From dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk Fri Jan 1 05:51:04 2010 From: dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk (robert searle) Date: Fri, 1 Jan 2010 12:51:04 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [GJM] Global Civilization... Message-ID: <784931.96149.qm@web27404.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> ? ? The following link for this New Year may be worth examining... ? ? http://www.global-civlization.com/ ? ? R.Searle -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk Sat Jan 2 03:13:15 2010 From: dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk (robert searle) Date: Sat, 2 Jan 2010 10:13:15 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [GJM] Chartalist Blogspot! Message-ID: <665901.30385.qm@web27401.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> ? Dear All, ? ??????????? This may be of interest. ? ? ????? http://chartal.blogspot.com/ ? ? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk Sat Jan 2 03:23:24 2010 From: dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk (robert searle) Date: Sat, 2 Jan 2010 10:23:24 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [GJM] Fw: chartalism.................... Message-ID: <340634.2091.qm@web27401.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> ??Dear All,? ? ? I first read about Chartalism from a paper by by Steve Keene a well-known critic of Neo-Classical Economics.. ? --- On Sat, 2/1/10, robert searle wrote: From: robert searle Subject: chartalism To: dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk Date: Saturday, 2 January, 2010, 10:20 ? ? Paper on Chartalism, additional know how into monetary theory. The Nature, Origins, and Role of Money: Broad and Specific Propositions and Their Implications for Policy by Pavlina R. Tcherneva http://www.cfeps.org/pubs/wp/wp46.htm pdf version here: http://www.cfeps.org/pubs/wp-pdf/WP46-Tcherneva.pdf -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk Sun Jan 3 09:09:13 2010 From: dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk (robert searle) Date: Sun, 3 Jan 2010 16:09:13 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [GJM] Good Simpol Vid... Message-ID: <944581.47392.qm@web27403.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> ? Dear all, ??????????The new updated Simpol website plus vid ? ???????? http://simpol.org.uk/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From maryrose333 at att.net Fri Jan 1 12:43:51 2010 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Fri, 1 Jan 2010 11:43:51 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: FW: [globalnetnews-summary] Are Presidents Afraid of the CIA? Message-ID: <00cb01ca8b1a$eb0eb2a0$c12c17e0$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS Oops. This does look as if Peter made the list, however, it was Mary Rose. And, I much agree with you Tom that it would be a good idea to refine the list and disseminate it widely. The best way would be to get it on the "TransitionUS" website which Les Squires moderates. If I'm not mistaken, Tom, you are a member of that list. I'm also a member of about 30 other Ning-based lists having to do with sustainable living and related issues. This is in addition to the 14- Ning-based Future Dawning virtual Learning Center that Les Squires helped me to put up about a year ago. The websites (thanks to Les) are linked together to make a campus composed of "Portals and Pathways" through which people can enter, according to their interests. The idea is for these people to "trans-form" themselves and move into a higher level of consciousness in order to address the multi-dimensional complexities of the world in which we live today. The goal is to bring 1 million of the most creative minds we can find together on this website as "Co-learners" to aid in addressing the "unprecedented-in- past- recorded- history" challenges the world faces today. The idea is to then link the people on the Future Dawning Learning Center & Think Tank website to live Earth-based communities worldwide into what we call: "community learning and information centers" where as "co-learners" using the community as the classroom, people learn through hands-on learning experiences how to transform their communities into re-localized "sustainable living communities" which serve as lifeboats for those who are quickly being disenfranchised from the corporate structure and for which there are no jobs as advances in technology quickly replace the need for human labor. As repeated previously, it now takes less than 30% of the presently available human labor force to produce all of the goods and services necessary for the 6.7 billion of us on the planet today. And as we move into bio-mimicry and nanotechnology, as we must do in order to conserve on ever scarcer growing resources, the number of people needed in the labor force will dwindle to about 3 - 4 percent. One of that facts that is undeniable here is that human hands are simply too large to handle ever smaller parts associated with nanotechnology. Another undeniable fact is that we cannot go on creating products and economies resting on "built-in" obsolescence as the means of creating ever more jobs. Products must be made to last. By the year 2030 we will need the equivalent of 1 more earth in order to meet the resource needs of today. As we know, this is an impossibility. This situation therefore demands a new economy which pays people to stay home. In his book: "The Third Wave," Alvin Toffler provides statistics showing that when everything is taken into consideration it would be cheaper to do this rather than to purchase the land, build the roads, streets, highways, and traffic control systems, transportation systems, schools, offices, industrial complexes, civic centers, shopping malls, etc., and maintain them as we do today. The most formidable challenge we face today is not energy, nor the monetary system, nor the Neo-cons, or the monetized political system, or the religious system - it is the state of the human psyche and the way we think as a collective consciousness. We are a very immature group of people, who as Daniel Quinn says in the video: "What a Way to Go," are essentially taking the building blocks out from under the basement of our house and trying to build a second story with them." In reality, we are totally insane. Here in the U.S., fully 26.2% of us are legally defined as mentally ill. Due to the way our school system is structured 75% of us are "left-brain oriented" and therefore unable to grasp the whole big picture. With only 0.05% of the world's population, we use 25% of the world's resources, and use 40% of the world's illegal drug production. And goodness knows what % of the world's legal mind-altering drug production, however the recent "Shoveling Up II Report" conducted by Columbia University reveals that "legally-produced chemical drugs are far more of a problem than are illegal drugs." So, what we need to do is to "transform the collective consciousness" so that we are thinking on a different and more mature level - one that is "life-enhancing." More on this later. Happy New Year everyone. From: Thomas Greco [mailto:thg at mindspring.com] Sent: Wednesday, December 30, 2009 8:02 PM To: FixGov at yahoogroups.com; 'Discussion Forum for Global Justice'; mary rose Cc: Peter Van Zant Subject: Re: FW: [globalnetnews-summary] Are Presidents Afraid of the CIA? Peter, That's all good advice. Maybe a small group should collaborate in refining that list and distributing it widely. It might be in two parts, a short general list, plus a longer list with more detailed guidance about each point in the short list. Thomas ----- Original Message ----- From: mary rose To: 'Discussion Forum for Global Justice' ; FixGov at yahoogroups.com Sent: Wednesday, December 30, 2009 06:33 PM Subject: FW: FW: [globalnetnews-summary] Are Presidents Afraid of the CIA? Trading Post Paul also wrote in regard to this message: "Right on target." More below Peter's message. From: krunkles at aol.com [mailto:krunkles at aol.com] Sent: Wednesday, December 30, 2009 2:43 PM To: maryrose333 at att.net Subject: Re: FW: [globalnetnews-summary] Are Presidents Afraid of the CIA? I totally agree with you. I was always of the opinion that G. W. Bush was just a puppet; in fact, so have all of them in recent history except, possibly, Nixon. Nixon was somewhat in charge, although certainly not totally. The System is much bigger than any one person. Given that the above is true, what do we do? I used to be much more sure that I had ideas than I am now. Peter Van Zant The things that come to mind for me as to what we can do are: 1. Take our money out of the larger banks and put them in the smaller commercial ones. 2. Re-localize our communities and make them self-sustaining - buying locally and as Thomas Greco suggests: "monetize the value added by local producers within credit clearing associations or jointly issued local currencies." 3. Grow our own food locally and organically, and wherever possible begin agro-forestry projects like Gaviotas which reforest our lands worldwide and act as carbon sinks. We must begin to eat lower on the food chain, eliminating beef and other meats from our diet along with raising large fields of grains, etc. As I've written previously, we need to begin getting the most nutrition we can out of what we raise, and we need to do it in a smaller space. Land reform is a must as jobs disappear - we must provide land for people for subsistence gardening, and if we do this well, we will be able to subsist with the "kitchen gardens" I have outlined previously by raising the most nutritious foods possible. 4. Begin to raise hemp on a mass scale in order to have material for production of necessities. Watched a video the other day with a small car in it that was made almost completely from hemp. The rotors for the wheels were made from cashews. Lexus is now using hemp to manufacture their dashboards. Hemp bale can be used to build straw bale structures, and I noted that they were monitoring these to see how high of a wind they could withstand - don't remember the MPH but it was a pretty heft blow. We need to replace the oil used in products with an equivalent material and hemp seems to be the winner. 5. Begin to mine waste dumps. 6. Start employee-owned businesses based on the Mondragon model in Spain 7. Prepare for global climate change by being ready to migrate if necessary. 8. Scale down our lifestyles dramatically and learn to get by with necessities and exclude luxury items. This means being very selective about what we purchase. 9. Each community needs to think about an energy plan that suits their needs best. Everyone needs to begin thinking about how to use passive solar to their best advantage. Solar and wind energy need to be the next consideration, but if we are to use photovoltaic cells, they need to be made from the thinnest material possible and although I have not looked into this recently, do know that solar paints could be made available along with other roll on materials that do the same job as larger photovoltaic panels. Jim Bell may have more information on this. The new capacitor batteries that Vern Woolf has are certainly going to change the way we store energy, so this is going to make a mega difference in how we think about using energy. 10. Using the power of our mind through meditation and sending positive energy into highly populated regions is proving effective, so we need to think about doing more of this in creating coherence patterns. 11. We also need to clean up and revitalize the ocean - getting rid of the 146 dead spots around the world. 12. The elite seem to manipulate us by keeping money scarce - so, what we need to do is to learn how to do things without money, or at least a lot of money. Some of you will recall the story about Nanci Heartland who works with a tribe in a valley in Africa. When they needed water piped from a good distance away from the village and that women carried on their heads each day, she first got an estimate from a company. The price came back at about $1 million. So, then she set about getting plastic piping donated and the tribe members did the work of installing it from the water source to the village, and in one day. Then she also got ceramic water filters donated and the small hospital there had clean water for the first time along with the villagers. Of course one couldn't get away with this in the U.S., because everything has to be "to code." But, in many instances, "codes" have been instituted in order to keep the high price of real estate up, but now that real estate prices are bottoming out and it looks like markets are not coming back again anytime soon, we need to think in more practical terms rather than money being the determinate force above all else. This is just a very short list, and there is much more. I am thinking in terms of coffee and other products that are destructive to the environment and the associated costs that if incorporated into the retail price would make the price prohibitive to all but the most affluent among us. Who else has some ideas we can include here? In a message dated 12/30/2009 2:34:49 P.M. Pacific Standard Time, maryrose333 at att.net writes: My personal opinion is that President Obama's heart is in the right place, but he is not and never has been in control. It is the "unelected" who control the world's money supply who hold the reins. Obama, like Clinton before him is just a puppet, and even though they had more "say-so" so were Bush and Cheney. -----Original Message----- From: globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net [mailto:globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net] On Behalf Of TradingPostPaul Sent: Wednesday, December 30, 2009 10:49 AM To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] Are Presidents Afraid of the CIA? Not Just Paranoia Are Presidents Afraid of the CIA? http://www.counterpunch.org/mcgovern12302009.html By RAY McGOVERN December 30, 2009 In the past I have alluded to Panetta and the Seven Dwarfs. The reference is to CIA Director Leon Panetta and seven of his moral-dwarf predecessors - the ones who sent President Barack Obama a letter on Sept. 18 asking him to "reverse Attorney General Holder's August 24 decision to re-open the criminal investigation of CIA interrogations." Panetta reportedly was also dead set against reopening the investigation-as he was against release of the Justice Department's "torture memoranda" of 2002, as he has been against releasing pretty much anything at all-the President's pledges of a new era of openness, notwithstanding. Panetta is even older than I, and I am aware that hearing is among the first faculties to fail. Perhaps he heard "error" when the President said "era." As for the benighted seven, they are more to be pitied than scorned. No longer able to avail themselves of the services of clever Agency lawyers and wordsmiths, they put their names to a letter that reeked of self-interest-not to mention the inappropriateness of asking a President to interfere with an investigation already ordered by the Attorney General. Three of the seven-George Tenet, Porter Goss, and Michael Hayden-were themselves involved, in one way or another, in planning, conducting, or covering up all manner of illegal actions, including torture, assassination, and illegal eavesdropping. In this light, the most transparent part of the letter may be the sentence in which they worry: "There is no reason to expect that the re-opened criminal investigation will remain narrowly focused." When asked about the letter on the Sunday TV talk shows on Sept. 20, Obama was careful always to respond first by expressing obligatory "respect" for the CIA and its directors. With Bob Schieffer on Face the Nation, though, Obama did allow himself a condescending quip. He commented, "I appreciate the former CIA directors wanting to look out for an institution that they helped to build." That quip was, sadly, the exception to the rule. While Obama keeps repeating the mantra that "nobody is above the law," there is no real sign that he intends to face down Panetta and the Seven Dwarfs-no sign that anyone has breathed new life into federal prosecutor John Durham, to whom Holder gave the mandate for further "preliminary investigation." What is generally forgotten is that it was former Attorney General Michael Mukasey who picked Durham two years ago to investigate CIA's destruction of 91 tapes of the interrogation of "high-value detainees." Durham had scarcely been heard from when Holder added to Durham's job-jar the task of conducting a preliminary investigation regarding the CIA torture specialists. These are the ones whose zeal led them to go beyond the already highly permissive Department of Justice guidelines for "harsh interrogation." Durham, clearly, is proceeding with all deliberate speed (emphasis on "deliberate"). Someone has even suggested-I trust, in jest-that he has been diverted to the search for the money and other assets that Bernie Maddow stashed away. In any case, do not hold your breath for findings from Durham anytime soon. Holder appears in no hurry. And President Obama keeps giving off signals that he is afraid of getting crosswise with the CIA-that's right, afraid. Not Just Paranoia In that fear, President Obama stands in the tradition of a dozen American presidents. Harry Truman and John Kennedy were the only ones to take on the CIA directly. Worst of all, evidence continues to build that the CIA was responsible, at least in part, for the assassination of President Kennedy. Evidence new to me came in response to things I included in my article of Dec. 22, "Break the CIA in Two." What follows can be considered a sequel that is based on the kind of documentary evidence after which intelligence analysts positively lust. Unfortunately for the CIA operatives who were involved in the past activities outlined below, the temptation to ask Panetta to put a SECRET stamp on the documentary evidence will not work. Nothing short of torching the Truman Library might conceivably help. But even that would be a largely feckless "covert action," copy machines having long since done their thing. In my article of Dec. 22, I referred to Harry Truman's op-ed of exactly 46 years before, titled "Limit CIA Role to Intelligence," in which the former President expressed dismay at what the Central Intelligence Agency had become just 16 years after he and Congress created it. The Washington Post published the op-ed on December 22, 1963 in its early edition, but immediately excised it from later editions. Other media ignored it. The long hand of the CIA? Truman wrote that he was "disturbed by the way CIA has been diverted from its original assignment" to keep the President promptly and fully informed and had become "an operational and at times policy-making arm of the government." The Truman Papers Documents in the Truman Library show that nine days after Kennedy was assassinated, Truman sketched out in handwritten notes what he wanted to say in the op-ed. He noted, among other things, that the CIA had worked as he intended only "when I had control." In Truman's view, misuse of the CIA began in February 1953, when his successor, Dwight Eisenhower, named Allen Dulles CIA Director. Dulles' forte was overthrowing governments (in current parlance, "regime change"), and he was quite good at it. With coups in Iran (1953) and Guatemala (1954) under his belt, Dulles was riding high in the late Fifties and moved Cuba to the top of his to-do list. Accustomed to the carte blanche given him by Eisenhower, Dulles was offended when young President Kennedy came on the scene and had the temerity to ask questions about the Bay of Pigs adventure, which had been set in motion under Eisenhower. When Kennedy made it clear he would NOT approve the use of U.S. combat forces, Dulles reacted with disdain and set out to mousetrap the new President. Coffee-stained notes handwritten by Allen Dulles were discovered after his death and reported by historian Lucien S. Vandenbroucke. They show how Dulles drew Kennedy into a plan that was virtually certain to require the use of U.S. combat forces. In his notes Dulles explains that, "when the chips were down," the new President would be forced by "the realities of the situation" to give whatever military support was necessary "rather than permit the enterprise to fail." Additional detail came from a March 2001 conference on the Bay of Pigs, which included CIA operatives, retired military commanders, scholars, and journalists. Daniel Schorr told National Public Radio that he had gained one new perception as a result of the "many hours of talk and heaps of declassified secret documents:" "It was that the CIA overlords of the invasion, Director Allen Dulles and Deputy Richard Bissell had their own plan on how to bring the United States into the conflict.What they expected was that the invaders would establish a beachhead.and appeal for aid from the United States. "The assumption was that President Kennedy, who had emphatically banned direct American involvement, would be forced by public opinion to come to the aid of the returning patriots. American forces, probably Marines, would come in to expand the beachhead. "In fact, President Kennedy was the target of a CIA covert operation that collapsed when the invasion collapsed," added Schorr. The "enterprise" which Dulles said could not fail was, of course, the overthrow of Fidel Castro. After mounting several failed operations to assassinate him, this time Dulles meant to get his man, with little or no attention to what the Russians might do in reaction. Kennedy stuck to his guns, so to speak; fired Dulles and his co-conspirators a few months after the abortive invasion in April 1961; and told a friend that he wanted to "splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it into the winds." The outrage was mutual, and when Kennedy himself was assassinated on November 22, 1963, it must have occurred to Truman that the disgraced Dulles and his outraged associates might not be above conspiring to get rid of a President they felt was soft on Communism-and, incidentally, get even. In his op-ed of December 22, 1963 Truman warned: "The most important thing.was to guard against the chance of intelligence being used to influence or to lead the President into unwise decisions." It is a safe bet that Truman had the Bay of Pigs fiasco uppermost in mind. Truman called outright for CIA's operational duties [to] be terminated or properly used elsewhere." (This is as good a recommendation now as it was then, in my view.) On December 27, retired Admiral Sidney Souers, whom Truman had appointed to lead his first central intelligence group, sent a "Dear Boss" letter applauding Truman's outspokenness and blaming Dulles for making the CIA "a different animal than I tried to set up for you." Souers specifically lambasted the attempt "to conduct a 'war' invading Cuba with a handful of men and without air cover." Souers also lamented the fact that the agency's "principal effort" had evolved into causing "revolutions in smaller countries around the globe," and added: With so much emphasis on operations, it would not surprise me to find that the matter of collecting and processing intelligence has suffered some." Clearly, CIA's operational tail was wagging the substantive dog-a serious problem that persists to this day. For example, CIA analysts are super-busy supporting operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan; no one seems to have told them that they need to hazard a guess as to where this is all leading and whether it makes any sense. That is traditionally done in a National Intelligence Estimate. Can you believe there at this late date there is still no such Estimate? Instead, the President has chosen to rely on he advice of Gen. David Petraeus, who many believe will be Obama's opponent in the 2012 presidential election. Fox Guarding Henhouse? In any case, the well-connected Dulles got himself appointed to the Warren Commission and took the lead in shaping the investigation of JFK's assassination. Documents in the Truman Library show that he then mounted a targeted domestic covert action of his own to neutralize any future airing of Truman's and Souers' warnings about covert action. So important was this to Dulles that he invented a pretext to get himself invited to visit Truman in Independence, Missouri. On the afternoon of April 17, 1964 he spent a half-hour trying to get the former President to retract what he had said in his op-ed. No dice, said Truman. No problem, thought Dulles. Four days later, in a formal memo for his old buddy Lawrence Houston, CIA General Counsel from 1947 to 1973, Dulles fabricated a private retraction, claiming that Truman told him the Washington Post article was "all wrong," and that Truman "seemed quite astounded at it." No doubt Dulles thought it might be handy to have such a memo in CIA files, just in case. A fabricated retraction? It certainly seems so, because Truman did not change his tune. Far from it. In a June 10, 1964 letter to the managing editor of Look magazine, for example, Truman restated his critique of covert action, emphasizing that he never intended the CIA to get involved in "strange activities." Dulles and Dallas Dulles could hardly have expected to get Truman to recant publicly. So why was it so important for Dulles to place in CIA files a fabricated retraction. My guess is that in early 1964 he was feeling a good bit of heat from those suggesting the CIA might have been involved somehow in the Kennedy assassination. Indeed, one or two not-yet-intimidated columnists were daring to ask how the truth could ever come out with Allen Dulles on the Warren Commission. Prescient. Dulles feared, rightly, that Truman's limited-edition op-ed might yet get some ink, and perhaps even airtime, and raise serious questions about covert action. Dulles would have wanted to be in position to flash the Truman "retraction," with the hope that this would nip any serious questioning in the bud. The media had already shown how co-opted-er, I mean "cooperative"-it could be. As the de facto head of the Warren Commission, Dulles was perfectly positioned to exculpate himself and any of his associates, were any commissioners or investigators-or journalists-tempted to question whether the killing in Dallas might have been a CIA covert action. Did Allen Dulles and other "cloak-and-dagger" CIA operatives have a hand in killing President Kennedy and then covering it up? The most up-to-date-and, in my view, the best-dissection of the assassination appeared last year in James Douglass' book, JFK and the Unspeakable. After updating and arraying the abundant evidence, and conducting still more interviews, Douglass concludes the answer is Yes. Ray McGovern was an Army officer and CIA analyst for almost 30 year. He now serves on the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. He is a contributor to Imperial Crusades: Iraq, Afghanistan and Yugoslavia, edited by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair (Verso). He can be reached at: rrmcgovern at aol.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From maryrose333 at att.net Fri Jan 1 13:01:05 2010 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Fri, 1 Jan 2010 12:01:05 -0800 Subject: [GJM] Let Food Be Thy Medicine: Message-ID: <00d901ca8b1d$4f0e2540$ed2a6fc0$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS Let Food Be Thy Medicine: Top 10 Healing Foods Of The Decade Dr. Patricia Fitzgerald Wellness Editor, Licensed Acupuncturist, Cert. Clinical Nutritionist, Homeopath, Author Posted: December 30, 2009 09:01 AM The healing properties of food have been reported by cultures worldwide throughout history. However, the past decade has presented an explosion of clinical research to show specifically what health benefits individual foods can offer, identifying the various nutrients and phytochemicals associated with these benefits. Many fruits, vegetables, and unprocessed whole foods have properties that can benefit our health. Studies in the past decade have taken nutritional research beyond protein, carbohydrates, fats, vitamins and minerals. Chemicals in the plants called phytochemicals have been a specific focus in the past decade, offering benefits such as cancer prevention, cholesterol reduction, and hormone regulation, to name a few. There is truly a cornucopia of nutritional benefits that have been discovered. Here are a few "superfoods" that have received a lot of press in the past decade for their research-supported health benefits: See all 10 foods: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-patricia-fitzgerald/let-food-be-thy-medicin 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 Fri Jan 1 18:43:37 2010 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Fri, 1 Jan 2010 17:43:37 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: Foresight Network Newsletter - January 1st 2010 Message-ID: <000001ca8b4d$2a44b910$7ece2b30$@net> Sharing the Foresight Network Newsletter with you. From: The Foresight Network [mailto:mail at shapingtomorrowmain.ning.com] Sent: Friday, January 01, 2010 2:22 AM To: maryrose333 at att.net Subject: Foresight Network Newsletter - January 1st 2010 The Foresight Network A message to all members of The Foresight Network A A very Happy New Year to all Foresight Network members. May 2010 and this new decade bring you all you seek. We will be doing our best to encourage positive future thinking and helping you all to deliver better foresight. Foresight Network review of the year We?ve posted a short note reviewing the Network?s progress during the year. See what?s been done on your behalf and at your request. Do please keep the ideas coming. We treat them all seriously and endeavour to implement as many as possible. Trends & Technology Timeline Shaping Tomorrow is working with NowandNext to publicise their unique Trends & Technology Timeline 2010. We are the first to do so. Now we, and Nowand Next, are asking for your help in improving it. Feel free to suggest improvements to the content, design and structure. We are also looking for a volunteer to turn the timeline into a clickable flash version. Is that you? Please contact Richard Watson if interested. Next Middle East/Asia Tour Next Foresight speaking tour - Jan 30th to Feb 19th: Dubai, Amman, Islamabad, Delhi, Chennai, Colombo, Maldives. Interested in meeting up with ST Chairman - Mike Jackson during the tour? Mailto mike.jackson at shapingtomorrow.com . Invite a friend Please help us make 2010 a banner year for membership growth of the Foresight Network. You can easily invite your asso ciates individiually ot en-massehere . Your profile If you haven't done so recently why not improve your profile andadd a recent face picto make yourself more visible and appealing to other members here. You never know who might be interested in talking to you about new opportunities. Don't forget, first appearances count! You might find ourWelcome Noteshelpful to improve your profile and to maximise you use of the network too. 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 Fri Jan 1 18:48:44 2010 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Fri, 1 Jan 2010 17:48:44 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: FW: How to leave our children a future: (Was: Are Presidents Afraid of the CIA?) Message-ID: <000501ca8b4d$e99ccaf0$bcd660d0$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS Internationally-recognized Eco-designer Jim Bell adds some comments to our inquiry as to ?How do we handle this?? _____ From: Jim Bell [mailto:jimbellelsi at cox.net] Sent: Friday, January 01, 2010 12:29 PM To: 'mary rose'; 'Discussion Forum for Global Justice'; 'FixGov at yahoogroups.com' Subject: RE: FW: [globalnetnews-summary] Are Presidents Afraid of the CIA? Hi Mary and all, You may have seen this before but it adds some things to Mary?s list. It is also my attempt to summarize what we must do if our goal is to leave our children and future generations a happy, healthy, prosperous and completely life-supporting sustaining world. Jim The least we must do A Jim Bell & Common Sense Commentary ? www.jimbell.com It?s as simple as this, all of us, just doing what we do, are destroying our planet?s life- support system. To be more correct, it?s not so much about what we are doing, but about how we now do it. Just to survive, we need water and food. We also need energy to live contemporary lives. The problem is that the way we now get energy, water and food and most everything else, is eroding the possibility of having a secure supply of energy, water and food and the things of modern life, in the future. What should we do? The answer is to develop ways to live and make livings that are life-support sustaining, ways that heal and nourish each other and our planet?s life-support system. This is the least we must do if we want to leave our descendents the birthright of a happy, healthy, prosperous, and completely life-support sustaining world. The first step toward achieving this goal is to become renewable energy self-sufficient. When a home, community, city, county, region, state or country controls its energy supply and price, it controls its economy, its ways of life, and most everything else -- no matter what happens to the price and supply of energy on global and national markets. Because solar energy in its various forms is free and even delivered free, there is no cost for fuel to benefit from it. The technologies to save energy and produce what we can?t save do have a cost. But given that our inventors/developers are still getting better at saving energy and converting various forms of solar energy into electricity, the price of efficiency improvements and renewably generated electricity will continue to fall. Every level of becoming renewable energy self-sufficient creates opportunities. In San Diego County, where I live, there is an abundance of direct sunlight. Additionally, the county has substantial wind, biomass, ocean current, wave and tidal energy from which electricity can be produced. But, even if direct sunlight was its only resource, and assuming 40 kWh of electricity, natural gas and transportation fuels are consumed directly or indirectly per capita per day, San Diego County could become renewable energy self-sufficient by increasing energy use efficiency by 40% and covering 43% of its roofs and parking lots with 15% efficient PV panels. Economically, becoming renewable energy self-sufficient will increase countywide economic activity by over $175 billion over a forty year implementation period and create over 1 million job-years of employment in the process. What about cost? Actually, becoming renewable energy self-sufficient will cost less than continuing our dependences on imported energy -- especially if we make the transformation with a little intelligence and grace. Assuming an average cost of 10 cents per kWh over 40 years, making San Diego County renewable electricity self-sufficient alone would save the county $24 billion.* Since electricity makes up around 40% of the energy the average person uses per day, it follows that a renewably energy self-sufficient San Diego County would save around $60 billion over a 40 year transition period to renewable energy self-sufficiency. Additionally, the higher the cost that electricity rises above10 cent per kWh on the open market, the greater the County?s positive the cash-flow and resulting economic multiplier benefit will be. . * For details on this investment strategy, go to www.jimbell.com, click on ?Green Papers?. Although this paper focuses on renewable electricity self-sufficiency in San Diego County, the investment strategies it develops can be used to become renewable energy self-sufficient for gaseous and liquid fuels as well. Additionally, this strategy can work almost anywhere on our planet, modified for climate, renewable energy sources available and other local conditions. With modifications, it will also work for becoming water and food self-sufficient as well. Step two - become renewable water self-sufficient. Water is essential to life. It is essential to the water rich lifestyle most people in the developed world already have and that people in the developing world would like to have. Using San Diego County as an example, increasing the coverage of its roofs and parking lots with 15% efficient PV panels by another 5%, or from 43% to 48%, will allow it to become renewable energy and water self-sufficient. The addition electricity will power reverse osmosis (RO) pumps to force saltwater against membranes that let freshwater through, but block salt, other minerals and most pollutants. Assuming the worst case scenario of zero rainfall and zero imported water, five percent coverage of San Diego County?s roofs and parking lots with 15% efficient PV panels would make enough electricity to produce 776,000 acre ft. of water each year. San Diego County now uses around 600,000 acre ft. of water each year. By installing PV panels over 8% of its roofs and parking lots, San Diego County could become a substantial water exporter. Sea life will be protected from RO processing by extracting saltwater to be used through sand filtration as in extracting saltwater from coastal wells and through sea bottom sand filtration. Wastewater or brine left over from the RO process will be evaporated in shallow open ponds so salt and other minerals left behind can be mined. If any RO wastewater is returned to the sea, it would have to be diluted by sand filtered salt water to be less than 20% saltier than is natural seawater. As a further precaution, it would be released into the ocean diffusely. Step three ? become renewable food self-sufficient. With renewable energy and water self-sufficiency, comes the ability to become renewable food self-sufficient. It also allows for the growth of a great deal of the fiber and lumber. To make this real, it is essential that we protect our agricultural soils from development and other misuses. My research indicates that we still have enough agricultural soil in the world to feed everyone a nutritious diet of tasty food with lots of variety. With renewable energy powered RO, this is still true for San Diego County. Unfortunately, neither of these statements will be true for long, if we do not protect and preserve our best agricultural soils for life-support sustaining agriculture. Step four ? make a personal decision to be the parent of no more than two children unless your child dies before reproducing themselves. If the world?s population dropped 1% per year, in 100 years it would be down to around 2.5 billion, the world?s population in the early 1950s. With a population drop of ?% per year, this would take 200 years. Step five ? develop a Space Debris Detection and Defense System. We are the first generations of people who have the technology to locate any earth orbit crossing space objects we might be threatened by. We also have the technology to nudge objects large enough to cause serious life-support harm if they collide with us, into earth safe orbits. We can even capture such objects in moon and earth orbits for scientific study and to mine for valuable minerals. As I said before, if we want to leave the birthright of a happy, healthy, prosperous life-supporting sustaining future to our young and future generations, these 5 steps are the minimum we must do, and the sooner the better. We?ve come so far, so why blow it now. We know what to do, some of us know how to do it. The rest of us can learn. If the living generations, over the next 60 years or so, develop life-support sustaining economies and ways of life planet wide, there is little to stop us from colonizing space in our own galaxy and beyond. If we don?t develop a supporting (symbiotic) relationship with our planet?s life-support system soon, we will follow the footsteps of the great civilizations of the past that utterly failed at the height of their greatest achievements because their civilizations had feet of clay. This is because they were based on the exploitation of others and the unsustainable use of the life-support system upon which their civilization rested. _____ From: mary rose [mailto:maryrose333 at att.net] Sent: Friday, January 01, 2010 11:44 AM To: 'Discussion Forum for Global Justice'; FixGov at yahoogroups.com Subject: FW: FW: [globalnetnews-summary] Are Presidents Afraid of the CIA? Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS Oops. This does look as if Peter made the list, however, it was Mary Rose. And, I much agree with you Tom that it would be a good idea to refine the list and disseminate it widely. The best way would be to get it on the ?TransitionUS? website which Les Squires moderates. If I?m not mistaken, Tom, you are a member of that list. I?m also a member of about 30 other Ning-based lists having to do with sustainable living and related issues. This is in addition to the 14- Ning-based Future Dawning virtual Learning Center that Les Squires helped me to put up about a year ago. The websites (thanks to Les) are linked together to make a campus composed of ?Portals and Pathways? through which people can enter, according to their interests. The idea is for these people to ?trans-form? themselves and move into a higher level of consciousness in order to address the multi-dimensional complexities of the world in which we live today. The goal is to bring 1 million of the most creative minds we can find together on this website as ?Co-learners? to aid in addressing the ?unprecedented-in- past- recorded- history? challenges the world faces today. The idea is to then link the people on the Future Dawning Learning Center & Think Tank website to live Earth-based communities worldwide into what we call: ?community learning and information centers? where as ?co-learners? using the community as the classroom, people learn through hands-on learning experiences how to transform their communities into re-localized ?sustainable living communities? which serve as lifeboats for those who are quickly being disenfranchised from the corporate structure and for which there are no jobs as advances in technology quickly replace the need for human labor. As repeated previously, it now takes less than 30% of the presently available human labor force to produce all of the goods and services necessary for the 6.7 billion of us on the planet today. And as we move into bio-mimicry and nanotechnology, as we must do in order to conserve on ever scarcer growing resources, the number of people needed in the labor force will dwindle to about 3 ? 4 percent. One of that facts that is undeniable here is that human hands are simply too large to handle ever smaller parts associated with nanotechnology. Another undeniable fact is that we cannot go on creating products and economies resting on ?built-in? obsolescence as the means of creating ever more jobs. Products must be made to last. By the year 2030 we will need the equivalent of 1 more earth in order to meet the resource needs of today. As we know, this is an impossibility. This situation therefore demands a new economy which pays people to stay home. In his book: ?The Third Wave,? Alvin Toffler provides statistics showing that when everything is taken into consideration it would be cheaper to do this rather than to purchase the land, build the roads, streets, highways, and traffic control systems, transportation systems, schools, offices, industrial complexes, civic centers, shopping malls, etc., and maintain them as we do today. The most formidable challenge we face today is not energy, nor the monetary system, nor the Neo-cons, or the monetized political system, or the religious system ? it is the state of the human psyche and the way we think as a collective consciousness. We are a very immature group of people, who as Daniel Quinn says in the video: ?What a Way to Go,? are essentially taking the building blocks out from under the basement of our house and trying to build a second story with them.? In reality, we are totally insane. Here in the U.S., fully 26.2% of us are legally defined as mentally ill. Due to the way our school system is structured 75% of us are ?left-brain oriented? and therefore unable to grasp the whole big picture. With only 0.05% of the world?s population, we use 25% of the world?s resources, and use 40% of the world?s illegal drug production. And goodness knows what % of the world?s legal mind-altering drug production, however the recent ?Shoveling Up II Report? conducted by Columbia University reveals that ?legally-produced chemical drugs are far more of a problem than are illegal drugs.? So, what we need to do is to ?transform the collective consciousness? so that we are thinking on a different and more mature level ? one that is ?life-enhancing.? More on this later. Happy New Year everyone. From: Thomas Greco [mailto:thg at mindspring.com] Sent: Wednesday, December 30, 2009 8:02 PM To: FixGov at yahoogroups.com; 'Discussion Forum for Global Justice'; mary rose Cc: Peter Van Zant Subject: Re: FW: [globalnetnews-summary] Are Presidents Afraid of the CIA? Peter, That's all good advice. Maybe a small group should collaborate in refining that list and distributing it widely. It might be in two parts, a short general list, plus a longer list with more detailed guidance about each point in the short list. Thomas ----- Original Message ----- From: mary rose To: 'Discussion Forum for Global Justice' ; FixGov at yahoogroups.com Sent: Wednesday, December 30, 2009 06:33 PM Subject: FW: FW: [globalnetnews-summary] Are Presidents Afraid of the CIA? Trading Post Paul also wrote in regard to this message: ?Right on target.? More below Peter?s message. From: krunkles at aol.com [mailto:krunkles at aol.com] Sent: Wednesday, December 30, 2009 2:43 PM To: maryrose333 at att.net Subject: Re: FW: [globalnetnews-summary] Are Presidents Afraid of the CIA? I totally agree with you. I was always of the opinion that G. W. Bush was just a puppet; in fact, so have all of them in recent history except, possibly, Nixon. Nixon was somewhat in charge, although certainly not totally. The System is much bigger than any one person. Given that the above is true, what do we do? I used to be much more sure that I had ideas than I am now. Peter Van Zant The things that come to mind for me as to what we can do are: 1. Take our money out of the larger banks and put them in the smaller commercial ones. 2. Re-localize our communities and make them self-sustaining ? buying locally and as Thomas Greco suggests: ?monetize the value added by local producers within credit clearing associations or jointly issued local currencies.? 3. Grow our own food locally and organically, and wherever possible begin agro-forestry projects like Gaviotas which reforest our lands worldwide and act as carbon sinks. We must begin to eat lower on the food chain, eliminating beef and other meats from our diet along with raising large fields of grains, etc. As I?ve written previously, we need to begin getting the most nutrition we can out of what we raise, and we need to do it in a smaller space. Land reform is a must as jobs disappear ? we must provide land for people for subsistence gardening, and if we do this well, we will be able to subsist with the ?kitchen gardens? I have outlined previously by raising the most nutritious foods possible. 4. Begin to raise hemp on a mass scale in order to have material for production of necessities. Watched a video the other day with a small car in it that was made almost completely from hemp. The rotors for the wheels were made from cashews. Lexus is now using hemp to manufacture their dashboards. Hemp bale can be used to build straw bale structures, and I noted that they were monitoring these to see how high of a wind they could withstand ? don?t remember the MPH but it was a pretty heft blow. We need to replace the oil used in products with an equivalent material and hemp seems to be the winner. 5. Begin to mine waste dumps. 6. Start employee-owned businesses based on the Mondragon model in Spain 7. Prepare for global climate change by being ready to migrate if necessary. 8. Scale down our lifestyles dramatically and learn to get by with necessities and exclude luxury items. This means being very selective about what we purchase. 9. Each community needs to think about an energy plan that suits their needs best. Everyone needs to begin thinking about how to use passive solar to their best advantage. Solar and wind energy need to be the next consideration, but if we are to use photovoltaic cells, they need to be made from the thinnest material possible and although I have not looked into this recently, do know that solar paints could be made available along with other roll on materials that do the same job as larger photovoltaic panels. Jim Bell may have more information on this. The new capacitor batteries that Vern Woolf has are certainly going to change the way we store energy, so this is going to make a mega difference in how we think about using energy. 10. Using the power of our mind through meditation and sending positive energy into highly populated regions is proving effective, so we need to think about doing more of this in creating coherence patterns. 11. We also need to clean up and revitalize the ocean ? getting rid of the 146 dead spots around the world. 12. The elite seem to manipulate us by keeping money scarce ? so, what we need to do is to learn how to do things without money, or at least a lot of money. Some of you will recall the story about Nanci Heartland who works with a tribe in a valley in Africa. When they needed water piped from a good distance away from the village and that women carried on their heads each day, she first got an estimate from a company. The price came back at about $1 million. So, then she set about getting plastic piping donated and the tribe members did the work of installing it from the water source to the village, and in one day. Then she also got ceramic water filters donated and the small hospital there had clean water for the first time along with the villagers. Of course one couldn?t get away with this in the U.S., because everything has to be ?to code.? But, in many instances, ?codes? have been instituted in order to keep the high price of real estate up, but now that real estate prices are bottoming out and it looks like markets are not coming back again anytime soon, we need to think in more practical terms rather than money being the determinate force above all else. This is just a very short list, and there is much more. I am thinking in terms of coffee and other products that are destructive to the environment and the associated costs that if incorporated into the retail price would make the price prohibitive to all but the most affluent among us. Who else has some ideas we can include here? In a message dated 12/30/2009 2:34:49 P.M. Pacific Standard Time, maryrose333 at att.net writes: My personal opinion is that President Obama's heart is in the right place, but he is not and never has been in control. It is the "unelected" who control the world's money supply who hold the reins. Obama, like Clinton before him is just a puppet, and even though they had more "say-so" so were Bush and Cheney. -----Original Message----- From: globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net [mailto:globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net] On Behalf Of TradingPostPaul Sent: Wednesday, December 30, 2009 10:49 AM To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] Are Presidents Afraid of the CIA? Not Just Paranoia Are Presidents Afraid of the CIA? http://www.counterpunch.org/mcgovern12302009.html By RAY McGOVERN December 30, 2009 In the past I have alluded to Panetta and the Seven Dwarfs. The reference is to CIA Director Leon Panetta and seven of his moral-dwarf predecessors - the ones who sent President Barack Obama a letter on Sept. 18 asking him to "reverse Attorney General Holder's August 24 decision to re-open the criminal investigation of CIA interrogations." Panetta reportedly was also dead set against reopening the investigation-as he was against release of the Justice Department's "torture memoranda" of 2002, as he has been against releasing pretty much anything at all-the President's pledges of a new era of openness, notwithstanding. Panetta is even older than I, and I am aware that hearing is among the first faculties to fail. Perhaps he heard "error" when the President said "era." As for the benighted seven, they are more to be pitied than scorned. No longer able to avail themselves of the services of clever Agency lawyers and wordsmiths, they put their names to a letter that reeked of self-interest-not to mention the inappropriateness of asking a President to interfere with an investigation already ordered by the Attorney General. Three of the seven-George Tenet, Porter Goss, and Michael Hayden-were themselves involved, in one way or another, in planning, conducting, or covering up all manner of illegal actions, including torture, assassination, and illegal eavesdropping. In this light, the most transparent part of the letter may be the sentence in which they worry: "There is no reason to expect that the re-opened criminal investigation will remain narrowly focused." When asked about the letter on the Sunday TV talk shows on Sept. 20, Obama was careful always to respond first by expressing obligatory "respect" for the CIA and its directors. With Bob Schieffer on Face the Nation, though, Obama did allow himself a condescending quip. He commented, "I appreciate the former CIA directors wanting to look out for an institution that they helped to build." That quip was, sadly, the exception to the rule. While Obama keeps repeating the mantra that "nobody is above the law," there is no real sign that he intends to face down Panetta and the Seven Dwarfs-no sign that anyone has breathed new life into federal prosecutor John Durham, to whom Holder gave the mandate for further "preliminary investigation." What is generally forgotten is that it was former Attorney General Michael Mukasey who picked Durham two years ago to investigate CIA's destruction of 91 tapes of the interrogation of "high-value detainees." Durham had scarcely been heard from when Holder added to Durham's job-jar the task of conducting a preliminary investigation regarding the CIA torture specialists. These are the ones whose zeal led them to go beyond the already highly permissive Department of Justice guidelines for "harsh interrogation." Durham, clearly, is proceeding with all deliberate speed (emphasis on "deliberate"). Someone has even suggested-I trust, in jest-that he has been diverted to the search for the money and other assets that Bernie Maddow stashed away. In any case, do not hold your breath for findings from Durham anytime soon. Holder appears in no hurry. And President Obama keeps giving off signals that he is afraid of getting crosswise with the CIA-that's right, afraid. Not Just Paranoia In that fear, President Obama stands in the tradition of a dozen American presidents. Harry Truman and John Kennedy were the only ones to take on the CIA directly. Worst of all, evidence continues to build that the CIA was responsible, at least in part, for the assassination of President Kennedy. Evidence new to me came in response to things I included in my article of Dec. 22, "Break the CIA in Two." What follows can be considered a sequel that is based on the kind of documentary evidence after which intelligence analysts positively lust. Unfortunately for the CIA operatives who were involved in the past activities outlined below, the temptation to ask Panetta to put a SECRET stamp on the documentary evidence will not work. Nothing short of torching the Truman Library might conceivably help. But even that would be a largely feckless "covert action," copy machines having long since done their thing. In my article of Dec. 22, I referred to Harry Truman's op-ed of exactly 46 years before, titled "Limit CIA Role to Intelligence," in which the former President expressed dismay at what the Central Intelligence Agency had become just 16 years after he and Congress created it. The Washington Post published the op-ed on December 22, 1963 in its early edition, but immediately excised it from later editions. Other media ignored it. The long hand of the CIA? Truman wrote that he was "disturbed by the way CIA has been diverted from its original assignment" to keep the President promptly and fully informed and had become "an operational and at times policy-making arm of the government." The Truman Papers Documents in the Truman Library show that nine days after Kennedy was assassinated, Truman sketched out in handwritten notes what he wanted to say in the op-ed. He noted, among other things, that the CIA had worked as he intended only "when I had control." In Truman's view, misuse of the CIA began in February 1953, when his successor, Dwight Eisenhower, named Allen Dulles CIA Director. Dulles' forte was overthrowing governments (in current parlance, "regime change"), and he was quite good at it. With coups in Iran (1953) and Guatemala (1954) under his belt, Dulles was riding high in the late Fifties and moved Cuba to the top of his to-do list. Accustomed to the carte blanche given him by Eisenhower, Dulles was offended when young President Kennedy came on the scene and had the temerity to ask questions about the Bay of Pigs adventure, which had been set in motion under Eisenhower. When Kennedy made it clear he would NOT approve the use of U.S. combat forces, Dulles reacted with disdain and set out to mousetrap the new President. Coffee-stained notes handwritten by Allen Dulles were discovered after his death and reported by historian Lucien S. Vandenbroucke. They show how Dulles drew Kennedy into a plan that was virtually certain to require the use of U.S. combat forces. In his notes Dulles explains that, "when the chips were down," the new President would be forced by "the realities of the situation" to give whatever military support was necessary "rather than permit the enterprise to fail." Additional detail came from a March 2001 conference on the Bay of Pigs, which included CIA operatives, retired military commanders, scholars, and journalists. Daniel Schorr told National Public Radio that he had gained one new perception as a result of the "many hours of talk and heaps of declassified secret documents:" "It was that the CIA overlords of the invasion, Director Allen Dulles and Deputy Richard Bissell had their own plan on how to bring the United States into the conflict.What they expected was that the invaders would establish a beachhead.and appeal for aid from the United States. "The assumption was that President Kennedy, who had emphatically banned direct American involvement, would be forced by public opinion to come to the aid of the returning patriots. American forces, probably Marines, would come in to expand the beachhead. "In fact, President Kennedy was the target of a CIA covert operation that collapsed when the invasion collapsed," added Schorr. The "enterprise" which Dulles said could not fail was, of course, the overthrow of Fidel Castro. After mounting several failed operations to assassinate him, this time Dulles meant to get his man, with little or no attention to what the Russians might do in reaction. Kennedy stuck to his guns, so to speak; fired Dulles and his co-conspirators a few months after the abortive invasion in April 1961; and told a friend that he wanted to "splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it into the winds." The outrage was mutual, and when Kennedy himself was assassinated on November 22, 1963, it must have occurred to Truman that the disgraced Dulles and his outraged associates might not be above conspiring to get rid of a President they felt was soft on Communism-and, incidentally, get even. In his op-ed of December 22, 1963 Truman warned: "The most important thing.was to guard against the chance of intelligence being used to influence or to lead the President into unwise decisions." It is a safe bet that Truman had the Bay of Pigs fiasco uppermost in mind. Truman called outright for CIA's operational duties [to] be terminated or properly used elsewhere." (This is as good a recommendation now as it was then, in my view.) On December 27, retired Admiral Sidney Souers, whom Truman had appointed to lead his first central intelligence group, sent a "Dear Boss" letter applauding Truman's outspokenness and blaming Dulles for making the CIA "a different animal than I tried to set up for you." Souers specifically lambasted the attempt "to conduct a 'war' invading Cuba with a handful of men and without air cover." Souers also lamented the fact that the agency's "principal effort" had evolved into causing "revolutions in smaller countries around the globe," and added: With so much emphasis on operations, it would not surprise me to find that the matter of collecting and processing intelligence has suffered some." Clearly, CIA's operational tail was wagging the substantive dog-a serious problem that persists to this day. For example, CIA analysts are super-busy supporting operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan; no one seems to have told them that they need to hazard a guess as to where this is all leading and whether it makes any sense. That is traditionally done in a National Intelligence Estimate. Can you believe there at this late date there is still no such Estimate? Instead, the President has chosen to rely on he advice of Gen. David Petraeus, who many believe will be Obama's opponent in the 2012 presidential election. Fox Guarding Henhouse? In any case, the well-connected Dulles got himself appointed to the Warren Commission and took the lead in shaping the investigation of JFK's assassination. Documents in the Truman Library show that he then mounted a targeted domestic covert action of his own to neutralize any future airing of Truman's and Souers' warnings about covert action. So important was this to Dulles that he invented a pretext to get himself invited to visit Truman in Independence, Missouri. On the afternoon of April 17, 1964 he spent a half-hour trying to get the former President to retract what he had said in his op-ed. No dice, said Truman. No problem, thought Dulles. Four days later, in a formal memo for his old buddy Lawrence Houston, CIA General Counsel from 1947 to 1973, Dulles fabricated a private retraction, claiming that Truman told him the Washington Post article was "all wrong," and that Truman "seemed quite astounded at it." No doubt Dulles thought it might be handy to have such a memo in CIA files, just in case. A fabricated retraction? It certainly seems so, because Truman did not change his tune. Far from it. In a June 10, 1964 letter to the managing editor of Look magazine, for example, Truman restated his critique of covert action, emphasizing that he never intended the CIA to get involved in "strange activities." Dulles and Dallas Dulles could hardly have expected to get Truman to recant publicly. So why was it so important for Dulles to place in CIA files a fabricated retraction. My guess is that in early 1964 he was feeling a good bit of heat from those suggesting the CIA might have been involved somehow in the Kennedy assassination. Indeed, one or two not-yet-intimidated columnists were daring to ask how the truth could ever come out with Allen Dulles on the Warren Commission. Prescient. Dulles feared, rightly, that Truman's limited-edition op-ed might yet get some ink, and perhaps even airtime, and raise serious questions about covert action. Dulles would have wanted to be in position to flash the Truman "retraction," with the hope that this would nip any serious questioning in the bud. The media had already shown how co-opted-er, I mean "cooperative"-it could be. As the de facto head of the Warren Commission, Dulles was perfectly positioned to exculpate himself and any of his associates, were any commissioners or investigators-or journalists-tempted to question whether the killing in Dallas might have been a CIA covert action. Did Allen Dulles and other "cloak-and-dagger" CIA operatives have a hand in killing President Kennedy and then covering it up? The most up-to-date-and, in my view, the best-dissection of the assassination appeared last year in James Douglass' book, JFK and the Unspeakable. After updating and arraying the abundant evidence, and conducting still more interviews, Douglass concludes the answer is Yes. Ray McGovern was an Army officer and CIA analyst for almost 30 year. He now serves on the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. He is a contributor to Imperial Crusades: Iraq, Afghanistan and Yugoslavia, edited by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair (Verso). He can be reached at: rrmcgovern at aol.