.S. debt Message-ID: <003901ca6af0$56352820$029f7860$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS Mary, thanks for your input below. For some reason, I had thought that nothing was ever really signed regarding the implementation of the income tax. Although I have been surrounded by people who were very much involved with this issue, I personally never got involved and just listened to what others were telling me. But knowing how sharp you are on these issues, bow to you on this. Does anyone have any further input on this issue? Would like to hear it. My feelings are that this Congress is going to force the issue on a lot of these things which may or may not be true the way certain elements of the Republican Party are acting. And, while I very much agree that it is high time these issues were addressed, what I perceive from this Congress is that there are many involved who want to see a "theocratic" government in place to govern what many consider to be "God's Country." What I also perceive is that some want to see a real showdown over these issues which would mean a "shoot-out" between the militia and U.S. military forces. And I hear talk like this in my own community with people going around making remarks like: "well, if they do this or that we'll just get our guns out and settle this." And then the next thing you know when this kind of thing starts martial law is enacted and it's all over. So, I feel the only way to settle these things are in the courts, but many of these are rigged also. So, I feel we also have to counter this with citizen action such as that prescribed by Thomas Greco, Jr. in his book: "The End of Money and the Future of Civilization." And, what Thomas is for is small "re-localized communities" much like those envisioned by the authors of "Gaian Democracies," which we discussed at length a year or so ago. If we have many small communities linked together with each community being "self-governing" and based on community currencies, then we have absolutely no need for big government. If anyone wants to do a large project where a large sum of money is needed, then these communities can come together and "aggragate" the sum needed from a group of small communities that are networked together for this purpose. We just need to begin to "think differently" about the way in which things are done and exactly who is going to benefit -- obviously we no longer want it to be the Fed. And, it would not surprise me at all to see the United States disintegrate into separate unions with California, Arizona, Nevada and Oregon being one such union. -----Original Message----- From: Mary Nelson [mailto:m_nelson at aperdat.com] Sent: Saturday, November 21, 2009 12:07 PM To: 'mary rose' Subject: RE: Must read? FW: [globalnetnews-summary] $4.8 trillion - Interest on U.S. debt Mary Rose, My understanding (and there are tons of references about this, as you know) is that the income tax was in fact instituted along with the creation of the Federal Reserve System specifically in order to put the creation of money into the hands of a private bank, called the FED, so that the U.S. Government (us) would have to borrow it and pay interest in order to have money in circulation, instead of just printing and spending it into the economy as needed. Such a deal! So a mechanism had to be created to steal that interest money from the citizens and voila! The clearly unconstitutional tax on citizen's "incomes" which aren't "incomes" at all but exchange for work done. So, end the FED! Not that that will save us, but you brought it up. Or at least globalnetnews-summary did. It appears that the Paul/Grayson bill might pass to require the first audit that the FED has ever had. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/19/fed-beaten-bill-to-audit_n_364546.h tml Probably this is just a pretense due to the above the radar recognition that the FED has never been audited (in spite of bills requiring it having been proposed for decades). This bears following to see how "they" keep it from happening while saying it must. MaryN -----Original Message----- From: mary rose [mailto:maryrose333 at att.net] Sent: Friday, November 20, 2009 11:41 AM To: Fixgov at yahoogroups.com; 'Discussion Forum for Global Justice' Subject: Must read? FW: [globalnetnews-summary] $4.8 trillion - Interest on U.S. debt Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS Excerpt from this article: "In 2015 alone, the estimated interest due - $533 billion - is equal to a third of the federal income taxes expected to be paid that year, said Charles Konigsberg, chief budget counsel of the Concord Coalition, a deficit watchdog group." Question: There is currently a move on by what is called a Continental Congress to end the Federal Income Tax since it appears to have been illegally accessed. If this Congress is successful in accomplishing this, how is the interest on the debt noted in this article to be paid? -----Original Message----- From: globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net [mailto:globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net] On Behalf Of TradingPostPaul Sent: Friday, November 20, 2009 10:17 AM To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] $4.8 trillion - Interest on U.S. debt $4.8 trillion - Interest on U.S. debt Unless lawmakers make big changes, the interest Americans will have to pay to keep the country running over the next decade will reach unheard of levels. http://money.cnn.com/2009/11/19/news/economy/debt_interest/index.htm?section =money_topstories&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A +rss%2Fmoney_topstories+(Top+Stories)&utm_content=Netvibes By Jeanne Sahadi, CNNMoney.com senior writer Last Updated: November 19, 2009: 1:05 PM ET NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Here's a new way to think about the U.S. government's epic borrowing: More than half of the $9 trillion in debt that Uncle Sam is expected to build up over the next decade will be interest. More than half. In fact, $4.8 trillion. If that's hard to grasp, here's another way to look at why that's a problem. In 2015 alone, the estimated interest due - $533 billion - is equal to a third of the federal income taxes expected to be paid that year, said Charles Konigsberg, chief budget counsel of the Concord Coalition, a deficit watchdog group. On the bright side - such as it is - the record levels of debt issued lately have paid for stimulus and other rescue programs that prevented the economy from falling off a cliff. And the money was borrowed at very low rates. But accumulating any more interest on what the United States owes at this point is like extreme sport: dangerous. All the more so because interest rates will rise when private sector borrowers return to the debt market and compete with the government for capital. At that point, the country's interest payments could jack up very fast. "When interest rates rise even a small amount, the interest payments go up a lot because of the size of the debt," Konigsberg said. The Congressional Budget Office, which made the $4.8 trillion forecast, already baked some increase in rates into the cake. But there is always a chance those estimates may prove too conservative. And then it's Vicious Circle 101 - well known to anyone who has gotten too into hock with Visa and MasterCard. The country depends heavily on borrowing to fund what it wants to do. But the more debt it racks up, the more likely it becomes that creditors could demand a higher interest rate for making new loans to the government. Higher rates in turn make it harder to pay off the underlying debt because more and more money is going to pay off interest - money, by the way, which is also borrowed. And as more money goes to interest, creditors may become concerned that the country can't pay down its principal and lawmakers will have less to fund all the things government is supposed to do. "[P]olicymakers would be less able to pay for other national spending priorities and would have less flexibility to deal with unexpected developments (such as a war or recession). Moreover, rising interest costs would make the economy more vulnerable to a meltdown in financial markets," the CBO wrote in its most recent long-term budget outlook. So far, that crisis of confidence hasn't happened. And no one can predict with any certainty whether or when it could occur. But should it occur, the change could be abrupt. That's because the government frequently rolls over - or refinances - the debt it has issued as it comes due. In other words, when a Treasury bond or note matures, the government must pay the investor the face value on that debt. In order to do that, the Treasury borrows money to pay back the investor, which means the debt would be refinanced at whatever the going interest rates are at the time. Just how much churn is there? Of late, a fair bit it seems. A Treasury borrowing advisory committee reported in early November that "approximately 40 percent of the debt will need to be refinanced in less than one year." Since rates may well stay low over the next year, it's possible that debt could be refinanced at the same or even lower rates. But that situation won't last forever. So what will Washington do? To help mitigate the potential risk of rising rates, the Treasury has said it would start increasing the average maturity of the new debt it issues. That way the debt it refinances in the next couple of years will be locked in at lower rates for longer periods of time. And the Obama administration has promised to produce a deficit-reduction plan that would aim to bring down annual deficits to roughly 3% of GDP over the next several years, below the 4% to 5% currently projected. If that happens, the $4.8 trillion in interest payments that CBO estimates for the next decade could go down if interest rates don't increase as much as CBO expects. "There will be less debt outstanding than if we don't get the deficit down. It may also reduce [the average interest rate on the debt] since less debt means less pressure on interest rates," said William Gale, co-director of the Tax Policy Center. But whether they can do that within a few years of an economic recovery is another matter. "Even under the president's [2010] budget as evaluated by the CBO we do not get anywhere close to that," Gale said. That could mean the president's 2011 budget proposals would have to make a lot of changes to get closer to the 3% goal. Unpopular changes like tax hikes and spending cuts. Budget hawks hope the president will push for a deficit-reduction commission to come up with ways to cut the deficit and then propose legislation that lawmakers would only be able to vote for or against. The reason: There is no political will to make the tough calls. Especially in a mid-term election year. From maryrose333 at att.net Sat Nov 21 14:43:04 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Sat, 21 Nov 2009 13:43:04 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: Comment by Desmond Berghofer et al, Mayan Calendar seen through an astrological structure - This Scorpio New Moon Message Message-ID: <003a01ca6af3$c3c168b0$4b443a10$@net> From: Desmond Berghofer and Geraldine Schwartz [mailto:desgerri at direct.ca] Sent: Friday, November 20, 2009 4:37 PM To: mary rose Subject: Re: Mayan Calendar seen through an astrological structure - This Scorpio New Moon Message Dear Mary Rose: I have no comment on the content of Barbara Hand Clow's piece on Night Six of the Galactic Underworld as most of what she says is outside my frame of reference. However, I do acknowledge her for having introduced me to the work of Carl Johan Calleman, whose creative interpretation of the meaning of the Mayan Calendar is very persuasive. For this reason I support her recommendation to see his latest book, The Purposeful Universe. I am reading it now. He begins by taking recent discoveries in physics of a Central Axis in the Cosmic Microwave Background of the Big Bang to posit a new theory of creation that is a better explanation of the creation of the universe than the current Big Bang theory and, most importantly, introduces the concept of purpose to creation in contrast to the current scientific preoccupation with randomness. The concept of purpose is key to understanding the Mayan Calendar as a description of the purposeful evolution of life and, in particular, human consciousness towards a positive development of our species and the world. I don't necessarily think that Calleman has got it all right, anymore than Newton, Darwin or Einstein got it all right--but that's pretty good company to keep, and I do recommend that your readers take a look at his latest book, The Purposeful Universe, which is available from Amazon. Desmond Desmond, thanks for your comment. I am an admirer of Carl Johan Calleman also, and will try to get his latest book and review it. However, I was just reviewing Dr. Bruce Lipton's CD: "As Above - So Below," which is an introduction to "fractal evolution" from his perspective, and find the same message as Calleman's in Bruce's explanation as to how life unfolds from a biological interpretation. And, as well I can link both Calleman's and Lipton's viewpoints to that of The Dalai Lama's "The Universe in An Atom". It becomes readily apparent that we are both the Creator and the Created and what we perceive of as "God" is really the electromagnetic energy field as revealed by Lawrence Fagg in "The Electromagnetic and the Sacred". ----- Original Message ----- From: mary rose To: Fixgov at yahoogroups.com ; 'Discussion Forum for Global Justice' Cc: dustysummerrose at gmail.com Sent: Thursday, November 19, 2009 7:20 PM Subject: FW: Mayan Calendar seen through an astrological structure - This Scorpio New Moon Message FYI and consideration. Thanks Robynne From: Rob McWayne [mailto:wrmcwayne at hotmail.com] Sent: Thursday, November 19, 2009 2:23 PM Subject: Mayan Calendar seen through an astrological structure - This Scorpio New Moon Message This is pretty - wow - maybe because I haven't kept up with Mayan Calendar and astrological readings of what's going on lately. It's complicated, but worth sticking with it to the end. Has interesting mentions of several books, Michael Calleman's and Dan Brown's latest. Bottom line: define what small or large breakthrough you had in your approach to life during this last year, and hold onto it, focus into and expand on it, and "use it as your lifeboat" during this next year. But do read the whole thing, (easier if you copy and paste it into a word file so it isn't so w i d e.) Elizabeth is in Portland, OR, and does amazing readings, too! _____ From: elizabeth at redlotus.org To: wrmcwayne at hotmail.com Subject: New Moon Message Date: Wed, 18 Nov 2009 16:15:51 -0700 Dear Friends, I needed to share this incredibly informative article from Barbara Hand Clow with all my friends here, as I pray and hope that all of us will merit from her genius message and regard the coming year as a process to Universal Ascension, not something to be feared. Please visit: http://redlotus.org/2009/11/ With Loving Blessings, Elizabeth ~.~ www.redlotus.org 971-252-2063 __________________ "Resolve to Evolve" Scorpio New Moon: November 16, 2009 The 2009 Scorpio New Moon chart is exceedingly complex and personally demanding, a genuine get-real-and-be-truthful moment. First of all, the chart emphasizes healing our emotions because Jupiter (personal expansion), Chiron (healing), and Neptune (spiritual access) are now all direct in Aquarius, and the New Moon squares them. This blocks Scorpio's natural tendency to be secretive, so we may experience revelations. Evocatively, Uranus in Pisces trines the lunation, so we look for spiritual solutions for our selves and the world. Night Six of the Galactic Underworld (1999-2011) just opened on November 8, which heralds the darkness before the New Dawn. Thus, this New Moon opens the dark night of the soul. With Obama leading the US during last days of the Galactic Underworld, isn't it fascinating that Mars (war and aggression) in the New Moon chart is exactly conjunct his Sun sign (personal integrity)? How are you doing with your Nobel Peace prize, President Obama? This New Moon reading suggests we are arrows in arched bows primed to enter cosmic space. So, we must begin with a brief recap of Day Six of the Galactic Underworld, which ended November 7. Then we need to look at the probable effects of the movement into Night Six on November 8, since the chart for the New Moon in Scorpio actually does not make much sense without putting it into the context of the Mayan Calendar. Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli, the lord before the Dawn is the deity of Night Six, the archetypal force of cosmic renewal. Yohualticitl, the goddess of birth, was the ruler of Day Six, so now we are living in a world in which the old ways are falling rapidly away. The powers-that-be will do everything possible to make it look like everything is all the same, but things are not. Millions of people following the time-acceleration process have already greatly changed. So, what did you birth during Day Six-November 15, 2009-November 8, 2009? During this period, each one of you has made monumental shifts, and you feel that you will never drop back to the previous level. So, what breakthrough did you accomplish? You must identify this year's personal leap because it will be your guide during Night Six. This leap will be your lifeboat, and I don't care how silly your move forward may seem to be. For example, one student said his big step was to learn how to putt well in golf! That may sound like nothing, but consider this: golf is the ultimate multidimensional game, and the reason most people can't sink the ball in the hole is because success brings up childhood psychological blocks. As for me, I discovered how to relax, a truly amazing feat for me! As for you, maybe like the lion in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, perhaps you won out over the forces of evil? During the Day Sixes of the previous Underworlds, we made critical evolutionary leaps-such as hominids standing up and splitting off from chimpanzees and apes 6-9 million years ago during the Familial Underworld (41 million years ago through AD 2011); or mammals developing a bi-lateral brain 190 million years ago when Pangea broke up into continents during the Mammalian Underworld (820 million years ago through AD 2011). [See my video, Exponential Evolution, for more info on Day Sixes over time.] So, now that we've just completed Day Six of the Galactic, what was your personal critical leap? During Night Six, chaos will reign in the fractal realms, and you will need to hold onto whatever special progress you made. Then you'll be ready to make the great alchemical breakthrough during Day Seven of the Galactic Underworld-November 3, 2010-October 28, 2011). For example, on the first drive, the golfer might make a hole-in-one, and I might open nine dimensions effortlessly just by meditating. Why do I begin with Chaos Theory? We each need to identify our Day Six attainments and intentionally hold them within the planetary field. During Night Six, this field will be in a state of perpetual flux as it rises to create new space for Day Seven's creative agenda, which is the fruition of the Galactic Underworld. For example, with no focus on your own progress, you could crumble into simpering fear-mongering and screaming idiocy when you go see the apocalyptic film, 2012. Are you afraid that Planet X, the Dark Star, or Nibiru is going to smash into Earth, or that the poles will flip? There is no doubt that the big boys are playing a very nasty game, but you can hold your place just by not collapsing into fear! The chart for the New Moon in Scorpio shows you how, so I will read it for guidance on how we can hold to our true path during Night Six. Before I read this chart, I have a few comments about events during previous Night Sixes, since this offers some past experiences that may reemerge now through November 2, 2010. We need to go way back to Day Six of the Regional Underworld (103,000 years ago to 2011); this time period was 21,700 to 13,800 years ago, and this was when our ancestors lived in the Global Maritime Civilization, the global sea-faring culture known as Atlantis in the collective memory. Then, when Night Six opened 13,800 years ago, major climate and earth changes destroyed Atlantis. [See Catastrophobia (2001).] The worst phase of the multiple cataclysms was 11,500 years ago, when Earth was nearly destroyed, and films like 2012 will revive these memories in people. During Night Six (AD 1225-1617) of the 5,125-year-long National Underworld, the Mongols swept into Europe after the Crusades failed, and Western Europe was very insecure while the East was rising in power. [See The Mayan Code: Time Acceleration and Awakening the World Mind.] In other words, the Night Sixes of the Regional and National Underworlds were physically cataclysmic, so the Western psyche will fear invasions and earth changes this year. By realizing that these are past memories, people can release the emotional aspects of these physical cataclysms during Night Six of the Galactic Underworld (November 8, 2009 through November 2, 2010). The probable resonance with past disasters is a big deal for two reasons: one, apocalyptic fundamentalists are going to try to scare you to death with things like 2012; and two, there will be a tendency for civilizations to self-destruct during this next year. Before getting all freaked out, let's remember that the Galactic Underworld agenda is to break down the National and Planetary Underworld structures while we recover lost memories from the Regional Underworld. This process will open space so that we can leap into enlightenment during the Universal Underworld in 2011! So, what am I really saying? I am saying that like the survivors of Atlantis hanging onto floating debris and washing on shore after the cataclysm, you must utilize your Day Six fruition fragment as your lifeboat. Yes, Night Six will feel like the fall of Atlantis for many, so just let it fall by releasing your emotions and your fear! We must surrender to this release so that the intuitive Regional brain can be accessed again. Now looking at our New Moon chart, the aspects to the Sun/Moon in 25 Scorpio are compelling. Regarding Jupiter, Chiron, and Neptune together in Aquarius, they were in 25-26 Aquarius during May through July 2009, and I'm sure you remember that period. We found ourselves plunging into deep inner wounds (Chiron), while our outer boundaries to the spiritual realms were melting our identities (Neptune), and we kept on expanding our minds and feelings (Jupiter). Many people fragmented this summer as if they were having a schizophrenic breakdown, yet actually they were merely shivering on the dangerous edge of enlightenment. This same pressure to grow will come on strong again during this December, when our spiritual growth will intensify even more to prepare us for the exact conjunctions of Chiron and Neptune during 2010. This New Moon in Scorpio, which pushes us into the darkest and most fecund parts of our consciousness, squares the three planets, so it is a clarion call for the personal attainment of enlightenment. Our species is evolving to receive Earth's cosmic consciousness, so during this critical lunation the cosmic jester, Uranus, is poised to dance on the game board. Uranus in Pisces trines the New Moon, easily probing Scorpio's dark caves. Isn't it amazing that Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol is in the reading public's mind right now, just as the apocalyptic film, 2012, arrives to scare the pants off the people on the first Friday the 13th of Night Six? [In The Mayan Code, I commented that the easiest way to imagine how the Global Elite pulled off 9/11 is to read Dan Brown's Angels and Demons. Now that I've read The Lost Symbol, I'd say he hints that the Global Elite knows all about the Mayan Calendar. Well, any possibility that the 2012 gang would sweep Calleman's discovery under the rug just ended with the publication of Calleman's latest book, The Purposeful Universe: How Quantum Theory and Mayan Cosmology Explain the Origin and Evolution of Life. It is brilliant, a quantum leap beyond his previous works, and you must read it right away.] As for me, I didn't learn anything new about how the Global Elite uses old bones, lost symbols, and musty feathers to control the world. But I bet the general public will be surprised to see what their tax dollars pay for in Washington, DC. Good for you, Dan Brown! I continue to honor you as the great revealer of secrets for the masses during the Galactic Underworld. Many people will easily see that Hollywood's timing for the release of 2012 shows that these glittery lizards also play games with old bones and symbols. Dan Brown missed only one thing in The Lost Symbol: The symbol on the dollar is the 13-storied pyramid of the Planetary Underworld (AD 1755-2011) with the Eye of God at the top and the lowest step dated 1776. The Big Boys have always attempted to divert the public from the real Mayan Calendar end-date-October 28, 2011. Now they're going all out for it in 2012, the Enlightenment Bypass. Uranus in Pisces trining the New Moon at the opening of this film suggests that the entertainment moguls have gone too far this time. Then, notice that Uranus in Pisces is in a Grand Trine-New Moon trine the lunar South Node in 23 Cancer trine Uranus. The South Node always reveals the past influences that are impacting the current moment, so we can be sure that Hollywood is serving up old, moldy archetypes. Well, the main developments in esoterica were during the Planetary Underworld, when the Elite utilized the old symbols of the 5,125-year National Underworld to control the world. The global elite uses arcane rituals, astrology, sexual deviance, and violence to control you, while they debunk all these techniques in the media. They keep these tools that successfully probe the synchronicity plane all to themselves. Ironically, you don't need skulls and bones or magic, just consult time acceleration in Calleman's model! This month will be a great time to access nature's great clarity and open your hearts. Have a good laugh at the big boys on the game board being swept away in their own self-created apocalypse. For example, how are they going to explain the Ft. Hood military massacre to the people in the armed services? Saturn in Libra exactly squares Pluto in Capricorn, so now the time has come to use your consciousness to move beyond the box in 3D. Recapping the current Saturn/Pluto cycle, which began in 1982/83 when Saturn conjoined Pluto in late Libra, the world economy was just emerging from a strong recession. A time of limitation and struggle was finishing, and a prosperous period began that lasted nineteen to twenty years. Saturn in late Aquarius came to the first squares to Pluto in late Scorpio in 1993-4, when the great Uranus/Neptune conjunctions occurred that began a new spiritual awakening cycle. Growth became more spiritual, and many people really felt the world was changing for the better. However, with the opposition of Saturn in Gemini to Pluto in Sagittarius in 2001/02, the force for growth broke with 9/11 and optimism came to a halt. During these oppositions, gloomy and fearful pessimism gripped the American public, so the Bushites duped America into a battle between East and West. Regardless of who actually pulled off 9/11, the neo-cons used it to create a systemic fear program to control the public will. They even invented a new cabinet based solely on fear, the neo-Nazi "Homeland Security". This fear-based time lock will not lift until the perpetrators are exposed, so America has been drowning in a weird backwater during the Galactic Underworld, while the world moves right along. Well, not much longer. The exact Saturn-square-Pluto in early Libra/Capricorn on the day before this New Moon will trigger the exposure of the economic basis of this whole cycle: the US is being bankrupted by the war economy that was invented in 1982/83 in order to dominate the East so as to control the world. This ancient struggle between East and West has been totally revivified, and this weird turn of events does not make sense without considering Calleman's analysis of history. During the 5,125-year National Underworld, nations have been pulled into struggles between East and West that are generated by the midline-12 degrees east longitude, the power line of the World Tree. [See The Mayan Calendar: Transformation of Consciousness by Calleman.] Well, the real truth about the battle between East and West will be revealed during the first Saturn-upper-square-Pluto in Libra/Capricorn, and during the second and third ones in January and August 2010. The East/West struggle, mostly perpetrated by the West (as can be seen by who is invading whose territory) has been the wasting force of the National Underworld for 5,125 years. Since the upper and final Saturn/Pluto squares all occur during Night Six of the Galactic Underworld, we can be sure that this great struggle will involve great death, mayhem, and plagues. Night Six of the National Underworld (AD 1225-1617) began with the end of the Crusades and the Mongol invasions and was characterized by the Inquisition and many wars and plagues. The Western powers adopted constant warfare as a defense, yet it is no defense. This can be seen by what happened at Ft. Hood as the Saturn-square-Pluto was building. In the New Moon chart, Mercury in wise early Sagittarius exactly sextiles Saturn in Libra, which means much new clarity and intelligence is coming in to loosen these locked-up old struggles. Mars and Venus in a tight square are very interesting during this lunation. Mars in Leo takes risks and wants attention for winning, while Venus in Scorpio favors deep feminine immersion. Venus in Scorpio has a strong will when faced with the pride of Mars in Leo, so this suggests personal battles between male and female partners and a tendency for aggression on the world stage. But, Venus in Scorpio means the truth will come out, that history will record who really wins and loses this time. Remember, the forces of the East tend to dominate the West during the Nights of the Underworlds, so Venus in Scorpio squaring Mars in Leo may mean the West backs down dramatically during this lunation. Yet, Mars in Leo is in a wide opposition to Jupiter in Aquarius, which hints at excess and grandiosity on the world's stage. The most obvious reading of these aspects would be that soon the West will have to accept reality as it is, which it has avoided for a long time. Saturn upper square Pluto announces an economic reckoning, so the financial collapse of the West is probably what will end the wars. Perhaps the New Moon's Mars in Leo conjuncting Obama's birth Sun is a sign of how things will play out? The point is, you are sovereign now, because we are in a chaos field. Maintain your truth and integrity while the Knights play out their games on the chessboard. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From maryrose333 at att.net Sat Nov 21 20:12:05 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Sat, 21 Nov 2009 19:12:05 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: [globalnetnews-summary] 15 Signs American Society Is Coming Apart at the Seams Message-ID: <001901ca6b21$bb9ecdc0$32dc6940$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS Well, I am going to say it again. We can alleviate this situation by training communities in how to set up local currencies, raising their own food in tiered kitchen gardens, creating their own shelters, and distributing dramatically changed schooling that fits the needs of today via the computer with the community itself as the classroom. Or, we can sit around and watch millions of people die of starvation. The choice is ours. We need to reclaim agriculture land and plant trees on it in an unprecedented reforestation effort. Grassy areas everywhere can be replanted with "edible landscaping," and any place suitable needs to be planted with hemp so that we have plenty of materials available from which to handcraft thousands of products so that people are "gainfully employed" and can use community currencies as a means of exchange. We need to reprogram out minds to think differently about things -- it does us no good to try and recreate the Industrial Society by "thinking green" -- we need a total make-over that takes our collective consciousness to another level. -----Original Message----- From: globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net [mailto:globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net] On Behalf Of TradingPostPaul Sent: Saturday, November 21, 2009 4:24 PM To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] 15 Signs American Society Is Coming Apart at the Seams 15 Signs American Society Is Coming Apart at the Seams http://www.alternet.org/workplace/144109/15_signs_american_society_is_coming _apart_at_the_seams?page=entire By David DeGraw, Amped Status. Posted November 21, 2009. Are we nearing a tipping point as rapacious elites push a heavily armed populace too far? Editor's note: The following is an edited excerpt from the Amped Status report, "The Critical Unraveling of U.S. Society." The economic elite have launched an attack on the U.S. public and society is unraveling at an increased rate. You may have missed it in the mainstream news media, but statistical societal indicators are reading red across the board. Let's look at the top 15 statistics that prove we are under attack. 1) The inequality of wealth in the United States is soaring to an unprecedented level. The U.S. already had the highest inequality of wealth in the industrialized world prior to the financial crisis. Since the crisis, which has hit the middle class and poor much harder than the top 1 percent, the gap between the top 1 percent and the remaining 99 percent of the U.S. population has grown to a record high. 2) As the stock market went over the 10,000 mark and just surged to a 13-month high, the three big banks that took taxpayer money and benefited the most from the government bailout have just set a new global economic record by issuing $30 billion in annual bonuses this year, "up 60 percent from last year." Bloomberg reported: "Goldman Sachs, the most profitable securities firm in Wall Street history, had a record profit in the first nine months of this year and set aside $16.7 billion for compensation expenses." Goldman Sachs is on pace for the best year in the firm's history, and it is also benefiting by only paying 1 percent in taxes. 3) The profits of the economic elite are "now underwritten by taxpayers with $23.7 trillion worth of national wealth." As the looting is occurring at the top, the U.S. middle class is just beginning to collapse. 4) Workers between the ages of 55 to 60, who have worked for 20 to 29 years, have lost an average of 25 percent off their 401k. During the same time period, the wealth of the 400 richest Americans went up by $30 billion, bringing their total combined wealth to $1.57 trillion. 5) Home foreclosure filings "hit a record high in the third quarter (of 2009). They were the worst three months of all time. 937,840 homes received a foreclosure letter" in this three-month period; "3.4 million homes are expected to enter foreclosure by year's end, with some experts estimating that next year will be even worse." President Obama has enacted a $75 billion taxpayer funded program that has been a spectacular failure in stemming the foreclosure crisis and has proven to be another massive waste of billions of taxpayer dollars. 6) 25 million people are unemployed or underemployed. This means we have 25 million people who urgently need to increase their income, and they're quickly running out of options. The unemployment rate is expected to rise further and remain high for several years. "The president's chief economic adviser warned that the nation's unemployment rate could stay 'unacceptably high' for years to come." The New York Times reports: "Americans now confront a job market that is bleaker than ever in the current recession, and employment prospects are still getting worse. Job seekers now outnumber openings six to one, the worst ratio since the government began tracking.." As this ratio continues to grow, it will lead to a further reduction in wages -- average worker wages have seen a sharp decline over the past year. Economist Nouriel Roubini, a man who accurately predicted our current crisis, just reported on unemployment stating: "Think the worst is over? Wrong. Conditions in the U.S. labor markets are awful and worsening.. So we can expect that job losses will continue until the end of 2010 at the earliest. In other words, if you are unemployed and looking for work and just waiting for the economy to turn the corner, you had better hunker down. All the economic numbers suggest this will take a while. The jobs just are not coming back." 7) As the few elite banks thrive, there have been 123 U.S. bank failures thus far this year. Recently, three banks that the government declared "healthy" and gave taxpayer money, have folded. The Wall Street Journal reports: "U.S. regulators have seized or threatened at least 27 banks that got capital infusions from the Troubled Asset Relief Program, including some lenders government officials knew were troubled when they awarded the money. The troubles put taxpayers at risk of losing as much as $5.1 billion invested in the banks since TARP was launched in October 2008." 8) As bankruptcies surge across the board, 10 U.S. states are on the verge of bankruptcy, with several ready to declare a financial state of emergency. California, Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island and Wisconsin are all "barreling toward economic disaster, raising the likelihood of higher taxes, more government layoffs and deep cuts in services." 9) This is occurring at a time when the "federal budget deficit for the fiscal year that just ended was $1.4 trillion, nearly a trillion dollars greater than the year before." In total, "U.S. public debt topped $12 trillion for the first time in history. The public debt topped $10 trillion in September 2008. The debt is quickly approaching the statutory limit of $12.104 trillion, meaning Congress would have to raise the ceiling to prevent a shutdown of government operations." Economist Dean Baker explains the risk of running such a large deficit: "The debt limit must be increased at regular intervals in order to allow the government to function normally because the government is currently operating at a deficit. If the debt limit is not passed, then at some point the government will not be able to pay workers and contractors. It won't be able to send out Social Security checks or make payments for Medicaid and unemployment insurance to state governments. And, it will not be able to make interest payments on government bonds, effectively defaulting on the national debt." Needless to say, all of this will make life drastically more difficult for American citizens. As the middle class continues on the path of economic decline, the number of citizens living in poverty has already hit an all-time high. 10) Although the government's official figure tries to low-ball the number, 47.4 million U.S. citizens live in poverty, and the U.S. poverty rate is the highest in the industrialized world. Predictably, homelessness is rising at an increased rate as well. "The U.S. government does not tally the numbers but interested organizations say that more than 3 million people were homeless at some point over the past year.. The fastest growing segment of the homeless population is families with children." Children have been hit especially hard by the economic crisis: 11) * 50 percent of U.S. children, one out of every two children, will need to use food stamps to eat. One out of every two children in the United States of America will need to use a food stamp. to EAT! If you didn't think starvation was a serious threat in the U.S., just read this new Washington Post report: "The nation's economic crisis has catapulted the number of Americans who lack enough food to the highest level since the government has been keeping track, according to a new federal report, which shows that nearly 50 million people - including almost one child in four - struggled last year to get enough to eat. Several independent advocates and policy experts on hunger said that they had been bracing for the latest report to show deepening shortages, but that they were nevertheless astonished by how much the problem has worsened. 'This is unthinkable. It's like we are living in a Third World country,' said Vicki Escarra, president of Feeding America." The United States Department of Agriculture released these findings in a study that was completed in December 2008, which means these numbers don't take into account the millions more unemployed throughout 2009. The numbers of people living in poverty and struggling to eat has seen a significant increase since then. This a national tragedy. But it gets much worse. 12) In 2008, according to the Census Bureau, the number of U.S. citizens without health care grew to a record 46.3 million. "The new figures, however, understate the severity of the economic downturn because a large portion of the nation's job losses and unemployment rate increases occurred after the Census survey data was collected in March as part of the annual Current Population Survey." 13) Lack of health insurance has caused 45,000 preventable U.S. citizen deaths in the past year. The American Journal of Medicine recently released a study that stated, "Nearly two out of three bankruptcies stem from medical bills, and even people with health insurance face financial disaster if they experience a serious illness." A Johns Hopkins Children's Center study reported that 17,000 children have died due to lack of health care. You can also add in a recent report that revealed that 2,266 U.S. veterans have died in 2008 due to lack of insurance. The 50 million now uninsured and the 45,000 preventable deaths per year statistics are expected to drastically rise over the next few years. As the Senate continues to strip meaningful amendments from a health care bill that wouldn't even take effect until 2013, it has become clear that, despite the media hype, the health care bill is going to fall far short of meaningful reform and continue to rig the game in favor of large insurance company profits at the expense of the U.S. population. With the highest cost healthcare in the world, current trends will continue and much needed change is not on the horizon. Never before has the United States had so many citizens with so little means, little to no income and heavy debt. Debt and costs of living have now shackled U.S. citizens just as they have shackled people throughout the world. The economic hit men have now hit the United States as well and millions of American citizens are now effectively sentenced to a slow death. Economic Imperial blowback has hit the mainland. And the clock is ticking louder by the day. And here's two more facts for you: 14) The gun and ammunition manufacturing industry in the United States has over 200 companies producing billions of dollars in annual revenues. This huge manufacturing base cannot fulfill demand quickly enough. The demand for guns and ammunition has hit a record high and the gun industry cannot produce enough bullets to keep up with orders. Americans are arming themselves to the teeth! 