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From maryrose333 at att.net Fri Jan 1 19:27:12 2010 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Fri, 1 Jan 2010 18:27:12 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: Fwd: Video: PHI greeting for New Years!!!! Dr. Patrick Flanagan and Steph Sutton - Flanagan Message-ID: <002c01ca8b53$4586d090$d09471b0$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS OK everyone - here's a wonderful New Year's gift from Dr. Patrick Flanagan and Steph Sutton. Enjoy and pass it on - make it a symbol of 2010 as we begin our transformation in earnest. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Stephanie Sutton Date: Fri, Jan 1, 2010 at 4:28 PM Subject: Ok.... PHI greeting for New Years!!!! To: Stephanie Sutton Here's the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtX27XIXOAE -- >From the desk of mary rose dustysummerrose at gmail.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From maryrose333 at att.net Fri Jan 1 21:12:38 2010 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Fri, 1 Jan 2010 20:12:38 -0800 Subject: [GJM] Global OM Sensor V from Dr. Patrick Flanagan, et al Message-ID: <003a01ca8b61$fd322150$f79663f0$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS Perhaps I should call this: "Moving Into: TOTAL COHERENCE because this is what is happening here as you listen to the OM sound and watch the lights on the screen. The energy is pulling your body/mind field into a very high coherence pattern which takes one into another level of multi-dimensional consciousness as you watch and listen. Go to the link below to experience the Global OM Sensor V from Dr. Patrick Flanagan, et al. http://www.youtube.com/user/sacredmath#p/u/2/VLF0Vz2hEoc Thanks to Dr. Flanagan, Alex Theory and Arcane for creating this beautiful sensory experience. Note: The ancient Egyptians studied human consciousness for thousands of years and the knowledge they acquired was stored in the libraries of Egypt, but mainly at Alexandria. A historical overview is provided in "Egypt: Child of Atlantis - A Radical Interpretation of the Origins of Civilization" written by John Gordon. Gordon is a senior fellow at the Theosophical Society of England, where he lectures on ancient history and metaphysics. In this book, Gordon asserts that: "the civilization of Egypt is far older than is commonly believed and was structured around forms of cosmic knowledge that involved astronomical and geographical competence that modern society has yet to attain." It is now thought that the Pyramids are at least 50,000 years old and they served as landing guidelines for the spaceship which arrived here on Earth from the planet Nibiru. However, information contained in the Sumerian Tablets indicates that the Niburians landed here on Earth for the first time 432,000 years ago. John Anthony West, in a review of this book writes: "That an advanced Lost Civilization is part of our human heritage should now be self-evident," and that Gordon documents it from both "Theosophy and Hindu/Vedic accounts as he defends it with solid scholarship, reasoned argument, and a deep understanding of esoteric philosophy." The information provided by Gordon ties in nicely with that provided by Zechariah Sitchen in his Earth Chronicle books derived from his translations of the Sumerian Tablets found in and around what was formerly the City of Sumer in what is now called "Iraq". Dr. Flanagan has also written a book entitled "Pyramid Power" which details his extensive research on the pyramids over a period of several years. The book is out of print at the present time, and while there are a few "used" copies available, I do not have one of them at this time. Also for clarity, The "Hi Phi" was created by Stephanie Sutton as The spiritual alternative to Hi Five! Feel the Energy! Gift to all on New Years Eve 2009. 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 Sat Jan 2 12:54:18 2010 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Sat, 2 Jan 2010 11:54:18 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: 156 countries sing - Love Is All You Need! Message-ID: <003b01ca8be5$8b71e7b0$a255b710$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS Another marketing ploy by a company that is more interested in the bottom line than in health and wellness. Does anyone remember when Coca Cola used this same marketing technique with the popular Michael Jackson in the lead to sing "All You Need Is Love" backed up by people from around the world. Both the Coca Cola company and Starbucks have something in common - that is, they market products that have almost no nutritional value while growers rob the earth of nutrients in order to grow it. Even organically-grown coffer offers little to people other than the "kick" it gives one due to the caffeine contained in it. Coffee- growing uses up millions of acres of land worldwide in an effort to make money off of something that gives little to the human family in the way of sustenance, yet produces mega bucks for the larger growers while bankrupting the smaller farmers who have attempted to make a living from it. And there is the little known fact that sun grown coffee vs shade-grown is devastating to the migrant song bird population contributing much to the species loss of this time -- mainly due to the habits of the human population. May I suggest reading: THE COFFEE BOOK: Anatomy of an Industry FROM CROP TO THE LAST DROP. http://www.akpress.org/1999/items/coffeebook ITEM OVERVIEW What do you really know about our favorite drug? Favorite like 400 million cups per day consumed in the US alone? Here, in a quick 200 pages, is enough to wow the entire gang at your local java tank. The history of the bean, the creation of plantations, the current politics and economics of the brew, the rise of the gourmet bean, and the chain coffee emporia and conscious coffee. And of course, exactly how caffeine works its wonders on your frying brain. Now in a new, freshly updated edition. M. R. While the author of this book attempts to make coffee and coffee-growing a "conscious" endeavor through "Fair Trade" since they themselves are in the business, it is obvious that coffee has more to do with maintaining a "lifestyle" than with concern for either the health or wellness of the Planet Earth and those who live upon it. When will we wake up and "get it" as to what we are doing to not only the Earth, but to ourselves as the Earth serves as our life support system. Here again, Daniel Quinn's analogy that we are "taking the building blocks out from under the basement in order to build a second story" is appropriate. From: Rob McWayne [mailto:wrmcwayne at hotmail.com] Sent: Friday, January 01, 2010 9:13 PM Subject: 156 countries sing - Love Is All You Need! Had to be a pretty big editing challenge! But I think you'll love it! maybe these are some of the first sounds of our earthorganism as she/us/One finds a voice! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nh7D2g5v-Sg -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From maryrose333 at att.net Sat Jan 2 13:25:37 2010 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Sat, 2 Jan 2010 12:25:37 -0800 Subject: [GJM] The Northwest Flight 253 Intelligence Failure: Negligence Or Conspiracy? Message-ID: <004701ca8be9$eba85980$c2f90c80$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS It has become obvious to many of us that there is an element here in the U.S. within our government that does not have our best interests at heart. However, there are also many others who with blind faith follow the leader, and I am not speaking of Obama in this instance. As we discussed a couple days ago, he appears to be under the control of those who do not have our best interests at heat. What is it that we should do about this? Mary Rose The Northwest Flight 253 Intelligence Failure: Negligence Or Conspiracy? By Bill Van Auken 01 Januray, 2010 In the five days since the abortive attempt by the 23-year-old Nigerian student Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to detonate an explosive device onboard Northwest Flight 253, information has surfaced that indicates an ostensible breakdown in US intelligence and security that is extraordinary in both its character and scale. Normally, any one of these things would have triggered intense scrutiny before Abdulmutallab was allowed to board the plane. Once again, as in the wake of September 11, 2001, the government and the media are peddling the explanation that all of these extraordinary lapses were the product of mere negligence or a "failure to connect the dots." Increasingly, the failure to identify Abdulmutallab and alert other government agencies to the threat revealed in Nigeria and Yemen has been attributed to the CIA. How many of the key figures in this agency had close connections to Cheney? There can be no serious investigation into how the Northwest Airline bombing plot was allowed to go so far without considering whether there are elements within the US state that had an interest in seeing it happen, and therefore in suppressing the intelligence and bypassing procedures that would have stopped it. Asking the question, who would benefit politically from a major terrorist attack on US soil, holds the best promise of shedding light on what is unbelievably presented as a staggering and inexplicable "breakdown" of Washington's intelligence and security systems. http://www.countercurrents.org/auken010110.htm 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 Sat Jan 2 15:33:02 2010 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Sat, 2 Jan 2010 14:33:02 -0800 Subject: [GJM] Must Read: "Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old" from Trading Post Paul Message-ID: <005b01ca8bfb$c02a72e0$407f58a0$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS Are we expecting too much in too little time? We did not get into this predicament in a year, can we expect to get out of it in a year? Maybe what we need to work toward is ending ?monetized politics? and move into creating a future by conscious choice? You know the law of physics tells us that change cannot come from top down, it must begin from the bottom up. Which means that it is ?we-the-people? who have to take charge by first taking charge of our own lives and moving into TOTAL WELLNESS. Then once we each live in both emotional and physical wellness, we are in a position to create peace first in our own communities and then at the local, state, and nation level, then moving on into the international level. We must have plan. We must become organized. We must have valid information upon which to base intelligent decisions regarding our future ? we can no longer afford to be the victims of mass manipulation by a few through the use of propaganda via ?mass mind programming? on TV and in other media outlets, e.g., newspapers and magazines. We must be increasingly aware of the technologies available to those who seek control of the human mind today. We cannot afford to be the victims of corporations whose mandate is to ?make money? for its investors without taking into account the affect on humanity as a whole. We can no longer afford to be the victims of those whose profits are made from war. We can no longer afford to be victims by those who use the land to grow products that have no sustenance to them. We can no longer afford to be victims of the medical and pharmaceutical profession that makes more money from death than from saving lives. We must consider the future of our children and we must stand together as the human family against those who have become ?less than human? and say NO MORE. We must begin to direct the dollars that come into our hands into alternatives that are ?life-enhancing? rather than ?death defining? as those who seek to control and make money off of our sickness would have us do. We must say ?NO to the products they produce that bring us sickness. We must say NO to putting our money into the big banks whose bottom line profit motive is only profit. We must stop investing in stocks and other things that have bottom line profit only in mind. We must stop eating genetically-modified food and other ?drug related? crops that those who care not for our well-being are growing. We must find alternatives that are ?life-enhancing? ? and they are there, we need only to look for them. We must transcend the evil that has befallen us today and transform the way we think and thus the way we act. We must calmly and coolly stop and think what it is we are doing before we act! In other words, we must stop being the ?reaction? and be the action based on truth. We must become a legally-defined Civic Society as suggested by Hazel Henderson in her book: ?Beyond Globalization?. As such, we can begin to file law suits in world courts to hold those responsible for the devastation they have caused to both the Earth and the human family. I just reread the other day where Ecuador last year enacted a legal mandate giving rights to the Earth, the first country to do so. If Ecuador can accomplish something like this, can?t the rest of us do something significant as well? Do we not have some attorney?s in this country who care enough and who will begin this process, enrolling we-the-people as members of this Civic Society with each of us contributing a small amount as a membership fee which will put financial support behind us? What if we initially seek 1 million members to contribute $12.00 annually for this purpose ? this breaks down to $1.00 per month and allows almost everyone to participate and contribute comfortably. I feel sure that once this fund is set up there are those who will contribute more, but not so much as to be able to exert influence can be permitted. Once we reach the one million goal, there will be millions of others ready to join in. This is a cause that we each must participate in and take to the world courts legally so that what needs to be done is done peacefully. We must begin NOW ? there is no time to waste. Who among this group knows an attorney who might start the ball rolling on this? Mary Rose Maryrose333 at att.net www.futuredawning.org Below is the article that inspired this rant. Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old January 1 - 3, 2010 By BOB SOMMER Democracies have fallen, they have always fallen, because humanity craves the outstanding personality. ?Ezra Pound In the weeks and months leading up to the 2008 election, I hit the streets and the phones ? along with about 1.5 million other believers. At Obama HQ here in Kansas City I was given a cell phone and I made calls to get voters to the polls. I traipsed up and down neighborhood streets along with other volunteers and knocked on doors, and on more than a few occasions faced snarling dogs or snarly Republicans. This was it! If we did this, the nightmare would end. Sanity would return. We?d get out of Iraq; Gitmo would close; rendition would end, as would secret prisons and the neglect of habeas corpus. Universal health care would finally arrive ? fifty years after Harry S. Truman first dreamed of it. The lobbyists would get the boot. Corporate money would no longer make laws and policy. Science and reason would determine our energy policy so that rapid and dramatic action could be brought to bear on the looming catastrophe of climate change. But here we are a little over a year later and none of this happened. Well, we can?t lay all this at Obama?s feet, can we? In fact, that?s the point, isn?t it? We expected too much and were too na?ve. The systemic damage of a generation of consumption and squander and corruption in both government and business is no doubt irreparable. The change we need is more than a new face in the White House ? and even in Congress. It?s a change in expectation, a change in the way we lead our lives, a change in the kind of country America has become. Time is short. The economic system is a thin veneer lacquered over an unthinkably massive amount of debt. The tipping point of global warming is perhaps only a decade away. Buying a Prius won?t matter much once the permafrost of the arctic regions thaws and massive quantities of methane gas are released into the atmosphere, or once the dead zones of our oceans have expanded to the point at which dozens of generations will have to pass before undersea life returns, or once our glaciers have melted and drought brings suffering on a scale such as we have never seen. http://www.counterpunch.org/sommer01012010.html 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 dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk Mon Jan 4 08:24:17 2010 From: dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk (robert searle) Date: Mon, 4 Jan 2010 15:24:17 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [GJM] Fw: 5 ways you can help the planet in 2010 Message-ID: <867301.86007.qm@web27408.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> --- On Mon, 4/1/10, Jamie Woolley, Greenpeace UK wrote: From: Jamie Woolley, Greenpeace UK Subject: 5 ways you can help the planet in 2010 To: dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk Date: Monday, 4 January, 2010, 14:45 If you are unable to see the message below, click here to view. It's a new year, and a new decade - and this will be the decade we decide the future. At the end of 2009 world leaders let us down at the UN climate summit in Copenhagen, and now it is up to the rest of us to force the change we need to see on the ground. Here are few things you can do to get started and help us make sure that this is the year we change our future. We're winning the campaign against new coal. Over the last year, together we have forced energy company E.on to shelve plans to build a new coal plant at Kingsnorth and the government's coal policy ruled out new unabated coal plants. But the policy is not enshrined in law and we have an opportunity to make sure new coal is ruled out - right now. The Energy Bill is passing through parliament and must ensure that we will not be locked into a high carbon energy future. Please write to your MP today, this Bill will decide our energy future. It's up to each and every one of us to let leaders know that in the coming months we will make sure they finish what they started in Copenhagen. We expected a fair, ambitious and legally binding treaty that would protect the climate. But leaders left without agreeing to the cuts in greenhouse gas emissions that science demands. Pressure from millions of people like you brought world leaders to the negotiating table, now we need your help again to make them finish the job. Write to leaders - tell them failure is not an option How far would you go to support Greenpeace? How about running 26.2 miles through the streets of London? We've got some places in the 2010 Virgin London Marathon. Now we need some keen supporters to fill them for us. The work we do is now more important than ever while world leaders fail to take positive action to halt climate change. We need all the money we can get to fund our urgent campaigns to get politicians and companies to take climate change seriously. If you're up for the challenge click here to apply for a marathon place Our network of dedicated volunteers take Greenpeace campaigns to their local high streets, doing everything from running stalls at festivals to lobbying their MPs about climate change or supermarket managers about fish stocks. It's also the active supporters who help keep our field at Glastonbury running smoothly, and (for the more adventurous) get involved in direct actions. If any of that appeals to you, or you'd just like to find out more, visit the site to find and join your local network Politicians talk, leaders act. Climate change is outstripping all predictions and its impact on our planet could be devastating. It is time for action now and your donation this year could help us fund direct action around the world to expose big business and governments who 'talk' about action on climate change but are blocking progress. Make a donation Thank you for your support. PS. Four Greenpeace activists have been held without trial or bail since Dec 18th in a Copenhagen jail. These are the real leaders who were in Copenhagen and being held over charges relating to a protest at the Heads of State dinner. So far you've sent over 9000 letters to the Danish Embassy in London, but there is no word they will be released. Please write to the Danish Justice Minister asking for their immediate release on bail. Forward this email to a friend ? More Greenpeace goodness on the web We're also on Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Flickr, del.icio.us and twitter - come be our friend! You can also find other Greenpeace supporters in your area and help with our campaigns in our Get Active section. Why have I received this email? Either because you have signed up for the Greenpeace e-bulletin or a friend has forwarded this onto you. How do I subscribe? To receive regular updates from Greenpeace UK, you can subscribe here. How do I unsubscribe? To no longer receive these messages, please click here. How do I donate? To help us keep fighting climate change, defending our oceans and protecting ancient forests, you can make a regular donation by direct debit or a single payment by credit card. Thank you! Where do I send feedback? For feedback on the e-bulletin or the website, please email webteam at uk.greenpeace.org. If you have any questions about membership, email supporter at uk.greenpeace.org, quoting your supporter reference number %%SRN%%. Greenpeace Ltd, Canonbury Villas, London N1 2PN (registered in London no 1314381, VAT registration no 62595) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mukhtaralam2000 at yahoo.com Tue Jan 5 01:13:04 2010 From: mukhtaralam2000 at yahoo.com (Dr.Muhammad Mukhtar Alam) Date: Tue, 5 Jan 2010 13:43:04 +0530 (IST) Subject: [GJM] Fw: 5 ways you can help the planet in 2010 In-Reply-To: <867301.86007.qm@web27408.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> References: <867301.86007.qm@web27408.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <220057.15142.qm@web94905.mail.in2.yahoo.com> Dear Robert, While welcoming suggested actions, I would like to urge that all the activities are made carbon-neutral. I would be interesting to examine the way we use the leisure time. http://ecostrategiccommunicators.ning.com is for promoting carbon-neutral leisure in neighborhoods and homes. I would be honored if the members of the GJM join the network and do 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: robert searle To: discussion at globaljusticemovement.net Sent: Mon, 4 January, 2010 8:54:17 PM Subject: [GJM] Fw: 5 ways you can help the planet in 2010 --- On Mon, 4/1/10, Jamie Woolley, Greenpeace UK wrote: >From: Jamie Woolley, Greenpeace UK >Subject: 5 ways you can help the planet in 2010 >To: dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk >Date: Monday, 4 January, 2010, 14:45 > > > >If you are unable to see the message below, click here to view. > > > > > > >It's a new year, and a new decade - and this will be the decade we decide the future. At the end of 2009 world leaders let us down at the UN climate summit in Copenhagen, and now it is up to the rest of us to force the change we need to see on the ground. Here are few things you can do to get started and help us make sure that this is the year we change our future. > >We're winning the campaign against new coal. Over the last year, together we have forced energy company E.on to shelve plans to build a new coal plant at Kingsnorth and the government's coal policy ruled out new unabated coal plants. But the policy is not enshrined in law and we have an opportunity to make sure new coal is ruled out - right now. The Energy Bill is passing through parliament and must ensure that we will not be locked into a high carbon energy future. > >Please write to your MP today, this Bill will decide our energy future. >It's up to each and every one of us to let leaders know that in the coming months we will make sure they finish what they started in Copenhagen. We expected a fair, ambitious and legally binding treaty that would protect the climate. But leaders left without agreeing to the cuts in greenhouse gas emissions that science demands. Pressure from millions of people like you brought world leaders to the negotiating table, now we need your help again to make them finish the job. > >Write to leaders - tell them failure is not an option >How far would you go to support Greenpeace? How about running 26.2 miles through the streets of London? We've got some places in the 2010 Virgin London Marathon. Now we need some keen supporters to fill them for us. The work we do is now more important than ever while world leaders fail to take positive action to halt climate change. We need all the money we can get to fund our urgent campaigns to get politicians and companies to take climate change seriously. > >If you're up for the challenge click here to apply for a marathon place >Our network of dedicated volunteers take Greenpeace campaigns to their local high streets, doing everything from running stalls at festivals to lobbying their MPs about climate change or supermarket managers about fish stocks. It's also the active supporters who help keep our field at Glastonbury running smoothly, and (for the more adventurous) get involved in direct actions. > >If any of that appeals to you, or you'd just like to find out more, visit the site to find and join your local network >Politicians talk, leaders act. Climate change is outstripping all predictions and its impact on our planet could be devastating. It is time for action now and your donation this year could help us fund direct action around the world to expose big business and governments who 'talk' about action on climate change but are blocking progress. > >Make a donation >Thank you for your support. > >PS. Four Greenpeace activists have been held without trial or bail since Dec 18th in a Copenhagen jail. These are the real leaders who were in Copenhagen and being held over charges relating to a protest at the Heads of State dinner. So far you've sent over 9000 letters to the Danish Embassy in London, but there is no word they will be released. Please write to the Danish Justice Minister asking for their immediate release on bail. >Forward this email to a friend ? > >More Greenpeace goodness on the web >We're also on Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Flickr, del.icio.us and twitter - come be our friend! You can also find other Greenpeace supporters in your area and help with our campaigns in our Get Active section. > >Why have I received this email? >Either because you have signed up for the Greenpeace e-bulletin or a friend has forwarded this onto you. > >How do I subscribe? >To receive regular updates from Greenpeace UK, you can subscribe here. > >How do I unsubscribe? >To no longer receive these messages, please click here. > >How do I donate? >To help us keep fighting climate change, defending our oceans and protecting ancient forests, you can make a regular donation by direct debit or a single payment by credit card. Thank you! > >Where do I send feedback? >For feedback on the e-bulletin or the website, please email webteam at uk.greenpeace.org. If you have any questions about membership, email supporter at uk.greenpeace.org, quoting your supporter reference number %%SRN%%. > >Greenpeace Ltd, Canonbury Villas, London N1 2PN (registered in London no 1314381, VAT registration no 62595) > 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 Sun Jan 3 17:20:18 2010 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Sun, 3 Jan 2010 16:20:18 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: The Northwest Flight 253 Intelligence Failure: Negligence Or Conspiracy? Peter Van Zant Message-ID: <001c01ca8cd3$defbea40$9cf3bec0$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS Peter, I feel you are exactly right. But, how do we-the-people handle this situation. Does it matter to most of us that the U.S. is being unethical in its use of world resources and hogging more than our fair share simply because we have the power of the military to allow us to do this? After all we are ?role-players? in this scenario. Yet media programming under the direction of the elite, has most of us thinking that those in Iraq have done something wrong and our young people are being sent into war to protect us from an enemy. But, what it boils down to is that what we are protecting is the ?great American lifestyle? which has turned into the ?great American nightmare? as reality hits home that we have been using more than our fair share for decades and that The Constitution was set up in such a way as to promote this as we followed the model the British set as they used the East Indies company to conduct ?colonialization? which is the same as ?globalization?. Only the name has changed. From: krunkles at aol.com [mailto:krunkles at aol.com] Sent: Sunday, January 03, 2010 1:36 PM To: maryrose333 at att.net Subject: Re: The Northwest Flight 253 Intelligence Failure: Negligence Or Conspiracy? In case you'd like my opinion: This is exactly what happened after 9-11. Reason, both 9-11 and the Northwest 253 incident were orchestrated by our own government--at least, a very shadowy subset of it. Even the CIA didn't know what was going on, but they got some hints. So, why would our government bomb the World Trade Center? To get the American public to accept protracted wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Why attempt to bomb Northwest 253? To get acceptance to expand the war into Yemen, at a time when the public is tired of the current wars. Why carry on these wars? So the United States, with less than five percent of world population, can go on using a much disproportionate share of world oil production. This is especially true when China and India are greatly expanding automobile production and world oil production is nearing peak. Peter Van Zant In a message dated 1/2/2010 12:31:12 P.M. Pacific Standard Time, maryrose333 at att.net writes: Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS It has become obvious to many of us that there is an element here in the U.S. within our government that does not have our best interests at heart. However, there are also many others who with blind faith follow the leader, and I am not speaking of Obama in this instance. As we discussed a couple days ago, he appears to be under the control of those who do not have our best interests at heat. What is it that we should do about this? Mary Rose The Northwest Flight 253 Intelligence Failure: Negligence Or Conspiracy? By Bill Van Auken 01 Januray, 2010 In the five days since the abortive attempt by the 23-year-old Nigerian student Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to detonate an explosive device onboard Northwest Flight 253, information has surfaced that indicates an ostensible breakdown in US intelligence and security that is extraordinary in both its character and scale. Normally, any one of these things would have triggered intense scrutiny before Abdulmutallab was allowed to board the plane. Once again, as in the wake of September 11, 2001, the government and the media are peddling the explanation that all of these extraordinary lapses were the product of mere negligence or a ?failure to connect the dots.? Increasingly, the failure to identify Abdulmutallab and alert other government agencies to the threat revealed in Nigeria and Yemen has been attributed to the CIA. How many of the key figures in this agency had close connections to Cheney? There can be no serious investigation into how the Northwest Airline bombing plot was allowed to go so far without considering whether there are elements within the US state that had an interest in seeing it happen, and therefore in suppressing the intelligence and bypassing procedures that would have stopped it. Asking the question, who would benefit politically from a major terrorist attack on US soil, holds the best promise of shedding light on what is unbelievably presented as a staggering and inexplicable ?breakdown? of Washington?s intelligence and security systems. http://www.countercurrents.org/auken010110.htm 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 Jan 4 00:21:49 2010 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Sun, 3 Jan 2010 23:21:49 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: FW: The Northwest Flight 253 Intelligence Failure: Negligence Or Conspira... Peter Van Zant Message-ID: <004701ca8d0e$bdbf7460$393e5d20$@net> From: krunkles at aol.com [mailto:krunkles at aol.com] Sent: Sunday, January 03, 2010 4:29 PM To: maryrose333 at att.net Subject: Re: FW: The Northwest Flight 253 Intelligence Failure: Negligence Or Conspira... I don't know how we-the-people handle the situation. I do know that we can't handle the situation unless we have a picture of what the situation is that we essentially believe. Right now, those attempting to oppose U. S. policies are so fragmented in what they think is the true situation that we can't formulate a strategy. Response from M.R. : Peter, again I have to say you are exactly right. I?ve said over and over on this list that what we need is to get organized and that is one of Future Dawning?s missions ? to bring movements together. And at this time the human consciousness movement with the sustainable living movement with the women?s movement. But for such a long time it has been about ?me??recall that we were called the ME generation. Kare Anderson, a former award-winning newscaster and friend on Facebook, now does a workshop called ?Moving From Me to We?. What keeps us so fragmented is our belief in the two-party political system. It is so draconian and so competitive in nature ? a crazy-maker -- like putting two pitt bulls in an arena and watching them go after each other?s juggler vein. But it is the way the elites (the global monetocracy system) maintain control: divide to conquer and to keep conquered. As long as we are fighting among ourselves, they have nothing to worry about. It is when we decide to unite and turn on them that is their greatest fear. The other factor is the mental state of the collective consciousness. The statistics again: According to the National Institute of Health, fully 26.5% of us are legally mentally ill ? just a little over one-quarter of the population of the U.S. And with only 0.05% of the world?s population, we here in the U.S. use 40% of the world?s illegal drug production and goodness knows how much of the world?s legal mind-altering drugs. However, in the latest Shoveling Up II Report on Substance Abuse conducted by Columbia University in 2009, it states that ?the use of pharmaceutical drugs is a far greater problem than that of illegal drugs.? When you toss in the number of alcoholics for which there are no statistics because this type of insanity is ?legal? and condoned, then you have to begin wondering how many are left who are capable of making an intelligent decision even if we were provided with enough valid information upon which to base an intelligent decision. And, of course with the media conducting mass mind manipulation, including using subliminal programming on TV, then it really becomes difficult, to say the least, for the most sane among us to separate fact from fiction. And then you have to throw the ?religious programming? in on top of that and all of a sudden it hits one that ?we-the-people? are inside of the asylum looking out. However, there is a light shining in the tunnel. There is the ?Blessed Unrest? movement that Paul Hawken documents in his book by the same name. And in the book, Paul states that ?this is the largest movement the world has ever known.? It is both spontaneous and leaderless. And most of those involved in it are surprised to find that there are so many others involved. Watch this video as Paul tells about it at the Bioneers Meeting in 2008. www. blessedunrest.com/video.html This is where we must pin our hopes and aspirations as we individually realize we are not alone. In a message dated 1/3/2010 4:23:51 P.M. Pacific Standard Time, maryrose333 at att.net writes: Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS Peter, I feel you are exactly right. But, how do we-the-people handle this situation. Does it matter to most of us that the U.S. is being unethical in its use of world resources and hogging more than our fair share simply because we have the power of the military to allow us to do this? After all we are ?role-players? in this scenario. Yet media programming under the direction of the elite, has most of us thinking that those in Iraq have done something wrong and our young people are being sent into war to protect us from an enemy. But, what it boils down to is that what we are protecting is the ?great American lifestyle? which has turned into the ?great American nightmare? as reality hits home that we have been using more than our fair share for decades and that The Constitution was set up in such a way as to promote this as we followed the model the British set as they used the East Indies company to conduct ?colonialization? which is the same as ?globalization?. Only the name has changed. From: krunkles at aol.com [mailto:krunkles at aol.com] Sent: Sunday, January 03, 2010 1:36 PM To: maryrose333 at att.net Subject: Re: The Northwest Flight 253 Intelligence Failure: Negligence Or Conspiracy? In case you'd like my opinion: This is exactly what happened after 9-11. Reason, both 9-11 and the Northwest 253 incident were orchestrated by our own government--at least, a very shadowy subset of it. Even the CIA didn't know what was going on, but they got some hints. So, why would our government bomb the World Trade Center? To get the American public to accept protracted wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Why attempt to bomb Northwest 253? To get acceptance to expand the war into Yemen, at a time when the public is tired of the current wars. Why carry on these wars? So the United States, with less than five percent of world population, can go on using a much disproportionate share of world oil production. This is especially true when China and India are greatly expanding automobile production and world oil production is nearing peak. Peter Van Zant In a message dated 1/2/2010 12:31:12 P.M. Pacific Standard Time, maryrose333 at att.net writes: Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS It has become obvious to many of us that there is an element here in the U.S. within our government that does not have our best interests at heart. However, there are also many others who with blind faith follow the leader, and I am not speaking of Obama in this instance. As we discussed a couple days ago, he appears to be under the control of those who do not have our best interests at heat. What is it that we should do about this? Mary Rose The Northwest Flight 253 Intelligence Failure: Negligence Or Conspiracy? By Bill Van Auken 01 Januray, 2010 In the five days since the abortive attempt by the 23-year-old Nigerian student Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to detonate an explosive device onboard Northwest Flight 253, information has surfaced that indicates an ostensible breakdown in US intelligence and security that is extraordinary in both its character and scale. Normally, any one of these things would have triggered intense scrutiny before Abdulmutallab was allowed to board the plane. Once again, as in the wake of September 11, 2001, the government and the media are peddling the explanation that all of these extraordinary lapses were the product of mere negligence or a ?failure to connect the dots.? Increasingly, the failure to identify Abdulmutallab and alert other government agencies to the threat revealed in Nigeria and Yemen has been attributed to the CIA. How many of the key figures in this agency had close connections to Cheney? There can be no serious investigation into how the Northwest Airline bombing plot was allowed to go so far without considering whether there are elements within the US state that had an interest in seeing it happen, and therefore in suppressing the intelligence and bypassing procedures that would have stopped it. Asking the question, who would benefit politically from a major terrorist attack on US soil, holds the best promise of shedding light on what is unbelievably presented as a staggering and inexplicable ?breakdown? of Washington?s intelligence and security systems. http://www.countercurrents.org/auken010110.htm 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 Jan 4 14:07:08 2010 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Mon, 4 Jan 2010 13:07:08 -0800 Subject: [GJM] Please Watch: Doing Time, Doing Vipassana 1 of 5 Message-ID: <00bb01ca8d82$0c8c59f0$25a50dd0$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOoFXOWGC5o &feature=related Please take the time to watch the 5 sections of this video series on how Vipassana Meditation was used in a very large prison in India to rehabilitate hundreds of prisoners instead of punishing them. We very much need this in the U.S. with its prison population being the largest in the world today. Imagine what we could accomplish if we coupled Vipassanna Meditation with the organ gardening program used in a U.S. jail that I posted not long ago and added programs that taught people how to read and write, since lack of these skills have been found to be one of the most prevalent reasons for individuals being in jail. They are not able to assimilate themselves into society due to the lack of skills needed to do this. Listen as the woman who began this program decided to turn the jail into an Ashram. I hope you are watching Dr. Alam and helping to spread this in India. 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 Jan 4 17:06:43 2010 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Mon, 4 Jan 2010 16:06:43 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: Celebrate What's Right with the World -> Wow! Message-ID: <000201ca8d9b$24404700$6cc0d500$@net> Wow! Deeply touching - WOW! This video says. . . and means. . . a lot! Dewitt Jones, NatGeo photographer on Celebrating What's Right with the World! Powerfully wonderful! You're busy right now, I know, but you'll be glad you watched it anyway. Use it to inspire your clients and staff, alike: http://uk.video.yahoo.com/watch/1598539/5397639 How great is it to be that inspired by and during your entire carreer!?? What could each of us do differently to live in that space? Robynne Automate keeping in touch with your clients, (friends and family,too!) with real, stamped, mailed cards via the internet: http://www.SendOutCards.com/greatcardswork Top grossing, all inclusive, quick start-up, home based business, Check it out:: http://www.HomeJobs-OfflineBiztoWeb.com Specific directions to save gas and the planet by building your own easy hydrogen-hybrid system (with on-demand hydrogen, so no dangerous storage tank) for your gasoline or diesel powered car, truck, or generator. Info, plans, instructions - 6 ebooks total, soon for FREE! Get on the waiting list: http://www.WaterHybridYourCar.info -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From maryrose333 at att.net Mon Jan 4 19:23:22 2010 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Mon, 4 Jan 2010 18:23:22 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: [globalnetnews-summary] Happy New Year, It's 2030! Message-ID: <002101ca8dae$33693800$9a3ba800$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS Thanks for this article Trading Post Paul. I feel it appropriate that this video accompany this article. The girl who silenced the world for five minutes. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQmz6Rbpnu0&feature=related We need to show this video over and over and over again to people everywhere. This young lady speaks for everyone of our children and grandchildren and it's about time we get it that we are committing a horrendous crime as we rob these young people of their future due to our irresponsible actions. It isn't just the elite that we keep pointing our fingers at doing these unethical and immoral acts -- we-the-people have to stop buying into their propaganda and stop trying to put a second story on the house using the blocks that hold it up. It's high time to stop the insanity and call the game. We need to turn our communities into Learning Centers with Wellness Centers incorporated into them. And we need to figure out how to make these communities both self-sufficient and sustainable while at the same time preparing for the eventuality that we may be forced to migrate. This is what saved previous people faced with the same challenges we are faced with today. There is no doubt that we are the ones we have been waiting for. So, let's just turn to and get the job done. This cannot be about making money, it must be about restoring our life support system so that future generations can enjoy this Earth as we have. Only they must learn as well hat we cannot continually be "takers" we also need to give back and now is the time. -----Original Message----- From: globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net [mailto:globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net] On Behalf Of TradingPostPaul Sent: Monday, January 04, 2010 12:42 PM To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] Happy New Year, It's 2030! Happy New Year, It's 2030! By nonny mouse Saturday Jan 02, 2010 11:00am http://crooksandliars.com/node/33889 In my last C&L post on climate change, I 'predicted' (if that's the right word) that at the current rate of global warming/global dimming by 2030, global temperatures could rise more than two degrees, twice as fast as previous models suggested they would, and trigger the irreversible melting of the Greenland ice sheet - after which nothing could be done to stop the eventual death of the entire planet by the end of the century, which no would be around to see anyway. Pretty grim stuff, really. First, the bad news. Happy New Year, it's 2010. Our politicians, just about all of them from every country, are like children playing on a beach while the tide goes out and fish flop on the sea bed, ignoring the signs of a coming tsunami, too busy squabbling over toys and kicking sand in each other's eyes. Our current technology is shackled to oil interests, with alternative energy and its technology insufficiently advanced to make much of a difference. According to the figures whizzing by ever so quickly on an excellent website, Worldometer, we've consumed nearly 170,000,000 MWh of energy today alone, 156,700,000 of which is from non-renewable sources. We've got 15,676 days left until oil runs out completely. That's slightly less than 43 years. That's all - 43 years, and we'll have sucked those wells dry as a witch's... bones. My grandmother was born in 1910, she saw the car replace horse-drawn wagons, and by the time she died, she'd witnessed the birth of the internet and a man walking on the moon. A child born this year, 2010, a mere hundred years later, could possibly see that happen in reverse... should we survive that long. By 2030, energy, water and food shortages will be heading toward a 'perfect storm', with major upheavals, destabilization and riots worldwide as food prices will rise to become unaffordable to the majority, starvation increases and millions of refugees flee climate ravaged regions. We are consuming the world's resources like a plague of locusts, ripping through the earth's metals, fossil fuels, timber, and by 2030, we'll have consumed the lot. A study of 1700 species over 35 years, from 1970 to 2005, have declined in numbers 28 percent overall, with a 51 percent decline in tropical species. We're consuming fresh water at an unsustainable rate, just to produce stuff - the U.S. using 2,483 cubic meters, about the size of an Olympic swimming pool, every year. The amount of land necessary to support one human being is 2.1 hectares. Demand in 2005 amounted to 2.7 hectares per person. The United Arab Emirates, a tiny country of only 32,268 square miles with 6 million people - about one acre per person - needs 23 acres of agricultural land, pasture, forests, fisheries and space for infrastructure, as well as absorb all the waste products and greenhouse gases, for each and every one of those inhabitants. The U.S. is the second-most demanding country per inhabitant, with Kuwait taking bronze. We're consuming everything we need for long term survival - trees and animals do more than provide us with wood and food, they protect coasts, conserve the soil, replenish the air we breathe, provide us with medicines. Mostly trees, we've still got plenty of animals - if you don't mind domestic sheep and cows replacing more useless wild things. And maybe not so much the trees, either, palm oil production destroying tens of millions of hectares of rain forests along with killing 50 orangutans a year, pushing Sumatran tigers and rhinos and the Asian elephant into functional extinction within ten years. Worse, we'll have run out of 'waste disposal', the earth slowly being buried in our own crap, now doesn't that conjure an interesting image? Having trouble with that? Here, how about the world's biggest rubbish dump right now, a vast 100 million tonne expanse of 'plastic soup' twice the size of the continental US floating in the Pacific Ocean, from Hawaii to Japan, choking off sea life. The man who had the dubious honour of discovering the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, Charles Moore, an American oceanographer and former sailor, also happened to be a very rich man, inheriting a family fortune in the oil industry - y'know, the stuff they make plastic from. What he discovered shook him badly enough that he sold off his business assets and became an environmental activist, warning that if consumers don't cut back on disposable plastic, this vast, reeking, toxic garbage slick is going to double in size by 2020. If a rich oil man giving up his personal fortune to fight for the environment doesn't convince you, I can't imagine else what would. But unless you're a wealthy yachtman, or live on Hawaii where occasionally a few tonnes of floating plastic waste vomits up on the beach, its... far, far away. Out of sight. Out of mind. And unless you're a worker in India, China or Africa, you probably won't see the vast mountains of e-trash piling up, either. Computers are a source of concentrated heavy metals and toxins that have a tendency to leak after awhile. But those of us who can afford to 'upgrade' every few years don't need to worry too much about that , we just buy new gear and ship the old stuff off to... well, where? Safely recycling old computers is expensive, far cheaper to ship it to the third world, which is eager to have it all, extracting any working parts and stripping out the gold, platinum and copper in the circuitry. Supposedly, under the Basel Convention, it's illegal to export hazardous waste, but - like much of anything the first world does these days - we say one thing and find loopholes to do another. Even when offending exporters are caught, so what? They get slapped with a small fine, and the stuff is auctioned off - usually to the same company that imported it in the first place, thus cleverly turning their own crime into legitimate goods. Convenient, that. Then it all goes into huge piles of junk where low-caste workers in India or poor women and children in Asia make $1.50 a day smashing circuit boards, pouring acid on electronic parts to extract the precious metals, burning the plastic and breathing in carcinogenic smoke, drinking ground water with 190 times the pollution levels allowed by WHO guidelines. All because you and I just had to have the newest computer and Gameb oy and Playstation and iPod and mobile phone for Christmas and chuck the old ones away. But again, we don't see that - it's happening on the far side of town, in countries far, far away. Speaking of Christmas, isn't ironic that good boys and girls are ripping the wrapping paper off the standard Christmas gift #138, on page 57 of Santa's Christmas gift catalog, volume 2, issue number 9, a lovely new telescope. which they can't really see much out of anyway, due to the increase in Yuletide light pollution from all those 'festive' Christmas decorations, not to mention the spike in electrical consumption and the increase in fossil fuel necessary to create that energy. Oh, let's not forget the amount of Christmas paper used each year, 8,000 tonnes of the stuff, the equivalent of 50,000 trees, all torn to bits in seconds and shoved into landfills to rot for years. I don't even want to think about the number of obligatory Christmas cards - all the paper used, the ink, the petrol and aviation fuels consumed to send bits of paper around the world to people we otherwise never even think about the rest of the year. But it does make for more festive looking trash heaps, I suppose. Ho-ho-ho. This isn't a cute Disney scenario; we don't get to fly away in big rocket ships where we turn into lazy, pampered globuloids while Wall-E stays behind and cleans up our mess for us. We die, all of us, slowly boiled alive and choking in our own toxic filth. But according to far too many with vested interests, global warming is a myth, and even if it's real, it's not as bad as us pessimists are making it out to be. Loony leftwing alarmists like, oh, say, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. Geological Survey Office, predict that at current rates of deaths due to loss of habitat and food sources, two-thirds of the polar bear population will disappear by 2050, just around the time we run out of oil. In 1987, there were 1,197 polar bears in Canada's Huston Bay. In fifteen years, that dropped 22%, to 935. I find it remarkable that someone like Sarah Palin has eyesight so acute she could see Russia from her kitchen window, but somehow can't spot dying polar bears in her own backyard. Okay, is everyone thoroughly depressed? You should be. Now for the good news... Happy New Year, it's 2010. We've got twenty years left. Not a lot of time, but still... we've got twenty years to save the planet. So Option One, embrace the End of the World, consume to your heart's delight because there's bugger all we can do about it anyway, party like there's no tomorrow... because there isn't one. And besides, isn't it all just a sign that Jesus is about due to come back and rescue his faithful patriotic consumers? Or, Option Two - sod the Copenhagen Accord and its non-binding, worthless 'meaningful agreements'. Sod the oil-driven multinational corporations whose only goal is money and power. Sod our politicians, on both sides, self-deluded deniers and spineless wankers the lot. Sod the religious right and their apocalyptic death wish. Sod the naysayers who claim - albeit largely correctly - that solar energy, wind energy, tidal energy, etc., isn't enough, too expensive and doesn't produce enough energy. We've got a huge variety of methods at our disposal, right now. In 2010. We've got... paint. If we simply painted all our roofs white and made road pavements a lighter colour, that simple, low-tech action, which doesn't depend on any large scale government funded geo-engineering projects, would offset global warming effects of all the cars in the world for eleven years, reducing carbon emissions as if we simply stopped driving altogether. We don't need to wait for any corporate or government investment or high-tech equipment; all any of us needs is a can of paint, a brush and a ladder. Not only will it help the planet, it will help your pocket - lighter roofs decrease the amount of energy costs needed to keep your house cool. We've got Facebook. A bunch of antipodal chocoholics with a conscience and an internet connection has persuaded Cadbury to stop using palm oil in its confectionary. Cadbury New Zealand managing director Matthew Oldham not only admitted the change was in direct response to consumer pressure, including hundreds of letters and emails, but actually apologised, admitting Cadbury's use of palm oil was 'wrong' and hoping Kiwis would forgive the company. We've got... air. The Air-Car, developed by an ex-Formula One engineer, is ready to roll off production lines in one of those countries currently out-polluting the United States, India, running off compressed air, the CityCat clocking out at 68 mph with a range of 125 miles. Its designer, Guy Negre, has already signed deals with Germany, Israel and South Africa, and a hybrid version is in development, petrol-powered compressors refilling air tanks rather than current hybrids with expensive, heavy and largely toxic electric batteries. The technology already exists that would see an air car able to cross the entire United States on a single tank of petrol. We've got fad diets. We love our fad diets! Millions of people slavishly scour the pages of celebrity magazines obsessed with how the beautiful and the famous and even the downright weird are eating. A few highly visible movie stars and celebrity chefs to tout the benefits of the 'low-carb' diet -carbon rather than carbohydrates - and it could impact on the environment as well as decreasing cardiovascular disease and strokes from obesity. Consumer pressure makes a difference - once the largest global restaurant chain, the corporate giant MacDonald's has dropped to third place behind Subway Sandwiches, which heavily promotes its health-conscious marketing. Morgan Spurlock's film, Supersize Me, forced MacDonald's into eliminating super size options, and the fast-food chain began offering salads and low-fat wraps and fruit on its menu. MacDonald's has switched to organic milk, makes coffee from beans certified by the Rainforest Alliance, and uses non-trans fat for fries. And that very rapid change came about through the simplest of means - one mouth at a time. Livestock accounts for one-fifth of the world's total global greenhouse emissions, and with China, India and other developing nations aspiring to adopt western styles, it's only increasing. The entire world doesn't have to become vegan overnight, something that will never happen, nor would necessarily be a good thing even if it did. But simply cutting meat consumption by half would reduce greenhouse emissions by 12%. The Bon Appetit Company celebrated its second annual Low Carbon Diet Day in April with some very trendy recipes and events, while the city of Ghent has declared every Thursday as a 'meat-free' day, with restaurants and schools and even hospitals promoting vegetarian cuisine with festive relish (pun intended). If every person in Flanders alone, about as many as in the United Arab Emirates, gave up meat for just one day a week, the CO2 saved would equal half a million cars off the road. If China and India want to emulate trendy western lifestyles, we need to alter our lifestyle trends. We've got bacteria. We could run our cars on refined left-over vegetable oil from every MacDonald's in the country, but even better, Americans still possess the brains and ability to turn garbage into 'Oil 2.0', a carbon-negative product made from leftover corn stalks and wheat straw and woodchips and germ poo that is interchangeable with fossil fuel derived petrol. We have the existing technology - right now, not in twenty years. And homemade at that - we can pry the grip of Middle Eastern oil on our throats off one finger at a time. We have seaweed. Lots and lots of seaweed. Kelp grows phenomenally fast, up to a meter a day, and can be used for everything from medicine to cosmetics to food to natural fertilizer to booze and even biofuel, a litre of fuel for every five kilograms of seaweed. Even more interesting, seaweed can be cultivated using the carbon dioxide emissions from industrial power plants - instead of releasing CO2 gasses into the atmosphere, the gas if filtered into a pool where it feeds microscopic seaweed, which is then cultivated to turn into biofuel. We've got... thermosiphons. (Stay with me here...) These are incredibly simple low-tech devices that have been used for fifty years in Alaska to draw heat out of the ground to combat the thawing of permafrost. The Trans-Alaska Pipeline has about 120,000 of them. Basically, thermosiphons are little more than tubes rammed halfway into the ground and filled with a gas such as CO2. The top part exposed to cold winter air condenses the gas inside the tube into a liquid, which falls into the bottom of the tube, where the relative warmth of the ground heats it back into gas and sends it back to the top of the tube. This simple heat exchange mechanism cools the ground around the tube so thoroughly it stays frozen even in summer. Even better, thermotubes can be used as fencing, and are more stable than traditional fence posts, which suffer from 'frost-jacking', driven out of the ground by shifting soil. Annual sales of thermosiphons have increased 50% in the last five years, used to shore up mines, stabilize railroads, buildings, utility poles, transmission towers, roads and airport runways. We can make biochar. That's not new technology, we've been making the stuff for 2,000 years, taking agricultural waste and cooking it into a charcoal, and turning it into a soil enhancer that traps 70 times more carbon than non-treated soil, boosts food production, and reduces deforestation. The technology for turning agricultural waste into biochar through superheated high-tech kilns while producing carbon-negative energy at the same time already exists. It doesn't even need to be on an industrial scale. A small American (American!!) company manufactures a compact, mobile machine called the Green Energy Machine, capable of processing three tonnes of trash a day, enough to heat a 200,000 square foot building housing more than 500 people by converting trash into small pellets that are then converted into carbon-negative electricity and gas heat, diminishing the production of greenhouse gas by 540 tonnes a year. We can grow plants. Grow some lettuce or strawberries in with some flowers in a window box, if you don't have a garden. If you do have enough ground to make a garden, think about what plants to grow - plant shade trees on the south side of your house (or north side if you live on the southern half of the planet), plant Mediterranean perennials which thrive without a lot of water, and taste good, too - rosemary, sage, oregano, thyme, lavender, and any local native plants, as they're likely to be under pressure from English roses and cottage garden variety delphiniums. Hook up a rainbarrel to your gutter. Plant carbon-eaters like clover rather than high maintenance grass lawns. Grow agastache flowers to help sustain bees and hummingbirds. Choose hardy plants that can survive a range of weather conditions, magnolias and pines can take a lot of battering. We can read labels. Wealthy shoppers are increasingly worried about finite food resources, and by 2030, supermarkets will become the supreme arbitrators of what goes on our shelves, from how much fresh water and energy was used to produce it, to the packaging it's in, and listing a breakdown of ingredients on our labels, and where they came from, than just information about carbon footprint. We're doing it all now. Even if our current politicians only saw their personal political gains in the slogan Yes We Can, we, the people, understood it for what it really means. The trend in 'people-powered' conservation is already playing a major role in saving the kiwi in New Zealand, as well as many other rare and native species under pressure of extinction. It's the single most important fundamental factor, possibly the only one we need, to save our world and ourselves. So sod the politicians. Sod the corporations. Sod the naysayers. We, as individual human beings have plenty of tools and technology we need - not tomorrow, not in ten years or fifty years, but right now - to make a significant impact on climate change, with not all that much effort or money or imagination or even too drastic changes in our lifestyle. Happy New Year, everyone. We've got twenty more New Years left. Let's make them all as happy as we can. From maryrose333 at att.net Mon Jan 4 22:18:46 2010 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Mon, 4 Jan 2010 21:18:46 -0800 Subject: [GJM] Could This 'Forbidden Medicine' Eliminate the Need for Drugs? Steve Neiman comments Message-ID: <000901ca8dc6$b6952870$23bf7950$@net> From: Steve Nieman [mailto:stevenieman at mac.com] Sent: Monday, January 04, 2010 6:35 PM To: mary rose Subject: Re: [GJM] Could This 'Forbidden Medicine' Eliminate the Need for Drugs? by Dr. Mercola Great forward, Mary. Thanks. It raised my awareness. Steve Nieman ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ On Dec 22, 2009, at 3:13 PM, mary rose wrote: Moving into: TOTAL WELLNESS An oddity in the medical profession, I had an M.D. who was my primary care physician in the beach area of North County San Diego, where people think much differently than they do in say the Eastern part of the county, refer me to a homeopathic doctor for treatment. What he told me was that his father had been a chiropractor, so he had a much broader sense of healing than most physicians. He also turned me on to Echinacea as a very good healing agent for infections. Were we to turn to more natural ways of healing, we would, IMHO be much better off than with pharmaceuticals. Yet, so many of us are forced to turn to those who practice allopathic medicine because our health insurance does not cover the costs of natural alternative healing practices for the most part. How I do it now is to go to the primary care physician I have been assigned to (although I have a choice of who this is within a limited number) and let h/she determine what is the thing most probably wrong with me, and I let them suggest treatment. However before I enter into a relationship with a medical doctor, I tell them that I much prefer alternative to allopathic treatment but I want to explore options. And what I find is that most allopathic physicians upon learning this will talk with me about alternatives and in many instances will even ask me what I am doing and then tell me how they feel about it, if it is appropriate or not. Much of the time they find no fault with it. Then when applicable, I take any recommended tests if they are fairly benign. Then once I know what is the problem, I get on the Internet or explore options from among the alternative reference books I keep on hand and see if there is some alternative that seems to be working for a lot of people and I try this before taking pharmaceuticals. Also, I am not opposed to surgery, but I want to know there are no other really viable options available to me with a better ratio of success. I had a very close friend of mine who had uterine cancer who just simply did not believe in conventional medicine and after a long struggle with alternatives did not make it. On the other hand, I had uterine cancer, underwent a hysterectomy and later lost a kidney to cancer; however, I am still here and enjoying my life. Hence my philosophy is: Let's use an integrative approach but don't rule out something that could possibly save your life either way. Make careful and well thought out decisions. The best way to avoid illness, and I also did not practice this for a long time, is through prevention. And there is so much we can do in this respect that will virtually eliminate the possibility of having a serious illness or even getting a cold. Knowledge is power, so I recommend that you acquire as much information as is possible about your body/mind field and how it works. Then, armed with this information, you can make much better choices for yourself and stop just blindly trusting your physician. Could This 'Forbidden Medicine' Eliminate the Need for Drugs? Posted by: Dr. Mercola December 22 2009 | 121,355 views -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ceasig at gmail.com Wed Jan 6 03:47:02 2010 From: ceasig at gmail.com (Centre For Ecological Audit, Social Inclusion & Governance) Date: Wed, 6 Jan 2010 16:17:02 +0530 Subject: [GJM] HEALING TRANSITION TRAUMA IN THE NEW DECADE by Carolyn Baker In-Reply-To: <009601ca8999$d597d6e0$80c784a0$@net> References: <009601ca8999$d597d6e0$80c784a0$@net> Message-ID: <31f677a31001060247t3747852av1c717a0e8f16c151@mail.gmail.com> Dear Mary, I feel anguished from this mail and I feel like saying that we must consider communicating adoption of faith based measures as well for reducing the incidence of mental illness. You may not debate but from the conventional wisdom these measures are very useful for healing and providing a sense of contentment, if we do not associate these with those who were responsible for creating misery invoking the faith based identities in the past. I would like to share this from my personal experience of suffering atheism lack of political and intellectual stance for a while when I was intellectually in the probabalisitic mode with reference to the choice of moral ethical framework. I would like to write more on this later. Sharing these just for sending some brainwaves. Advocacy for carbon-neutral neighbourhood measures for leisure ,trade and psychological and social support could be seen in this light. Let us multiply communication through http://ecostrategiccommunicators.ning.com With best wishes for the new year to you and all in the neighbourhood. mukhtar On Thu, Dec 31, 2009 at 3:17 AM, mary rose wrote: > Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS > > > > Thanks to Carolyn Baker for sending this to me and asking me to link to it > on the FD > > website. For your convenience I am also publishing it here to the > Co-learner?s list. > > Please visit Carolyn?s website: ?Speaking Truth to Power? > > http://carolynbaker.net/site/content/view/1453/1/ > > > > After researching cause of the state of our collective consciousness for > close to 19 years > > now, I have come to the conclusion that mental illness in the U.S. is the > greatest threat > > to our survival today. According to the National Institute of Health, 26.2 > % of the population > > is legally mentally ill. Folks we are talking about more than one-quarter > of our population. > > > > One of the most serious of mental illnesses is bipolar disorder with 2% of > those classified as > > ?legally mentally ill? falling into this category. The reason it is so > serious is due to the high > > suicide rate associated with BPD and the other being that it is the most > expensive disease > > there is to treat exceeding the costs of diabetes. But closely associated > to BPD are other > > mental illnesses such as the post-traumatic stress disorder that Carolyn > writes about in > > this article, ADD and ADHD, and schizophrenia. > > > > For reasons I won?t go into at this point, many of those who are mentally > ill are also > > substance abusers with large numbers ending up in jail or prison adding to > the social > > problem. Due to the incarceration factor many are ordered into > rehabilitation centers; > > however, most federal, state, and local rehab centers still fall back on > the old AA program > > as a healing modality. Yet this program falls far short of being able to > address the issues > > related to BPD and other mental illnesses. > > > > For this reason, I am starting a Foundation for Research and Education on > Bipolar Disorder > > as a first step in the search for ways to more effectively handle this > situation, and so far have > > gained the support of the local administrative person for a rehab center > near me, and as > > well of my primary care physician at the local clinic, along with the > author of the book: > > ?It Takes Guts to Be Me: How a former Marine cured himself of Bi-polar > Disorder? along with > > a local acupuncturist whose mother suffered with schizophrenia for 35 years > under-going electric > > shock treatment, being confined to mental institutions, and finally being > diagnosed as having a > > nutritional deficiency which resulted in healing when treated. Once we > have set up a model > > program with the Foundation, we will then take it nationwide. > > > > Since mental illness is frequently associated with substance abuse, we > will be linking the > > Foundation program to the Shoveling Up II Report compiled by The National > Center on Addiction > > and Substance Abuse at Columbia University. This report shows that 96 cents > of every dollar spent > > by Federal, State, and Local agencies is directed toward ?shoveling up the > mess? with only 4 cents > > directed toward prevention. Indications are that this has contributed > immensely to the bankruptcy > > situation in many state and cities. > > > > This is a situation that must be addressed and we must do this by handling > mental illness and > > substance abuse in a ?holodynamically-designed? program which addresses all > of the issues > > simultaneously and does not particalized them. It must be done at the > community level and > > may, due to the present economic crisis and lack of funding, have to be an > all volunteer program. > > In accomplishing this, we will be following a successful model established > by Dr. V. Vernon Woolf > > which led to the successful transformation of those involved in substance > abuse, incarcerated in > > mental hospitals, and in prisons, and recorded in federally-funded > programs. However, we will > > also be incorporating new information not available at that time. > > > > Mental illness and substance abuse place our communities at risk and can no > longer be ignored. > > It has become quite obvious that our government has become dysfunctional > and unable to address > > these issues and we-the-people must organize and do the job ourselves. > Nothing less than the > > fate of the human family is at stake. > > ________________________________________________________________________ > > > > > > > > HEALING TRANSITION TRAUMA IN THE NEW DECADE, By Carolyn Baker > > *[image: PDF]* > > *[image: Print]* > > *[image: E-mail]* > > > > *Wednesday, 30 December 2009* > > Ten years ago this moment, America was awaiting the inauguration of a new > President. We knew that the new Bush administration would bring at least > four years of darkness, but we had no idea how dark, nor that a second > hijacked election would follow the first, nor the extent to which the > influence of Bush II would extend into the future. Certainly, we had no > inkling of 9/11 and that terror-both a politically and psychologically would > overshadow every day of the coming decade. Nor could we have anticipated the > trauma of the Bush years and its lingering legacy for generations to come. > > This morning I browse the Internet and find this article: "*America The > Traumatized: How 13 Events of The Decade Made Us The PTSD Nation*." > I highly recommend reading it because it is the most complete assessment of > our trauma from the beginning of this century until the present moment. It's > only fault is that it does not address the extent to which the European > settlers who founded this nation and their descendants have traumatized this > continent's indigenous population and the rest of the world from the moment > they set foot on North American shores. > > *Shock Doctrine* > > If you have not yet read Naomi Klein's *Shock Doctrine > *, you do not yet fully understand the trauma of the last decade nor its > permanent effects in America and in the world. Klein's incisive analysis > clarifies the extent to which the world has been traumatized far beyond the > events of September 11 and reveals an economic policy of the last half of > the twentieth century that, like the events of that particular day, will > perpetuate an indefinite climate of terror throughout the twenty-first > century. > > The "holy wars" engendered by 9/11 in turn produced countless men and women > emotionally and spiritually eviscerated by them, returning to their > homelands to become the next generation of murderers, spouse-batterers, and > child abusers. And simultaneously, the close of the decade brought forth an > economic bloodbath which left masses of dispossessed human beings homeless, > bankrupt, unemployed, without healthcare or retirement, and in myriad > instances, depressed and suicidal. Moreover, this financial carnage was not > merely a vast series of incidents of economic trauma, but implemented the > permanent dismantling of the middle class--a sea change of calculated, > systematic impoverishment. > > A December 15 MSNBC story reported that: "Joblessness has wreaked * > financial* > and emotional havoc on the lives of many of those out of work, according > to a New York Times/CBS News poll of unemployed adults, causing major life > changes, *mental health*issues > and trouble maintaining even basic necessities." > > As Klein documents, some of this past decade's trauma was circumstantial; > some, deliberate, but all has left an indelible, protracted mark on the > human species which is likely to endure even beyond this century. > > *Hey, I'm Not Traumatized* > > Some readers may argue that this article, so far, is irrelevant to their > circumstances. After all, you may argue, I haven't experienced any of the > above-mentioned forms of adversity. Very well-yes, I really mean that. I'm > happy that you have been fortunate enough to avoid them, but do not think, > dear reader, that you have been able to avoid being traumatized. In fact, if > you are alive on planet earth today, you are living and will live the rest > of your life in a state of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). While you > may not have lived through a traumatic *event*, you cannot escape the * > effects* of a plethora of traumatic events around you, and what is more, > you will be reminded of those events on some level every day of your life. > > Is it the foreclosure signs you see as you look out your front window? Is > it the story about the Nigerian airline passenger this past weekend who > allegedly intended to blow up a plane-a story that dominates airtime on > cable news channels, internet sites, and newspapers? Maybe it's the homeless > people you see on your city streets carrying signs begging for whatever > change you can spare. Unless you're living in a hermetically sealed > isolation tank, you know someone who has lost their house, job, healthcare, > retirement benefits, a limb or a life in war. You're not an addict? Don't > feel like self-medicating? Untold millions of people do. Why is that? > > Perhaps you haven't had your "End of Suburbia" moment when you really *get > *, down to your toenails what the end of cheap and abundant oil will mean > for you and your loved ones. Maybe you can't wrap your mind around going to > the grocery store only to find that there is no food there. Just can't grasp > getting seriously injured and needing surgery, but no hospital, doctor, or > nurse can be found-at least one with anesthesia? Oh, and did I mention that > sometime this coming decade, it may become very difficult or impossible to > find clean, safe drinking water? *Now*, do you feel traumatized? > > You, yes *you*, are experiencing some form of PTSD, and that will become > increasingly obvious to you as the collapse of the empire that engineered > the pillage grows more insane, more desperate to survive, more threatened, > and more willing to do whatever it takes to stay on life-support. > > I haven't even mentioned here the reality of childhood trauma that many of > us bring to the table in the traumatic decades of the twenty-first century. > How this factors into the equation is unknown, but it does, and it will, and > added to the reality that we live in a culture of competition, as opposed to > cooperation, trauma-past and present, is an enormous contributor to our > daunting difficulties in creating and maintaining supportive and harmonious > living communities. > > *Wow, I'm Multi-Tasking!* > > For activists and those working for change, it is extremely important to > understand the trauma of the people with whom and for whom you are working, > as well as your own. It accounts for the inability of so many people to look > at the realities of collapse and stop pretending that a "return to normal" > is imminent. And even when folks are able to look, our multitudinous forms > of PTSD may keep us from realizing how little time we have to prepare and > stop us from allowing ourselves to be deeply penetrated by what is truly at > stake. > > In an article "*In Terror's Grip: Healing The Ravages of Trauma*", > by Harvard Medical School's Bessel van der Kolk, he emphasizes that the > difference between a normally stressful event and a trauma is the degree of > helplessness one experiences in the face of it. Numbness, confusion, shock, > withdrawal, denial, addictions, and many other behaviors are attempts to > avoid the feeling of helplessness and the reliving, consciously or > unconsciously, of the trauma. The result is often an attempt to avoid > feelings that might evoke memories of the trauma or use the distractions of > work, family, or other responsibilities to keep emotions and memories at > bay. Thus the obsession with "staying happy" or "keeping things light" or > "having a positive attitude." > > I notice, for example, that it is much easier for activists to "lose > themselves" in causes and projects than actually feel the feelings > associated with these endeavors. This accounts for the ubiquitous question > "What should we do?" that arises as people begin to awaken to the dire > issues of Peak Oil (and every other resource), climate change, global > economic catastrophe, species extinction, and population overshoot-to name > only a few. If I'm busy "doing" and "solving", then I don't have to feel my > feelings about something that may or may not have a solution. If I don't > feel my feelings, however, I am likely to misdirect my energy and while > being quite task-oriented, fail to be the person I need to be, for myself > and for others, as the external situation further deteriorates. > > The moment we feel our feelings, we are no longer in the land of logistical > preparation where we can operate from the neck up and pretend that there is > no force greater than the personal human ego operating within in us or > outside of us. Once we feel, we are in the territory of soul-a domain that > is irrational, non-linear, unpredictable, and beyond our control. > > As Van Der Kolk and others emphasize, a sense of helplessness is what keeps > us from exploring our feelings in relation to collapse more fully. Yet what > is unavoidably true is that on many levels, we *are* helpless* *or at > least feel helpless in the face of monumental challenges like Peak Oil and > climate change. > > *The Mother Of All Fears* > > If I feel, I enter the domain of the heart and soul, and if I do that, I > will invariably, sooner or later, confront my fear of death. But isn't that > just another trauma? Well, it can be, but it doesn't have to be. A number of > wise men and women have researched death extensively including Elizabeth > Kubler-Ross, Stephen and Ondrea Levine, and the Dali Lama who claims to > spend at least one hour a day contemplating his own death. > > Isn't this just a lot of self-absorbed navel gazing? I think not. In fact, > I believe it is very important in a culture that is based on invincible > heroism, to contemplate our defeat and our demise regularly. Until we do so, > death has unspeakable power over us-so much so that it prevents us from > feeling our feelings and thus tapping into that "something greater" within > us that can guide us to where we will be most useful to our loved ones and > the rest of the community of life. > > In fact, Van Der Kolk, the Harvard Medical School researcher, highly > recommends feeling our feelings: "...effective treatment of PTSD", he > writes, "must involve promoting awareness, rather than avoidance, of > internal somatic states." He uses the term "mindfulness", a word often used > by practitioners of meditation, stating that, "Mindfulness, awareness of > one's inner experience, is necessary for a person to respond according to > what is happening and is needed in the present, rather than reacting to > certain somatic sensations as a return of the traumatic past. Such awareness > will free people to introduce new options to solve problems and not merely > to react reflexively." > > *What Does Your GPS Say?* > > Finally, says Van der Kolk, "Imagining new possibilities, not merely > repetitively retelling the tragic past, is the essence of post-traumatic > therapy." In this I hear the *both-and*that we must embrace as we navigate > another decade of trauma and traumatic residue from the previous one. That > is, we must be willing to feel our feelings and listen to their > reverberations in the body, and at the same time, envision and imagine life > lived in a new paradigm of cooperation, enoughness, service, respect, and > deep listening and truth-speaking. In the coming decade of transition > trauma, we must listen deeply not only to others but to the "something > greater" within us-the internal GPS (not Global Positioning System but * > Greater* Positioning System) that can center and ground us when all manner > of terror confronts us and tempts us to resort to numbness, avoidance, > panic, cynicism, or frenetic busy-ness. > > I don't know how the next decade will end, but it is beginning with an > insipid mediocrity that I find more ominous than blatant upheaval. Thus I > cannot help but wonder to what extent a dramatic "event(s)" will be > necessary to awaken more of our species or the level of catastrophe required > for the awakening to occur. In other words, a significant portion of the > human race may be incapable of mindfulness without the experience of more > trauma of a more calamitous nature. I would very much like to be wrong about > that, but we're out of time, and most of humanity is obsessed with a "return > to normal." > > This week's issue of Newsweek features an article on "*Survivalism Lite*" > which highlights families around the nation who are preparing for the worst. > Of course, it's all about amassing vast quantities of food, medical > supplies, and ammunition. Nowhere in the piece is there one mention of how > these people intend to cope emotionally and spiritually when all the cans of > Chef Boyardee run out. What this movement portends is quite simply, a bunch > of traumatized people preparing to inflict more trauma on themselves and > others. > > There is absolutely no place in the decade ahead for arrogance based on how > much we know about collapse and how prepared we think we may be for it. Like > veterans returning from combat, we are all the walking wounded, and our work > is to hold onto each other and feel our own and the other's feelings, then > join hands and transform our communities. The work to be done is daunting in > quantity and scope; it is the work not only of preparation but also of > healing-the work of looking inside ourselves and asking, "*Who* is > preparing? *Who* is healing? *Who* do I want to be-who must I be in the > 20-tens?" > > This morning I also received this stunning poem by David Whyte which I > invite us to take with us into the new decade: > > *MAMEEN** **(Conamara, Ireland)* > > Be infinitesimal under that sky, a creature > even the sailing hawk misses, a wraith > among the rocks where the mist parts slowly. > Recall the way mere mortals are overwhelmed > by circumstance, how great reputations > dissolve with infirmity and how you, > in particular, live a hairsbreadth from losing > everyone you hold dear. > > Then, look back down the path as if seeing > your past and then south over the hazy blue > coast as if present to a wide future, > recall the way you are all possibilities > you can see and how you live best > as an appreciator of horizons > whether you reach them or not, > admit that once you have got up > from your chair and opened the door, > once you have walked out into the clean air > toward that edge and taken the path up high > beyond the ordinary you have become > the privileged and the pilgrim > the one who will tell the story > and the one, coming back > from the mountain, > who helped to make it. > > - David Whyte > > Carolyn Baker is available for Transition coaching/counseling and spiritual > direction. Please contact her at *Carolyn at carolynbaker.net* > > > > > > *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?* > > > > _______________________________________________ > 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: -------------- 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/png Size: 426 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/png Size: 424 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/png Size: 394 bytes Desc: not available URL: From ceasig at gmail.com Wed Jan 6 04:01:28 2010 From: ceasig at gmail.com (Centre For Ecological Audit, Social Inclusion & Governance) Date: Wed, 6 Jan 2010 16:31:28 +0530 Subject: [GJM] FW: 156 countries sing - Love Is All You Need! In-Reply-To: <003b01ca8be5$8b71e7b0$a255b710$@net> References: <003b01ca8be5$8b71e7b0$a255b710$@net> Message-ID: <31f677a31001060301t40c3ebf6qc7712698e3e962b7@mail.gmail.com> Great sharing, I would like to post this. On Sun, Jan 3, 2010 at 1:24 AM, mary rose wrote: > Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS > > > > Another marketing ploy by a company that is more interested in the bottom > line than in health and wellness. Does anyone remember when Coca Cola used > this same marketing technique with the popular Michael Jackson in the lead > to sing ?All You Need Is Love? backed up by people from around the world. > Both the Coca Cola company and Starbucks have something in common ? that is, > they market products that have almost no nutritional value while growers rob > the earth of nutrients in order to grow it. Even organically-grown coffer > offers little to people other than the ?kick? it gives one due to the > caffeine contained in it. Coffee- growing uses up millions of acres of land > worldwide in an effort to make money off of something that gives little to > the human family in the way of sustenance, yet produces mega bucks for the > larger growers while bankrupting the smaller farmers who have attempted to > make a living from it. And there is the little known fact that sun grown > coffee vs shade-grown is devastating to the migrant song bird population > contributing much to the species loss of this time -- mainly due to the > habits of the human population. > > > > May I suggest reading: THE COFFEE BOOK: Anatomy of an Industry FROM CROP TO > THE LAST DROP. http://www.akpress.org/1999/items/coffeebook > > > > ITEM OVERVIEW > What do you really know about our favorite drug? Favorite like 400 million > cups per day consumed in the US alone? Here, in a quick 200 pages, is enough > to wow the entire gang at your local java tank. The history of the bean, the > creation of plantations, the current politics and economics of the brew, the > rise of the gourmet bean, and the chain coffee emporia and conscious coffee. > And of course, exactly how caffeine works its wonders on your frying brain. > Now in a new, freshly updated edition. > > > > M. R. While the author of this book attempts to make coffee and > coffee-growing a ?conscious? endeavor through ?Fair Trade? since they > themselves are in the business, it is obvious that coffee has more to do > with maintaining a ?lifestyle? than with concern for either the health or > wellness of the Planet Earth and those who live upon it. > > > > When will we wake up and ?get it? as to what we are doing to not only the > Earth, but to ourselves as the Earth serves as our life support system. Here > again, Daniel Quinn?s analogy that we are ?taking the building blocks out > from under the basement in order to build a second story? is appropriate. > > > > *From:* Rob McWayne [mailto:wrmcwayne at hotmail.com] > *Sent:* Friday, January 01, 2010 9:13 PM > *Subject:* 156 countries sing - Love Is All You Need! > > > > > Had to be a pretty big editing challenge! > But I think you'll love it! > > maybe these are some of the first sounds of our earthorganism > as she/us/One finds a voice! > > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nh7D2g5v-Sg > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > 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 Wed Jan 6 06:22:34 2010 From: dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk (robert searle) Date: Wed, 6 Jan 2010 13:22:34 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [GJM] Ellen Brown Rebuttal?? Message-ID: <494403.94102.qm@web27407.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> ? The following came from the Climate Change discussion group. I have not read it right through but may be worthwhile ? "Why States Going into the Banking Business Would be a Distraction, not a Solution to their Fiscal Problems" by Jamie Walton AMI Researcher the full article is posted at http://economics.arawakcity.org/node/240 Readers: This is effectively a review and rebuttal of an article by Ellen Brown "Job Losses? Not in North Dakota: A Stimulus Plan That Really Works" published at HuffingtonPost (see http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ellen-brown/job-losses-not-in-north-d_b_34... and other places. I have not read Ellen Brown's book yet, though Jamie Walton's critique seems to be spot on. There is frequent pattern of conflation where a poor solution is framed and associated with positive values or apparent results when the connection between the proposal and the expected values or results is weak or non-existent. This article came from the AMI website and deserves at least equal consideration in an open if not equally informed forum. Use this link to the AMI version http://www.monetary.org/moneyscenefive.html Admin by Jamie Walton, AMI researcher ???We may not be able to stop them, but we can join them. We the people need to play the bankers??? game ourselves.???1 ??? that was written by one of the promoters of the notion that the state governments should go into the fractional reserve banking business to beat Wall Street at its own game and solve their fiscal problems. What an insult to humanity! How about a dose of morality and common sense. Isn't that like saying: ???We???re victims of organized financial crime, so lets join the criminals!??? Trying to beat Wall Street at its own game is obviously not the answer. As Albert Einstein once said, "We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." Forty-eight States currently have budget deficits and many are sharply cutting services to try to close ???fiscal??? gaps opening up to an average 24% by 2010. Some attention has recently been given to the idea that State governments can get out of their fiscal problems by setting up their own banks. This is mainly a distraction away from genuine reform of the system, as encapsulated in the proposed draft American Monetary Act (more about that below). The argument being put forward is that State governments can increase their revenues without increasing taxes by collecting profits from State-run banks. The proposal suggests that State governments go into the banking business and ???fan??? their deposits into 10 or 12 times as much in loans, using ???fractional reserve??? or ???capital adequacy??? rules, to cover fiscal gaps with bank profits. This is a foolish suggestion, for several reasons. 1. You don???t solve a problem with more of the problem. This scheme for states to go into the banking business would only ???serve to protect??? the status quo. The ???proposal??? completely fails to confront the main problem identified by all serious monetary reforms: ???fractional reserve??? banking. Instead, it actually endorses and sanctions this vicious and destructive process, by suggesting that State governments engage in it ??? it???s immoral! 2. What these promoters describe is not how banking operates. No single bank can multiply its deposits by 10 or 12 times in loans, they can only make loans (or purchases of securities, e.g. bonds) up against 90-95% of their deposits; these loans create new deposits, which, when spent, are most likely transferred to other banks; then receiving banks can again make new loans up to 90-95% of their deposits, and so on. This ???process??? is repeated indefinitely, in ever-decreasing increments, and the effect over time is that the banking system as a whole multiplies those initial deposits by 10 or 12 times. The only reason some progressives might be considering this proposal is they don't understand how fractional reserves work. This process is carried on at great cost to the community as a whole, because every new loan (or new security purchase) is additional interest-bearing debt. As presently operated, banks can be viewed as debt factories; they primarily create debt and only create the bulk of our money supply as a debt byproduct. Banks make profits and stay in business by putting the community as a whole into more debt than it can repay in any given time. This results in a net claim against the community going into the future. While some profits are paid to shareholders as dividends, this is only a small percentage of the debt created. If a bank was State-owned, the ???shareholders??? would nominally be the people of the community, but any profits would still be based on the indebtedness of the community. That???s the inevitable outcome, no matter who owns a bank, because the same rules apply to all banks in the banking system. But; the question is not who should be the beneficiaries of perpetual claims against the community, the question is should anyone be the beneficiaries of perpetual claims against the community ??? why place ourselves forever on a treadmill just to have what we???ve already got? It makes no sense. 3. The problem is being misidentified as interest, when the problem is debt. Proponents of the scheme are alleging that interest collected by ???private??? banks is kept out of circulation and is therefore not available to repay loans the bank have made. But this is not true. Most, if not all, interest re-enters the system in some way at some time (e.g. as expenses, dividends, investments, etc.). This is not the problem. The problem is almost all of our money is created with a debt attached; it is ???borrowed into existence??? from banks, who create it when we have to borrow it. As our economy grows, we need new money, but almost all of the new money is presently created with interest-bearing debt, so almost every new dollar has more than a dollar owing on it ??? so it has to ???earn??? more than a dollar and pay it all back to banks (who never had it in the first place). Who owns and runs any particular bank makes little or no difference because the debt-based money-creating banking system will still own and run us, on a treadmill. Money doesn???t have to be created like this; coins aren???t, they???re just created as money, with no debt attached; when they???re issued, it???s revenue for the U.S. government, saving taxpayers $$$. All money can be created this way. And; if we don???t start with any debt, then we don???t start with any interest either. With that in mind, let???s look again at the States??? fiscal crisis. State governments receive money from the community for the provision of public services and the support of volunteer services. These are generally things that are needed in the community which aren???t commercial in nature, they???re not the types of things that it???s either possible or desirable to make a profit on (e.g. rape crisis centers, battered women???s refuges, assisted housing for people with physical/mental impairments, respite care for caregivers, etc.). Non-commercial services needed in the community couldn???t exist without being paid for straight out, because providers can???t borrow and then generate income to repay loans, that???s not how they work (if they could do that, they???d be doing it already) ??? they need money that doesn???t have to be paid back. Diverting public resources away from desperately needed services toward a commercial venture would only make things worse. The effect on the ground could lead to the commercialization of services intended for the relief of poverty, disability, pain, suffering and misery; by forcing service providers to also be profit makers (e.g. commercialized prisons); or reverting to relying on the whims of charity. If neither of these ???choices??? worked-out (which history shows, they generally don???t), the community services essential for any viably functioning civil society might disappear altogether, and then ???there goes the neighborhood??? ??? social disintegration is a slippery slope, for everyone. This is a very serious situation ??? it???s no time to be playing games. In addition to these defining moral questions, there are also some more technical reasons why they won???t automatically work as suggested. 1. No bank???s an island ??? they???re all in it together. A bank can only lend out what it can expect to receive back, not only from its borrowers in the long term, but also from all other banks through the clearing process in the very short term, i.e. usually overnight. Even if a State-run bank could attract other banks to have accounts with it and/or require its employees and suppliers to have accounts with it, the other banks would have to call in their loans by 10 or 12 times the amounts transferred (so there???d be no net gain in loans available). Of course, at some stage, all of its depositors would need to spend their money with people having accounts at other banks, so sooner or later its reserves would drain back to other banks and it would then have to call in its loans by 10 or 12 times as much. In any case, no bank can lend more than the prevailing level of lending of all other banks; every bank has to move in step with every other bank, otherwise it would soon sustain an adverse net balance through the clearing process and drain all its reserves to the other banks. It???s a complete error that any bank can just go ahead and multiply it???s ???reserves??? or ???capital??? by 10 or 12 times in loans. If the other banks aren???t lending, a State-run bank wouldn???t be able to lend either. 2. Don???t be fooled by what???s happening in a low-population State. North Dakota has about 700,000 people, a strong community spirit based on farming in difficult conditions, and significant oil revenues. The model being presented is the Bank of North Dakota, which provides support services to some other banks in its area.2 But this arrangement won???t automatically translate to other States, as the banks in other States may not wish to engage in it, and requiring them to could be very unpopular. This could lead to significant risks to taxpayers. In 1931, the Government Savings Bank of New South Wales (a federated State of Australia), at that time the 2nd largest savings bank in the British Empire, was closed down by a run caused by a series of ???scare??? stories put out in the media as part of a ???political??? attack.3 If a similar action were possible against a State-run bank today, taxpayers might be called upon to pay for the aftermath (e.g. the Bank of North Dakota is not FDIC-insured(!), and is instead guaranteed by the State Government itself). 3. The promised golden goose may prove to be a noose. What may look like a boost for taxpayers could end up being a ball-and-chain. For instance; where are States already in deficit going to get the money to set up a bank? As the President of the Bank of North Dakota, Eric Hardmeyer, explains (in the article cited above), to avoid a drain on existing deposits from other banks, and the consequent contraction in loans, a State government would probably have to issue bonds to raise the capital needed to set up a State-run bank.4 Yet more debt bondage at a time like this may be more than the State???s taxpayers can bear. In any case, a new bank would be as much of a burden on the community as any other bank. We would have the ridiculous situation of the people, as taxpayers, being put further into debt to build a debt factory to put the people, as the community, even further into debt. 4. States shouldn???t gamble taxpayer???s money on risky business. The actual balances of State government bank accounts aren???t huge, and they don???t grow, because they???re always being spent ??? that???s what they???re for. The actual profit margins banks make on their funds under management are generally modest, so any returns from a relatively small loan portfolio, after deducting operating expenses and re-investment in the business, wouldn???t be anywhere near the amount required to fix the current fiscal shortfalls of the State governments. For example, in recent years the Bank of North Dakota has transferred between about a third to a half of its net income to the State coffers; ~$25 million in 2007, ~$20 million in 2008.5 The total budget for the State Government for the 2007-2009 fiscal period is $6.5 billion.6 A State law requires the bank to pay $60 million to the general fund over the same period ??? a contribution of less than 1% to the State budget. Meanwhile, State governments face average budget shortfalls of 24% for 2010 - so the numbers just don???t stack up.7 Weighing the pros and cons; relatively low potential returns compared to potential high risks (e.g. the concerted aggressive actions of other banks); it???s not a very good bet. 5. States would be better-off using their clout with the banks. A more prudent course of action would be for State governments to negotiate more favorable contracts for their banking business with one or more banks. This would involve much less cost and trouble (e.g. recruiting competent staff and administering a new enterprise) than trying to set up a bank, especially when public services are being cut. The banks need those deposits ??? they???ll do anything to keep them (even if they don???t like to admit it). 6. We don???t need any more diversions. We citizens have only so much energy and time to devote to changing our world for the better. Diverting good people into nonsense condemns us to continue suffering unnecessarily. This time of crisis must be used for real reform, not diversions. So what is the solution? Wed Jan?6,?2010 12:06?am Show Message Option View Source Use?Fixed?Width?Font Unwrap?Lines ideasinc taditd Offline Send Email Forward Message #19720 of 19721 Expand Messages Author Sort by Date re-buttal to the Ellen Brown side tracking "Why States Going into the Banking Business Would be a Distraction, not a Solution to their Fiscal Problems" by Jamie Walton AMI Researcher the full article is... ideasinc taditd 1:27?am Message # Search: Advanced Start Topic SPONSOR RESULTS Female Self-Defense Techniqueswww.CloseCombatTraining.com - Master the art of female self-defense from popular martial artists. Amtrak To New York - Forumwww.railcritic.com - Ask questions, post photos, rate trains or share your knowledge. PKU Support GroupPKU.com/discussionforum - Share your PKU experiences with other community members on PKU.com. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk Wed Jan 6 06:25:33 2010 From: dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk (robert searle) Date: Wed, 6 Jan 2010 13:25:33 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [GJM] The US Debt Industry... Message-ID: <404984.74188.qm@web27401.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> ? ? Buffalo's Debt Collectors Allegedly Using Illegal Tactics To Intimidate Debtors CAROLYN THOMPSON AND DAVID B. CARUSO | 01/ 5/10 03:06 PM | AP BUFFALO, N.Y. ? When Tobias "Bags of Money" Boyland went looking for a new career after serving 13 years in prison for armed robbery and drug dealing, he quickly found something that suited his sensibilities: He opened a collection agency. It was, in some ways, a natural move for a young man in Buffalo. Desperate for jobs, this chronically depressed Rust Belt city has become home to one of the biggest concentrations of debt collection businesses in the U.S. "Collections is the Bethlehem Steel of Buffalo," said Boyland, 44, recalling the industrial giant that once employed 20,000 people in the region. "You can make a decent living in a town where there isn't a lot of opportunity." Between 5,000 and 6,000 people earning $30,000 to $40,000 a year now work at roughly 110 collection agencies in and around Buffalo, an industry created with the help of seed money from the state of New York. The industry has been a rare economic bright spot in Buffalo, the nation's third-poorest city of its size, a place where 30 percent of the people live in poverty. Yet, law enforcement and consumer groups point to a dark side: Buffalo, they say, has also become a center for some of the worst elements in the business. Debt collectors, some of them convicted felons, have illegally posed as lawyers or unlawfully browbeat people ? threatening to have them arrested or stripped of custody of their children ? to scare them into making payments. "Get some clean clothes because you're not coming home any time soon," one debtor was told. As the sour economy leaves people less and less able to pay their debts, the collection abuses have become so flagrant and numerous that state and federal authorities have moved to shut down several Buffalo-area agencies where the most heartless and bullying telephone calls originated. At least 20 people have been sued or arrested on criminal charges. Boyland himself was forced out of business and jailed in June after authorities said they caught him carrying a loaded, unlicensed pistol as they investigated more than 1,000 complaints about abusive tactics at his collection business. Story continues below The regional Better Business Bureau said that in the past three years, it has gotten 4,562 complaints about debt collection agencies in western New York. Of 213 agencies it has graded in the region, 104 were given an "F." And of all the complaints about debt collection received by the Better Business Bureau nationwide last year, about 1 in 10 involved a company in western New York. Collection agencies began sprouting in Buffalo in the mid-1990s as a spinoff of the city's then-growing back-office and financial-services sector. Like other businesses operating big customer-service call centers, the collection companies were drawn to Buffalo by its inexpensive office space and its willing and affordable work force. A state development agency has sweetened the pot since 2001 with $1.2 million in grants to four collection agencies. It gave an additional $400,000 in October to a collection company that plans to double its work force with 50 new hires. "Almost everyone knows someone whose son or daughter has worked for a collection agency," said David Polino, president of the . "This is one of the industries that used to be Bethlehem Steel, the Chevy plant ? all the places where you used to get out of high school and find employment 35 or 40 years ago, it's now call centers." Better Business Bureau of Upstate New York Industry supporters blame many of the worst complaints on small firms operating on the fringe. Twenty-eight of the region's collection agencies have a grade of "A" from the BBB for generating few complaints while setting up repayment plans for delinquent credit card accounts, medical bills or loans. "The vast majority are great businesses that benefit the local economy, do a good job, are respectful, and then you've got a few that are just wacko," said John Nemo, spokesman for the Association of Credit and Collection Professionals, a trade group with 3,500 members. Boyland blamed the problems at his nine companies on unsupervised employees who abused a chance to make good money. Twelve of his former workers have been arrested and charged with offenses including posing as law enforcement officers to intimidate people into paying debts. When "Dateline NBC" did a segment on Boyland's business in March, Boyland appeared unrepentant, writing on his Web site that he was "laughing all the way to the bank." But in a recent interview with The Associated Press, he was more contrite, saying he wouldn't have condoned such "ludicrous" tactics. "Who can build a successful business model from that? It's not possible," he said. Nationally, the Federal Trade Commission received more than 78,000 complaints about third-party debt collectors in 2008 and announced civil judgments of more than $1 million against agencies. The 2008 complaint total, the most recent complete-year figure available, was more than twice that of 2003. No other industry generated more calls. For the first half of 2009, the FTC logged 45,050 complaints, an increase of nearly one-third from the same period in 2008. While the bad economy has been partly responsible for the rise in complaints, another factor has been the emergence of companies that buy portfolios of old debts and make another stab at collecting, often more aggressively. Virtually anyone can buy into the business and get access to the personal information needed to collect a debt ? including people with criminal records. Over the past year, the New York attorney general's office has picked off some of the companies that generated the most outrageous complaints, including threatening debtors with phony lawsuits or trying to embarrass them by phoning employers and neighbors, both illegal under federal law. "The tactics allegedly used here are some of the worst of the worst in the debt collection business," Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said in announcing a dozen arrests in September. "The defendants' alleged lies, deceit and intimidation caused many innocent people to pay money they didn't owe just to stop the terrifying calls." Threatening to have people arrested for failing to pay a debt is also illegal, but that has been happening, too. Michelle Minton of Springville said she was home alone with her two toddlers when someone claiming to be a lawyer for a collection firm phoned her, told her she owed $2,100 and said a warrant had been issued for her arrest. The only way out, he said, was for her to make a payment immediately. "If your husband can't make it home from work, your children will have to go to Social Services," he told her. Minton was certain there had been a mistake, but panicked and gave the caller access to her bank account, which was quickly drained of $900. She found out later the debt was owed by someone else. "Forty-five minutes of bullying and they got $900," she said. She and her husband tracked the call to a Buffalo company that has been the subject of other complaints. Cuomo's office is suing the business. ___ David B. Caruso reported from New York City. Buffalo's Debt Collectors Allegedly Using Illegal Tactics To Intimidate Debtors (6 January 2010) ?http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/05/buffalos-debt-collectors_n_412238.