15) In the past year, 100 new armed militia groups have been formed, as militia members have doubled in numbers. Federal authorities are gravely concerned about the "uptick in militia activities." One federal authority recently said, "All it's lacking is a spark. I think it's only a matter of time before you see threats and violence." So let's break down these numbers. You have a population of 50 million people who are in desperate need of money, they most likely have no health insurance and can't afford to get health care or help of any kind. Part of this population probably also has loved ones who can't get life sustaining medical treatments, or loved ones who have already died due to lack of costly medical treatment. The clock is ticking loud for these people and they are running out of options fast, and time delayed is time closer to death. While the richest 1 percent have never had it so good, a significant percentage of the U.S. population now has firsthand experience in this. Millions upon millions of Americans are poor, broke, struggling, starving, desperate. and armed. We are sitting on a powder keg! We are now witnessing the critical unraveling of U.S. society. From maryrose333 at att.net Sun Nov 22 02:49:58 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Sun, 22 Nov 2009 01:49:58 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: [globalnetnews-summary] Tea Partyers including Patriots Turn on Each Other Message-ID: <002e01ca6b59$4b7e7300$e27b5900$@net> -----Original Message----- From: globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net [mailto:globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net] On Behalf Of TradingPostPaul Sent: Saturday, November 21, 2009 2:36 PM To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] Tea Partiers including Patriots Turn on Each Other Tea Partyers Turn on Each Other Published on Friday, November 20, 2009 by Politico.com http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1109/29744.html by Kenneth P. Vogel After emerging out of nowhere over the summer as a seemingly potent and growing political force, the tea party movement has become embroiled in internal feuding over philosophy, strategy and money and is at risk of losing its momentum. [The movement's internal squabbling has some members fearful that it will disintegrate before realizing its full potential. (Photo: AP)]The movement's internal squabbling has some members fearful that it will disintegrate before realizing its full potential. (Photo: AP) The grass-roots activists driving the movement have become increasingly divided on such core questions as whether to focus their efforts on shaping policy debates or elections, work on a local, regional, state or national level or closely align themselves with the Republican Party, POLITICO found in interviews with tea party organizers in Washington and across the country. Many of these differences date to the movement's beginnings last winter in an outpouring of anger about the huge increases in government spending enacted by President Barack Obama and the Democratic Congress. But they were overshadowed by the initial explosion of activism that culminated during the congressional town hall meetings in August. Now the disagreements and the sense of frustration they have engendered could diminish the movement's potential influence in state and national politics. "These groups don't play as well together as they should," said Kevin Jackson, a St. Louis-based conservative author and activist who has spoken at dozens of tea party-type rallies and is traveling across the South with a convoy sponsored by the national Tea Party Patriots group. "They're fractured at the organization level, I think mainly because there are a lot of people who have not had managerial experience who all of a sudden are thrust into the limelight and become intoxicated with it. And when a potential rift comes up, instead of handling it and maybe agreeing to disagree, they splinter and go off on their own." The movement is composed of hundreds of independent local groups, many of which are incorporated as nonprofits and have localized names referencing the tea parties, 9/12 or We the People. Many of their members also belong to national conservative groups, including FreedomWorks, Americans for Prosperity and Grassfire, while the local groups often affiliate formally or informally with loose-knit umbrella organizations, including the Tea Party Patriots and Tea Party Nation. The organizational chaos - combined with a widening apathy at the edges of the movement - has produced a growing consensus among local, state and national tea party leaders that for the movement to evolve from the loose conglomeration of fired-up activists who mobilized this summer to register their dissatisfaction with Obama and Congress at town hall protests and marches across the country into a sustainable bloc with the power to shape the GOP and swing elections, it will require the emergence of a national leader, group or structure. Ned Ryun, president of American Majority, a nonprofit that has conducted organizer-training sessions for many tea party activists, said "the next three to six months" are going to be critical in determining "what's going to happen with the tea party movement. Are they going to be a bunch of fingers, or are they going to come together to be a fist?" Yet, while some tout a planned National Tea Party Convention in February (at which former Alaska governor and tea party darling Sarah Palin is listed as the keynote speaker) as a potentially unifying moment and others point to online coordination efforts, there is deep disagreement about what any national organization would look like and who would lead it. FreedomWorks, Americans for Prosperity, Grassfire, Americans for Limited Government and a host of other groups have helped organize various efforts capitalizing on the energy behind the tea parties, including providing training, online war rooms that help generate phone calls and ready-to-distribute canvassing literature. But the groups have also jockeyed - mostly behind the scenes - to take credit for leadership of the movement, which - depending on who's doing the telling - took its name either as an homage to the 1773 Boston tax revolt that played a major role in sparking the American Revolution or from an acronym standing for "taxed enough already." Some activists see the turmoil within the movement and the internal clashes as simply a part of maturing. "Some of these groups may burn out, but this is part of this entrepreneurial process and the competition is good," said Adam Brandon, vice president of communications for FreedomWorks, a nonprofit chaired by former House Majority Leader Dick Armey of Texas. The group has facilitated some of the efforts demonstrating the potential power of the movement. Those have included the confrontations that erupted at congressional town halls this summer, the massive Sept. 12 "Taxpayer March on Washington" as well as another Washington rally this month and support for conservative third-party candidate Doug Hoffman, who narrowly lost a special congressional election in upstate New York this month despite strong support from many tea party groups and leaders. Brandon stressed that the strength of the tea party movement is in its grass-roots nature and that FreedomWorks's goal is to help facilitate the movement, not to control it. "One thing that's clear is that anyone who says they own the tea party movement is going to get run over because no one owns the movement," he said. Brandon acknowledged the "rivalries and turf battles" now gripping parts of the movement but said "that's normal because people have different ideas about what they want. That's what's happening now, and it's sometimes a painful process." Those fights have been waged over issues that go to the heart of the movement's purpose and strategy as well as more mundane rivalries and personal feuds. In Myrtle Beach, S.C., disputes within the local tea party about how much to engage in partisan politics and whether board members were profiting from contracts to print paraphernalia emblazoned with the group's logo prompted the treasurer to resign and join with defectors from a North Carolina We the People group to form a new organization. "There's a lot of fighting, and everyone wants to be in charge, and that's why you have so many splinter groups," said ex-treasurer Janet Spencer, who charged her adversaries within the tea party with saying "derogatory things about me that were very unprofessional." She said her new group, called Patriotic Voices of America/Carolina Patriots, counts about 100 members and will not coordinate with the Myrtle Beach Tea Party, whose treasurer, David Ognek, said the friction is "just group dynamics." In Texas, a handful of thriving tea party groups severed their ties from the national Tea Party Patriots group after it ousted, then sued a founding board member who had affiliated with a rival group called the Tea Party Express. "Our fight is in Congress and not with each other or with these other groups," said Toby Marie Walker, who was the Texas state coordinator for the Tea Party Patriots and also co-founded the Waco, Texas, tea party. This Waco group recently drew an estimated 4,000 people to a rally it organized with the Tea Party Express, which travels the country hosting rallies. The month before, it had pulled out of the Tea Party Patriots after the Patriots group accused the Tea Party Express of steering the movement away from nonpartisan issue-based advocacy, embracing extremist rhetoric and raising questions about the Express's finances. The Patriots' attack and lawsuit worried the Waco group's board, Walker said, because "if you align yourself with someone who is going to be that malicious, then how do we know they won't turn on us?" Other local tea party groups, though, cast their lots with the Patriots, heeding the group's call to disassociate with the Tea Party Express. In Granbury, Texas, local tea party organizer Josh Sullivan says he believes the movement's effectiveness is being compromised by extremism."You have some interesting folks in the Tea Party movement - some of them I can support, but some of them are kind of out there and radical, and I don't want to associate myself with them," he said. In Northern Colorado, meanwhile, a handful of active 9/12 groups - named for the Glenn Beck-encouraged effort to stage the Sept. 12 Washington march - are unhappy with the state 9/12 group's aversion to fundraising and with its focus on national issues and have discussed forming their own rival statewide group. "People are beginning to become a little bit de-energized - they're starting to feel like they're fighting a losing battle, because we send a lot of letters into Washington, D.C., and things like that, and people are saying they're not listening," said Brian Britton, who heads the Greeley, Colo., 9/12 group. That fear is echoed by Glenn Galls, a Hot Springs, Ark., tea party organizer frustrated with the focus of Arkansas's state-level tea party groups on national races and issues such as cap and trade and health care. "If the tea party movement is going to continue to thrive and to grow and to have influence," he said, "it must start coming together and coalescing and finding its purpose in life, because if it doesn't, the excitement will fade like it does from anything else." From maryrose333 at att.net Sun Nov 22 12:23:15 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Sun, 22 Nov 2009 11:23:15 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: [globalnetnews-summary] The Big Squander Message-ID: <002201ca6ba9$68917a50$39b46ef0$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS What appears to me is that the world economy is going to crash anyway, pulled down by the stupidity of those involved with the Federal Reserve and much could have been saved by letting A.I.G. go initially and then picking up the pieces. But, of course, my opinion comes after the act was done which isn't much help. What some feel we need to do is to start from where we are now and attempt to pick up the pieces; however, as the poem goes: Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall, And all the kings horses and all the kings men couldn't put Humpty Dumpty together again. So, what to do but start anew! We-the-people need to be able to tell big government to "get lost" because we really don't need it. By taking charge of ourselves and creating small sustainable living communities that are self-governing and include their own monetary system in the form of a local community currency, and by raising our own food and replanting forests, we can create a very stable economy based on a derivative of "agroforestry" as practiced by the Guarani of Eastern Paraguay and, as told by Richard H. Robbins in his book: "Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism," Chapter 9, "Indigenous People, Ethnic Groups, and the Nation-State." As I look at the state of things today, it becomes apparent that we are in a class and ethnic struggle for dominance, particularly here in the United States as the pendulum shifts from a mainly all white population to that which will be mainly Latino by the Year 2030. And here I must go back and reference the "Kurgan Cattle Culture Consciousness" -- the people who became known eventually as the "Old Europeans" who mainly rule the world today due to the sheer power of their wealth. These people were originally the people who spread their dominance throughout the world on the back of the world steer, taking it to six continents while decimating indigenous people who stood in their path as they sought to dominate the world creating what is known today as "modernity". They did so in the name of Christianity which evolved out of Mythraism (the worship of the bull) as they sought to control the world by bringing it under the auspices of this religious belief system. But again, as David Ray Griffin writes in "Introduction to Suny Series in Constructive PostModern Thought": "Modernity," rather than being regarded as the norm for human society toward which all history has been aiming and into which all societies should be ushered -- forcibly if necessary -- is instead increasingly seen as an aberration. A new respect for the wisdom of traditional societies is growing as we realize that they have endured for thousands of years, and that, by contrast, the existence of modern society for even another century seems doubtful." It must be noted that this line of thought ties in closely with that of Thomas H. Greco, Jr. in his book: "The End of Money and the Future of Civilization,' and with that of Roy Madron and John Jopling in "Gaian Democracies - Redefining Globalisation and People Power." This latter book was published in 2003 as Number Nine in a series of Schumacher Briefings. Madron and Joplings book is extremely valuable as it gives us a good look at the "operational instruments" which the Global Monetocracy (read bankers in the form of Old Europeans) has used to acquire more and more control over "we-the-people." Another very reliable source of information on this is also found in R. Buckminster Fuller's CRITICAL PATH, and certainly a reading of Jay Earley's "Transforming Human Culture - Social Evolution and the Planetary Crisis" should be included in the search for answers as to how we must manage this "unprecedented in prior human recorded history crisis" with which the human family is faced today. What I feel is most important for us to realize is that as the human family as a collective conscious/unconsciousness, we have created the situation we are in today in our sub-conscious mind in order to create a new energy field (information) that will take us into another level of conscious awareness, which will, in turn, create "new thoughts" that will, in turn create new actions resulting in new social system formations. As Einstein knew: we cannot solve the problem with the same level of thinking that created it, so we are now forced to move into another level of consciousness and address the issue from this new perspective. Another thing for us to seriously consider is that almost all of what we read in the newspapers or see on television, are only the *symptoms* of what ails us. We must dig much deeper to find the real source of the illnesses to which we are subjected in today's world. For instance, the causes of war may be many as well as the symptoms that appear as war is fought. But, what we must ultimately consider is that the real source or cause of war only exists in the present state of our collective unconscious mind. And, it is to this "state" of consciousness that we must look for answers as to "why" we are doing what we are doing. And, most of the time, we find that this state (belief system) is one that has been programmed into our mind by "cultural influences, e.g., parents, significant others in our lives such as aunts, uncles, grandparents, close family friends, schools and religious orders until we are approximately 7 - 10 years of age when we begin to form our own opinions -- but, opinions nevertheless which have a basis in the belief system(s) with which we were programmed by the aforementioned. And, now, Dr. Bruce Lipton steps in and asks the question as to: What if the belief systems with which we have been preprogrammed are not valid?" What if they are largely based in myth, or in falsified words in documents such as the Bible, and placed there by those in Roman times in order to "social engineer" the world as to how thought back then created a way people should act? Would this not lead to the design of "aberrant social systems" that weigh in heavily on the side of being "death-defining" rather than "life-enhancing?" What was the Spanish Inquisition that killed somewhere between 6 and 11 million people, most of them women, about? How and why did the male dominance belief system, to which we are still under submission come about? How much of what is happening today is a result of the thinking that allowed this unnatural belief system to come into being: one that devalues women and promotes war and violence? Has religion really been of benefit to us, or has it largely been a destructive force with which we are having to deal today? Does the story of the biology of the human system tell a different story than that of religious belief systems which emanate mainly from culture-based ideas that have no substantial basis in reality? As we moved as the human family from Mythraism into Christianity, we left behind the rituals of human and animal sacrifice that were meant to appease the "Gods" and bring about fertility. Is it not now time to release this culturally-based belief system and move into the reality of what it means to be human today while discarding our fantasy idea of God as an "old man who dispenses punishment or blessings?" and recognize the significance and magnificence of the electromagnetic field which underlies all of life as being the ultimate force within us and over which we have control? Is it anymore far-fetched to release our child-like vision of God and replace it with a healthier version now than it was to stop our belief in human and animal sacrifice back then? Deepak Chopra has not too long ago made a comment to the affect that if religion was the solution it long ago would have done its job. Isn't it time now to move on into a healthier way of thinking and living our lives than holding on to beliefs that do not serve us? -----Original Message----- From: globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net [mailto:globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net] On Behalf Of TradingPostPaul Sent: Sunday, November 22, 2009 7:28 AM To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] The Big Squander The Big Squander http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/20/opinion/20krugman.html?_r=1&ref=opinio n by Paul Krugman Published on Friday, November 20, 2009 by The New York Times Earlier this week, the inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, a k a, the bank bailout fund, released his report on the 2008 rescue of the American International Group, the insurer. The gist of the report is that government officials made no serious attempt to extract concessions from bankers, even though these bankers received huge benefits from the rescue. And more than money was lost. By making what was in effect a multibillion-dollar gift to Wall Street, policy makers undermined their own credibility - and put the broader economy at risk. For the A.I.G. rescue was part of a pattern: Throughout the financial crisis key officials - most notably Timothy Geithner, who was president of the New York Fed in 2008 and is now Treasury secretary - have shied away from doing anything that might rattle Wall Street. And the bitter paradox is that this play-it-safe approach has ended up undermining prospects for economic recovery. For the job of fixing the broken economy is far from done - yet finishing the job has become nearly impossible now that the public has lost faith in the government's efforts, viewing them as little more than handouts to the people who got us into this mess. About the A.I.G. affair: During the bubble years, many financial companies created the illusion of financial soundness by buying credit-default swaps from A.I.G. - basically, insurance policies in which A.I.G. promised to make up the difference if borrowers defaulted on their debts. It was an illusion because the insurer didn't have remotely enough money to make good on its promises if things went bad. And sure enough, things went bad. So why protect bankers from the consequences of their errors? Well, by the time A.I.G.'s hollowness became apparent, the world financial system was on the edge of collapse and officials judged - probably correctly - that letting A.I.G. go bankrupt would push the financial system over that edge. So A.I.G. was effectively nationalized; its promises became taxpayer liabilities. But was there any way to limit those liabilities? After all, banks would have suffered huge losses if A.I.G. had been allowed to fail. So it seemed only fair for them to bear part of the cost of the bailout, which they could have done by accepting a "haircut" on the amounts A.I.G. owed them. Indeed, the government asked them to do just that. But they said no - and that was the end of the story. Taxpayers not only ended up honoring foolish promises made by other people, they ended up doing so at 100 cents on the dollar. Could things have been different? Some commentators argue that government officials had no way to force the banks to accept a haircut - either they let A.I.G. go bankrupt, which they weren't ready to do, or they had to honor its contracts as written. But this seems like a na?ve view of how Wall Street works. Major financial firms are a small club, with a shared interest in sustaining the system; ever since the days of J.P. Morgan, it has been common in times of crisis to call on the big players to forgo short-term profits for the industry's common good. Back in 1998, it was a consortium of private bankers - not the government - that put up the funds to rescue the hedge fund Long Term Capital Management. Furthermore, big financial firms have a long-term relationship, both with the government and with each other, and can pay a price if they act selfishly in times of crisis. Bear Stearns, the investment bank, earned itself a lot of ill will by refusing to participate in that 1998 rescue, and it's widely believed that this ill will played a major factor in the demise of Bear Stearns itself, 10 years later. So officials could have called on bankers to offer a better deal, for their own sake, and simultaneously threatened to name and shame those who balked. It was their choice not to do that, just as it was their choice not to push for more control over bailed-out banks in early 2009. And, as I said, these seemingly safe choices have now placed the economy in grave danger. For the economy is still in deep trouble and needs much more government help. Unemployment is in double-digits; we desperately need more government spending on job creation. Banks are still weak, and credit is still tight; we desperately need more government aid to the financial sector. But try to talk to an ordinary voter about this, and the response you're likely to get is: "No way. All they'll do is hand out more money to Wall Street." So here's the real tragedy of the botched bailout: Government officials, perhaps influenced by spending too much time with bankers, forgot that if you want to govern effectively you have retain the trust of the people. And by treating the financial industry - which got us into this mess in the first place - with kid gloves, they have squandered that trust. From maryrose333 at att.net Sun Nov 22 12:47:24 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Sun, 22 Nov 2009 11:47:24 -0800 Subject: [GJM] =?utf-8?q?FW=3A_Flu_Self_Defense_=E2=80=93_No_Vaccine_Requi?= =?utf-8?q?red?= Message-ID: <003001ca6bac$c83d06b0$58b71410$@net> FYI and consideration. From: Bottom Line Secrets [mailto:BottomLineSecrets at bls.bottomlinesecrets.com] Sent: Sunday, November 22, 2009 4:09 AM To: maryrose333 at att.net Subject: Flu Self Defense ? No Vaccine Required Don't miss any Bottom Line Secrets. Add our address, BottomLineSecrets at bls.bottomlinesecrets.com, to your Address Book or Safe List. Learn how here . Click Here to View on Your Mobile Device. November 22, 2009 In This Issue: * Marge Couldn't Remember Her Phone Number... But Now Her Brain Is 20 Years Younger... * Helping to Fight Influenza Naturally * Every Heart Attack Is Now Preventable * Better Travel With Your Pet * Delicious 'Wonder Drug' for High Blood Pressure Praised by Harvard Researchers _____ Dear M. Hampton, With all this flu-fretting, it?s easy to forget the most important prevention strategy of all -- powering up your immune system to fight illness of all kinds, including H1N1, seasonal flu, colds and stomach bugs, too. Woodson C. Merrell, MD, chairman of the department of integrative medicine at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York and coauthor of The Source: Unleash Your Natural Energy, Power Up your Health and Feel 10 Years Younger, reveals the most potent natural immune builders, including homeopathic remedies, traditional Chinese herbal formulas, medicinal mushrooms -- and even a "kitchen cure" that you can do at home or on the road. Will your pet be making holiday visits with you? Homeopathic veterinarian Jeff Feinman, VMD, tells how to make a road trip easy, safe and comfortable for everyone. All the best, Jessica Kent Editor BottomLineSecrets.com Special Offer MARGE COULDN'T REMEMBER HER PHONE NUMBER... BUT NOW HER BRAIN IS 20 YEARS YOUNGER... "I used to have a great memory," Marge told Dr. Ray Sahelian. "All my life I've worked with numbers," this former bookkeeper explained... "But now I can't remember simple phone numbers... it's so frustrating!" She'd lose things right after she put them down -- it was demoralizing. She was only 71, but she felt like a useless antique. Other doctors might have shrugged and said, "Sorry Marge, you're getting old... " But Dr. Ray Sahelian reversed her frightening decline almost immediately. Soon Marge's memory picked up dramatically, and she was focused all day. Marge now says she hasn't thought so clearly in 20 years... Learn more... Helping to Fight Influenza Naturally Woodson C. Merrell, MD Beth Israel Medical Center P ublic health officials are scrambling to prepare for what may be one of the most challenging flu seasons ever. Seasonal influenza, combined with the continuing presence and possible winter worsening of H1N1, is a daunting prospect. Vaccines for both have been developed, but as of this date, the H1N1 vaccine is still in short supply. If past experience is a guide, as the seasonal flu peaks in January or February, an estimated 50 million Americans will be infected by it, with an average of 36,000 deaths -- and this is not counting the new H1N1 threat. Prevention is critical. This includes frequent hand washing and avoidance of crowded spaces. The only FDA-approved remedies available for either classic influenza or H1N1 are vaccines and Tamiflu-class medications. Nevertheless, there are principles and practices that can offer immune support and symptom control. The supplements in this article (available online, from health-food stores and pharmacies) may warrant a place in our medicine chest this year as we seek to be as healthy, and flu and cold-free as possible. (Caveat: None of these have been specifically studied for H1N1 flu.) OSCILLOCOCCINUM Taken at the first sign of symptoms, this over-the-counter homeopathic remedy has been shown to reduce both the duration and severity of flu. In a study published in British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology, researchers found that 17.1% of patients with flulike symptoms who took Oscillococcinum (pronounced o-sill-cox-SEE-num) recovered within 48 hours, compared with 10.3% of those taking placebos. Another published study from the venerable Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2009 confirmed Oscillo?s effectiveness in combating the flu. Particularly for people sensitive to the Tamiflu-class of medications, this is one of the only substances with published effectiveness against influenza. Important: Oscillococcinum works only when taken within three days of symptom onset. Dose: One vial of pellets under the tongue, three times daily, for no more than three days. If it hasn?t worked by then, it won?t. CHINESE HERBAL FORMULAS These are important aids to help the immune system as it struggles to fight flu as well as colds. Few Western clinical studies have looked at these formulas, but the experience of practitioners in the US as well as a history of successful use for hundreds of years in Asia indicate that Chinese herbals can be both safe and effective at relieving cold and flu symptoms and can shorten the duration of illness. These products typically contain six to 10 different ingredients, including herbs such as forsythia, isatis, andrographis and astragalus. Some of the components have antiviral effects... others increase immunity... and others address specific symptoms, such as congestion or fever. Important: Use only formulations that have been produced in the US, which has the highest quality-control standards. Some herbal products imported from China have been found to contain toxic levels of lead or mercury. Good brands include Wellness Formula by Source Naturals and Cold Away by Health Concerns. Dose: Follow the label instructions. A typical dose is three tablets taken three times daily, as needed. ECHINACEA I recommend echinacea for general immune support. The herb fell out of favor when it was reported in a 2005 study in The New England Journal of Medicine that it was no better than a placebo for treating and preventing colds. However, in 2007, The Lancet published a meta-analysis of studies comparing echinacea with a placebo for preventing or shortening the duration of the common cold. Echinacea was found to be effective. The researchers also discovered that echinacea seemed to reduce the severity of cold symptoms. A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study that was published in Journal of Clinical Pharmacy & Therapeutics stated that echinacea significantly reduced symptoms when it was taken soon after the onset of symptoms. This finding has been replicated by many other studies. Echinacea appears to be most effective when combined with other herbs that synergistically strengthen immunity and relieve upper-respiratory infections. Dose: Follow label directions. I recommend taking echinacea in combination with other herbs, such as black elderberry. Good brands include Esberitox, Insure and Immunotone. Caution: Don?t take echinacea if you have an autoimmune disorder, such as rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn?s or lupus. It increases levels of TNF-alpha, an inflammatory substance that needs to be lowered in patients with these conditions. ESSENTIAL OIL INHALATION THERAPY Inhalation therapy is one of the fastest ways to relieve symptoms of colds or flu. It also can help prevent illness because it kills viruses in the upper-respiratory tract. When you?re in a crowded place (such as a movie theater or an airplane), remove the cap from a bottle of essential oil, such as tea tree oil. Take several sniffs with each nostril. Do this every one to two hours. Tea tree oil?s compounds have been shown to have both antiviral and antibacterial effects. For symptom relief: Pour steaming water into a bowl, along with a few drops of tea tree oil, or any of a number of essential oils (rosemary, oregano or combination products such as Thieves Oil Blend, or even Vicks VapoRub -- a blend of camphor, eucalyptus oil and menthol). Drape a towel around your head to trap the steam. Then lean forward, close your eyes and breathe in the vaporized oils. It?s the fastest way to relieve congestion and sinus pressure, as well as provide an excellent germicidal effect. MEDICINAL MUSHROOMS Medicinal mushrooms, including shiitake, maitake and reishi, have been shown to have significant immune-stimulating properties, and people who maintain a strong immune system are far less likely to get colds or flu. Mushrooms are used both preventively and during an illness that challenges the immune system. Unlike many immune-boosting herbs, mushrooms do not seem to lose their effectiveness with prolonged use. Dose: Eat one or more of these mushroom varieties a few times a week throughout the cold and flu season. Or take a supplement that includes a mushroom blend, such as New Chapter Host Defense. VITAMIN C AND ZINC Vitamin C has been shown to be somewhat effective at preventing and treating upper-respiratory infections. A study published in Advances in Therapy in 2002 found that people taking vitamin C had significantly fewer colds than those taking placebos. They also had a shorter duration of severe symptoms -- 1.8 days, compared with 3.1 days for those in the control group. Zinc oral lozenges often are used to reduce symptoms, including cough, nasal discharge and sore throat. Caution: Recently the nasal form of zinc in one form of Zicam was shown to inhibit the sense of smell. Dose: Up to three zinc lozenges daily for maximum of three or four days. For vitamin C, a typical dose is 1,000 milligrams (mg) daily, divided into two or three doses to avoid stomach upset or diarrhea. _____ E-mail this Article _____ Bottom Line/Personal interviewed Woodson C. Merrell, MD, chairman of the department of integrative medicine at Beth Israel Medical Center and assistant clinical professor of medicine at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, both in New York City. He is coauthor, with Kathleen Merrell, of The Source: Unleash Your Natural Energy, Power Up Your Health, and Feel 10 Years Younger (Free Press). www.woodsonmerrell.com Special Offer EVERY HEART ATTACK IS NOW PREVENTABLE The number of heart attacks has increased by 27% over the past 20 years, in spite of all the supposed advances of modern medicine. What's going on here? Could we be mistaken about some things? Perhaps we're under some major misconceptions about heart disease. Like... Myth #1 -- Heart disease and heart attacks are an inevitable part of aging. Myth #2 -- Cholesterol is the main cause of heart disease and heart attacks. Myth #3 -- Blood pressure drugs help you avoid heart problems and live longer. Myth #4 -- Aggressive, "type A" behavior increases your risk for a heart attack. Myth #5 -- Low-fat, low cholesterol diets are good for you and your heart. Learn more... Better Travel With Your Pet Jeff Feinman, VMD, CVH T hink about how you?ll travel with your pet in your vehicle before you depart, planning ahead for safety and convenience. Ideas... Keep the pet on a harness attached to the seat belt or in a carrying case. An animal that jumps around can be a distraction and could also be hurt in an accident or if you have to stop suddenly. Feed animals three or four hours before departing so that they won?t start agitating for food too soon into the trip. Bring plenty of water. The excitement and stress of a trip can make your pet thirsty. Bring along a litter box for a cat. Never leave your pet in the car unattended -- you may be away from the vehicle longer than you expect, or your pet could even be stolen. It?s also dangerous to leave any animal in a poorly ventilated vehicle. _____ E-mail this Article _____ Bottom Line/Retirement interviewed Jeff Feinman, VMD, CVH, a certified veterinary homeopath in Weston, Connecticut, www.homevet.com Special Offer DELICIOUS 'WONDER DRUG' FOR HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE PRAISED BY HARVARD RESEARCHERS According to recent estimates, nearly one in three American adults has high blood pressure. But for the Kuna Indians living on a group of islands off the Caribbean coast of Panama, hypertension doesn't even exist. In fact, after age 60, the average blood pressure for Kuna Indian islanders is a perfect 110/70. So what makes these folks practically "immune" to hypertension -- and lets them enjoy much lower death rates from heart attacks, strokes, diabetes and cancer? Harvard researchers were stunned to discover it's because they drink about five cups of cocoa each day. That's right, cocoa! Learn more... Important: Help your friends get much more out of life -- forward this E-letter to them. Better: Send it to many friends and your whole family. This is a free weekly e-mail service of BottomLineSecrets.com and Boardroom Inc. Boardroom Inc. 281 Tresser Boulevard Stamford, CT 06901-3229 ATTN: Web Team You received this e-mail because you have requested it. You are on the mailing list as maryrose333 at att.net. Or... a friend forwarded it to you. Disclaimer: Bottom Line Secrets publishes the opinions of expert authorities in many fields. But the use of these opinions is no substitute for legal, accounting, investment, medical and other professional services to suit your specific personal needs. Always consult a competent professional for answers to your specific questions. Bottom Line Secrets is a registered trademark of Boardroom Inc. 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URL: From maryrose333 at att.net Sun Nov 22 14:55:23 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Sun, 22 Nov 2009 13:55:23 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: [globalnetnews-summary] The Geopolitics behind the phoney US war in Afghanistan Message-ID: <004f01ca6bbe$a8b457f0$fa1d07d0$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS While this article brings forth the validity of the opium trade being the real reason for the continued war in Afghanistan as put forth by Peter in comments on previous articles, there can be no denying that would the U.S. elite who foster these actions become more consciously aware of the ramifications of their actions and move into another level of consciousness, the raising of poppies from which to produce opium along with fighting wars would become "unthinkable" acts. The raising of opium and the wars related to this issue are but manifestations of a state of conscious -- and once we are able to "mature our thinking" and move into another level of awareness then doing these acts become incomprehensible in the light of what is known. -----Original Message----- From: globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net [mailto:globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net] On Behalf Of TradingPostPaul Sent: Sunday, November 22, 2009 11:51 AM To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] The Geopolitics behind the phoney US war in Afghanistan The Geopolitics behind the phoney US war in Afghanistan http://www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net/Geopolitics___Eurasia/Afghanistan/afgh anistan.html By F. William Engdahl, 21 October 2009 One of the most remarkable aspects of the Obama Presidential agenda is how little anyone has questioned in the media or elsewhere why at all the United States Pentagon is committed to a military occupation of Afghanistan. There are two basic reasons, neither one of which can be admitted openly to the public at large. Behind all the deceptive official debate over how many troops are needed to "win" the war in Afghanistan, whether another 30,000 is sufficient, or whether at least 200000 are needed, the real purpose of US military presence in that pivotal Central Asian country is obscured. Even during the 2008 Presidential campaign candidate Obama argued that Afghanistan not Iraq was where the US must wage war. His reason? Because he claimed, that was where the Al Qaeda organization was holed up and that was the "real" threat to US national security. The reasons behind US involvement in Afghanistan is quite another one. The US military is in Afghanistan for two reasons. First to restore and control the world's largest supply of opium for the world heroin markets and to use the drugs as a geopolitical weapon against opponents, especially Russia. That control of the Afghan drug market is essential for the liquidity of the bankrupt and corrupt Wall Street financial mafia. Geopolitics of Afghan Opium According even to an official UN report, opium production in Afghanistan has risen dramatically since the downfall of the Taliban in 2001. UNODC data shows more opium poppy cultivation in each of the past four growing seasons (2004-2007), than in any one year during Taliban rule. More land is now used for opium in Afghanistan, than for coca cultivation in Latin America. In 2007, 93% of the opiates on the world market originated in Afghanistan. This is no accident. It has been documented that Washington hand-picked the controversial Hamid Karzai, a Pashtun warlord from the Popalzai tribe, long in the CIA's service, brought him back from exile in the USA, created a Hollywood mythology around his "courageous leadership of his people." According to Afghan sources, Karzai is the Opium "Godfather" of Afghanistan today. There is apparently no accident that he was and is today still Washington's preferred man in Kabul. Yet even with massive vote buying and fraud and intimidation, Karzai's days could be ending as President. The second reason the US military remains in Afghanistan long after the world has forgotten even who the mysterious Osama bin Laden and his alleged Al Qaeda terrorist organization is or even if they exist, is as a pretext to build a permanent US military strike force with a series of permanent US airbases across Afghanistan. The aim of those bases is not to eradicate any Al Qaeda cells that may have survived in the caves of Tora Bora, or to eradicate a mythical "Taliban" which at this point according to eyewitness reports is made up overwhelmingly of local ordinary Afghanis fighting to rid their land once more of occupier armies as they did in the 11980's against the Russians. The aim of the US bases in Afghanistan is to target and be able to strike at the two nations which today represent the only combined threat in the world today to an American global imperium, to America's Full Spectrum Dominance as the Pentagon terms it. The lost 'Mandate of Heaven' The problem for the US power elites around Wall Street and in Washington is the fact that they are now in the deepest financial crisis in their history. That crisis is clear to the entire world and the world is acting on a basis of self-survival. The US elites have lost what in Chinese imperial history is known as the Mandate of Heaven. That mandate is given a ruler or ruling elite provided they rule their people justly and fairly. When they rule tyrannically and as despots, oppressing and abusing their people, they lose that Mandate of Heaven. If the powerful private wealthy elites that have controlled essential US financial and foreign policy for most of the past century or more ever had a "mandate of Heaven" they clearly have lost it. The domestic developments towards creation of an abusive police state with deprivation of Constitutional rights to its citizens, the arbitrary exercise of power by non elected officials such as Treasury Secretaries Henry Paulson and now Tim Geithner, stealing trillion dollar sums from taxpayers without their consent in order to bailout the bankrupt biggest Wall Street banks, banks deemed "Too Big To Fail," this all demonstrates to the world they have lost the mandate In this situation, the US power elites are increasingly desperate to maintain their control of a global parasitical empire, called deceptively by their media machine, "globalization." To hold that dominance it is essential that they be able to break up any emerging cooperation in the economic, energy or military realm between the two major powers of Eurasia that conceivably could pose a challenge to future US sole Superpower control--China in combination with Russia. Each Eurasian power brings to the table essential contributions. China has the world's most robust economy, a huge young and dynamic workforce, an educated middle class. Russia, whose economy has not recovered from the destructive end pf the Soviet era and of the primitive looting during the Yeltsin era, still holds essential assets for the combination. Russia's nuclear strike force and its military pose the only threat in the world today to US military dominance, even if it is largely a residue of the Cold War. The Russian military elites never gave up that potential. As well Russia holds the world's largest treasure of natural gas and vast reserves of oil urgently needed by China. The two powers are increasingly converging via a new organization they created in 2001 known as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). That includes as well as China and Russia, the largest Central Asia states Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. The purpose of the alleged US war against both Taliban and Al Qaeda is in reality to place its military strike force directly in the middle of the geographical space of this emerging SCO in Central Asia. Iran is a diversion. The main goal or target is Russia and China. Officially, of course, Washington claims it has built its military presence inside Afghanistan since 2002 in order to protect a "fragile" Afghan democracy. It's a curious argument given the reality of US military presence there. In December 2004, during a visit to Kabul, US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld finalized plans to build nine new bases in Afghanistan in the provinces of Helmand, Herat, Nimrouz, Balkh, Khost and Paktia. The nine are in addition to the three major US military bases already installed in the wake of its occupation of Afghanistan in winter of 2001-2002, ostensibly to isolate and eliminate the terror threat of Osama bin Laden. The Pentagon built its first three bases at Bagram Air Field north of Kabul, the US' main military logistics center; Kandahar Air Field, in southern Afghanistan; and Shindand Air Field in the western province of Herat. Shindand, the largest US base in Afghanistan, was constructed a mere 100 kilometers from the border of Iran, and within striking distance of Russia as well as China. Afghanistan has historically been the heartland for the British-Russia Great Game, the struggle for control of Central Asia during the 19th and early 20th Centuries. British strategy then was to prevent Russia at all costs from controlling Afghanistan and thereby threatening Britain's imperial crown jewel, India. Afghanistan is similarly regarded by Pentagon planners as highly strategic. It is a platform from which US military power could directly threaten Russia and China, as well as Iran and other oil-rich Middle East lands. Little has changed geopolitically over more than a century of wars. Afghanistan is in an extremely vital location, straddling South Asia, Central Asia, and the Middle East. Afghanistan also lies along a proposed oil pipeline route from the Caspian Sea oil fields to the Indian Ocean, where the US oil company, Unocal, along with Enron and Cheney's Halliburton, had been in negotiations for exclusive pipeline rights to bring natural gas from Turkmenistan across Afghanistan and Pakistan to Enron's huge natural gas power plant at Dabhol near Mumbai. Karzai, before becoming puppet US president, had been a Unocal lobbyist. Al Qaeda doesn't exist as a threat The truth of all this deception around the real purpose in Afghanistan becomes clear on a closer look at the alleged "Al Qaeda" threat in Afghanistan. According to author Erik Margolis, prior to the September 11,2001 attacks, US intelligence was giving aid and support both to the Taliban and to Al Qaeda. Margolis claims that "The CIA was planning to use Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda to stir up Muslim Uighurs against Chinese rule, and Taliban against Russia's Central Asian allies." The US clearly found other means of stirring up Muslim Uighurs against Beijing last July via its support for the World Uighur Congress. But the Al Qaeda "threat" remains the lynchpin of Obama US justification for his Afghan war buildup. Now, however, the National Security Adviser to President Obama, former Marine Gen. James Jones has made a statement, conveniently buried by the friendly US media, about the estimated size of the present Al Qaeda danger in Afghanistan. Jones told Congress, "The al-Qaeda presence is very diminished. The maximum estimate is less than 100 operating in the country, no bases, no ability to launch attacks on either us or our allies." That means that Al-Qaeda, for all practical purposes, does not exist in Afghanistan. Oops. Even in neighboring Pakistan, the remnants of Al-Qaeda are scarcely to be found. The Wall Street Journal reports, "Hunted by US drones, beset by money problems and finding it tougher to lure young Arabs to the bleak mountains of Pakistan, al Qaeda is seeing its role shrink there and in Afghanistan, according to intelligence reports and Pakistan and U.S. officials. For Arab youths who are al Qaeda's primary recruits, 'it's not romantic to be cold and hungry and hiding,' said a senior U.S. official in South Asia." If we follow the statement to its logical consequence we must conclude then that the reason German soldiers are dying along with other NATO youth in the mountains of Afghanistan has nothing to do with "winning a war against terrorism." Conveniently most media chooses to forget the fact that Al Qaeda to the extent it ever existed, was a creation in the 1980's of the CIA, who recruited and trained radical muslims from across the Islamic world to wage war against Russian troops in Afghanistan as part of a strategy developed by Reagan's CIA head Bill Casey and others to create a "new Vietnam" for the Soviet Union which would lead to a humiliating defeat for the Red Army and the ultimate collapse of the Soviet Union. Now US NSC head Jones admits there is essentially no Al Qaeda anymore in Afghanistan. Perhaps it is time for a more honest debate from our political leaders about the true purpose of sending more young to die protecting the opium harvests of Afghanistan. From maryrose333 at att.net Mon Nov 23 11:17:32 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Mon, 23 Nov 2009 10:17:32 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: CORRUPT WALL STREET BANKERS FEAST ON BEIJING BAILOUTbbltn#10119 Message-ID: <000901ca6c69$626eb9b0$274c2d10$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS Thank you, Ulysses for your kind words. It is attorney's like you who are going to have to wade into the muck and attempt to settle some of these issues legally. What I feel we need, to ensure that we-the-people are fairly represented in the courts, is some sort of legal fund set up by donations from we-the-people. Some time back, a group of us discussed setting up a "union" of sorts whereby anyone who was a member could donate a minimum of $1.00; however I am sure that many of those who joined would donate much more if they were financially able to do so; however we want to ensure that donations in large amounts are not sufficient enough to "buy influence" or we would be back in the same boat as now. What we need to do at all costs, IMHO, is to avoid conflict that could erupt into physical violence and seeking address legally may be the best way to do this. One of the first steps I feel should be taken is to file an injunction to stop the flagrant lying from taking place such as the Republicans are doing; and, of course this is what happens with monetized politics. It is not about what is right for the country as a whole, but what is most beneficial to those who are paying the politicians. This is very damaging to the country and to the people within it. There must be a change in consciousness here -- we simply cannot keep on destroying ourselves in this manner. How do you feel about this, Ulysses? Mary Rose -----Original Message----- From: E. Crockett [mailto:echojurist at yahoo.com] Sent: Monday, November 23, 2009 7:05 AM To: maryrose333 at att.net Subject: CORRUPT WALL STREET BANKERS FEAST ON BEIJING BAILOUTbbltn#10119 From: ulysses crockett, jr. To: Greatness that is Mary Rose & Associates 1. Keep up the good work in these challenging facist Bilderberg times. 2. Happy holidays to all. --- On Sat, 11/21/09, E. Crockett wrote: > From: E. Crockett > Subject: CORRUPT WALL STREET BANKERS FEAST ON BEIJING BAILOUTbbltn#10119 > To: info at kpoo.com, "E. Crockett" , "hed leachman" , atunecrockett at yahoo.com, psa at kpoo.com > Date: Saturday, November 21, 2009, 10:47 AM > From:? Dr. Ulysses > Crockett? To:? Donald Lacy & Prof. Auerbach > > 1.? Great important interview with informed > questions. > > 2.? Note Federal Circuit Court Ninth District case > Lewis vs. U.S. 680 F.2d 1239 (1982), A Federal Tort Claims > Act case, ruled that the injured plaintiff had no standing > to sue and the Court had no jurisdiction because the Board > of Governors Federal Reserve, the real party in interest is > not an agency of the U.S. government. > > 3.? Parenthetically, as noted in the piece below, the > 1913 Federal Reserve Act is uncostitutional in violaton of > Art. 1, Sec. 8, Cls. 5,6 mandating that U.S. issue its own > currency and own the central bank.???Over > objection by the Federal Reserve Board, John F. Kennedy in > June 1963 issued Executive Order 11110 which provided that > U.S. issue its own currency and own the central bank.? > Kennedy was killed six months later. 