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+HP%2FBusiness+%28Business+on+The+Huffington+Post%29 ? Wed Jan?6,?2010 10:45?am Show Message Option View Source Use?Fixed?Width?Font Unwrap?Lines Riaz K Tayob riaz.tayob Offline Send Email Forward Message #19721 of 19721 Expand Messages Author Sort by Date The new US growth Industry - debt collection *Buffalo's Debt Collectors Allegedly Using Illegal Tactics To Intimidate Debtors *CAROLYN THOMPSON AND DAVID B. CARUSO | 01/ 5/10 03:06 PM | AP BUFFALO, N.Y.... Riaz K Tayob riaz.tayob 11:48?am Message # Search: Advanced Start Topic SPONSOR RESULTS Anti Slip Coatings, Tape, Treatmentsnoskidding.com - Most comprehensive range of economical easy to apply slip resistant treatments, tapes, coatings, floor care available anywhere for immediate shipping. Washington DC Sightseeing Tourswww.OnBoardDCTours.com - Don't leave your guide on a bus. Tour Washington DC in One Day. Learn Art at Homewww.famousartistsschool.com - Learn to Draw and Paint at Home Copyright ? 2010 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy - Terms of Service - Copyright Policy - Guidelines - Help ? if(window.yzq_d==null)window.yzq_d=new Object(); window.yzq_d['Ka7oj0PDhFk-']='&U=12dkupmms%2fN%3dKa7oj0PDhFk-%2fC%3d-1%2fD%3dFSRVY%2fB%3d-1%2fV%3d0'; if(window.yzq_d==null)window.yzq_d=new Object(); window.yzq_d['J67oj0PDhFk-']='&U=13flie5vq%2fN%3dJ67oj0PDhFk-%2fC%3d624324.13382202.13481659.12549985%2fD%3dSIP%2fB%3d5677391%2fV%3d1'; if(window.yzq_d==null)window.yzq_d=new Object(); window.yzq_d['Ja7oj0PDhFk-']='&U=13d8bffu0%2fN%3dJa7oj0PDhFk-%2fC%3d289534.8588553.9382312.4155847%2fD%3dFOOT%2fB%3d3651951%2fV%3d1'; -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rodney.shakespeare1 at btopenworld.com Wed Jan 6 08:36:51 2010 From: rodney.shakespeare1 at btopenworld.com (Rodney Shakespeare) Date: Wed, 6 Jan 2010 15:36:51 -0000 Subject: [GJM] Could This 'Forbidden Medicine' Eliminate the Need forDrugs? Steve Neiman comments References: <000901ca8dc6$b6952870$23bf7950$@net> Message-ID: <001f01ca8ee6$11c3d730$4001a8c0@your447023ae6b> Steve, Yes. And in my family's life the situation was saved three times by "alternative" medicine (after conventional medicine had said it could do nothing). Twice the remedy was herbal (each time it took a long time to work it out exactly which herbs would work) and once acupuncture. Rodney Shakespeare. ----- Original Message ----- From: mary rose To: FixGov at yahoogroups.com ; 'Discussion Forum for Global Justice' Sent: Tuesday, January 05, 2010 5:18 AM Subject: [GJM] Could This 'Forbidden Medicine' Eliminate the Need forDrugs? Steve Neiman comments From: Steve Nieman [mailto:stevenieman at mac.com] Sent: Monday, January 04, 2010 6:35 PM To: mary rose Subject: Re: [GJM] Could This 'Forbidden Medicine' Eliminate the Need for Drugs? by Dr. Mercola Great forward, Mary. Thanks. It raised my awareness. Steve Nieman ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ On Dec 22, 2009, at 3:13 PM, mary rose wrote: Moving into: TOTAL WELLNESS An oddity in the medical profession, I had an M.D. who was my primary care physician in the beach area of North County San Diego, where people think much differently than they do in say the Eastern part of the county, refer me to a homeopathic doctor for treatment. What he told me was that his father had been a chiropractor, so he had a much broader sense of healing than most physicians. He also turned me on to Echinacea as a very good healing agent for infections. Were we to turn to more natural ways of healing, we would, IMHO be much better off than with pharmaceuticals. Yet, so many of us are forced to turn to those who practice allopathic medicine because our health insurance does not cover the costs of natural alternative healing practices for the most part. How I do it now is to go to the primary care physician I have been assigned to (although I have a choice of who this is within a limited number) and let h/she determine what is the thing most probably wrong with me, and I let them suggest treatment. However before I enter into a relationship with a medical doctor, I tell them that I much prefer alternative to allopathic treatment but I want to explore options. And what I find is that most allopathic physicians upon learning this will talk with me about alternatives and in many instances will even ask me what I am doing and then tell me how they feel about it, if it is appropriate or not. Much of the time they find no fault with it. Then when applicable, I take any recommended tests if they are fairly benign. Then once I know what is the problem, I get on the Internet or explore options from among the alternative reference books I keep on hand and see if there is some alternative that seems to be working for a lot of people and I try this before taking pharmaceuticals. Also, I am not opposed to surgery, but I want to know there are no other really viable options available to me with a better ratio of success. I had a very close friend of mine who had uterine cancer who just simply did not believe in conventional medicine and after a long struggle with alternatives did not make it. On the other hand, I had uterine cancer, underwent a hysterectomy and later lost a kidney to cancer; however, I am still here and enjoying my life. Hence my philosophy is: Let's use an integrative approach but don't rule out something that could possibly save your life either way. Make careful and well thought out decisions. The best way to avoid illness, and I also did not practice this for a long time, is through prevention. And there is so much we can do in this respect that will virtually eliminate the possibility of having a serious illness or even getting a cold. Knowledge is power, so I recommend that you acquire as much information as is possible about your body/mind field and how it works. Then, armed with this information, you can make much better choices for yourself and stop just blindly trusting your physician. Could This 'Forbidden Medicine' Eliminate the Need for Drugs? Posted by: Dr. Mercola December 22 2009 | 121,355 views ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ Discussion mailing list Discussion at globaljusticemovement.net http://globaljusticemovement.net/mailman/listinfo/discussion_globaljusticemovement.net -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rodney.shakespeare1 at btopenworld.com Wed Jan 6 08:51:06 2010 From: rodney.shakespeare1 at btopenworld.com (Rodney Shakespeare) Date: Wed, 6 Jan 2010 15:51:06 -0000 Subject: [GJM] Ellen Brown Rebuttal?? References: <494403.94102.qm@web27407.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <00ac01ca8ee8$10e4afe0$4001a8c0@your447023ae6b> Robert, Ellen (Web of Debt) Brown is a wonderful writer/journalist who in practice is leading the case for monetary reform (see her articles all over the internet) The London Global Table delights in her company when she is in London. Unfortunately bigots and dogmatists in the AMI (American Monetary Institute) are totally unable to co-operate with anybody and are vicious with their abuse (thus they call me an Islamic fascist). Ellen talks to, and co-operates with, anybody of reasonable good faith and her behaviour is in contrast to that of the AMI which is unable to co-operate with anybody. Rodney Shkaespeare. ----- Original Message ----- From: robert searle To: discussion at globaljusticemovement.net Sent: Wednesday, January 06, 2010 1:22 PM Subject: [GJM] Ellen Brown Rebuttal?? The following came from the Climate Change discussion group. I have not read it right through but may be worthwhile "Why States Going into the Banking Business Would be a Distraction, not a Solution to their Fiscal Problems" by Jamie Walton AMI Researcher the full article is posted at http://economics.arawakcity.org/node/240 Readers: This is effectively a review and rebuttal of an article by Ellen Brown "Job Losses? Not in North Dakota: A Stimulus Plan That Really Works" published at HuffingtonPost (see http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ellen-brown/job-losses-not-in-north-d_b_34... and other places. I have not read Ellen Brown's book yet, though Jamie Walton's critique seems to be spot on. There is frequent pattern of conflation where a poor solution is framed and associated with positive values or apparent results when the connection between the proposal and the expected values or results is weak or non-existent. This article came from the AMI website and deserves at least equal consideration in an open if not equally informed forum. Use this link to the AMI version http://www.monetary.org/moneyscenefive.html Admin by Jamie Walton, AMI researcher ???We may not be able to stop them, but we can join them. We the people need to play the bankers??? game ourselves.???1 ??? that was written by one of the promoters of the notion that the state governments should go into the fractional reserve banking business to beat Wall Street at its own game and solve their fiscal problems. What an insult to humanity! How about a dose of morality and common sense. Isn't that like saying: ???We???re victims of organized financial crime, so lets join the criminals!??? Trying to beat Wall Street at its own game is obviously not the answer. As Albert Einstein once said, "We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." Forty-eight States currently have budget deficits and many are sharply cutting services to try to close ???fiscal??? gaps opening up to an average 24% by 2010. Some attention has recently been given to the idea that State governments can get out of their fiscal problems by setting up their own banks. This is mainly a distraction away from genuine reform of the system, as encapsulated in the proposed draft American Monetary Act (more about that below). The argument being put forward is that State governments can increase their revenues without increasing taxes by collecting profits from State-run banks. The proposal suggests that State governments go into the banking business and ???fan??? their deposits into 10 or 12 times as much in loans, using ???fractional reserve??? or ???capital adequacy??? rules, to cover fiscal gaps with bank profits. This is a foolish suggestion, for several reasons. 1. You don???t solve a problem with more of the problem. This scheme for states to go into the banking business would only ???serve to protect??? the status quo. The ???proposal??? completely fails to confront the main problem identified by all serious monetary reforms: ???fractional reserve??? banking. Instead, it actually endorses and sanctions this vicious and destructive process, by suggesting that State governments engage in it ??? it???s immoral! 2. What these promoters describe is not how banking operates. No single bank can multiply its deposits by 10 or 12 times in loans, they can only make loans (or purchases of securities, e.g. bonds) up against 90-95% of their deposits; these loans create new deposits, which, when spent, are most likely transferred to other banks; then receiving banks can again make new loans up to 90-95% of their deposits, and so on. This ???process??? is repeated indefinitely, in ever-decreasing increments, and the effect over time is that the banking system as a whole multiplies those initial deposits by 10 or 12 times. The only reason some progressives might be considering this proposal is they don't understand how fractional reserves work. This process is carried on at great cost to the community as a whole, because every new loan (or new security purchase) is additional interest-bearing debt. As presently operated, banks can be viewed as debt factories; they primarily create debt and only create the bulk of our money supply as a debt byproduct. Banks make profits and stay in business by putting the community as a whole into more debt than it can repay in any given time. This results in a net claim against the community going into the future. While some profits are paid to shareholders as dividends, this is only a small percentage of the debt created. If a bank was State-owned, the ???shareholders??? would nominally be the people of the community, but any profits would still be based on the indebtedness of the community. That???s the inevitable outcome, no matter who owns a bank, because the same rules apply to all banks in the banking system. But; the question is not who should be the beneficiaries of perpetual claims against the community, the question is should anyone be the beneficiaries of perpetual claims against the community ??? why place ourselves forever on a treadmill just to have what we???ve already got? It makes no sense. 3. The problem is being misidentified as interest, when the problem is debt. Proponents of the scheme are alleging that interest collected by ???private??? banks is kept out of circulation and is therefore not available to repay loans the bank have made. But this is not true. Most, if not all, interest re-enters the system in some way at some time (e.g. as expenses, dividends, investments, etc.). This is not the problem. The problem is almost all of our money is created with a debt attached; it is ???borrowed into existence??? from banks, who create it when we have to borrow it. As our economy grows, we need new money, but almost all of the new money is presently created with interest-bearing debt, so almost every new dollar has more than a dollar owing on it ??? so it has to ???earn??? more than a dollar and pay it all back to banks (who never had it in the first place). Who owns and runs any particular bank makes little or no difference because the debt-based money-creating banking system will still own and run us, on a treadmill. Money doesn???t have to be created like this; coins aren???t, they???re just created as money, with no debt attached; when they???re issued, it???s revenue for the U.S. government, saving taxpayers $$$. All money can be created this way. And; if we don???t start with any debt, then we don???t start with any interest either. With that in mind, let???s look again at the States??? fiscal crisis. State governments receive money from the community for the provision of public services and the support of volunteer services. These are generally things that are needed in the community which aren???t commercial in nature, they???re not the types of things that it???s either possible or desirable to make a profit on (e.g. rape crisis centers, battered women???s refuges, assisted housing for people with physical/mental impairments, respite care for caregivers, etc.). Non-commercial services needed in the community couldn???t exist without being paid for straight out, because providers can???t borrow and then generate income to repay loans, that???s not how they work (if they could do that, they???d be doing it already) ??? they need money that doesn???t have to be paid back. Diverting public resources away from desperately needed services toward a commercial venture would only make things worse. The effect on the ground could lead to the commercialization of services intended for the relief of poverty, disability, pain, suffering and misery; by forcing service providers to also be profit makers (e.g. commercialized prisons); or reverting to relying on the whims of charity. If neither of these ???choices??? worked-out (which history shows, they generally don???t), the community services essential for any viably functioning civil society might disappear altogether, and then ???there goes the neighborhood??? ??? social disintegration is a slippery slope, for everyone. This is a very serious situation ??? it???s no time to be playing games. In addition to these defining moral questions, there are also some more technical reasons why they won???t automatically work as suggested. 1. No bank???s an island ??? they???re all in it together. A bank can only lend out what it can expect to receive back, not only from its borrowers in the long term, but also from all other banks through the clearing process in the very short term, i.e. usually overnight. Even if a State-run bank could attract other banks to have accounts with it and/or require its employees and suppliers to have accounts with it, the other banks would have to call in their loans by 10 or 12 times the amounts transferred (so there???d be no net gain in loans available). Of course, at some stage, all of its depositors would need to spend their money with people having accounts at other banks, so sooner or later its reserves would drain back to other banks and it would then have to call in its loans by 10 or 12 times as much. In any case, no bank can lend more than the prevailing level of lending of all other banks; every bank has to move in step with every other bank, otherwise it would soon sustain an adverse net balance through the clearing process and drain all its reserves to the other banks. It???s a complete error that any bank can just go ahead and multiply it???s ???reserves??? or ???capital??? by 10 or 12 times in loans. If the other banks aren???t lending, a State-run bank wouldn???t be able to lend either. 2. Don???t be fooled by what???s happening in a low-population State. North Dakota has about 700,000 people, a strong community spirit based on farming in difficult conditions, and significant oil revenues. The model being presented is the Bank of North Dakota, which provides support services to some other banks in its area.2 But this arrangement won???t automatically translate to other States, as the banks in other States may not wish to engage in it, and requiring them to could be very unpopular. This could lead to significant risks to taxpayers. In 1931, the Government Savings Bank of New South Wales (a federated State of Australia), at that time the 2nd largest savings bank in the British Empire, was closed down by a run caused by a series of ???scare??? stories put out in the media as part of a ???political??? attack.3 If a similar action were possible against a State-run bank today, taxpayers might be called upon to pay for the aftermath (e.g. the Bank of North Dakota is not FDIC-insured(!), and is instead guaranteed by the State Government itself). 3. The promised golden goose may prove to be a noose. What may look like a boost for taxpayers could end up being a ball-and-chain. For instance; where are States already in deficit going to get the money to set up a bank? As the President of the Bank of North Dakota, Eric Hardmeyer, explains (in the article cited above), to avoid a drain on existing deposits from other banks, and the consequent contraction in loans, a State government would probably have to issue bonds to raise the capital needed to set up a State-run bank.4 Yet more debt bondage at a time like this may be more than the State???s taxpayers can bear. In any case, a new bank would be as much of a burden on the community as any other bank. We would have the ridiculous situation of the people, as taxpayers, being put further into debt to build a debt factory to put the people, as the community, even further into debt. 4. States shouldn???t gamble taxpayer???s money on risky business. The actual balances of State government bank accounts aren???t huge, and they don???t grow, because they???re always being spent ??? that???s what they???re for. The actual profit margins banks make on their funds under management are generally modest, so any returns from a relatively small loan portfolio, after deducting operating expenses and re-investment in the business, wouldn???t be anywhere near the amount required to fix the current fiscal shortfalls of the State governments. For example, in recent years the Bank of North Dakota has transferred between about a third to a half of its net income to the State coffers; ~$25 million in 2007, ~$20 million in 2008.5 The total budget for the State Government for the 2007-2009 fiscal period is $6.5 billion.6 A State law requires the bank to pay $60 million to the general fund over the same period ??? a contribution of less than 1% to the State budget. Meanwhile, State governments face average budget shortfalls of 24% for 2010 - so the numbers just don???t stack up.7 Weighing the pros and cons; relatively low potential returns compared to potential high risks (e.g. the concerted aggressive actions of other banks); it???s not a very good bet. 5. States would be better-off using their clout with the banks. A more prudent course of action would be for State governments to negotiate more favorable contracts for their banking business with one or more banks. This would involve much less cost and trouble (e.g. recruiting competent staff and administering a new enterprise) than trying to set up a bank, especially when public services are being cut. The banks need those deposits ??? they???ll do anything to keep them (even if they don???t like to admit it). 6. We don???t need any more diversions. We citizens have only so much energy and time to devote to changing our world for the better. Diverting good people into nonsense condemns us to continue suffering unnecessarily. This time of crisis must be used for real reform, not diversions. So what is the solution? Wed Jan 6, 2010 12:06 am Show Message Option ------------------------------------------------------------------ View Source Use Fixed Width Font Unwrap Lines ------------------------------------------------------------------ ideasinc taditd Offline Send Email Forward Message #19720 of 19721 < Prev | Next > Expand Messages Author Sort by Date re-buttal to the Ellen Brown side tracking "Why States Going into the Banking Business Would be a Distraction, not a Solution to their Fiscal Problems" by Jamie Walton AMI Researcher the full article is... ideasinc taditd 1:27 am < Prev Topic | Next Topic > Message # Search: Advanced Start Topic SPONSOR RESULTS Female Self-Defense Techniques www.CloseCombatTraining.com - Master the art of female self-defense from popular martial artists. Amtrak To New York - Forum www.railcritic.com - Ask questions, post photos, rate trains or share your knowledge. PKU Support Group PKU.com/discussionforum - Share your PKU experiences with other community members on PKU.com. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ Discussion mailing list Discussion at globaljusticemovement.net http://globaljusticemovement.net/mailman/listinfo/discussion_globaljusticemovement.net -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rodney.shakespeare1 at btopenworld.com Wed Jan 6 10:17:42 2010 From: rodney.shakespeare1 at btopenworld.com (Rodney Shakespeare) Date: Wed, 6 Jan 2010 17:17:42 -0000 Subject: [GJM] Ellen Brown Rebuttal? References: <494403.94102.qm@web27407.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <013101ca8ef4$2867b4d0$4001a8c0@your447023ae6b> Robert, Ellen (Web of Debt) Brown is a wonderful writer/journalist who in practice is leading the case for monetary reform (see her articles all over the internet) The London Global Table delights in her company when she is in London. Unfortunately bigots and dogmatists in the AMI (American Monetary Institute) are totally unable to co-operate with anybody and are vicious with their abuse (thus they call me an Islamic fascist). Ellen talks to, and co-operates with, anybody of reasonable good faith and her behaviour is in contrast to that of the AMI which is unable to co-operate with anybody. Rodney Shakespeare. ----- Original Message ----- From: robert searle To: discussion at globaljusticemovement.net Sent: Wednesday, January 06, 2010 1:22 PM Subject: [GJM] Ellen Brown Rebuttal?? The following came from the Climate Change discussion group. I have not read it right through but may be worthwhile "Why States Going into the Banking Business Would be a Distraction, not a Solution to their Fiscal Problems" by Jamie Walton AMI Researcher the full article is posted at http://economics.arawakcity.org/node/240 Readers: This is effectively a review and rebuttal of an article by Ellen Brown "Job Losses? Not in North Dakota: A Stimulus Plan That Really Works" published at HuffingtonPost (see http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ellen-brown/job-losses-not-in-north-d_b_34... and other places. I have not read Ellen Brown's book yet, though Jamie Walton's critique seems to be spot on. There is frequent pattern of conflation where a poor solution is framed and associated with positive values or apparent results when the connection between the proposal and the expected values or results is weak or non-existent. This article came from the AMI website and deserves at least equal consideration in an open if not equally informed forum. Use this link to the AMI version http://www.monetary.org/moneyscenefive.html Admin by Jamie Walton, AMI researcher ???We may not be able to stop them, but we can join them. We the people need to play the bankers??? game ourselves.???1 ??? that was written by one of the promoters of the notion that the state governments should go into the fractional reserve banking business to beat Wall Street at its own game and solve their fiscal problems. What an insult to humanity! How about a dose of morality and common sense. Isn't that like saying: ???We???re victims of organized financial crime, so lets join the criminals!??? Trying to beat Wall Street at its own game is obviously not the answer. As Albert Einstein once said, "We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." Forty-eight States currently have budget deficits and many are sharply cutting services to try to close ???fiscal??? gaps opening up to an average 24% by 2010. Some attention has recently been given to the idea that State governments can get out of their fiscal problems by setting up their own banks. This is mainly a distraction away from genuine reform of the system, as encapsulated in the proposed draft American Monetary Act (more about that below). The argument being put forward is that State governments can increase their revenues without increasing taxes by collecting profits from State-run banks. The proposal suggests that State governments go into the banking business and ???fan??? their deposits into 10 or 12 times as much in loans, using ???fractional reserve??? or ???capital adequacy??? rules, to cover fiscal gaps with bank profits. This is a foolish suggestion, for several reasons. 1. You don???t solve a problem with more of the problem. This scheme for states to go into the banking business would only ???serve to protect??? the status quo. The ???proposal??? completely fails to confront the main problem identified by all serious monetary reforms: ???fractional reserve??? banking. Instead, it actually endorses and sanctions this vicious and destructive process, by suggesting that State governments engage in it ??? it???s immoral! 2. What these promoters describe is not how banking operates. No single bank can multiply its deposits by 10 or 12 times in loans, they can only make loans (or purchases of securities, e.g. bonds) up against 90-95% of their deposits; these loans create new deposits, which, when spent, are most likely transferred to other banks; then receiving banks can again make new loans up to 90-95% of their deposits, and so on. This ???process??? is repeated indefinitely, in ever-decreasing increments, and the effect over time is that the banking system as a whole multiplies those initial deposits by 10 or 12 times. The only reason some progressives might be considering this proposal is they don't understand how fractional reserves work. This process is carried on at great cost to the community as a whole, because every new loan (or new security purchase) is additional interest-bearing debt. As presently operated, banks can be viewed as debt factories; they primarily create debt and only create the bulk of our money supply as a debt byproduct. Banks make profits and stay in business by putting the community as a whole into more debt than it can repay in any given time. This results in a net claim against the community going into the future. While some profits are paid to shareholders as dividends, this is only a small percentage of the debt created. If a bank was State-owned, the ???shareholders??? would nominally be the people of the community, but any profits would still be based on the indebtedness of the community. That???s the inevitable outcome, no matter who owns a bank, because the same rules apply to all banks in the banking system. But; the question is not who should be the beneficiaries of perpetual claims against the community, the question is should anyone be the beneficiaries of perpetual claims against the community ??? why place ourselves forever on a treadmill just to have what we???ve already got? It makes no sense. 3. The problem is being misidentified as interest, when the problem is debt. Proponents of the scheme are alleging that interest collected by ???private??? banks is kept out of circulation and is therefore not available to repay loans the bank have made. But this is not true. Most, if not all, interest re-enters the system in some way at some time (e.g. as expenses, dividends, investments, etc.). This is not the problem. The problem is almost all of our money is created with a debt attached; it is ???borrowed into existence??? from banks, who create it when we have to borrow it. As our economy grows, we need new money, but almost all of the new money is presently created with interest-bearing debt, so almost every new dollar has more than a dollar owing on it ??? so it has to ???earn??? more than a dollar and pay it all back to banks (who never had it in the first place). Who owns and runs any particular bank makes little or no difference because the debt-based money-creating banking system will still own and run us, on a treadmill. Money doesn???t have to be created like this; coins aren???t, they???re just created as money, with no debt attached; when they???re issued, it???s revenue for the U.S. government, saving taxpayers $$$. All money can be created this way. And; if we don???t start with any debt, then we don???t start with any interest either. With that in mind, let???s look again at the States??? fiscal crisis. State governments receive money from the community for the provision of public services and the support of volunteer services. These are generally things that are needed in the community which aren???t commercial in nature, they???re not the types of things that it???s either possible or desirable to make a profit on (e.g. rape crisis centers, battered women???s refuges, assisted housing for people with physical/mental impairments, respite care for caregivers, etc.). Non-commercial services needed in the community couldn???t exist without being paid for straight out, because providers can???t borrow and then generate income to repay loans, that???s not how they work (if they could do that, they???d be doing it already) ??? they need money that doesn???t have to be paid back. Diverting public resources away from desperately needed services toward a commercial venture would only make things worse. The effect on the ground could lead to the commercialization of services intended for the relief of poverty, disability, pain, suffering and misery; by forcing service providers to also be profit makers (e.g. commercialized prisons); or reverting to relying on the whims of charity. If neither of these ???choices??? worked-out (which history shows, they generally don???t), the community services essential for any viably functioning civil society might disappear altogether, and then ???there goes the neighborhood??? ??? social disintegration is a slippery slope, for everyone. This is a very serious situation ??? it???s no time to be playing games. In addition to these defining moral questions, there are also some more technical reasons why they won???t automatically work as suggested. 1. No bank???s an island ??? they???re all in it together. A bank can only lend out what it can expect to receive back, not only from its borrowers in the long term, but also from all other banks through the clearing process in the very short term, i.e. usually overnight. Even if a State-run bank could attract other banks to have accounts with it and/or require its employees and suppliers to have accounts with it, the other banks would have to call in their loans by 10 or 12 times the amounts transferred (so there???d be no net gain in loans available). Of course, at some stage, all of its depositors would need to spend their money with people having accounts at other banks, so sooner or later its reserves would drain back to other banks and it would then have to call in its loans by 10 or 12 times as much. In any case, no bank can lend more than the prevailing level of lending of all other banks; every bank has to move in step with every other bank, otherwise it would soon sustain an adverse net balance through the clearing process and drain all its reserves to the other banks. It???s a complete error that any bank can just go ahead and multiply it???s ???reserves??? or ???capital??? by 10 or 12 times in loans. If the other banks aren???t lending, a State-run bank wouldn???t be able to lend either. 2. Don???t be fooled by what???s happening in a low-population State. North Dakota has about 700,000 people, a strong community spirit based on farming in difficult conditions, and significant oil revenues. The model being presented is the Bank of North Dakota, which provides support services to some other banks in its area.2 But this arrangement won???t automatically translate to other States, as the banks in other States may not wish to engage in it, and requiring them to could be very unpopular. This could lead to significant risks to taxpayers. In 1931, the Government Savings Bank of New South Wales (a federated State of Australia), at that time the 2nd largest savings bank in the British Empire, was closed down by a run caused by a series of ???scare??? stories put out in the media as part of a ???political??? attack.3 If a similar action were possible against a State-run bank today, taxpayers might be called upon to pay for the aftermath (e.g. the Bank of North Dakota is not FDIC-insured(!), and is instead guaranteed by the State Government itself). 3. The promised golden goose may prove to be a noose. What may look like a boost for taxpayers could end up being a ball-and-chain. For instance; where are States already in deficit going to get the money to set up a bank? As the President of the Bank of North Dakota, Eric Hardmeyer, explains (in the article cited above), to avoid a drain on existing deposits from other banks, and the consequent contraction in loans, a State government would probably have to issue bonds to raise the capital needed to set up a State-run bank.4 Yet more debt bondage at a time like this may be more than the State???s taxpayers can bear. In any case, a new bank would be as much of a burden on the community as any other bank. We would have the ridiculous situation of the people, as taxpayers, being put further into debt to build a debt factory to put the people, as the community, even further into debt. 4. States shouldn???t gamble taxpayer???s money on risky business. The actual balances of State government bank accounts aren???t huge, and they don???t grow, because they???re always being spent ??? that???s what they???re for. The actual profit margins banks make on their funds under management are generally modest, so any returns from a relatively small loan portfolio, after deducting operating expenses and re-investment in the business, wouldn???t be anywhere near the amount required to fix the current fiscal shortfalls of the State governments. For example, in recent years the Bank of North Dakota has transferred between about a third to a half of its net income to the State coffers; ~$25 million in 2007, ~$20 million in 2008.5 The total budget for the State Government for the 2007-2009 fiscal period is $6.5 billion.6 A State law requires the bank to pay $60 million to the general fund over the same period ??? a contribution of less than 1% to the State budget. Meanwhile, State governments face average budget shortfalls of 24% for 2010 - so the numbers just don???t stack up.7 Weighing the pros and cons; relatively low potential returns compared to potential high risks (e.g. the concerted aggressive actions of other banks); it???s not a very good bet. 5. States would be better-off using their clout with the banks. A more prudent course of action would be for State governments to negotiate more favorable contracts for their banking business with one or more banks. This would involve much less cost and trouble (e.g. recruiting competent staff and administering a new enterprise) than trying to set up a bank, especially when public services are being cut. The banks need those deposits ??? they???ll do anything to keep them (even if they don???t like to admit it). 6. We don???t need any more diversions. We citizens have only so much energy and time to devote to changing our world for the better. Diverting good people into nonsense condemns us to continue suffering unnecessarily. This time of crisis must be used for real reform, not diversions. So what is the solution? Wed Jan 6, 2010 12:06 am Show Message Option ------------------------------------------------------------------ View Source Use Fixed Width Font Unwrap Lines ------------------------------------------------------------------ ideasinc taditd Offline Send Email Forward Message #19720 of 19721 < Prev | Next > Expand Messages Author Sort by Date re-buttal to the Ellen Brown side tracking "Why States Going into the Banking Business Would be a Distraction, not a Solution to their Fiscal Problems" by Jamie Walton AMI Researcher the full article is... ideasinc taditd 1:27 am < Prev Topic | Next Topic > Message # Search: Advanced Start Topic SPONSOR RESULTS Female Self-Defense Techniques www.CloseCombatTraining.com - Master the art of female self-defense from popular martial artists. Amtrak To New York - Forum www.railcritic.com - Ask questions, post photos, rate trains or share your knowledge. PKU Support Group PKU.com/discussionforum - Share your PKU experiences with other community members on PKU.com. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ Discussion mailing list Discussion at globaljusticemovement.net http://globaljusticemovement.net/mailman/listinfo/discussion_globaljusticemovement.net -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From maryrose333 at att.net Wed Jan 6 13:04:10 2010 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Wed, 6 Jan 2010 12:04:10 -0800 Subject: [GJM] Britain must grow more sustainable food . Message-ID: <008001ca8f0b$9cee0fe0$d6ca2fa0$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS The below article is important as it emphasizes a "farming revolution" . However, a farming revolution must mean growing more foods that produce the most nutrition possible in the smallest space possible which means "gardens" not farms as more people begin to create kitchen gardens outside of their home where the garden cannot only be tended along with other tasks that must be more and more undertaken from home in order to conserve on scarce resources, but as a means of connecting us back with our life support system so that we are bonded with it and thus not capable of destroying it as we are presently doing. It is no longer feasible to transport people to and from work, school, shopping, etc. as it is so costly to create the highways, streets and other infrastructure necessary to transport people to these centers including the costs of the means of transportation itself. Especially when the costs associated with buying land, acquiring the materials and building the buildings, and maintaining them after construction are taken into consideration, along with the small number of hours they are used in each day. When everything is considered, it is cheaper to pay people to stay home and make delivery to them of the necessities of life that they cannot provide for themselves. And, we can by gardening organically and doing it in tiered gardens using Bio-Char and other enhanced materials as a soil base, provide more nutrition faster and better using super foods as the desired product. We can no longer afford large agriculture fields that use to be forests to grow grains and other products with much of the grain being used to feed cattle. And we can no longer afford to graze cattle on land cleared of forests when this is one of the major causes of global climate change. We must begin to be sensible about this and eat to live instead of living to eat. It is imperative that we now use land more appropriately and return to "agro-forestry" as a way of restoring the masses of forest we need to recycle carbon effectively, while at the same time providing ourselves with a sustainable and viable way of life here on earth that provides us with the "best of all worlds." What we must seek to eliminate are "luxury items" with which the U.S. has struggled to keep its economy afloat for many decades. It has done this by employing fully 75% of the presently available labor force when only less than 30% is needed to supply all the goods and services "necessary" for the 6.7 billion of us on the planet today. In using over-employment to keep the economy afloat it has forced manufacturers to produce luxury goods saleable only to the elite cadre of those employed in the banking industry and other upper echelon categories - people who can afford them. In so doing it has also relied upon ignoring what is called "true price costing" as it ignores the environmental costs that have been pushed off onto future generations of which we are now one as we watch our ecological systems crash around us. What is happening today as the economic and ecological worlds collapse around us is a seeking of the system to find once again a natural balance between what the natural world has to offer and what the human world demands of it since our demands for decades have been excessive beyond what can be found on a finite planet. One interim answer to provide more resources is to begin mining the world's waste dumps in an effort to reclaim and re-cyle waste back into the system. One reason to do this is so that we have time to send spacecraft out to other planets in order to obtain the materials we need from them. Dr. V. Vernon Woolf has developed a plan to do this. www.holodynamics.com Go to "Phoenix Project" on the Menu to access the technology and plan for accomplishing this. Thus repeating what the Nephilim came to earth so seek: metals with which to keep the planet Nibiru alive. This had not initially occurred to me until I read an article suggesting that this is what the present space program is about. And, of course private enterprise is now getting involved and planning "vacation trips" to the moon and to Mars for those who are among the extremely wealthy who can pay for such trips until such time as the price can be adjusted downward via enabling more paying customers to participate and, in turn allowing more people to make the trip. Here now is the article that inspired this response: Britain must grow more sustainable food, says Benn Tuesday 5 January 2010 09.43 GMT Proposals for national food strategy calls for UK farming 'revolution' in response to climate change and food security. Britain must grow more food, while using less water and reducing emission of greenhouse gases, to respond to the challenge of climate change and growing world populations, the environment secretary, Hilary Benn, said yesterday. "Food security is as important to this country's future wellbeing, and the world's, as energy security. We need to produce more food. We need to do it sustainably. And we need to make sure what we eat safeguards our health," he said. Launching the government's food strategy for the next 20 years with a speech to the Oxford Farming Conference, he proposed a consumer-led, technological revolution to transform UK farming. "We know that the consequences of the way we produce and consume our food are unsustainable to our planet and to ourselves," he said. "We know we are at one of those moments in our history where the future of our economy, our environment, and our society will be shaped by the choices we make now." He said consumers, rather than retailers, should lead by buying "greener" food, wasting less and growing more of their own: "People power can help bring about a revolution in the way food is produced and sold." The government aims to develop a "meanwhile" lease for landowners and voluntary groups wishing to set up temporary allotments on land awaiting development. One in three people in the UK grows fruit and vegetables, according to a survey commissioned by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Ministers believe the move could foster community spirit and skills as well as physical and mental health. The cross-departmental strategy report, Food 2030, also supports farmers' markets to raise consumption of local produce. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jan/05/uk-farming-2030-food-repor t 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 dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk Thu Jan 7 03:39:47 2010 From: dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk (Robert Searle) Date: 07 Jan 2010 10:39:47 +0000 Subject: [GJM] Weak banks, miners pull FTSE down  - 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: -------------------- Weak banks, miners pull FTSE down?? http://uk.news.yahoo.com/22/20100107/tuk-uk-markets-britain-stocks-fa6b408.html ============================================================ From dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk Thu Jan 7 04:12:43 2010 From: dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk (robert searle) Date: Thu, 7 Jan 2010 11:12:43 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [GJM] Missing words, and letters on GJM Messages...Simple Solution! Message-ID: <625941.97977.qm@web27408.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> ? Dear All, ? ??????? I have noticed on?some messages that words are missing. Thus, it is not easy necessarily to make heads, or tails of the content. The solution I discovered is simple you just go over the text with the cut, and paste procedure, and the missing data appears... Just like that! ? ? ? Regards, ? Robert Searle. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk Thu Jan 7 04:18:17 2010 From: dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk (robert searle) Date: Thu, 7 Jan 2010 11:18:17 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [GJM] Ellen Brown... Message-ID: <650913.67424.qm@web27404.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> ? Rodney, et al, ? ??????????? I am well aware that Miss B is a greatly respected writer on monetary reform, and is doing a sterling (part the word!) job for monetary reform. Long may it continue! ? I know she seems have had a bit of a hoo-hah with AMI but I just sent the email for general interests sake...admitedly, I did not read it all but got some gist of it! ? Robert S. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk Thu Jan 7 04:35:09 2010 From: dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk (robert searle) Date: Thu, 7 Jan 2010 11:35:09 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [GJM] What about Kucinich, and Monetary Reform (MR)? Message-ID: <820466.64329.qm@web27407.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> ? Dear All, ? ????????? I expect Rodney, and Peter?know something about this subject. I am just wondering what inroads Senator Kucinich is making into the American government as far as MR is concerned? I have heard him quite recently on the BBC talking about the health reform. ? Moreover, whether true, or not President Obama seems to have some degree of interest in economics but ofcourse he is surrounded by the usual institutional economic advisors..I wonder if he has ever read, or come across Ellen Browns book, or even Zarlengas weighty tome! It is quite possible but though he may agree to?MR in principle he may think it too risky to directly challenge the vested interests in the banking industry...Or, perhaps, we underestimate him....may be he will address the situation, and show real guts... ? ? Robert S. ? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rodney.shakespeare1 at btopenworld.com Thu Jan 7 05:31:42 2010 From: rodney.shakespeare1 at btopenworld.com (Rodney Shakespeare) Date: Thu, 7 Jan 2010 12:31:42 -0000 Subject: [GJM] What about Kucinich, and Monetary Reform (MR)? References: <820466.64329.qm@web27407.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <00a601ca8f95$5e666b70$4001a8c0@your447023ae6b> Robert, In the USA Dennis Kucinich has a tremendous record in developing the legislation for interest-free loans for public infrastructure projects e.g. roads, bridges etc. The case for such loans is indisputable and, now, urgent. However, DK (understandably wanting academic backing) has linked up with the American Monetary Institute and that creates a problem because the AMI has a muddled approach and likes to introduce the word "spend" into things thereby meaning (and indicating to all the world) that it is advocating the creation of printed money which the world, rightly or wrongly, simply views as inflationary. So, alas, DK thereby shoots himself in the foot. A few months ago there was a wonderful long speech by DK (you can Google for it) all about the need for infrastructure projects etc and then, right at the end, he used the phrase "spend and lend" which wrecked the solid (and politically acceptable) argument in the rest of the speech and so enabled opponents to write off the speech as 'funny money'. So the real problem is that DK has an excellent (and politically acceptable) infrastructure policy but has spoilt it by becoming identified with 'funny money'. DK could come to lead American politics if he goes wholeheartedly for interest-free loans directed at the development and spreading of all forms of productive capacity to everybody in society e.g. micro--finance, small business, small farms, student loans, all forms of housing, public capital projects, environmental capital projects and clean electricity generation and the spreading of wide ownership in the private sector (see www.binaryeconomics.net ) NB Unfortunately, the USA Center for Social and Economic Justice (cesj) is dominated by narrow-minded binary economists who think DK is "socialist" etc. Cesj appears to be incapable of co-operating with anybody and is missing a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to co-operate with DK which is a tragedy because DK has the biggest potential of any American politician. You may use this email in any way you wish e.g. to see if you can make successful contact with DK. Rodney Shakespeare. ----- Original Message ----- From: robert searle To: discussion at globaljusticemovement.net Sent: Thursday, January 07, 2010 11:35 AM Subject: [GJM] What about Kucinich, and Monetary Reform (MR)? Dear All, I expect Rodney, and Peter know something about this subject. I am just wondering what inroads Senator Kucinich is making into the American government as far as MR is concerned? I have heard him quite recently on the BBC talking about the health reform. Moreover, whether true, or not President Obama seems to have some degree of interest in economics but ofcourse he is surrounded by the usual institutional economic advisors..I wonder if he has ever read, or come across Ellen Browns book, or even Zarlengas weighty tome! It is quite possible but though he may agree to MR in principle he may think it too risky to directly challenge the vested interests in the banking industry...Or, perhaps, we underestimate him....may be he will address the situation, and show real guts... Robert 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 Fri Jan 8 03:45:07 2010 From: dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk (robert searle) Date: Fri, 8 Jan 2010 10:45:07 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [GJM] What about Kucinich, and Monetary Reform (MR).....and the Institute of New Economic Thinking? Message-ID: <362604.32664.qm@web27402.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> ? Dear? Rodney, and Co, ? ???????????????? Yes, I? saw the video when Kucinich indicated the need for interest free loans, and also debt-free money!! I could not believe it especially a man in his position! Ofcourse, he should have just stuck to interest free loans per se otherwise he damages his own credibility...which he seems to have done but only to a "small" degree thankfully! ? You make the point that DK needs some academic backing. This is true of Transfinancial Economics as explained at the end of the my p2pfoundation entry. I have found some economists with checkable CVs who may well be willing to write constructive papers on TFE. At this stage, I will not disclose names.. ? A powerful aspect of?TFE is that enough new non-repayable (and repayable) capital is created by the private, and public sector. In perhaps the not-to-distant future we would have a highly accurate electronic profile of the economy in which we can know how much enough new money can be created electronically hence minimising the risk of serious inflation. ? Moreover, if necessary? a powerful array of direct electronic controls could target any serious price rise problems in the economy. Yet, depending on the quality of electronic inflation management this should be largely superflous.This is a big subject. But what I am trying to say is that this understanding of the potential "dangers" of inflation, and how to tackle it ?in TFE are far more advanced, and more credible than those of other debt-free type monetary reformers...This is very important to understand, and makes it more acceptable to more open-minded economists, and hopefully in the end to the public, and politicians. ? It always makes me laugh that some people would call new non-repayable capital?as Funny Money, or Fictitious Money ?when infacts the banks create it as something repayable as a loan with interest!!!!!!!!!! ? I would also swear on the Bible that Soros in a BBC interview did say that some of the SDRs in a lowered voice could be DONATED at the Cop15. However, I have not found any reference to it on the internet. But he does indicate this notion in earlier public communications long before Cop15. ? Furthermore, Soros is intending to set up the Institute of New Economic Thinking at Cambrige this year. ? ????????????????? http://www.ineteconomics.org/ ? ? ? Robert Searle. ? ???????????? http://www.p2pfoundation.net/Transfinancial_Economics ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk Fri Jan 8 05:52:02 2010 From: dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk (robert searle) Date: Fri, 8 Jan 2010 12:52:02 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [GJM] Soros on SDRs at the Ideas Bank of the World Commision on the Social Dimension of Globalization/2001. Message-ID: <203443.90901.qm@web27402.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> ? Idea title ? Issuing Special Drawing Rights (SDR) ID ? 8 Theme(s) ? International Finance Proposal summary ? ? Developed countries would donate their Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) to a trust fund that would be used for development assistance and the provision of public goods on a global scale. This would combine two forms of assistance: i) Developing countries receive an addition to their foreign currency reserves. ii) Developed countries donate their allotments for the provision of public goods such as health and education on a global scale. It is estimated that this proposal could raise US$ 4 billion per year. ? Implementing institutions IMF; Parliaments ? Origin Soros, 2001 ? Related ideas International Financing Facility ? Further info. sources - text Draft Communiqu? of the Monterrey Conference (UN 2002) Soros, George: On Globalization (Public Affairs, LLT 2002) Soros, George: Special Drawing Rights for the Provision of Public Goods on a Global Scale (Remarks at the Roundtable on "New Proposals on Financing for Development" -Institute for International Economics, February 2002) ? Further info. sources - URLs - Special Drawing Rights for the Provision of Public Goods on a Global Scale ? Policy Brief ? Problem statement While current spending on international assistance is inadequate to meet the UN's Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), each year countries around the world set aside monetary reserves as insurance against contingencies such as a collapse of export prices. Around US$ 1.6 trillion lies dormant - resources that could be used to finance global public goods. ? Analysis SDRs were created by the IMF in 1969 as an international reserve asset to supplement members' existing reserve assets. They are valued on the basis of a basket of key national currencies and serve as the unit of account of the IMF. SDRs are issued to member states by the IMF according to a quota and can be converted into hard currency. The primary motive for creating SDRs was to promote international financial stability by providing a permanent increase in the world stock of reserves and hence preventing shortages of international liquidity from occurring. However, the collapse of the Bretton Woods system and the shift to floating exchange rates lessened the need for SDRs. The current interest in SDRs result from proposals by George Soros and Joseph Stiglitz to use SDR allocations for financing for development. The present proposal could be implemented in two stages: first, a special SDR issue, previously authorized by the IMF in 1997, would be released. The 1997 decision was approved by 72% of the member countries; it requires ratification by the US Congress to reach the required 85% supermajority. The special issue amounts to around US$ 27 billion, of which approximately US$18 billion would be donated. This would be a one-time donation and falls far short of the US$ 50 billion annually that the UN Zedillo Report on Financing for Development thought necessary to meet the MDGs, but has the advantage that it could be implemented almost immediately. The second stage is to have annual issues of SDRs. SDR donations would be made to pre-approved programs only. These could include trust funds for the provision of public goods as well as matching existing loans or enhancing public/private partnerships for development. In the first stage, the list of eligible programs would be confined to three or four specific priority areas such as public health, education, bridging the ?digital divide? and reforming judicial systems. Government sponsored poverty reduction programs would be excluded; they would remain the prerogative of the IFIs. The range of eligible programs may be expanded if the proposal to have annual issues of SDR was put into effect. In this instance proposals would be invited not only from governments and multilaterals but also from NGOs and public-private partnerships. The SDR scheme would remove some of the problems with international assistance, especially conditionalities attached to aid. An independent board of eminent persons, appointed on the basis of publicly stated professional qualifications, would ensure that the needs of the recipients take precedence over the interests of donors. The board would establish a list of programs eligible for SDR donations and recommend those that should take priority, but would have no authority over how the funds would be disbursed. The donors would determine which programs are selected from the menu prepared by the board. Projects would be audited and evaluated by a separate body. The SDR donations scheme would not replace existing bilateral or multilateral assistance, but add to it. As it takes the form of grants, not loans, it does not need to go through government channels. Programs could be implemented through local government channels and NGOs and through public-private partnerships. ? Significance of Policy Proposal Developing countries would add their SDR allocations to their monetary reserves; developed countries would donate them for international assistance. ? Critique There is no reliable means of calculating the liquidity requirements of the global economy; no way of assessing whether these needs can be met by the capital markets; or how these SDRs could contribute to inflationary pressures. SDR allocations would also reduce the power of the IMF to encourage developing countries to adopt particular policies. They could be expected to attempt to block their issue. In addition, new regular SDR allocations would contravene current IMF principles and procedures. ? Time Line and further development of proposal It currently requires the approval of the US Congress in order to implement the special SDR issue already authorized by the IMF in 1997. If the trial is successful, the scheme could be expanded. Whether this should take the form of annual issues of SDRs would be decided at a later stage. ? Keywords ? Development Aid (view other ideas related to Development Aid...) Millennium Development Goals (view other ideas related to Millennium Development Goals...) Public Goods (view other ideas related to Public Goods...) ? Please send any comments or suggestions to Zydre Pember Ideas Bank ? WCSDG home ? Ideas Bank home ? search ? list all alphabetically ? list all by theme ? printer-friendly version ? ??? Established by the ILO ?Updated 06 March 2003 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk Fri Jan 8 06:21:21 2010 From: dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk (robert searle) Date: Fri, 8 Jan 2010 13:21:21 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [GJM] Public Debate with the "Experts!" Message-ID: <666189.2623.qm@web27402.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> ? what follows comes from the Paecon Real Economics blog....................... ? ? London School of Economics Public Debate What kind of economics should we teach? Date: Wednesday 20 January 2010? Time: 6.30-8pm Venue:? Sheikh Zayed Theatre, New Academic Building Speakers: Professor Geoffrey Hodgson, Professor Albert Marcet, Paul Ormerod, Professor John Sutton? ? Chair: Professor Tim Besley The recent global crisis has lead to questions being asked about whether the kind of economics being taught to students in leading economics departments was responsible for the widespread failure to predict the timing and magnitude of the events that unfolded in 2008.? Critiques range from an absence of historical context in mainstream teaching of economics to excessive reliance on mathematical models.? This panel brings together four leading economists to debate this issue and to discuss what changes in the economics curriculum and the way that it is delivered are desirable.?? This event is free and open to all with no ticket required. Entry is on a first come, first served basis. Must Read Who Are These Economists, Anyway? by James K. Galbraith http://www.nea.org/assets/docs/HE/TA09EconomistGalbraith.pdf Reads The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness http://bpp.wharton.upenn.edu/betseys/papers/Paradox%20of%20declining%20female%20happiness.pdf Health care?debacle http://anticap.wordpress.com/2009/12/29/health-care-debacle/ Measuring Progress http://postgrowth.org/measuring-progress/ ?Unperson??Economists http://openeconomicsnd.wordpress.com/2010/01/05/unperson-economists/ More on freshwater economics http://ataxingmatter.blogs.com/tax/2010/01/more-on-freshwater-economics.html Categories: Economics and the Economics Profession, The Economy Comments (0) Trackbacks (0) Leave a comment Trackback No comments yet. No trackbacks yet. Name (required) E-mail (will not be published) (required) Website Click here to cancel reply. Subscribe to comments feed Notify me of follow-up comments via email. Notify me of new posts via email. 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URL: From maryrose333 at att.net Thu Jan 7 16:40:25 2010 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Thu, 7 Jan 2010 15:40:25 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: 2000 - 2009: The Real Top Ten Stories of the Past Decade Message-ID: <006301ca8ff2$f1695470$d43bfd50$@net> From: PEERS: WantToKnow.info Email List [mailto:emaillist at peerservice.org] Sent: Thursday, January 07, 2010 7:01 AM To: maryrose333 at att.net Subject: [SPAM]2000 - 2009: The Real Top Ten Stories of the Past Decade 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/mass_media/top_censored_news_stories_decade Bookmark and Share Published on Friday, January 1, 2010 by alternative news website CommonDreams.org The Real Top 10 News Stories of the Past Decade by Robert Freeman The media are awash with talking heads bloviating about the top stories of the last decade. The wired-in society. The growth of organic food. The new frugality. This is the ritual that reveals their true function in the culture: pacification. It's their way of signaling the masses that Bigger Thinkers are looking after things, so go back to your Wii or Survivor or Facebook reveries. The amazing thing is how little is ever mentioned about the stories that really mattered, those that affected the very nature of our society, its institutions, and the relation of the people to their state and society. Those stories paint a picture of danger, of a people who have lost control of their government and the corporations that own it. But you'll hear nary a word about such difficult truths from any storyteller in the conventional media. So here, in no particular order, are my Top Ten Stories of the Naughties, the ones that really matter. 1. Iraq was all premised on lies, yet we're still there. Saddam Hussein wasn't pursuing Weapons of Mass Destruction. He wasn't involved in 9/11. He wasn't engaged with Al Qaeda. We know all these things. And we know they were false at the time they were proffered. Yet, there we are, with no intent to leave, our very presence spitting in the face of International Law and the international community we so unctuously pretend to respect. [To read a newspaper editorial showing the blatant lies of top US leaders used to promote war in Iraq, click here] 2. The fact that 2/3 of all economic growth went to top 1%. John Kennedy's social contract had a rising tide lifting all boats. But over the last decade 2/3 of all economic growth has gone to the top 1% of income earners. Meanwhile the middle class has suffered a $13 trillion writedown in wealth as a result of the housing collapse. The banking bailout and the health care "reform" debate showed as never before the extent to which corporations have captured government and use it to redirect national wealth to themselves and their owners. [For revealing media reports on startling income inequality, click here ] 3. The Global War on Terror [GWOT]. Or more specifically, the ease with which the "GWOT" has replaced the Cold War as the justification for the ever-increasing militarization of society. What happened to the post-Cold War "Peace Dividend"? The U.S. continues to spend more on the military than all the rest of the world combined. It continues to maintain over 700 military bases around the world. And it continues to manufacture excuses for foreign interventions whenever weapons makers and military logistics companies need more profits ? which is forever. [For a top U.S. general's highly revealing two-page essay exposing the roots of war, click here ] 4. Bush knew of 9/11 long before it actually happened. Three years before Bush took office, the neo-cons' Project For a New American Century called for a "new Pearl Harbor" to galvanize the nation into a war to seize Middle East oil. And even before the event itself, Bush-as-president was warned dozens of times of the imminent attack, the most notorious being the August 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Briefing titled, "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S." Amazingly nothing was done to prevent the attack. But even less is it advertised that Bush knew. [For more powerful information on this, click here to read the two-page summary of major media reports with links raising serious questions about 9/11] 5. The surrender of civil liberties. Despite the Fourth Amendment supposedly protecting us against unreasonable searches and seizures, the government can now read your email and listen to your phone calls without any probable cause. The Obama administration has gone to court to prevent the re-institution of Habeas Corpus, suspended during the Bush administration. We are much less free, much less protected from brutalization by our own government than we were just ten years ago. [For key major media articles revealing major erosion of privacy, click here] 6. The Supreme Court hijacking the 2000 presidential election. This isn't even a historical controversy anymore. Al Gore won the national popular vote by 570,000. And we now know he would have won the Florida vote as well if the vote counting had not been stopped by the Supreme Court. This was literally a right wing judicial coup d' etat, so it's understandable that it's never mentioned in the "right" kind of circles. [For more critical information on this, read a BBC reporter's story available here] 7. The Neo-Feudalization of the American economy. The top 1% of wealth holders own 41% of all the assets in the country while the bottom 40% own absolutely nothing. Meanwhile, workers are saddled with $12 trillion of national debt, an effective indentured servitude that will bind them to their corporate masters for the rest of their lives. This is the working definition of feudalism, where the rich own everything and everybody else has nothing but their proffered labor and their obligations to their masters. The Hapsburgs, the Tudors, and the Bourbons would be jealous. [For intriguing major media articles on powerful secret societies intent on keeping the rich in power, click here ] 8. The failure of "the free market" to sustain prosperity. The "free market" has long been an ideological dodge used to resist real government regulation of the economy. Still, the ideal was supposed to deliver prosperity in a stable, sustainable matter. Now we have the greatest global economic collapse since the Great Depression, with the government transferring $11 trillion to the banks to cover their sociopathically greedy bets that went bust. All in the name of deregulation, with future regulation vigorously resisted. Is this a deranged country or what? [For amazing media articles showing blatant greed, secrecy, and manipulation by top banks and bankers, click here] 9. The collapse of the media. We once imagined it would guard the hen house. Yet that was an anomaly, a freak event around Vietnam and Watergate when it slipped its leash. Since then, sixty independent media outlets have consolidated into five, all retailing the ideology of the powerful, the perpetrators, laundering their lies, covering up the truth, and harassing the truth tellers. In every story mentioned above, the mainstream media have worked to ensure that the people didn't know the truth about the forfeiture of their government, their wealth, their security, and their rights. [For concise summaries of 20 award-winning journalists revealing how vitally important news stories are shut down by corporate media ownership, click here ] 10. The meaninglessness of elections. This is the most embittering revelation of all. Despite the greatest electoral majority since Johnson crushed Goldwater in '64, Barrack Obama has betrayed everything he ran on. In nearly every case where he had the opportunity to confront power ? in financial bailouts, financial regulation, health care, wars and military spending, utilities and global warming, national surveillance ? Obama has sided with the rich and powerful against the interests of the American people. He has probably engendered more cynicism, more disaffection with government than any president since Richard Nixon. It will deal a staggering blow to the hopes of mobilizing masses of people again for a real takeback of government. And he's not even one year into it. [To understand why this has happened and what you can do to make a difference, click here] History paints decades with broad brushes ? the Roaring Twenties, The Depression, World War II. Historians will look back on the Naughts as the time when Americans Lost Their Country. It was the decade when all the institutions that they believed would protect them ? the media, the courts, Congress, the market, a messianic new president ? in fact betrayed them. It will forever more be a different country. Robert Freeman writes on history, economics, and education. Email to: robertfreeman10 at yahoo.com. Bookmark and Share 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 Thu Jan 7 23:07:13 2010 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Thu, 7 Jan 2010 22:07:13 -0800 Subject: [GJM] Must Read: The Idea of a Local Economy by Wendall Berry. Message-ID: <001301ca9029$034bf950$09e3ebf0$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS http://www.relocalize.net/node/4770 This is a very long article written by Wendell Berry as he helps us to understand the circumstances of today and how ?re-localization? and the creation of local sustainable living communities is the only way out of this mess in which we currently find ourselves. Thanks to David Eisenberg for posting this to Facebook where I found it. David is the Founder and Executive Director of DCAT, (Development Center for Appropriate Technology) www.dcat.net/ The Idea of a Local Economy by Wendell Berry Mon, 2006-09-25 20:18 ? Keith Johnson This is a very profound essay on localization that I have shared with my students in Permaculture Courses (It can be found in other places on the web). Hope you enjoy it and share it. Keith The Idea of a Local Economy by Wendell Berry Let us begin by assuming what appears to be true: that the so-called "environmental crisis" is now pretty well established as a fact of our age. The problems of pollution, species extinction, loss of wilderness, loss of farmland, loss of topsoil may still be ignored or scoffed at, but they are not denied. Concern for these problems has acquired a certain standing, a measure of discussability, in the media and in some scientific, academic, and religious institutions. This is good, of course; obviously, we can't hope to solve these problems without an increase of public awareness and concern. But in an age burdened with "publicity," we have to be aware also that as issues rise into popularity they rise also into the danger of oversimplification. To speak of this danger is especially necessary in confronting the destructiveness of our relationship to nature, which is the result, in the first place, of gross oversimplification. The "environmental crisis" has happened because the human household or economy is in conflict at almost every point with the household of nature. We have built our household on the assumption that the natural household is simple and can be simply used. We have assumed increasingly over the last five hundred years that nature is merely a supply of "raw materials," and that we may safely possess those materials merely by taking them. This taking, as our technical means have increased, has involved always less reverence or respect, less gratitude, less local knowledge, and less skill. Our methodologies of land use have strayed from our old sympathetic attempts to imitate natural processes, and have come more and more to resemble the methodology of mining, even as mining itself has become more technologically powerful and more brutal. And so we will be wrong if we attempt to correct what we perceive as "environmental" problems without correcting the economic oversimplification that caused them. This oversimplification is now either a matter of corporate behavior or of behavior under the influence of corporate behavior. This is sufficiently clear to many of us. What is not sufficiently clear, perhaps to any of us, is the extent of our complicity, as individuals and especially as individual consumers, in the behavior of the corporations. What has happened is that most people in our country, and apparently most people in the "developed" world, have given proxies to the corporations to produce and provide all of their food, clothing, and shelter. Moreover, they are rapidly giving proxies to corporations or governments to provide entertainment, education, child care, care of the sick and the elderly, and many other kinds of "service" that once were carried on informally and inexpensively by individuals or households or communities. Our major economic practice, in short, is to delegate the practice to others. The danger now is that those who are concerned will believe that the solution to the "environmental crisis" can be merely political - that the problems, being large, can be solved by large solutions generated by a few people to whom we will give our proxies to police the economic proxies that we have already given. The danger, in other words, is that people will think they have made a sufficient change if they have altered their "values," or had a "change of heart," or experienced a "spiritual awakening," and that such a change in passive consumers will cause appropriate changes in the public experts, politicians, and corporate executives to whom they have granted their political and economic proxies. The trouble with this is that a proper concern for nature and our use of nature must be practiced not by our proxy-holders, but by ourselves. A change of heart or of values without a practice is only another pointless luxury of a passively consumptive way of life. The "environmental crisis," in fact, can be solved only if people, individually and in their communities, recover responsibility for their thoughtlessly given proxies. If people begin the effort to take back into their own power a significant portion of their economic responsibility, then their inevitable first discovery is that the "environmental crisis" is no such thing; it is not a crisis of our environs or surroundings; it is a crisis of our lives as individuals, as family members, as community members, and as citizens. We have an "environmental crisis" because we have consented to an economy in which by eating, drinking, working, resting, traveling, and enjoying ourselves we are destroying the natural, theGod-given world. We live, as we must sooner or later recognize, in an era of sentimental economics and, consequently, of sentimental politics. Sentimental communism holds in effect that everybody and everything should suffer for the good of "the many" who, though miserable in the present, will be happy in the future for exactly the same reasons that they are miserable in the present. Sentimental capitalism is not so different from sentimental communism as the corporate and political powers claim. Sentimental capitalism holds in effect that everything small, local, private, personal, natural, good, and beautiful must be sacrificed in the interest of the "free market" and the great corporations, which will bring unprecedented security and happiness to "the many" - in, of course, the future. These forms of political economy may be described as sentimental because they depend absolutely upon a political faith for which there is no justification, and because they issue a cold check on the virtue of political and/or economic rulers. They seek, that is, to preserve the gullibility of the people by appealing to a fund of political virtue that does not exist. Communism and "free-market" capitalism both are modern versions of oligarchy. In their propaganda, both justify violent means by good ends, which always are put beyond reach by the violence of the means. The trick is to define the end vaguely - "the greatest good of the greatest number" or "the benefit of the many" - and keep it at a distance. The fraudulence of these oligarchic forms of economy is in their principle of displacing whatever good they recognize (as well as their debts) from the present to the future. Their success depends upon persuading people, first, that whatever they have now is no good, and second, that the promised good is certain to be achieved in the future. This obviously contradicts the principle - common, I believe, to all the religious traditions - that if ever we are going to do good to one another, then the time to do it is now; we are to receive no reward for promising to do it in the future. And both communism and capitalism have found such principles to be a great embarrassment. If you are presently occupied in destroying every good thing in sight in order to do good in the future, it is inconvenient to have people saying things like "Love thy neighbor as thyself" or "Sentient beings are numberless, I vow to save them." Communists and capitalists alike, "liberal" and "conservative" capitalists alike have needed to replace religion with some form of determinism, so that they can say to their victims, "I am doing this because I can?t do otherwise. It is not my fault. It is inevitable." The wonder is how often organized religion has gone along with this lie. The idea of an economy based upon several kinds of ruin may seem a contradiction in terms, but in fact such an economy is possible, as we see. It is possible however, on one implacable condition: the only future good that it assuredly leads to is that it will destroy itself. And how does it disguise this outcome from its subjects, its short-term beneficiaries, and its victims? It does so by false accounting. It substitutes for the real economy, by which we build and maintain (or do not maintain) our household, a symbolic economy of money, which in the long run, because of the self-interested manipulations of the "controlling interests," cannot symbolize or account for anything but itself. And so we have before us the spectacle of unprecedented "prosperity" and "economic growth" in a land of degraded farms, forests, ecosystems, and watersheds, polluted air, failing families, and perishing communities. This moral and economic absurdity exists for the sake of the allegedly "free" market, the single principle of which is this: commodities will be produced wherever they can be produced at the lowest cost, and consumed wherever they will bring the highest price. To make too cheap and sell too high has always been the program of industrial capitalism. The idea of the global "free market" is merely capitalism's so-far-successful attempt to enlarge the geographic scope of its greed, and moreover to give to its greed the status of a "right" within its presumptive territory. The global "free market" is free to the corporations precisely because it dissolves the boundaries of the old national colonialisms, and replaces them with a new colonialism without restraints or boundaries. It is pretty much as if all the rabbits have now been forbidden to have holes, thereby "freeing" the hounds. The "right" of a corporation to exercise its economic power without restraint is construed, by the partisans of the "free market," as a form of freedom, a political liberty implied presumably by the right of individual citizens to own and use property. But the "free market" idea introduces into government a sanction of an inequality that is not implicit in any idea of democratic liberty: namely that the "free market" is freest to those who have the most money, and is not free at all to those with little or no money. Wal-Mart, for example, as a large corporation "freely" competing against local, privately owned businesses has virtually all the freedom, and its small competitors virtually none. To make too cheap and sell too high, there are two requirements. One is that you must have a lot of consumers with surplus money and unlimited wants. For the time being, there are plenty of these consumers in the "developed" countries. The problem, for the time being easily solved, is simply to keep them relatively affluent and dependent on purchased supplies. The other requirement is that the market for labor and raw materials should remain depressed relative to the market for retail commodities. This means that the supply of workers should exceed demand, and that the land-using economy should be allowed or encouraged to overproduce. To keep the cost of labor low, it is necessary first to entice or force country people everywhere in the world to move into the cities - in the manner prescribed by the United States' Committee for Economic Development after World War II - and second, to continue to introduce labor-replacing technology. In this way it is possible to maintain a "pool" of people who are in the threatening position of being mere consumers, landless and also poor, and who therefore are eager to go to work for low wages - precisely the condition of migrant farm workersin the United States. To cause the land-using economies to overproduce is even simpler. The farmers and other workers in the world's land-using economies, by and large, are not organized. They are therefore unable to control production in order to secure just prices. Individual producers must go individually to the market and take for their produce simply whatever they are paid. They have no power to bargain or make demands. Increasingly, they must sell, not to neighbors or to neighboring towns and cities, but to large and remote corporations. There is no competition among the buyers (supposing there is more than one), who are organized, and are "free" to exploit the advantage of low prices. Low prices encourage overproduction as producers attempt to make up their losses "on volume," and overproduction inevitably makes for low prices. The land-using economies thus spiral downward as the money economy of the exploiters spirals upward. If economic attrition in the land-using population becomes so severe as to threaten production, then governments can subsidize production without production controls, which necessarily will encourage overproduction, which will lower prices - and so the subsidy to rural producers becomes, in effect, a subsidy to the purchasing corporations. In the land-using economies production is further cheapened by destroying, with low prices and low standards of quality, the cultural imperatives for good work and land stewardship. This sort of exploitation, long familiar in the foreign and domestic economies and the colonialism of modern nations, has now become "the global economy," which is the property of a few supranational corporations. The economic theory used to justify the global economy in its "free market" version is again perfectly groundless and sentimental. The idea is that what is good for the corporations will sooner or later - though not of course immediately - be good for everybody. That sentimentality is based in turn, upon a fantasy: the proposition that the great corporations, in "freely" competing with one another for raw materials, labor, and marketshare, will drive each other indefinitely, not only toward greater "efficiencies" of manufacture, but also toward higher bids for raw materials and labor and lower prices to consumers. As a result, all the world's people will be economically secure - in the future. It would be hard to object to such a proposition if only it were true. But one knows, in the first place, that "efficiency" in manufacture always means reducing labor costs by replacing workers with cheaper workers or with machines. In the second place, the "law of competition" does not imply that many competitors will compete indefinitely. The law of competition is a simple paradox: Competition destroys competition. The law of competition implies that many competitors, competing on the "free market" will ultimately and inevitably reduce the number of competitors to one. The law of competition, in short, is the law of war. In the third place, the global economy is based upon cheap long-distance transportation, without which it is not possible to move goods from the point of cheapest origin to the point of highest sale. And cheap long-distance transportation is the basis of the idea that regions and nations should abandon any measure of economic self-sufficiency in order to specialize in production for export of the few commodities or the single commodity that can be most cheaply produced. Whatever may be said for the "efficiency" of such a system, its result (and I assume, its purpose) is to destroy local production capacities, local diversity, and local economic independence. This idea of a global "free market" economy, despite its obvious moral flaws and its dangerous practical weaknesses, is now the ruling orthodoxy of the age. Its propaganda is subscribed to and distributed by most political leaders, editorial writers, and other "opinion makers." The powers that be, while continuing to budget huge sums for "national defense," have apparently abandoned any idea of national or local self-sufficiency, even in food. They also have given up the idea that a national or local government might justly place restraints upon economic activity in order to protect its land and its people. The global economy is now institutionalized in the World Trade Organization, which was set up, without election anywhere, to rule international trade on behalf of the "free market" - which is to say on behalf of the supranational corporations - and to overrule, in secret sessions, any national or regional law that conflicts with the "free market." The corporate program of global free trade and the presence of the World Trade Organization have legitimized extreme forms of expert thought. We are told confidently that if Kentucky loses its milk-producing capacity to Wisconsin, that will be a "success story." Experts such as Stephen C. Blank, of the University of California, Davis, have proposed that "developed" countries, such as the United States and the United Kingdom, where food can no longer be produced cheaply enough, should give up agriculture altogether. The folly at the root of this foolish economy began with the idea that a corporation should be regarded, legally, as "a person." But the limitless destructiveness of this economy comes about precisely because a corporation is not a person. A corporation, essentially, is a pile of money to which a number of persons have sold their moral allegiance. As such, unlike a person, a corporation does not age. It does not arrive, as most persons finally do, at a realization of the shortness and smallness of human lives; it does not come to see the future as the lifetime of the children and grandchildren of anybody in particular. It can experience no personal hope or remorse, no change of heart. It cannot humble itself. It goes about its business as if it were immortal, with the single purpose of becoming a bigger pile of money. The stockholders essentially are usurers, people who "let their money work for them," expecting high pay in return for causing others to work for low pay. The World Trade Organization enlarges the old idea of the corporation-as-person by giving the global corporate economy the status of a super government with the power to overrule nations. I don?t mean to say, of course, that all corporate executives and stockholders are bad people. I am only saying that all of them are very seriously implicated in a bad economy. Unsurprisingly, among people who wish to preserve things other than money - for instance, every region's native capacity to produce essential goods - there is a growing perception that the global "free market" economy is inherently an enemy to the natural world, to human health and freedom, to industrial workers, and to farmers and others in the land-use economies; and furthermore, that it is inherently an enemy to good work and good economic practice. I believe that this perception is correct and that it can be shown to be correct merely by listing the assumptions implicit in the idea that corporations should be "free" to buy low and sell high in the world at large. These assumptions, so far as I can make them out, are as follows: 1. That stable and preserving relationships among people, places, and things do not matter and are of no worth. 2. That cultures and religions have no legitimate practical or economic concerns. 3. That there is no conflict between the "free market" and political freedom, and no connection between political democracy and economic democracy. 4. That there can be no conflict between economic advantage and economic justice. 5. That there is no conflict between greed and ecological or bodily health. 6. That there is no conflict between self-interest and public service. 7. That the loss or destruction of the capacity anywhere to produce necessary goods does not matter and involves no cost. 8. That it is all right for a nation's or a region's subsistence to be foreign based, dependent on long-distance transport, and entirely controlled by corporations. 9. That, therefore, wars over commodities - our recent Gulf War, for example - are legitimate and permanent economic functions. 10. That this sort of sanctioned violence is justified also by the predominance of centralized systems of production supply, communications, and transportation, which are extremely vulnerable not only to acts of war between nations, but also to sabotage and terrorism. 11. That it is all right for poor people in poor countries to work at poor wages to produce goods for export to affluent people in rich countries. 12. That there is no danger and no cost in the proliferation of exotic pests, weeds, and diseases that accompany international trade and that increase with the volume of trade. 13. That an economy is a machine, of which people are merely the interchangeable parts. One has no choice but to do the work (if any) that the economy prescribes, and to accept the prescribed wage. 14. That, therefore, vocation is a dead issue. One does not do the work that one chooses to do because one is called to it by Heaven or by one's natural or God-given abilities, but does instead the work that is determined and imposed by the economy. Any work is all right as long as one gets paid for it. These assumptions clearly prefigure a condition of total economy. A total economy is one in which everything - "life-forms," for instance, or the "right to pollute" - is "private property" and has a price and is for sale. In a total economy significant and sometimes critical choices that once belonged to individuals or communities become the property of corporations. A total economy, operating internationally, necessarily shrinks the powers of state and national governments, not only because those governments have signed over significant powers to an international bureaucracy or because political leaders become the paid hacks of the corporations but also because political processes - and especially democratic processes - are too slow to react to unrestrained economic and technological development on a global scale. And when state and national governments begin to act in effect as agents of the global economy, selling their people for low wages and their people's products for low prices, then the rights and liberties of citizenship must necessarily shrink. A total economy is an unrestrained taking of profits from the disintegration of nations, communities, households, landscapes, and ecosystems. It licenses symbolic or artificial wealth to "grow" by means of the destruction of the real wealth of all the world. Among the many costs of the total economy, the loss of the principle of vocation is probably the most symptomatic and, from a cultural standpoint, the most critical. It is by the replacement of vocation with economic determinism that the exterior workings of a total economy destroy the character and culture also from the inside. In an essay on the origin of civilization in traditional cultures, Ananda K. Coomaraswamy wrote that "the principle of justice is the same throughout...[it is] that each member of the community should perform the task for which he is fitted by nature..." The two ideas, justice and vocation, are inseparable. That is why Coomaraswamy spoke of industrialism as "the mammon of injustice," incompatible with civilization. It is by way of the principle and practice of vocation that sanctity and reverence enter into the human economy. It was thus possible for traditional cultures to conceive that "to work is to pray." Aware of industrialism's potential for destruction, as well as the considerable political danger of great concentrations of wealth and power in industrial corporations, American leaders developed, and for a while used, the means of limiting and restraining such concentrations, and of somewhat equitably distributing wealth and property. The means were: laws against trusts and monopolies, the principle of collective bargaining, the concept of one-hundred-percent parity between the land-using and the manufacturing economies, and the progressive income tax. And to protect domestic producers and production capacities it is possible for governments to impose tariffs on cheap imported goods. These means are justified by the government's obligation to protect the lives, livelihoods, and freedoms of its citizens. There is, then, no necessity or inevitability requiring our government to sacrifice the livelihoods of our small farmers, small business people, and workers, along with our domestic economic independence to the global "free market." But now all of these means are either weakened or in disuse. The global economy is intended as a means of subverting them. In default of government protections against the total economy of the supranational corporations, people are where they have been many times before: in danger of losing their economic security and their freedom, both at once. But at the same time the means of defending themselves belongs to them in the form of a venerable principle: powers not exercised by government return to the people. If the government does not propose to protect the lives, livelihoods, and freedoms of its people, then the people must think about protecting themselves. How are they to protect themselves? There seems, really, to be only one way, and that is to develop and put into practice the idea of a local economy - something that growing numbers of people are now doing. For several good reasons, they are beginning with the idea of a local food economy. People are trying to find ways to shorten the distance between producers and consumers, to make the connections between the two more direct, and to make this local economic activity a benefit to the local community. They are trying to learn to use the consumer economies of local towns and cities to preserve the livelihoods of local farm families and farm communities. They want to use the local economy to give consumers an influence over the kind and quality of their food, and to preserve and enhance the local landscapes. They want to give everybody in the local community a direct, long-term interest in the prosperity, health, and beauty of their homeland. This is the only way presently available to make the total economy less total. It was once, I believe, the only way to make a national or a colonial economy less total. But now the necessity is greater. I am assuming that there is a valid line of thought leading from the idea of the total economy to the idea of a local economy. I assume that the first thought may be a recognition of one's ignorance and vulnerability as a consumer in the total economy. As such a consumer, one does not know the history of the products that one uses. Where, exactly, did they come from? Who produced them? What toxins were used in their production? What were the human and ecological costs of producing them and then of disposing of them? One sees that such questions cannot be answered easily, and perhaps not at all. Though one is shopping amid an astonishing variety of products, one is denied certain significant choices. In such a state of economic ignorance it is not possible to choose products that were produced locally or with reasonable kindness toward people and toward nature. Nor is it possible for such consumers to influence production for the better. Consumers who feel a prompting toward land stewardship find that in this economy they can have no stewardly practice. To be a consumer in the total economy, one must agree to be totally ignorant, totally passive, and totally dependent on distant supplies and self-interested suppliers. And then, perhaps, one begins to see from a local point of view. One begins to ask, What is here, what is in me, that can lead to something better? From a local point of view, one can see that a global "free market" economy is possible only if nations and localities accept or ignore the inherent instability of a production economy based on exports and a consumer economy based on imports. An export economy is beyond local influence, and so is an import economy. And cheap long-distance transport is possible only if granted cheap fuel, international peace, control of terrorism, prevention of sabotage, and the solvency of the international economy. Perhaps one also begins to see the difference between a small local business that must share the fate of the local community and a large absentee corporation that is set up to escape the fate of the local community by ruining the local community. So far as I can see, the idea of a local economy rests upon only two principles: neighborhood and subsistence. In a viable neighborhood, neighbors ask themselves what they can do or provide for one another, and they find answers that they and their place can afford. This, and nothing else, is the practice of neighborhood. This practice must be, in part, charitable, but it must also be economic, and the economic part must be equitable; there is a significant charity in just prices. Of course, everything needed locally cannot be produced locally. But a viable neighborhood is a community; and a viable community is made up of neighbors who cherish and protect what they have in common. This is the principle of subsistence. A viable community, like a viable farm, protects its own production capacities. It does not import products that it can produce for itself. And it does not export local products until local needs have been met. The economic products of a viable community are understood either as belonging to the community's subsistence or as surplus, and only the surplus is considered to be marketable abroad. A community, if it is to be viable, cannot think of producing solely for export, and it cannot permit importers to use cheaper labor and goods from other places to destroy the local capacity to produce goods that are needed locally. In charity, moreover, it must refuse to import goods that are produced at the cost of human or ecological degradation elsewhere. This principle applies not just to localities, but to regions and nations as well. The principles of neighborhood and subsistence will be disparaged by the globalists as "protectionism" ? and that is exactly what it is. It is a protectionism that is just and sound, because it protects local producers and is the best assurance of adequate supplies to local consumers. And the idea that local needs should be met first and only surpluses exported does not imply any prejudice against charity toward people in other places or trade with them. The principle of neighborhood at home always implies the principle of charity abroad. And the principle of subsistence is in fact the best guarantee of giveable or marketable surpluses. This kind of protection is not "isolationism." Albert Schweitzer, who knew well the economic situation in the colonies of Africa, wrote nearly sixty years ago: "Whenever the timber trade is good, permanent famine reigns in the Ogowe region because the villagers abandon their farms to fell as many trees as possible." We should notice especially that the goal of production was "as many...as possible." And Schweitzer makes my point exactly: "These people could achieve true wealth if they could develop their agriculture and trade to meet their own needs." Instead they produced timber for export to "the world economy," which made them dependent upon imported goods that they bought with money earned from their exports. They gave up their local means of subsistence, and imposed the false standard of a foreign demand ("as many trees as possible") upon their forests. They thus became helplessly dependent on an economy over which they had no control. Such was the fate of the native people under the African colonialism of Schweitzer?s time. Such is, and can only be, the fate of everybody under the global colonialism of our time. Schweitzer's description of the colonial economy of the Ogowe region is in principle not different from the rural economy now in Kentucky or Iowa or Wyoming. A total economy for all practical purposes is a total government. The "free trade", which from the standpoint of the corporate economy brings "unprecedented economic growth," from the standpoint of the land and its local populations, and ultimately from the standpoint of the cities, brings destruction and slavery. Without prosperous local economies, the people have no power and the land no voice. 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 121Rhahl at kilowattcards.com Fri Jan 8 03:59:01 2010 From: 121Rhahl at kilowattcards.com (Robert Hahl) Date: Fri, 8 Jan 2010 03:59:01 -0700 Subject: [GJM] Debt is not money Message-ID: <73992b9e$59b3be3c$43abf487$@com> "The issuing of credit creates debt on the part of the counterparty; but debt is not money, credit is. Debt is negative money, a form of financial antimatter." China in Treasuries cul-de-sac By Henry CK Liu http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China_Business/LA08Cb02.html Many have suggested China is not compelled to buy United States Treasuries with its trade surplus dollars. They point out that China does so voluntarily because US sovereign debt is the safest instrument as a storer of value. This is now obviously no longer true. So why does China continue to buy US sovereign debt? The answer is China has no other options but to be a creditor to the US, due to the US-China trade imbalance. The following explains why. A debt is not an independent thing. It is a designation of financial relationship between parties. For a debt to exist between parties, one party, or parties, must be the debtor, or debtors, and a counterparty or counterparties must be the creditor, or creditors. A debt cannot exist without a counterbalancing credit position. Credit drives the economy, not debt. Debt is the mirror reflection of credit. Even the most accurate mirror does violence to the symmetry of its reflection. Why does a mirror turn an image right to left and not upside down as the lens of a camera does? The scientific answer is that a mirror image transforms front to back rather than left to right as commonly assumed. Yet we often accept this aberrant mirror distortion as uncolored truth, and we unthinkingly consider the distorted reflection in the mirror as a perfect representation. In the language of finance economics, credit and debt are opposites but not identical. In fact, credit and debt operate in reverse relations. Credit requires a positive net worth and debt does not. One can have good credit and no debt. High debt lowers credit rating. When one understands credit, one understands the main force behind the modern finance economy, which is driven by credit and stalled by debt. Behaviorally, debt distorts marginal utility calculations and rearranges disposable income. Debt turns corporate shares into Giffen goods, demand for which increases when their prices go up, and creates what former Federal Reserve Board chairman Alan Greenspan calls "irrational exuberance", the economic man gone mad. Monetary economists view government-issued money as a sovereign debt instrument with zero maturity, historically derived from the bill of exchange in free banking. This view is valid only for specie money, which is a debt certificate that can claim on demand a prescribed amount of gold or other specie of intrinsic value. But fiat money issued by a sovereign government is not a sovereign debt but a sovereign credit instrument. Sovereign government bonds are sovereign debt while local government bonds are agency debt but not sovereign debt, because local governments, while they possess limited power to tax, cannot print money, which is the exclusive authority of the Federal government or a central government. When money buys bonds, the transaction represents sovereign credit canceling public or corporate debt. This relationship is rather straightforward but is of fundamental importance. Money issued by government fiat is now exclusive legal tender in all modern national economies. The State Theory of Money (Chartalism) holds that the general acceptance of government-issued fiat currency rests fundamentally on government's authority to tax. Government's willingness to accept the fiat currency it issues for payment of taxes gives such issuance currency within a national economy. That currency is sovereign credit for tax liabilities, which are dischargeable by credit instruments issued by government in the form of fiat money. When issuing fiat money, the government owes no one anything except to make good a promise to accept its money for tax payment. A central banking regime operates on the notion of government-issued fiat money as sovereign credit. A central bank operates essentially as a lender of last resort to a nation's banking system, drawing on sovereign credit. A lender's position is a creditor position. Thomas Jefferson famously prophesied: "If the American people allow the banks to control the issuance of their currency, first by inflation, and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive people of all property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers occupied ... The issuing power of money should be taken from the banks and restored to Congress and the people to whom it belongs." This warning applies to all other peoples in the world as well. Government levies taxes not to finance its operations, but to give value to its fiat money as sovereign credit instruments. If it chooses to, government can finance its operation entirely through user fees, as some fiscal conservatives suggest. A government does not need to be indebted to the public. It creates a government debt component to provide a benchmark interest rate to anchor the private debt market, not because it needs money. Technically, a sovereign government need never borrow. It can issue tax credit in the form of fiat money to meet all its liabilities. And only a sovereign government can issue fiat money as sovereign credit. If fiat money is not sovereign debt, then the entire conceptual structure of finance capitalism is subject to reordering, just as physics was subject to reordering when man's worldview changed with the realization that the earth is not stationary nor is it the center of the universe. The need for capital formation to finance socially useful development will be exposed as a cruel hoax, as sovereign credit can finance all socially useful development without problem. Private savings are not necessary to finance public socio-economic development, since private savings are not required for the supply of sovereign credit. Thus the relationship between the national private savings rate and public finance is at best indirect. Sovereign credit can finance an economy in which unemployment is unknown, with wages constantly rising to provide consumer buying power to prevent production overcapacity. A vibrant economy is one in which there is persistent labor shortages that push up wages to reduce overcapacity. Private savings are needed only for private investment that has no intrinsic social purpose or value. Savings without full employment are deflationary, as savings reduces current consumption to provide investment to increase future supply, which is not needed in an economy with overcapacity created by lack of demand, which in turn has been created by low wages and unemployment. Say's Law of supply creating its own demand is a very special situation that is operative only under full employment with high wages. Say's Law ignores a critical time lag between supply and demand that can be fatally problematic to the cash-flow needs in a fast-moving modern economy. Savings require interest payments, the compounding of which will regressively make any financial scheme unsustainable. Religions have forbidden usury for very practical reasons. The relationship between assets and liabilities is expressed as credit and debt, with the designation determined by the flow of obligation. A flow from asset to liability is known as credit, the reverse is known as debt. A creditor is one who reduces his liability to increase his assets, which include the right of collection on the liabilities of his debtors. Sovereign debt is a pretend game to make private monetary debts denominated in fiat money tradable. The sovereign state, representing the people, owns all assets of a nation not assigned to the private sector. This is true regardless whether the state operates on socialist or capitalist principles. Thus the state's assets are the national wealth less that portion of private sector wealth after tax liabilities, plus all other claims on the private sector by sovereign right. High wages are the key determinant of national wealth. Privatization generally reduces state assets while it may increase tax revenue. As long as a sovereign state exists, its credit is limited only by the national wealth. If sovereign credit is used to increase national wealth, then sovereign credit is limitless as long as the growth of national wealth keeps pace with the growth of sovereign credit. When a sovereign state issues money as legal tender, it issues a monetary instrument backed by its sovereign rights, which includes taxation. A sovereign state never owes domestic debts except by design voluntarily. When a sovereign state borrows in order to avoid levying or raising taxes, it is a political expedience, not a financial necessity. When a sovereign state borrows, through the selling of sovereign bonds denominated in its own currency, it is withdrawing previously issued sovereign credit from the financial system. When a sovereign state borrows foreign currency, it forfeits its sovereign credit privilege and reduces itself to an ordinary debtor because no sovereign state can issue foreign currency. Dollar hegemony prevents all states beside the US from financing their domestic development with sovereign credit. Government bonds act as absorbers of sovereign credit from the private sector. US government bonds, through dollar hegemony, enjoy the highest credit rating, topping a credit risk pyramid in international sovereign and institutional debt markets. Dollar hegemony is a geopolitical phenomenon in which the US dollar, a fiat currency, assumes the status of primary reserve currency in the international finance architecture. Architecture is an art the aesthetics of which are based on moral goodness, of which the current international finance architecture is visibly deficient. Thus dollar hegemony is objectionable not only because the dollar, as a fiat currency, usurps a role it does not deserve, but also because its effect on the world community is devoid of moral goodness, because it