3.1 See also Bloomberg v. Board of Governors, N.Y. Federal Disctirct Court Southern District (2009) where Bloomberg, L.P. seks Board of Governors, under Freedom of Information Act Request, mandating Board of Governiors disclose identity of domestic and foreign recipients of $7 trillion U.S. taxpayer bailout funds. Ney York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has filed comporable litigation in New York with respect to the Bank America-Treasury secret agreement for BofA to buy Merril-Lynch without required shareholder disclosure. House Barne Frank and Se. Chris Dodd are both aware of litigaton but are both recipients of Bailout bank loans - clear conflict of interest. > > 4.? Benjamin Bernanke, Timothy Geithner, whose father, > Peter Geithner was President Obama's mother's employer at > the Ford Foundation in Hawaii at the time Timothy Geithner > and Barak Obama were attendnig school in the same area - > all? matters of public record.? > > 5.? Wake up U.S. resident humanitarians. > > 6.? Crockett has also written book of Bank Finance > Regulation Structure 1992-2009 and willing to do on-air > interview at the mighty KPOO at any time appropriate.? > Sending under separate hard copy mail copies of single CD > 'Major Funky' for KPOO fundraising support. > > 7.? Bernanke, Paulson, Summers, Geitehner, Sens. Dodd, > Feinstein, Reps. Rangel, Frank, Pelosi - all must be > prosecuted for criminal violations of secutities laws, > specifically SEC Rule 10-b-5 which proscribes insider > trading of securities profiteering without required public > disclosure, in connection with the taxpayer bailouts of AIG, > Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, et al. > > --- On Sun, 10/11/09, E. Crockett > wrote: > > > From: E. Crockett > > Subject: CORUPT WALL STREET BANKERS FEAST ON BEIJING > BAILOUTbbltn#10119 > > To: echojurist at yahoo.com > > Date: Sunday, October 11, 2009, 5:29 AM > > > > > > --- On Sat, 10/10/09, dr.ulysses crockett,jr. > > wrote: > > > > > From: dr.ulysses crockett,jr. > > > Subject: Story from Babelation > > > To: "dr.ulysses crockett,jr." > > > Date: Saturday, October 10, 2009, 3:08 PM > > > ? > > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > > > CORRUPT WALL STREET BANDITS FEAST ON U.S. DOLLARS > AT > > BUSH > > > BAILOUT BANQUET > > > CATERED BY PRIVATE FED RESERVE BD, BILDERBERGS, > CFR? > > > [1] > > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > > > ? > > > > > > about author: Dr. Ulysses S. Crocket, J.D. '71 > Boalt > > Hall > > > School Of Law U.C. > > > Berkeley; '73 LL.M. Columbia University Law > School; > > 1985 > > > Visiting Scholar > > > Taxation Yale Law School; 1986 Visiting Tax > > Legislation > > > Scholar Hoover Institute > > > Stanford University; 1986-present Dean Of > Instruction > > > Carlton R. Inniss Oakland > > > Alameda Community Law School, Inc. Uysses > Crockett > > lives in > > > Emeryville, CA home > > > of Steve Jobs Pixar Animation Film Studios. > > >? see, Ulysses S. Crockett, Jr., 'Federal > Taxation > > Of > > > Interest On Indebtedness > > > In Corporate Acquisitions: A Congressional > Response > > In > > > Merger Tax Reform', 10 > > > Indiana Law Review 419 (1976); > > >? http://blogigo.com/ulyssesecojurist [2] > > >? http://bluntpresents.co.uk/2007/11/19/funky16corners-boy-3rd > > > [3] Anniversary > > > mix > > >? echojurist at yahoo.com > > > [4] > > >? www.Linkedin.com/ulyssescrockett [5] > > >? http://blogigo.com/ulyssesecojurist [6] > > >? www.createspace.com [7] > > >? http://myspace.com119356884 [8] > > >? ms.asya at goowy.com > > > [9] > > >? asya_guillory at csumb.edu > > > [10] > > >? http://www.putfile.com/echojurist [11] > > >? joyceofafrica at hotmail.com > > > [12] > > >? marlin_eagles at yahoo.com > > > [13] > > >? soulsalvage at msn.com > > > [14] > > >? director at eastmont.net > > > [15] > > >? wesat at npr.org [16] > > >? maryrose333 at att.net > > > [17] > > >? rreich at berkeley.edu > > > [18] > > >? discussion at globaljusticemovement.net > > > [19] > > >? sfnancy at house.gov > > > [20] > > >? george_miller at mail.house.gov > > > [21] > > >? loretta at mail.house.gov > > > [22] > > >? petemail at stark.house.gov > > > [23] > > >? lynnwoolsey at mail.house.gov > > > [24] > > >? benjaminleachman at gmail.com > > > [25] > > >? sheencom at aol.com > > > [26] > > >? chumpchange at yahoo.com > > > [27] > > >? sergiokalx at hotmail.com > > > [28] > > >? vibesyet2 at peoplepc.com > > > [29] > > >? dore at tangents.com > > > [30] > > >? ginalee_2 at hotmail.com > > > [31] > > >? sc at stevecastillo.com > > > [32] > > >? phprint at sbcglobal.net > > > [33] > > >? michaelangelo at gmail.com > > > [34] > > >? wriles at pacbell.net > > > [35] > > >? bhazard at oakland.net > > > [36] > > >? jayro at youthcourt.org > > > [37] > > >? letter at nytimes.com > > > [38] > > >? askdoj at usdoj.gov > > > [39] > > >? jedleachman at sbcglobal.net > > > [40] > > >? dougshe at attbi.com > > > [41] > > >? drrountree at yahoo.com > > > [42] > > >? michael at cien.ru/mishapodgayets > > >? associate at christchurchalameda.org > > > [43] > > >? www.stumbleupon.com [44] > > >? www,newsvine.com > > >? reddit.com > > >? digg.com > > >? 911.meetup.com > > >? www.soulstrut.com/ubbthreads/shoflats.php?cat > > [45] > > >? www.humbead.com [46] > > >? ecxojuristulysses.podomatic.com/ > > >? www.associatedcontent/article/903961/ [47] > > > > > > > > > www.nowpublic.com/world/activist-asya-guillory-hosts-youth-science-summi... > > > [48]... > > >? > > > www.indangerousrhytm.blogspot.com/2007/11-tobias-kirmayers > > > [49] > > >? www.wolfgangsvault.com/ulyssescrocket [50] > > >? THproducer at gmail.com > > > [51] > > >? www.webcrawler.com [52] > > >? bbwarw at yahoo.com > > > [53] > > >? www.humbead.com/hmbpop2.html [54] > > >? mix.com/tags/china > > >? > > broadcasting.wordpress.com/sol3?Delivery.cfm/SSRN > > >? 911.meetup.com321/members/54916591-27k > > >? newsvine.com > > >? www.digg.com/political_opinion_W [55].... > > >? > > www.newmedinaproject.blogspot.com/2008/oljm-jisthttp://last.fm > > > [56].. > > >? newsvine.com > > > > > >? October 3, 2008, A DATE TO LAST IN INFAMY. > > NIGHTMARE ON > > > INDEPENDENCE AVE., AND > > > K STREET (offices of 10,000 lobbyists for 535 > > > Congresspersons); Wall Street > > > Congressional Executive Bandits, Down; Main > Street > > > Homeowners Taxpayers, Out; > > > Securities Trading Violations, Antitrust Law > > Violations > > > Running Wild; Judicial > > > Enforcement, Congressional Administrative Agency > > Oversight, > > > Underfunded, > > > Understaffed, On Vacation. > > >? PROLOGUE: 2008 BANK OF INTERNATIOINAL > > SETTLEMENTS REPORT: > > > World Gross Domestic > > > Product Valued at 60 Trillion Dollars; Worldwide > Value > > of > > > Derivative Securities > > > Trades Outstanding in the amount of 1,000 > Trillion > > Dollars; > > > House Wall Street > > > Congressional Bandit Legislation contains no > > prohibition > > > against non-asset based > > > derivative securities trading or taxation of > > transactions > > > thereof. An Associated > > > Press poll of 8 Taxpayer Bailout Bank recipients > were > > > requested to supply > > > information regarding how the banks expended the > > bailout > > > funds. Outrageously in > > > complete arrogance all eight bailout recipient > banks > > > refused to supply any > > > information to Associated Press inquirers. Thus > far, > > no > > > information regarding > > > bank bailout recipients fund expenditures has > been > > supplied > > > to the U.S. Congress > > > nor to any other U.S. government regulatory > agency. > > > > > >? Without doubt, litigation shall be brought in > > the ensuing > > > months by > > > disaffected shareholders, retirees, pension fund > > investors > > > and others who > > > suffered substantial losses occasioned by the > > intentional > > > or negligent wrongful > > > conduct on the part of bank taxpayer Bailout > fund > > > recipients responsible for the > > > current U.S. economic depression. Concerned > legal > > scholars, > > > economists and > > > entrepreneurs are asked to consider advocating a > > total > > > restructuring of the > > > inequitable disequality tax system in favor of a > flat > > rate > > > wealth tax with > > > coterminous repeal of entity tax at corprate > level > > and > > > enactment of value added > > > tax similar to European VAT models. Entity > > shareholders > > > should be taxed on net > > > entity revenues whether distributed or not. The > > artificial > > > distinction beetween > > > "ordinary income', and so-called "capital gians" > must > > be > > > repealed since both > > > types of gain buy the same Whopper Junior. As > Yale > > Law > > > School Professor posited > > > in 76 Yale Law Journal, incease or decrese in > stock > > values > > > should be annualized > > > and tax imposed with or without distribution to > > maximize > > > tax equity and > > > liquidity in commercial markets. > > > > > >? In addition, such flat rate wealth tax must be > > worldwide > > > and imposed on any > > > entity or individual doing business in the U.S. > to > > avoid > > > the tax haven foreign > > > domicile-shopping of entities doing business in > the > > U.S. in > > > avoidance of > > > taxation. Equitable fiscal advocates must demand > that > > the > > > Bilderberg-Council On > > > Foreign Relations economic advisors to the > incoming > > Obama > > > administration - Sen. > > > Diane Feinstein, Lawrence Summers, Robert Rubin, > > Benjamin > > > Shalom Bernanke, > > > Timothy Geithner, Vernon Jordan (Director U.S. > Friends > > of > > > Bilderberg Group), > > > indicted war criminal Henry Kissinger, > Christopher > > Edley, > > > Rahm Emanuel (who > > > retains his Israeli citizenship and brother of > an > > Israeli > > > intelligence agent), > > > Valarie Jarrett, et al- either support equitable > > taxation > > > restructuring or > > > recuse themselves from U.S. fiscal policy-making, > in > > the > > > interest of justice to > > > the U.S. taxpayer. All these forementioned > > > Bilderberg-Council On Foreign > > > Relations Obama advisers were principle > architects of > > the > > > disastrous > > > ill-conceived economic policies the direct cause > of > > the > > > current U.S. finance > > > collapse and economic depression. > > > > > >? Readers must follow the present litigation of > > Lehman > > > Brothers creditors > > > against JP Morgan Chase which shall undoubtedly > be the > > most > > > important securities > > > fraud law violations case in U. S. history. Vinee > Tong > > of > > > the Associated Press > > > reports October 4, 2008 that "... (the) > Creditors > > Committee > > > believes Lehman > > > Brothers Holdings Inc. had more than $17 billion > in > > cash > > > and securities held at > > > JPMorgan Chase before its Chapter 11 filing but > that > > > JPMorgan Chase froze the > > > assets Sept. 12, three days before Lehman filed > for > > court > > > protection..." > > > > > >? As a result of JPMorgan Chase's actions, > Lehman > > Brothers > > > Holdings, Inc. > > > "...suffered an immediate liquidity crisis that > could > > have > > > been averted by any > > > number of events, none of which transpired," > lawyers > > for > > > creditors wrote in > > > court papers. "In freezing Lehman Brothers > assets, > > JPMorgan > > > Chase was > > > purportedly holding Lehman Brothers assets as a > > potential > > > offset against any > > > claims," lawyers said. It is submitted by this > author > > that > > > the Directors of JP > > > Morgan Chase should familiarize themselves with > the > > Supreme > > > Court Miranda case > > > requiring defendant's right to remain silent and > right > > to > > > attorney > > > representation. > > > > > >? INTRODUCTION: Bilderberg, Council On Foreign > > Relations, > > > Federalist Society, > > > Federal Reserve Board Chair, Treasury Sec'y > Henry > > Paulson, > > > selected Senators and > > > Congresspersons listed below engaged these past > 8 > > years in > > > securities trading > > > directly with brokers based on insider > information in > > > violation of Securities > > > Exchange Commission Rule 10b-5-1.2. The 2000 > version > > of > > > Rule 10b-5 defines > > > trading "on the bases of" inside information as > any > > time a > > > person trades while > > > aware of material nonpublic information - so that > it > > is no > > > defense for one to > > > say that she would have made the trade anyway. > In > > United > > > States v. O'Hagan, 521 > > > U.S. 612,655 (1997) the Supreme Court explained > > liability > > > under Rule 10b-5. > > > O'Hagan, partner in a law firm representing > Grand > > > Metropolitan, while Grand > > > considered tender offer for Pillsbury Co. O'Hagan > used > > this > > > inside information > > > by buying call options on Pillsbury stock > resulting in > > $4 > > > million profit. > > > O'Hagan claimed neither he nor his firm owed a > > fiduciary > > > duty to Pillsbury, so > > > he did not commit fraud by purchasinig Pillsbury > > options. > > > The Supreme Court > > > rejected O'Hagan's arguments upholding his > > conviction, > > > ruling, "...the > > > "misappropriation" theory holds a person commits > fraud > > "in > > > connection with" a > > > securities transactdion and therby violates 10b- > and > > Rule > > > 10b-5, when she > > > misappropriates confidential information for > > securities > > > trading purposes, in > > > breach of duty owed to the source of the > > information." > > > Accordingly, Bernanke, > > > Paulson, Pelosi, Reid, Bernie Frank, John Kerry > and > > other > > > congresspersons and > > > Executive officials must be criminally prosecuted > for > > > illegal use of insider > > > information in the trading of securities > involving > > Wall > > > Street bandit finance > > > institutions benefiting from taxpayer paid > welfare > > bailout > > > funds. > > > > > >? 1. U.S. Taxpayers must demand the repeal of > the > > 1913 > > > legislation establishing > > > the privately owned, unregulated Federal Reserve > > System and > > > require U.S. > > > government ownership of the U.S. Central Bank. > Such > > > legislation would save > > > trillions of U.S. taxpayer dollars by > eliminating > > payment > > > of dvidends to private > > > shareholder-owners of the unconstitutional > Federal > > Reserve > > > Board which seeks > > > complete takeover of U.S. finance and banking > system > > with > > > U.S. taxpayers paying > > > the corrupt Federal Reserve Board private > > > owner-shareholders for the illegal > > > takeover. U.S. taxayers must be informed that > over a > > period > > > of six days prior to > > > September 24, 2008, Bilderberger Chairman of the > > Federal > > > Board has removed $125 > > > billion in liquid assets, intentionally locking > in > > > short-term cedit markets from > > > the banking system. The result is that more banks > will > > face > > > failure bolstering > > > Bernake's and Treasury Henry Paulson's call for > the > > > $Trillion dollar "bailout' > > > Plan. Such actions by Bernanke and Paulson are > > criminal for > > > which they both must > > > be prosecuted and forced to recuse themselves > from > > any > > > bailout proceedings. > > > > > >? 2. The Corrupt Wall Street Bandits Banquet has > > as waiters, > > > Freddie Mac, Fannie > > > Mae shareholders Senators Harry Reid, Diane > > Feinstein, > > > House Speaker Nancy > > > Pelosi, Sen. Barnie Frank, House Ways and Means > (the > > tax > > > writing committee) > > > Chair and Federal Tax delinquent Charles Rangel - > all > > > serving U.S. > > > taxpayer-purchased dinner main course of sauteed > > > > > > Deregulation-Stuffed-Genetically-Modified-Beef-Bellpeppers. > > > Immediately the > > > Securities and Exchange Commission must adopt a > rule > > > prohibiting trading in > > > derivative instruments labeld as Credit Default > > Swaps, > > > so-called Reverse > > > Floaters. In the Savings and Loan government > bailout, > > > underlying assets were > > > real existing property, shopping centers, et al. > The > > > present proposed Wall > > > Street bailout assets are valueless paper > securities > > > unknown as to location, > > > holder identity, description of underlying asset, > if > > any. > > > Both the House and > > > Senate versions of the proposed legislation > > constitute > > > unpatriotic, > > > unconstitutional denial of due process and equal > > > protectioin rights of U.S. > > > taxpayers. > > > > > >? 3. PRESIDENTIAL OFFICE STAFFERS, TREASURY > > DEPARTMENT > > > ADMINISTRATORS, > > > CONGRESSIONAL LEADERS ARE CORRUPT, ALONG WITH > WALL > > STREET > > > EXECUTIVES AND > > > SHAREHOLDERS AND SHOULD ALL RECUSE THEMSELVES > FROM > > ILLEGAL > > > TAXPAYER BAILOUT > > > PROCEEDINGS: Financial data available from the > public > > > record indicates that Bush > > > Executive administrators and staffers, > Congressional > > > leaders and members, > > > Treasury Department Officials, privately owned > > Federal > > > Reserve shareholder banks > > > and individuals - all have unlawfully traded in > > securities, > > > sub-prime mortgages, > > > unregulated hedge funds, short -sale transactions > - > > based > > > on insider information > > > in contravenition of Securities And Exchange > > celebrated > > > Rule 10(b)(5). SEC > > > Chairman Charles Christopher Cox's proposal to > > enforce > > > prohibition of > > > short-selling was announced in August 2008 and > > thereafter, > > > presidential > > > candidate and "Keating Five" 1998 Savings and > Loan > > Fraud > > > scandal principle, John > > > "Arizona Jones" McCain, called for Cox's > resignation > > only > > > to be chagrined by > > > public disclosure that his campaign economic > advisor > > was > > > being paid $15,000 per > > > month by federal beneficiary Freddie Mac up > until > > August, > > > 2008, doing no work > > > for the payments, a clear illegal conflict of > > interest. It > > > should be noted that > > > Justice Department Attorney Designee Eric Holder > acted > > as > > > legal counsel for > > > Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae during the > pre-collapse > > period, > > > defending Freddie Mac > > > and Fannie Mae for illegal waiver of its own loan > to > > asset > > > ratios when > > > licensiing private banks, invesmenet banks and > broker > > > mortgage banks to > > > underwrite mortgages to non-credit worthy > mortgagors. > > The > > > reader is asked > > > whether or not Holder, as Attorney General, will > > prosescute > > > the Fannie Mae and > > > Freddie Mac executives responsible for the > unlawful > > waiver > > > of statutory loan to > > > asset rules set forth in their respective > charters, > > since > > > thks executive > > > intentional or negligent conduct is direct result > for > > the > > > bankkruptcy of Fannie > > > and Freddie Mac necessiting taxpayer bailout > funds. > > The > > > following federal > > > officials must all recuse themselves from > > participation in > > > any Wall Street > > > bailout proceedings because they have all engaged > in > > > illegal conflict of > > > interest conduct over the past eight years for > which > > > criminal charges may be > > > brought; > > > > > >? a. NANCY PELOSI, Speaker of House: Pelosi's > last > > financial > > > disclosure > > > statements reveals Pelosi owns $100,000.00 > > >? stock in American International Group (AIG) > > beneficiary of > > > an August 2008 > > > federal taxpayer bailout. Pelosi must face > criminal > > charges > > > for securities fraud > > > and insider trading under SEC Rule 10(b)(5); > > > > > >? b. SEN. JOHN KERRY: Sen John Kerry and 50 > other > > members of > > > Congress own > > > between $250,000.00 -$500,000.00 of AIG stock > and > > should > > > all be prosecuted for > > > insider trading, securities fraud in violation of > SEC > > Rule > > > 10(b)(5), inter alia; > > > > > >? c. Congressperson Hayes holds substantial AIG > > stock and > > > should be prosecuted > > > as mentioned above; > > > > > >? d. The spouse of Sen. John "Arizona Jones" > > McCain has > > > trust which owned stock, > > > recently liquidated in Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, > > Lehman > > > Brothers, all > > > beneficiaries of the illigal taxpayer bailout. > Both > > should > > > be prosecuted for > > > insider information securites fraud; > > > > > >? e. McCain economics advisor Phil Gram was > author > > of 1999 > > > legislation, signed > > > by Bilderberger president Bill Clinton repealing > the > > > Glass-Steagall Act, which > > > prohibited commercial depository banks from > engaging > > in > > > securities trading and > > > unregulated hedge fund and commodities oil > futures > > trading; > > > Phil Gram should be > > > criminally prosecuted for insider trading and > > securities > > > fraud; > > > > > >? f. U.S. TREASURY SECRETARY HENRY PAULSON: In > > 2005 Henry > > > Paulsen, drafter of > > > the Bush U.S. taxpayer bailout plan in which Sec. > 8 > > thereof > > > gives Paulson sole > > > authoty for admiinistration of plan with > immunity > > from > > > judicial and > > > congressional scrutiny, received a > $38,000,000.00 > > bonus > > > from Goldman Sachs > > > recently converted to a commercial bank in order > to > > benefit > > > from U.S. taxpayer > > > bailout proceeds. Paulson should be impeached or > > otherwise > > > removed from office > > > and prosecuted for securities fraud and insider > > trading > > > under SEC Rule 10(b)(5); > > > > > >? g. U.S. taxpayer-voters must be reminded that > > for the past > > > 8 years of > > > Bush-Paulson administration, the top 400 U.S. > > taxpayers > > > received wealth and > > > income increases in the amount of > > $650,000,000,000.00, > > > close to the > > > $1,000,000,000,000.00 U.S. taxpayer bailout > funds > > sought > > > under the illegal > > > Paulson-McCain Wall Street bailout proposal; > > > > > >? h. The exeutives of five corrupt Wall Street > > Investment > > > Banks, now all > > > absorbed, bailed out by U.S. taxpayers or > otherwise > > sold to > > > private domestic and > > > foreign buyers include: Bear-Stearns, Lehman > > Brothers, > > > Morgan Stanley, Merrill > > > Lynch, Goldman Sachs. In 2007 year alone, > executives > > of > > > these five corrupt > > > investment banks received a total of > > $39,OOO,OOO,OOO.00 in > > > bonuses, much of > > > which benefited from Bush "capital gains" and > dividend > > tax > > > cuts. The U.S. > > > Congress and Justice department must appoint an > > independent > > > counsel to prosecute > > > any possible fraud and other illegal conduct on > the > > parts > > > of these executives, > > > Bush administration officials and congresssional > > leaders; > > > > > >? i. ROBERT RUBIN Bilderberger and former > Clinton > > Secretary > > > of Treasury > > > engineered the U.S. financial bailout of Mexico > which > > > bailout was and is a > > > failure. Rubin is also former executive of > failed > > > investment bank Goldman Sachs; > > > > > >? j. The 1931 Hoover bank bailout failed. The > 1989 > > Japan > > > bank bailout failed. > > > there exist no government central bank bailouts > that > > have > > > been economically > > > successful; > > > > > >? k. Worth repeating is the demand that the > > unconstitutional > > > privately owned > > > Federal Reserve Board must be natinalized and > the > > > unconstitutional 1913 staute > > > authorizing its creation should be repealed. > U.S. > > taxpayers > > > must own their > > > Central bank and the currency issues. John F. > Kennedy > > > attempted establishment of > > > U.S. Government-owned Central Bank and authority > to > > issue > > > its own currency, > > > United States Notes which are Bills of Credit, > > redeemable > > > in payment of > > > government taxes and other dues due to the > government, > > thus > > > by- passing the > > > privately owned federal Reserve, through > Executive > > Order > > > 11110 executed June, > > > 1963. The Federal Reserve System private owners > > threatened > > > to veto some of > > > Kennedy's legislation by not creating money to > finance > > the > > > legislatve > > > objecttives. See Patman, Wright, et al. "A B C's > of > > > America's Money System", > > > Congressional Record of the United > States...Monday, > > August > > > 3, 1964, a most > > > valuable document. Five months later, John > Kennedy > > was > > > murdered in November > > > 1963. One month after Kennedy's assassination, > on > > December > > > 31, 1974, president > > > FBI agent Gerald Ford - (as member of congress > and > > member > > > of Warren Kennedy > > > Assassination Commission, it is a matter of > public > > record > > > that Commission member > > > Gerald Ford illegally and secretly made daily > reports > > to > > > FBI Director J. Edgar > > > Hoover about details of each day's Commission > > Hearings. > > > Readers are also > > > reminded that Commission Chair Chief Justice > Earl > > Warren > > > was also a secret FBI > > > agent reporting regularly to FBI Director Hoover > > about > > > details of Commission > > > proceedings, such reporting contituting criminal > > violaton > > > of U.S. Constitution > > > and federal statutory law) - issued Executive > Order > > 11826, > > > effectively revoking > > > Kennedy's Executive Order 11110; > > > > > >? 4.THE UNCONSTITUTIONAL FEDERAL RESERVE has 47 > > Laer Jets, > > > $400,000,000.00 art > > > collection in its headquaarters offices including > a > > full > > > time paid curator for > > > the art collection. Private owner shareholders of > the > > > Federal Reserve are paid > > > annually a 6 percent dividend on its profits. > The > > Federal > > > Reserve Statute must > > > be repealed by Congress in order for these > > unconstitutional > > > payments to be > > > suspended; > > > > > >? a. U.S. TOTAL ACCUMULATED DEBT now ranges > > between > > > $14,000,000,000,000.00 - > > > $40,000,000,000,000.00 (trillions). Moreover the > > Resolution > > > Trust Corporation, > > > which was established to oversee the Neal Bush, > John > > McCain > > > Keating Five Savings > > > & Loan Failure Government Bailout, has not > yet > > been > > > fully paid off; the > > > principle of no successful government bank > bailouts > > remains > > > in effect. > > > > > >? b. BILDERBERGER LAWRENCE SUMMERS, FORMER WALL > > STREET > > > BANKER AND HARVARD > > > PRESIDENT, CLINTON TREASURY OFFICIAL AND > TREASURY > > SEC'Y > > > ROBERT RUBIN, both > > > signed off on the 1999 Phil Gram Financial > > Deregulation Act > > > which permitted > > > corrupt Wall Street speculators to create the > present > > sea > > > of worthless > > > derivatives, Credit Default Swaps, hedge funds > and > > > explosion in short-selling of > > > securities, resulting in financial collapse of > U.S. > > > economy. The U.S. Treasury > > > under former Goldman Sachs executive Henry > Merrit > > Paulson > > > must now seek to > > > borrow minimum of $3,000,000,000,000.00 to > bailout the > > Wall > > > Street bandits, a > > > sum no investors, domestic or foreign, are > willing to > > loan > > > to the bankrupt U.S. > > > government. In fact, with the minimum of > > > $14,000,000,000,000.00 outstanding U.S. > > > debt, creditors such as Japan and China which > hold > > > trillions of dollars and U.S. > > > Treasury notes, may commence foreclosure > proceedings > > > against the United States, > > > whether or not the United States government > > unilaterally > > > defaults on its > > > outstanding foreign debt as did Russia in the > '90s > > > precipitating the Long Term > > > Capital Management Hedge fund failure; The Long > Term > > > Capital Management failure > > > was bailed out by the U.S. Treasury under > direction of > > then > > > Sec'y Treasury and > > > war criminal George Schultz, now at Stanford > > University's > > > Hoover Institute of > > > which this writer is 1986 alumnus. Treasury > Secretary > > Henry > > > Paulson has a > > > difficult choice - either pay foreign creditors > or > > bailout > > > the corrupt Wall > > > Street bandits whose unlawful theft of U.S. > Treasury > > > created the debt crisis ab > > > initio. So far, Paulson and president candidate > John > > > "Arizona Jones" McCain have > > > both pursued the latter catastrophic course; > > > > > >? c. Parenthetically, President candidate John > > "Arizona > > > Jones" McCain is in > > > violation of Federal Election law by borrowing > > against > > > Federal Election funds, > > > expending such funds without repayment, > utilizing > > election > > > law loopholes to > > > raise additioinal funds while still seeking > > additional > > > federal election funds. > > > The Federal Election Commission is short of > appointed > > > officials and thus has > > > refrained from attempting to respond to > interested > > parties > > > seeking the Federal > > > Election Commission enforcement of duly enacted > > legislation > > > to impose > > > appropriate fines on John "Arizona Jones" McCain > for > > gross > > > violations of federal > > > election law > > > > > >? 5 . THE BOGUS DISINFIRMATION ARGUMENT THAT A > > WALL STREET > > > ENTITY IS TOO BIG TO > > > FAIL. SUCH ENTITY IS TOO BIG TO EXIST AND > ANTITRUST > > LAWS > > > SHOULD BE ENFORCED TO > > > PROHIBIT OLIGOPOLY ENTITIES FROM ENGAGING IN > > PREDATORY > > > MARKET CONCENTRATION > > > ANTI-COMPETITIVE CONDUCT. > > >? Section 2 of the 1890 Sherman Antitrust Act > > provides, > > > inter alia, "...the > > > abuse of monopoly power is per se illegal", and > should > > be > > > enforced against the > > > corrupt Wall Street bandits. Section 5 of the > 1914 > > Clayton > > > Act proscribes > > > anti-competitive conduct, price-fixing > > (Robertson-Patman > > > Act amending Clayton), > > > illegal tying conracts, geographic division of > > markets, > > > passim. Injured > > > competitors, the Securities Exchange Commission > and > > the > > > Federal Trade > > > Commission, though underfunded and understaffed > must, > > as a > > > priority of natiotnal > > > security, enforce these forementioned antitrust > laws > > to > > > prohibit the patently > > > illegal predatory practices of the known Wall > Street > > > Bandits. A bankrupt United > > > States cannot fight two wars in Iraq and > Afghanistan, > > > expending $12 billion per > > > month, operate military bases in 150 of the > world's > > total > > > of 180 countries > > > without risking becomming a so-called third > world > > failed > > > state within the > > > ensuing three years. > > >? The concerned U.S. voter-taxpayer is reminded > > that any > > > Wall Street Financial > > > bailout is totally unncessasry. Private buyers, > > domestic > > > and foreign, exist to > > > purchase failed and failing entities, contrary to > the > > > disinformation fear of > > > liquidity misrepresentations by Paulson, Sen. > Bernie > > Frank, > > > House Majority > > > Leader Harry Reid, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, > Sen. > > John > > > "Arizona Jones" McCain, > > > Sen. Barak Obama - all of whom have conflict of > > investment > > > interest in the Wall > > > Street bandit financial institutiions subject of > U.S. > > > taxpayer-funded welfare > > > bailout. For example: > > > > > >? a. AIG, after reflection decided not to accept > > offer of > > > purchase by the > > > unconstitutional privately owned Federal Reserve > Board > > when > > > it became apparent > > > AIG could obtain a bettor offer from private > buyers. > > > Moreover, no language of > > > the 1913 Federal Reserve Act permits the Federal > > Reserve to > > > extend loans or to > > > purchase equity interests in private investment > bank > > > entities or guarantor > > > insurance entities such as AIG. Accordingly, the > > Federal > > > Reserve Board directors > > > and Chairman Ben Bernanke have all acted > illegally in > > > recent bailouts of corrupt > > > Wall Street entities and should be criminally > > prosecuted > > > therefor. Like academic > > > legal education pre- WWII German nazi > collaborators, > > the > > > silence in response to > > > this criminal U.S. biggest bank robbery in U.S. > > history, by > > > the American Bar > > > Association, U.S. law school deans and so-called > > > Constitutional law professors > > > as U.C. Berkeley's Jesse "chump change" Choper- > is > > shameful > > > and unconscionable. > > > The late great jurisprudence Professor Harry > Jones of > > > Columbia University Law > > > School is turning over in his grave at the > abandonment > > of > > > the Rule of Law by the > > > U.S. academic and professional legal community > which > > > institution they are all > > > paid to protect. > > > > > >? b. Failing investment Bank Goldman Sachs found > > investors > > > to assist in its > > > conversion into a federally "protected" > commercial > > bank; > > > > > >? c. Failing Bank Washington Mutual found a > buyer > > in J.P. > > > Morgan Chase; > > > > > >? d. Failed Indy Bank and Country Wide Bank were > > purchased > > > by Bank America; > > > > > >? e. Failing Wachovia Bank's operations assets > > have been > > > purchased this date > > > 9-29-2008 at $1.00 per share > > >? by Citigroup. > > > > > >? 6. Martin D. Weiss, Ph.D. of 'Money and > Markets' > > proposes > > > that "...Congress > > > focus less on bailing out imprudent institutons > and > > more on > > > fortifyng the safety > > > net of individuals caught in failed financial > > > institutions". Specifically Weiss > > > urges the following: > > > > > >? a. "Fully fund and staff the Federal Deposit > > Insurance > > > Corporation in > > > preparatioin for possible multiple future bank > > failures > > > like Washington Mutual > > > which suffered $2 billion in withdrawals over > the > > past > > > eight business days"; > > > > > >? b. " Close major gaps in the coverage provided > > by > > > Securities Investors > > > Protection Corporation (SPIC) to ensure investors > are > > not > > > denied access to their > > > accounts when asset liquidation is sought in a > > falling > > > market". Obviously this > > > remedy is targeted at the minority of securities > > holders > > > rather than the > > > majority of homeowner-mortgagors who own few > > securities > > > assets. > > > > > >? c. Congressional "...consideration of federal > > insurance to > > > cover policy > > > holders in failed insurance companies". In this > > connection, > > > note this day > > > 9-28-2008, bailout negotiators rejection of the > > Republican > > > Party proposal for > > > federal insurance of Wall Street Casino Bandit > toxic > > debt > > > secutities, instead of > > > direct federal purchase of failing institution > debt. > > > Assuming state insurance > > > commissioners - in the famous words of Oakland, > CA > > builder > > > Joseph R. Williams, > > > Sr. - "do their jobs" and competently enforce > their > > > respective insurance > > > regulatory oversight of companies, this remedy > may be > > of > > > lesser importance. > > > > > >? 7. The population of the United States is > > 300,000,000 > > > souls. Should the > > > Congressional and Executive Agency criminal > > collaborators > > > with the Wall Street > > > Bandits legislate a bailout in the amount of > > $1,000,000.00 > > > per U.S. soul, the > > > total investment qua expenditure would amount to > > > $300,000,000,000,000.00 and the > > > U.S. economy would be healthier with financial > > liquidity > > > available to law > > > abiding private institutions. > > > > > >? 8. IN SUMMARY, NO TAXPAYER-FUNDED WELFARE WALL > > STREET > > > BAILOUT IS NECESSARY AT > > > ALL. The so-called capitalist private Wall > Street > > Casino > > > bandits should be let > > > alone to sink or swim in their own toxic, > > fraudulent-laden, > > > debt-ridden ocean. > > > Note, Bilderberg Criminal Credit Default Swatp > > Short-seller > > > AIG investor Treas. > > > Sec'y Paulson plans to hire > > >? Wall Street bandit bankers as administrators > of > > any > > > welfare corporate bank > > > bailout plan. Congress must prohibit this > planned > > hiring of > > > Wall Street thieves > > > and mandate appointment of special court > approved > > > conservator-administrators > > >? from the independent legal and academic > > communities to > > > obviate conflicts of > > > investor interests. U.S. taxpayers must demand > State > > > Insurance Commissioners and > > > Attorneys General indict and prosecute, civilly > and > > > criminally, executives and > > > directors of Bandit Bailout recipients > > > > > >? 9. Concerned scholars, taxpayer-voters and > > state, county > > > attorneys general > > > should review the Barron's publication of former > > Federal > > > Board Chair Alan > > > Greenspan's New York University Thesis consisting > of > > a > > > compilation of speeches > > > on housing price inflation. Greenspan and New > York > > > University withdrew the > > > thesis from review shortly after submission at > > Greenspan's > > > request, an > > > unprecendented procedure for a doctoral thesis > > submitted to > > > an otherwise > > > ethically sound university. > > > > > >? 10. In a completely arrogant insult to the > U.S. > > > taxpayer-voter financial > > > victims of the fraudulent, unconstitutiional > proposed > > House > > > bailout, the > > > legislation contains the following ubiquitous > > omissions and > > > failures: > > > > > >? a. The proposed bill is pregnant with language > > verbs "may" > > > rather than > > > "shall"; > > > > > >? b. No serious restrictions on CEO > beneficiaries > > executive > > > pay and bonuses; > > > > > >? c. No congressional control to terminate > bailout > > funding > > > if unsuccessful. > > > Instead, proposed bill only "requests" Executive > to > > submit > > > plan for possible > > > remedial legislation a postiori; > > > > > >? d. No Bankruptcy law amendment to protect home > > mortgagors > > > to mandate lender > > > restructuring of loans allowing homeowners to > remain > > in > > > their homes. Thus the > > > rash of foreclosures will continue apace and the > > bailout > > > legislation is a > > > failure from the start. Apparently, there has > never > > been a > > > congressional intent > > > to assist homeowners facing mortgage > foreclosure. > > > > > >? e. As Dallas Federal Reserve Bank governor > > Richard Fischer > > > commented, the > > > proposed bill fails to address the William > > Clinton-Phil > > > Gramm-Timiothy Geithner > > > (ill-advised proposed Treasury Dept. Secretary) > 1998 > > > so-called 'Financial > > > Modernation Act' repealing the Glass-Steagall > finance > > > institution deregulation > > > legislation, such repeal the primary cause of > today's > > U.S. > > > Wall Street casino > > > collapse. > > > > > >? 11. It is unconscionable, albeit illegal, that > > congress > > > has held not a single > > > hearing analyzing the proposed legislation, with > no > > > analytical reports by the > > > Congressional Budget Office, Executive Office of > > Management > > > and Budget, Henry > > > Paulson's Department of Treasury, Timothy > Geithner's > > New > > > York Federal Reserve > > > (the architect of the Wall Street bank financial > > failures), > > > General Accounting > > > Office, Department of Justice, Federal Deposit > > Insurance > > > Corporation (itself > > > facing financial failure), Benjamin Shalom > Bernanke's > > > Federal Reserve Board, > > > notwithstanding this being the most expensive > bailout > > > treasury taxpayer theft in > > > United States History. Ulysses Crockett swears > and > > affirms > > > the matter contained > > > herein is true and correct and invites any > individual > > or > > > entity to litigate the > > > veracity of matter herein contained in any court > of > > > competent jurisdiction, > > > state, federal or international. > > > > > >? 12. Karl Deninger reports that it is > Indictment > > Time for > > > Treasury's Henry > > > Merrit Paulson and privately-owned Federal > Reserve > > Board > > > Chair Benjamin Shalom > > > Bernanke. See > > > > > > http:''market-ticker.denninger.net/archives982-Paulson-Bernanke-Indictment-T ime. > > > Denninger writes: "As the CEO of a public firm > you > > don't > > > work for the > > > government, whether you think you're some "left > arm > > > adjunct" or not. You work > > > for the holders of your stock and debt - period. > On > > this > > > matter the law is > > > clear, and the government, even post-TARP, had a > > minority > > > stake." Denningder is > > > writing five months after the original edition > of > > this > > > author's commentary was > > > written. > > > > > >? 13. On March 17, 2009 New York Attorney > General > > Andrew > > > Cuomo forwarded a > > > letter to Bank America's Kenneth Lewis seeking > > information > > > about the unlawful > > > payment of executive bonuses from taxpayer TARP > > taxpayer > > > bailout funds. Bank > > > America's Lewis testified that Benjamin Shalom > > Bernanke and > > > Henry Merrit Paulsen > > > (then Treasury Secretary) forced Lewis and Bank > > America to > > > purchase Merrill- > > > Lynch. In addition Bloomberg, LP is suing > Benjamin > > Shalom > > > Bernanke and Board of > > > Governors of private Federal Reserve Board for > > refusing to > > > provide information > > > as to the recipients of $2 trillion dollars of > > taxpayer > > > bailout funds and the > > > identity of the underlying assets, if any, > securing > > the > > > bailout fund transfers. > > > The case is being heard in Federal District Court > of > > New > > > York, Southern > > > District, filed in March, 2009 and should be > followed > > by > > > all advocates of the > > > Rule of Law. > > > > > >? 14. Paulson was first reported to have been > > ordered by > > > Bernanke to threaten to > > > oust Bank America's Lewis if Lewis did not > purchase > > > Merrill-Lynch. Presently, > > > Henry Merrit Paulson has recanted what he > testified > > to > > > Attorney General Andrew > > > Cuomo. Either Lewis is lying or Paulson and > Bernanke > > are > > > lying which constitute > > > violations of the Federal RICCO racketering > statutes, > > SEC > > > Rule 10-b-5, earlier > > > noted, Sherman and Clayton Anti-trust Acts and > > applicable > > > federal statutes. > > > > > >? QUOD ERAD DEMONSTRADUM > > >? Dated: October 2, 2008 at Emeryville, CA > 94608; > > October 7, > > > 2009; > > > > > > ? [57]? ? Posted In > > > > > > ? * Politics [58] > > > > > >? Submitted by echojurist on Fri, 09/26/2008 - > > > 8:22am.??? > > > [1] http://babelation.com/?q=node/1157 > > > [2] http://blogigo.com/ulyssesecojurist > > > [3] http://bluntpresents.co.uk/2007/11/19/funky16corners-boy-3rd > > > [4] echojurist at yahoo.com > > > [5] http://www.Linkedin.com/ulyssescrockett > > > [6] http://blogigo.com/ulyssesecojurist > > > [7] http://www.createspace.com > > > [8] http://myspace.com119356884 > > > [9] ms.asya at goowy.com > > > [10] asya_guillory at csumb.edu > > > [11] http://www.putfile.com/echojurist > > > [12] joyceofafrica at hotmail.com > > > [13] marlin_eagles at yahoo.com > > > [14] soulsalvage at msn.com > > > [15] director at eastmont.net > > > [16] wesat at npr.org > > > [17] maryrose333 at att.net > > > [18] rreich at berkeley.edu > > > [19] discussion at globaljusticemovement.net > > > [20] sfnancy at house.gov > > > [21] george_miller at mail.house.gov > > > [22] loretta at mail.house.gov > > > [23] petemail at stark.house.gov > > > [24] lynnwoolsey at mail.house.gov > > > [25] benjaminleachman at gmail.com > > > [26] sheencom at aol.com > > > [27] chumpchange at yahoo.com > > > [28] sergiokalx at hotmail.com > > > [29] vibesyet2 at peoplepc.com > > > [30] dore at tangents.com > > > [31] ginalee_2 at hotmail.com > > > [32] sc at stevecastillo.com > > > [33] phprint at sbcglobal.net > > > [34] michaelangelo at gmail.com > > > [35] wriles at pacbell.net > > > [36] bhazard at oakland.net > > > [37] jayro at youthcourt.org > > > [38] letter at nytimes.com > > > [39] askdoj at usdoj.gov > > > [40] jedleachman at sbcglobal.net > > > [41] dougshe at attbi.com > > > [42] drrountree at yahoo.com > > > [43] associate at christchurchalameda.org > > > [44] http://www.stumbleupon.com > > > [45] http://www.soulstrut.com/ubbthreads/shoflats.php?cat > > > [46] http://www.humbead.com > > > [47] http://www.associatedcontent/article/903961/ > > > [48] > > > http://www.nowpublic.com/world/activist-asya-guillory-hosts-youth-science-su mmit > > > [49] http://www.indangerousrhytm.blogspot.com/2007/11-tobias-kirmayers > > > [50] http://www.wolfgangsvault.com/ulyssescrocket > > > [51] THproducer at gmail.com > > > [52] http://www.webcrawler.com > > > [53] bbwarw at yahoo.com > > > [54] http://www.humbead.com/hmbpop2.html > > > [55] http://www.digg.com/political_opinion_W > > > [56] http://www.newmedinaproject.blogspot.com/2008/oljm-jisthttp://last.fm > > > [57] http://babelation.com/?q=node/1552 > > > [58] http://babelation.com/?q=taxonomy/term/7 > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > From maryrose333 at att.net Mon Nov 23 13:47:11 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Mon, 23 Nov 2009 12:47:11 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: [globalnetnews-summary] Nuclear Power Causes Cancer: What Industry Doesn't Want You To Know Message-ID: <000001ca6c7e$4edb6280$ec922780$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS I am aware that many people feel nuclear power is safe and we should be building more nuclear plants -- but as is revealed here, it is not safe. Another factor is that economically it simply does not make sense. This is a major issue where having the truth available so that people can make intelligent and informed decisions is vital to our well-being now and into the future. Yet, monetized politics buys the truth and then falsifies it in the interests of those who benefit from any profits made. These are practices that simply must be stopped. -----Original Message----- From: globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net [mailto:globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net] On Behalf Of TradingPostPaul Sent: Sunday, November 22, 2009 4:55 PM To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] Nuclear Power Causes Cancer: What Industry Doesn't Want You To Know Nuclear Power Causes Cancer: What Industry Doesn't Want You To Know Samuel S. Epstein Cancer prevention expert, prof. emeritus at U. of IL School of Public Health, Chicago Posted: August 4, 2009 02:02 PM http://www.huffingtonpost.com/samuel-s-epstein/nuclear-power-causes-canc_b_2 51057.html Nuclear power, frequently mentioned as one option for meeting future energy needs, would pose a health threat to Americans if a meltdown occurred. But despite meltdowns at Chernobyl and Three Mile Island, and many other near-miss accidents, there is another dirty little secret the nuclear industry doesn't want you to know. Cancer risk from nuclear plants aren't just potential risks, they are actual risks. Every day, reactors must routinely release a portion of radioactive chemicals into local air and water -- the same chemicals found in atomic bomb tests. They enter human bodies through breathing and the food chain. Federal law obligates nuclear companies to measure these emissions and the amounts that end up in air, water, and food, and to report them to federal regulators. However, nuclear advocates consistently claim that these releases are below federally-permitted limits, and thus are harmless. But this thinking is a leap that ignores hard evidence from scientific studies. Now, after half a century of a large-scale experiment with nuclear power, the verdict is in: nuclear reactors cause cancer. The claim that low doses of radiation are harmless has always been just a claim. It led to practices like routine diagnostic X-rays to the pelvis of pregnant women, until the work of the University of Oxford's Dr. Alice Stewart found that these X-rays doubled the chance that the fetus would die of cancer as a child. Many studies later, independent experts agreed that no dose is safe. A 2005 report by a blue-ribbon panel of the National Academy of Sciences reviewed hundreds of scientific articles, and concluded that there is no risk-free dose of radiation. Federal health officials, who should be responsible for tracking cancer near nuclear reactors and analyzing their nuclear contaminants, have ignored the dangers. The only national analysis of the topic was a 1990 study mandated by Senator Edward Kennedy, and conducted by the National Cancer Institute. But this study was biased before it even got started. A January 28, 1988 letter to Senator Kennedy from National Institutes of Health Director Dr. James Wyngaarden brazenly declared "The most serious impact of the Three Mile Island accident that can be identified with certainty is mental stress to those living near the plant, particularly pregnant women and families with teenagers and young children." Not surprisingly, the study concluded there was no evidence of high cancer rates near reactors. No updated study has since been conducted by federal officials. With government on the sidelines, it has been up to independent researchers -- publishing results in medical and scientific journals, to generate the needed evidence. Studies were limited until the 1990s, but the few publications consistently documented high local cancer rates near reactors. Dr. Richard Clapp of Boston University found high leukemia rates near the Pilgrim plant in Massachusetts. Colorado health official Dr. Carl Johnson documented high child cancer rates near the San Onofre plant in California. Columbia University researchers showed that cancer cases within a 10 mile radius of the Three Mile Island plant soared 64% in the first five years after the 1979 meltdown. Following the federal government's party line, they claimed that "stress" rather than radiation caused this increase. But the cat was out of the bag. Dr. Steven Wing of the University of North Carolina published a paper using the same data confirming the radiation-cancer link. Joseph Mangano, MPH, MBA, Executive Director of the Radiation and Public Health Project, has authored 23 scientific articles since the mid-1990s documenting high local cancer rates near nukes. One study showed child cancer exceeded the national rate near 14 of 14 plants in the eastern U.S. Another showed that when U.S. nuclear plants closed, local infant deaths and child cancer cases plunged immediately after shutdown. Other publications by Mangano have shown rising levels of radioactive Strontium-90, emitted by reactors, in baby teeth of children living near reactors, which were closely linked with trends in childhood cancer rates. The young aren't the only ones affected by reactor emissions. New evidence has examined adult rates of thyroid cancer, a disease especially sensitive to radiation. Thyroid is the fastest-rising cancer in the U.S., nearly tripling since 1980. This evidence proves that most U.S. counties with the highest thyroid cancer rates are within a 90-mile radius covering eastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and southern New York. This area has 16 nuclear reactors (13 still in operation) at 7 plants, the densest concentration of reactors in the U.S. A November 2007 article on U.S. child leukemia deaths updated the 1990 National Cancer Institute study and showed local rates rose as nuclear plants aged -- except near plants that shut down. A nationwide study of current cancer rates near nukes is sorely needed. In May this year, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) quietly announced it was commissioning an update of the 1990 National Cancer study. This sounds like a positive step. However, the NRC has long been a harsh critic of any suggestion that reactors cause cancer. This is not surprising, since the Commission receives 90% of its funds from nuclear companies that operate reactors. Rather than ask for competitive bids for the cancer study, the NRC simply handed the job to the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education. Oak Ridge is an Energy Department contractor in the city that has operated a nuclear weapons plant for over half a century. The "Institute" is merely a front for pro-nuclear forces. It has no record of publishing scientific articles on cancer rates near reactors. The whitewash is on. Several steps must be taken urgently. President Obama, who will appoint replacements for 2 of the 5 NRC commissioners later this year, should select independent members -- not the yes men for the nuclear industry who have run the NRC for so many years. The NRC should bow out of the cancer study. Finally, Congress should appropriate funds supporting a truly independent study on cancer rates near U.S. reactors. The American public deserves to know just what these machines have done to them, so that future energy policies will better protect public health. Samuel S. Epstein, M.D. is professor emeritus of Environmental and Occupational Medicine at the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health; Chairman of the Cancer Prevention Coalition; and author of over 200 scientific articles and 15 books on cancer, including the groundbreaking 1979 The Politics of Cancer, and the 2009 Toxic Beauty. From maryrose333 at att.net Mon Nov 23 14:07:55 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Mon, 23 Nov 2009 13:07:55 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: Key News: Drug Price Increases, Health Lobbyists' Influence, Swine Flu Skepticism, More Message-ID: <002401ca6c81$2fa51750$8eef45f0$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS FYI and consideration. Thanks to Fred Burks for all he does to keep us informed. M R From: PEERS: WantToKnow.info Email List [mailto:emaillist at peerservice.org] Sent: Monday, November 23, 2009 9:11 AM To: maryrose333 at att.net Subject: Key News: Drug Price Increases, Health Lobbyists' Influence, Swine Flu Skepticism, More To subscribe to or unsubscribe from this list (one email every few days) or to reply to this message, see end of email This message is available online at http://www.WantToKnow.info/009/091123_drug_price_increases_health_lobbyists_influence Dear friends, Below are key excerpts of important news articles which include revealing information on major drug price increases imposed by pharmaceutical corporations before health care reforms take effect, the massive influence of health lobbyists on legislation, strong skepticism about the swine flu "pandemic" expressed in Europe, and more. Each excerpt is taken verbatim from the major media website listed at the link provided. If any link fails to function, click here . The most important sentences are highlighted. By choosing to educate ourselves and to spread the word , we can and will build a brighter future . With best wishes, Tod Fletcher and Fred Burks for PEERS and the WantToKnow.info Team Special note: For a powerfully revealing, yet inspiring documentary with vitally important information for the health of you and your family, click here . This is one of the few films Fred would rate "must see." To take part in an Amnesty International write-a-thon event near you that is saving lives and making a difference in our world, click here . And for a fascinating 18-minute TED presentation on the amazing skills of the bonobo, click here . _____ Drug Makers Raise Prices in Face of Health Care Reform November 16, 2009, New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/16/business/16drugprices.html Even as drug makers promise to support Washington?s health care overhaul by shaving $8 billion a year off the nation?s drug costs after the legislation takes effect, the industry has been raising its prices at the fastest rate in years. In the last year, the industry has raised the wholesale prices of brand-name prescription drugs by about 9 percent, according to industry analysts. That will add more than $10 billion to the nation?s drug bill, which is on track to exceed $300 billion this year. By at least one analysis, it is the highest annual rate of inflation for drug prices since 1992. The drug trend is distinctly at odds with the direction of the Consumer Price Index, which has fallen by 1.3 percent in the last year. Critics say the industry is trying to establish a higher price base before Congress passes legislation that tries to curb drug spending in coming years. ?When we have major legislation anticipated, we see a run-up in price increases,? says Stephen W. Schondelmeyer, a professor of pharmaceutical economics at the University of Minnesota. A Harvard health economist, Joseph P. Newhouse, said he found a similar pattern of unusual price increases after Congress added drug benefits to Medicare a few years ago, giving tens of millions of older Americans federally subsidized drug insurance. Just as the program was taking effect in 2006, the drug industry raised prices by the widest margin in a half-dozen years. ?They try to maximize their profits,? Mr. Newhouse said. Note: For lots more from reliable sources on corporate corruption, click here . _____ In House, Many Spoke With One Voice: Lobbyists? November 15, 2009, New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/15/us/politics/15health.html In the official record of the historic House debate on overhauling health care, the speeches of many lawmakers echo with similarities. Often, that was no accident. Statements by more than a dozen lawmakers were ghostwritten, in whole or in part, by Washington lobbyists working for Genentech, one of the world?s largest biotechnology companies. E-mail messages obtained by The New York Times show that the lobbyists drafted one statement for Democrats and another for Republicans. The lobbyists ... were remarkably successful in getting the statements printed in the Congressional Record under the names of different members of Congress. Genentech, a subsidiary of the Swiss drug giant Roche, estimates that 42 House members picked up some of its talking points ? 