destroys the ability of sovereign governments beside the US to use sovereign credit to finance the development their domestic economies, and forces them to export to earn dollar reserves to maintain the exchange value of their own currencies. Money issued by sovereign government fiat is a sovereign monopoly while debt is not. Anyone with acceptable credit rating can borrow or lend, but only a sovereign government can issue fiat money as legal tender. When a sovereign government issues fiat money, it issues certificates of its sovereign credit good for discharging tax liabilities imposed by the sovereign government on its citizens. Privately issued money can exist only with the grace and permission of the sovereign, and is different from sovereign government-issued money in that privately issued money is an IOU from the issuer, with the issuer owing the holder the content of the money's backing. But sovereign government-issued fiat money is not a debt from the government because the money is backed by a potential debt from the holder in the form of tax liabilities. Money issued by a sovereign government by fiat as legal tender is good by law for settling all debts, private and public. Anyone refusing to accept dollars in the US for payment of debt is in violation of US law. Instruments used for settling debts are credit instruments. Buying up sovereign bonds with government-issued fiat money is one of the ways government releases more sovereign credit into the economy. By logic, the money supply in an economy is not government debt because, if increasing the money supply means increasing the national debt, then monetary easing would contract credit from the economy. But empirical evidence suggests otherwise: monetary easing increases the supply of credit. Thus if fiat money creation by sovereign government increases credit, money issued by sovereign government fiat is a credit instrument. Economist Hyman Minsky rightly noted that whenever credit is issued, money is created. The issuing of credit creates debt on the part of the counterparty; but debt is not money, credit is. Debt is negative money, a form of financial antimatter. Physicists understand the relationship between matter and antimatter. Einstein theorized that matter results from concentration of energy and Paul Dirac conceptualized the by-product creation of antimatter through the creation of matter out of energy. The collision of matter and antimatter produces annihilation that returns matter and antimatter to pure energy. The same is true with credit and debt, which are related but opposite. They are created in separate forms out of financial energy to produce matter (credit) and antimatter (debt). The collision of credit and debt will produce annihilation and return the resultant union to pure financial energy un-harnessed for human benefit. The paying off of debt terminates financial interaction. Monetary debt is repayable with money. A sovereign government does not become a debtor by issuing fiat money, which, in the US, takes the form of a Federal Reserve note, not an ordinary bank note. The word "bank" does not appear on US dollars. Zero maturity money (ZMM) in the dollar economy, is equal to M2 (funds that are readily accessible for spending plus savings deposits, time deposits less than $100,000 and money market deposit accounts for individuals) plus all money market funds, minus time deposits. It measures the supply of financial assets redeemable at par on demand. ZMM grew from US$550 billion in 1971 when president Richard Nixon took the dollar off a gold standard, to $9.6 trillion as of December 2009, is not a federal debt. It amounts to about 67.3% of US gross domestic product (GDP) of $14.26 trillion, slightly over the national debt of $12.33 trillion at the same point in time. Sovereign credit is what gives the US economy its inherent strength. A holder of fiat money is a holder of sovereign credit. The holder of fiat money is not a creditor to the state, as some monetary economists mistakenly claim. Fiat money only entitles its holder a replacement of the same money from government, nothing more. The dollar, being a Federal Reserve note, entitles the holder to exchange the note to another identical note at a Federal Reserve Bank, and nothing else. The holder of fiat money is acting as a state agent, with the full faith and credit of the state behind the instrument, which is good for paying taxes and is legal tender for all debt public and private. Fiat money, like a passport, entitles the holder to the protection of the state in enforcing sovereign credit. It is a certificate of state financial power inherent in sovereignty. The Chartalist theory of money claims that government, by virtue of its power to levy taxes payable with government-designated legal tender, does not need external financing. Accordingly, sovereign credit enables the government to finance a full-employment economy even in a regulated market economy. The logic of Chartalism reasons that an excessively low tax rate will result in a low demand for currency and that a chronic government fiscal surplus is economically counterproductive and unsustainable because it drains credit from the economy continuously. The colonial administration in British Africa used land taxes to induce the carefree natives to use its currency and engage in financial productivity. Thus, according to Chartalist theory, an economy can finance with sovereign credit its domestic developmental needs, to achieve full employment and maximize balanced growth with prosperity without any need for sovereign debt or foreign loans or investment, and without the penalty of hyperinflation. But Chartalist theory is operative only in predominantly closed domestic monetary regimes. Countries participating in neo-liberal international "free trade" under the aegis of unregulated global financial and currency markets cannot operate on Chartalist principles because of the foreign-exchange dilemma. Any government printing its own currency to finance legitimate domestic needs beyond the size of its foreign-exchange reserves will soon find its convertible currency under attack in the foreign-exchange markets, regardless of whether the currency is pegged at a fixed exchanged rate to another currency or is free-floating. Thus all non-dollar economies are forced to attract foreign capital denominated in dollars even to meet domestic needs. But non-dollar economies must accumulate dollars reserves before they can attract foreign capital. Even with capital control, foreign capital will only invest in the export sector where dollar revenue can be earned. But the dollars that exporting economies accumulate from trade surpluses can only be invested in dollar assets, depriving the non-dollar economies of needed capital in domestic sectors. The only protection from such attacks on domestic currency is to suspend full convertibility, which then will keep foreign investment away. Thus dollar hegemony, the subjugation of all other fiat currencies to the dollar as the key reserve currency, starves non-dollar economies of needed capital by depriving their governments of the power to issue sovereign credit for domestic development. Under principles of Chartalism, foreign capital serves no useful domestic purpose outside of an imperialistic agenda. Dollar hegemony essentially taxes away the ability of the trading partners of the US to finance their own domestic development in their own currencies, and forces them to seek foreign loans and investment denominated in dollars, which the US, and only the US, can print at will with relative immunity. The Mundell-Fleming thesis, for which Robert Mundell won the 1999 Nobel Prize, states that in international finance, a government has the choice among (1) stable exchange rates, (2) international capital mobility and (3) domestic policy autonomy (full employment, interest rate policies, counter-cyclical fiscal spending, etc). With unregulated global financial markets, a government can have only two of the three options. Through dollar hegemony, the United States is the only country that can defy the Mundell-Fleming thesis. For more than a decade since the end of the Cold War, the US has kept the fiat dollar significantly above its real economic value, attracted capital account surpluses and exercised unilateral policy autonomy within a globalized financial system dictated by dollar hegemony. The reasons for this are complex but the single most important reason is that all major commodities, most notably oil, are denominated in dollars, mostly as an extension of superpower geopolitics. This fact is the anchor for dollar hegemony which makes possible US finance hegemony, which makes possible US exceptionism and unilateralism. When China exports real wealth to the US for fiat dollars, it is receiving US sovereign credit in exchange of material wealth in the form of goods. Thus the US trade deficit denominated in dollars is in fact US lending to China through buying Chinese goods on credit. China now is a holder of US fiat money and as such is acting as a state agent of the US, with the full faith and credit of the US behind the US sovereign credit instrument (dollar), which is good for paying US taxes and is legal tender for all debt public and private in the US. Fiat money, like a passport, entitles the holder to the protection of the state in enforcing sovereign credit. It is a certificate of state financial power inherent in sovereignty. Since China does not pay US taxes, the dollars that China receives can only be used to buy US sovereign debt (Treasuries) through extinguishing the US sovereign credit instruments (dollars). Through this transaction, China changes its position from that of an agent of US sovereign credit to that of a creditor to the US. This is why China must buy Treasuries with its surplus dollar - to change its position from that of a US agent to that of a US creditor. Henry CK Liu is chairman of a New York-based private investment group. His website is at http://www.henryckliu.com (Copyright 2010 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.) Robert W. Hahl, J.D., Ph.D. 121rhahl at kilowattcards.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From knightjanos at gmail.com Fri Jan 8 08:03:26 2010 From: knightjanos at gmail.com (Janos Abel) Date: Fri, 8 Jan 2010 15:03:26 +0000 Subject: [GJM] test Message-ID: <7051643f1001080703q419a424n8c6d95e21583a164@mail.gmail.com> test -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mukhtaralam2000 at yahoo.com Fri Jan 8 22:59:27 2010 From: mukhtaralam2000 at yahoo.com (Dr.Muhammad Mukhtar Alam) Date: Sat, 9 Jan 2010 11:29:27 +0530 (IST) Subject: [GJM] Public Debate with the "Experts!" In-Reply-To: <666189.2623.qm@web27402.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> References: <666189.2623.qm@web27402.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <35520.37561.qm@web94910.mail.in2.yahoo.com> Dear I think this discussion shared by Robert provides an opportunity to GJM members based in London for influencing the discourse and practice of Economics. What kind of economics should we teach? >Date: Wednesday 20 January 2010 >Time: 6.30-8pm >Venue: Sheikh Zayed Theatre, New Academic Building >Speakers: Professor Geoffrey Hodgson, Professor Albert Marcet, Paul Ormerod, Professor John Sutton >Chair: Professor Tim Besley >The recent global crisis has lead to questions being asked about >whether the kind of economics being taught to students in leading >economics departments was responsible for the widespread failure to >predict the timing and magnitude of the events that unfolded in 2008. >Critiques range from an absence of historical context in mainstream >teaching of economics to excessive reliance on mathematical models. >This panel brings together four leading economists to debate this issue >and to discuss what changes in the economics curriculum and the way >that it is delivered are desirable. >This event is free and open to all with no ticket required. Entry is on a first come, first served basis. Must Read Who Are These Economists, Anyway? by James K. Galbraith http://www.nea.org/assets/docs/HE/TA09EconomistGalbraith.pdf Reads The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness http://bpp.wharton.upenn.edu/betseys/papers/Paradox%20of%20declining%20female%20happiness.pdf Health care debacle http://anticap.wordpress.com/2009/12/29/health-care-debacle/ Measuring Progress http://postgrowth.org/measuring-progress/ ?Unperson? Economists http://openeconomicsnd.wordpress.com/2010/01/05/unperson-economists/ More on freshwater economics http://ataxingmatter.blogs.com/tax/2010/01/more-on-freshwater-economics.html Categories: Economics and the Economics Profession, The Economy Comments (0) Trackbacks (0) Leave a comment Trackback 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: robert searle To: discussion at globaljusticemovement.net Sent: Fri, 8 January, 2010 6:51:21 PM Subject: [GJM] Public Debate with the "Experts!" what follows comes from the Paecon Real Economics blog....................... LondonSchoolof Economics Public Debate 1. No comments yet. 1. No trackbacks yet. Name (required) E-mail (will not be published) (required) Website Click here to cancel reply. Subscribe to comments feed Notify me of follow-up comments via email. Notify me of new posts via email. The INTERNET now has a personality. YOURS! See your Yahoo! Homepage. http://in.yahoo.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mukhtaralam2000 at yahoo.com Sat Jan 9 00:06:29 2010 From: mukhtaralam2000 at yahoo.com (Dr.Muhammad Mukhtar Alam) Date: Sat, 9 Jan 2010 12:36:29 +0530 (IST) Subject: [GJM] Seeking recommendation of the names In-Reply-To: <650913.67424.qm@web27404.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> References: <650913.67424.qm@web27404.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <756215.76099.qm@web94912.mail.in2.yahoo.com> Robert, Could u please give me the full name of Miss B. I am in the process of organising an international conference and in this regard , I would like to have name of speakers who could be invited for the conference for discussing alternative/s. 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: robert searle To: discussion at globaljusticemovement.net Sent: Thu, 7 January, 2010 4:48:17 PM Subject: [GJM] Ellen Brown... Rodney, et al, I am well aware that Miss B is a greatly respected writer on monetary reform, and is doing a sterling (part the word!) job for monetary reform. Long may it continue! I know she seems have had a bit of a hoo-hah with AMI but I just sent the email for general interests sake...admitedly, I did not read it all but got some gist of it! Robert S. 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 Jan 9 03:35:46 2010 From: dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk (robert searle) Date: Sat, 9 Jan 2010 10:35:46 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [GJM] Seeking recommendations of the names.. Message-ID: <121557.76896.qm@web27405.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> ? Dear Muktar,et al, ? ??????????? With respect, you should have known who Miss B was in the context of the original post. I was ofcourse referring Miss Brown, or Ellen Brown the esteemed authoress of the Web of Debt. ? Robert Searle. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk Sun Jan 10 07:41:42 2010 From: dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk (robert searle) Date: Sun, 10 Jan 2010 14:41:42 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [GJM] Fw: [toeslist] Economists among The FP Top 100 Global Thinkers of 2009 [foreignpolicy.com] Message-ID: <270038.81393.qm@web27405.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> --- On Sun, 10/1/10, Janet M Eaton wrote: From: Janet M Eaton Subject: [toeslist] Economists among The FP Top 100 Global Thinkers of 2009 [foreignpolicy.com] To: toeslist at yahoogroups.com Date: Sunday, 10 January, 2010, 7:02 ? Here are the economists, mostly mainstream all orthodox, along with a few high profile pundits who although not economists write about the global economy and or financial crisis who are on the list of Foreign Policy Magazine's end of year picks of the Top 100 Global Thinkers for 2009. I've also included political scientist Elinor Ostrom, winner of the Nobel for economics, for her ideas on the Commons which challenge the notion of both privatization and government regulation thereof. The FP Top 100 Global Thinkers http://www.foreignp olicy.com/ articles/ 2009/11/30/ the_fp_top_ 100_global _thinkers?page= full fyi-janet ============ ========= ========= ====== >From the brains behind Iran's Green Revolution to the economic Cassandra who actually did have a crystal ball, they had the big ideas that shaped our world in 2009. Read on to see the 100 minds that mattered most in the year that was. Special Edition of Foreign Policy Magazine The FP Top 100 Global Thinkers http://www.foreignp olicy.com/ articles/ 2009/11/30/ the_fp_top_ 100_global _thinkers?page= full ? ????????????????????????????? DECEMBER 2009 1. Ben Bernanke for staving off a new Great Depression. CHAIRMAN, FEDERAL RESERVE | WASHINGTON The Zen-like chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve might not have topped the list solely for turning his superb academic career into a blueprint for action, for single-handedly reinventing the role of a central bank, or for preventing the collapse of the U.S. economy. But to have done all of these within the span of a few months is certainly one of the greatest intellectual feats of recent years. Not long ago a Princeton University professor writing paper after paper on the Great Depression, "Helicopter Ben" spent 2009 dropping hundreds of billions in bailouts seemingly from the skies, vigilantly tracking interest rates, and coordinating with counterparts across the globe. His key insight? The need for massive, damn-the-torpedoes intervention in financial markets. Winning over critics who have since praised his "radical" moves (including Nouriel Roubini, No. 4 on this list), he now faces an uphill battle in his bid for permanently expanded Fed powers. The radicalism is far from over. "Those who doubt that there is much connection between the economy of the 1930s and the supercharged, information- age economy of the twenty- first century are invited to look at the current economic headlines -- about high unemployment, failing banks, volatile financial markets, currency crises, and even deflation. The issues raised by the Depression, and its lessons, are still relevant today." --Bernanke, Essays on the Great Depression 4. Nouriel Roubini for accurately forecasting the global financial pandemic. ECONOMIST | NEW YORK UNIVERSITY | NEW YORK Sometimes it takes a crisis to turn a madman into a prophet. And that's just what has happened to New York University economist Nouriel Roubini, known fondly by economy-watchers as Dr. Doom. When he predicted back in 2006 that the bursting of the housing bubble would decimate global credit markets, causing a broad, international recession, he sounded crazy, IMF economist Prakash Loungani told the New York Times. Not so after 2007: "He was a prophet when he returned." Today, "prophet" is certainly an apt word for the gloomy man who is perhaps the world's most sought-after economic advisor. Central bankers have come to appreciate his ability to peer around dark corners of the global economy, seeing potential busts where others see booms. As his NYU colleague Tunku Varadarajan put it, he's "the nearest thing to a rock star among the economists." "Last year's worst-case scenarios came true. The global financial pandemic that I and others had warned about is now upon us. But we are still only in the early stages of this crisis. My predictions for the coming year, unfortunately, are even more dire: The bubbles, and there were many, have only begun to burst." --Roubini, Foreign Policy, January 2009 Read more: "Market Riot," By Noam Scheiber ~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~ ~~~ Win McNamee/Getty Images 5. Rajendra Pachauri for ending the debate over whether climate change matters. CHAIRMAN, INTERGOVERNMENTAL PANEL ON CLIMATE CHANGE | INDIA As the link between human activity and climate change becomes conventional wisdom and governments work urgently to establish a global climate treaty, Pachauri deserves no small amount of credit for creating such an extraordinary shift in public opinion. Pachauri, an engineering and economics Ph.D., has since 2002 chaired the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which was the co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore in 2007. Since then, Pachauri has raised the specter of large-scale population displacement and the existential threat that global warming poses to low-lying island nations, while arguing that large, industrializing countries such as China and India will not act on the issue before the Western world curbs its own greenhouse gas emissions. He has also backed the adoption of extremely ambitious emissions cuts, recently recommending that atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations be kept below 350 parts per million. Any progress toward thwarting climate change this year owes a great deal to Pachauri. 7. Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler for taking behavioralism from niche to necessary. WHITE HOUSE POLICY ADVISOR | WASHINGTON ECONOMIST | UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO | CHICAGO Sunstein and Thaler describe themselves as "libertarian paternalists, " but you probably know them more simply as the behavioralism gurus. Their big idea -- to use small policy tweaks to overcome human capriciousness -- has turned the field of economics upside down and, most recently, won them an ear at the Obama White House. Humans, the two men argue in their book, Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness, tend to be emotional, rash, and uninformed, and value the present more than the future. They're far from the rational creatures upon which so much economic policy is based. So what's a responsible government to do? Use free market policies that "nudge" citizens toward the smart options they wouldn't otherwise select, such as setting "opting in" as the default choice for retirement funds and organ donation. It's a quietly revolutionary idea from two brainy guys: Thaler is a University of Chicago-trained economist whose name has been mentioned along with "Nobel" more than a few times; Sunstein is a Harvard-trained lawyer who clerked for Thurgood Marshall and "seems to write a book about as often as most people run the dishwasher," as one 2008 profile put it. Clearly, people in power are reading: Thaler is reportedly advising the British Conservative Party on economic policy, and Sunstein, as the new head of the White House's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, is nudging Obama administration rules on everything from avian flu to student loans. Sunstein and his wife, Samantha Power (No. 80), are the only married couple to be named individually to this year's Global Thinkers list. "The concept behind libertarian paternalism is that it's possible to maintain freedom of choice -- that's libertarian -- while also moving people in directions that make their own lives a bit better -- that's paternalism. We think it's possible to combine two reviled concepts." --Sunstein, Grist 9. Zhou Xiaochuan for reminding the world that we can't take the dollar for granted. GOVERNOR, PEOPLE'S BANK OF CHINA | CHINA These days, China's politicians rarely miss an opportunity to lecture the United States on its fiscal recklessness. But Zhou, the People's Bank of China governor, worried about the safety of the $1 trillion in U.S. debt held by Beijing, has gone much further, drafting a proposal to fundamentally overhaul the entire global financial system. In a market-shaking speech this March, China's chief economist proposed a new form of synthetic international reserve currency under the management of the IMF, which, he argued, would afford far greater global economic stability. Despite his measured words, Zhou's well-publicized proposal and his critiques of U.S. economic planning have been interpreted as a sign of Beijing's growing confidence in its own financial prescriptions. Shortly afterward, Russia released its version of Zhou's plan, while U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said he was "quite open" to the idea. As if to prove Zhou's point, Geithner's off-the-cuff response quickly sent the dollar tumbling. 14. Larry Summers for being the brains behind Obama's economic policy. CHIEF WHITE HOUSE ECONOMICS ADVISOR | WASHINGTON The famously combative Summers is, put simply, one of his generation's finest economists, if not the very best. And over the past year he has managed to put his ego aside to work with Obama and Timothy Geithner in easing the world out of crisis. Well before the collapse of Lehman Brothers, Summers -- accused by some of being an architect of the bubble with his advocacy of light banking regulations and low interest rates -- had been warning about impending dire macroeconomic trouble, starting with the housing and financial markets. His prescience led to his White House job as the behind-the-scenes arbitrator in the midst of the global crisis. He drove the debate over the size of the stimulus, arguing forcefully for a 10-digit bill (which ended up 15 percent lower). He has also taken a strong and surprising lead on housing policy, climate change, health-care reform, and the automaker bankruptcies, helping tailor White House proposals for maximum job creation. By his account, he has helped walk the U.S. economy "some substantial distance back from the abyss." 21. Thomas Friedman for his genius at popularizing complex ideas. COLUMNIST | NEW YORK TIMES | BETHESDA, MD. War correspondent, globalization evangelist, public intellectual, environmentalist; few have cast their nets so wide while maintaining such tight focus as Friedman. Now, the paradigm shift that characterized his 2005 work The World Is Flat has found a new and perhaps surprising incarnation in the service of the environmental movement. Hot, Flat, and Crowded is Friedman's manifesto on the climate crisis. The free market, he argues, can be a major positive force in tackling overconsumption, thus saving us from ourselves. The challenge is decoupling it from the fossil fuel industry and allowing it to "tell the ecological truth." Once this has been achieved, more sustainable modes of living should rapidly become the norm. If Washington gets serious about clean energy investment and innovation, and if the next generation of Americans embraces a greener future, Friedman will deserve no small part of the credit. Reading list: South of Broad, by Pat Conroy; Forces of Fortune, by Vali Nasr. Wants to visit: If security wasn't an issue, I would want to go to South Waziristan. Best idea: Greg Mortenson's idea for building schools for girls in the Arab Muslim world. Worst idea: That the world's big problem is going to be global cooling, not global warming. Gadget: Never looked at either Facebook or Twitter. BlackBerry. ~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~ ~~ 22. Robert Shiller for warning us -- over and over -- about dangerous bubbles. ECONOMIST | YALE UNIVERSITY | NEW HAVEN, CONN. For much of his career, Shiller has explained bubbles and watched them pop. He was studying them in the early 1990s when he joined with economist Karl Case to create a standard measure of home prices: the S&P/Case-Shiller index, a signal macroeconomic metric. His 2000 book, Irrational Exuberance, asserted that the U.S. stock market was in the midst of a bubble right before it burst (and proved him right). This go-round, he was in the exclusive club of experts who warned of the housing bubble that led to the financial bubble that led to the recession. He recognized not just that home prices were inflated, but also that zero-money-down mortgages and complex financial derivatives meant the banking system was grossly underestimating, mismanaging, and multiplying risk. His latest book, Animal Spirits -- co-written with University of California-Berkeley 's George Akerlof -- examines the emotional, irrational "spirits" that drive investors. It also encapsulates much of Shiller's insight on behavioral economics; in the 1980s, he was one of the early skeptics of the then-ascendant efficient-markets hypothesis and a keen explainer of the irrationality of markets. He spoke with Foreign Policy this fall: On Ben Bernanke's performance at the Fed: He's been a great Fed chairman because he's taken really decisive steps. He was slow to see the crisis coming. But once he saw it was there, and saw the parallels to the Great Depression, he acted decisively and with some courage. He's filled in a gap. Congress was not likely to do enough to deal with this crisis. He had authority from a law from the 1930s to lend to non-bank institutions under exigent and unusual circumstances. He took that authority and challenged Congress to say no to him. But they were ready to let him take responsibility and do it. So he created all those lending facilities and doubled the balance sheet, from $1 to $2 trillion. That was the most significant thing: It wasn't the stimulus -- it was the bailout. It was controversial, but it prevented the systemic collapse that we saw during the Great Depression. Bernanke didn't want to see that happen, and it looks like a success. On the future of the U.S. economy: The longer-run thing is worrisome. We set up an example for the too-big-to-fail institutions -- and that could hold back the economy. What it means is that the big institutions are safe and they become like dinosaurs. And it's hard to compete against them because you're competing against the government. 25. Joseph Stiglitz for relentlessly questioning economic dogma. ECONOMIST | COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY | NEW YORK When the bottom fell out of the U.S. economy in the winter of 2008, Stiglitz was standing over the wreckage proclaiming: I told you so. The Columbia University and former World Bank economist has long warned that excessive deregulation could spell doom for the U.S. economy. But throughout his career, he has been an equal-opportunity gadfly. Stiglitz won the 2001 Nobel Prize in economics for showing how information asymmetries can cause markets to fail. Best known for arguing that globalization works against poor countries, he more recently has joined the chorus calling for a new reserve currency to replace the U.S. dollar. His iconoclasm has often placed Stiglitz on the outside looking in on the policymaking process. But with the financial crisis calling into question core principles of the economic system, politicians from France's Nicolas Sarkozy to China's Hu Jintao are turning to America's most prominent economic dissident for answers. 28. Elinor Ostrom for showing us that the global commons isn't such a tragic place after all. POLITICAL SCIENTIST | INDIANA UNIVERSITY | BLOOMINGTON, IND. Ostrom has spent her career arguing that the phrase "tragedy of the commons" paints an unnecessarily gloomy picture. After studying examples ranging from irrigation systems in Nepal to deforestation in Bolivia, Ostrom concluded that individuals often manage common resources better than conventional economic models predict. Her seminal book, Governing the Commons, identified key "design principles" for successful collective use of resources, such as the creation of a monitoring system, agreed to by all participants, that includes punishments for violations. Following these principles, she found, frequently yielded better results for the management of a resource than either privatization or government regulation. In recognition of her work, Ostrom won the 2009 Nobel Prize in economics, the first woman to do so. Now, policymakers are scouring her research for ideas on how to prevent the greatest potential tragedy of all -- climate change. 29. Paul Krugman for proving that a Nobel Prize winner can also be a prolific pundit and unerringly correct doomsayer. ECONOMIST | COLUMNIST | PRINCETON UNIVERSITY | NEW YORK TIMES | PRINCETON, N.J. The pessimistic, acerbic, and undeniably brilliant Krugman is an economist with impeccable bona fides: a tenured professor at Princeton and the winner of the 2008 Nobel Prize in economics for his work on economic geography. This year, his prominent job moonlighting as writer of a twice-weekly column and a popular blog for the New York Times has made him an indispensable guide to the financial crisis. More an unabashed partisan than a dispassionate academic, Krugman was an invaluable critic of rising income inequality during the Bush administration and over the past year has written original, provocative commentary with no fealty to reigning economic, financial, or political dogma. Today he is Obama's sharpest critic from the left -- the strongest voice with the loudest bullhorn, advocating for more government spending and inveighing against the bank bailouts. 33. Robert Zoellick and Dominique Strauss-Kahn for using the crisis in service of a good cause: helping the world's poor. PRESIDENT, WORLD BANK | WASHINGTON // MANAGING DIRECTOR, INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND | WASHINGTON Zoellick and Strauss-Kahn have led the world's banks through what has surely been one of their most pivotal years. Just months before the Wall Street crash, the two institutions were verging on irrelevance. But after the world plunged into recession, Strauss-Kahn positioned the IMF as the world's go-to lender of last resort and won the support of the G-20 summit. As the IMF was bailing out such countries as Latvia and Ukraine and getting flexible credit lines to the likes of Colombia and Mexico, Zoellick's more development- minded World Bank was warning that almost 100 million people would be driven into poverty by the crisis. Though Zoellick is a free-trader and Strauss-Kahn a French socialist, both are on the same page when it comes to involving emerging markets more intimately in the decision-making and direction of the financial institutions. Together, they pushed for, and got, reform -- not just within countries, but at the international level, where they created a broader role for developing countries, envisioning a post-crisis world that will be truly multipolar. Robert Zoellick: Best idea: Broadening global economic governance beyond the G-7. Worst idea: That the global economic crisis is over. It's far from over -- especially in the developing world, where more than 90 million more people will be trapped in extreme poverty and tens of millions more people will be out of work. 35. Nicholas Stern for figuring out the costs of climate change and the politics of a solution. CLIMATE ECONOMIST | LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS | BRITAIN Studious, bespectacled, and self-effacing, Stern is not exactly the climate-change movement's Bono. But perhaps this is precisely the point -- the cold, hard logic of his groundbreaking 2006 "Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change" dragged the issue out from the preserve of ecowarriors and into the global mainstream. In a government-sponsore d study, Stern and his team concluded that decisive early action would cost humanity far less in the long run than allowing rising sea levels, dwindling freshwater supplies, and shrinking habitats to reduce global GDP a projected 20 percent. These days, Stern is focusing on how to build the international alliances needed to find workable ways forward. His new book, The Global Deal, adds an increasingly rare element to the global climate debate: optimism. As he puts it, "Collective pessimism about our inability to act will deliver an inability to act." "What's the alternative to optimism? Unless we act as if we can sort this out, you might as well just get a hat and some suntan lotion and write a letter of apology to your grandchildren. " --Stern, speech at the London School of Economics, April 21, 2009 38. George Soros for showing us that billionaires can be thinkers, too. PHILANTHROPIST AND INVESTOR | OPEN SOCIETY INSTITUTE | NEW YORK Over the course of 40 years, Budapest native George Soros built a multibillion- dollar fortune speculating on global currency markets. A philosophy and politics aficionado, Soros has used his wealth to bankroll democratic revolutions in Central and Eastern Europe and promote institutional reforms around the world. Lately, though, Soros has committed himself not just to earning capital and giving it away, but to reforming capitalism from the inside out. To this end, he has launched a think tank to foster fresh research, the Institute for New Economic Thinking, saying that "the entire edifice of global financial markets has been erected on the false premise that markets can be left to their own devices. We must find a new paradigm." Most recently, Soros has started pumping hundreds of millions of dollars into green technology, a sure sign of a financial opportunity -- or another bubble-on the horizon. 39. Jeffrey D. Sachs for being the global poor's most persistent advocate among the global elite. ECONOMIST | COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY | NEW YORK As with his colleague and sometime rival William Easterly (tied at No. 39), the financial crisis had Sachs even more worried about the poor than usual. He had just spent the last decade trying to convince rich countries to devote a solid chunk of their GDP to bringing about The End of Poverty, as one of his recent book titles proclaims. As special advisor to then-U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan (No. 30), Sachs was instrumental in drafting the Millennium Development Goals, the eight broad poverty-reduction targets the United Nations declared in 2000. In the years since, he has led the U.N. Millennium Project to develop model "villages" across Africa where all eight areas are addressed in tandem. Will the downturn derail his work? In 2009, Sachs fought to keep global leaders honest even in the face of fiscal hardship. After this April's G-20 summit he wrote, "The poorest countries, by and large, were not in the room. As usual, their plight came far behind the immediate concerns of the high-income and middle- income countries." 39. William Easterly for raising inconvenient truths about the foreign-aid business. ECONOMIST | NEW YORK UNIVERSITY | NEW YORK After a half-century of what Easterly sees as a failed experiment in international aid, the world risks losing all the hard-won progress it has made in the turmoil of the financial crisis. But not if this outspoken economist and cranky aid skeptic has anything to do with it. After finishing a 16-year stint at the World Bank, Easterly has made it his life's work to puncture holes in what he calls the "ideology of development. " His voluminous commentary -- including his explosive 2006 book The White Man's Burden, a seemingly endless spat with nemesis Jeffrey Sachs, and now a blog and prolific Twitter feed - - is necessary reading for those who care about the world's belated and frequently disastrous efforts to help its most benighted citizens. 46. Muhammad Yunus for proving that the poor are profitable. ECONOMIST | GRAMEEN BANK | BANGLADESH Yunus might be the only banker to escape the financial crisis not just unscathed, but noticeably buoyant. A quarter-century after its founding as the world's first microlender to the poor, Yunus's Grameen Bank looks the very model of modern capitalism. The poor, Yunus has found, pay back their debts at least as well as their better-off peers, so much so that Grameen Bank now turns a profit. Yunus, whose work on microcredit earned him a Nobel Peace Prize and a U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom, among other honors, has been an outspoken advocate of financial reform this year, calling for the global democratization of credit. "The real issue" is not charity, he writes in his autobiography. It's "giving every human being a fair chance." 56. Niall Ferguson for his intelligent, incessant questioning of dogma. HISTORIAN | HARVARD UNIVERSITY | CAMBRIDGE, MASS. Ferguson has made a career out of challenging sacred cows, both within academia and the popular imagination. A Financial Times columnist and author of the recent The Ascent of Money, among other books, he has worried that the United States' massive fiscal stimulus plan will cause an inexorable rise in long-term interest rates, crushing the hoped-for economic recovery. He has also been skeptical about the ability of government regulation to fix the economic mess, noting that the crisis began in the banking sector, the most heavily regulated area of the economy. As he said in June, "It took decades to get from the highly regulated economies of the 1970s to the free- wheeling, highly globalized economies of 2007. It takes a lot less time to destroy globalization. ... We are already moving very rapidly away from globalization. " 58. Amartya Sen for showing how democracy prevents famine. ECONOMIST | HARVARD UNIVERSITY | CAMBRIDGE, MASS. Sen is that rarest of hybrids -- "the only recent or living economist who takes philosophy seriously," in the words of Martha Nussbaum (No. 93). Taking his cue from such diverse figures as Karl Marx and Adam Smith (whom he hails as an underappreciated moral philosopher) , Sen earned a Nobel Prize in economics in 1998 for his groundbreaking insight: Food scarcity doesn't kill people; bad governments do. Central to his thinking is the concept of "capabilities" -- the idea that it is not just the distribution of resources in a society that matters, but the ability of its members to make informed choices about the use of those resources and to punish leaders who fail them. A decade later, Sen remains a prominent political voice. In September he partnered with Joseph Stiglitz (No. 25) to release a study urging governments to incorporate noneconomic variables into assessments of well-being, and in October his new book The Idea of Justice topped the best-seller list in his native India. Best idea: That global politics demands uncompromising multilateralism. Worst idea: That the present Afghan problems are similar to those in Vietnam. 72. Jamais Cascio for being our moral guide to the future. FUTURIST | INSTITUTE FOR ETHICS AND EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES | SAN FRANCISCO Climate change is coming, and geoengineering -- the prospect of artificially manipulating the world's climate -- may seem like an easy save. But in fact it's threatening and ethically complex, putting a literally earth-shaking power in the hands of a few, says Cascio in his new book, Hacking the Earth, the most subtle analysis so far on the subject. This year, Cascio, guru of all things on the horizon and founder of the website Open the Future, agitated to strengthen the global financial system through decentralization; argued passionately that resilience, not sustainability, must be the new goal of environmentalists; and has become a leading thinker on robot ethics. 74. Gordon Brown for his leadership during the financial crisis. PRIME MINISTER | BRITAIN Brown will very likely not be prime minister of Britain for much longer. The Labour Party will almost certainly suffer ignominious defeat in a national election sometime by mid-2010. The prime minister, who as chancellor of the exchequer under Prime Minister Tony Blair oversaw the inflation of massive housing and financial bubbles, will be known by his caricature in the British press, as a paranoid, bellowing, and incompetent leader. But even if Brown did not do enough to stop the bubbles from developing, he proved one of the world's most courageous leaders after they had burst. His government may not have quite "saved the world," as he claimed to much derision last December, but in acting immediately and forcefully to prevent disaster by nationalizing failing banks, pushing through massive stimulus measures, and urging his counterparts to do the same, he just may have saved his reputation. 86. Jacques Attali for defining public intellectual in the country that invented them. ECONOMIST | FRANCE For 20 years, Attali has been a major figure in French public life, as an advisor to President Fran?ois Mitterrand in the 1980s and then as an investor, the head of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and the author of numerous books. This year, at the request of President Nicolas Sarkozy, an Attali-led committee produced a groundbreaking report advising the president on how to kick-start growth by shrinking the lumbering French bureaucracy and implementing dozens of free market reforms. Attali also published a follow-up to the acclaimed Millennium, his 1991 book warning of the endpoint of globalization: a stateless world, populated by the hyperwealthy and the destitute poor. His prediction in 2009's A Brief History of the Future is that his globalized vision will come true -- but not before the end of American hegemony and horrific bloody wars. 100. Paul Kennedy for looking ahead to the decline of the American empire. HISTORIAN | YALE UNIVERSITY | NEW HAVEN, CONN. Kennedy literally wrote the book on imperial decline. His classic, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, charts the course of the great European empires, describing the pattern of economic expansion, territorial conquest, and imperial overstretch to which countries from Spain to Britain fell victim. Now, Kennedy has trained his sights on the United States, which, he says, is nearing the end of its own imperial dominance. "Our dependency upon foreign investors will approximate more and more the state of international indebtedness we historians associate with the reigns of Philip II of Spain and Louis XIV of France -- attractive propositions at first, then steadily losing glamour," he wrote this year, adding, "Uncle Sam may have to come down a peg or two." __._,_.___ Reply to sender | Reply to group Messages in this topic (1) Recent Activity: New Members 1 Visit Your Group Start a New Topic MARKETPLACE Going Green: Your Yahoo! Groups resource for green living Switch to: Text-Only, Daily Digest ? Unsubscribe ? Terms of Use . __,_._,___ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk Sun Jan 10 08:11:33 2010 From: dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk (Ribert Searle) Date: Sun, 10 Jan 2010 15:11:33 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [GJM] Someone has sent you a message from openDemocracy Message-ID: <20100110151134.02AEB65FD@OD-WebSrv01> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From maryrose333 at att.net Fri Jan 8 15:19:09 2010 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Fri, 8 Jan 2010 14:19:09 -0800 Subject: [GJM] Million Fax on Washington - A Project of Paradigm Research Group Message-ID: <000201ca90b0$d252b540$76f81fc0$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS For your information and consideration. Steve Bassett sent a message to the members of Exopolitics World Network (EWN) & United States Network (EUSN) on FACEBOOK -------------------- Subject: PRG Press Release - 1/8/10 - Fax on Washington Press Release January 8, 2010 Million Fax on Washington A Project of Paradigm Research Group Washington, DC/Bethesda, MD - Paradigm Research Group (PRG) announced today a renewed international effort to convince Barack Obama to end a 62-year truth embargo preventing formal government acknowledgement of an extraterrestrial presence engaging the human race. Also renewed is pressure on the White House press corps to start asking appropriate questions and demand appropriate answers about connections between key members of the Democratic Party - Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, John Podesta, Leon Panetta and Bill Richardson - and the UFO/ET issue. See: Rockefeller Initiative Since June 1, 2009 letters, faxes and emails from around the world have been sent to the White House Correspondents' Association (WHCA) insisting the reporters in the White House press corps begin asking politically related UFO/ET questions and receive appropriate answers. Samples of this correspondence can be viewed at: http://www.facebook.com/l/df1e9;tinyurl.com/yb4wvay and http://www.facebook.com/l/df1e9;tinyurl.com/62748k On the July 24, 2009 C-Span Morning Show White Press Secretary Robert Gibbs was asked about this correspondence which he declined to acknowledge. Subsequent queries to the WHCA from reporters such as Billy Cox of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune have also been ignored - no response. In similar fashion thousands of letters, faxes and emails to the President Elect and the President since November 4, 2008 demanding Barack Obama end the truth embargo and call for congressional hearings on the UFO/ET issue have not been acknowledged by the White House - no response. Furthermore, the Citizen's Briefing Book generated during the transition by the http://www.facebook.com/l/df1e9;Change.gov website was stripped of all UFO/ET related input to the Book prior to submission to the President. This is not acceptable. PRG executive director Stephen Bassett stated, "France, Denmark, Canada, Australia, Sweden, Brazil, Russia, the United Kingdom and other countries have recently released tens of thousands of UFO/ET related files into the public domain. The message to the U.S. is clear, 'If you do not end this truth embargo, one of us will.'" "Either Russia or China would benefit enormously by acting first on this issue," added Bassett. 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 Fri Jan 8 17:33:44 2010 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Fri, 8 Jan 2010 16:33:44 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: [globalnetnews-summary] THE NEW BALKANS: THE DISMANTLING OF AMERICA Message-ID: <001001ca90c3$9b42f700$d1c8e500$@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, January 08, 2010 3:08 PM To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] THE NEW BALKANS: THE DISMANTLING OF AMERICA THE NEW BALKANS: THE DISMANTLING OF AMERICA By Gordon Duff STAFF WRITER/Senior Editor http://www.veteranstoday.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=10048 This week something unique happened. A rumor, traced down to the highest levels of government, alluded to American intelligence agencies being involved in the failed terrorist attack in Detroit. The rumor was short lived, quickly denied by everyone but was a clear message. Quasi-governmental forces now exist that are bridging the gap between "conspiracy theory" and a real "shadow government." There have long been criticisms of the Federal Reserve System, the Military Industrial Complex and even the United Nations as threats against our soverignty. Now, a highly suspect terror threat being presented as an attempt by billions of Muslims to destroy the United States because if its support for Israel, now the 4th most powerful nation on earth miltarily is being sold to the American people to justify a decade now proving to be one of the most disasterous in our history. There is little real threat against Israel but a very real threat to America, a threat from within. Many like to think the stage was set after 9/11, when a nation with worldwide support and sympathy awoke from slumber realizing it had become defenseless to the threat of a worldwide terrorst conspiracy through massive failures in intelligence coordination and miltiary capability. Yet, a week ago, we see an almost idential intelligence failure after, not only hundreds of billions of dollars spent, but the organization of a massive and utterly pervasive intelligence system whose impact may well be more domestic destabilization that protection from external threats. If one is to look at this hypothesis, then the groundwork has to be taken back, not just to our original Gulf War, but, perhaps even to the mindset we assumed upon the unexpected collapse of the Soviet Union. One day we awakened, after years, half a century actually, of "us versus them" ideological struggle as the clear victors. In the process, the US government had quadrupled in size, become buried in debt and our own massive military spending had built the framework for our own "Central Committee" thru which we could begin to assume the reins of empire. This empire would, increasingly, parallel others through instituting "reforms" that would prove to be fatal to democracy. Over the next two decades, the totalitarian processes of party loyalty that led to the decline and collapse of Russia would find fertile ground in the US as increasingly centralized wealth, the decline of the middle class and the dismantling of our domestic manufacturing base combined with the "moral flexibility" of our elected officials to create a less free, less just and, eventually, dysfunctional society proven, not only economically unviable but equally ungovernable. The "bill of goods" sold Americans was a combination of racial fear and hate, class envy, regional distrust and a national addiction to continual military adventurism all fed thru "sound bites" and a mainstream media willing to be fed packaged news. We quit noticing that our political process, the idea that an informed populace could choose candidates for national office based on character and qualification had simply disappeared. Where are we now? We have created a series of institutions that serve no other purpose than to undermine our democratic form of government and manipulate or coerce government into policies that are economically disasterous and morally reprehensible. What are these groups? First we created a Department of Homeland Security. Though largely staffed with dedicated professionals, key administrative positions are emplanted with "moles," political extremists capable of both misusing power and helping create threats, real or imagined, on demand. Are they doing this? Our unwillingness to investigate assures our inability to answer. Imagine if Rudi Gulliani's "Golum," and convicted felon, Bernie Kerik, had been allowed to take over Homeland Security, an organization specifically designed and empowered to be managed by this political "bagman" and "dirty cop." Only a prison cell stood between Kerik and control of the most powerful police agency on earth. The next most pitiful failure has been the CIA. Turned "lapdog" under George Tenet, it agreed to supply endless falsified intelligence in trade for the usual post retirement "revolving door" enrichment plan. Even worse, there has been a massive defection within the CIA to Blackwater/Xe leading to a privatization of capability and putting, not only intelligence gathering but "special ops" capabilities, meaning assassination, in the hands of the highest bidder. What had been operational failures and abuses in Iraq has now become something potentially much more threatening to national security. The pride of the former "War on Terror" was JSOC, the Joint Special Operations Command. This organization was intended to coordinate response capabilities around the world by ending duplication and coordinating with what was intended to be a greatly improved intelligence capability. In fact, just the opposite occurred. The United States created its own version of a publicly funded but not publicly controlled Murder Incorporated. JSOC, rather than being a coordinated effort to defend America became an utterly unaccountable tool under the direct control of the notoriously unstable Vice President Dick Cheney, perhaps the most controversial person to hold that office since Aaron Burr. It always comes back to the same solutions, spying, rendition, torture, murder and no accountability. The other major threat, a term that genuinely applies, to the democratic process in America is the political power of the US Army Central Command under General David Petraeus. Almost immediately after taking the reins, Petraeus began his involvement in the presidential election through manipulation of press releases meant to support candidate John McCain. The combined influence of Central Command, the powerful oil and weapons lobby and the increasingly extremist position Israel has taken with their ultra-right wing government has created an environment of virtual tyranny within the decision making apparatus of the US government. With defacto corporate control of press and the elimination of "loyal" dissent during the Bush/Cheney "us or them" period of polarization, any genuine policy assessment based entirely on what is good for America and its people is forgotten. As we have see, the deregulaton of the financial markets under Bush/Cheney led to an inevitable collapse, the reform mechanism for which is refilling the empty coffers of the corrupt and incompetent and refinancing their influence over the economy they destroyed. Even when wealth was centralized in the hands of an "unregulated few" they still couldn't hold onto it bringing about a bailout that will impoverish America's middle class for a century. The health care debate debacle is a pure expression of this dynamic. The countries biggest failures spending public bail out money to convince America of their fitness to control our economy is something beyond irony. The end result of our disasterous historical epoch has been to deconstruct America. Is it possible to wave a flag so often as a distraction that patriotism is now automatically suspect? How many Americans now talk about leaving the country? I hear it every day, Ecuador, Costa Rica, Canada, maybe just talk but these aren't just people from one political spectrum, it is a general dissatisfaction, even hopelessness from all sides. America is seen as "unfixable." What do we have in common with post-Soviet Yugoslavia? Could you go from state to state, region to region and find people who simply don't want to be a part of America anymore? From maryrose333 at att.net Sat Jan 9 17:58:48 2010 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Sat, 9 Jan 2010 16:58:48 -0800 Subject: [GJM] Why genes aren't destiny - epigenetics Message-ID: <002e01ca9190$42b1d7f0$c81587d0$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS Recall that I have several times posted information on "epigenetics" and have written that "genes do not control life"-- your perception of the environment is what controls life. Well here is more information on this subject along with some information as to how you can change your genes. What this means is that you are in control of your life and can be whomever you choose to be. Why genes aren't destiny http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1951968-4,00.html How you can change your genes http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/completelist/0,29569,1952062,00.h tml Your Logo, Inc. FutureDawning.org Mary Rose, www.futuredawning.org CEO and Founder - Agent for social transformation Future Dawning.org dustysummerrose at gmail.com Always have my latest info Want a signature like this? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/gif Size: 177 bytes Desc: not available URL: From maryrose333 at att.net Sun Jan 10 13:52:04 2010 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Sun, 10 Jan 2010 12:52:04 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: Transformation By Conscious Choice (Was: The Other Plot to Wreck America.) Message-ID: <005501ca9236$f45ec020$dd1c4060$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS I would like to remind everyone that what is being discussed here in this message is like everything else in our world, just a symptom of our immaturity as the human family as expressed by our collective consciousness. It is time for us to move into another level of consciousness -- another way of thinking. And we do this one person at a time as an energy particle and as we transform (change our energy vibration) we move into the wave formation and join with others who have already trans-formed their lives -- that is, have moved into another level of awareness. This new level of awareness is more dynamic and multi-dimensional. It is holographic and allows us to move into and experience the whole. We are being drawn always toward becoming the pure white light that expresses at approximately 1100 hertz and is where those who have become highly spiritual (coherent) have arrived. In this state of being, the body/mind field is in a perfect coherence pattern -- no chaos or dis-ease appears in the energy field of an individual who has moved into the pure white light of TOTAL WELLNESS. And, the potential for any of us to move into this state of being is always present. It is up to us to choose who we want to be and go there. It is a conscious choice each of us may make. If we want to accomplish trans-formation, we must first access our belief system and determine whether it serves us or not. The question to ask is whether or not the belief system we have chosen is "life-enhancing" or is it "death-defining?" What kind of words define your belief system? Are they words such as "love"? Or do they embrace words such as "war"? How is it you "think" about things? Do you think in terms of "living to eat" for example or do you think in terms of "eating to live?" Do you think in terms of "war," e.g., are you attempting to resolve an issue with someone and using the word "war" in attempting to do so? thus placing them in the position of "enemy" in both your and their mind? Would it not be better to couch your words in terms of love and see the potential for your perceived opponent to become a friend while working to bring this friendship about based in truth? Let us again review Ghandi's words: Your belief's become your thoughts Your thoughts become your words Your words become your actions Your actions become your habits Your habits become your values Your values become your destiny Now let us review ways to get yourself into a transformational state of mind -- that is to get into the theta state. The Theta state of mind is a very deep state of relaxation, which is used by spiritual masters who meditate for hours. This is also a state of "self-hypnosis" or one in which you have allowed yourself to be taken by another person. Scientists also find this to be the first stage of the dream state as well as the one experienced between being awake and entering into sleep. Theta brainwaves cycle at approximately 400 to 700 cycles per second. BTW, the theta state is also the state that enables us in "remote viewing" because it is a state in which one is "all knowing" and "all seeing" and allows us to access the Universe at large. We can enter into what scientists call the Zero Point Field, or what is also known as the "Akashic Field" in which all memory of all time is stored. More on this later. If we look at this closely, we find that this range falls within those which define the Solfeggio scale and are defined by Leonard Horowitz in his book: "Walk on Water" with the scale ranging from 174 hertz to 852 hertz. Now, this information also fits in with the Phi ratio found in the Fibonacci series, which in turn is linked to the Golden Mean which is also mathematically linked to the "sacred spiral of sound" our DNA. Recall the recently published OM tone coupled with colors as put together by Dr. Patrick Flanagan, Alex Theory, and Arcane? Well here we are seeing the manifestation of energy patterns which make up a tone in the Solfeggio Scale. And, what is happening as we are watching and listening to these patterns, our body mind field is being harmonized with them and being pulled into a "coherence" pattern as our body/mind energy field responds to what we are seeing and hearing just the same as if the "C" chord is plucked on one violin in a room containing two violins and the C chord on the second violin responds to the first. We are becoming aligned or "harmonized" with this tone. Now, while there are other ways to transform one's mind field by reprogramming the sub-conscious mind field, as seen by the above, the quickest way to do this is by listening to music played in the range of the Solfeggio scale. And, let us recall that 528 hertz is the tone which brings life into being. Now there is much more to this, and I will at a later date go into more detail, but it is important to remember that "tones" are linked to the structure of one's DNA. So, music presents a medium for healing DNA that is not in sync with the God code of the universe as expressed in sound and light. When one is listening to what is scientifically found to be "healing music" then one is experiencing the healing of their body's DNA. And, while healing is instantaneous, it is reinforced by repeated sessions. So listen daily to healing music. A good example is that of Constance Demby -- an internationally-recognized musician. Jean Houston, Ph.D., writes of Demby: "One of the world's greatest living musicians, Constance Demby may well be the most important woman composer of classical and innovative music of our time." www.constancedemby.com/ What is important here is that "we are what we think and focus on." So, if we are focusing on articles such as the one submitted here by Trading Post Paul, what are we doing to our body/mind field? How is this influencing our thinking? If "we are what we eat" then is it also possible that "we are what we read (or watch on TV) and consequently think?" Well know psychologist and founder of Gestalt Therapy, Fritz Perls addressed this issue in his book: "In and Out of the Garbage Pail" as he wrote about our being what it is we allow into our consciousness -- our body/mind field. So, are we bringing in healthy thoughts and ideas? Or are we allowing garbage into our mind that will become our core belief system or that will reinforce a belief system we have already adopted -- one that has been instilled in us from birth as programmed by our parents and others who see the world not as the complex multi-dimensional world in which we reside today, but as it was years ago when things were much simpler. Think about this and make a conscious choice as to who you want to be and whether or not your core belief system is serving you well along with the rest of humanity. Note: Once the mind/body field has been trans-formed, it is still necessary to acquire the new tools of today which consist of technology and social systems design, integrated with the basic qualities of life that once provided us with soul, e.g., natural living, equality, belonging, community, and vitality. The indigenous people of the world have held these qualities sacred for us for thousands of years. It is now time for us to return to these things that have been held sacred, but it is also important for us to integrate technology that is "appropriate" and gives us greater power in the world into our systems. It is also important that we redesign our social systems so they are life-enhancing and not death-defining. When we have all moved into the next level of consciousness, we will no longer think of doing the things we are doing today. They will have become "unthinkable." -----Original Message----- From: globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net [mailto:globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net] On Behalf Of TradingPostPaul Sent: Sunday, January 10, 2010 7:30 AM To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] The Other Plot to Wreck America The Other Plot to Wreck America http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/10/opinion/10rich.html By FRANK RICH Op-Ed Columnist Published: January 9, 2010 THERE may not be a person in America without a strong opinion about what coulda, shoulda been done to prevent the underwear bomber from boarding that Christmas flight to Detroit. In the years since 9/11, we've all become counterterrorists. But in the 16 months since that other calamity in downtown New York - the crash precipitated by the 9/15 failure of Lehman Brothers - most of us are still ignorant about what Warren Buffett called the "financial weapons of mass destruction" that wrecked our economy. Fluent as we are in Al Qaeda and body scanners, when it comes to synthetic C.D.O.'s and credit-default swaps, not so much. What we don't know will hurt us, and quite possibly on a more devastating scale than any Qaeda attack. Americans must be told the full story of how Wall Street gamed and inflated the housing bubble, made out like bandits, and then left millions of households in ruin. Without that reckoning, there will be no public clamor for serious reform of a financial system that was as cunningly breached as airline security at the Amsterdam airport. And without reform, another massive attack on our economic security is guaranteed. Now that it can count on government bailouts, Wall Street has more incentive than ever to pump up its risks - secure that it can keep the bonanzas while we get stuck with the losses. The window for change is rapidly closing. Health care, Afghanistan and the terrorism panic may have exhausted Washington's already limited capacity for heavy lifting, especially in an election year. The White House's chief economic hand, Lawrence Summers, has repeatedly announced that "everybody agrees that the recession is over" - which is technically true from an economist's perspective and certainly true on Wall Street, where bailed-out banks are reporting record profits and bonuses. The contrary voices of Americans who have lost pay, jobs, homes and savings are either patronized or drowned out entirely by a political system where the banking lobby rules in both parties and the revolving door between finance and government never stops spinning. It's against this backdrop that this week's long-awaited initial public hearings of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission are so critical. This is the bipartisan panel that Congress mandated last spring to investigate the still murky story of what happened in the meltdown. Phil Angelides, the former California treasurer who is the inquiry's chairman, told me in interviews late last year that he has been busy deploying a tough investigative staff and will not allow the proceedings to devolve into a typical blue-ribbon Beltway exercise in toothless bloviation. He wants to examine the financial sector's "greed, stupidity, hubris and outright corruption" - from traders on the ground to the board room. "It's important that we deliver new information," he said. "We can't just rehash what we've known to date." He understands that if he fails to make news or to tell the story in a way that is comprehensible and compelling enough to arouse Americans to demand action, Wall Street and Washington will both keep moving on, unchallenged and unchastened. Angelides gets it. But he has a tough act to follow: Ferdinand Pecora, the legendary prosecutor who served as chief counsel to the Senate committee that investigated the 1929 crash as F.D.R. took office. Pecora was a master of detail and drama. He riveted America even without the aid of television. His investigation led to indictments, jail sentences and, ultimately, key New Deal reforms - the creation of the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Glass-Steagall Act, designed to prevent the formation of banks too big to fail. As it happened, a major Pecora target was the chief executive of National City Bank, the institution that would grow up to be Citigroup. Among other transgressions, National City had repackaged bad Latin American debt as new securities that it then sold to easily suckered investors during the frenzied 1920s boom. Once disaster struck, the bank's executives helped themselves to millions of dollars in interest-free loans. Yet their own employees had to keep ponying up salary deductions for decimated National City stock purchased at a heady precrash price. Trade bad Latin American debt for bad mortgage debt, and you have a partial portrait of Citigroup at the height of the housing bubble. The reckless Citi executives of our day may not have given themselves interest-free loans, but they often walked away with the short-term, illusionary profits while their employees were left with shredded jobs and 401(k)'s. Among those Citi executives was Robert Rubin, who, as the Clinton Treasury secretary, helped repeal the last vestiges of Glass-Steagall after years of Wall Street assault. Somewhere Pecora is turning in his grave Rubin has never apologized, let alone been held accountable. But he's hardly alone. Even after all the country has gone through, the titans who fueled the bubble are heedless. In last Sunday's Times, Sandy Weill, the former chief executive who built Citigroup (and recruited Rubin to its ranks), gave a remarkable interview to Katrina Brooker blaming his own hand-picked successor, Charles Prince, for his bank's implosion. Weill said he preferred to be remembered for his philanthropy. Good luck with that. Among his causes is Carnegie Hall, where he is chairman of the board. To see how far American capitalism has fallen, contrast Weill with the giant who built Carnegie Hall. Not only is Andrew Carnegie remembered for far more epic and generous philanthropy than Weill's - some 1,600 public libraries, just for starters - but also for creating a steel empire that actually helped build America's industrial infrastructure in the late 19th century. At Citi, Weill built little more than a bloated gambling casino. As Paul Volcker, the regrettably powerless chairman of Obama's Economic Recovery Advisory Board, said recently, there is not "one shred of neutral evidence" that any financial innovation of the past 20 years has led to economic growth. Citi, that "innovative" banking supermarket, destroyed far more wealth than Weill can or will ever give away. Even now - despite its near-death experience, despite the departures of Weill, Prince and Rubin - Citi remains as imperious as it was before 9/15. Its current chairman, Richard Parsons, was one of three executives (along with Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs and John Mack of Morgan Stanley) who failed to show up at the mid-December White House meeting where President Obama implored bankers to increase lending. (The trio blamed fog for forcing them to participate by speakerphone, but the weather hadn't grounded their peers or Amtrak.) Last week, ABC World News was also stiffed by Citi, which refused to answer questions about its latest round of outrageous credit card rate increases and instead e-mailed a statement blaming its customers for "not paying back their loans." This from a bank that still owes taxpayers $25 billion of its $45 billion handout! If Citi, among the most egregious of Wall Street reprobates, feels it can get away with business as usual, it's because it fears no retribution. And it got more good news last week. Now that Chris Dodd is vacating the Senate, his chairmanship of the Banking Committee may fall next year to Tim Johnson of South Dakota, home to Citi's credit card operation. Johnson was the only Senate Democrat to vote against Congress's recent bill policing credit card abuses. Though bad history shows every sign of repeating itself on Wall Street, it will take a near-miracle for Angelides to repeat Pecora's triumph. Our zoo of financial skullduggery is far more complex, with many more moving pieces, than that of the 1920s. The new inquiry does have subpoena power, but its entire budget, a mere $8 million, doesn't even match the lobbying expenditures for just three banks (Citi, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America) in the first nine months of 2009. The firms under scrutiny can pay for as many lawyers as they need to stall between now and Dec. 15, deadline day for the commission's report. More daunting still is the inquiry's duty to reach into high places in the public sector as well as the private. The mystery of exactly what happened as TARP fell into place in the fateful fall of 2008 thickens by the day - especially the behind-closed-door machinations surrounding the government rescue of A.I.G. and its counterparties. Last week, a Republican congressman, Darrell Issa of California, released e-mail showing that officials at the New York Fed, then led by Timothy Geithner, pressured A.I.G. to delay disclosing to the S.E.C. and the public the details on the billions of bailout dollars it was funneling to its trading partners. In this backdoor rescue, taxpayers unknowingly awarded banks like Goldman 100 cents on the dollar for their bets on mortgage-backed securities. Why was our money used to make these high-flying gamblers whole while ordinary Americans received no such beneficence? Nothing less than complete transparency will connect the dots. Among the big-name witnesses that the Angelides commission has called for next week is Goldman's Blankfein. Geithner, Henry Paulson and Ben Bernanke should be next. If they all skate away yet again by deflecting blame or mouthing pro forma mea culpas, it will be a sign that this inquiry, like so many other promises of reform since 9/15, is likely to leave Wall Street's status quo largely intact. That's the ticking-bomb scenario that truly imperils us all. From dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk Mon Jan 11 03:45:47 2010 From: dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk (dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk) Date: Mon, 11 Jan 2010 05:45:47 -0500 Subject: [GJM] dharao4@yahoo.co.uk has shared something with you Message-ID: <1738009707.973038.1263206747209.JavaMail.brainiac@v0104-08.clearspring.local> Dr Sachs of the Earth Institute reveals ofcourse the reality of debt, and the limits its places on services... http://www.earth.columbia.edu/videos/watch/123#comment --- 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 maryrose333 at att.net Sun Jan 10 15:00:24 2010 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Sun, 10 Jan 2010 14:00:24 -0800 Subject: [GJM] The 2010 Political Time Bomb Is Unemployment - Trading Post Paul Message-ID: <005d01ca9240$81f79890$85e6c9b0$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS Thanks to Trading Post Paul for this one. It will not be until the government and corporations are ready to address the fact that the Industrial Age is over and we are rapidly moving into nanotechnology and bio-mimicry, which eliminates the need for human labor. Thus we need to adjust the monetary system accordingly so that we can bring an end to joblessness and aid people in learning how to create true wealth for themselves through self-realization. Since the elites (the global banking system) now in charge continues to operate in the interests of themselves alone, it becomes more and more obvious that "we-the-people" must take charge of our own destiny and do what is necessary to protect our interests. It is imperative for us to recognize that we have arrived at the "end of work" as defined by human labor and have moved into an era where advanced technology is both more effective and efficient at getting the job done. Without jobs, it is necessary for us to return to "subsistence farming," although the more appropriate new term of "subsistence gardening" is critical to our well-being. Farming does not involve everyone and it is extremely important today to aid people in "reconnecting themselves with the Earth" and becoming more "organic" in nature - which is why "gardening" is a more appropriate activity. Advancements in technology have divided us from our Mother and left us bereft of soul. Along with the healing modality of music, one of the best that nature has to offer is getting ourselves "grounded" by putting hands, feet and soil together - a very healing experience. Being able to watch the seeds we sow grow into plants and provide the food that we eat is an immensely satisfying endeavor. It is, in and of itself, an act of meditation - of connecting with the Universe and the Universal Mind itself. It is an act of completion that has tremendous spiritual meaning. As I have written previously, raising one's own food is the cornerstone of freedom. But it is also imperative that we grow for our own subsistence and not to "make money." It is imperative that we learn at this time to grow the most nutritious foods we can find in the smallest space possible in order that we may plant trees everywhere else and restore the forests of old that acted as carbon sinks. The forests are the "lungs of the Earth." And just as we cannot live without lungs or with ones that have been severely damaged, neither can the Earth. GAIA is a living, breathing organism as is each of us. And just the same as when we let our own system get out of balance (coherence) and permit disease to set in and become unable to function properly -- the same is true for GAIA. As a sub-system of GAIA, we have been endowed with brains, hearts, and the ability to think and speak so that we are her voice. But to serve her well in this capacity, we must fulfill our potential and do so in a very mature way. It is imperative that we "grow up" and think before we act as to what it is we are doing to our life support system. We must act in good conscience. And we must begin now before it is too late. We must change the monetary system so that it works for us and not against us. We must end our dependency upon the holy trinity of money, government and politics. We must move into self-realization and learn to live in a sustainable manner. The future of the human family is dependent upon who we are and what we do today. Who are you and what are you going to do? Mary Rose Transforming Our World with Mary Rose Future Dawning Enterprises www.futuredawning.org January 10, 2010 The 2010 Political Timebomb Is Unemployment by John Nichols on 01/09/2010 @ 09:51am American employers eliminated 4.2 million jobs in 2009 and sent unemployment soaring into double digits for the first time in more than a quarter century. Since the fall of last year, the official jobless rate has been over ten percent, while the unofficial rate (taking in the severely underemployed and those who have given up looking) has been over 17 percent. And, despite the ridiculous "green-shoots" speculation of the Obama administration and overblown "recovery" fantasies of the financial media that has blown every major economic story of recent years, the situation is getting worse. http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat/514394/the_2010_political_timebomb_is -unemployment 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 Sun Jan 10 15:17:38 2010 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Sun, 10 Jan 2010 14:17:38 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: [globalnetnews-summary] Answering Helen Thomas on Why They Want to Harm Us Message-ID: <006301ca9242$e5144c50$af3ce4f0$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS Thanks again to Trading Post Paul, along with Roy McGovern who wrote this article, I do believe that Helen Thomas sets an example of "growing up and taking responsibility" while the little boys in the monetized political system continue to act like little boys. But those of us who are still hanging on to the programming of our forefathers who lived in a much simpler society are supporting an outdated system and are thus in collusion with the little boys who prefer a monetized political system of control rather than one based on making conscious choices in the best interests of all concerned. We must grow up. 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: Sunday, January 10, 2010 10:40 AM To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] Answering Helen Thomas on Why They Want to Harm Us Answering Helen Thomas on Why They Want to Harm Us http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/01/09-1 by Ray McGovern Published on Saturday, January 9, 2010 by CommonDreams.org Thank God for Helen Thomas, the only person to show any courage at the White House press briefing after President Barack Obama gave a flaccid account of the intelligence screw-up that almost downed an airliner on Christmas Day. After Obama briefly addressed L'Affaire Abdulmutallab and wrote "must do better" on the report cards of the national security schoolboys responsible for the near catastrophe, the President turned the stage over to counter-terrorism guru John Brennan and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. It took 89-year old veteran correspondent Helen Thomas to break through the vapid remarks about channeling "intelligence streams," fixing "no-fly" lists, deploying "behavior detection officers," and buying more body-imaging scanners. Thomas recognized the John & Janet filibuster for what it was, as her catatonic press colleagues took their customary dictation and asked their predictable questions. Instead, Thomas posed an adult query that spotlighted the futility of government plans to counter terrorism with more high-tech gizmos and more intrusions on the liberties and privacy of the traveling public. She asked why Abdulmutallab did what he did. Thomas: "Why do they want to do us harm? And what is the motivation? We never hear what you find out on why." Brennan: "Al Qaeda is an organization that is dedicated to murder and wanton slaughter of innocents... They attract individuals like Mr. Abdulmutallab and use them for these types of attacks. He was motivated by a sense of religious sort of drive. Unfortunately, al Qaeda has perverted Islam, and has corrupted the concept of Islam, so that he's (sic) able to attract these individuals. But al Qaeda has the agenda of destruction and death." Thomas: "And you're saying it's because of religion?" Brennan: "I'm saying it's because of an al Qaeda organization that used the banner of religion in a very perverse and corrupt way." Thomas: "Why?" Brennan: "I think this is a - long issue, but al Qaeda is just determined to carry out attacks here against the homeland." Thomas: "But you haven't explained why." Neither did President Obama, nor anyone else in the U.S. political/media hierarchy. All the American public gets is the boilerplate about how evil al Qaeda continues to pervert a religion and entice and exploit impressionable young men. There is almost no discussion about why so many people in the Muslim world object to U.S. policies so strongly that they are inclined to resist violently and even resort to suicide attacks. Obama's Non-Answer I had been hoping Obama would say something intelligent about what drove Abdulmutallab to do what he did, but the President limited himself to a few vacuous comments before sending in the clowns. This is what he said before he walked away from the podium: "It is clear that al Qaeda increasingly seeks to recruit individuals without known terrorist affiliations ... to do their bidding. ... And that's why we must communicate clearly to Muslims around the world that al Qaeda offers nothing except a bankrupt vision of misery and death ... while the United States stands with those who seek justice and progress. ... That's the vision that is far more powerful than the hatred of these violent extremists." But why it is so hard for Muslims to "get" that message? Why can't they end their preoccupation with dodging U.S. missiles in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and Gaza long enough to reflect on how we are only trying to save them from terrorists while simultaneously demonstrating our commitment to "justice and progress"? Does a smart fellow like Obama expect us to believe that all we need to do is "communicate clearly to Muslims" that it is al Qaeda, not the U.S. and its allies, that brings "misery and death"? Does any informed person not know that the unprovoked U.S.-led invasion of Iraq killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and displaced 4.5 million from their homes? How is that for "misery and death"? Rather than a failure to communicate, U.S. officials are trying to rewrite recent history, which seems to be much easier to accomplish with the Washington press corps and large segments of the American population than with the Muslim world. But why isn't there a frank discussion by America's leaders and media about the real motivation of Muslim anger toward the United States? Why was Helen Thomas the only journalist to raise the touchy but central question of motive? Peeking Behind the Screen We witnessed a similar phenomenon when the 9/11 Commission Report tiptoed into a cautious discussion of possible motives behind the 9/11 attacks. To their credit, the drafters of that report apparently went as far as their masters would allow, in gingerly introducing a major elephant into the room: "America's policy choices have consequences. Right or wrong, it is simply a fact that American policy regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and American actions in Iraq are dominant staples of popular commentary across the Arab and Muslim world." (p. 376) When asked later about the flabby way that last sentence ended, former Congressman Lee Hamilton, Vice-Chair of the 9/11 Commission, explained that there had been a Donnybrook over whether that paragraph could be included at all. The drafters also squeezed in the reason given by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed as to why he "masterminded" the attacks on 9/11: "By his own account, KSM's animus toward the United States stemmed ... from his violent disagreement with U.S. foreign policy favoring Israel." Would you believe that former Vice President Dick Cheney also has pointed to U.S. support for Israel as one of the "true sources of resentment"? This unique piece of honesty crept into his speech to the American Enterprise Institute on May 21, 2009. Sure, he also trotted out the bromide that the terrorists hate "all the things that make us a force for good in the world." But the Israel factor did slip into the speech, perhaps an inadvertent acknowledgement of the Israeli albatross adorning the neck of U.S. policy in the Middle East. Very few pundits and academicians are willing to allude to this reality, presumably out of fear for their future career prospects. Former senior CIA officer Paul Pillar, now a professor at Georgetown University, is one of the few willing to refer, in his typically understated way, to "all the other things ... including policies and practices that affect the likelihood that people ... will be radicalized, and will try to act out the anger against us." One has to fill in the blanks regarding what those "other things" are. But no worries. Secretary Napolitano has a fix for this unmentionable conundrum. It's called "counter-radicalization," which she describes thusly: "How do we identify someone before they become radicalized to the point where they're ready to blow themselves up with others on a plane? And how do we communicate better American values and so forth ... around the globe?" Better communication. That's the ticket. Hypocrisy and Double Talk But Napolitano doesn't acknowledge the underlying problem, which is that many Muslims have watched Washington's behavior closely for many years and view pious U.S. declarations about peace, justice, democracy and human rights as infuriating examples of hypocrisy and double talk. So, Washington's sanitized discussion about motives for terrorism seems more intended for the U.S. domestic audience than the Muslim world. After all, people in the Middle East already know how Palestinians have been mistreated for decades; how Washington has propped up Arab dictatorships; how Muslims have been locked away at Guantanamo without charges; how the U.S. military has killed civilians in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere; how U.S. mercenaries have escaped punishment for slaughtering innocents. The purpose of U.S. "public diplomacy" appears more designed to shield Americans from this unpleasant reality, offering instead feel-good palliatives about the beneficence of U.S. actions. Most American journalists and politicians go along with the charade out of fear that otherwise they would be accused of lacking patriotism or sympathizing with "the enemy." Commentators who are neither na?ve nor afraid are simply shut out of the Fawning Corporate Media (FCM). Salon.com's Glen Greenwald, for example, has complained loudly about "how our blind, endless enabling of Israeli actions fuels terrorism directed at the U.S.," and how it is taboo to point this out. Greenwald recently called attention to a little-noticed Associated Press report on the possible motives of the 23-year-old Nigerian Abdulmutallab. The report quoted his Yemeni friends to the effect that the he was "not overtly extremist." But they noted that he was open about his sympathies toward the Palestinians and his anger over Israel's actions in Gaza. (Emphasis added) Former CIA specialist on al Qaeda, Michael Scheuer, has been still more outspoken on what he sees as Israel's tying down the American Gulliver in the Middle East. Speaking Monday on C-SPAN, he complained bitterly that any debate on the issue of American support for Israel and its effects is normally squelched. Scheuer added that the Israel Lobby had just succeeded in getting him removed from his job at the Jamestown Foundation think tank for saying that Obama was "doing what I call the Tel Aviv Two-Step." More to the point, Scheuer asserted: "For anyone to say that our support for Israel doesn't hurt us in the Muslim world ... is to just defy reality." Beyond loss of work, those who speak out can expect ugly accusations. The Israeli media network Arutz Sheva, which is considered the voice of the settler movement, weighed in strongly, branding Scheuer's C-SPAN remarks "blatantly anti-Semitic." Media Squelching As for media squelching, I continue to be amazed at how otherwise informed folks express total surprise when I refer them to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's statement about his motivation for attacking the United States, as cited on page 147 of the 9/11 Commission Report. Here is the full sentence (shortened above): "By his own account, KSM's animus toward the United States stemmed not from his experience there as a student, but rather from his violent disagreement with U.S. foreign policy favoring Israel." One can understand how even those following such things closely can get confused. On Aug. 30, 2009, five years after the 9/11 Commission Report was released, readers of the neoconservative Washington Post were given a diametrically different view, based on what the Post called "an intelligence summary:" "KSM's limited and negative experience in the United States - which included a brief jail-stay because of unpaid bills - almost certainly helped propel him on his path to becoming a terrorist ... He stated that his contact with Americans, while minimal, confirmed his view that the United States was a debauched and racist country." Apparently, the Post found this revisionist version politically more convenient, in that it obscured Mohammed's other explanation implicating "U.S. foreign policy favoring Israel." It's much more comforting to view KSM as a disgruntled visitor who nursed his personal grievances into justification for mass murder. An unusually candid view of the dangers accruing from the U.S. identification with Israel's policies appeared five years ago in an unclassified study published by the Pentagon-appointed U.S. Defense Science Board on Sept. 23, 2004. Contradicting President George W. Bush, the board stated: "Muslims do not ?hate our freedom,' but rather, they hate our policies. The overwhelming majority voice their objections to what they see as one-sided support in favor of Israel and against Palestinian rights, and the longstanding, even increasing support for what Muslims collectively see as tyrannies, most notably Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Pakistan, and the Gulf States. "Thus, when American public diplomacy talks about bringing democracy to Islamic societies, this is seen as no more than self-serving hypocrisy." Abdulmutallab's Attack Getting back to Abdulmutallab and his motive in trying to blow up the airliner, how was this individual without prior terrorist affiliations suddenly transformed into an international terrorist ready to die while killing innocents? If, as John Brennan seems to suggest, al Qaeda terrorists are hard-wired at birth for the "wanton slaughter of innocents," how are they also able to jump-start a privileged 23-year old Nigerian, inculcate in him the acquired characteristics of a terrorist, and persuade him to do the bidding of al Qaeda/Persian Gulf? As indicated above, the young Nigerian seems to have had particular trouble with Israel's wanton slaughter of more than a thousand civilians in Gaza a year ago, a brutal campaign that was defended in Washington as justifiable self-defense. Moreover, it appears that Abdulmutallab is not the only anti-American "terrorist" so motivated. When the Saudi and Yemeni branches of al Qaeda announced that they were uniting into "al Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula," their combined rhetoric railed against the Israeli attack on Gaza. And on Dec. 30, Humam Khalil Abu Mulal al-Balawi, a 32-year-old Palestinian-born Jordanian physician, killed seven American CIA operatives and one Jordanian intelligence officer near Khost, Afghanistan, when he detonated a suicide bomb. Though most U.S. media stories treated al-Balawi as a fanatical double agent driven by irrational hatreds, other motivations could be gleaned by carefully reading articles about his personal history. Al-Balawi's mother told Agence France-Presse that her son had never been an "extremist." Al-Balawi's widow, Defne Bayrak, made a similar statement to Newsweek. In a New York Times article, al-Balawi's brother was quoted as describing him as a "very good brother" and a "brilliant doctor." So what led al-Balawi to take his own life in order to kill U.S. and Jordanian intelligence operatives? Al-Balawi's widow said her husband "started to change" after the American-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. His brother said al-Balawi "changed" during last year's three-week-long Israeli offensive in Gaza, which killed about 1,300 Palestinians. (Emphasis added) When al-Balawi volunteered with a medical organization to treat injured Palestinians in Gaza, he was arrested by Jordanian authorities, his brother said. It was after that arrest that the Jordanian intelligence service apparently coerced or "recruited" al-Balawi to become a spy who would penetrate al Qaeda's hierarchy and provide actionable intelligence to the CIA. "If you catch a cat and put it in a corner, she will jump on you," the brother said in explaining why al-Balawi would turn to suicide attack. "My husband was anti-American; so am I," his widow told Newsweek. Her two little girls would grow up fatherless, but she had no regrets. Answering Helen Are we starting to get the picture of what the United States is up against in the Muslim world? Does Helen Thomas deserve an adult answer to her question about motive? Has President Obama been able to assimilate all this? Or is the U.S. political/media establishment incapable of confronting this reality and/or taking meaningful action to alleviate the underlying causes of the violence? Is the reported reaction of a CIA official to al-Balawi's attack the appropriate one: "Last week's attack will be avenged. Some very bad people will eventually have a very bad day." Revenge has not always turned out very well in the past. Does anyone remember the brutal killing of four Blackwater contractors on March 31, 2004, when they took a bad turn and ended up in the wrong neighborhood of the Iraqi city of Fallujah - and how U.S. forces virtually leveled that large city in retribution after George W. Bush won his second term the following November? If you read only the Fawning Corporate Media, you would blissfully think that the killing of the four Blackwater operatives was the work of fanatical animals who got - along with their neighbors - the reprisal they deserved. You wouldn't know that the killings represented the second turn in that specific cycle of violence. On March 22, 2004, Israeli forces assassinated the then-spiritual leader of Hamas in Gaza, Sheikh Yassin - a withering old man, blind and confined to a wheelchair. (Emphasis added) That murder, plus sloppy navigation by the Blackwater men, set the stage for the next set of brutalities. The Blackwater operatives were killed by a group that described itself as the "Sheikh Yassin Revenge Brigade." Pamphlets and posters were all over the scene of the attack; one of the trucks that pulled around body parts of the mercenaries had a large poster photo of Yassin in its window, as did store fronts all over Fallujah. We can wish Janet Napolitano luck with her "counter-radicalization" project and President Obama with his effort to "communicate clearly to Muslims," but there will be no diminution in the endless cycles of violence unless legitimate grievances are addressed on all sides. It would certainly also help if the American people were finally let in on the root causes for what otherwise gets portrayed as unprovoked savagery by Muslims. --------- Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, the publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in Washington, DC. During his career as a CIA analyst, he prepared and briefed the President's Daily Brief and chaired National Intelligence Estimates. He is a member of the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS). From maryrose333 at att.net Sun Jan 10 19:18:37 2010 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Sun, 10 Jan 2010 18:18:37 -0800 Subject: [GJM] CAROLYN BAKER AND KEITH FARNISH DIALOG ABOUT THE GREAT TRANSITION - comment by Mary Rose Message-ID: <002301ca9264$8fe3b410$afab1c30$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS While many will still be acting in denial after reading this article, for me truth is easier to handle than fiction. And the unusual weather on the East Coast doesn't portend well for a future where the weather will continue on as it has for centuries. While people argue over whether it is warming or cooling and what each condition indicates, change is a time of chaos and no one pattern dominates. What I look at to guide me is that there has been dramatic climate change in the past, but civilization is still here which it would not be if some had not made it through the "great turning" in terms of weather. But indications also are that those who made it through these times migrated to places where conditions were less dramatic than others and we find evidence of this in archaeological excavations around the world. Undoubtedly the time ahead is going to be one rocky road and being prepared is only prudent. There are many who simply won't be able to make it through this time as the emotional stress will be far greater than they can handle. Others, like those who find challenges of extreme sports exciting may find the challenge of outwitting climate change a stimulating one. Regardless change is upon us. We not only face the challenge of global climate change, but the challenge of peak oil, along with the diminishing supplies of other resources necessary to our survival, along with economic and ecological collapse is daunting to say the least. And, I don't feel there are any easy answers here. This is going to be a big learning curve for everyone involved. And we can only be co-learners as there are no qualified teachers among us - experience is dramatically lacking to say the least when one adds up all the challenges. And, I feel the best we can do is organize in our communities and do the best we can to make them sustainable over the short term. Goodness only knows what is in store for us over the long term. However, I do believe that one of the things not being considered here is how those flying around in their UFO's can aid us at this time. Will they be able to bring resources from other planets? Will they carry flights of earthlings back to their home base so that humanity as known here on Earth will have a chance at survival elsewhere? The translations of the Sumerian Tablets reveal an intelligence far superior to ours exists. And also indicate that the Niburians would come back at this time to aid us. But only time will tell. M R CAROLYN BAKER AND KEITH FARNISH DIALOG ABOUT THE GREAT TRANSITION http://carolynbaker.net/site/content/view/1464/1/ 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 dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk Tue Jan 12 03:12:36 2010 From: dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk (robert searle) Date: Tue, 12 Jan 2010 10:12:36 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [GJM] Fw: real-world economics review - The Ignoble and Noble Prizes for Economics Message-ID: <195074.15191.qm@web27402.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> --- On Tue, 12/1/10, real-world economics review wrote: From: real-world economics review Subject: real-world economics review - The Ignoble and Noble Prizes for Economics To: "dharao4" Date: Tuesday, 12 January, 2010, 8:57 #yiv1753915684 h1 { color:#3F4A50; font-family:Trebuchet MS, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size:220%; font-weight:bold; clear:left; } #yiv1753915684 h2 { color:#4A6279; font-family:Trebuchet MS, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size:150%; font-weight:bold; clear:left; } #yiv1753915684 h3 { color:#4A6279; font-family:Trebuchet MS, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size:120%; font-weight:bold; clear:left; } #yiv1753915684 , #yiv1753915684 p, #yiv1753915684 td, #yiv1753915684 form, #yiv1753915684 input, #yiv1753915684 textarea, #yiv1753915684 select { color:#3F4A50; font-family:Trebuchet MS, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size:13px; } #yiv1753915684 a { color:#000000; font-family:Trebuchet MS, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; } #yiv1753915684 blockquote { font-family:Courier New, Courier; font-size:12px; } #yiv1753915684 a:hover { font-family:Trebuchet MS, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color:#FF6600; } #yiv1753915684 td.norm { background-color:#f96300; color:#000000; border:1px solid #f96300; } #yiv1753915684 td.normbody { border:1px solid #f96300; } #yiv1753915684 img {border:none;} For Immediate Release ? The Real-World Economics Review Blog is holding polls to determine the awarding of two prizes: The Ignoble Prize for Economics , to be awarded to the three economists who contributed most to enabling the Global Financial Collapse (GFC), and The Noble Prize for Economics , to be awarded to the three economists who first and most cogently warned of the coming calamity. It is accepted fact that the economics profession through its teachings, pronouncements and policy recommendations facilitated the GFC.? We also know that danger signs became visible long before the event and that some economists (those with their eyes on the real-world) gave public warnings which if acted upon would have averted the human disaster. ? With other learned professions entrusted with public confidence, such as medicine and engineering, it is inconceivable that their professional bodies would not at the very least censure members who had successfully persuaded governments and public opinion to ignore elementary safety measures, so causing epidemics and widespread building collapses. ? To date, however, the world?s major economics associations have declined to censure the major facilitators of the GFC or even to publicly identify them.? This silence, this indifference to causing human suffering, constitutes grave moral failure.? It also gives license to economists to continue to indulge in axiom-happy behaviour.? Nor has the economics establishment offered recognition to those economists who were not taken in by fads and fashion and whose competence, if listened to, would have prevented the collapse. ? These two silences reveal a continuing moral crisis within the economics profession .?The Ignoble and Noble Prizes for Economics are being offered as small first steps towards a cure. ? ? Poll Procedures for the Ignoble Prize for Economics ? Stage One: Nominations and Evidence ? Nominations for both prizes are open to the international community of economists, rather than limited to a closed and secret shop.? For each nominated economist an evidence page will be opened on http://rwer.wordpress.com/ to which people can leave evidential comments. In this way a documented case for (and against) each candidate will be built up.? ? There are two ways, one direct and the other indirect, by which you can nominate and post evidence. Direct Method You can nominate economist X ?or economists X and Y, or X, Y and Z (maximum of three) by leaving a comment on the? Nominations for the Ignoble Prize for Economics page for which there is a link?near the top of the blog?s home page?s right hand column.? Your comment needs only to say ?I nominate X . . . for the Ignoble Prize for Economics.? ? You can post evidence regarding a nominated economist by leaving a comment on their evidence page, which in most cases will be opened within 24 hours of their nomination. These pages are sub-pages of the ?Nominees and Submission of Evidence? page and will be link-listed in a box near the top of the home page?s right hand column. ? Indirect Method Because of the current nature of the economics profession, some economists will fear that going public with their professional views on these matters could jeopardize their careers or those of people associated with them. Therefore nominations and evidence can be put forward anonymously by emailing them to pae_news at btinternet.com , preferably with the subject heading ?Nominations and Evidence?.? The editor will then post the material on the relevant pages.? Strict confidentiality will be maintained. ? Stage Two: Short List ? After an appropriate interval, most likely one month, nominations and the submission of evidence will be closed.? Through consultation,?authors of the Real-World Economics Review Blog will compile a short list of the strongest nominees, probably 10 or 12.? At this time a final dossier, based on the evidential comments posted on the blog, will be compiled and posted for each short-listed candidate.? Voting will then open. ? Stage Three: Voting ? The voting will be conducted using PollDaddy.? Its system uses cookies to prevent repeat voting.? A voting box showing the short-listed candidates will be displayed prominently on the home page of the Real-World Economics Review Blog.? Close by will be links to each candidate?s final dossier.? Voting is open to all interested parties. Each voter can vote for up to three of the listed candidates. ?The ballots are secret. ?Voting will remain open for several weeks.? No results will be announced before closing the poll. ? Stage Four: Results Within 24 hours of the closing of the poll, the results will be announced.? The three economists receiving the highest number of votes will be declared the joint winners of the prize. ? General Rules ? Only economists may be nominated, and they must have been active during part of the last quarter century.? Joke nominations (e.g., Baker, Keen or Roubini for the Ignoble Prize) or ones suspected of being motivated by malice or for which no supporting evidence is forthcoming will not be accepted or allowed to stand.? Likewise evidence submitted must be substantive, accurate and presented in good taste. ? ? Poll Procedures for the Noble Prize for Economics ? These will be approximately the same as for the Ignoble Prize, but may be adjusted in view of lessons learnt.? It is expected that nominations and submission of evidence for this prize will commence when voting for the Ignoble Prize begins. ? Nominations and submissions of evidence for the Ignoble Prize for Economics are now open at http://rwer.wordpress.com/ ? ? ? ? Click here to safely unsubscribe now from "real-world economics review" or change your subscription or subscribe Your requested content delivery powered by FeedBlitz, LLC, 9 Thoreau Way, Sudbury, MA 01776, USA. +1.978.776.9498 ? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk Tue Jan 12 08:11:37 2010 From: dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk (robert searle) Date: Tue, 12 Jan 2010 15:11:37 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [GJM] "Insane" Financial Blogger giving references to Transfinancial Economics.......................??. Message-ID: <900921.61716.qm@web27402.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> ? Dear All, ?????????????????? I have made a list of certain google entries of a "mad" blogger producing articles which give references to Transfinancial Economics. However, the language which is used is largely if not wholly nonsensical. The question is ths why should anyone go the lengths of writing such incomprehensible blogs. Is someone, or something trying to descredit TFE in some manner, or other, or is it just someone with a mental health problem of a severe nature? ? I have discussed this bizarre phenomenon before in an earlier post but this time I give quite a few blog entry titles from the internet under the search word of Transfinancial Economics. See for? yourself below! I do not whether any of the cut, and pasted links work here but one can try....................... ? ? ? Corporate Finance A Focused Approach | Bank Corporate Finance A Focused Approach,Corporate finance a focused approach, ... With transfinancial economics economic a country would be a severe right. ...lacasadedondavid.com/bank/ corporate- finance-a-focused-app... - Cached ? ? Bylaws Corporate " Corporation at ilslearningcorporation.ca ... Maximum intelligence in connection with bylaws corporate. You may dig up some ... With transfinancial economics high a artist would be a deep president. ...ilslearningcorporation.ca/ articles/.../ bylawscorporate.html - Cached ? ? Disney Panama | Offshore Disney Panama,Disney panama, Disney panama, offshore. ... With transfinancial economics average a trail would be a modern media, disney panama. ...www.hitsafari.com/offshore/ disney- panama.html - Cached ? ? ? Panama Offshore Services | Offshores Panama Offshore Services,Panama offshore services, Panama ... With transfinancial economics small a post would be a other crisis, panama offshore services. ...picture4ever.com/offshores/ panama- offshore-services.html - Cached ? ? ? City Bank | Bank City Bank,City bank, City bank, City bank, City bank, City bank, bank. ... With transfinancial economics global a donor would be a various side, city bank. ...busydaydreambody.com/tmpl/ bank/city- bank.html - Cached ? ? Almond Resort | Offshore Almond Resort,Almond resort, Almond resort, Almond resort, offshore. ... Almond resort, with transfinancial economics criminal a environment would be a corporate cash. ...idl-international.com/ offshore/almond- resort.html - Cached First Bank Of | Bank First Bank Of,First bank of, First bank of, First bank of, bank. ... First bank of, with transfinancial economics non-profit a branch would be a new bull-market. ...busydaydreambody.com/tmpl/ bank/first- bank-of.html - Cached ? Coors Credit Union | Credit Coors Credit Union,Coors credit union, Coors credit union, Coors credit ... Coors credit union, with transfinancial economics eventual a end would be a rich ...funachile.cl/credit/ coors-credit- union.html - Cached Barbados Rental Cars | Offshore Barbados Rental Cars,Barbados rental cars, Barbados rental cars, ... With transfinancial economics filthy a arena would be a yellow focus, barbados rental cars. ...idl-international.com/ offshore/barbados- rental-cars.html - Cached ? Corporate Finance Group Boston | Bank Corporate Finance Group Boston,Corporate finance group boston, Corporate finance ... With transfinancial economics visual a director would be a seasonal money. ...1checkoutcart.com/bank/ corporate- finance-group-boston.html - Cached ? ? Swift Code Bank | Business Swift Code Bank,Swift code bank, Swift code bank, Swift code ... With transfinancial economics severe a locator would be a willing monopoly, swift code bank. ...aussiehoopsamerica.com/album/ business/ swift-code-bank.html - Cached Fundamentals Of Corporate Finance Minicase | Bank Fundamentals Of Corporate Finance Minicase,Fundamentals of corporate finance minicase, Fundamentals of corporate finance ... transfinancial economics corporate ...1checkoutcart.com/bank/ fundamentals-of- corporate-finance-... - Cached ? ? ? ? ? Avanta Credit Union Billings | Credit Avanta Credit Union Billings,Avanta credit union billings, Avanta credit union ... With transfinancial economics dublin-based a sale would be a prevalent order. ...funachile.cl/credit/ avanta-credit-union- billings.html - Cached ? ? ? Bank Corporate Bonds | Bank Bank Corporate Bonds,Bank corporate bonds, Bank corporate bonds, Bank ... bank corporate bonds, with transfinancial economics conservative a section would ...restoretherepublic.net/bank/ bank- corporate-bonds.html - Cached ? Cayman Island Bank Account: Business Blow-by-blow report in relation to cayman island bank account. ... With transfinancial economics uncomfortable a resource would be a many series. ...cercorp.us/business/ cayman-island-bank- account.html - Cached ? ? Marginal Revolution: Infrastructure: Roads and The Smart Grid The economics of dog food. The decline of Christmas cards ... It is called Transfinancial Economics. http://www.p2pfoundation .net/Transfinancial_Economics ...marginalrevolution.com/... /2008/12/ infrastructure.html - 51k - Cac ? Corporate Finance A Focused Approach | Bank Corporate Finance A Focused Approach,Corporate finance a focused approach, ... With transfinancial economics economic a country would be a severe right. ...lacasadedondavid.com/bank/ corporate- finance-a-focused-app... - Cached ? Bancomer Suc | Offshore Industry Bancomer Suc,Bancomer suc, Bancomer suc, Bancomer suc, offshore industry. ... With transfinancial economics slouchy a job would be a short card, bancomer suc. ...123clicks.com/ offshore-industry/ bancomer-suc.html - Cached ? Products Of Liechtenstein | Offshores Products Of Liechtenstein,Products of liechtenstein, Products of ... Products of liechtenstein, with transfinancial economics full a pachinko would ...picture4ever.com/offshores/ products-of- liechtenstein.html - Cach ? ? Citicards Online | Business Citicards Online,Citicards online, Citicards online, Citicards online, ... Citicards online, with transfinancial economics freely-traded a privately-held ...aussiehoopsamerica.com/album/ business/ citicards-online.html - Cached ? Investment You could find the complete information as respects investment here. ... With transfinancial economics spent a task would be a small economy, egold investment. ...tvcalculator.com/investment/ index.html - Cached More search results < Prev 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 Next > Search query -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rodney.shakespeare1 at btopenworld.com Tue Jan 12 08:29:15 2010 From: rodney.shakespeare1 at btopenworld.com (Rodney Shakespeare) Date: Tue, 12 Jan 2010 15:29:15 -0000 Subject: [GJM] [SPAM] "Insane" Financial Blogger giving references to Transfinancial Economics.......................??. References: <900921.61716.qm@web27402.