22 Republicans and 20 Democrats, an unusual bipartisan coup for lobbyists. In an interview, Representative Bill Pascrell Jr., Democrat of New Jersey, said: ?I regret that the language was the same. I did not know it was.? He said he got his statement from his staff and ?did not know where they got the information from.? In recent years, Genentech?s political action committee and lobbyists for Roche and Genentech have made campaign contributions to many House members. And company employees have been among the hosts at fund-raisers for some of those lawmakers. Note: For revealing reports from major media sources on government corruption, click here . _____ Swine flu skepticism demands deft response November 12, 2009, Reuters News http://www.reuters.com/article/GCA-SwineFlu/idUSTRE5A52FU20091112 European scientists and health authorities are facing angry questions about why H1N1 flu has not caused death and destruction on the scale first feared, and they need to respond deftly to ensure public support. Accusations are flying in British and French media that the pandemic has been "hyped" by medical researchers to further their own cause, boost research grants and line the pockets of drug companies. Britain's Independent newspaper this week asked "Pandemic? What Pandemic?." France's Le Parisien newspaper ran the headline: "Swine flu: why the French distrust the vaccine" and noted a gap between the predicted impact of H1N1 and the less dramatic reality. "Dangerous liaisons between certain experts, the labs and the government, the obscurity of the contracts between the state and the pharma firms have added to the doubt." In Britain, health authorities' original worst-case scenario -- which said as many as 65,000 could die from H1N1 -- has twice been revised down and the prediction is now for around 1,000 deaths, way below the average annual toll of 4,000 to 8,000 deaths from seasonal winter flu. Note: It's quite interesting and telling that a thorough Internet seach showed that no major media picked up this article from Reuters News Agency _____ Signs That Swine Flu Has Peaked November 20, 2009, New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/21/health/21flu.html Although federal health officials decline to use the word ?peaked,? the current wave of swine flu appears to have done so in the United States. Flu activity is coming down in all regions of the country, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday, though it is still rising in Hawaii, Maine and some isolated areas. The World Health Organization said Friday that there were ?early signs of a peak? in much of the United States. On Wednesday, the American College Health Association, which surveys over 250 colleges with more than three million students, said new cases of flu had dropped in the week ending Nov. 13. It was the first drop since school resumed in the fall, and it was significant ? new cases were down 27 percent from the week before. And on Friday, Quest Diagnostics, the country?s largest laboratory, said its tests of 142,000 suspected flu specimens since May showed that the flu peaked in late October. Nonetheless, Dr. Anne Schuchat, the director of immunization and respiratory diseases at the C.D.C., chose her words carefully, saying: ?I wish I knew if we had hit the peak. Even if a peak has occurred, half the people who are going to get sick haven?t gotten sick yet.? The drop was clearly not caused by the swine flu vaccine drive, which has not gone as fast as the authorities had hoped. Note: Just like the avian flu scare a few years ago, the swine flu hype has turned out to be largely a whimper, yet the pharmaceutical companies are happy, as again they have made billions of dollars from the massive amonts of vaccines and drugs purchased by the government with your tax dollars. For more, click here and here . _____ Skull and Bones members include some of America's most powerful November 12, 2009, CNN http://www.edition.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0911/12/ec.01.html What really happens behind the padlocked doors of this windowless building, [the home] of Skull and Bones, Yale's oldest secret society? Its members include some of America's most powerful and privileged elite all sworn to secrecy. [CAMPBELL] BROWN: Alexandra Robbins broke through the wall of silence to write Secrets of the Tomb based on clandestine interviews with dozens of bonesmen. Only 15 [Yale students] get picked each year. The society includes at least three U.S. presidents, Supreme Court justices, and too many senators and CEOs to name. In 2004, Bush versus Kerry was the first all-bonesmen presidential election. ALEXANDRA ROBBINS: Skull and Bones' only purpose is to get its members into positions of prominence around the world so that they can elevate other members to similar positions. One of the first activities they participate in is called connubial bliss, where ... each member must spend an evening standing in front of the other 14 bonesmen and recount his or her entire sexual and romantic history. BROWN: According to one ... story, Prescott Bush, George W. Bush's grandfather, was part of a group that broke into the Oklahoma burial place of the Apache chief Geronimo and made off with his skull. Geronimo's grave was disturbed back in 1918, there are photos of skulls inside the "Skull and Bones" tomb. They have their own private retreat. Deer Island off the coast of New York. And a world of ready investors and political contacts in the highest echelons of American society. What has kept the secret society alive for all these years? Good old fashioned networking for the super elite. Note: To watch the CNN video clip on this Yale secret society, click here . For lots more powerful information on Skull and Bones and other secret societies reported in major media articles, click here. _____ Stop Annual Mammograms, Govt. Panel Tells Women Under 50 November 16, 2009, ABC News http://abcnews.go.com/Health/OnCallPlusBreastCancerNews/mammogram-guidelines-spur-debate... For the first time in 20 years, a government panel is telling women in their [forties] to stop getting routine mammograms and recommending that a host of other breast cancer screenings slow down. The United States Preventive Service Task Force announced ... that it recommends against annual mammograms for women age 40 to 49 because, they say, the benefits of testing do not outweigh the "harms" and risks. USPSTF still recommends doctors start screening all women over age 50, but with a mammogram once every two years instead of annually. The task force also ... said evidence was insufficient to recommend mammograms for women older than 74. The recommendations announced today, which contradict the American Cancer Society, have already pitted doctors, women, insurers and radiology groups in a fierce debate about who should get a mammogram and when. Many patient advocates wonder if money fueled the decision. However, Dr. Diana Petitti, vice chair of USPSTF, said the task force never looked at costs in their research or their recommendations. Instead, the task force reviewed a number of studies to compile the benefits of mammograms, such as how many cancers were detected and how many lives were saved, and the harms of mammograms, such as how many false positives popped up, how many unnecessary tests were done and how much extra radiation women were exposed to during the false positive testing. Note: For a powerful article compiling important information and key quotes of doctors and researchers revealing the dangers of mammograms, click here . _____ Plastic chemicals 'feminise boys' November 16, 2009, BBC News http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8361863.stm Chemicals in plastics alter the brains of baby boys, making them "more feminine", say US researchers. Males exposed to high doses in the womb went on to be less likely to play with boys' toys like cars or to join in rough and tumble games, they found. The University of Rochester team's latest work adds to concerns about the safety of phthalates, found in vinyl flooring and PVC shower curtains. The findings are reported in the International Journal of Andrology. Phthalates have the ability to disrupt hormones, and have been banned in toys in the EU for some years. There are many different types and some mimic the female hormone oestrogen. The same researchers have already shown that this can mean boys are born with genital abnormalities. Now they say certain phthalates also impact on the developing brain, by knocking out the action of the male hormone testosterone. Dr Shanna Swan and her team ... found that two phthalates DEHP and DBP can affect play behaviour. Boys exposed to high levels of these in the womb were less likely than other boys to play with cars, trains and guns or engage in "rougher" games like playfighting. Elizabeth Salter-Green, director of the chemicals campaign group CHEM Trust, said the results were worrying. "We now know that phthalates, to which we are all constantly exposed, are extremely worrying from a health perspective, leading to disruption of male reproduction health and, it appears, male behaviour too." Note: For further reports from reliable sources on important health issues, click here . _____ Biotech crops cause big jump in pesticide use: report November 17, 2009, Reuters News http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE5AG0QY20091117 The rapid adoption by U.S. farmers of genetically engineered corn, soybeans and cotton has promoted increased use of pesticides, an epidemic of herbicide-resistant weeds and more chemical residues in foods, according to a report ... by health and environmental protection groups. The groups said research showed that herbicide use grew by 383 million pounds from 1996 to 2008, with 46 percent of the total increase occurring in 2007 and 2008. The report was released by nonprofits The Organic Center (TOC), the Union for Concerned Scientists (UCS) and the Center for Food Safety (CFS). The groups said that [there is] a net overall increase on U.S. farm fields of 318 million pounds of pesticides, which includes insecticides and herbicides, over the first 13 years of commercial use. The rise in herbicide use comes as U.S. farmers increasingly adopt corn, soy and cotton that have been engineered with traits that allow them to tolerate dousings of weed killer. The report by the environmental groups states that a key problem resulting from the increase in herbicide use is the emergence of "super weeds," which are difficult to kill because they have become resistant to the herbicides. "This report confirms what we've been saying for years," said Bill Freese, science policy analyst for the Center for Food Safety. "The most common type of genetically engineered crops promotes increased use of pesticides, an epidemic of resistant weeds, and more chemical residues in our foods. This may be profitable for the biotech/pesticide companies, but it's bad news for farmers, human health and the environment." Note: Why did the major media fail to report this Reuters' article? To read the full report, "Impacts of Genetically Engineered Crops on Pesticide Use: The First Thirteen Years", and to view additional information, click here . And for a powerful online lesson on health which has already transformed lives, click here. _____ Questions for a Trade Official November 4, 2009, New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/04/opinion/04wed4.html When Islam Siddiqui appears for his Senate confirmation, possibly as early as next week, it will be time for some tough questions. The White House has nominated Mr. Siddiqui for the position of chief agricultural negotiator in the office of the United States trade representative. He is presently a vice president at CropLife America, a coalition of the major industrial players in the pesticide industry, including Syngenta, Monsanto, Dow Chemical and DuPont. That job doesn?t seem to square with the Obama administration?s professed interest in more sustainable, less chemically dependent approaches to agriculture. Nor does much of the rest of Mr. Siddiqui?s r?sum?. The White House has touted his role in the first phase of developing national organic standards. But those standards, as they first emerged in draft form in the Clinton years, were notoriously loose about allowing genetically engineered crops and the use of sewage-sludge fertilizers to be labeled as ?organic.? But the business of [Siddiqui's] CropLife ? an arm of which openly scoffed at Michelle Obama?s plans for an organic garden ? is to increase exports of agricultural chemicals. Note: For a powerful overview of the risks of genetically modified food, click here . _____ State to 'spy' on every phone call, email and web search November 10, 2009, The Telegraph (One of the UK's leading newspapers) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/lawandorder/6534319/State-to-spy... Every phone call, text message, email and website visit made by private citizens is to be stored for a year and will be available for monitoring by government bodies. All telecoms companies and internet service providers will be required by law to keep a record of every customer?s personal communications, showing who they have contacted, when and where, as well as the websites they have visited. Despite widespread opposition to the increasing amount of surveillance in Britain, 653 public bodies will be given access to the information, including police, local councils, the Financial Services Authority, the ambulance service, fire authorities and even prison governors. They will not require the permission of a judge or a magistrate to obtain the information, but simply the authorisation of a senior police officer or the equivalent of a deputy head of department at a local authority. The Government announced yesterday it was pressing ahead with privately held ?Big Brother? databases that opposition leaders said amounted to ?state-spying? and a form of ?covert surveillance? on the public. It is doing so despite its own consultation showing that it has little public support. The new rules ... will not only force communications companies to keep their records for longer, but to expand the type of data they keep to include details of every website their customers visit. Note: For many more reports from major media sources on the disturbing trend toward increasing government and corporate surveillance and loss of privacy, click here. _____ 'Liberation was just a big lie' November 19, 2009, Toronto Star http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/afghanmission/article/727873---liberation-was-just-a-big-lie She sleeps in safe houses, with a rotating squad of bodyguards securing the doors. She goes out only in a billowing burqa. Even her wedding was held in secret. Elected the youngest member of the Afghan parliament ? and suspended for her outspoken criticism of the country's top officials ? Malalai Joya has been labelled the bravest woman in Afghanistan. Small, soft-spoken and now 31, she has survived at least four assassination attempts. "Canada should pull its troops out now," she said in Toronto, where she was promoting her book A Woman Among Warlords, co-written with Canadian peace activist Derrick O'Keefe. And, she says, U.S. President Barack Obama, who is considering a surge in troop levels to battle Al Qaeda and the Taliban, should think again. "The United States should go, too. As long as foreign troops are in the country we will be fighting two enemies instead of one." Yes, she says, there is a risk of civil war ... but it would still be better than "night raids, torture and aerial bombardment" that killed hundreds of Afghan civilians while the Taliban made steady gains. "Liberation was just a big lie." Joya believes Afghans are now better prepared to battle the Taliban alone. "resistance has increased, and people are becoming more aware of democracy and human rights. They need humanitarian and educational support." But not, she adds, at the point of a gun. "It will be a long struggle," she wrote. "A river is made drop by drop ... you can kill me, but you can never kill my spirit." Note: For lots more from reliable sources on the realities of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, click here . _____ Labor Fight Ends in Win for Students November 18, 2009, New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/18/business/18labor.html The anti-sweatshop movement at dozens of American universities, from Georgetown to U.C.L.A., has had plenty of idealism and energy, but not many victories. Until now. Its pressure tactics persuaded one of the nation?s leading sportswear companies, Russell Athletic, to agree to rehire 1,200 workers in Honduras who lost their jobs when Russell closed their factory soon after the workers had unionized. From the time Russell shut the factory last January, the anti-sweatshop coalition orchestrated a nationwide campaign against the company. Most important, the coalition, United Students Against Sweatshops , persuaded the administrations of Boston College, Columbia, Harvard, New York University, Stanford, Michigan, North Carolina and 89 other colleges and universities to sever or suspend their licensing agreements with Russell. Student activists picketed the N.B.A. finals in Orlando and Los Angeles this year to protest the league?s licensing agreement with Russell. In its agreement, not only did Russell agree to reinstate the dismissed workers and open a new plant in Honduras as a unionized factory, it also pledged not to fight unionization at its seven existing factories there. ?For us, it was very important to receive the support of the universities,? Moises Alvarado, president of the union at the closed plant in Choloma, said. ?We are impressed by the social conscience of the students in the United States.? _____ New nonprofit uses Web to pressure Chevron November 16, 2009, San Francisco Chronicle (San Francisco's leading newspaper) http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/11/15/BUCM1AJM61.DTL Retired retail executive Richard Goldman was astonished when he heard about the $27 billion pollution lawsuit against Chevron Corp. in Ecuador. Astonished at the soil and water contamination surrounding Ecuador's oil fields. And astonished that he'd never heard of it before. So Goldman, one of the founders of the Men's Wearhouse clothing chain, has created a nonprofit group that will use social-networking tools to spread word of the case and put pressure on Chevron. The group, Ethos Alliance, will ask visitors to its Web site to tell others about the issue, hoping that viral communication via the Internet will reach people that news stories about the suit haven't. The site will raise money for humanitarian relief projects in Ecuador's oil patch, encouraging visitors to donate $5 apiece to build a water treatment plant and buy medicine for a health clinic. The Web site, www.ethosalliance.org, goes online today. Ethos also will urge Chevron to settle the long-running lawsuit, something the San Ramon company has vowed not to do. Ethos plans to tackle other issues of corporate responsibility in the future, uniting the alliance's online members with businesses willing to join the cause. Ethos is the latest example of social or political causes using social networking to increase their reach. Earlier this year, a one-day fundraising effort organized via Twitter collected $250,000 for drinking water projects in the developing world. _____ Could This Lump Power the Planet? November 14, 2009, NewsWeek magazine http://www.newsweek.com/id/222792 When I meet [Edward] Moses [at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory], the 60-year-old scientist ... shows me a tiny pellet ... and swears it will provide an endless supply of safe, clean energy. The pellet Moses holds is a model, but the real version will contain a few milligrams of deuterium and tritium, isotopes of hydrogen that can be extracted from water. If you blast the pellet with a powerful laser, you can create a reaction like the one that takes place at the center of the sun. Harness that reaction, and you've created a star on earth, and with the heat from that star you can generate electricity without creating any pollution. Forget about nuke plants, coal, oil, or wind and solar. "This is the real solar power," says Moses. What Moses is talking about is controlled nuclear fusion. Instead of splitting the nucleus of an atom, you're trying to force a deuterium nucleus to merge, or fuse, with a tritium nucleus. When that happens, you produce helium and throw off energy. Scientists have been trying to produce energy with fusion for decades. So far, they keep failing. The joke is that fusion energy is only 40 years away, and will always be only 40 years away. Moses believes, however, that his lab, which is called the National Ignition Facility, or NIF, has cracked the problem. The big challenge fusion has faced is lack of power. NIF's laser ... can produce 60 times more energy than any other laser ever built. Right now it's still being tested. But next year Moses and his scientists will fire it up with a full load of deuterium-tritium fuel, and Moses feels confident it will achieve "ignition," meaning a controlled burn in which you get out more energy than you put in. Note: For many reports from reliable sources of promising new energy developments, click here and here . _____ Triumph of a Dreamer November 15, 2009, New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/15/opinion/15kristof.html Any time anyone tells you that a dream is impossible, any time you?re discouraged by impossible challenges, just mutter this mantra: Tererai Trent. Of all the people earning university degrees this year, perhaps the most remarkable story belongs to Tererai, a middle-aged woman. When you hear that foreign-aid groups just squander money or build dependency, remember [her story]. Tererai was born in a village in rural Zimbabwe, probably sometime in 1965, and attended elementary school for less than one year. Her father married her off when she was about 11 to a man who beat her regularly. A dozen years passed. Jo Luck, the head of an aid group called Heifer International, passed through the village and told the women there that they should stand up, nurture dreams, change their lives. Inspired, Tererai ... wrote that she wanted to study abroad, and to earn a B.A., a master?s and a doctorate. In 1998 she was accepted to Oklahoma State University. Heifer helped with the plane tickets, Tererai?s mother sold a cow, and neighbors sold goats to help raise money. With $4,000 in cash wrapped in a stocking and tied around her waist, Tererai set off for Oklahoma. At one point the university tried to expel Tererai for falling behind on tuition payments. A university official, Ron Beer, intervened on her behalf and rallied the faculty and community behind her with donations and support. ?I saw that she had enormous talent,? Dr. Beer said. Tererai excelled at school, pursuing a Ph.D at Western Michigan University and writing a dissertation on AIDS prevention in Africa even as she began working for Heifer as a program evaluator. _____ Final Note: WantToKnow.info believes it is important to balance disturbing cover-up information with inspirational writings which call us to be all that we can be and to work together for positive change. Please visit our Inspiration Center at http://www.WantToKnow.info/inspirational for an abundance of uplifting material. See our archive of revealing news articles at www.WantToKnow.info/indexnewsarticles Your tax-deductible donations, however large or small, help greatly to support this important work. To make a donation by credit card, check, or money order: www.WantToKnow.info/donationswtk Explore the mind and heart expanding websites managed by the nonprofit PEERS network: www.peerservice.org - PEERS websites: Spreading inspiration, education, & empowerment www.momentoflove.org - Every person in the world has a heart www.personalgrowthcourses.net - Dynamic online courses powerfully expand your horizons www.WantToKnow.info - Reliable, verifiable information on major cover-ups www.weboflove.org - Strengthening the Web of Love that interconnects us all To respond to this message, visit www.WantToKnow.info/contactus.php To subscribe to or unsubscribe from the WantToKnow.info list (one email every few days): www.WantToKnow.info/subscribe _____ Change email address / Leave mailing list Powered by YourMailingListProvider -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From maryrose333 at att.net Mon Nov 23 14:12:38 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Mon, 23 Nov 2009 13:12:38 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: [globalnetnews-summary] The Ugly Truth about Jobs Message-ID: <002901ca6c81$db8be580$92a3b080$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS OK, here we have the truth finally about need for human labor in our changing world. Now maybe we can get on with finding the solution instead of demanding more and more jobs be created. -----Original Message----- From: globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net [mailto:globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net] On Behalf Of TradingPostPaul Sent: Monday, November 23, 2009 12:40 PM To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] The Ugly Truth about Jobs November 19, 2009 > Web Only The Ugly Truth about Jobs By Robert Parry http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/5205/the_ugly_truth_about_jobs/ Americans-from blue-collar manufacturing workers to white-collar office employees-won't be needed as much in the future. Share Facebook Digg del.icio.us Newsvine StumbleUpon Reddit TwitThis Furl Propeller Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke has given Americans a glimpse of the ugly truth about their future job prospects. Simply put, companies have found that they can shed workers and rely on technological advances and overseas factories to operate with a lot fewer U.S. employees. Bernanke told the Economic Club of New York on Monday that some U.S. companies might begin to add workers to meet rising demand. But, he added, "other firms.seem to have found longer-lasting, efficiency-enhancing changes that allowed them to reduce their workforces.. To the extent that firms are able to find further cost-cutting measures as output expands, they may delay hiring." In other words, Americans-from blue-collar manufacturing workers to white-collar office employees-won't be needed as much in the future by companies that are squeezing more productivity out of the workers that remain and are shifting more jobs overseas. That means U.S. unemployment-which has risen from less than 4 percent to more than 10 percent since December 2007-can be expected to stay high and wages low, Bernanke said. "Given this weakness in the labor market, a natural question is whether we might be in for a so-called jobless recovery, in which output is growing but employment fails to increase," the Fed chairman said, suggesting strongly that the answer would be yes. "With the job market so weak, businesses have been able to find or retain all the workers they need with minimal wage increases, or even with wage cuts," Bernanke said. "The best thing we can say about the labor market right now is that it may be getting worse more slowly." Yet, while American jobs were falling off a cliff, productivity-defined as output per hour of work - was soaring, rising at a 5.5 percent annual rate this year, Bernanke said. Put all this together and average Americans might want to rethink how they feel about their "free-market" economic system, now that many of them have been made surplus to it. High unemployment also may cause a double-dip recession-and even more layoffs-because jobless Americans won't be able to pay their mortgages or buy new cars or other consumer goods. What to do? So what can be done? The obvious answer is for the government to intervene in creating infrastructure jobs directly and encouraging the private sector to spread the available work around (and not ship so much work abroad). However, with the federal government deeply in debt (thanks to George W. Bush's massive tax cuts tilted to the rich and because of his two open-ended wars in Iraq and Afghanistan), there isn't much money to devote to any additional economic stimulus. Thus, the Obama administration is faced with the dilemma of either borrowing more money or raising taxes on the rich to help pay for programs to increase jobs. Neither prospect is politically attractive, since Democratic "deficit hawks" keep banding with Republicans to block any more borrowing and many politicians are terrified of raising taxes, even if only on millionaires. Ironically, the current crisis could have one silver lining, if Americans finally opted for an economic strategy that raised taxes on the rich, who have benefited most from the technological advances and the expansion of international commerce, and shared those productivity gains with more people. That might allow Americans to begin enjoying the future that seemed to be beckoning years back, when people thought that machines would make life easier for humans, not harder. But many Americans have been sold on the right-wing and neoconservative message that any government effort to address the nation's domestic needs is dreaded "socialism" and that the government's primary-if not only-role must be to lavish money on the military to "keep us safe." That widespread belief system is the result of three decades of having drummed into their heads Ronald Reagan's catchy phrase that "government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem," a theme repeated endlessly on right-wing talk radio, at Fox News and in a host of other conservative media outlets that dominate the American landscape. Simultaneously, the American Left has done little to counter the Right's propaganda. This media asymmetry has had devastating consequences for the American political process. In the 1980s, Reagan had a relatively free hand to go after "big labor"; in the 1990s, working with the triangulating Clinton administration, Republicans pushed through "free-trade agreements" and bank deregulation; and in this decade, Bush slashed taxes for the richest Americans. The results are now apparent in home foreclosures, bankruptcies, crumbling infrastructure and neglected cities, as Michael Moore graphically demonstrated in his new documentary, "Capitalism: A Love Story." Stalemated Today's U.S. political/media process doesn't allow these problems to be seriously addressed. The Washington conventional wisdom is still shaped by the powerful right-wing think tanks and defined by right-wing news media. Mainstream journalists mostly go along to save their careers. Over several decades of covering Washington's neoconservatives, I have marveled at their cynical but not-entirely-false view of the American people as cattle to be herded, corralled, occasionally stampeded and ultimately led to the slaughterhouse. Only now-as the unemployment lines stretch, as medical insurance is denied, and as the sheriffs show up with foreclosure notices-are some Americans sensing the end of this strange journey, with the whiff of an unpleasant fate behind the doors of the slaughterhouse. From maryrose333 at att.net Mon Nov 23 14:36:31 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Mon, 23 Nov 2009 13:36:31 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: Comment by Desmond Berghofer et al, Mayan Calendar seen through an astrological structure - This Scorpio New Moon Message Message-ID: <002a01ca6c85$31399d30$93acd790$@net> From: Desmond Berghofer and Geraldine Schwartz [mailto:desgerri at direct.ca] Sent: Monday, November 23, 2009 11:15 AM To: mary rose Subject: Re: Comment by Desmond Berghofer et al, Mayan Calendar seen through an astrological structure - This Scorpio New Moon Message Thanks, Mary Rose. I will try to find Lawrence Fagg's book. Gerri and I were just discussing this concept of "God" over the weekend. Desmond Desmond, thanks for sharing that you and Gerri are now discussing "this concept of God". We need a lot more discussion on this subject. From: mary rose To: Fixgov at yahoogroups.com ; 'Discussion Forum for Global Justice' Sent: Saturday, November 21, 2009 1:43 PM Subject: FW: Comment by Desmond Berghofer et al, Mayan Calendar seen through an astrological structure - This Scorpio New Moon Message From: Desmond Berghofer and Geraldine Schwartz [mailto:desgerri at direct.ca] Sent: Friday, November 20, 2009 4:37 PM To: mary rose Subject: Re: Mayan Calendar seen through an astrological structure - This Scorpio New Moon Message Dear Mary Rose: I have no comment on the content of Barbara Hand Clow's piece on Night Six of the Galactic Underworld as most of what she says is outside my frame of reference. However, I do acknowledge her for having introduced me to the work of Carl Johan Calleman, whose creative interpretation of the meaning of the Mayan Calendar is very persuasive. For this reason I support her recommendation to see his latest book, The Purposeful Universe. I am reading it now. He begins by taking recent discoveries in physics of a Central Axis in the Cosmic Microwave Background of the Big Bang to posit a new theory of creation that is a better explanation of the creation of the universe than the current Big Bang theory and, most importantly, introduces the concept of purpose to creation in contrast to the current scientific preoccupation with randomness. The concept of purpose is key to understanding the Mayan Calendar as a description of the purposeful evolution of life and, in particular, human consciousness towards a positive development of our species and the world. I don't necessarily think that Calleman has got it all right, anymore than Newton, Darwin or Einstein got it all right--but that's pretty good company to keep, and I do recommend that your readers take a look at his latest book, The Purposeful Universe, which is available from Amazon. Desmond Desmond, thanks for your comment. I am an admirer of Carl Johan Calleman also, and will try to get his latest book and review it. However, I was just reviewing Dr. Bruce Lipton's CD: "As Above - So Below," which is an introduction to "fractal evolution" from his perspective, and find the same message as Calleman's in Bruce's explanation as to how life unfolds from a biological interpretation. And, as well I can link both Calleman's and Lipton's viewpoints to that of The Dalai Lama's "The Universe in An Atom". It becomes readily apparent that we are both the Creator and the Created and what we perceive of as "God" is really the electromagnetic energy field as revealed by Lawrence Fagg in "The Electromagnetic and the Sacred". ----- Original Message ----- From: mary rose To: Fixgov at yahoogroups.com ; 'Discussion Forum for Global Justice' Cc: dustysummerrose at gmail.com Sent: Thursday, November 19, 2009 7:20 PM Subject: FW: Mayan Calendar seen through an astrological structure - This Scorpio New Moon Message FYI and consideration. Thanks Robynne From: Rob McWayne [mailto:wrmcwayne at hotmail.com] Sent: Thursday, November 19, 2009 2:23 PM Subject: Mayan Calendar seen through an astrological structure - This Scorpio New Moon Message This is pretty - wow - maybe because I haven't kept up with Mayan Calendar and astrological readings of what's going on lately. It's complicated, but worth sticking with it to the end. Has interesting mentions of several books, Michael Calleman's and Dan Brown's latest. Bottom line: define what small or large breakthrough you had in your approach to life during this last year, and hold onto it, focus into and expand on it, and "use it as your lifeboat" during this next year. But do read the whole thing, (easier if you copy and paste it into a word file so it isn't so w i d e.) Elizabeth is in Portland, OR, and does amazing readings, too! _____ From: elizabeth at redlotus.org To: wrmcwayne at hotmail.com Subject: New Moon Message Date: Wed, 18 Nov 2009 16:15:51 -0700 Dear Friends, I needed to share this incredibly informative article from Barbara Hand Clow with all my friends here, as I pray and hope that all of us will merit from her genius message and regard the coming year as a process to Universal Ascension, not something to be feared. Please visit: http://redlotus.org/2009/11/ With Loving Blessings, Elizabeth ~.~ www.redlotus.org 971-252-2063 __________________ "Resolve to Evolve" Scorpio New Moon: November 16, 2009 The 2009 Scorpio New Moon chart is exceedingly complex and personally demanding, a genuine get-real-and-be-truthful moment. First of all, the chart emphasizes healing our emotions because Jupiter (personal expansion), Chiron (healing), and Neptune (spiritual access) are now all direct in Aquarius, and the New Moon squares them. This blocks Scorpio's natural tendency to be secretive, so we may experience revelations. Evocatively, Uranus in Pisces trines the lunation, so we look for spiritual solutions for our selves and the world. Night Six of the Galactic Underworld (1999-2011) just opened on November 8, which heralds the darkness before the New Dawn. Thus, this New Moon opens the dark night of the soul. With Obama leading the US during last days of the Galactic Underworld, isn't it fascinating that Mars (war and aggression) in the New Moon chart is exactly conjunct his Sun sign (personal integrity)? How are you doing with your Nobel Peace prize, President Obama? This New Moon reading suggests we are arrows in arched bows primed to enter cosmic space. So, we must begin with a brief recap of Day Six of the Galactic Underworld, which ended November 7. Then we need to look at the probable effects of the movement into Night Six on November 8, since the chart for the New Moon in Scorpio actually does not make much sense without putting it into the context of the Mayan Calendar. Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli, the lord before the Dawn is the deity of Night Six, the archetypal force of cosmic renewal. Yohualticitl, the goddess of birth, was the ruler of Day Six, so now we are living in a world in which the old ways are falling rapidly away. The powers-that-be will do everything possible to make it look like everything is all the same, but things are not. Millions of people following the time-acceleration process have already greatly changed. So, what did you birth during Day Six-November 15, 2009-November 8, 2009? During this period, each one of you has made monumental shifts, and you feel that you will never drop back to the previous level. So, what breakthrough did you accomplish? You must identify this year's personal leap because it will be your guide during Night Six. This leap will be your lifeboat, and I don't care how silly your move forward may seem to be. For example, one student said his big step was to learn how to putt well in golf! That may sound like nothing, but consider this: golf is the ultimate multidimensional game, and the reason most people can't sink the ball in the hole is because success brings up childhood psychological blocks. As for me, I discovered how to relax, a truly amazing feat for me! As for you, maybe like the lion in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, perhaps you won out over the forces of evil? During the Day Sixes of the previous Underworlds, we made critical evolutionary leaps-such as hominids standing up and splitting off from chimpanzees and apes 6-9 million years ago during the Familial Underworld (41 million years ago through AD 2011); or mammals developing a bi-lateral brain 190 million years ago when Pangea broke up into continents during the Mammalian Underworld (820 million years ago through AD 2011). [See my video, Exponential Evolution, for more info on Day Sixes over time.] So, now that we've just completed Day Six of the Galactic, what was your personal critical leap? During Night Six, chaos will reign in the fractal realms, and you will need to hold onto whatever special progress you made. Then you'll be ready to make the great alchemical breakthrough during Day Seven of the Galactic Underworld-November 3, 2010-October 28, 2011). For example, on the first drive, the golfer might make a hole-in-one, and I might open nine dimensions effortlessly just by meditating. Why do I begin with Chaos Theory? We each need to identify our Day Six attainments and intentionally hold them within the planetary field. During Night Six, this field will be in a state of perpetual flux as it rises to create new space for Day Seven's creative agenda, which is the fruition of the Galactic Underworld. For example, with no focus on your own progress, you could crumble into simpering fear-mongering and screaming idiocy when you go see the apocalyptic film, 2012. Are you afraid that Planet X, the Dark Star, or Nibiru is going to smash into Earth, or that the poles will flip? There is no doubt that the big boys are playing a very nasty game, but you can hold your place just by not collapsing into fear! The chart for the New Moon in Scorpio shows you how, so I will read it for guidance on how we can hold to our true path during Night Six. Before I read this chart, I have a few comments about events during previous Night Sixes, since this offers some past experiences that may reemerge now through November 2, 2010. We need to go way back to Day Six of the Regional Underworld (103,000 years ago to 2011); this time period was 21,700 to 13,800 years ago, and this was when our ancestors lived in the Global Maritime Civilization, the global sea-faring culture known as Atlantis in the collective memory. Then, when Night Six opened 13,800 years ago, major climate and earth changes destroyed Atlantis. [See Catastrophobia (2001).] The worst phase of the multiple cataclysms was 11,500 years ago, when Earth was nearly destroyed, and films like 2012 will revive these memories in people. During Night Six (AD 1225-1617) of the 5,125-year-long National Underworld, the Mongols swept into Europe after the Crusades failed, and Western Europe was very insecure while the East was rising in power. [See The Mayan Code: Time Acceleration and Awakening the World Mind.] In other words, the Night Sixes of the Regional and National Underworlds were physically cataclysmic, so the Western psyche will fear invasions and earth changes this year. By realizing that these are past memories, people can release the emotional aspects of these physical cataclysms during Night Six of the Galactic Underworld (November 8, 2009 through November 2, 2010). The probable resonance with past disasters is a big deal for two reasons: one, apocalyptic fundamentalists are going to try to scare you to death with things like 2012; and two, there will be a tendency for civilizations to self-destruct during this next year. Before getting all freaked out, let's remember that the Galactic Underworld agenda is to break down the National and Planetary Underworld structures while we recover lost memories from the Regional Underworld. This process will open space so that we can leap into enlightenment during the Universal Underworld in 2011! So, what am I really saying? I am saying that like the survivors of Atlantis hanging onto floating debris and washing on shore after the cataclysm, you must utilize your Day Six fruition fragment as your lifeboat. Yes, Night Six will feel like the fall of Atlantis for many, so just let it fall by releasing your emotions and your fear! We must surrender to this release so that the intuitive Regional brain can be accessed again. Now looking at our New Moon chart, the aspects to the Sun/Moon in 25 Scorpio are compelling. Regarding Jupiter, Chiron, and Neptune together in Aquarius, they were in 25-26 Aquarius during May through July 2009, and I'm sure you remember that period. We found ourselves plunging into deep inner wounds (Chiron), while our outer boundaries to the spiritual realms were melting our identities (Neptune), and we kept on expanding our minds and feelings (Jupiter). Many people fragmented this summer as if they were having a schizophrenic breakdown, yet actually they were merely shivering on the dangerous edge of enlightenment. This same pressure to grow will come on strong again during this December, when our spiritual growth will intensify even more to prepare us for the exact conjunctions of Chiron and Neptune during 2010. This New Moon in Scorpio, which pushes us into the darkest and most fecund parts of our consciousness, squares the three planets, so it is a clarion call for the personal attainment of enlightenment. Our species is evolving to receive Earth's cosmic consciousness, so during this critical lunation the cosmic jester, Uranus, is poised to dance on the game board. Uranus in Pisces trines the New Moon, easily probing Scorpio's dark caves. Isn't it amazing that Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol is in the reading public's mind right now, just as the apocalyptic film, 2012, arrives to scare the pants off the people on the first Friday the 13th of Night Six? [In The Mayan Code, I commented that the easiest way to imagine how the Global Elite pulled off 9/11 is to read Dan Brown's Angels and Demons. Now that I've read The Lost Symbol, I'd say he hints that the Global Elite knows all about the Mayan Calendar. Well, any possibility that the 2012 gang would sweep Calleman's discovery under the rug just ended with the publication of Calleman's latest book, The Purposeful Universe: How Quantum Theory and Mayan Cosmology Explain the Origin and Evolution of Life. It is brilliant, a quantum leap beyond his previous works, and you must read it right away.] As for me, I didn't learn anything new about how the Global Elite uses old bones, lost symbols, and musty feathers to control the world. But I bet the general public will be surprised to see what their tax dollars pay for in Washington, DC. Good for you, Dan Brown! I continue to honor you as the great revealer of secrets for the masses during the Galactic Underworld. Many people will easily see that Hollywood's timing for the release of 2012 shows that these glittery lizards also play games with old bones and symbols. Dan Brown missed only one thing in The Lost Symbol: The symbol on the dollar is the 13-storied pyramid of the Planetary Underworld (AD 1755-2011) with the Eye of God at the top and the lowest step dated 1776. The Big Boys have always attempted to divert the public from the real Mayan Calendar end-date-October 28, 2011. Now they're going all out for it in 2012, the Enlightenment Bypass. Uranus in Pisces trining the New Moon at the opening of this film suggests that the entertainment moguls have gone too far this time. Then, notice that Uranus in Pisces is in a Grand Trine-New Moon trine the lunar South Node in 23 Cancer trine Uranus. The South Node always reveals the past influences that are impacting the current moment, so we can be sure that Hollywood is serving up old, moldy archetypes. Well, the main developments in esoterica were during the Planetary Underworld, when the Elite utilized the old symbols of the 5,125-year National Underworld to control the world. The global elite uses arcane rituals, astrology, sexual deviance, and violence to control you, while they debunk all these techniques in the media. They keep these tools that successfully probe the synchronicity plane all to themselves. Ironically, you don't need skulls and bones or magic, just consult time acceleration in Calleman's model! This month will be a great time to access nature's great clarity and open your hearts. Have a good laugh at the big boys on the game board being swept away in their own self-created apocalypse. For example, how are they going to explain the Ft. Hood military massacre to the people in the armed services? Saturn in Libra exactly squares Pluto in Capricorn, so now the time has come to use your consciousness to move beyond the box in 3D. Recapping the current Saturn/Pluto cycle, which began in 1982/83 when Saturn conjoined Pluto in late Libra, the world economy was just emerging from a strong recession. A time of limitation and struggle was finishing, and a prosperous period began that lasted nineteen to twenty years. Saturn in late Aquarius came to the first squares to Pluto in late Scorpio in 1993-4, when the great Uranus/Neptune conjunctions occurred that began a new spiritual awakening cycle. Growth became more spiritual, and many people really felt the world was changing for the better. However, with the opposition of Saturn in Gemini to Pluto in Sagittarius in 2001/02, the force for growth broke with 9/11 and optimism came to a halt. During these oppositions, gloomy and fearful pessimism gripped the American public, so the Bushites duped America into a battle between East and West. Regardless of who actually pulled off 9/11, the neo-cons used it to create a systemic fear program to control the public will. They even invented a new cabinet based solely on fear, the neo-Nazi "Homeland Security". This fear-based time lock will not lift until the perpetrators are exposed, so America has been drowning in a weird backwater during the Galactic Underworld, while the world moves right along. Well, not much longer. The exact Saturn-square-Pluto in early Libra/Capricorn on the day before this New Moon will trigger the exposure of the economic basis of this whole cycle: the US is being bankrupted by the war economy that was invented in 1982/83 in order to dominate the East so as to control the world. This ancient struggle between East and West has been totally revivified, and this weird turn of events does not make sense without considering Calleman's analysis of history. During the 5,125-year National Underworld, nations have been pulled into struggles between East and West that are generated by the midline-12 degrees east longitude, the power line of the World Tree. [See The Mayan Calendar: Transformation of Consciousness by Calleman.] Well, the real truth about the battle between East and West will be revealed during the first Saturn-upper-square-Pluto in Libra/Capricorn, and during the second and third ones in January and August 2010. The East/West struggle, mostly perpetrated by the West (as can be seen by who is invading whose territory) has been the wasting force of the National Underworld for 5,125 years. Since the upper and final Saturn/Pluto squares all occur during Night Six of the Galactic Underworld, we can be sure that this great struggle will involve great death, mayhem, and plagues. Night Six of the National Underworld (AD 1225-1617) began with the end of the Crusades and the Mongol invasions and was characterized by the Inquisition and many wars and plagues. The Western powers adopted constant warfare as a defense, yet it is no defense. This can be seen by what happened at Ft. Hood as the Saturn-square-Pluto was building. In the New Moon chart, Mercury in wise early Sagittarius exactly sextiles Saturn in Libra, which means much new clarity and intelligence is coming in to loosen these locked-up old struggles. Mars and Venus in a tight square are very interesting during this lunation. Mars in Leo takes risks and wants attention for winning, while Venus in Scorpio favors deep feminine immersion. Venus in Scorpio has a strong will when faced with the pride of Mars in Leo, so this suggests personal battles between male and female partners and a tendency for aggression on the world stage. But, Venus in Scorpio means the truth will come out, that history will record who really wins and loses this time. Remember, the forces of the East tend to dominate the West during the Nights of the Underworlds, so Venus in Scorpio squaring Mars in Leo may mean the West backs down dramatically during this lunation. Yet, Mars in Leo is in a wide opposition to Jupiter in Aquarius, which hints at excess and grandiosity on the world's stage. The most obvious reading of these aspects would be that soon the West will have to accept reality as it is, which it has avoided for a long time. Saturn upper square Pluto announces an economic reckoning, so the financial collapse of the West is probably what will end the wars. Perhaps the New Moon's Mars in Leo conjuncting Obama's birth Sun is a sign of how things will play out? The point is, you are sovereign now, because we are in a chaos field. Maintain your truth and integrity while the Knights play out their games on the chessboard. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From maryrose333 at att.net Mon Nov 23 22:15:39 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Mon, 23 Nov 2009 21:15:39 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: [globalnetnews-summary] A Trial That Will Convict Us All Message-ID: <000a01ca6cc5$5433d2c0$fc9b7840$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS What twisted webs we do conceive when we practice to deceive. The Horror House that this country has become, is something that none of us should have to bear witness to. But I suppose this trial must take place so that all doubts that 9/11 was committed by a Muslim are laid to rest so that all evidence to the contrary showing that it was an inside job are also laid to rest. -----Original Message----- From: globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net [mailto:globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net] On Behalf Of TradingPostPaul Sent: Monday, November 23, 2009 6:05 PM To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] A Trial That Will Convict Us All The Twisted Logic Behind the Prosecution of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed A Trial That Will Convict Us All http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts11232009.html By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS November 23, 2009 Republican members of Congress and what masquerades as a "conservative" media are outraged that the Obama administration intends to try in federal court Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of 9/11, and four alleged co-conspirators. The Republican and right-wing rant that a trial is too good for these people proves what I have written for a number of years: Republicans and many Americans who think of themselves as conservatives have no regard for the US Constitution or for civil liberties. They have no appreciation for the point made by Thomas Paine in his Dissertations on First Principles of Government (1790): "An avidity to punish is always dangerous to liberty. It leads men to stretch, to misinterpret, and to misapply even the best of laws. He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself." Republicans and American conservatives regard civil liberties as coddling devices for criminals and terrorists. They assume that police and prosecutors are morally pure and, in addition, never make mistakes. An accused person is guilty or government wouldn't have accused him. All of my life I have heard self-described conservatives disparage lawyers who defend criminals. Such "conservatives" live in an ideal, not real, world. Even some of those, such as Stuart Taylor in the National Journal, who defend giving Mohammed a court trial do so on the grounds that there are no risks as Mohammed is certain to be convicted and that "a civilian trial will show Americans and the rest of the world that our government is sure it can prove the 9/11 defendants guilty in the fairest of all courts." Taylor agrees that Mohammed deserves "summary execution," but that it is a good Machiavellian ploy to try Mohammed in civilian court, while dealing with cases that have "trickier evidentiary problems" in "more flexible military commissions, away from the brightest spotlights." In other words, Stuart Taylor and the National Journal endorse Mohammed's trial as a show trial that will prove both America's honorable respect for fair trials and Muslim guilt for 9/11. If, as Taylor writes, "the government's evidence is so strong," why wasn't Mohammed tried years ago? Why was he held for years and tortured--apparently water boarded 183 times--in violation of US law and the Geneva Conventions? How can the US government put a defendant on trial when its treatment of him violates US statutory law, international law, and every precept of the US legal code? Mohammed has been treated as if he were a captive of Hitler's Gestapo or Stalin's KGB. And now we are going to finish him off in a show trial. If the barbaric treatment Mohammed has received during his captivity hasn't driven him insane, how do we know he hasn't decided to confess in order to obtain for himself for evermore the glory of the deed? How many people can claim to have outwitted the CIA, the National Security Agency and all 16 US intelligence agencies, NORAD, the Pentagon, the National Security Council, airport security (four times on one morning), US air traffic control, the US Air Force, the military Joint Chiefs of Staff, all the neocons, Mossad, and even the supposedly formidable Dick Cheney? Considering that some Muslims will blow themselves up in order to take out a handful of Israelis or US and NATO occupation troops, the payoff that Mohammed will get out of a guilty verdict is enormous. Are we really sure we want to create a Muslim Superhero of such stature? Originally, according to the US government, Osama bin Laden was the mastermind of 9/11. To get bin Laden is the excuse given for the US invasion of Afghanistan, which set up the invasion of Iraq. But after eight years of total failure to catch Osama bin Laden, it became absolutely necessary to convict some culprit. Unfortunately, there will be no such sensible outcome. David Feige has told us what the outcome will be (Slate, Nov. 19). The prosecution doesn't need any evidence, because no judge and no jury is going to let the demonized "mastermind of 9/11" off. No judge or juror wants to be forever damned by the brainwashed American public or assassinated by right-wing crazies. Keep in mind that the kid, John Walker Lindh, termed "the American Taliban" by an ignorant and propagandistic US media, was guilty of nothing except being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Despite the complete trampling of his every right, he got 20 years on a coerced plea bargain. The price that Mohammed will pay will be small compared to the price we Americans will pay. The outcome of Mohammed's trial will complete the transformation of the US legal system from a shield of the people into a weapon in the hands of the state. Feige writes that Mohammed's statements obtained by torture will not be suppressed, that witnesses against him will not be produced ("national security"), that documents that compromise the prosecution will be redacted. At each stage of Mohammed's appeals process, higher courts will enshrine into legal precedents the denial of the Constitutional right to a speedy trial, thus enshrining indefinite detention, the denial of the right against damning pretrial publicity, thus allowing demonization prior to trial, and the denial of the right to have witnesses and documents produced, thus eviscerating a defendant's rights to exculpatory evidence and to confront adverse witnesses, The twisted logic necessary to disentangle Mohammed's torture from his confession will also be upheld and will "provide a blueprint for the government, giving them the prize they've been after all this time--a legal way both to torture and to prosecute." It took Hitler a while to corrupt the German courts. Hitler first had to create new courts, like President George W. Bush's military tribunals, that did not require evidence, using in place of evidence hearsay, secret charges, and self-incrimination obtained by torture. Every American should be concerned that the Obama administration has decided to use Mohammed's trial to complete the corruption of the American court system. When Mohammed's trial is over, an American Joe Stalin or Adolf Hitler will be able to convict America's Founding Fathers on charges of treason and terrorism. No one will be safe. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.He can be reached at: PaulCraigRoberts at yahoo.com From ceasig at gmail.com Tue Nov 24 09:58:38 2009 From: ceasig at gmail.com (Centre For Ecological Audit, Social Inclusion & Governance) Date: Tue, 24 Nov 2009 22:28:38 +0530 Subject: [GJM] FW: [globalnetnews-summary] The Geopolitics behind the phoney US war in Afghanistan In-Reply-To: <004f01ca6bbe$a8b457f0$fa1d07d0$@net> References: <004f01ca6bbe$a8b457f0$fa1d07d0$@net> Message-ID: <31f677a30911240858s6289da57j34f0f896634506be@mail.gmail.com> Dear Mary, We need to call for integration of ecostrategic considerations for definition of foreign polcies. A presentation on the my proposal for new discipline called *ecostrategics* can be seen at http://slideshare.net/mukhtaralam Dr.M.Mukhtar Alam On Mon, Nov 23, 2009 at 3:25 AM, mary rose wrote: > Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS > > While this article brings forth the validity of the opium trade being the > real reason for the continued war in Afghanistan as put forth by Peter in > comments on previous articles, there can be no denying that would the U.S. > elite who foster these actions become more consciously aware of the > ramifications of their actions and move into another level of > consciousness, > the raising of poppies from which to produce opium along with fighting wars > would become "unthinkable" acts. > > The raising of opium and the wars related to this issue are but > manifestations of a state of conscious -- and once we are able to "mature > our thinking" and move into another level of awareness then doing these > acts > become incomprehensible in the light of what is known. > > -----Original Message----- > From: globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net > [mailto:globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net] On Behalf Of > TradingPostPaul > Sent: Sunday, November 22, 2009 11:51 AM > To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net > Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] The Geopolitics behind the phoney US war > in > Afghanistan > > > The Geopolitics behind the phoney US war in Afghanistan > > http://www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net/Geopolitics___Eurasia/Afghanistan/afgh > anistan.html > By F. William Engdahl, 21 October 2009 > > > > One of the most remarkable aspects of the Obama Presidential agenda is how > little anyone has questioned in the media or elsewhere why at all the > United States Pentagon is committed to a military occupation of > Afghanistan. There are two basic reasons, neither one of which can be > admitted openly to the public at large. > > Behind all the deceptive official debate over how many troops are needed to > "win" the war in Afghanistan, whether another 30,000 is sufficient, or > whether at least 200000 are needed, the real purpose of US military > presence in that pivotal Central Asian country is obscured. > > Even during the 2008 Presidential campaign candidate Obama argued that > Afghanistan not Iraq was where the US must wage war. His reason? Because he > claimed, that was where the Al Qaeda organization was holed up and that was > the "real" threat to US national security. The reasons behind US > involvement in Afghanistan is quite another one. > > The US military is in Afghanistan for two reasons. First to restore and > control the world's largest supply of opium for the world heroin markets > and to use the drugs as a geopolitical weapon against opponents, especially > Russia. That control of the Afghan drug market is essential for the > liquidity of the bankrupt and corrupt Wall Street financial mafia. > > Geopolitics of Afghan Opium > > According even to an official UN report, opium production in Afghanistan > has risen dramatically since the downfall of the Taliban in 2001. UNODC > data shows more opium poppy cultivation in each of the past four growing > seasons (2004-2007), than in any one year during Taliban rule. More land is > now used for opium in Afghanistan, than for coca cultivation in Latin > America. In 2007, 93% of the opiates on the world market originated in > Afghanistan. This is no accident. > > It has been documented that Washington hand-picked the controversial Hamid > Karzai, a Pashtun warlord from the Popalzai tribe, long in the CIA's > service, brought him back from exile in the USA, created a Hollywood > mythology around his "courageous leadership of his people." According > to Afghan sources, Karzai is the Opium "Godfather" of Afghanistan > today. There is apparently no accident that he was and is today still > Washington's preferred man in Kabul. Yet even with massive vote buying > and fraud and intimidation, Karzai's days could be ending as President. > > The second reason the US military remains in Afghanistan long after the > world has forgotten even who the mysterious Osama bin Laden and his alleged > Al Qaeda terrorist organization is or even if they exist, is as a pretext > to build a permanent US military strike force with a series of permanent US > airbases across Afghanistan. The aim of those bases is not to eradicate any > Al Qaeda cells that may have survived in the caves of Tora Bora, or to > eradicate a mythical "Taliban" which at this point according to > eyewitness reports is made up overwhelmingly of local ordinary Afghanis > fighting to rid their land once more of occupier armies as they did in the > 11980's against the Russians. > > The aim of the US bases in Afghanistan is to target and be able to strike > at the two nations which today represent the only combined threat in the > world today to an American global imperium, to America's Full Spectrum > Dominance as the Pentagon terms it. > > The lost 'Mandate of Heaven' > > The problem for the US power elites around Wall Street and in Washington is > the fact that they are now in the deepest financial crisis in their > history. That crisis is clear to the entire world and the world is acting > on a basis of self-survival. The US elites have lost what in Chinese > imperial history is known as the Mandate of Heaven. That mandate is given a > ruler or ruling elite provided they rule their people justly and fairly. > When they rule tyrannically and as despots, oppressing and abusing their > people, they lose that Mandate of Heaven. > > If the powerful private wealthy elites that have controlled essential US > financial and foreign policy for most of the past century or more ever had > a "mandate of Heaven" they clearly have lost it. The domestic > developments towards creation of an abusive police state with deprivation > of Constitutional rights to its citizens, the arbitrary exercise of power > by non elected officials such as Treasury Secretaries Henry Paulson and now > Tim Geithner, stealing trillion dollar sums from taxpayers without their > consent in order to bailout the bankrupt biggest Wall Street banks, banks > deemed "Too Big To Fail," this all demonstrates to the world they have > lost the mandate > > In this situation, the US power elites are increasingly desperate to > maintain their control of a global parasitical empire, called deceptively > by their media machine, "globalization." To hold that dominance it is > essential that they be able to break up any emerging cooperation in the > economic, energy or military realm between the two major powers of Eurasia > that conceivably could pose a challenge to future US sole Superpower > control--China in combination with Russia. > > Each Eurasian power brings to the table essential contributions. China has > the world's most robust economy, a huge young and dynamic workforce, an > educated middle class. Russia, whose economy has not recovered from the > destructive end pf the Soviet era and of the primitive looting during the > Yeltsin era, still holds essential assets for the combination. Russia's > nuclear strike force and its military pose the only threat in the world > today to US military dominance, even if it is largely a residue of the Cold > War. The Russian military elites never gave up that potential. > > As well Russia holds the world's largest treasure of natural gas and vast > reserves of oil urgently needed by China. The two powers are increasingly > converging via a new organization they created in 2001 known as the > Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). That includes as well as China and > Russia, the largest Central Asia states Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, > and Uzbekistan. > > The purpose of the alleged US war against both Taliban and Al Qaeda is in > reality to place its military strike force directly in the middle of the > geographical space of this emerging SCO in Central Asia. Iran is a > diversion. The main goal or target is Russia and China. > > Officially, of course, Washington claims it has built its military presence > inside Afghanistan since 2002 in order to protect a "fragile" Afghan > democracy. It's a curious argument given the reality of US military > presence there. > > In December 2004, during a visit to Kabul, US Defense Secretary Donald > Rumsfeld finalized plans to build nine new bases in Afghanistan in the > provinces of Helmand, Herat, Nimrouz, Balkh, Khost and Paktia. The nine are > in addition to the three major US military bases already installed in the > wake of its occupation of Afghanistan in winter of 2001-2002, ostensibly to > isolate and eliminate the terror threat of Osama bin Laden. > > The Pentagon built its first three bases at Bagram Air Field north of > Kabul, the US' main military logistics center; Kandahar Air Field, in > southern Afghanistan; and Shindand Air Field in the western province of > Herat. Shindand, the largest US base in Afghanistan, was constructed a mere > 100 kilometers from the border of Iran, and within striking distance of > Russia as well as China. > > Afghanistan has historically been the heartland for the British-Russia > Great Game, the struggle for control of Central Asia during the 19th and > early 20th Centuries. British strategy then was to prevent Russia at all > costs from controlling Afghanistan and thereby threatening Britain's > imperial crown jewel, India. > > Afghanistan is similarly regarded by Pentagon planners as highly strategic. > It is a platform from which US military power could directly threaten > Russia and China, as well as Iran and other oil-rich Middle East lands. > Little has changed geopolitically over more than a century of wars. > > Afghanistan is in an extremely vital location, straddling South Asia, > Central Asia, and the Middle East. Afghanistan also lies along a proposed > oil pipeline route from the Caspian Sea oil fields to the Indian Ocean, > where the US oil company, Unocal, along with Enron and Cheney's > Halliburton, had been in negotiations for exclusive pipeline rights to > bring natural gas from Turkmenistan across Afghanistan and Pakistan to > Enron's huge natural gas power plant at Dabhol near Mumbai. Karzai, > before becoming puppet US president, had been a Unocal lobbyist. > > Al Qaeda doesn't exist as a threat > > The truth of all this deception around the real purpose in Afghanistan > becomes clear on a closer look at the alleged "Al Qaeda" threat in > Afghanistan. According to author Erik Margolis, prior to the September > 11,2001 attacks, US intelligence was giving aid and support both to the > Taliban and to Al Qaeda. Margolis claims that "The CIA was planning to > use Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda to stir up Muslim Uighurs against Chinese > rule, and Taliban against Russia's Central Asian allies." > > The US clearly found other means of stirring up Muslim Uighurs against > Beijing last July via its support for the World Uighur Congress. But the Al > Qaeda "threat" remains the lynchpin of Obama US justification for his > Afghan war buildup. > > Now, however, the National Security Adviser to President Obama, former > Marine Gen. James Jones has made a statement, conveniently buried by the > friendly US media, about the estimated size of the present Al Qaeda danger > in Afghanistan. Jones told Congress, "The al-Qaeda presence is very > diminished. The maximum estimate is less than 100 operating in the country, > no bases, no ability to launch attacks on either us or our allies." > > That means that Al-Qaeda, for all practical purposes, does not exist in > Afghanistan. Oops. > > Even in neighboring Pakistan, the remnants of Al-Qaeda are scarcely to be > found. The Wall Street Journal reports, "Hunted by US drones, beset by > money problems and finding it tougher to lure young Arabs to the bleak > mountains of Pakistan, al Qaeda is seeing its role shrink there and in > Afghanistan, according to intelligence reports and Pakistan and U.S. > officials. For Arab youths who are al Qaeda's primary recruits, 'it's > not romantic to be cold and hungry and hiding,' said a senior U.S. > official in South Asia." > > If we follow the statement to its logical consequence we must conclude then > that the reason German soldiers are dying along with other NATO youth in > the mountains of Afghanistan has nothing to do with "winning a war > against terrorism." Conveniently most media chooses to forget the fact > that Al Qaeda to the extent it ever existed, was a creation in the 1980's > of the CIA, who recruited and trained radical muslims from across the > Islamic world to wage war against Russian troops in Afghanistan as part of > a strategy developed by Reagan's CIA head Bill Casey and others to create > a "new Vietnam" for the Soviet Union which would lead to a humiliating > defeat for the Red Army and the ultimate collapse of the Soviet Union. > > Now US NSC head Jones admits there is essentially no Al Qaeda anymore in > Afghanistan. Perhaps it is time for a more honest debate from our political > leaders about the true purpose of sending more young to die protecting the > opium harvests of Afghanistan. > > > _______________________________________________ > Discussion mailing list > Discussion at globaljusticemovement.net > > http://globaljusticemovement.net/mailman/listinfo/discussion_globaljusticemovement.net > -- Endeavoring for ecological safety ,social inclusion and distributive justice for the renewable resource based livelihoods and habitats, Centre For Ecological Audit, Social Inclusion and Governance (CEASIG) , an initiative of Labour League Foundation, Sewa and Sufi Trust , Delhi aims for socially inclusive and ecologically safe future for all through organizing and communicating carbon neutral neighborhood discussions/ consultations, building capacities in ecological audit, ecologically safe networking ,advocacy, interfaith dialogue & other related domains for multiplying personal, community , governmental and corporate actions for ecologically safe education, ecological audit ,and, ecologically safe and socially inclusive governance. Contact Details: 58-C,DDA Flats, Ashok Vihar-III, Delhi-110052 Phones: 0968345380 http://transitionurbanindia.ning.com http://ecostrategiccommunicators.ning.com http://slideshare.net/mukhtaralam -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk Thu Nov 26 02:51:30 2009 From: dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk (robert searle) Date: Thu, 26 Nov 2009 09:51:30 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [GJM] Fw: Re: [Hgs] [UMKCLEE-URPE] Heterodox Economics Newsletter 91 Message-ID: <540279.16554.qm@web27405.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> --- On Thu, 26/11/09, Ian Fletcher wrote: From: Ian Fletcher Subject: Re: [Hgs] [UMKCLEE-URPE] Heterodox Economics Newsletter 91 To: "Lee, Frederic" , "Heterodox Economics Graduate Students" Date: Thursday, 26 November, 2009, 2:45 Sorry, but you linked my book to Amazon.com, where it CAN NOT be purchased, rather than to the CreateSpace.com URL I gave you, where it is for sale. Can you send out a correction please? Ian On Nov 24, 2009, at 12:25 PM, "Lee, Frederic" wrote: Heterodox Economics Newsletter www.heterodoxnews.com Issue 91: November 24, 2009 ? >From the Editor I recently attended the EAEPE Conference in Amsterdam. There were many interesting sessions of which I could only attend a few. I heard one interesting paper by Marc Jacquinet on the contributions of historical and economic sociology to economic regulation and another one by Jordon Melmies on Post Keynesian price theory. There was also a session on pluralism and heterodoxy in economics. Themes, comments, and feelings that emerged from it included the notion that pluralism should not be considered an important value for economists because it offended mainstream economists; that heterodox is a term that should not be used and that economists should not identify themselves as heterodox economists; that young economists should not spend much of their time studying heterodox economics; and that graduate students from heterodox programs were not competitive enough on the job market relative to mainstream students. No heterodox graduate programs were named, but programs at UMKC, UM-Amherst, American University, New School, SOAS, Bremen, and the University of Sydney are the reference targets. A rather strange session where apparently the intent was to make heterodox economists and their graduate students feel unwelcome at EAEPE. As noted in previous Newsletters, ICAPE will be holding its 3rd International Conference on 3-5 June 2010 and its theme is ?Failing Economies, Failing Economics: Rebooting Economics after the Crash?. Given the reception pluralism and heterodox economics received at the EAEPE Conference and various articles that have appeared in the past few years basically saying that pluralism is unimportant and all heterodox economists should seek reabsorption into the mainstream, I am interested in having a stream of sessions at the ICAPE Conference on the following topics: Are Pluralist Economics Departments Possible: Historical and current case studies?Notre Dame, UMass-Amherst, UC Riverside, Rutgers, Cambridge are possible case studies that come to mind, but there must be others Teaching pluralism in the economics classroom Relationship between Pluralism-Intellectual Tolerance and Verbal Denigration of Different Theoretical Approaches?or Pluralism and Language in economics Does Pluralism Mean that all Economic Theories Must be Theoretically Compatible with each other? Relationship Between Pluralism and Intellectual Tolerance: Is it possible to be theoretically different? Is there pluralism within mainstream economics? Within heterodox economics? What is the relevance of pluralism for economic theory? For example is there a pluralist position about marginal products (or any other mainstream or heterodox theoretical concepts)? Or what role does pluralism play in developing mainstream or heterodox microeconomic theory? If you have any questions or would like to submit abstracts, please e-mail me at leefs at umkc.edu? or umkcicape at umkc.edu.? At the ASSA in Atlanta, ICAPE will have an open house on Saturday January 2, 2010 starting at 2.30pm. It will held at the Hilton Atlanta, room Crystal D. The ICAPE annual meeting will start at 3.00pm. It should not last more than an hour. After the meeting (or current with the meeting), there will be a meeting of the ICAPE 2010 Conference committee. All are welcome to attend. Remember ICAPE has a booth at the ASSA exhibition center. If you want to display material, please contact me about it ASAP. Because of my editorship of the American Journal of Economics and Sociology, I have to step down as the Executive Director of ICAPE. If you are interested in becoming the Executive Director, please send me an e-mail saying so. If no one is forthcoming, then I will have to close ICAPE down after the 2010 ICAPE Conference. ICAPE is not the only thing under threat. I also need someone to take over the editorship and production of the Newsletter. I am in conversation with colleagues at Buffalo State. Whatever the New Year brings, one thing is for certain, I will not be the editor of the Newsletter. Finally, I would like to bring your attention to the Warren Samuels Prize for all you social economists which is in the FYI. Fred Lee In this issue: ? Call for Papers - Call for URPE Panels at the 2010 Left Forum - STOREP 2010 - ?Environment, Innovation and Sustainable development: Towards a new technoeconomic paradigm?? - The American Journal of Economics and Sociology - SASE 2010 Mini-Conference - A Century of May Days: Labor and Social Struggles - SABE 2010 - L'entrepreneur, entre autonomie et incertitude - Strikes and Social Conflicts in the 20th Century - 2010 Economic & Business Historical Society Conference - Industrial Relations - Managing Financial Instability in Capitalist Economies - The Effect of Crises on Distribution - Where to Implement Innovative Economic Policies for Climate Change Mitigation - 14th Annual International Conference on Economics and Security - 1st IIPPE Conference - International Conference of the Charles Gide - The Revival of Political Economy: Prospects for Sustainable Provision - 12th Conference of the Association for Heterodox Economics - "Beyond the Crisis" - Thirteenth World Congress of Social Economics ? Conferences, Seminars and Lectures ? - Association for Evolutionary Economics (AFEE) - The Legacy of Joan Robinson - The recent developments in Post-Keynesian modelling - FORUM DE LA R?GULATION 2009 - KEYNES SEMINAR LIVE - Research Unit in Politics & Ethics Events - King's College London Reading Capital Society - Saints or Sinners: the role of the media in the financial crisis - A Green Economics Conference/ Symposium - Economics Department Seminar Series - Overschooled but Undereducated: How the crisis in education is jeopardizing our adolescents - ANTHROPOLOGIES OF THE PRESENT - "On Alain Badiou?s Theory of the Subject and Logics of Worlds" - Economie politique et macro?conomie appliqu?e - The International Institute for Research and Education (IIRE) Reading Group - DISTINGUISHING "RELIGIOUS" FROM "ECONOMIC" - THE GLOBALISATION LECTURES - UNAM- La crisis financiera actual y sus secuelas - Modern Economic and Social History Seminar ? Job Postings for Heterodox Economists - Marymount Manhattan College - Franklin & Marshall College - WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY, Middletown, CT - Ashcroft International Business School - Verso London - Roosevelt University - Portland State University ? Heterodox Conference Papers and Reports and Articles ? - Justice Denied: Dispute Settlement in Latin America's Trade and Investment Agreements - Why Has Domestic Revenue Stagnated in Low-Income Countries? - The Centre for Development Policy and Research - PKSG Workshop on the Current Crisis - Socialism in One Country - General Perspectives on the Capitalist Development State and Class Struggle in East Asia Heterodox Journals and Newsletters ? - American Journal of Economics and Sociology - The Journal of Philosophical Economics - New Political Economy - Levy News - Challenge - economic sociology - the European electronic newsletter - eInsight - Local Economy - INTERVENTION - Friends of Associative Economics Bulletin ? Heterodox Books and Book Series ? - Joan Robinson - PUT TO WORK - Greed, Lust and Gender - Money and Macrodynamics: Alfred Eichner and Post-Keynesian Economics - Rethinking Imperialism: A Study of Capitalist Rule - The Trouble With Capitalism - Climate Change in Africa - Science and Technology for Development - The Social Economy - The Priest of Paraguay - The Audacity of Races and Genders - Egypt - Women and War in the Middle East - Free Trade Doesn?t Work: Why America Needs a Tariff - MORBID SYMPTOMS - Reflexivity and Development Economics - The Global Environment of Business - Curbing Bailouts - Research Confidential - Striving to Save - ZED BOOKS IN DEVELOPMENT STUDIES - No Rich, No Poor - Rethinking Imperialism: A Study of Capitalist Rule - Routledge International Studies in Business History - After the Crash ? Heterodox Book Reviews ? - Money, Markets, and Sovereignty - CHINA?S THREE DECADES OF ECONOMIC REFORMS - Socialist Standart- Book Reviews Heterodox Graduate Program and PhD Scholarships/Research Fellowships ? - Graduate programs offering study in feminist economics ? Heterodox Web Sites and Associations ? - Real-World Economics Review Blog ? For Your Information ? - I wanna be an Economist - Economic Crisis Hits States and Municipalities - Big Tobacco Strikes Back at Historian in Court - An Old Master, Back in Fashion - Mathematicians Against Free Trade - Online Petition for Tougher Financial Regulation in Europe - Europeans for financial reform - Lending must support the real economy - Steelworkers Seek Job Creation via Worker-Owned Factories - Ssangyong Motors Strike in South Korea Ends in Defeat and Heavy Repression - Warren Samuels Prize - R?seau de Recherche sur l?Innovation - Research Network of Innovation - Building a Solidarity Economy - Smith's 'invisible hand' was an ideal- not a reality ?----- To be removed from this mailing list, please send an email message to the address leefs at umkc.edu asking to be removed from this list. Problems or questions should be directed to sullivanmw at umkc.edu. &*TO; _______________________________________________ HGS mailing list HGS at lists.econ.utah.edu http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/hgs -----Inline Attachment Follows----- _______________________________________________ HGS mailing list HGS at lists.econ.utah.edu http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/hgs -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From maryrose333 at att.net Tue Nov 24 17:14:49 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Tue, 24 Nov 2009 16:14:49 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: [globalnetnews-summary] Last Train To Copenhagen Message-ID: <002e01ca6d64$7c6ee500$754caf00$@net> Moving Into; TOTAL WELLNESS Will we, like Nero sit here and fiddle while unprecedented glacial ice melt rates in excess of IPCC projections? -----Original Message----- From: globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net [mailto:globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net] On Behalf Of TradingPostPaul Sent: Sunday, November 22, 2009 11:16 AM To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] Last Train To Copenhagen Last Train To Copenhagen http://www.countercurrents.org/glikson221109.htm By Andrew Glikson 22 November, 2009 Countercurrents.org "We are simply talking about the very life support system of this planet". Professor Joachim Schellnhuber, Director, Potsdam Institute of Climate Impact, and chief climate science advisor of the German Government. "The pace and scale of climate change may now be outstripping even the most sobering previous predictions" United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC). "The time for hesitation is over" United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon. "The clock is ticking for the planet" Kevin Rudd Summary With the exception of rapid atmospheric changes triggered by major volcanic events, asteroid impacts and methane release, which led to the great mass extinction of species, the current rate of CO2 rise (2005-08: 1.66-2.55 ppm/year) is unprecedented in the recent history of the Earth, driving polar ice melt and sea level rise rates in excess of IPCC projections. Warming of large parts of the Arctic and Antarctic circles by 3-4 degrees C during 1975-2009 (~0.09-0.12 degrees C/year) triggers fast feedback effects from ice melt, albedo loss and open water infrared absorption, and from the carbon cycle. Estimates of future sea level rise derived from 40 years records (1.6-3.7 mm/year), glacier flow rates and ice shelf collapse dynamics, and yet little-quantified positive feedbacks, render exponential to non-linear sea level rise on the scale of tens of meters over the next few centuries possible. The rise in the oceans heat content (1950-2004: 16.10^22 Joules), lowered pH (8.2 - 8.1), and enhancement of the CO3(-2) to HCO3(-) transition, threatens algae, calcifying plankton and reef habitats from shallow habitats to abyssal depths [2]. The best outcomes of the looming Copenhagen climate summit, 25 percent carbon emission reduction relative to 1990 levels, would be unable to arrest the rise of mean global temperatures over 2 degrees Celsius relative to pre-industrial levels. The rise in CO2 emissions by 41% since 1990 [3] and continuing land clearing go counter to the urgently required measures at mitigation, massive reforestation, revegetation, application of biochar and chemical draw-down of atmospheric CO2. While governments vie to vested interests and economists calculate the price of the Earth, a denial syndrome underpinned by an ideology of human mastery over nature is enhanced by a massive disinformation campaign by contrarians who ignore the basic laws of physics and chemistry and falsify climate data. Read full story here http://www.countercurrents.org/glikson221109.pdf Andrew Glikson Earth and paleoclimate scientist Australian National University Andrew.glikson at anu.edu.au From maryrose333 at att.net Wed Nov 25 08:46:58 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Wed, 25 Nov 2009 07:46:58 -0800 Subject: [GJM] Eliminating Paper: Important to getting us through this time of great chaos. Message-ID: <003601ca6de6$ae9e5c40$0bdb14c0$@net> It is quite evident to me that we must move beyond recycling and move into "waste elimination" and concentrated efforts must be made to do this. http://www.dumblittleman.com/2009/11/using-technology-to-organize-your-life. html?utm_source=feedburner &utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+DumbLittleMan+(Dumb+Little+Man+-+tips+fo r+life)&utm_content=Twitter Your Logo, Inc. FutureDawning.org Mary Rose, www.futuredawning.org CEO and Founder - Agent for social transformation Future Dawning.org dustysummerrose at gmail.com Always have my latest info Want a signature like this? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/gif Size: 177 bytes Desc: not available URL: From maryrose333 at att.net Wed Nov 25 09:43:46 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Wed, 25 Nov 2009 08:43:46 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: Science for Life - The Infection Deception Message-ID: <004c01ca6dee$a0107e80$e0317b80$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS This is a critically important document as it begins to reveal the depth of deception that has taken place in this country with regard to vaccinations, which must also lead us to question how much deception is being perpetrated in other areas by government agencies. From: Spiritcrossing [mailto:info at spiritcrossing.com] Sent: Wednesday, November 25, 2009 3:32 AM To: maryrose333 at att.net Subject: Science for Life - The Infection Deception Trouble reading this email? Read it online here Hello friends, A few weeks ago Bruce Lipton called me and introduced me to his new best friend in the Medical World, Len Saputo, MD. I quickly read his book,"A Return to Healing" and I am thrilled today to introduce you to an awakened doctor. Please join us for an enlightening and powerful discussion that is really all about you. We also have a gift for you, a free download of Len's article, "The Infection Deception". www.ScienceforLife.net Today, 9:00 AM Pacific, 12:00 Noon Eastern or 24/7 On Demand Love and light, Design:OneGraphic.com This message was sent from Spiritcrossing to maryrose333 at att.net. It was sent from: Spirit 2000, SpiritCrossing P.O. Box 11736 , Murfreesboro, TN 37129-0035. You can modify/update your subscription via the link below. Email Marketing by iContact - Try It Free! To be removed click here -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From maryrose333 at att.net Wed Nov 25 09:45:05 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Wed, 25 Nov 2009 08:45:05 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: Foresight Network Newsletter: November 25th 2009 Message-ID: <005101ca6dee$c92994f0$5b7cbed0$@net> From: The Foresight Network [mailto:mail at shapingtomorrowmain.ning.com] Sent: Wednesday, November 25, 2009 12:12 AM To: maryrose333 at att.net Subject: Foresight Network Newsletter: November 25th 2009 The Foresight Network A message to all members of The Foresight Network Non-Western Futurists: The next edition of Green Futures (www.forumforthefuture.org.uk/greenfutures), the sustainable development magazine, will have a special feature on futures. They are writing an article on the field of futures and what's happening in it. They'd like to feature the comments of a few eminent futurists from around the globe, and wondered whether you'd have 10 minutes to talk to them? They're asking 2 questions: 1) How has the field of futures thinking changed in the past 5 years, and how do you anticipate it changing in the future? 2) What one possible trend for the future is currently seriously overlooked or not widely discussed? Please mailto:mike.jackson at shapingtomorrow.com expressing an interest to be interviewed. Spam: Apologies to those of you who got a spam message advertising a singles dating site. This person has been banned. Please ignore any messages you may have received before they were banned though we hope we have removed them all before you were bothered. Featured member: Hazel Henderson - your favourite futurist Hazel, was voted the Foresight Network?s favourite futurist for the second year in a row this month. Read her profile and find out why. More on the others honoured by you in future editions of the newsletter. Groups: We will be cleaning up inactive groups before Christmas so we start the new year afresh. If you?re a group admin or want your favourite group to continue please do visit soon. We don?t want to remove useful groups. Groups under threat of closure include: Lusofonia, GIS Trends and Developments, Russian Foresight, Development Futures. Events: Don?t forget to add foresight events as you find them. You will be helping your associates here to know what?s coming up. Future Voices: The new speaker panel continues to attract organisations seeking its members. This month we filled slots in Asia, the UK and Canada. Did you sign up to be a member of Future Voices ? You may be missing out on some of the best speaking engagement sound. Situations vacant: This week we recommended three members to an international banking organisation seeking a futurist. So, do post your hiring notices and requests for work under the Situations Vacant tab. Good news: The Foresight Network can now create HTML broadcast messages so you are going to see a substantial improvement in the newsletter format over the coming weeks. We would now like to recruit a volunteer newsletter editor with publishing skills to use this facility to the full. Is that you? Mailto:mike.jackson at shapingtomorrow.com expressing your interest. Happy futuring The Shaping Tomorrow Team Visit The Foresight Network at: http://shapingtomorrowmain.ning.com/?xg_source=msg_mes_network To control which emails you receive on The Foresight Network, click here -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From maryrose333 at att.net Wed Nov 25 09:46:55 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Wed, 25 Nov 2009 08:46:55 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: DC Decoder || Whatever Happened to the CIA Black Sites? Message-ID: <005601ca6def$0f2a6b50$2d7f41f0$@net> From: do_not_reply at motherjones.com [mailto:do_not_reply at motherjones.com] Sent: Wednesday, November 25, 2009 3:03 AM To: maryrose333 at att.net Subject: DC Decoder || Whatever Happened to the CIA Black Sites? DCDECODER THE SCOOP FROM DAVID CORN & MOJO'S WASHINGTON BUREAU MOTHER JONES January 1, 2009 WHAT WE'RE FOLLOWING THIS WEEK Whatever Happened to the CIA Black Sites? Whatever happened to the so-called "black sites," where suspected terrorists were held overseas by the CIA and submitted to harsh interrogations that included torture? On April 9, CIA chief Leon Panetta issued a statement notifying CIA employees that the agency no longer operates black sites and has proposed a plan to decommission the facilities. Since then, lawyers for several terrorism suspects have been trying to determine the status of the sites as they seek evidence for their cases. But with the US government refusing to discuss what it has done with these secret detention facilities, their ultimate fate remains in the dark. You can read about it here . -David Corn [READ MORE] BREAKING NEWS The Tea Party's Favorite Doctors They're not just against health care reform. They think Obama may have hypnotized voters and that climate legislation threatens your health. By Stephanie Mencimer [READ MORE] Gitmo Politics in Obama's White House Obama delegates a crucial decision about detainee policy to his political advisers. By Nick Baumann [READ MORE] Follow the DC Bureau on Twitter Want more political coverage from Mother Jones? Subscribe to the magazine for just $10/year by clicking here ! INVESTIGATIONS National Archives to Proceed with CSI-Style Watergate Test Mother Jones was the first to report that a high-tech forensic test on two pages of presidential records could unlock one of America's great political mysteries: What was on the 18 1/2 minutes of White House tapes suspiciously erased during the Watergate scandal? We may very soon find out . By David Corn [READ MORE] NYU Press Read MoJoBlog MORE FROM MOJO Viggo Mortensen: King of The Road MoJo chats with Viggo Mortensen about chocolate, Glenn Beck, and his latest movie. Plus: an interview with Malalai Joya , a.k.a. Afghanistan's bravest woman. Last but not least: the toxic bottom-dwelling fish lurking on your sushi menu. [READ MORE] MOST POPULAR * Oliver North's Climate Freakout * How We Pay for Big Pharma's Malpractice * Investors Call on Companies to Disclose Climate Risk * John Kerry to the World Bank: Don't Be Dirty MOST ACTIVE DISCUSSION Rove, Cheney, Gingrich, and Kristol Fail to Rally 9/11 Trial Foes The GOP old guard called on supporters to protest the Obama administration's decision to try 9/11 terrorism suspects in US courts. The angry mob failed to show up. By Nick Baumann and David Corn [READ MORE] NYU Press Hi. Thanks for signing up for Mother Jones' DC Decoder newsletter. Wait, that was your cat? Smart cat! If you don't want to get DC Decoder, or to make changes to your subscription, click here. And lock up the cat. WWW.MOTHERJONES.COM Mother Jones 222 Sutter Street, Suite 600, San Francisco, CA 94108 Mother Jones -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From maryrose333 at att.net Wed Nov 25 09:48:55 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Wed, 25 Nov 2009 08:48:55 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: Welcome to new people / Rob Hopkins on TED Message-ID: <005b01ca6def$5a925030$0fb6f090$@net> From: Transition California [mailto:mail at transitioncalifornia.ning.com] Sent: Tuesday, November 24, 2009 11:27 PM To: maryrose333 at att.net Subject: Welcome to new people / Rob Hopkins on TED Transition California ? Local Self-Reliance for a Post-Petroleum World ? A message to all members of Transition California Greetings, For the new people, welcome. From time to time I send out a massive announcement to all site members... to alert people of certain cool things, new videos, content, new sites, etc. 1. Rob Hopkins TED debut is finally online. We posted it here at http://transitioncalifornia.ning.com/video/rob-hopkins-at-the-ted 2. The long awaited Transition Times is now up: http://transition-times.com/colorado/ 3. The new Transition US newsletter is out: http://www.transitionus.org/ 4. The new Post Carbon website is up: http://www.postcarbon.org/ 5. HopeDance has a new site and it has videos (local as well as global), content, social networking, a slide show, events (for the central coast of California)... Check out the new trailers and speeches by Gunter Pauli, Barbara Marx Hubbard, Fierce Light, For The Next 7 Generations (the most visited trailer so far!), Daniel Pinchbeck , 2012, Collapse , No Impact Man, Edible San Luis Obispo (if you havent already connected and collaborated with an edible publication in your neck of the woods, I would highly recommend it). And for humor, we are thrilled to include some laughing yoga videos as well as the famous Bodhisattva in Metro . 6. New groups have been forming. We have 53 groups and 938 people. Send us your favorite websites, favorite articles, book reviews, films, upload new film trailers, etc. Thanks for what you are all doing in your transition communities. One really fantastic news is that Transition Paso Robles, an official transition town, just got land approved by the city to create a permaculture food forest demonstration "garden"!! Ciao for now! Bob Banner Visit Transition California at: http://transitioncalifornia.ning.com/?xg_source=msg_mes_network To control which emails you receive on Transition California, click here -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From maryrose333 at att.net Wed Nov 25 10:56:05 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Wed, 25 Nov 2009 09:56:05 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: [globalnetnews-summary] The Economic Crisis And What Must Be Done Message-ID: <008001ca6df8$ba7a3a90$2f6eafb0$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS While Richard C. Cook makes some good point here, one of the problems I see is that the U. S. economy has been for years based on created bubbles and has never been on solid ground. The auto industry, which has been one of the mainstays of the U.S. economy along with production for the military-industrial complex, has always been based on built-in obsolescence to keep it going -- a practice which is based on waste creation in order to keep the money flowing. If automobiles had been produced to last, the number of jobs necessary for economic stability could not have been maintained since there would have been less turn-over as people held on to their cars over a longer period of time. And, with regard to the military-industrial complex, the CIA has had the job of continually perpetuating war in order to keep up the demand for those who wage them, along with the necessary technologies with which to fight them. So, there has been no real authentic basis for economic viability for many years, if ever, since it has for so long been based on created bubbles in order to create jobs in order to survive. And a law of physics that we must face is that "what goes up must come down" and corruption within the system is not a factor that can be relied upon to provide stability. Attempting to return to such a system in order to right what has gone wrong is simply flawed thinking which resulted in Daniel Quinn's remark in the video "What a Way To Go" "We cannot take the building blocks out from the basement and attempt to build a second story with them." People must be able to return to raising their own food and not be reliant on jobs to keep them in the money in order to be able to purchase what they need. This means we must have "land reform" which returns the land to the people for sustenance farming, and takes it out of the hands of the large agriculturists who are now able to farm and ranch thousands of acres with only 6-8 people due to advances in technology and the ability of heavy equipment to do what the hands of people were able to do at an earlier time. With technology as the prime factor in this scenario, our food chain has become poisoned to the extent that it is virtually non-edible when coupled with the factor of soils depletion figured in, revealing that that almost no vitamins and minerals are left in them to provide nourishment for us from the foods raised. What this is telling us is that we are not only economically bankrupt, we are also ecologically bankrupt. Thus our immediate attention must turn toward restoration of our fragile ecosystems in order to restore and maximize the carrying capacity of them. This means eliminating large scale agriculture practices and returning the land to the people who will love and care for it as once did the Native Americans. This does not mean that we should eliminate technology all together, but we must ensure that what we use is "appropriate technology" not "run-a-way technology." -----Original Message----- From: globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net [mailto:globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net] On Behalf Of TradingPostPaul Sent: Tuesday, November 24, 2009 9:48 PM To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] The Economic Crisis And What Must Be Done The Economic Crisis And What Must Be Done http://www.countercurrents.org/cook241109.htm By Richard C. Cook 24 November, 2009 The United States does not control its own destiny. Rather it is controlled by an international financial elite, of which the American branch works out of big New York banks like J.P. Morgan Chase, Wall Street investment firms such as Goldman Sachs, and the Federal Reserve System. They in turn control the White House, Congress, the military, the mass media, the intelligence agencies, both political parties, the universities, etc. No one can rise to the top in any of these institutions without the elite?s stamp of approval. This elite has been around since the nation began, becoming increasingly dominant as the 19th century progressed. A key date was passage of the National Banking Act of 1863, when the system was put into place whereby federal government debt was used to collateralize bank lending. Since then we?ve paid the freight through our taxes for bank control of the economy. The final nails in the coffin came with the passage of the Federal Reserve Act of 1913. In 1929 the bankers plunged the nation into the Great Depression by constricting the money supply. With Franklin D. Roosevelt as president, the nation struggled through the decade of the 1930s but did not pull out of the Depression until the industrial explosion during World War II. After the war came the Golden Age of the U.S. economy, when the working man, protected by strong labor unions, became a true partner in the prosperity of the industrial age. That era lasted a full generation. The bankers were largely spectators as Americans led the world in exports, standard of living, science and space exploration, and every measure of health, longevity, and culture. Roosevelt had kept the bankers subservient to the interests of the economy at large. The Federal Reserve was part of the New Deal team, and interest rates were held at historic lows despite a large federal deficit. One main impact was the huge increase in home ownership. After World War II, the G.I. Bill allowed home ownership to grow further and millions of veterans to attend college. The influx of educated graduates led to productivity growth and the emergence of new high-tech industries. But the bankers were laying their plans. In the early 1950s they got the government to agree to allow the Federal Reserve to escape its subservience to the U.S. Treasury Department and set interest rates on its own. Rates rose throughout the 1950s and 1960s. By the time of the interest rate hikes of 1968, the economy was slowing down. Both federal budget and trade deficits were beginning to replace the post-war surpluses. High interest rates were the likely cause. In 1971, President Richard Nixon removed the dollar?s gold peg, allowing the huge inflation resulting from oil price increases that the international bankers engineered through control of U.S. foreign policy when Henry Kissinger was national security adviser and secretary of state. Nixon?s opening to China resulted in early agreements, also overseen by banking interests, to begin to transfer U.S. industry to overseas producers like China which had cheap labor costs. By the mid-1970s, the U.S. had been taken over by a behind the scenes coup-d?etat that included events in 1963 when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated by a conspiracy that could only have been instigated by the highest levels of world financial control. In the election of 1976, David Rockefeller succeeded in placing fellow Trilateral Commission member Jimmy Carter in the White House, but Carter upset the banking community, thoroughly Zionist in orientation, by working toward peace in the Middle East and elsewhere. I was working in the Carter White House in 1979-80. Unbeknownst to the president, Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, another Rockefeller prot?g?, suddenly raised interest rates to fight the inflation the bankers had caused by the OPEC oil price deals, and plunged the nation into recession. Carter was made to look weak and uninformed and was defeated in the election of 1980 by Republican candidate Ronald Reagan. It was through the ?Reagan Revolution? that the regulatory controls over the banking industry were lifted, mainly in allowing the banks to use their fractional reserve privileges in making mortgage loans. Volcker?s recession shattered American manufacturing and hastened the flight of jobs abroad. Under the ?Reagan Doctrine,? the U.S. military embarked on an unprecedented mission of world conquest by attacking one small nation at a time, starting with Nicaragua. Global capitalism was also on the march, with the U.S. armed forces its own private police force. With the invasion of Iraq under George H.W. Bush in 1991, mainland Asia was revealed as the principle target. The economy was floated by productivity gains through computer automation and a huge sell-off of assets through the merger-acquisition bubble of the late 1980s which ended in a recession. This resulted in the defeat of Bush by Bill Clinton in the election of 1992. Clinton was able to create another bubble through a strong dollar policy that attracted foreign capital. The dot-com bubble that resulted lasted all the way through to the crash of December 2000. Meanwhile, the U.S. Air Force led the way in the destruction of the sovereign state of Yugoslavia, whereby the international bankers took over the resource wealth of the entire Balkan region, and the U.S. military gained forward bases for further incursions into Asia. Do we need to say that none of this was ever voted on by the American electorate? But they bought into it nevertheless, both with their silence and through participation in a generally favorable job market in the emerging service occupations, particularly finance. By the time George W. Bush was inaugurated president in January 2001, the U.S. was facing a disaster. $4 trillion in wealth had vanished when the dot.com bubble collapsed. NAFTA caused even more American manufacturing jobs to disappear abroad. The Neocons who were moving into key jobs in the Pentagon knew they would soon have new wars to fight in the Middle East, with invasion plans for Afghanistan and Iraq ready to be pulled off the shelf. But the U.S. had no economic engine available to generate the tax revenues Bush would need for the planned wars. At this moment Chairman Alan Greenspan of the Federal Reserve stepped in. Over a two year period from 2001-2003 the Fed lowered interest rates by over 500 basis points. Meanwhile, the federal government removed all regulatory controls on mortgage lending, and the housing bubble was on. $4 trillion in new home loans were pumped into the economy, much of it through subprime loans borrowers could not afford. The Fed began to put on the brakes in 2003, but the mighty work of re-floating a moribund economy had been accomplished. By late 2006 another recession loomed, but it would take two more years before the crisis of October 2008 brought the entire system down. The impact on the job market was immediate and profound. By the time Barack Obama was elected president in November 2008, the U.S. was mired in seemingly endless wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the worst recession since the Great Depression was picking up speed. In order to prevent total disaster, the Bush administration ended its eight years of catastrophic misrule with a flourish, by allocating over $700 billion in financial system bailouts to cover the bad loans the banks had been making since Greenspan gave the housing bubble the green light. It is now November 2009. Since Barack Obama was inaugurated in January, unemployment has soared from 7.9 percent to 10.2 percent. A few hundred billion dollars were allocated for ?stimulus? purposes, but most of that went to pay unemployment benefits and to keep state and local governments from laying off more employees. A fraction has been distributed for highway improvements, but largely through the bank bailouts the federal deficit has been running at an annual rate of $1.5 trillion, by far the largest in history, with the national debt now topping $12 trillion. Ironically, those Americans who still have productive jobs continue to grow in efficiency, with productivity up over five percent in the last year. So much federal money has been spent that the Obama administration has been struggling to make its health care proposals budget-neutral through a raft of new taxes, fees, and penalties, and by announcing in recent days that the government? first priority must now shift to deficit reduction. The word ?austerity? has been mentioned for the first time since the Carter administration. Yet Congress voted $655 billion in military expenditures to continue fighting in the Middle East. A U.S. military attack on Iran, possibly in conjunction with Israel, would surprise no one. So where do we now stand? At present, the Federal Reserve is trying to prevent a total economic collapse. Interest rates are near-zero, to the chagrin of foreign investors in U.S. Treasury securities, and close to half of new Treasury debt instruments have been bought by the Federal Reserve itself as a way of providing free money for federal government expenditures. But the U.S. economy shows no signs of coming back, with no economic driver emerging that could bring it back. For all the talk about alternative energy, there has been no significant growth of any home-grown industry that could possibly make up so much lost ground in either the short or the long-term. The industries in the U.S. that are holding up are the military, including arms exports, universities that are attracting large numbers of students from abroad, especially China, and health care, especially for the aging baby boomer population. But the war industry produces nothing with a long-term economic benefit, and health care exists mainly to treat sick people, not produce anything new. None of this provides a foundation that can bring about a restoration of prosperity to 300 million people when the jobs of making articles of consumption are increasingly scarce. On top of everything else, since government inevitably looks to its own requirements first, the total tax burden continues to increase to the point where the average employee now pays close to 50 percent of his or her income on taxes of all types, including federal and state income taxes, real estate taxes, payroll taxes, excise taxes, government fees, etc. Plus the cost of utilities continues to rise steadily and threatens to skyrocket if cap-and-trade legislation is passed. The Obama administration has no plans to deal with any of this. They have projected a budget for 15 years hence that shows the budget deficit decreasing and tax revenues going way up, but it is all lies. They have no roadmap for getting us there and no plans for following the roadmap if it portrayed a realistic goal. And yet the U.S. military is still trying to conquer Asia. It is madness. And it is madness because the big decisions are not made by the U.S., by Congress, or by the Obama administration. The U.S. has, for half-a-century, been marching to the tune played by the international financial elite, and this fact did not change with the election of 2008. The financiers have put the people of this nation $57 trillion in debt, according to the latest reports, counting debt at the federal, state, business, and household levels. Interest alone on this debt is over $3 trillion of a GDP of $14 trillion. Failure of our political leadership to deal with this tragedy over the past three decades is nothing less than treason. But then again, at some point the decision was made that the U.S. and its population would be discarded by history, the economic status of the nation reduced to a shadow of what it once was, but that its military machine would be used for the financial elite?s takeover of the world until it is replaced by that of some other nation. All indications are that the next country up to bat as military enforcer for the financiers is China. There you have it. That, in my opinion, is the past, present, and future of this nation in a nutshell. Great evils have been done in the world in the last century, and there is nothing anyone can do about it. Except . and that?s what each person caught up in these travesties must decide. What are you going to do about it? In mulling over this question, it would be wise to recognize that the dominance of the financial elite has largely been exercised through their control of the international monetary system based on bank lending and government debt. Therefore it?s through the monetary system that change can and must be made. The progressives are wrong to think the government should go deeper in debt to create more jobs. This will just create an even deeper hole of debt future generations will have to crawl out of. Rather the key is monetary reform, whether at the local or national levels. People have lost control of their ability to earn a living. But change could be accomplished through sovereign control by people and nations of the monetary means of exchange. This control has been stolen. It is time to take it back. One way would be for the federal government to make a relief payment to each adult of $1,000 a month until the crisis lifted. This money could be earmarked for goods and services produced within the U.S. and used to capitalize a new series of community development banks. I have called this the ?Cook Plan.? The plan could be funded through direct payment from a Treasury relief account without new taxes or government borrowing. The payments would be balanced on the credit side by GDP growth or be used by individuals to pay off debt. It would be direct government spending as was done with Greenbacks before and after the Civil War without significant inflation. Another method increasingly being used within the U.S. today is local and regional credit clearing exchanges and the use of local currencies or ?scrip.? Use of such currencies could be enhanced by legislation at the state and federal levels allowing these currencies to be used for payment of taxes and government fees as well as payment of mortgages and other forms of bank debt. The credit clearing exchanges could be organized as private non-profit regional currency co-operatives similar to credit unions. These would be immediate emergency measures. In the longer run, sovereign control of money and credit must be returned to the public commons and treated as public utilities. This does not mean exclusive government control to replace bank control. As stated previously, it would be done in partnership between government and private trade exchanges. Nor does it mean government takeover of business, industry, or the banking system, though all should be regulated for the common good and fairly taxed. This program would lead to a new monetary paradigm where money and credit would be available by, as, when, and where needed, to facilitate trade between and among legitimate producers of goods and services. In this way trade and commerce will come to serve human freedom, not diminish it as is done with today?s dysfunctional partnership between big government trillions of dollars in debt and big finance with the entire world in hock. Such a change would be a true populist revolution. Richard C. Cook is a former federal analyst who writes on public policy issues. He is an advisor to the American Monetary Institute on its model monetary reform legislation soon to be introduced in Congress. His latest book is We Hold These Truths: The Hope of Monetary Reform. His website is www.richardccook.com. From maryrose333 at att.net Wed Nov 25 11:22:11 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Wed, 25 Nov 2009 10:22:11 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: Faces of the Good Food Movement Message-ID: <008c01ca6dfc$5ec845d0$1c58d170$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS Personally I see nothing really sustainable being practiced by this organization which I compare to the coal companies that are lobbying to stay in business by trying to tell we-the-people that mining coal is in the best interests of the country. When we know that raising beef cattle uses up so much of our resourses, e.g., water - 2800 gallons for each pound of beef to market, we know something is wrong. More later on this. From: Alison Clayshulte [mailto:mail at rocnetwork.org] Sent: Wednesday, November 25, 2009 9:23 AM To: maryrose333 at att.net Subject: Faces of the Good Food Movement roc logo Dear Supporter: As Roots of Change grows its network throughout California, we are profiling members who are working in the food system. Each profile includes a short biography and the answers to several more detailed questions, allowing us to learn more about those making change around the state. Faces of the Good Food Movement Image of George Work Meet George Work. George is a 3rd generation rancher/farmer and innovator living at the Work Ranch in southern Monterey County. George's philosophy for the ranch can be summed up in the following statement he recently made; "The most important 'crop' we produce is our relationships, not only with the land, but with others...be they family, guests, urban environmentalists -- and the list goes on." Learn more about George and the work his ranch is doing related to food systems in California. Fair Food: Field to Table Check out this multi-media presentation that promotes a more socially just food system. Through the stories and voices of farmworkers, growers, businesses and fair food advocates, viewers learn about the harsh realities of farmworker conditions and, more importantly, the promise of improved farm labor practices in American agriculture. This project was developed by the California Institute for Rural Studies in partnership with Rick Nahmias Photography. Wishing everyone a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday, Roots of Change Roots of Change, 221 Kearny Street, 3rd Floor San Francisco, California 94108 www.rootsofchange.org This email was sent to to tiffany at rocnetwork.org by tiffany at rocnetwork.org. Click here to unsubscribe Roots of Change | 221 Kearny Street | 3rd Floor | San Francisco | CA | 94108 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From maryrose333 at att.net Wed Nov 25 14:15:04 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Wed, 25 Nov 2009 13:15:04 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: Shaping Tomorrow Insight Newsletter Message-ID: <00a801ca6e14$852f20a0$8f8d61e0$@net> From: Bruce Lloyd [mailto:info at shapingtomorrow.com] Sent: Wednesday, November 25, 2009 9:48 AM To: maryrose333 at att.net Subject: Shaping Tomorrow Insight Newsletter If you have trouble viewing our newsletter via email please click here to view it online: http://www.shapingtomorrow.com/newsletter.cfm Click here to go to the website Insight Newsletter 25 November 2009 Edited by Bruce Lloyd _____ Social enterprise to the rescue? There has been much talk, in the wake of the financial crisis, of a new normal emerging; more regulation; doing things differently. One aspect of that new normal could be the emergence of more social enterprises and greater incentive for social investment. We have written a summary of what is changing in the world of social enterprise and why we think it is important. Author: Sheila Moorcroft, Director of Research _____ Latest Insights Our weekly newsletter is just a gentle reminder of what's maybe changing imperceptibly around you. The website itself contains a much larger selection of structured content, with likely high relevance to you and your organisation, and is updated daily. We have added 487 new links this week including Science Behind Moving Smoking Bans Outside Many smokers already feel that their liberty to light up is being trimmed back?with bans moving beyond public buildings and offices to private apartments and public housing in some cities Comments (1) Another Financial Crisis On The Way? Investors worldwide are borrowing dollars to buy assets including equities and commodities, fueling ?huge? bubbles that may spark another financial crisis, ?We have the mother of all carry trades,? Roubini, who predicted the banking crisis that spurred more than $1.6 trillion of asset writedowns and credit losses at financial companies worldwide since 2007 Comment Countries Prepping For Cyberwar Major countries and nation-states are engaged in a "Cyber Cold War," amassing cyberweapons, conducting espionage, and testing networks in preparation for using the Internet to conduct war Comment Bomb-Proof Wallpaper Could Save You In A Natural Disaster Wallpaper invented in a partnership with the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers is strong enough to stop a wrecking ball Comment Giant Sucking Sound The $55 billion video games industry is moving online, and facing the same problems as music and films: piracy/ free downloads. And new competition and new business models. Comment 12 Disruptive Technologies Most Likely to Transform Supply And Demand Of Transport Fuels And Cut Emissions Within Next 10 Years Accenture has identified 12 technologies that it concludes have the potential to disrupt the current views of transport fuels supply, demand and GHG emissions over the next 10 years Comment Could The iPhone Revolutionise The Construction Industry? The construction industry has hugely benefited from technological advances in machinery and equipment - from the chord-less power drill to the numerous heavy machinery from manufacturers such as Caterpillar. However, the Apple iPhone could be about to impose a huge technological leap onto construction that could further revolutionise the industry, but in a way never before seen. Britain's largest plant hire company Ashtead are set to pioneer a new scheme in which its sales force will be equipped with the iPhone Comment Next: An Internet Revolution in Higher Education Web technology is poised to shake universities, the way it rocked newspapers and the music industry?with convenient, cheaper alternatives Comment First Universal Programmable Quantum Computer Unveiled The world's first universal programmable quantum computer, capable of one- or two-qubit logic operations at 79 percent accuracy, has been demonstrated by National Institute of Standards and Technology scientists. However, the accuracy of the processor was just under par. Comment Connecting Africa's Unconnected Africa remains the fastest-growing mobile telecom market in the world, with telecom firms adding around 90 million new subscribers in just the last year ? an amount equivalent to the German population. And despite this enormous growth rate, the region still offers significant opportunities for growth since only 4 of every 10 Africans have access to a mobile phone today Comment _____ Optimise Your Trend Spotting System Knowledge Management Does your company obtain its trends data from many different sources and hold them in separate organisational silos? If so, you may be missing the big picture and not seeing and/or sharing emerging trends with your associates as quickly as your nimbler rivals. We can help. With our system you can quickly deploy your own private, own brand, ultra low-cost trends management system in your organisation. We offer open and private cloud computing that's service-based, scalable and elastic, shared, metered by use, and delivered using internet technologies to commercial organisations, intelligence analysts, governments and not-for-profits. "They offer a unique product and one that accurately meets our needs. They have a passion for what they are doing and always strive to exceed our expectations." Andrew Mayer, Trends Manager, BP UK We aim to deliver your system in a quarter of the time, at half the cost and four times the value of any other rival organisation. To find out how, please contact us today for a free demonstration and discussion of your needs. Contents ? Social enterprise to the <> rescue? ? Latest Insights <> ? Optimise Your Trend <> Spotting System ? Recovery Watch <> ? Free Foresight Network <> ? Futuring Research <> ? Tell us what you want <> Recovery Watch Use this social network graph to see which way our contributors think the world is heading. Last updated 25th November 2009. Take advantage of any upturn or prepare for a further downturn, ahead of the pack, by reading our 'what to do now' recession tips for how to survive and get to more positive futures, faster. Read more Free Foresight Network Join our free international network of over 1900 futurists, strategists and change agents and there will always be someone here to help you advance your future research and thinking, strategic planning and change management. Our Foresight Network Futuring Research While you will know your industry better than we do, we bring a holistic and systemic view of global change, timelines of potential change, descriptions of emerging trends, cycles and shifts in behaviour and regional strengths. We project future implications giving you an in-depth and richer perspective and making your opportunity and risk assessments more valuable. We offer 'Watching and Full Briefs', Scouting Networks, Large-scale Enquiry and Virtual Assistance for those seeking help in understanding what's coming and how to respond. Please contact us for an initial, free discussion on how we can help you. Tell us what you want Please tell us what you want to know and we will endeavour to write about your interests in future Trend Alerts. Just contact us with a short description of the topic(s) of interest. We will do the rest. If you no longer wish to receive this newsletter, please click here -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From echojurist at yahoo.com Tue Nov 24 22:22:21 2009 From: echojurist at yahoo.com (E. Crockett) Date: Tue, 24 Nov 2009 21:22:21 -0800 (PST) Subject: [GJM] CORRUPT WALL STREET BANKERS FEAST ON BEIJING BAILOUT/bbltn#10119 In-Reply-To: <000901ca6c69$626eb9b0$274c2d10$@net> Message-ID: <702591.22076.qm@web52510.mail.re2.yahoo.com> From: Ulysses To: The Most Honorable Hard Working Conscientious Mary Rose 1. Legal offense fund through small amounts a great idea. Of course, we're all busy but Ulysses is dedicating a majority of time advocating prosecution of the bailout bandits and to bank finance legislative regulation restructuring (200pg text already assembled of Statutes, Cases, Commentary and Document Supplement, seeking commercial publisher). Little help from Congressional leaders Sen.Dodd, Barnie Frank and other congressional holders of investments in AIG and Goldman-Sachs. Since many of the bandits are in the Obama administration, Attorney General initiative action is problematic; however if Holder does not thwart efforts by the rule of law U.S. attorneys presently prosecuting some ponzi scheme criminals (Warriors have a 6 point lead over the Mavericks at Dallas with 27 seconds left and only six players available due to injuries- upset in making on the road; pardon the digression). 2. As a former tax law professor and legal scholar and not a practicing attorney, it is propossed that a potential fund focus on supporting, nationwide, prosecutorial litigation which is now in progress and which may be initiated in future. (Warriors got the upset win, 111-103; Bay area fans happy). I might not have previously mentioned in writings, Ulysses' was legal defense chair of John Delorean Legal Defense fund. All we had was two attorneys, Howard Weitzman (now lead attorney for Michael Jackson Estate Trustees), Donald Re, a Los Amgeles attorney and two Southwestern University Law School students - versus Attorney General William French Smith and a staff of 15 U.S. Department of Justice Attorneys. De Lorean was acquitted on all 15 criminal counts and later on we were successful in paying off DeLorean's creditors dollar for dollar in his bankruptcy discharge. In the Delorean case we did not raise much money at all using primarily newspaper ads but that was before the world wide web was ubiquitous. 3. One of our colleagues, California Court of Apeals Judge Martin Jenkins, when sitting on the Ninth Circuit Federal District Court, San Francisco, tried and ruled on the recent Wall-Mart class action discrimination case. The procedure used in representing the plaintiffs was to organize a nationwide group of pro-bono attorneys from small and large law firms. Research and draft pleadings were shared through electronic internet communications with a few selected document review centers at certain law office locales to compile final documents before court filing. This was the biggest class action case in U.S. judicial history and a young Judge Jenkins made sure the legal representatives of the parties submitted comprehensive requests for findings to be agreed among the parties before the case went to trial. Similarly, requests for jury instructions were requested by Judge Jenkins to be comprehensive as to authoritative research, et al. Jenkins ruled in favor of the plaintiffs and though the case is still being appealed, we all hope the District Court ruling will be affirmed. A simiilar approach may be used in this effort to bring to justice the private and public officials who caused the greatest economic collapse in history, the negative effects of which have not yet been fully realized. 4. Ulysses shall immediately commence submitting to Mary Rose and others skeletal structure recommedations for establishing and staffing a litigation fund of volunteer lawyers, paralegals and support staff. It is suggested that Mary Rose use her good offices to put together a group to manage and disperse any funds raised and perhaps retain a percentage of funds for stablishment of a permanent trust or foundation fund for future litigation efforts. 5. Thanks for your stellar humanitarian efforts and Ulysses will continue to report to Rose and colleagues with respect to the onging litigation and congressional proposed bank finance regulation structure changes, the most important of which would be the re-enactment of the Glass-Steagall Act. Also, little-noticed are provisions in the World Trade Organization Treaty which prohibits member signatories from enacting legislation to regulate hedge funds and derivative securities. At the upcoming WTO round meetings, these exemption rules must be vigorously challenged. In sum, we must all remain positive in the struggle even though we are out-personed and out-resourced, the politically correct phrase replacing "out-manned and out-gunned". Our values decry sexism and violence, methinks. Happy Indigenous Peoples Raw Vegetable Healthy Foods Eating Day. Love to All, Ulysses. ---------------------------------------- --- On Mon, 11/23/09, mary rose wrote: > From: mary rose > Subject: [GJM] FW: CORRUPT WALL STREET BANKERS FEAST ON BEIJING BAILOUTbbltn#10119 > To: Fixgov at yahoogroups.com, "'Discussion Forum for Global Justice'" > Date: Monday, November 23, 2009, 10:17 AM > Moving Into:? TOTAL WELLNESS > > Thank you, Ulysses for your kind words. It is attorney's > like you who are > going to have to wade into the muck and attempt to settle > some of these > issues legally. What I feel we need, to ensure that > we-the-people are fairly > represented in the courts, is some sort of legal fund set > up by donations > from we-the-people. Some time back, a group of us discussed > setting up a > "union" of sorts whereby anyone who was a member could > donate a minimum of > $1.00; however I am sure that many of those who joined > would donate much > more if they were financially able to do so; however we > want to ensure that > donations in large amounts are not sufficient enough to > "buy influence" or > we would be back in the same boat as now. What we need to > do at all costs, > IMHO, is to avoid conflict that could erupt into physical > violence and > seeking address legally may be the best way to do this. > > One of the first steps I feel should be taken is to file an > injunction to > stop the flagrant lying from taking place such as the > Republicans are doing; > and, of course this is what happens with monetized > politics. It is not about > what is right for the country as a whole, but what is most > beneficial to > those who are paying the politicians. This is very damaging > to the country > and to the people within it. There must be a change in > consciousness here -- > we simply cannot keep on destroying ourselves in this > manner. > > How do you feel about this, Ulysses? > > Mary Rose > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: E. Crockett [mailto:echojurist at yahoo.com] > > Sent: Monday, November 23, 2009 7:05 AM > To: maryrose333 at att.net > Subject: CORRUPT WALL STREET BANKERS FEAST ON BEIJING > BAILOUTbbltn#10119 > > From:? ulysses crockett, jr.? To:? Greatness > that is Mary Rose & Associates > > 1.? Keep up the good work in these challenging facist > Bilderberg times. > > 2.? Happy holidays to all. > > --- On Sat, 11/21/09, E. Crockett > wrote: > > > From: E. Crockett > > Subject: CORRUPT WALL STREET BANKERS FEAST ON BEIJING > BAILOUTbbltn#10119 > > To: info at kpoo.com, "E. > Crockett" , > "hed leachman" > , > atunecrockett at yahoo.com, > psa at kpoo.com > > Date: Saturday, November 21, 2009, 10:47 AM > > From:? Dr. Ulysses > > Crockett? To:? Donald Lacy & Prof. Auerbach > > > > 1.? Great important interview with informed > > questions. > > > > 2.? Note Federal Circuit Court Ninth District case > > Lewis vs. U.S. 680 F.2d 1239 (1982), A Federal Tort > Claims > > Act case, ruled that the injured plaintiff had no > standing > > to sue and the Court had no jurisdiction because the > Board > > of Governors Federal Reserve, the real party in > interest is > > not an agency of the U.S. government. > > > > 3.? Parenthetically, as noted in the piece below, > the > > 1913 Federal Reserve Act is uncostitutional in > violaton of > > Art. 1, Sec. 8, Cls. 5,6 mandating that U.S. issue its > own > > currency and own the central bank.???Over > > objection by the Federal Reserve Board, John F. > Kennedy in > > June 1963 issued Executive Order 11110 which provided > that > > U.S. issue its own currency and own the central > bank.? > > Kennedy was killed six months later. > > 3.1? See also Bloomberg v. Board of Governors, N.Y. > Federal Disctirct Court > Southern District (2009) where Bloomberg, L.P.? seks > Board of Governors, > under Freedom of Information Act Request, mandating Board > of Governiors > disclose identity of domestic and foreign recipients of $7 > trillion U.S. > taxpayer bailout funds.? Ney York Attorney General > Andrew Cuomo has filed > comporable litigation in New York with respect to the Bank > America-Treasury > secret agreement for BofA to buy Merril-Lynch without > required shareholder > disclosure. House Barne Frank and Se. Chris Dodd are both > aware of litigaton > but are both recipients of Bailout bank loans - clear > conflict of interest. > > > > 4.? Benjamin Bernanke, Timothy Geithner, whose > father, > > Peter Geithner was President Obama's mother's employer > at > > the Ford Foundation in Hawaii at the time Timothy > Geithner > > and Barak Obama were attendnig school in the same area > - > > all? matters of public record.? > > > > 5.? Wake up U.S. resident humanitarians. > > > > 6.? Crockett has also written book of Bank Finance > > Regulation Structure 1992-2009 and willing to do > on-air > > interview at the mighty KPOO at any time > appropriate.? > > Sending under separate hard copy mail copies of single > CD > > 'Major Funky' for KPOO fundraising support. > > > > 7.? Bernanke, Paulson, Summers, Geitehner, Sens. > Dodd, > > Feinstein, Reps. Rangel, Frank, Pelosi - all must be > > prosecuted for criminal violations of secutities > laws, > > specifically SEC Rule 10-b-5 which proscribes insider > > trading of securities profiteering without required > public > > disclosure, in connection with the taxpayer bailouts > of AIG, > > Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, et al. > > > > --- On Sun, 10/11/09, E. Crockett > > wrote: > > > > > From: E. Crockett > > > Subject: CORUPT WALL STREET BANKERS FEAST ON > BEIJING > > BAILOUTbbltn#10119 > > > To: echojurist at yahoo.com > > > Date: Sunday, October 11, 2009, 5:29 AM > > > > > > > > > --- On Sat, 10/10/09, dr.ulysses crockett,jr. > > > > wrote: > > > > > > > From: dr.ulysses crockett,jr. > > > > Subject: Story from Babelation > > > > To: "dr.ulysses crockett,jr." > > > > Date: Saturday, October 10, 2009, 3:08 PM > > > > ? > > > > > > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > > > > CORRUPT WALL STREET BANDITS FEAST ON U.S. > DOLLARS > > AT > > > BUSH > > > > BAILOUT BANQUET > > > > CATERED BY PRIVATE FED RESERVE BD, > BILDERBERGS, > > CFR? > > > > [1] > > > > > > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > > > > ? > > > > > > > > about author: Dr. Ulysses S. Crocket, J.D. > '71 > > Boalt > > > Hall > > > > School Of Law U.C. > > > > Berkeley; '73 LL.M. Columbia University Law > > School; > > > 1985 > > > > Visiting Scholar > > > > Taxation Yale Law School; 1986 Visiting Tax > > > Legislation > > > > Scholar Hoover Institute > > > > Stanford University; 1986-present Dean Of > > Instruction > > > > Carlton R. Inniss Oakland > > > > Alameda Community Law School, Inc. Uysses > > Crockett > > > lives in > > > > Emeryville, CA home > > > > of Steve Jobs Pixar Animation Film Studios. > > > >? see, Ulysses S. Crockett, Jr., 'Federal > > Taxation > > > Of > > > > Interest On Indebtedness > > > > In Corporate Acquisitions: A Congressional > > Response > > > In > > > > Merger Tax Reform', 10 > > > > Indiana Law Review 419 (1976); > > > >? http://blogigo.com/ulyssesecojurist [2] > > > >? http://bluntpresents.co.uk/2007/11/19/funky16corners-boy-3rd > > > > [3] Anniversary > > > > mix > > > >? echojurist at yahoo.com > > > > [4] > > > >? www.Linkedin.com/ulyssescrockett [5] > > > >? http://blogigo.com/ulyssesecojurist [6] > > > >? www.createspace.com [7] > > > >? http://myspace.com119356884 [8] > > > >? ms.asya at goowy.com > > > > [9] > > > >? asya_guillory at csumb.edu > > > > [10] > > > >? http://www.putfile.com/echojurist [11] > > > >? joyceofafrica at hotmail.com > > > > [12] > > > >? marlin_eagles at yahoo.com > > > > [13] > > > >? soulsalvage at msn.com > > > > [14] > > > >? director at eastmont.net > > > > [15] > > > >? wesat at npr.org [16] > > > >? maryrose333 at att.net > > > > [17] > > > >? rreich at berkeley.edu > > > > [18] > > > >? discussion at globaljusticemovement.net > > > > [19] > > > >? sfnancy at house.gov > > > > [20] > > > >? george_miller at mail.house.gov > > > > [21] > > > >? loretta at mail.house.gov > > > > [22] > > > >? petemail at stark.house.gov > > > > [23] > > > >? lynnwoolsey at mail.house.gov > > > > [24] > > > >? benjaminleachman at gmail.com > > > > [25] > > > >? sheencom at aol.com > > > > [26] > > > >? chumpchange at yahoo.com > > > > [27] > > > >? sergiokalx at hotmail.com > > > > [28] > > > >? vibesyet2 at peoplepc.com > > > > [29] > > > >? dore at tangents.com > > > > [30] > > > >? ginalee_2 at hotmail.com > > > > [31] > > > >? sc at stevecastillo.com > > > > [32] > > > >? phprint at sbcglobal.net > > > > [33] > > > >? michaelangelo at gmail.com > > > > [34] > > > >? wriles at pacbell.net > > > > [35] > > > >? bhazard at oakland.net > > > > [36] > > > >? jayro at youthcourt.org > > > > [37] > > > >? letter at nytimes.com > > > > [38] > > > >? askdoj at usdoj.gov > > > > [39] > > > >? jedleachman at sbcglobal.net > > > > [40] > > > >? dougshe at attbi.com > > > > [41] > > > >? drrountree at yahoo.com > > > > [42] > > > >? michael at cien.ru/mishapodgayets > > > >? associate at christchurchalameda.org > > > > [43] > > > >? www.stumbleupon.com [44] > > > >? www,newsvine.com > > > >? reddit.com > > > >? digg.com > > > >? 911.meetup.com > > > >? > www.soulstrut.com/ubbthreads/shoflats.php?cat > > > [45] > > > >? www.humbead.com [46] > > > >? ecxojuristulysses.podomatic.com/ > > > >? www.associatedcontent/article/903961/ > [47] > > > > > > > > > > > > > > www.nowpublic.com/world/activist-asya-guillory-hosts-youth-science-summi... > > > > [48]... > > > >? > > > > > > www.indangerousrhytm.blogspot.com/2007/11-tobias-kirmayers > > > > [49] > > > >? www.wolfgangsvault.com/ulyssescrocket > [50] > > > >? THproducer at gmail.com > > > > [51] > > > >? www.webcrawler.com [52] > > > >? bbwarw at yahoo.com > > > > [53] > > > >? www.humbead.com/hmbpop2.html [54] > > > >? mix.com/tags/china > > > >? > > > > broadcasting.wordpress.com/sol3?Delivery.cfm/SSRN > > > >? 911.meetup.com321/members/54916591-27k > > > >? newsvine.com > > > >? www.digg.com/political_opinion_W [55].... > > > >? > > > > www.newmedinaproject.blogspot.com/2008/oljm-jisthttp://last.fm > > > > [56].. > > > >? newsvine.com > > > > > > > >? October 3, 2008, A DATE TO LAST IN > INFAMY. > > > NIGHTMARE ON > > > > INDEPENDENCE AVE., AND > > > > K STREET (offices of 10,000 lobbyists for > 535 > > > > Congresspersons); Wall Street > > > > Congressional Executive Bandits, Down; Main > > Street > > > > Homeowners Taxpayers, Out; > > > > Securities Trading Violations, Antitrust > Law > > > Violations > > > > Running Wild; Judicial > > > > Enforcement, Congressional Administrative > Agency > > > Oversight, > > > > Underfunded, > > > > Understaffed, On Vacation. > > > >? PROLOGUE: 2008 BANK OF INTERNATIOINAL > > > SETTLEMENTS REPORT: > > > > World Gross Domestic > > > > Product Valued at 60 Trillion Dollars; > Worldwide > > Value > > > of > > > > Derivative Securities > > > > Trades Outstanding in the amount of 1,000 > > Trillion > > > Dollars; > > > > House Wall Street > > > > Congressional Bandit Legislation contains > no > > > prohibition > > > > against non-asset based > > > > derivative securities trading or taxation > of > > > transactions > > > > thereof. An Associated > > > > Press poll of 8 Taxpayer Bailout Bank > recipients > > were > > > > requested to supply > > > > information regarding how the banks expended > the > > > bailout > > > > funds. Outrageously in > > > > complete arrogance all eight bailout > recipient > > banks > > > > refused to supply any > > > > information to Associated Press inquirers. > Thus > > far, > > > no > > > > information regarding > > > > bank bailout recipients fund expenditures > has > > been > > > supplied > > > > to the U.S. Congress > > > > nor to any other U.S. government regulatory > > agency. > > > > > > > >? Without doubt, litigation shall be brought > in > > > the ensuing > > > > months by > > > > disaffected shareholders, retirees, pension > fund > > > investors > > > > and others who > > > > suffered substantial losses occasioned by > the > > > intentional > > > > or negligent wrongful > > > > conduct on the part of bank taxpayer > Bailout > > fund > > > > recipients responsible for the > > > > current U.S. economic depression. Concerned > > legal > > > scholars, > > > > economists and > > > > entrepreneurs are asked to consider > advocating a > > > total > > > > restructuring of the > > > > inequitable disequality tax system in favor > of a > > flat > > > rate > > > > wealth tax with > > > > coterminous repeal of entity tax at > corprate > > level > > > and > > > > enactment of value added > > > > tax similar to European VAT models. Entity > > > shareholders > > > > should be taxed on net > > > > entity revenues whether distributed or not. > The > > > artificial > > > > distinction beetween > > > > "ordinary income', and so-called "capital > gians" > > must > > > be > > > > repealed since both > > > > types of gain buy the same Whopper Junior. > As > > Yale > > > Law > > > > School Professor posited > > > > in 76 Yale Law Journal, incease or decrese > in > > stock > > > values > > > > should be annualized > > > > and tax imposed with or without distribution > to > > > maximize > > > > tax equity and > > > > liquidity in commercial markets. > > > > > > > >? In addition, such flat rate wealth tax > must be > > > worldwide > > > > and imposed on any > > > > entity or individual doing business in the > U.S. > > to > > > avoid > > > > the tax haven foreign > > > > domicile-shopping of entities doing business > in > > the > > > U.S. in > > > > avoidance of > > > > taxation. Equitable fiscal advocates must > demand > > that > > > the > > > > Bilderberg-Council On > > > > Foreign Relations economic advisors to the > > incoming > > > Obama > > > > administration - Sen. > > > > Diane Feinstein, Lawrence Summers, Robert > Rubin, > > > Benjamin > > > > Shalom Bernanke, > > > > Timothy Geithner, Vernon Jordan (Director > U.S. > > Friends > > > of > > > > Bilderberg Group), > > > > indicted war criminal Henry Kissinger, > > Christopher > > > Edley, > > > > Rahm Emanuel (who > > > > retains his Israeli citizenship and brother > of > > an > > > Israeli > > > > intelligence agent), > > > > Valarie Jarrett, et al- either support > equitable > > > taxation > > > > restructuring or > > > > recuse themselves from U.S. fiscal > policy-making, > > in > > > the > > > > interest of justice to > > > > the U.S. taxpayer. All these forementioned > > > > Bilderberg-Council On Foreign > > > > Relations Obama advisers were principle > > architects of > > > the > > > > disastrous > > > > ill-conceived economic policies the direct > cause > > of > > > the > > > > current U.S. finance > > > > collapse and economic depression. > > > > > > > >? Readers must follow the present litigation > of > > > Lehman > > > > Brothers creditors > > > > against JP Morgan Chase which shall > undoubtedly > > be the > > > most > > > > important securities > > > > fraud law violations case in U. S. history. > Vinee > > Tong > > > of > > > > the Associated Press > > > > reports October 4, 2008 that "... (the) > > Creditors > > > Committee > > > > believes Lehman > > > > Brothers Holdings Inc. had more than $17 > billion > > in > > > cash > > > > and securities held at > > > > JPMorgan Chase before its Chapter 11 filing > but > > that > > > > JPMorgan Chase froze the > > > > assets Sept. 12, three days before Lehman > filed > > for > > > court > > > > protection..." > > > > > > > >? As a result of JPMorgan Chase's actions, > > Lehman > > > Brothers > > > > Holdings, Inc. > > > > "...suffered an immediate liquidity crisis > that > > could > > > have > > > > been averted by any > > > > number of events, none of which > transpired," > > lawyers > > > for > > > > creditors wrote in > > > > court papers. "In freezing Lehman Brothers > > assets, > > > JPMorgan > > > > Chase was > > > > purportedly holding Lehman Brothers assets > as a > > > potential > > > > offset against any > > > > claims," lawyers said. It is submitted by > this > > author > > > that > > > > the Directors of JP > > > > Morgan Chase should familiarize themselves > with > > the > > > Supreme > > > > Court Miranda case > > > > requiring defendant's right to remain silent > and > > right > > > to > > > > attorney > > > > representation. > > > > > > > >? INTRODUCTION: Bilderberg, Council On > Foreign > > > Relations, > > > > Federalist Society, > > > > Federal Reserve Board Chair, Treasury Sec'y > > Henry > > > Paulson, > > > > selected Senators and > > > > Congresspersons listed below engaged these > past > > 8 > > > years in > > > > securities trading > > > > directly with brokers based on insider > > information in > > > > violation of Securities > > > > Exchange Commission Rule 10b-5-1.2. The > 2000 > > version > > > of > > > > Rule 10b-5 defines > > > > trading "on the bases of" inside information > as > > any > > > time a > > > > person trades while > > > > aware of material nonpublic information - so > that > > it > > > is no > > > > defense for one to > > > > say that she would have made the trade > anyway. > > In > > > United > > > > States v. O'Hagan, 521 > > > > U.S. 612,655 (1997) the Supreme Court > explained > > > liability > > > > under Rule 10b-5. > > > > O'Hagan, partner in a law firm representing > > Grand > > > > Metropolitan, while Grand > > > > considered tender offer for Pillsbury Co. > O'Hagan > > used > > > this > > > > inside information > > > > by buying call options on Pillsbury stock > > resulting in > > > $4 > > > > million profit. > > > > O'Hagan claimed neither he nor his firm owed > a > > > fiduciary > > > > duty to Pillsbury, so > > > > he did not commit fraud by purchasinig > Pillsbury > > > options. > > > > The Supreme Court > > > > rejected O'Hagan's arguments upholding his > > > conviction, > > > > ruling, "...the > > > > "misappropriation" theory holds a person > commits > > fraud > > > "in > > > > connection with" a > > > > securities transactdion and therby violates > 10b- > > and > > > Rule > > > > 10b-5, when she > > > > misappropriates confidential information > for > > > securities > > > > trading purposes, in > > > > breach of duty owed to the source of the > > > information." > > > > Accordingly, Bernanke, > > > > Paulson, Pelosi, Reid, Bernie Frank, John > Kerry > > and > > > other > > > > congresspersons and > > > > Executive officials must be criminally > prosecuted > > for > > > > illegal use of insider > > > > information in the trading of securities > > involving > > > Wall > > > > Street bandit finance > > > > institutions benefiting from taxpayer paid > > welfare > > > bailout > > > > funds. > > > > > > > >? 1. U.S. Taxpayers must demand the repeal > of > > the > > > 1913 > > > > legislation establishing > > > > the privately owned, unregulated Federal > Reserve > > > System and > > > > require U.S. > > > > government ownership of the U.S. Central > Bank. > > Such > > > > legislation would save > > > > trillions of U.S. taxpayer dollars by > > eliminating > > > payment > > > > of dvidends to private > > > > shareholder-owners of the unconstitutional > > Federal > > > Reserve > > > > Board which seeks > > > > complete takeover of U.S. finance and > banking > > system > > > with > > > > U.S. taxpayers paying > > > > the corrupt Federal Reserve Board private > > > > owner-shareholders for the illegal > > > > takeover. U.S. taxayers must be informed > that > > over a > > > period > > > > of six days prior to > > > > September 24, 2008, Bilderberger Chairman of > the > > > Federal > > > > Board has removed $125 > > > > billion in liquid assets, intentionally > locking > > in > > > > short-term cedit markets from > > > > the banking system. The result is that more > banks > > will > > > face > > > > failure bolstering > > > > Bernake's and Treasury Henry Paulson's call > for > > the > > > > $Trillion dollar "bailout' > > > > Plan. Such actions by Bernanke and Paulson > are > > > criminal for > > > > which they both must > > > > be prosecuted and forced to recuse > themselves > > from > > > any > > > > bailout proceedings. > > > > > > > >? 2. The Corrupt Wall Street Bandits Banquet > has > > > as waiters, > > > > Freddie Mac, Fannie > > > > Mae shareholders Senators Harry Reid, Diane > > > Feinstein, > > > > House Speaker Nancy > > > > Pelosi, Sen. Barnie Frank, House Ways and > Means > > (the > > > tax > > > > writing committee) > > > > Chair and Federal Tax delinquent Charles > Rangel - > > all > > > > serving U.S. > > > > taxpayer-purchased dinner main course of > sauteed > > > > > > > > > > Deregulation-Stuffed-Genetically-Modified-Beef-Bellpeppers. > > > > Immediately the > > > > Securities and Exchange Commission must > adopt a > > rule > > > > prohibiting trading in > > > > derivative instruments labeld as Credit > Default > > > Swaps, > > > > so-called Reverse > > > > Floaters. In the Savings and Loan > government > > bailout, > > > > underlying assets were > > > > real existing property, shopping centers, et > al. > > The > > > > present proposed Wall > > > > Street bailout assets are valueless paper > > securities > > > > unknown as to location, > > > > holder identity, description of underlying > asset, > > if > > > any. > > > > Both the House and > > > > Senate versions of the proposed legislation > > > constitute > > > > unpatriotic, > > > > unconstitutional denial of due process and > equal > > > > protectioin rights of U.S. > > > > taxpayers. > > > > > > > >? 3. PRESIDENTIAL OFFICE STAFFERS, TREASURY > > > DEPARTMENT > > > > ADMINISTRATORS, > > > > CONGRESSIONAL LEADERS ARE CORRUPT, ALONG > WITH > > WALL > > > STREET > > > > EXECUTIVES AND > > > > SHAREHOLDERS AND SHOULD ALL RECUSE > THEMSELVES > > FROM > > > ILLEGAL > > > > TAXPAYER BAILOUT > > > > PROCEEDINGS: Financial data available from > the > > public > > > > record indicates that Bush > > > > Executive administrators and staffers, > > Congressional > > > > leaders and members, > > > > Treasury Department Officials, privately > owned > > > Federal > > > > Reserve shareholder banks > > > > and individuals - all have unlawfully traded > in > > > securities, > > > > sub-prime mortgages, > > > > unregulated hedge funds, short -sale > transactions > > - > > > based > > > > on insider information > > > > in contravenition of Securities And > Exchange > > > celebrated > > > > Rule 10(b)(5). SEC > > > > Chairman Charles Christopher Cox's proposal > to > > > enforce > > > > prohibition of > > > > short-selling was announced in August 2008 > and > > > thereafter, > > > > presidential > > > > candidate and "Keating Five" 1998 Savings > and > > Loan > > > Fraud > > > > scandal principle, John > > > > "Arizona Jones" McCain, called for Cox's > > resignation > > > only > > > > to be chagrined by > > > > public disclosure that his campaign > economic > > advisor > > > was > > > > being paid $15,000 per > > > > month by federal beneficiary Freddie Mac up > > until > > > August, > > > > 2008, doing no work > > > > for the payments, a clear illegal conflict > of > > > interest. It > > > > should be noted that > > > > Justice Department Attorney Designee Eric > Holder > > acted > > > as > > > > legal counsel for > > > > Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae during the > > pre-collapse > > > period, > > > > defending Freddie Mac > > > > and Fannie Mae for illegal waiver of its own > loan > > to > > > asset > > > > ratios when > > > > licensiing private banks, invesmenet banks > and > > broker > > > > mortgage banks to > > > > underwrite mortgages to non-credit worthy > > mortgagors. > > > The > > > > reader is asked > > > > whether or not Holder, as Attorney General, > will > > > prosescute > > > > the Fannie Mae and > > > > Freddie Mac executives responsible for the > > unlawful > > > waiver > > > > of statutory loan to > > > > asset rules set forth in their respective > > charters, > > > since > > > > thks executive > > > > intentional or negligent conduct is direct > result > > for > > > the > > > > bankkruptcy of Fannie > > > > and Freddie Mac necessiting taxpayer > bailout > > funds. > > > The > > > > following federal > > > > officials must all recuse themselves from > > > participation in > > > > any Wall Street > > > > bailout proceedings because they have all > engaged > > in > > > > illegal conflict of > > > > interest conduct over the past eight years > for > > which > > > > criminal charges may be > > > > brought; > > > > > > > >? a. NANCY PELOSI, Speaker of House: > Pelosi's > > last > > > financial > > > > disclosure > > > > statements reveals Pelosi owns $100,000.00 > > > >? stock in American International Group > (AIG) > > > beneficiary of > > > > an August 2008 > > > > federal taxpayer bailout. Pelosi must face > > criminal > > > charges > > > > for securities fraud > > > > and insider trading under SEC Rule > 10(b)(5); > > > > > > > >? b. SEN. JOHN KERRY: Sen John Kerry and 50 > > other > > > members of > > > > Congress own > > > > between $250,000.00 -$500,000.00 of AIG > stock > > and > > > should > > > > all be prosecuted for > > > > insider trading, securities fraud in > violation of > > SEC > > > Rule > > > > 10(b)(5), inter alia; > > > > > > > >? c. Congressperson Hayes holds substantial > AIG > > > stock and > > > > should be prosecuted > > > > as mentioned above; > > > > > > > >? d. The spouse of Sen. John "Arizona > Jones" > > > McCain has > > > > trust which owned stock, > > > > recently liquidated in Fannie Mae, Freddie > Mac, > > > Lehman > > > > Brothers, all > > > > beneficiaries of the illigal taxpayer > bailout. > > Both > > > should > > > > be prosecuted for > > > > insider information securites fraud; > > > > > > > >? e. McCain economics advisor Phil Gram was > > author > > > of 1999 > > > > legislation, signed > > > > by Bilderberger president Bill Clinton > repealing > > the > > > > Glass-Steagall Act, which > > > > prohibited commercial depository banks from > > engaging > > > in > > > > securities trading and > > > > unregulated hedge fund and commodities oil > > futures > > > trading; > > > > Phil Gram should be > > > > criminally prosecuted for insider trading > and > > > securities > > > > fraud; > > > > > > > >? f. U.S. TREASURY SECRETARY HENRY PAULSON: > In > > > 2005 Henry > > > > Paulsen, drafter of > > > > the Bush U.S. taxpayer bailout plan in which > Sec. > > 8 > > > thereof > > > > gives Paulson sole > > > > authoty for admiinistration of plan with > > immunity > > > from > > > > judicial and > > > > congressional scrutiny, received a > > $38,000,000.00 > > > bonus > > > > from Goldman Sachs > > > > recently converted to a commercial bank in > order > > to > > > benefit > > > > from U.S. taxpayer > > > > bailout proceeds. Paulson should be > impeached or > > > otherwise > > > > removed from office > > > > and prosecuted for securities fraud and > insider > > > trading > > > > under SEC Rule 10(b)(5); > > > > > > > >? g. U.S. taxpayer-voters must be reminded > that > > > for the past > > > > 8 years of > > > > Bush-Paulson administration, the top 400 > U.S. > > > taxpayers > > > > received wealth and > > > > income increases in the amount of > > > $650,000,000,000.00, > > > > close to the > > > > $1,000,000,000,000.00 U.S. taxpayer bailout > > funds > > > sought > > > > under the illegal > > > > Paulson-McCain Wall Street bailout > proposal; > > > > > > > >? h. The exeutives of five corrupt Wall > Street > > > Investment > > > > Banks, now all > > > > absorbed, bailed out by U.S. taxpayers or > > otherwise > > > sold to > > > > private domestic and > > > > foreign buyers include: Bear-Stearns, > Lehman > > > Brothers, > > > > Morgan Stanley, Merrill > > > > Lynch, Goldman Sachs. In 2007 year alone, > > executives > > > of > > > > these five corrupt > > > > investment banks received a total of > > > $39,OOO,OOO,OOO.00 in > > > > bonuses, much of > > > > which benefited from Bush "capital gains" > and > > dividend > > > tax > > > > cuts. The U.S. > > > > Congress and Justice department must appoint > an > > > independent > > > > counsel to prosecute > > > > any possible fraud and other illegal conduct > on > > the > > > parts > > > > of these executives, > > > > Bush administration officials and > congresssional > > > leaders; > > > > > > > >? i. ROBERT RUBIN Bilderberger and former > > Clinton > > > Secretary > > > > of Treasury > > > > engineered the U.S. financial bailout of > Mexico > > which > > > > bailout was and is a > > > > failure. Rubin is also former executive of > > failed > > > > investment bank Goldman Sachs; > > > > > > > >? j. The 1931 Hoover bank bailout failed. > The > > 1989 > > > Japan > > > > bank bailout failed. > > > > there exist no government central bank > bailouts > > that > > > have > > > > been economically > > > > successful; > > > > > > > >? k. Worth repeating is the demand that the > > > unconstitutional > > > > privately owned > > > > Federal Reserve Board must be natinalized > and > > the > > > > unconstitutional 1913 staute > > > > authorizing its creation should be > repealed. > > U.S. > > > taxpayers > > > > must own their > > > > Central bank and the currency issues. John > F. > > Kennedy > > > > attempted establishment of > > > > U.S. Government-owned Central Bank and > authority > > to > > > issue > > > > its own currency, > > > > United States Notes which are Bills of > Credit, > > > redeemable > > > > in payment of > > > > government taxes and other dues due to the > > government, > > > thus > > > > by- passing the > > > > privately owned federal Reserve, through > > Executive > > > Order > > > > 11110 executed June, > > > > 1963. The Federal Reserve System private > owners > > > threatened > > > > to veto some of > > > > Kennedy's legislation by not creating money > to > > finance > > > the > > > > legislatve > > > > objecttives. See Patman, Wright, et al. "A B > C's > > of > > > > America's Money System", > > > > Congressional Record of the United > > States...Monday, > > > August > > > > 3, 1964, a most > > > > valuable document. Five months later, John > > Kennedy > > > was > > > > murdered in November > > > > 1963. One month after Kennedy's > assassination, > > on > > > December > > > > 31, 1974, president > > > > FBI agent Gerald Ford - (as member of > congress > > and > > > member > > > > of Warren Kennedy > > > > Assassination Commission, it is a matter of > > public > > > record > > > > that Commission member > > > > Gerald Ford illegally and secretly made > daily > > reports > > > to > > > > FBI Director J. Edgar > > > > Hoover about details of each day's > Commission > > > Hearings. > > > > Readers are also > > > > reminded that Commission Chair Chief > Justice > > Earl > > > Warren > > > > was also a secret FBI > > > > agent reporting regularly to FBI Director > Hoover > > > about > > > > details of Commission > > > > proceedings, such reporting contituting > criminal > > > violaton > > > > of U.S. Constitution > > > > and federal statutory law) - issued > Executive > > Order > > > 11826, > > > > effectively revoking > > > > Kennedy's Executive Order 11110; > > > > > > > >? 4.THE UNCONSTITUTIONAL FEDERAL RESERVE has > 47 > > > Laer Jets, > > > > $400,000,000.00 art > > > > collection in its headquaarters offices > including > > a > > > full > > > > time paid curator for > > > > the art collection. Private owner > shareholders of > > the > > > > Federal Reserve are paid > > > > annually a 6 percent dividend on its > profits. > > The > > > Federal > > > > Reserve Statute must > > > > be repealed by Congress in order for these > > > unconstitutional > > > > payments to be > > > > suspended; > > > > > > > >? a. U.S. TOTAL ACCUMULATED DEBT now ranges > > > between > > > > $14,000,000,000,000.00 - > > > > $40,000,000,000,000.00 (trillions). Moreover > the > > > Resolution > > > > Trust Corporation, > > > > which was established to oversee the Neal > Bush, > > John > > > McCain > > > > Keating Five Savings > > > > & Loan Failure Government Bailout, has > not > > yet > > > been > > > > fully paid off; the > > > > principle of no successful government bank > > bailouts > > > remains > > > > in effect. > > > > > > > >? b. BILDERBERGER LAWRENCE SUMMERS, FORMER > WALL > > > STREET > > > > BANKER AND HARVARD > > > > PRESIDENT, CLINTON TREASURY OFFICIAL AND > > TREASURY > > > SEC'Y > > > > ROBERT RUBIN, both > > > > signed off on the 1999 Phil Gram Financial > > > Deregulation Act > > > > which permitted > > > > corrupt Wall Street speculators to create > the > > present > > > sea > > > > of worthless > > > > derivatives, Credit Default Swaps, hedge > funds > > and > > > > explosion in short-selling of > > > > securities, resulting in financial collapse > of > > U.S. > > > > economy. The U.S. Treasury > > > > under former Goldman Sachs executive Henry > > Merrit > > > Paulson > > > > must now seek to > > > > borrow minimum of $3,000,000,000,000.00 to > > bailout the > > > Wall > > > > Street bandits, a > > > > sum no investors, domestic or foreign, are > > willing to > > > loan > > > > to the bankrupt U.S. > > > > government. In fact, with the minimum of > > > > $14,000,000,000,000.00 outstanding U.S. > > > > debt, creditors such as Japan and China > which > > hold > > > > trillions of dollars and U.S. > > > > Treasury notes, may commence foreclosure > > proceedings > > > > against the United States, > > > > whether or not the United States government > > > unilaterally > > > > defaults on its > > > > outstanding foreign debt as did Russia in > the > > '90s > > > > precipitating the Long Term > > > > Capital Management Hedge fund failure; The > Long > > Term > > > > Capital Management failure > > > > was bailed out by the U.S. Treasury under > > direction of > > > then > > > > Sec'y Treasury and > > > > war criminal George Schultz, now at > Stanford > > > University's > > > > Hoover Institute of > > > > which this writer is 1986 alumnus. Treasury > > Secretary > > > Henry > > > > Paulson has a > > > > difficult choice - either pay foreign > creditors > > or > > > bailout > > > > the corrupt Wall > > > > Street bandits whose unlawful theft of U.S. > > Treasury > > > > created the debt crisis ab > > > > initio. So far, Paulson and president > candidate > > John > > > > "Arizona Jones" McCain have > > > > both pursued the latter catastrophic > course; > > > > > > > >? c. Parenthetically, President candidate > John > > > "Arizona > > > > Jones" McCain is in > > > > violation of Federal Election law by > borrowing > > > against > > > > Federal Election funds, > > > > expending such funds without repayment, > > utilizing > > > election > > > > law loopholes to > > > > raise additioinal funds while still seeking > > > additional > > > > federal election funds. > > > > The Federal Election Commission is short of > > appointed > > > > officials and thus has > > > > refrained from attempting to respond to > > interested > > > parties > > > > seeking the Federal > > > > Election Commission enforcement of duly > enacted > > > legislation > > > > to impose > > > > appropriate fines on John "Arizona Jones" > McCain > > for > > > gross > > > > violations of federal > > > > election law > > > > > > > >? 5 . THE BOGUS DISINFIRMATION ARGUMENT THAT > A > > > WALL STREET > > > > ENTITY IS TOO BIG TO > > > > FAIL. SUCH ENTITY IS TOO BIG TO EXIST AND > > ANTITRUST > > > LAWS > > > > SHOULD BE ENFORCED TO > > > > PROHIBIT OLIGOPOLY ENTITIES FROM ENGAGING > IN > > > PREDATORY > > > > MARKET CONCENTRATION > > > > ANTI-COMPETITIVE CONDUCT. > > > >? Section 2 of the 1890 Sherman Antitrust > Act > > > provides, > > > > inter alia, "...the > > > > abuse of monopoly power is per se illegal", > and > > should > > > be > > > > enforced against the > > > > corrupt Wall Street bandits. Section 5 of > the > > 1914 > > > Clayton > > > > Act proscribes > > > > anti-competitive conduct, price-fixing > > > (Robertson-Patman > > > > Act amending Clayton), > > > > illegal tying conracts, geographic division > of > > > markets, > > > > passim. Injured > > > > competitors, the Securities Exchange > Commission > > and > > > the > > > > Federal Trade > > > > Commission, though underfunded and > understaffed > > must, > > > as a > > > > priority of natiotnal > > > > security, enforce these forementioned > antitrust > > laws > > > to > > > > prohibit the patently > > > > illegal predatory practices of the known > Wall > > Street > > > > Bandits. A bankrupt United > > > > States cannot fight two wars in Iraq and > > Afghanistan, > > > > expending $12 billion per > > > > month, operate military bases in 150 of the > > world's > > > total > > > > of 180 countries > > > > without risking becomming a so-called third > > world > > > failed > > > > state within the > > > > ensuing three years. > > > >? The concerned U.S. voter-taxpayer is > reminded > > > that any > > > > Wall Street Financial > > > > bailout is totally unncessasry. Private > buyers, > > > domestic > > > > and foreign, exist to > > > > purchase failed and failing entities, > contrary to > > the > > > > disinformation fear of > > > > liquidity misrepresentations by Paulson, > Sen. > > Bernie > > > Frank, > > > > House Majority > > > > Leader Harry Reid, House Speaker Nancy > Pelosi, > > Sen. > > > John > > > > "Arizona Jones" McCain, > > > > Sen. Barak Obama - all of whom have conflict > of > > > investment > > > > interest in the Wall > > > > Street bandit financial institutiions > subject of > > U.S. > > > > taxpayer-funded welfare > > > > bailout. For example: > > > > > > > >? a. AIG, after reflection decided not to > accept > > > offer of > > > > purchase by the > > > > unconstitutional privately owned Federal > Reserve > > Board > > > when > > > > it became apparent > > > > AIG could obtain a bettor offer from > private > > buyers. > > > > Moreover, no language of > > > > the 1913 Federal Reserve Act permits the > Federal > > > Reserve to > > > > extend loans or to > > > > purchase equity interests in private > investment > > bank > > > > entities or guarantor > > > > insurance entities such as AIG. Accordingly, > the > > > Federal > > > > Reserve Board directors > > > > and Chairman Ben Bernanke have all acted > > illegally in > > > > recent bailouts of corrupt > > > > Wall Street entities and should be > criminally > > > prosecuted > > > > therefor. Like academic > > > > legal education pre- WWII German nazi > > collaborators, > > > the > > > > silence in response to > > > > this criminal U.S. biggest bank robbery in > U.S. > > > history, by > > > > the American Bar > > > > Association, U.S. law school deans and > so-called > > > > Constitutional law professors > > > > as U.C. Berkeley's Jesse "chump change" > Choper- > > is > > > shameful > > > > and unconscionable. > > > > The late great jurisprudence Professor > Harry > > Jones of > > > > Columbia University Law > > > > School is turning over in his grave at the > > abandonment > > > of > > > > the Rule of Law by the > > > > U.S. academic and professional legal > community > > which > > > > institution they are all > > > > paid to protect. > > > > > > > >? b. Failing investment Bank Goldman Sachs > found > > > investors > > > > to assist in its > > > > conversion into a federally "protected" > > commercial > > > bank; > > > > > > > >? c. Failing Bank Washington Mutual found a > > buyer > > > in J.P. > > > > Morgan Chase; > > > > > > > >? d. Failed Indy Bank and Country Wide Bank > were > > > purchased > > > > by Bank America; > > > > > > > >? e. Failing Wachovia Bank's operations > assets > > > have been > > > > purchased this date > > > > 9-29-2008 at $1.00 per share > > > >? by Citigroup. > > > > > > > >? 6. Martin D. Weiss, Ph.D. of 'Money and > > Markets' > > > proposes > > > > that "...Congress > > > > focus less on bailing out imprudent > institutons > > and > > > more on > > > > fortifyng the safety > > > > net of individuals caught in failed > financial > > > > institutions". Specifically Weiss > > > > urges the following: > > > > > > > >? a. "Fully fund and staff the Federal > Deposit > > > Insurance > > > > Corporation in > > > > preparatioin for possible multiple future > bank > > > failures > > > > like Washington Mutual > > > > which suffered $2 billion in withdrawals > over > > the > > > past > > > > eight business days"; > > > > > > > >? b. " Close major gaps in the coverage > provided > > > by > > > > Securities Investors > > > > Protection Corporation (SPIC) to ensure > investors > > are > > > not > > > > denied access to their > > > > accounts when asset liquidation is sought in > a > > > falling > > > > market". Obviously this > > > > remedy is targeted at the minority of > securities > > > holders > > > > rather than the > > > > majority of homeowner-mortgagors who own > few > > > securities > > > > assets. > > > > > > > >? c. Congressional "...consideration of > federal > > > insurance to > > > > cover policy > > > > holders in failed insurance companies". In > this > > > connection, > > > > note this day > > > > 9-28-2008, bailout negotiators rejection of > the > > > Republican > > > > Party proposal for > > > > federal insurance of Wall Street Casino > Bandit > > toxic > > > debt > > > > secutities, instead of > > > > direct federal purchase of failing > institution > > debt. > > > > Assuming state insurance > > > > commissioners - in the famous words of > Oakland, > > CA > > > builder > > > > Joseph R. Williams, > > > > Sr. - "do their jobs" and competently > enforce > > their > > > > respective insurance > > > > regulatory oversight of companies, this > remedy > > may be > > > of > > > > lesser importance. > > > > > > > >? 7. The population of the United States is > > > 300,000,000 > > > > souls. Should the > > > > Congressional and Executive Agency criminal > > > collaborators > > > > with the Wall Street > > > > Bandits legislate a bailout in the amount > of > > > $1,000,000.00 > > > > per U.S. soul, the > > > > total investment qua expenditure would > amount to > > > > $300,000,000,000,000.00 and the > > > > U.S. economy would be healthier with > financial > > > liquidity > > > > available to law > > > > abiding private institutions. > > > > > > > >? 8. IN SUMMARY, NO TAXPAYER-FUNDED WELFARE > WALL > > > STREET > > > > BAILOUT IS NECESSARY AT > > > > ALL. The so-called capitalist private Wall > > Street > > > Casino > > > > bandits should be let > > > > alone to sink or swim in their own toxic, > > > fraudulent-laden, > > > > debt-ridden ocean. > > > > Note, Bilderberg Criminal Credit Default > Swatp > > > Short-seller > > > > AIG investor Treas. > > > > Sec'y Paulson plans to hire > > > >? Wall Street bandit bankers as > administrators > > of > > > any > > > > welfare corporate bank > > > > bailout plan. Congress must prohibit this > > planned > > > hiring of > > > > Wall Street thieves > > > > and mandate appointment of special court > > approved > > > > conservator-administrators > > > >? from the independent legal and academic > > > communities to > > > > obviate conflicts of > > > > investor interests. U.S. taxpayers must > demand > > State > > > > Insurance Commissioners and > > > > Attorneys General indict and prosecute, > civilly > > and > > > > criminally, executives and > > > > directors of Bandit Bailout recipients > > > > > > > >? 9. Concerned scholars, taxpayer-voters > and > > > state, county > > > > attorneys general > > > > should review the Barron's publication of > former > > > Federal > > > > Board Chair Alan > > > > Greenspan's New York University Thesis > consisting > > of > > > a > > > > compilation of speeches > > > > on housing price inflation. Greenspan and > New > > York > > > > University withdrew the > > > > thesis from review shortly after submission > at > > > Greenspan's > > > > request, an > > > > unprecendented procedure for a doctoral > thesis > > > submitted to > > > > an otherwise > > > > ethically sound university. > > > > > > > >? 10. In a completely arrogant insult to > the > > U.S. > > > > taxpayer-voter financial > > > > victims of the fraudulent, > unconstitutiional > > proposed > > > House > > > > bailout, the > > > > legislation contains the following > ubiquitous > > > omissions and > > > > failures: > > > > > > > >? a. The proposed bill is pregnant with > language > > > verbs "may" > > > > rather than > > > > "shall"; > > > > > > > >? b. No serious restrictions on CEO > > beneficiaries > > > executive > > > > pay and bonuses; > > > > > > > >? c. No congressional control to terminate > > bailout > > > funding > > > > if unsuccessful. > > > > Instead, proposed bill only "requests" > Executive > > to > > > submit > > > > plan for possible > > > > remedial legislation a postiori; > > > > > > > >? d. No Bankruptcy law amendment to protect > home > > > mortgagors > > > > to mandate lender > > > > restructuring of loans allowing homeowners > to > > remain > > > in > > > > their homes. Thus the > > > > rash of foreclosures will continue apace and > the > > > bailout > > > > legislation is a > > > > failure from the start. Apparently, there > has > > never > > > been a > > > > congressional intent > > > > to assist homeowners facing mortgage > > foreclosure. > > > > > > > >? e. As Dallas Federal Reserve Bank > governor > > > Richard Fischer > > > > commented, the > > > > proposed bill fails to address the William > > > Clinton-Phil > > > > Gramm-Timiothy Geithner > > > > (ill-advised proposed Treasury Dept. > Secretary) > > 1998 > > > > so-called 'Financial > > > > Modernation Act' repealing the > Glass-Steagall > > finance > > > > institution deregulation > > > > legislation, such repeal the primary cause > of > > today's > > > U.S. > > > > Wall Street casino > > > > collapse. > > > > > > > >? 11. It is unconscionable, albeit illegal, > that > > > congress > > > > has held not a single > > > > hearing analyzing the proposed legislation, > with > > no > > > > analytical reports by the > > > > Congressional Budget Office, Executive > Office of > > > Management > > > > and Budget, Henry > > > > Paulson's Department of Treasury, Timothy > > Geithner's > > > New > > > > York Federal Reserve > > > > (the architect of the Wall Street bank > financial > > > failures), > > > > General Accounting > > > > Office, Department of Justice, Federal > Deposit > > > Insurance > > > > Corporation (itself > > > > facing financial failure), Benjamin Shalom > > Bernanke's > > > > Federal Reserve Board, > > > > notwithstanding this being the most > expensive > > bailout > > > > treasury taxpayer theft in > > > > United States History. Ulysses Crockett > swears > > and > > > affirms > > > > the matter contained > > > > herein is true and correct and invites any > > individual > > > or > > > > entity to litigate the > > > > veracity of matter herein contained in any > court > > of > > > > competent jurisdiction, > > > > state, federal or international. > > > > > > > >? 12. Karl Deninger reports that it is > > Indictment > > > Time for > > > > Treasury's Henry > > > > Merrit Paulson and privately-owned Federal > > Reserve > > > Board > > > > Chair Benjamin Shalom > > > > Bernanke. See > > > > > > > > > > http:''market-ticker.denninger.net/archives982-Paulson-Bernanke-Indictment-T > ime. > > > > Denninger writes: "As the CEO of a public > firm > > you > > > don't > > > > work for the > > > > government, whether you think you're some > "left > > arm > > > > adjunct" or not. You work > > > > for the holders of your stock and debt - > period. > > On > > > this > > > > matter the law is > > > > clear, and the government, even post-TARP, > had a > > > minority > > > > stake." Denningder is > > > > writing five months after the original > edition > > of > > > this > > > > author's commentary was > > > > written. > > > > > > > >? 13. On March 17, 2009 New York Attorney > > General > > > Andrew > > > > Cuomo forwarded a > > > > letter to Bank America's Kenneth Lewis > seeking > > > information > > > > about the unlawful > > > > payment of executive bonuses from taxpayer > TARP > > > taxpayer > > > > bailout funds. Bank > > > > America's Lewis testified that Benjamin > Shalom > > > Bernanke and > > > > Henry Merrit Paulsen > > > > (then Treasury Secretary) forced Lewis and > Bank > > > America to > > > > purchase Merrill- > > > > Lynch. In addition Bloomberg, LP is suing > > Benjamin > > > Shalom > > > > Bernanke and Board of > > > > Governors of private Federal Reserve Board > for > > > refusing to > > > > provide information > > > > as to the recipients of $2 trillion dollars > of > > > taxpayer > > > > bailout funds and the > > > > identity of the underlying assets, if any, > > securing > > > the > > > > bailout fund transfers. > > > > The case is being heard in Federal District > Court > > of > > > New > > > > York, Southern > > > > District, filed in March, 2009 and should > be > > followed > > > by > > > > all advocates of the > > > > Rule of Law. > > > > > > > >? 14. Paulson was first reported to have > been > > > ordered by > > > > Bernanke to threaten to > > > > oust Bank America's Lewis if Lewis did not > > purchase > > > > Merrill-Lynch. Presently, > > > > Henry Merrit Paulson has recanted what he > > testified > > > to > > > > Attorney General Andrew > > > > Cuomo. Either Lewis is lying or Paulson and > > Bernanke > > > are > > > > lying which constitute > > > > violations of the Federal RICCO racketering > > statutes, > > > SEC > > > > Rule 10-b-5, earlier > > > > noted, Sherman and Clayton Anti-trust Acts > and > > > applicable > > > > federal statutes. > > > > > > > >? QUOD ERAD DEMONSTRADUM > > > >? Dated: October 2, 2008 at Emeryville, CA > > 94608; > > > October 7, > > > > 2009; > > > > > > > > ? [57]? ? Posted In > > > > > > > > ? * Politics [58] > > > > > > > >? Submitted by echojurist on Fri, 09/26/2008 > - > > > > 8:22am.??? > > > > [1] http://babelation.com/?q=node/1157 > > > > [2] http://blogigo.com/ulyssesecojurist > > > > [3] http://bluntpresents.co.uk/2007/11/19/funky16corners-boy-3rd > > > > [4] echojurist at yahoo.com > > > > [5] http://www.Linkedin.com/ulyssescrockett > > > > [6] http://blogigo.com/ulyssesecojurist > > > > [7] http://www.createspace.com > > > > [8] http://myspace.com119356884 > > > > [9] ms.asya at goowy.com > > > > [10] asya_guillory at csumb.edu > > > > [11] http://www.putfile.com/echojurist > > > > [12] joyceofafrica at hotmail.com > > > > [13] marlin_eagles at yahoo.com > > > > [14] soulsalvage at msn.com > > > > [15] director at eastmont.net > > > > [16] wesat at npr.org > > > > [17] maryrose333 at att.net > > > > [18] rreich at berkeley.edu > > > > [19] discussion at globaljusticemovement.net > > > > [20] sfnancy at house.gov > > > > [21] george_miller at mail.house.gov > > > > [22] loretta at mail.house.gov > > > > [23] petemail at stark.house.gov > > > > [24] lynnwoolsey at mail.house.gov > > > > [25] benjaminleachman at gmail.com > > > > [26] sheencom at aol.com > > > > [27] chumpchange at yahoo.com > > > > [28] sergiokalx at hotmail.com > > > > [29] vibesyet2 at peoplepc.com > > > > [30] dore at tangents.com > > > > [31] ginalee_2 at hotmail.com > > > > [32] sc at stevecastillo.com > > > > [33] phprint at sbcglobal.net > > > > [34] michaelangelo at gmail.com > > > > [35] wriles at pacbell.net > > > > [36] bhazard at oakland.net > > > > [37] jayro at youthcourt.org > > > > [38] letter at nytimes.com > > > > [39] askdoj at usdoj.gov > > > > [40] jedleachman at sbcglobal.net > > > > [41] dougshe at attbi.com > > > > [42] drrountree at yahoo.com > > > > [43] associate at christchurchalameda.org > > > > [44] http://www.stumbleupon.com > > > > [45] http://www.soulstrut.com/ubbthreads/shoflats.php?cat > > > > [46] http://www.humbead.com > > > > [47] http://www.associatedcontent/article/903961/ > > > > [48] > > > > > http://www.nowpublic.com/world/activist-asya-guillory-hosts-youth-science-su > mmit > > > > [49] http://www.indangerousrhytm.blogspot.com/2007/11-tobias-kirmayers > > > > [50] http://www.wolfgangsvault.com/ulyssescrocket > > > > [51] THproducer at gmail.com > > > > [52] http://www.webcrawler.com > > > > [53] bbwarw at yahoo.com > > > > [54] http://www.humbead.com/hmbpop2.html > > > > [55] http://www.digg.com/political_opinion_W > > > > [56] > http://www.newmedinaproject.blogspot.com/2008/oljm-jisthttp://last.fm > > > > [57] http://babelation.com/?q=node/1552 > > > > [58] http://babelation.com/?q=taxonomy/term/7 > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > ? ? ? > > > _______________________________________________ > Discussion mailing list > Discussion at globaljusticemovement.net > http://globaljusticemovement.net/mailman/listinfo/discussion_globaljusticemovement.net > From integr8ted at gmail.com Mon Nov 23 06:11:25 2009 From: integr8ted at gmail.com (DRousse) Date: Mon, 23 Nov 2009 15:11:25 +0200 Subject: [GJM] ***SPAM*** Re: Mary Rose's Total Wellness References: Message-ID: <52CC5C1A8BAA4FE787759B6C117E6812@computer2007> Thanks, Mary for a insightful analysis and a very helpful suggestion to stop playing a game that is rigged against the vast majority of people as well as the animals and the earth. There are other ways to live, so yes, lets start anew. Creating small sustainable living communities that are self-governing, growing our own food and replanting forests are good ways to start, and I am participating in one such revolutionary self-sustaining (as far as possible) community. I am profoundly in agreement with your statement that it is most important for us to realize that we are responsible for the situation we are in today. But how is that understood? The common people did not design this world. They simply try to make the best of a situation they find themselves born into. How are we then responsible? What we do and how we do it are determined first and foremost by consciousness. It is the consciousness of the people that creates the situation in which we find ourselves. This is due to the fact that consciousness is apriori. Everything manifests first in the consciousness prior to manifestation on the material plane. It is in consciousness that all acts of creation begin, as well as all acts of destruction. This fact behooves us to understand what consciousness is and how it is influenced. If we want to change the world we must first change our consciousness. In my book: "Spiritual Economics from the Bhagavad-gita, Part 1 Understanding and Solving the Economic Problem," I analyze our economic problems from the perspective of consciousness. Using the methodology of the Gita, one of the world's classical spiritual literatures, we can find three major divisions of consciousness, which we might term goodness, passion and ignorance. The problems that we now face are due to an overwhelming influence of ignorance. This is not ignorance in the sense of a lack of education. Rather it is the influence of tamo-guna, the mode of ignorance, which characterizes various aspects of this world. The problem that we collectively face is that we want the results of the mode of goodness--egalitarianism, bounty, charity, happiness, etc., but we engage heavily in activities of the mode of ignorance. It is in this sense that we are all responsible for the circumstances in which we find ourselves. Since we are integrated beings whatever we do in one area of life influences all areas. What we eat and drink, what we do and how we do it, all of these many things can be understood to be influenced by one of the modes of nature-goodness, passion, or ignorance. As long our actions of infuse with the mode of ignorance, all efforts and remedies we seek to achieve the results of goodness will be impossible. To achieve the results of the mode of goodness we must learn to act in goodness, and by doing so, raise our consciousness from the depths of passion and ignorance. When our consciousness is in goodness we will then be able to truly create the just and happy world that we want to live in. It is likely difficult to fully grasp my meaning here without a more complete introduction to these terms. To better appreciate these concepts and analysis I invite you and all readers to peruse my book, which can be downloaded as a free e-book from my blog: spiritual-econ.blogspot.com. (Sorry, it is not available in print as of now). Best wishes in your valuable work. Sincerely, Dhan Rousse > Message: 1 > Date: Sun, 22 Nov 2009 11:23:15 -0800 > From: "mary rose" > Subject: [GJM] FW: [globalnetnews-summary] The Big Squander > To: , "'Discussion Forum for Global Justice'" > > Message-ID: <002201ca6ba9$68917a50$39b46ef0$@net> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" > > Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS > > What appears to me is that the world economy is going to crash anyway, > pulled down by the stupidity of those involved with the Federal Reserve > and > much could have been saved by letting A.I.G. go initially and then picking > up the pieces. But, of course, my opinion comes after the act was done > which > isn't much help. > > What some feel we need to do is to start from where we are now and attempt > to pick up the pieces; however, as the poem goes: Humpty Dumpty sat on a > wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall, And all the kings horses and all the > kings men couldn't put Humpty Dumpty together again. > > So, what to do but start anew! We-the-people need to be able to tell big > government to "get lost" because we really don't need it. By taking charge > of ourselves and creating small sustainable living communities that are > self-governing and include their own monetary system in the form of a > local > community currency, and by raising our own food and replanting forests, we > can create a very stable economy based on a derivative of "agroforestry" > as > practiced by the Guarani of Eastern Paraguay and, as told by Richard H. > Robbins in his book: "Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism," > Chapter 9, "Indigenous People, Ethnic Groups, and the Nation-State." > > As I look at the state of things today, it becomes apparent that we are in > a > class and ethnic struggle for dominance, particularly here in the United > States as the pendulum shifts from a mainly all white population to that > which will be mainly Latino by the Year 2030. And here I must go back and > reference the "Kurgan Cattle Culture Consciousness" -- the people who > became > known eventually as the "Old Europeans" who mainly rule the world today > due > to the sheer power of their wealth. These people were originally the > people > who spread their dominance throughout the world on the back of the world > steer, taking it to six continents while decimating indigenous people who > stood in their path as they sought to dominate the world creating what is > known today as "modernity". They did so in the name of Christianity which > evolved out of Mythraism (the worship of the bull) as they sought to > control > the world by bringing it under the auspices of this religious belief > system. > > > But again, as David Ray Griffin writes in "Introduction to Suny Series in > Constructive PostModern Thought": "Modernity," rather than being regarded > as > the norm for human society toward which all history has been aiming and > into > which all societies should be ushered -- forcibly if necessary -- is > instead > increasingly seen as an aberration. A new respect for the wisdom of > traditional societies is growing as we realize that they have endured for > thousands of years, and that, by contrast, the existence of modern society > for even another century seems doubtful." > > It must be noted that this line of thought ties in closely with that of > Thomas H. Greco, Jr. in his book: "The End of Money and the Future of > Civilization,' and with that of Roy Madron and John Jopling in "Gaian > Democracies - Redefining Globalisation and People Power." This latter book > was published in 2003 as Number Nine in a series of Schumacher Briefings. > Madron and Joplings book is extremely valuable as it gives us a good look > at > the "operational instruments" which the Global Monetocracy (read bankers > in > the form of Old Europeans) has used to acquire more and more control over > "we-the-people." > > Another very reliable source of information on this is also found in R. > Buckminster Fuller's CRITICAL PATH, and certainly a reading of Jay > Earley's > "Transforming Human Culture - Social Evolution and the Planetary Crisis" > should be included in the search for answers as to how we must manage this > "unprecedented in prior human recorded history crisis" with which the > human > family is faced today. > > What I feel is most important for us to realize is that as the human > family > as a collective conscious/unconsciousness, we have created the situation > we > are in today in our sub-conscious mind in order to create a new energy > field > (information) that will take us into another level of conscious awareness, > which will, in turn, create "new thoughts" that will, in turn create new > actions resulting in new social system formations. As Einstein knew: we > cannot solve the problem with the same level of thinking that created it, > so > we are now forced to move into another level of consciousness and address > the issue from this new perspective. > > Another thing for us to seriously consider is that almost all of what we > read in the newspapers or see on television, are only the *symptoms* of > what > ails us. We must dig much deeper to find the real source of the illnesses > to > which we are subjected in today's world. For instance, the causes of war > may be many as well as the symptoms that appear as war is fought. But, > what > we must ultimately consider is that the real source or cause of war only > exists in the present state of our collective unconscious mind. And, it is > to this "state" of consciousness that we must look for answers as to "why" > we are doing what we are doing. And, most of the time, we find that this > state (belief system) is one that has been programmed into our mind by > "cultural influences, e.g., parents, significant others in our lives such > as > aunts, uncles, grandparents, close family friends, schools and religious > orders until we are approximately 7 - 10 years of age when we begin to > form > our own opinions -- but, opinions nevertheless which have a basis in the > belief system(s) with which we were programmed by the aforementioned. > > And, now, Dr. Bruce Lipton steps in and asks the question as to: What if > the > belief systems with which we have been preprogrammed are not valid?" What > if > they are largely based in myth, or in falsified words in documents such as > the Bible, and placed there by those in Roman times in order to "social > engineer" the world as to how thought back then created a way people > should > act? Would this not lead to the design of "aberrant social systems" that > weigh in heavily on the side of being "death-defining" rather than > "life-enhancing?" What was the Spanish Inquisition that killed somewhere > between 6 and 11 million people, most of them women, about? How and why > did > the male dominance belief system, to which we are still under submission > come about? How much of what is happening today is a result of the > thinking > that allowed this unnatural belief system to come into being: one that > devalues women and promotes war and violence? Has religion really been of > benefit to us, or has it largely been a destructive force with which we > are > having to deal today? Does the story of the biology of the human system > tell > a different story than that of religious belief systems which emanate > mainly > from culture-based ideas that have no substantial basis in reality? > > As we moved as the human family from Mythraism into Christianity, we left > behind the rituals of human and animal sacrifice that were meant to > appease > the "Gods" and bring about fertility. Is it not now time to release this > culturally-based belief system and move into the reality of what it means > to > be human today while discarding our fantasy idea of God as an "old man who > dispenses punishment or blessings?" and recognize the significance and > magnificence of the electromagnetic field which underlies all of life as > being the ultimate force within us and over which we have control? > > Is it anymore far-fetched to release our child-like vision of God and > replace it with a healthier version now than it was to stop our belief in > human and animal sacrifice back then? > > Deepak Chopra has not too long ago made a comment to the affect that if > religion was the solution it long ago would have done its job. Isn't it > time > now to move on into a healthier way of thinking and living our lives than > holding on to beliefs that do not serve us? > > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net > [mailto:globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net] On Behalf Of > TradingPostPaul > Sent: Sunday, November 22, 2009 7:28 AM > To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net > Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] The Big Squander > > > The Big Squander > http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/20/opinion/20krugman.html?_r=1&ref=opinio > n > by Paul Krugman > Published on Friday, November 20, 2009 by The New York Times > > Earlier this week, the inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief > Program, a k a, the bank bailout fund, released his report on the 2008 > rescue of the American International Group, the insurer. The gist of the > report is that government officials made no serious attempt to extract > concessions from bankers, even though these bankers received huge benefits > from the rescue. And more than money was lost. By making what was in > effect > a multibillion-dollar gift to Wall Street, policy makers undermined their > own credibility - and put the broader economy at risk. > > For the A.I.G. rescue was part of a pattern: Throughout the financial > crisis key officials - most notably Timothy Geithner, who was president of > the New York Fed in 2008 and is now Treasury secretary - have shied away > from doing anything that might rattle Wall Street. And the bitter paradox > is that this play-it-safe approach has ended up undermining prospects for > economic recovery. For the job of fixing the broken economy is far from > done - yet finishing the job has become nearly impossible now that the > public has lost faith in the government's efforts, viewing them as little > more than handouts to the people who got us into this mess. > > About the A.I.G. affair: During the bubble years, many financial companies > created the illusion of financial soundness by buying credit-default swaps > from A.I.G. - basically, insurance policies in which A.I.G. promised to > make up the difference if borrowers defaulted on their debts. It was an > illusion because the insurer didn't have remotely enough money to make > good > on its promises if things went bad. And sure enough, things went bad. > > So why protect bankers from the consequences of their errors? Well, by the > time A.I.G.'s hollowness became apparent, the world financial system was > on > the edge of collapse and officials judged - probably correctly - that > letting A.I.G. go bankrupt would push the financial system over that edge. > So A.I.G. was effectively nationalized; its promises became taxpayer > liabilities. > > But was there any way to limit those liabilities? After all, banks would > have suffered huge losses if A.I.G. had been allowed to fail. So it seemed > only fair for them to bear part of the cost of the bailout, which they > could have done by accepting a "haircut" on the amounts A.I.G. owed them. > Indeed, the government asked them to do just that. But they said no - and > that was the end of the story. Taxpayers not only ended up honoring > foolish > promises made by other people, they ended up doing so at 100 cents on the > dollar. > > Could things have been different? Some commentators argue that government > officials had no way to force the banks to accept a haircut - either they > let A.I.G. go bankrupt, which they weren't ready to do, or they had to > honor its contracts as written. > > But this seems like a na?ve view of how Wall Street works. Major > financial firms are a small club, with a shared interest in sustaining the > system; ever since the days of J.P. Morgan, it has been common in times of > crisis to call on the big players to forgo short-term profits for the > industry's common good. Back in 1998, it was a consortium of private > bankers - not the government - that put up the funds to rescue the hedge > fund Long Term Capital Management. > > Furthermore, big financial firms have a long-term relationship, both with > the government and with each other, and can pay a price if they act > selfishly in times of crisis. Bear Stearns, the investment bank, earned > itself a lot of ill will by refusing to participate in that 1998 rescue, > and it's widely believed that this ill will played a major factor in the > demise of Bear Stearns itself, 10 years later. > > So officials could have called on bankers to offer a better deal, for > their > own sake, and simultaneously threatened to name and shame those who > balked. > It was their choice not to do that, just as it was their choice not to > push > for more control over bailed-out banks in early 2009. > > And, as I said, these seemingly safe choices have now placed the economy > in > grave danger. > > For the economy is still in deep trouble and needs much more government > help. Unemployment is in double-digits; we desperately need more > government > spending on job creation. Banks are still weak, and credit is still tight; > we desperately need more government aid to the financial sector. But try > to > talk to an ordinary voter about this, and the response you're likely to > get > is: "No way. All they'll do is hand out more money to Wall Street." > > So here's the real tragedy of the botched bailout: Government officials, > perhaps influenced by spending too much time with bankers, forgot that if > you want to govern effectively you have retain the trust of the people. > And > by treating the financial industry - which got us into this mess in the > first place - with kid gloves, they have squandered that trust. > > > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 2 > Date: Sun, 22 Nov 2009 11:47:24 -0800 > From: "mary rose" > Subject: [GJM] FW: Flu Self Defense ? No Vaccine Required > To: , "'Discussion Forum for Global Justice'" > > Message-ID: <003001ca6bac$c83d06b0$58b71410$@net> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" > > FYI and consideration. > > > > From: Bottom Line Secrets > [mailto:BottomLineSecrets at bls.bottomlinesecrets.com] > Sent: Sunday, November 22, 2009 4:09 AM > To: maryrose333 at att.net > Subject: Flu Self Defense ? No Vaccine Required > > > > > Don't miss any Bottom Line Secrets. Add our address, > BottomLineSecrets at bls.bottomlinesecrets.com, to your > Address Book or Safe List. Learn how here > > . > > Click Here > > to View on Your Mobile Device. > > > > > November 22, 2009 > > > > > > > > > In This Issue: > > > * > > Marge Couldn't Remember Her Phone Number... But Now Her Brain Is 20 Years > Younger... > > > > * > > Helping to Fight Influenza Naturally > > > > * > > Every Heart Attack Is Now Preventable > > > > * > > Better Travel With Your Pet > > > > * > > Delicious 'Wonder Drug' for High Blood Pressure Praised by Harvard > Researchers > > > > > > _____ > > > Dear M. Hampton, > > With all this flu-fretting, it?s easy to forget the most important > prevention strategy of all -- powering up your immune system to fight > illness of all kinds, including H1N1, seasonal flu, colds and stomach > bugs, too. Woodson C. Merrell, MD, chairman of the department of > integrative medicine at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York and > coauthor of > > The Source: Unleash Your Natural Energy, Power Up your Health and Feel 10 > Years Younger, reveals the most potent natural immune builders, including > homeopathic remedies, traditional Chinese herbal formulas, medicinal > mushrooms -- and even a "kitchen cure" that you can do at home or on the > road. > > Will your pet be making holiday visits with you? Homeopathic veterinarian > Jeff Feinman, VMD, tells how to make a road trip easy, safe and > comfortable for everyone. > > All the best, > > > > Jessica Kent > Editor > BottomLineSecrets.com > > > > Special Offer > > MARGE COULDN'T REMEMBER HER PHONE NUMBER... BUT NOW HER BRAIN IS 20 YEARS > YOUNGER... > > > > > "I used to have a great memory," Marge told Dr. Ray Sahelian. "All my life > I've worked with numbers," this former bookkeeper explained... > > > "But now I can't remember simple phone numbers... it's so frustrating!" > > > She'd lose things right after she put them down -- it was demoralizing. > She was only 71, but she felt like a useless antique. > > > Other doctors might have shrugged and said, "Sorry Marge, you're getting > old... " But Dr. Ray Sahelian reversed her frightening decline almost > immediately. Soon Marge's memory picked up dramatically, and she was > focused all day. > > > Marge now says she hasn't thought so clearly in 20 years... > > > Learn more... > > > > > Helping to Fight Influenza Naturally > > > > Woodson C. Merrell, MD > > Beth Israel Medical Center > > > P ublic > health officials are scrambling to prepare for what may be one of the most > challenging flu seasons ever. Seasonal influenza, combined with the > continuing presence and possible winter worsening of H1N1, is a daunting > prospect. Vaccines for both have been developed, but as of this date, the > H1N1 vaccine is still in short supply. > > If past experience is a guide, as the seasonal flu peaks in January or > February, an estimated 50 million Americans will be infected by it, with > an average of 36,000 deaths -- and this is not counting the new H1N1 > threat. > > Prevention is critical. This includes frequent hand washing and avoidance > of crowded spaces. The only FDA-approved remedies available for either > classic influenza or H1N1 are vaccines and Tamiflu-class medications. > Nevertheless, there are principles and practices that can offer immune > support and symptom control. The supplements in this article (available > online, from health-food stores and pharmacies) may warrant a place in our > medicine chest this year as we seek to be as healthy, and flu and > cold-free as possible. (Caveat: None of these have been specifically > studied for H1N1 flu.) > > OSCILLOCOCCINUM > > Taken at the first sign of symptoms, this over-the-counter homeopathic > remedy has been shown to reduce both the duration and severity of flu. > > In a study published in British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology, > researchers found that 17.1% of patients with flulike symptoms who took > Oscillococcinum (pronounced o-sill-cox-SEE-num) recovered within 48 hours, > compared with 10.3% of those taking placebos. Another published study from > the venerable Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2009 confirmed > Oscillo?s effectiveness in combating the flu. > > Particularly for people sensitive to the Tamiflu-class of medications, > this is one of the only substances with published effectiveness against > influenza. > > Important: Oscillococcinum works only when taken within three days of > symptom onset. > > Dose: One vial of pellets under the tongue, three times daily, for no more > than three days. If it hasn?t worked by then, it won?t. > > CHINESE HERBAL FORMULAS > > These are important aids to help the immune system as it struggles to > fight flu as well as colds. Few Western clinical studies have looked at > these formulas, but the experience of practitioners in the US as well as a > history of successful use for hundreds of years in Asia indicate that > Chinese herbals can be both safe and effective at relieving cold and flu > symptoms and can shorten the duration of illness. > > These products typically contain six to 10 different ingredients, > including herbs such as forsythia, isatis, andrographis and astragalus. > Some of the components have antiviral effects... others increase > immunity... and others address specific symptoms, such as congestion or > fever. > > Important: Use only formulations that have been produced in the US, which > has the highest quality-control standards. Some herbal products imported > from China have been found to contain toxic levels of lead or mercury. > Good brands include Wellness Formula by Source Naturals and Cold Away by > Health Concerns. > > Dose: Follow the label instructions. A typical dose is three tablets taken > three times daily, as needed. > > ECHINACEA > > I recommend echinacea for general immune support. The herb fell out of > favor when it was reported in a 2005 study in The New England Journal of > Medicine that it was no better than a placebo for treating and preventing > colds. > > However, in 2007, The Lancet published a meta-analysis of studies > comparing echinacea with a placebo for preventing or shortening the > duration of the common cold. Echinacea was found to be effective. The > researchers also discovered that echinacea seemed to reduce the severity > of cold symptoms. > > A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study that was published in > Journal of Clinical Pharmacy & Therapeutics stated that echinacea > significantly reduced symptoms when it was taken soon after the onset of > symptoms. This finding has been replicated by many other studies. > > Echinacea appears to be most effective when combined with other herbs that > synergistically strengthen immunity and relieve upper-respiratory > infections. > > Dose: Follow label directions. I recommend taking echinacea in combination > with other herbs, such as black elderberry. Good brands include Esberitox, > Insure and Immunotone. > > Caution: Don?t take echinacea if you have an autoimmune disorder, such as > rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn?s or lupus. It increases levels of TNF-alpha, > an inflammatory substance that needs to be lowered in patients with these > conditions. > > ESSENTIAL OIL INHALATION THERAPY > > Inhalation therapy is one of the fastest ways to relieve symptoms of colds > or flu. It also can help prevent illness because it kills viruses in the > upper-respiratory tract. > > When you?re in a crowded place (such as a movie theater or an airplane), > remove the cap from a bottle of essential oil, such as tea tree oil. Take > several sniffs with each nostril. Do this every one to two hours. Tea tree > oil?s compounds have been shown to have both antiviral and antibacterial > effects. > > For symptom relief: Pour steaming water into a bowl, along with a few > drops of tea tree oil, or any of a number of essential oils (rosemary, > oregano or combination products such as Thieves Oil Blend, or even Vicks > VapoRub -- a blend of camphor, eucalyptus oil and menthol). Drape a towel > around your head to trap the steam. Then lean forward, close your eyes and > breathe in the vaporized oils. It?s the fastest way to relieve congestion > and sinus pressure, as well as provide an excellent germicidal effect. > > MEDICINAL MUSHROOMS > > Medicinal mushrooms, including shiitake, maitake and reishi, have been > shown to have significant immune-stimulating properties, and people who > maintain a strong immune system are far less likely to get colds or flu. > Mushrooms are used both preventively and during an illness that challenges > the immune system. Unlike many immune-boosting herbs, mushrooms do not > seem to lose their effectiveness with prolonged use. > > Dose: Eat one or more of these mushroom varieties a few times a week > throughout the cold and flu season. Or take a supplement that includes a > mushroom blend, such as New Chapter Host Defense. > > VITAMIN C AND ZINC > > Vitamin C has been shown to be somewhat effective at preventing and > treating upper-respiratory infections. A study published in Advances in > Therapy in 2002 found that people taking vitamin C had significantly fewer > colds than those taking placebos. They also had a shorter duration of > severe symptoms -- 1.8 days, compared with 3.1 days for those in the > control group. > > Zinc oral lozenges often are used to reduce symptoms, including cough, > nasal discharge and sore throat. > > Caution: Recently the nasal form of zinc in one form of Zicam was shown to > inhibit the sense of smell. > > Dose: Up to three zinc lozenges daily for maximum of three or four days. > For vitamin C, a typical dose is 1,000 milligrams (mg) daily, divided into > two or three doses to avoid stomach upset or diarrhea. > > > _____ > > > E-mail this Article > > _____ > > > > Bottom Line/Personal interviewed Woodson C. Merrell, MD, chairman of the > department of integrative medicine at Beth Israel Medical Center and > assistant clinical professor of medicine at Columbia University College of > Physicians and Surgeons, both in New York City. He is coauthor, with > Kathleen Merrell, of > > The Source: Unleash Your Natural Energy, Power Up Your Health, and Feel 10 > Years Younger (Free Press). www.woodsonmerrell.com > > > > > > Special Offer > > EVERY HEART ATTACK IS NOW PREVENTABLE > > > The number of heart attacks has increased by 27% over the past 20 years, > in spite of all the supposed advances of modern medicine. What's going on > here? > > > Could we be mistaken about some things? Perhaps we're under some major > misconceptions about heart disease. Like... > > > Myth #1 -- Heart disease and heart attacks are an inevitable part of > aging. > > > Myth #2 -- Cholesterol is the main cause of heart disease and heart > attacks. > > > Myth #3 -- Blood pressure drugs help you avoid heart problems and live > longer. > > > Myth #4 -- Aggressive, "type A" behavior increases your risk for a heart > attack. > > > Myth #5 -- Low-fat, low cholesterol diets are good for you and your heart. > > > Learn more... > > > > > > Better Travel With Your Pet > > > > Jeff Feinman, VMD, CVH > > > T hink > about how you?ll travel with your pet in your vehicle before you depart, > planning ahead for safety and convenience. Ideas... > > Keep the > pet on a harness attached to the seat belt or in a carrying case. An > animal that jumps around can be a distraction and could also be hurt in an > accident or if you have to stop suddenly. > > Feed > animals three or four hours before departing so that they won?t start > agitating for food too soon into the trip. > > Bring > plenty of water. The excitement and stress of a trip can make your pet > thirsty. > > Bring along > a litter box for a cat. > > Never leave > your pet in the car unattended -- you may be away from the vehicle longer > than you expect, or your pet could even be stolen. It?s also dangerous to > leave any animal in a poorly ventilated vehicle. > > > _____ > > > E-mail this Article > > _____ > > > > Bottom Line/Retirement interviewed Jeff Feinman, VMD, CVH, a certified > veterinary homeopath in Weston, Connecticut, www.homevet.com > > > > > > Special Offer > > DELICIOUS 'WONDER DRUG' FOR HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE PRAISED BY HARVARD > RESEARCHERS > > > According to recent estimates, nearly one in three American adults has > high blood pressure. But for the Kuna Indians living on a group of islands > off the Caribbean coast of Panama, hypertension doesn't even exist. In > fact, after age 60, the average blood pressure for Kuna Indian islanders > is a perfect 110/70. > > > So what makes these folks practically "immune" to hypertension -- and lets > them enjoy much lower death rates from heart attacks, strokes, diabetes > and cancer? > > > Harvard researchers were stunned to discover it's because they drink about > five cups of cocoa each day. That's right, cocoa! > > > Learn more... > > > > > > Important: Help your friends get much more out of life -- forward this > E-letter to them. Better: Send it to many friends and your whole family. > > This is a free weekly e-mail service of BottomLineSecrets.com and > Boardroom Inc. > > Boardroom Inc. > 281 Tresser Boulevard > Stamford, CT 06901-3229 > ATTN: Web Team > > You received this e-mail because you have requested it. You are on the > mailing list as maryrose333 at att.net. Or... a friend forwarded it to you. > > Disclaimer: Bottom Line Secrets publishes the opinions of expert > authorities in many fields. But the use of these opinions is no substitute > for legal, accounting, investment, medical and other professional services > to suit your specific personal needs. Always consult a competent > professional for answers to your specific questions. > > Bottom Line Secrets is a registered trademark of Boardroom Inc. > > Subscribe > > | Unsubscribe > > | Update My E-mail Preferences > > Change My E-mail Address > > | Contact Us > > | Privacy Policy > > Copyright ? 2009 by Boardroom Inc. > > _____ > > > > > -------------- next part -------------- > An HTML attachment was scrubbed... > URL: > > > ------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > Discussion mailing list > Discussion at globaljusticemovement.net > http://globaljusticemovement.net/mailman/listinfo/discussion_globaljusticemovement.net > > > End of Discussion Digest, Vol 74, Issue 49 > ****************************************** From maryrose333 at att.net Thu Nov 26 06:22:45 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Thu, 26 Nov 2009 05:22:45 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: Biomimicry Institute '06-'09, A Preview for You Message-ID: <000001ca6e9b$b355eea0$1a01cbe0$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS Be sure and explore this interesting website. From: Biomimicry Institute [mailto:info at biomimicryinstitute.org] Sent: Wednesday, November 25, 2009 2:22 PM To: maryrose333 at att.net Subject: Biomimicry Institute '06-'09, A Preview for You The Biomimicry Institute Hello, We are very thankful for your participation in The Biomimicry Institute 's community. We have published a report on all that we've accomplished during our first three years, and are eager to share it with you. We hope that, in turn, you share our pride in the programs we created to sow the seeds of biomimicry. Today, I'm writing to ask for your support for our work. Together with our mentors in nature, with whom we share this earthly home, your help makes everything we do possible. And there is so much more to do. Will you make a donation to help us spread the word and more important, the practice of biomimicry? You may make a one- time gift, choose to make a monthly gift, or honor someone important to you by clicking on the "Donate" button at the bottom of this email. I know times feel uncertain for many of you this year, financially, and we make this request with even more gratitude and humility than before. But I also ask with the confidence that we are sharing an opportunity to invest in a real solution that is available right now -- an answer -- to some of our most pressing global problems. When you support our work in biomimicry you also contribute to preserving biodiversity, to promoting interdisciplinary science and design education, the development of clean production technology, renewable energy, and green building solutions. In other words, your donation is truly an investment in transforming the way the human world is designed and built, and therefore, our relationship to the our natural world, making life better for all life. Warm regards, Bryony Schwan, Executive Director The Biomimicry Institute 2006-2009 Report is available here . We'd love to hear your comments and questions. Donate to The Biomimicry Institute | Subscribe to the Newsletter | Unsubscribe . -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From maryrose333 at att.net Thu Nov 26 06:42:09 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Thu, 26 Nov 2009 05:42:09 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: [FixGov] FW: Welcome to new people / Rob Hopkins on TED Message-ID: <003901ca6e9e$64df89e0$2e9e9da0$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS If you are not already linked up with the Transition Movement consider doing so now. Here is a message from Bob Banner at Transition California. The more we are linked up and working cooperatively, the better for us. From: FixGov at yahoogroups.com [mailto:FixGov at yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of mary rose Sent: Wednesday, November 25, 2009 8:49 AM To: Fixgov at yahoogroups.com; 'Discussion Forum for Global Justice' Subject: [FixGov] FW: Welcome to new people / Rob Hopkins on TED From: Transition California [mailto:mail at transitioncalifornia.ning.com ] Sent: Tuesday, November 24, 2009 11:27 PM To: maryrose333 at att.net Subject: Welcome to new people / Rob Hopkins on TED Transition California ? Local Self-Reliance for a Post-Petroleum World ? A message to all members of Transition California Greetings, For the new people, welcome. From time to time I send out a massive announcement to all site members... to alert people of certain cool things, new videos, content, new sites, etc. 1. Rob Hopkins TED debut is finally online. We posted it here at http://transitioncalifornia.ning.com/video/rob-hopkins-at-the-ted 2. The long awaited Transition Times is now up: http://transition-times.com/colorado/ 3. The new Transition US newsletter is out: http://www.transitionus.org/ 4. The new Post Carbon website is up: http://www.postcarbon.org/ 5. HopeDance has a new site and it has videos (local as well as global), content, social networking, a slide show, events (for the central coast of California)... Check out the new trailers and speeches by Gunter Pauli, Barbara Marx Hubbard, Fierce Light, For The Next 7 Generations (the most visited trailer so far!), Daniel Pinchbeck , 2012, Collapse , No Impact Man, Edible San Luis Obispo (if you havent already connected and collaborated with an edible publication in your neck of the woods, I would highly recommend it). And for humor, we are thrilled to include some laughing yoga videos as well as the famous Bodhisattva in Metro . 6. New groups have been forming. We have 53 groups and 938 people. Send us your favorite websites, favorite articles, book reviews, films, upload new film trailers, etc. Thanks for what you are all doing in your transition communities. One really fantastic news is that Transition Paso Robles, an official transition town, just got land approved by the city to create a permaculture food forest demonstration "garden"!! Ciao for now! Bob Banner Visit Transition California at: http://transitioncalifornia.ning.com/?xg_source=msg_mes_network To control which emails you receive on Transition California, click here [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] __._,_.___ Reply to sender | Reply to group Messages in this topic (1) Recent Activity: Visit Your Group Start a New Topic MARKETPLACE Going Green: Your Yahoo! Groups resource for green living Yahoo! Groups Switch to: Text-Only, Daily Digest ? Unsubscribe ? Terms of Use . __,_._,___ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rodney.shakespeare1 at btopenworld.com Thu Nov 26 09:24:28 2009 From: rodney.shakespeare1 at btopenworld.com (Rodney Shakespeare) Date: Thu, 26 Nov 2009 16:24:28 -0000 Subject: [GJM] Fw: [SPAM] Invite for Global Justice to UK Screening of the 'End of Poverty?' Message-ID: <00ac01ca6eb4$edf9a510$4001a8c0@your447023ae6b> London members may wish to see the film.. Rodney Shakespeare. ----- Original Message ----- From: Robin Willoughby To: rodney.shakespeare1 at btopenworld.com Sent: Thursday, November 26, 2009 3:15 PM Subject: [SPAM] Invite for Global Justice to UK Screening of the 'End of Poverty?' Invitation: The End of Poverty? Think Again Dear Rodney Shakespeare, I would like to inform you that Share The World's Resources and the British Film Institute (BFI) are hosting a major screening of the award-winning documentary 'The End of Poverty?' on the 12th December at 2pm. The screening, at the BFI in London, will be followed by a panel discussion featuring: Irene Khan - Secretary General of Amnesty International Clare Short - Member of Parliament John Hilary - Executive Director of War on Want Philippe Diaz - The film's award winning director Colin Prescod - Chair of the Institute of Race Relations The event will be attended by a large number of MPs, non-governmental organisations, media representatives and political commentators. We believe that your supporters at Global Justice may find the film of interest, and we are hoping that representatives from your organisation will be able to attend. The event is likely to be over-subscribed, so please book as early as possible. It would also be greatly appreciated if you could distribute information about this screening to your staff members and supporters - I include an e-flyer for the event below. You can visit our website for more information and for ticket details: www.stwr.org/endofpoverty Please let me know if you have any questions about the event, otherwise we hope to see you there. Kind regards, Robin Robin Willoughby Policy Officer Share The World's Resources (STWR) Share The World's Resources (STWR) P.O. Box 52662 London United Kingdom N7 8UX P: +44 (0) 20 7609 3034 E: Robin at stwr.org W: www.stwr.org Share The World's Resources is a not for profit company limited by guarantee, registered in England and Wales no. 4854864. Registered office: Friendly House, 52-58 Tabernacle Street, London EC2A 4NJ. This email is confidential and intended for the addressee only. Any dissemination, distribution, copying or use of this communication without prior permission of the addressee is strictly prohibited. Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail. Share The World's Resources is a not for profit company limited by guarantee, registered in England and Wales no. 4854864. Registered office: Friendly House, 52-58 Tabernacle Street, London EC2A 4NJ. This email is confidential and intended for the addressee only. Any dissemination, distribution, copying or use of this communication without prior permission of the addressee is strictly prohibited. Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/jpeg Size: 214407 bytes Desc: not available URL: From maryrose333 at att.net Thu Nov 26 12:18:20 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Thu, 26 Nov 2009 11:18:20 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: Remote Viewing Documentary: Bizarre Government Program Used ESP for Spying Message-ID: <008501ca6ecd$6362f0a0$2a28d1e0$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS With regard to this article, I suggest reading Lynne McTaggart?s books: ?The Field? and ?The Intention Experiments?. Both books document extraordinary scientific experiments related to remote viewing and other events termed ?paranormal.? Remote viewing ability is related to a particular state of mind which is called the ?Theta State?. The theta state is the state into which one enters just before falling asleep ? and the ability to remote view, or follow one?s brain waves as they travel throughout the Universe, is accomplished by learning to remain in this state without falling asleep and then ?focusing? on a particular target area. Related to remote viewing is the subject of life after death and recommended reading on this is contained in Dr. Gary Schwartz? research at the Veritas Project at the University of Arizona. http://veritas.arizona.edu/ Dr. Schwartz is also the author of ?The Afterlife Experiments?. My comment on these subjects is that for too long religion, and in particular Christianity, has separated us from the truth of who we are as the priests of old have sought to exert mind control over us in order to keep us from this knowledge. One of the great falsities associated with the Church is the denial of reincarnation especially in the face of so much knowledge being revealed today. It is time to take away the veil and reveal who we truly are in all of our magnificence. I very much take exception to Fred Burke?s use of the work ?bizarre? in the subject line above ? it is high time we recognized our abilities and made moves to strengthen them. In her book ?Infinite Mind? Dr. Valerie V. Hunt writes that the only reason we are unable to ?self heal? is that for so long we have been separated from the knowledge of who we are and how we operate, and thus have forgotten how to manage the subtle energy vibrations of the body in a way that allows us to do this. It is time for us to begin ?re-membering.? From: PEERS: WantToKnow.info Email List [mailto:emaillist at peerservice.org] Sent: Thursday, November 26, 2009 8:11 AM To: maryrose333 at att.net Subject: [SPAM]Remote Viewing Documentary: Bizarre Government Program Used ESP for Spying To subscribe to or unsubscribe from this list (one email every few days) or to reply to this message, see end of email This message is available online at http://www.WantToKnow.info/mind_control/remote_viewing_video_documentary Dear friends, Remote viewing involves a set of precise protocols used by the U.S. military and CIA to develop psychic spies. As bizarre as it may seem, top government officials have dabbled in ESP and the psychic realm for many decades. Though the government officially denied the existence of such programs for decades, secret documents now declassified show that the first government-sponsored remote viewing program began in 1970. Remote viewing is a technique whereby trained individuals enter into a meditative state to access subtle levels of consciousness in which they are able to somehow sense remote locations and describe what they see there. The ability to view objects remotely has clear advantages for intelligence gathering. A good example of how this is done can be seen in the four-minute news clip at the link below. www.personalgrowthcourses.net/video/remote_viewing_helicopter_video For a more detailed description of remote viewing and how it is accomplished, see the excellent explanation on the website of the International Remote Viewing Association available here . The original impetus for U.S. remote viewing programs was the discovery by military and intelligence services in the 1960s that the Soviets were spending millions of dollars and having considerable success in using ESP and psychic spies to break through U.S. security barriers. Not wanting to be left behind in any spying or intelligence capability, no matter how exotic, top government officials contracted in 1972 with SRI (Stanford Research Institute) to develop the first of several remote viewing programs which operated under code names such as Project Scanate, Project Grill Flame, and the Stargate Project. CIA Director Admiral Stansfield Turner and several top generals eventually became strong supporters of the remote viewing program as an effective means to develop psychic spies. Though the official existence of this project was kept secret and even denied until 1995, millions of dollars were poured into what became a major government undertaking using both military and civilian personnel. Through remote viewing programs, a set of scientifically based protocols were developed by which many people, even those without prior psychic abilities, were able to describe remote objects with some accuracy. To see declassified government documents on remote viewing, click here . For an eye-opening documentary including interviews with CIA Director Stansfield, top generals, and key individuals in the remote viewing programs, see the link below: www.personalgrowthcourses.net/video/remote_viewing_psychic_spies It's interesting to note that several key players in the remote viewing programs were high level Scientologists. For more on this, click here and here . The box below provides several ideas on what you can do to further educate yourself on remote viewing, psychic spies, and mind control projects. What you can do: * For a thorough, revealing timeline on remote viewing and psychic spies, click here . * Read other powerful, reliable articles on government mind control projects at this link . * Inform your media and political representatives of this important information. To contact those close to you, click here . Urge them to bring greater public awareness to the topics of remote viewing, psychic spies, and mind control.. * Read summaries of revealing major media reports on mind control available here. * Visit our comprehensive Mind Control Information Center at this link. * Spread this news to your friends and colleagues, and bookmark this article on key news websites using the "Share This" icon on this page, so that we can fill the role at which the major media is sadly failing. Together, we can make a difference. With best wishes, Fred Burks for PEERS and the WantToKnow.info Team Former language interpreter for Presidents Bush and Clinton Final Note: WantToKnow.info believes it is important to balance disturbing cover-up information with inspirational writings which call us to be all that we can be and to work together for positive change. Please visit our Inspiration Center at http://www.WantToKnow.info/inspirational for an abundance of uplifting material. 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URL: From maryrose333 at att.net Thu Nov 26 15:49:44 2009 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Thu, 26 Nov 2009 14:49:44 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: [globalnetnews-summary] Melting Arctic: Forget polar bears, worry about humans Message-ID: <00ba01ca6eea$e91e9a60$bb5bcf20$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS Many will be wanting to move north as the ice melts and opens up new territory. -----Original Message----- From: globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net [mailto:globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net] On Behalf Of TradingPostPaul Sent: Thursday, November 26, 2009 12:26 PM To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] Melting Arctic: Forget polar bears, worry about humans (To change your settings or unsubscribe please go to http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/globalnetnews-summary) Melting Arctic: Forget polar bears, worry about humans 23 November 2009 by Alun Anderson http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427355.900-melting-arctic-forget-pol ar-bears-worry-about-humans.html?full=true WHEN I was a postdoc, I was often short of money and used to earn a little extra cash by telling fortunes using a pack of 15th-century tarot cards. Like other practitioners, I was always praying that one card would not appear. It shows a grinning skeleton carrying a giant scythe standing above a field littered with severed heads. It is card number 13, Death, and few customers reward you generously after they encounter it. Although I know the card well, I was still surprised when an image of it popped into my mind out on the Arctic seas, in the middle of a large field of broken ice floes some 1200 kilometres from the North Pole. I was in a ship that was cruising slowly off the long, low, snow-streaked island of Svenske?ya on the eastern side of Svalbard, researching a book about the Arctic. In the far distance, a female polar bear was watching us. It was a mark of her great self-confidence that she immediately decided that our 100-metre-long ship might be worth hunting. She intercepted us quickly and tried to climb on board. The side of the ship proved a little too high, so after half an hour of nibbling the ship's bow and scratching its sides, she tried a different strategy. She lay down on the edge of a nearby ice floe, gave a long yawn, folded her paws under her chin and apparently fell asleep. There was just something suspicious about her cocked ears. Patient "still hunting" at the edge of an ice floe is the polar bear's number one technique for catching seals. A bear may sit or stand like this for an hour or more, utterly still but alert, until a seal surfaces for air. Then there is a flurry of bloody action. Knowing this, I was not much inclined to climb down onto the ice to take a close-up photograph, beautiful though she was. Not long ago, tourists on ships passing through this region would amuse themselves by shooting polar bears. But since the 1970s, the Norwegian government has been protecting bears here with such seriousness that locals joke: "You are better off shooting a man than a bear - the authorities will investigate you less thoroughly." That security no doubt helped give this female the swagger to hunt a large ship. Even so, she eventually grew bored, stood up and strolled off out to sea across a vast patchwork of broken ice floes, some not much bigger than herself. Her exit left me feeling sad. I already knew from the work of the US Geological Survey (USGS) that her grand-cubs may well be the last polar bears to live here. In 2008, the USGS combined models of the future state of the Arctic ice with what was known about the life of bears. Polar bears are utterly dependent on ice as a platform to hunt seals. As the Arctic summer ice disappears, the hunting period is growing shorter and breeding success is falling. Sometimes these days there is too much water to swim back to land and bears drown. The bleak conclusion of one USGS model was "extirpation by 2050" for the bears of Svalbard. A few areas did better, but only in the frozen channels among the northerly Canadian islands might bears survive as rulers of the ice until the end of the century. These are grim forecasts but they are also conservative because they are based on models that aren't keeping up with the terrible speed of the ice's collapse. In the far north, the biggest and fastest change to our planet ever caused by human activity is under way. As the Earth warms, more and more of the frozen Arctic seas are melting away. Each winter, the ice grows until it covers an area more than one and a half times as great as the US. In summer, that ice used to melt to half the winter area. Now, after a catastrophic collapse in 2007, close to two-thirds of the ice is vanishing. Compared with a decade earlier, the Arctic is losing an extra area of ice each summer six times as large as California. Estimates of when the ice will completely disappear each summer now range from 2013 to 2050. Other charismatic Arctic beasts will also struggle. After the bear, the narwhal is most at risk. Off the coast of northern Greenland in 2008 I had the good fortune to see narwhal surface among the ice. For a brief moment, three improbably long spiral horns broke through the water and waved above the sea like magic wands. One animal twisted around and, for a second, his grey, wet body glistened in the low sunlight. Then all three dived and were gone. Under threat, too, will be the walrus, so recently recovered from mass commercial hunting, the white beluga whale and the bowhead whale, which is still only slowly gaining numbers after centuries of slaughter. All use ice to rest, hide or feed. Hearing this, you might think it is obvious why the image of Death came to my mind. But it is not so simple. Although I always found it hard to reassure anxious customers, the real meaning of the card is transformation. A death is an ending and a new beginning, and that is what I was seeing as I travelled round the Arctic. A great transformation is under way. The change from ice to water is an end for many familiar creatures but, in a wider sense, it is not an end. The Arctic is being reborn as a sea that is more similar to southerly seas. Whales, fish, birds and plankton that are more at home in warmer waters are already invading the Arctic. Off the coast of Alaska, for example, pollock are moving north, bringing also the salmon that feed on them. This is the beginning of a new Arctic ecosystem that is forming as the old Arctic dies. As yet, we cannot see the exact shape of the new world, or how many of its older inhabitants will hang on in remote, icier spots. But we can guess who will be its new ruler, the top predator which will topple the polar bear from its throne. Already, in the far north, I have seen pods of killer whales. These animals have a tail fin that makes it hard for them to surface where there is much thick ice. The disappearance of the ice is increasingly exposing the beluga, narwhal and bowhead to this ferocious predator. In some parts of the Arctic, beluga whale, known as the canary of the sea for their constant chattering, have fallen silent. Killer whales are close and are listening out for prey. In purely biological terms, the new Arctic will be more productive than the old, because there is more water, open to sunlight for longer, with more plankton growing in it, and more food supports more life. The first signs are already there. After the sudden collapse of the sea ice in 2007, a satellite-borne sensor, measuring the water's "greenness", showed that the total productivity of the Arctic seas leapt by 40 per cent. That is a big increase. Louis Fortier, a marine biologist at Laval University in Quebec, Canada, explained it like this: "If you look at it simply from the point of view of biological productivity, that will increase as the ice disappears. It's just that the life there, the specialists which we are all fond of, like the polar bear, the walrus and some other species which we have in our unconscious mind, are going to get into trouble." Is there comfort in knowing that polar bears hunting on ice will be replaced by killer whales swimming in a warmer, more productive sea? For me, the answer is "not much", but it will be the consequence of what we have done to Earth. And looking at the changes to the Arctic as a transformation does lead to a larger thought. For too long, too many fruitless efforts to combat climate change have been billed as "Saving the Planet". Right now, in the last week or two before the climate negotiations at Copenhagen, there are few signs of dramatic action. Perhaps that is because the message is wrong. As the changes in the Arctic show, the planet continues. Species come and species go. The planet does not need saving, even from us. Species come, species go. The planet does not need saving, even from us Far better that the urgent need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is portrayed as simple self-interest; that we focus on the coming losses of agricultural production, the droughts, the mass migrations and political instability that will follow rapid climate change. Political will might be better stiffened by listening to generals rather than to environmentalists. As a former head of the US Central Command, Anthony Zinni, explained, if we don't pay the price to reduce greenhouse gas emissions today, "we will pay the price later in military terms". Then we might turn again to the far north, not to worry about bears, but in fear of the Arctic's revenge (New Scientist, 28 March, p 32). For millions of years, the brilliant white ice around the North Pole has reflected the summer sunlight back into space, helping cool the planet. As the ice turns sea dark and soaks up the sun, global warming will really take off. Already the signs are there: in areas where the sea ice has gone, summer temperatures are between 3 ?C and 5 ?C higher than the average of the previous 20 years. As the differences in temperature between the Arctic and the equator lessen, the weather and rain patterns all over the northern hemisphere are altering. As the new Arctic sea heats up, a pool of warm air is spreading across the nearby lands. Shrubs and trees are creeping north across the tundra. Dark vegetation soaks up more heat and the warming gains pace. Methane is bubbling from tundra lakes and shallow shelf seas as the permafrost at their bottoms thaws and micro-organisms digest their c