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <001b01ca939c$007be020$4001a8c0@your447023ae6b> Robert, I have also experienced this but only occasionally. I think somebody puts in a phrase to misdirect people to another website. Rodney Shakespeare. ----- Original Message ----- From: robert searle To: discussion at globaljusticemovement.net Sent: Tuesday, January 12, 2010 3:11 PM Subject: [SPAM] [GJM] "Insane" Financial Blogger giving references to Transfinancial Economics.......................??. 131.. 132.. Dear All, I have made a list of certain google entries of a "mad" blogger producing articles which give references to Transfinancial Economics. However, the language which is used is largely if not wholly nonsensical. The question is ths why should anyone go the lengths of writing such incomprehensible blogs. Is someone, or something trying to descredit TFE in some manner, or other, or is it just someone with a mental health problem of a severe nature? I have discussed this bizarre phenomenon before in an earlier post but this time I give quite a few blog entry titles from the internet under the search word of Transfinancial Economics. See for yourself below! I do not whether any of the cut, and pasted links work here but one can try....................... 131.. 132.. 133.. 134.. Corporate Finance A Focused Approach | Bank Corporate Finance A Focused Approach,Corporate finance a focused approach, ... With transfinancial economics economic a country would be a severe right. ... lacasadedondavid.com/bank/ corporate- finance-a-focused-app... - Cached 135.. 136.. 137.. Bylaws Corporate " Corporation at ilslearningcorporation.ca ... Maximum intelligence in connection with bylaws corporate. You may dig up some ... With transfinancial economics high a artist would be a deep president. ... ilslearningcorporation.ca/ articles/.../ bylawscorporate.html - Cached 138.. 139.. 140.. Disney Panama | Offshore Disney Panama,Disney panama, Disney panama, offshore. ... With transfinancial economics average a trail would be a modern media, disney panama. ... www.hitsafari.com/offshore/ disney- panama.html - Cached 141.. 142.. 143.. 144.. Panama Offshore Services | Offshores Panama Offshore Services,Panama offshore services, Panama ... With transfinancial economics small a post would be a other crisis, panama offshore services. ... picture4ever.com/offshores/ panama- offshore-services.html - Cached 145.. 146.. 147.. 148.. City Bank | Bank City Bank,City bank, City bank, City bank, City bank, City bank, bank. ... With transfinancial economics global a donor would be a various side, city bank. ... busydaydreambody.com/tmpl/ bank/city- bank.html - Cached 149.. 150.. 151.. Almond Resort | Offshore Almond Resort,Almond resort, Almond resort, Almond resort, offshore. ... Almond resort, with transfinancial economics criminal a environment would be a corporate cash. ... idl-international.com/ offshore/almond- resort.html - Cached 152.. First Bank Of | Bank First Bank Of,First bank of, First bank of, First bank of, bank. ... First bank of, with transfinancial economics non-profit a branch would be a new bull-market. ... busydaydreambody.com/tmpl/ bank/first- bank-of.html - Cached 153.. 154.. Coors Credit Union | Credit Coors Credit Union,Coors credit union, Coors credit union, Coors credit ... Coors credit union, with transfinancial economics eventual a end would be a rich ... funachile.cl/credit/ coors-credit- union.html - Cached 155.. Barbados Rental Cars | Offshore Barbados Rental Cars,Barbados rental cars, Barbados rental cars, ... With transfinancial economics filthy a arena would be a yellow focus, barbados rental cars. ... idl-international.com/ offshore/barbados- rental-cars.html - Cached 156.. 157.. Corporate Finance Group Boston | Bank Corporate Finance Group Boston,Corporate finance group boston, Corporate finance ... With transfinancial economics visual a director would be a seasonal money. ... 1checkoutcart.com/bank/ corporate- finance-group-boston.html - Cached 158.. 159.. 160.. Swift Code Bank | Business Swift Code Bank,Swift code bank, Swift code bank, Swift code ... With transfinancial economics severe a locator would be a willing monopoly, swift code bank. ... aussiehoopsamerica.com/album/ business/ swift-code-bank.html - Cached 161.. Fundamentals Of Corporate Finance Minicase | Bank Fundamentals Of Corporate Finance Minicase,Fundamentals of corporate finance minicase, Fundamentals of corporate finance ... transfinancial economics corporate ... 1checkoutcart.com/bank/ fundamentals-of- corporate-finance-... - Cached 162.. a.. a.. a.. a.. a.. a.. Avanta Credit Union Billings | Credit Avanta Credit Union Billings,Avanta credit union billings, Avanta credit union ... With transfinancial economics dublin-based a sale would be a prevalent order. ... funachile.cl/credit/ avanta-credit-union- billings.html - Cached a.. a.. a.. a.. Bank Corporate Bonds | Bank Bank Corporate Bonds,Bank corporate bonds, Bank corporate bonds, Bank ... bank corporate bonds, with transfinancial economics conservative a section would ... restoretherepublic.net/bank/ bank- corporate-bonds.html - Cached a.. a.. Cayman Island Bank Account: Business Blow-by-blow report in relation to cayman island bank account. ... With transfinancial economics uncomfortable a resource would be a many series. ... cercorp.us/business/ cayman-island-bank- account.html - Cached a.. a.. a.. Marginal Revolution: Infrastructure: Roads and The Smart Grid a.. The economics of dog food. The decline of Christmas cards ... It is called Transfinancial Economics. http://www.p2pfoundation .net/Transfinancial_Economics ... marginalrevolution.com/... /2008/12/ infrastructure.html - 51k - Cac a.. a.. Corporate Finance A Focused Approach | Bank a.. Corporate Finance A Focused Approach,Corporate finance a focused approach, ... With transfinancial economics economic a country would be a severe right. ... lacasadedondavid.com/bank/ corporate- finance-a-focused-app... - Cached 131.. Bancomer Suc | Offshore Industry Bancomer Suc,Bancomer suc, Bancomer suc, Bancomer suc, offshore industry. ... With transfinancial economics slouchy a job would be a short card, bancomer suc. ... 123clicks.com/ offshore-industry/ bancomer-suc.html - Cached 132.. 133.. Products Of Liechtenstein | Offshores Products Of Liechtenstein,Products of liechtenstein, Products of ... Products of liechtenstein, with transfinancial economics full a pachinko would ... picture4ever.com/offshores/ products-of- liechtenstein.html - Cach 134.. 135.. 136.. Citicards Online | Business 137.. Citicards Online,Citicards online, Citicards online, Citicards online, ... Citicards online, with transfinancial economics freely-traded a privately-held ... aussiehoopsamerica.com/album/ business/ citicards-online.html - Cached 138.. 139.. Investment You could find the complete information as respects investment here. ... With transfinancial economics spent a task would be a small economy, egold investment. ... tvcalculator.com/investment/ index.html - Cached More search results < Prev 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 Next > Search query ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ Discussion mailing list Discussion at globaljusticemovement.net http://globaljusticemovement.net/mailman/listinfo/discussion_globaljusticemovement.net -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ceasig at gmail.com Tue Jan 12 02:21:10 2010 From: ceasig at gmail.com (Centre For Ecological Audit, Social Inclusion & Governance) Date: Tue, 12 Jan 2010 14:51:10 +0530 Subject: [GJM] Why genes aren't destiny - epigenetics In-Reply-To: <002e01ca9190$42b1d7f0$c81587d0$@net> References: <002e01ca9190$42b1d7f0$c81587d0$@net> Message-ID: <31f677a31001120121q35ba4a95v83094331ac09397@mail.gmail.com> Dear Mary, You are indeed correct, genetic diversities from the perspective of faith is something we appreciate and wonder on, but indeed, it is how we organise our personal and collective life that is what makes difference. I am continuing to focus on carbon-neutral paths for transformation of leisure,consumption,production, habitats. I could not quite understand promoting this option of changing genes. With warmest regards Dr.Muhammad Mukhtar Alam On Sun, Jan 10, 2010 at 6:28 AM, mary rose wrote: > Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS > > > > Recall that I have several times posted information on ?epigenetics? and > have written > > that ?genes do not control life?-- your perception of the environment is > what controls life. > > > > Well here is more information on this subject along with some information > as to how > > you can change your genes. > > > > What this means is that you are in control of your life and can be whomever > you choose to be. > > > > > > Why genes aren?t destiny > > http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1951968-4,00.html > > > > How you can change your genes > > > http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/completelist/0,29569,1952062,00.html > > > > > > > > *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?* > > > > _______________________________________________ > 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: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/gif Size: 177 bytes Desc: not available URL: From ceasig at gmail.com Tue Jan 12 02:39:52 2010 From: ceasig at gmail.com (Centre For Ecological Audit, Social Inclusion & Governance) Date: Tue, 12 Jan 2010 15:09:52 +0530 Subject: [GJM] Why genes aren't destiny - epigenetics In-Reply-To: <002e01ca9190$42b1d7f0$c81587d0$@net> References: <002e01ca9190$42b1d7f0$c81587d0$@net> Message-ID: <31f677a31001120139q5024b8f1v9d69e620c7a793e6@mail.gmail.com> Dear Mary, I was looking at this description of the ways genetic sequences could be changed 'If you overstimulate genes for, say, obesity or a shortened life span, your kids can inherit these overactivated sequences. That could mean a lifetime of battling unfavorable gene expression'. I am sure there are genetic predispositions for compassion behavior and that is what I would like to work on for ensuring the future generations have more of them while maintaining the basic survival linked livelihoods. Read more: http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1952062_1952061_1952060,00.html#ixzz03xxNu5SS I guess carbon neutral faith based pathways are critical for generating these changes tacking a century of indoctrination based on the writings of people like Ayn Rand , who promoted frontier mentalities and some of these are responsible , I think for investments in futile off earth solutions like explorations of other livable planets while there is much that can be done here. Dr.Muhammad Mukhtar Alam On Sun, Jan 10, 2010 at 6:28 AM, mary rose wrote: > Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS > > > > Recall that I have several times posted information on ?epigenetics? and > have written > > that ?genes do not control life?-- your perception of the environment is > what controls life. > > > > Well here is more information on this subject along with some information > as to how > > you can change your genes. > > > > What this means is that you are in control of your life and can be whomever > you choose to be. > > > > > > Why genes aren?t destiny > > http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1951968-4,00.html > > > > How you can change your genes > > > http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/completelist/0,29569,1952062,00.html > > > > > > > > *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?* > > > > _______________________________________________ > 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: -------------- 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 Tue Jan 12 19:06:15 2010 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Tue, 12 Jan 2010 18:06:15 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: CAROLYN BAKER AND KEITH FARNISH DIALOG ABOUT THE GREAT TRANSITION - comment by Trading Post Paul Message-ID: <007001ca93f5$307c3f00$9174bd00$@net> -----Original Message----- From: TradingPostPaul [mailto:tradingpost at riseup.net] Sent: Sunday, January 10, 2010 7:10 PM To: maryrose333 at att.net Subject: Re: CAROLYN BAKER AND KEITH FARNISH DIALOG ABOUT THE GREAT TRANSITION - comment by Mary Rose Carolyn's interview there is remarkable. I can agree because I've been following the same transformation during the same time frame. paul tradingpost at lobo.net *********** REPLY SEPARATOR *********** On 1/10/2010 at 6:18 PM mary rose wrote: >Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS > > From knightjanos at gmail.com Wed Jan 13 16:43:57 2010 From: knightjanos at gmail.com (Janos Abel) Date: Wed, 13 Jan 2010 23:43:57 +0000 Subject: [GJM] The 2010 Political Time Bomb Is Unemployment - Trading Post Paul In-Reply-To: <005d01ca9240$81f79890$85e6c9b0$@net> References: <005d01ca9240$81f79890$85e6c9b0$@net> Message-ID: <7051643f1001131543w7f6ab6cepde9f43468e6ebc4f@mail.gmail.com> *Another view. Open reply to John Nichols*. Unemployment is not a problem if the Employment Society gives way to an increase in leisure without total loss of income. Do we want the purpose of life to remain as "gainful employment"? Reducing the need for human labour is the promise of the Post Industrial Age. It is not a threat. The fact that many people will not know what to do with their freedom from mind-limiting wage slavery is just an indication of how successfully the employment society closed down peoples natural propensity to be creative with their time when freed from toil. The creativity for some people will manifest as growing their own food. But to imagine that all of us will find life blissful in a mainly agricultural economy with billions growing their own food as response to being thrown out of work with total loss of income, is asking for a very limiting alternative. I will rather buy my food in the shops with an increasingly generous Citizens Dividend generated by hi-tech processes driven by fully automatic production systems, Nanotechnology and the other marvels of 21st century. With Binary Economics as the modern economic paradigm all of us can own a share of productive capital sufficient to earn an income that frees us to follow our hearts desire. Some will want to cultivate their kitchen garden. Not me, though. 2010/1/10 mary rose > Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS > > > > Thanks to Trading Post Paul for this one. > > > > It will not be until the government and corporations are ready to address > the fact that the Industrial Age is over and we are rapidly moving into > nanotechnology and bio-mimicry, which eliminates the need for human labor. > Thus we need to adjust the monetary system accordingly so that we can bring > an end to joblessness and aid people in learning how to create true wealth > for themselves through self-realization. > > ... > > Mary Rose > > Transforming Our World with Mary Rose > > Future Dawning Enterprises > > www.futuredawning.org > > January 10, 2010 > > The 2010 Political Timebomb Is Unemployment by John Nichols on 01/09/2010 > @ 09:51am > > American employers eliminated 4.2 million jobs in 2009 and sent > unemployment soaring into double digits for the first time in more than a > quarter century. Since the fall of last year, the official jobless rate has > been over ten percent, while the unofficial rate (taking in the severely > underemployed and those who have given up looking) has been over 17 percent. > And, despite the ridiculous "green-shoots" speculation of the Obama > administration and overblown "recovery" fantasies of the financial media > that has blown every major economic story of recent years, the situation is > getting worse. > > > http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat/514394/the_2010_political_timebomb_is > -unemployment > > > > > > > > *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?* > > > > _______________________________________________ > 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 Fri Jan 15 03:48:43 2010 From: dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk (robert searle) Date: Fri, 15 Jan 2010 10:48:43 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [GJM] Fw: Cancel Haiti's debt Message-ID: <634620.58739.qm@web27401.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> --- On Thu, 14/1/10, Ben Wikler - Avaaz.org wrote: From: Ben Wikler - Avaaz.org Subject: Cancel Haiti's debt To: "dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk" Date: Thursday, 14 January, 2010, 23:24 Make sure Avaaz alerts reach your inbox: click "Add to Contacts" to add avaaz at avaaz.org to your address book, and click the "Not Spam" button if you found this email in your spam folder. If you prefer to leave the Avaaz list, just click here to unsubscribe. Dear friends, Despite the earthquake, Haiti owes crushing debt payments to foreign lenders for "dictator debt" run up years ago. That money should be going to rescue and rebuild -- sign the petition to cancel Haiti's debt and Avaaz will deliver it to the IMF: As families in Haiti dig through rubble for survivors, their government must send money overseas. Even in the wake of the earthquake, Haiti is paying off $600 million in unfair debt racked up years ago by corrupt governments and unscrupulous lenders. After the 2004 tsunami, debt payments from countries like Sri Lanka were suspended to ensure that funds flowed to urgent priorities like food, water, and medicine. Haiti's crisis is no different -- it shouldn't be forced to send money out when it desperately needs resources flowing in. At a moment like this, global financial institutions won't be able to ignore a worldwide outcry. Help lift a massive burden from Haiti's ability to rescue, recover, and rebuild -- let's raise a million voices for emergency debt relief for Haiti: http://www.avaaz.org/en/drop_haitian_debt Even before the earthquake, Haiti was one of the world's poorest countries -- due, in part, to a legacy of unjust debt stretching back to France's demand for reparations after its 1804 revolution. In recent years, the tremendous worldwide campaign for debt relief has shown the power of public pressure to support poor nations. But today, Haiti is scheduled to pay $10 million in 2010 to the IMF and Inter-American Development Bank -- and still more millions to specific lender countries. Recovering from the earthquake will take years, even decades. As the headlines fade, donations will slow--but the burden of paying debts incurred by unelected governments will continue, unless we take this moment to make a change. If we take action, we can achieve a permanent victory: the cancellation of Haiti's debt. Haitians are urgently appealing for all of our help. Our donations make a difference--and Avaaz members have given generously, donating more than $500,000 in the last day alone. But our voices as citizens are needed as well. Join the call for debt relief, and pass this message to those who feel the same: http://www.avaaz.org/en/drop_haitian_debt As we watch the images on our televisions and computers, it's hard not to be overwhelmed. But if moments like this can trigger our consciences and move us to act in solidarity with those most affected, they can help us to move to a better world -- one where we move as one to address the man-made poverty and inequality that has left our brothers and sisters in Haiti so vulnerable to natural crises. There is not enough that we can do. But let's all do everything we can. With hope in the face of tragedy, Ben, Iain, Ricken, Alice, Sam, Milena, Paula, and the whole Avaaz team PS: To donate to support Haiti, click here: https://secure.avaaz.org/en/stand_with_haiti SOURCES Jubilee (debt campaigning group) information page on Haiti's debt: http://www.jubileeusa.org/jubilee-act/haiti-debt-cancellation-resolution/resources-on-haitis-debt.html "Cancel Haiti's Debt" - Foreign Policy blog http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/01/13/cancel_haitis_debt "Haiti: the land where children eat mud" - history of Haiti's debt from The Sunday Times, 17 May 2009 http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article6281614.ece ---- 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 "" on 2007-08-02 using the email address dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk. 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=2b7c8c2a98a8e68f564b27ee124e38a1&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 dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk Fri Jan 15 03:49:58 2010 From: dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk (robert searle) Date: Fri, 15 Jan 2010 10:49:58 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [GJM] Fw: [toeslist] Review of Greco's "monetary reform" Message-ID: <641615.79868.qm@web27405.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> --- On Thu, 14/1/10, ideasinc wrote: From: ideasinc Subject: [toeslist] Review of Greco's "monetary reform" To: "toeslist.yahoogroups.com" Date: Thursday, 14 January, 2010, 16:04 ? Caveat Emptor, A Review of Thomas Greco's Libertarian Pop-economics. By Tadit Anderson Jan. 2010 Thomas H. Greco is a different sort of writer who has developed a significant following at the popular level of utopian economic literacy. One reason he is being reviewed here is based upon his long term advocacy of a particular approach to community currencies which he interprets as equal to advocacy for monetary reform. His first book was possibly the worst non-fiction book I had ever read up to that point. Reviewing his published books is rather easy, because though they have different titles they are generally on the same agenda, have some successive textual improvements over prior versions, and have been updated relative to related intervening events. They all seem to boil down to the same basic table of contents. ... the rest of the review is at http://economics. arawakcity. org/node/ 344 __._,_.___ 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 Switch to: Text-Only, Daily Digest ? Unsubscribe ? Terms of Use . __,_._,___ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk Fri Jan 15 04:11:00 2010 From: dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk (robert searle) Date: Fri, 15 Jan 2010 11:11:00 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [GJM] Helping Haiti......... Message-ID: <699568.16272.qm@web27406.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> ? Dear All, ? ????????? Whether we like it or not money = electronic data.With the right authorization funds for helping Haiti could be created electronically , and transmitted responsibly to help the Disaster Emergency Committe, or DEC rather than relying upon the ordinary citizens of the world to chip in. This idea may seem "socially unacceptable" but so is the death of thousands of people, and not getting aid soon enough to help survivors to somehow carry on with life. This raises a moral question. If sufficient money could be created electronically in this way without serious inflation then why not if it benefits humanity in some manner, or other. What is more "socially unacceptable" this, or the reduction of suffering of one kind or another ASSAP? ? Ofcourse, the Haiti debt mentioned in an earlier post could be electronically deleted.. ? ? R.Searle. http://www.p2pfoundation.net/Transfinancial_Economics ? ? ? ? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rodney.shakespeare1 at btopenworld.com Fri Jan 15 04:19:45 2010 From: rodney.shakespeare1 at btopenworld.com (Rodney Shakespeare) Date: Fri, 15 Jan 2010 11:19:45 -0000 Subject: [GJM] Fw: [toeslist] Review of Greco's "monetary reform" References: <641615.79868.qm@web27405.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <003401ca95d4$a4ce2860$4001a8c0@your447023ae6b> Robert, The crunch issue at present is not community currencies but whether Iceland will rise up in revolt and thereby inspire the supine, craven British and Americans to do the same. It is time to shout out that there is a corrupt financial system wreaking destruction globally but that there is a counter-solution. The mainstream media are part of the corruption e.g. the BBC where Jeremy Paxman reveals himself as an enforcer goon for the financial mafia by accusing the Icelandic people (who had no part in the loss of the billions yet are being made to repay) as being destructive, irresponsible etc. The BBC has become a shill for corrupt interests -- and I cite its reporting (failure to show what was happening over the Gaza war crimes and its attitude over the charity advertisement) as another example. Rodney Shakespeare. ----- Original Message ----- From: robert searle To: discussion at globaljusticemovement.net Sent: Friday, January 15, 2010 10:49 AM Subject: [GJM] Fw: [toeslist] Review of Greco's "monetary reform" --- On Thu, 14/1/10, ideasinc wrote: From: ideasinc Subject: [toeslist] Review of Greco's "monetary reform" To: "toeslist.yahoogroups.com" Date: Thursday, 14 January, 2010, 16:04 Caveat Emptor, A Review of Thomas Greco's Libertarian Pop-economics. By Tadit Anderson Jan. 2010 Thomas H. Greco is a different sort of writer who has developed a significant following at the popular level of utopian economic literacy. One reason he is being reviewed here is based upon his long term advocacy of a particular approach to community currencies which he interprets as equal to advocacy for monetary reform. His first book was possibly the worst non-fiction book I had ever read up to that point. Reviewing his published books is rather easy, because though they have different titles they are generally on the same agenda, have some successive textual improvements over prior versions, and have been updated relative to related intervening events. They all seem to boil down to the same basic table of contents. ... the rest of the review is at http://economics. arawakcity. org/node/ 344 __._,_.___ 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 Switch to: Text-Only, Daily Digest ? Unsubscribe ? Terms of Use. __,_._,___ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ Discussion mailing list Discussion at globaljusticemovement.net http://globaljusticemovement.net/mailman/listinfo/discussion_globaljusticemovement.net -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rodney.shakespeare1 at btopenworld.com Fri Jan 15 04:27:02 2010 From: rodney.shakespeare1 at btopenworld.com (Rodney Shakespeare) Date: Fri, 15 Jan 2010 11:27:02 -0000 Subject: [GJM] [SPAM] Fw: Cancel Haiti's debt References: <634620.58739.qm@web27401.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <004801ca95d5$a8f60ab0$4001a8c0@your447023ae6b> Robert, Yes, we must oppose the odious debt imposed on Haiti. |I hope GJM members sign the petition. And have you noticed how the Icelanders are being made to repay money for which they are not responsible at interest? They will never be able to repay and are being put into eternal servitutdfe. Rodney Shakespeare. ----- Original Message ----- From: robert searle To: discussion at globaljusticemovement.net Sent: Friday, January 15, 2010 10:48 AM Subject: [SPAM] [GJM] Fw: Cancel Haiti's debt --- On Thu, 14/1/10, Ben Wikler - Avaaz.org wrote: From: Ben Wikler - Avaaz.org Subject: Cancel Haiti's debt To: "dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk" Date: Thursday, 14 January, 2010, 23:24 Make sure Avaaz alerts reach your inbox: click "Add to Contacts" to add avaaz at avaaz.org to your address book, and click the "Not Spam" button if you found this email in your spam folder. If you prefer to leave the Avaaz list, just click here to unsubscribe. Dear friends, Despite the earthquake, Haiti owes crushing debt payments to foreign lenders for "dictator debt" run up years ago. That money should be going to rescue and rebuild -- sign the petition to cancel Haiti's debt and Avaaz will deliver it to the IMF: As families in Haiti dig through rubble for survivors, their government must send money overseas. Even in the wake of the earthquake, Haiti is paying off $600 million in unfair debt racked up years ago by corrupt governments and unscrupulous lenders. After the 2004 tsunami, debt payments from countries like Sri Lanka were suspended to ensure that funds flowed to urgent priorities like food, water, and medicine. Haiti's crisis is no different -- it shouldn't be forced to send money out when it desperately needs resources flowing in. At a moment like this, global financial institutions won't be able to ignore a worldwide outcry. Help lift a massive burden from Haiti's ability to rescue, recover, and rebuild -- let's raise a million voices for emergency debt relief for Haiti: http://www.avaaz.org/en/drop_haitian_debt Even before the earthquake, Haiti was one of the world's poorest countries -- due, in part, to a legacy of unjust debt stretching back to France's demand for reparations after its 1804 revolution. In recent years, the tremendous worldwide campaign for debt relief has shown the power of public pressure to support poor nations. But today, Haiti is scheduled to pay $10 million in 2010 to the IMF and Inter-American Development Bank -- and still more millions to specific lender countries. Recovering from the earthquake will take years, even decades. As the headlines fade, donations will slow--but the burden of paying debts incurred by unelected governments will continue, unless we take this moment to make a change. If we take action, we can achieve a permanent victory: the cancellation of Haiti's debt. Haitians are urgently appealing for all of our help. Our donations make a difference--and Avaaz members have given generously, donating more than $500,000 in the last day alone. But our voices as citizens are needed as well. Join the call for debt relief, and pass this message to those who feel the same: http://www.avaaz.org/en/drop_haitian_debt As we watch the images on our televisions and computers, it's hard not to be overwhelmed. But if moments like this can trigger our consciences and move us to act in solidarity with those most affected, they can help us to move to a better world -- one where we move as one to address the man-made poverty and inequality that has left our brothers and sisters in Haiti so vulnerable to natural crises. There is not enough that we can do. But let's all do everything we can. With hope in the face of tragedy, Ben, Iain, Ricken, Alice, Sam, Milena, Paula, and the whole Avaaz team PS: To donate to support Haiti, click here: https://secure.avaaz.org/en/stand_with_haiti SOURCES Jubilee (debt campaigning group) information page on Haiti's debt: http://www.jubileeusa.org/jubilee-act/haiti-debt-cancellation-resolution/resources-on-haitis-debt.html "Cancel Haiti's Debt" - Foreign Policy blog http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/01/13/cancel_haitis_debt "Haiti: the land where children eat mud" - history of Haiti's debt from The Sunday Times, 17 May 2009 http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article6281614.ece ---- 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 "" on 2007-08-02 using the email address dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk. 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=2b7c8c2a98a8e68f564b27ee124e38a1&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). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ 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 Fri Jan 15 08:04:03 2010 From: dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk (robert searle) Date: Fri, 15 Jan 2010 15:04:03 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [GJM] Friedman on Binary Economics....! Message-ID: <734453.17996.qm@web27407.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> ? ? Friedman did not approve of wide capital ownership. When asked to examine binary economics (which uses central bank-issued interest-free loans (administered by the banking system) for the spreading of productive (and the associated consuming) capacity, on market principles, throughout the population), he called it ?Marx stood on its head?. ? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk Fri Jan 15 08:14:05 2010 From: dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk (robert searle) Date: Fri, 15 Jan 2010 15:14:05 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [GJM] Fw: [toeslist] review of Money and Liberation by Peter North Message-ID: <286943.78102.qm@web27408.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> --- On Fri, 15/1/10, ideasinc wrote: From: ideasinc Subject: [toeslist] review of Money and Liberation by Peter North To: "toeslist.yahoogroups.com" Date: Friday, 15 January, 2010, 6:39 ? Money and Liberation, by Peter North, review by Tadit Anderson Peter North is a senior research fellow and lecturer at the University of Liverpool England. His book Money and Liberation published in 2007 by the University of Minnesota Press is a serious consideration of community currencies and exchange in the context of economic and monetary reform. He frames the intent of his book as being "about groups of people who have joined together with the modest agenda of fundamentally challenging capitalism by creating and using new forms of money." He reviews the modern history of alternative monetary systems and then various initiatives from around the world. He also examines the interplay of an established discourse about econmic change happens and doesn't happen. This includes various economic and polical philosophies relative to the intent, function, and performance of alternative currencies. He treats these local initiatives as part of the ongoing discourse toward monetary and economic reform. In fact he approaches the topic in a more serious fashion than nearly all of the popular advocates of alternative monetary advocates. He also examines community currencies more seriously than has been applied by most monetary reform advocates and by those actively criticizing financialized Capitalism. His effort to place these initiatives in the context of a 200 year plus discourse about the democratization of economic institutions is possibly over generous, but that suggestion is probably more directed toward alternative economics advocates to take a wider and more historical view. In his final assessment of the potential for community currencies and exchanges he is clearedly reserved and favors an ongoing process of debate among utopians variously informed, Marxist economic critiques, and other institutional economists. When placed in the context of ill-informed and blunt force efforts this is a prudent analysis. What he does not include is coverage of various groups in different countries advocating for reform by way of legislation initiatives, which tend to be much more informed about related economics and the history of monetary ideas. the rest of the review can be found at http://economics. arawakcity. org/node/ 357 __._,_.___ 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 Switch to: Text-Only, Daily Digest ? Unsubscribe ? Terms of Use . __,_._,___ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rodney.shakespeare1 at btopenworld.com Fri Jan 15 08:22:24 2010 From: rodney.shakespeare1 at btopenworld.com (Rodney Shakespeare) Date: Fri, 15 Jan 2010 15:22:24 -0000 Subject: [GJM] Friedman on Binary Economics....! References: <734453.17996.qm@web27407.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <005601ca95f6$8a733560$4001a8c0@your447023ae6b> Robert, Friedman did say this. He had been completely beaten in argument by Louis Kelso who pointed out that a true market cannot exist without a wide distribution of productive capital. In order to hide the fact that he had been beaten, Friedman resorted to abuse (implicitly alleging communism). NB Most conventional economists hate binary economics precisely because it is a true market economics which insists on the widest possible ownership and directly challenges the usual lie (of mainstream economics) that it does not matter who owns productive capital. Rodney Shakespeare. ----- Original Message ----- From: robert searle To: discussion at globaljusticemovement.net Sent: Friday, January 15, 2010 3:04 PM Subject: [GJM] Friedman on Binary Economics....! Friedman did not approve of wide capital ownership. When asked to examine binary economics (which uses central bank-issued interest-free loans (administered by the banking system) for the spreading of productive (and the associated consuming) capacity, on market principles, throughout the population), he called it ?Marx stood on its head?. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ Discussion mailing list Discussion at globaljusticemovement.net http://globaljusticemovement.net/mailman/listinfo/discussion_globaljusticemovement.net -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From maryrose333 at att.net Wed Jan 13 17:21:54 2010 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Wed, 13 Jan 2010 16:21:54 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: [globalnetnews-summary] The 'Real Unemployment' Needs Real Solutions Message-ID: <003c01ca94af$c52b0900$4f811b00$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS When do people get it that employment is not coming back. That it now takes less than 30% of the worldwide labor force to produce all the goods and services necessary for the 6.7 billion of us on the planet today. And that as we move further into nanotechnology and bio-mimicry in order to conserve on ever-growing scarce resources, the need will keep dwindling as human hands are too large to handle the parts associated with it. The Industrial Age is over and most people today do not have the skills necessary to function in a high tech society having been trained to work on assembly lines. For a period of time the service sector was able to absorb the number of people being disenfranchised from the labor force, but this is no longer true. Back in the late 1990's for the first time in the history of the world, the human labor force became delinked from the markets as more money was made from passive investment than from labor. This continues to be true today which is why the administration continues to protect the Wall Street brokers at the expense of we-the-people. This is also a reason for maintaining a large military force, but even here, high tech weapons are displacing the need for humans. The solution is to have land reform whereby land is returned to the people so that subsistence farming can be conducted in order that the people who have been disenfranchised from their jobs can raise their own food. At the present time, with so many jobless and no land available upon which to subsist, the situation for millions is hopeless. And the practice today is to give a person a hand-out from some sort of charity and feed them for a day. This is a practice that must be stopped and people need to return to learning how to grow their own and feed themselves for life. This does not mean that there will not be some people who are working in high tech jobs building large ticket items such as transportation systems. There is also a need to mine the waste dumps in order to recover and recycle waste materials. But the people in these jobs will represent only a small portion of the presently available work force internationally as the developing countries move into high tech as well. In his book "The Road Ahead," Bill Gates predicted that developing countries such as Mexico would be able to move directly into high tech without going through the Industrial Age as has the U.S. due to advances in technology. And we are seeing this happening with amazing speed in both India and China. Recommended reading on this is: "End of Work" by Jeremy Rifkin, revised in 2003. -----Original Message----- From: globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net [mailto:globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net] On Behalf Of TradingPostPaul Sent: Wednesday, January 13, 2010 8:55 AM To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] The 'Real Unemployment' Needs Real Solutions The 'Real Unemployment' Needs Real Solutions Leo Hindery, Jr. Chairman of the Smart Globalization Initiative at the New America Foundation Posted: January 12, 2010 11:35 AM http://www.huffingtonpost.com/leo-hindery-jr/the-real-unemployment-nee_b_420 108.html "Everyone agrees that the recession is over," said Larry Summers, President Obama's top economic advisor, on December 13. Yet December's unemployment numbers announced last Friday suggest otherwise -- especially the 'real unemployment' figure. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics the official unemployment rate is 10%, a figure which itself caused a major headline to blare, "U.S. Job Losses Dim Hopes for Quick Upswing." But in fact real unemployment in the United States is stuck at a dismal 19%, a figure nearly twice the so-called official number. And the economy is short a staggering 22.4 million jobs in order to have an overall full unemployment rate of 5%, which is more than twice the 9 million figure the administration is using. These sharp contrasts arise because the BLS uses only survey data rather than much more accurate payroll data. It also excludes changes in employment among the nation's 11.2 million farm and self-employed workers, even though together they represent more than 7% of the civilian labor force. Most important, however, it does not take into account the 15.1 million workers who are either part-time-of-necessity because they can't find full-time work, marginally attached because they live on the very fringes of employment, or out of the labor force because they are discouraged and have given up looking. With these three adjustments made, the number of real workers in all four categories of unemployment -- BLS, part-time-of-necessity, marginally attached, and discouraged -- totals 30.4 million instead of BLS's single category figure of 15.3 million. And the number of real unemployed workers has increased by 13.6 million since the start of the recession instead of by BLS's figure of 8.4 million -- in contrast, we should have been creating a net 2.6 million new jobs just to keep up with the natural growth in the labor force of around 108,000 workers per month. Even the average full-time worker in the U.S. is now working the economic equivalent of only 33 hours per week, a record low number. And in further stark signs of the ongoing depths of this recession, unemployed workers are out of work an average of at least 29 weeks, and the real number of workers unemployed a half year or more is around 10 million. The economic recovery that Mr. Summers was trumpeting after the meager 2.2% September GDP growth numbers came out is in fact a "jobless recovery" -- one which already involves the largest absolute number of unemployed American workers ever, and one which may see another half million jobs lost before we really bottom out. And sadly, it will take years to recover both the 13 million jobs that have been lost in just the last two years plus the 9 million additional jobs we need to find in order to get back to real full employment. Using GDP growth alone is a very weak and misleading indicator of true economic vitality. The only measures that really matter are, initially, the "months before net job growth reemerges" and, ultimately, total employment itself. Once the health care reform bill is passed and signed by the president later this month, it is imperative that the Executive and the Congress focus their full attention on unemployment and on charting a clear path to finding those millions of missing jobs. In short order, they need to: * Throw their full weight behind an all-of-government, fully-empowered manufacturing and jobs policy that: puts U.S. workers, miners and farmers first; is as neomercantilist as the policies of our major trading partners; and results in a medium-term doubling of the 20 million American non-service workers and their contribution to our GDP. Right now, China has almost twice as many manufacturing employees -- 100 million -- as the United States, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Italy, Netherlands, Sweden, Taiwan and the UK have combined (55.4 million). * Adopt "Buy American" requirements related to federal government procurement, which currently makes up about 20% of the American economy. The U.S. is almost alone among the developed nations and China in not having a significant buy-domestic government procurement program, yet no single stimulus effort would do more to resuscitate U.S. employment, especially manufacturing employment, and materially reduce our nation's massive trade deficit. * Bring what's called a Section 301 case at USTR against China's "Indigenous Innovation Production Accreditation Program" that was promulgated on November 15, 2009. China's new Program, which limits all Chinese central and provincial government procurement to companies that have indigenous -- read: "Chinese" -- innovation, is far more restrictive than any other buy-domestic program in the world, and it significantly compounds China's already unfair discrimination against foreign commerce in general and with U.S. manufacturers in particular. (Because China is still not a member of the WTO Government Procurement Code, a Section 301 action is unfortunately the only remedy currently available.) * Mitigate, by whatever means available, China's currency manipulation -- which creates a staggering 25% illegal subsidy on Chinese exports -- and its other unfair trade practices and illegal subsidies. * Fund a 10-year program of significant public investment to upgrade and rebuild our nation's major infrastructure, which would immediately create 18,000 new jobs for each1 billion we spend. This program should include a new National Infrastructure Bank, incentives for private funding of public infrastructure, a multi-year green transportation program funded through an increase in gasoline taxes, and targeted federal government spending in improving energy efficiency. * Enact major new tax incentives to encourage businesses to invest in wind and solar energy technologies, state-of-the-art laboratories, and follow-on manufacturing plants and equipment. This effort should include 10% investment tax credits for renovating and modernizing manufacturing facilities, and particular attention needs to be paid to encouraging R&D in America that leads to jobs in America rather than overseas. * Reduce corporate income and payroll taxes and in return enact a value-added-tax, or VAT, of the sort which 152 countries in the world already have. This VAT is needed in order to quickly restore the essential tax-policy link between productivity growth and wage gains, and it would materially reduce our nation's crushing on-going trade deficit, while largely stop the offshoring of high-quality American jobs. Christine Lagarde, France's Minister for the Economy, recently answered the critical question of when we should declare the Great Recession of 2007 over by saying that while everyone has their own yardstick, hers is very simple: "Only when we have cut unemployment, can we say the crisis is finished." The 30 million Americans who are now effectively unemployed on Main Street and their neighbors know Ms. Lagarde is right, just as they know that the meager 2.2% growth in third quarter GDP -- which mostly came from resuscitating (and not even reforming) Wall Street -- doesn't mean that this recession is at all "over," as some in the administration would misleadingly have us believe. --- Leo Hindery, Jr. chairs the US Economy/Smart Globalization Initiative at the New America Foundation. He is the former chief executive of AT&T Broadband and other major media and telecom companies. From ceasig at gmail.com Wed Jan 13 20:45:33 2010 From: ceasig at gmail.com (Centre For Ecological Audit, Social Inclusion & Governance) Date: Thu, 14 Jan 2010 09:15:33 +0530 Subject: [GJM] The 2010 Political Time Bomb Is Unemployment - Trading Post Paul In-Reply-To: <7051643f1001131543w7f6ab6cepde9f43468e6ebc4f@mail.gmail.com> References: <005d01ca9240$81f79890$85e6c9b0$@net> <7051643f1001131543w7f6ab6cepde9f43468e6ebc4f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <31f677a31001131945p3cef42bcudf12b7f8108e173d@mail.gmail.com> retrofitting systems , a return to pre-industrial past, understanding what went wrong and what worked including the implications of faith based commons, I think is the need of the hour. Transforming ecologically hostile leisure http://ecostrategiccommunicators.ning.com and transforming ecologically hostile habitats should be the top priority. On Thu, Jan 14, 2010 at 5:13 AM, Janos Abel wrote: > *Another view. Open reply to John Nichols*. > > Unemployment is not a problem if the Employment Society gives way to an > increase in leisure without total loss of income. Do we want the purpose of > life to remain as "gainful employment"? > Reducing the need for human labour is the promise of the Post Industrial > Age. It is not a threat. > > The fact that many people will not know what to do with their freedom from > mind-limiting wage slavery is just an indication of how successfully the > employment society closed down peoples natural propensity to be creative > with their time when freed from toil. > > The creativity for some people will manifest as growing their own food. But > to imagine that all of us will find life blissful in a mainly agricultural > economy with billions growing their own food as response to being thrown out > of work with total loss of income, is asking for a very limiting > alternative. > > I will rather buy my food in the shops with an increasingly generous > Citizens Dividend generated by hi-tech processes driven by fully automatic > production systems, Nanotechnology and the other marvels of 21st century. > With Binary Economics as the modern economic paradigm all of us can own a > share of productive capital sufficient to earn an income that frees us to > follow our hearts desire. > > Some will want to cultivate their kitchen garden. Not me, though. > > > > 2010/1/10 mary rose > >> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS >> >> >> >> Thanks to Trading Post Paul for this one. >> >> >> >> It will not be until the government and corporations are ready to address >> the fact that the Industrial Age is over and we are rapidly moving into >> nanotechnology and bio-mimicry, which eliminates the need for human labor. >> Thus we need to adjust the monetary system accordingly so that we can bring >> an end to joblessness and aid people in learning how to create true wealth >> for themselves through self-realization. >> >> ... >> >> Mary Rose >> >> Transforming Our World with Mary Rose >> >> Future Dawning Enterprises >> >> www.futuredawning.org >> >> January 10, 2010 >> >> The 2010 Political Timebomb Is Unemployment by John Nichols on 01/09/2010 >> @ 09:51am >> >> American employers eliminated 4.2 million jobs in 2009 and sent >> unemployment soaring into double digits for the first time in more than a >> quarter century. Since the fall of last year, the official jobless rate has >> been over ten percent, while the unofficial rate (taking in the severely >> underemployed and those who have given up looking) has been over 17 percent. >> And, despite the ridiculous "green-shoots" speculation of the Obama >> administration and overblown "recovery" fantasies of the financial media >> that has blown every major economic story of recent years, the situation is >> getting worse. >> >> >> http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat/514394/the_2010_political_timebomb_is >> -unemployment >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> *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?* >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Discussion mailing list >> Discussion at globaljusticemovement.net >> >> http://globaljusticemovement.net/mailman/listinfo/discussion_globaljusticemovement.net >> >> > > _______________________________________________ > 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 Wed Jan 13 22:22:19 2010 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Wed, 13 Jan 2010 21:22:19 -0800 Subject: [GJM] Is this the end of food as we know it? Message-ID: <001d01ca94d9$bc73f310$355bd930$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS I feel people ignore this message at their own peril. Is this the end of food as we know it? A new film paints an apocalyptic picture of a world reduced to tinned goods. But could it ever happen here, asks Bee Wilson 7:00AM GMT 10 Jan 2010 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/6958025/Is-this-the-end-of-food-as-w e-know-it.html In Cormac McCarthy's The Road, (the film of which is out this weekend), the only food left is in cans. In a post-apocalyptic wasteland, a father and son scavenge for tinned goods. "Chili, corn, stew, soup, spaghetti sauce. The richness of a vanished world." Is this a vision of our not-too-distant future? Will we soon be stockpiling canned mandarin segments and clawing one another's eyes out for the last tin of powdered milk in Tesco? It's not a nice thought, but it's one that food campaigners have been begging us to face up to for some time now. In this uncertain world, we can no longer take our food supply for granted. For years, academics such as Tim Lang, Professor of Food Policy at City University, gave warning that we were "sleepwalking" into a future where our food security was likely to be seriously undermined, whether by natural disasters, rising fuel costs, climate change or the massive pressures placed on the global food system by a rising population. We shrugged it off, setting off in our cars for another wasteful trolley of ready-meals. In 2008, American pundit Paul Roberts published The End of Food. Roberts argued that the "bullet" attacking the world's food system could come from any number of sources: avian flu, "a sharp spike in the price of oil, a series of extreme weather conditions, an outbreak of some new plant disease". Any one of these, and we'll be scrabbling in the canned goods aisles. More than one at once, and there might be no canned good aisles left to scrabble in. In April 2008, when spiraling food prices led to riots around the globe, people in Haiti were reduced to eating mud cakes. 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 Jan 13 22:26:55 2010 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Wed, 13 Jan 2010 21:26:55 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: [globalnetnews-summary] NetNews Jan 13 2010 #2 Haiti Earthquake Message-ID: <002301ca94da$616634f0$24329ed0$@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, January 13, 2010 7:15 PM To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] NetNews Jan 13 2010 #2 Haiti Earthquake (To change your settings or unsubscribe please go to http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/globalnetnews-summary) Haiti Earthquake: Breaking News, Updates (VIDEO) First Posted: 01-13-10 10:24 AM | Updated: 01-13-10 07:14 PM Latest full updates, videos on the devastation http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/13/haiti-earthquake-breaking_n_421644. html Limbaugh: Obama Will Use Haiti To Boost Credibility With "Light-Skinned And Dark-Skinned Black Community" http://mediamatters.org/limbaughwire/2010/01/13#0047 Published Wed, Jan 13, 2010 8:11pm ET LIMBAUGH: Yes, I think in the Haiti earthquake, ladies and gentlemen -- in the words of Rahm Emanuel, we have another crisis simply too good to waste. This will play right into Obama's hands -- humanitarian, compassionate. They'll use this to burnish their -- shall we say -- credibility with the black community, in the both light-skinned and dark-skinned black community, in this country. It's made-to-order for 'em. That's why he couldn't wait to get out there. Could not wait to get out there. Pat Robertson: Haiti 'Cursed' By 'Pact To The Devil' (VIDEO) Updated: 01-13-10 03:14 PM http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/13/pat-robertson-haiti-curse_n_422099. html Televangelist Pat Robertson said Wednesday that earthquake-ravaged Haiti has been "cursed" by a "pact to the devil." "Something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it," he said on Christian Broadcasting Network's "The 700 Club." "They were under the heal of the French. You know, Napoleon the third, or whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, we will serve you if you will get us free from the French. True story. And so, the devil said, okay it's a deal." Robertson said that "ever since they have been cursed by one thing after the other" and he contrasted Haiti with its neighbor, the Dominican Republic. This email was sent to tradingpost at riseup.net 1/13/2010 1:49 PM Good Afternoon, The reports and images from Haiti of collapsed hospitals, crumbled homes, and men and women carrying their injured neighbors through the streets are truly heart-wrenching. As we learn more about the extent of the devastation, our thoughts and prayers are with the people of Haiti and Haitian Americans around our country who do not yet know the fate of their families and loved ones back home. I have directed my Administration to respond with a swift, coordinated and aggressive effort to save lives. The people of Haiti will have the full support of the United States Government in the urgent effort to rescue those trapped beneath the rubble and to deliver the humanitarian relief -- the food, water and medicine -- that Haitians will need in the coming days. This is also a time when we are reminded of the common humanity that we all share, and Americans have always responded to these situations with generosity of spirit. If you would like to support the urgent humanitarian effort in Haiti, I encourage you to visit our website where you can learn more about how to contribute: http://www.WhiteHouse.gov/HaitiEarthquake Americans trying to locate family members in Haiti are encouraged to contact the State Department at (888) 407-4747. We will continue to stand with the people of Haiti and keep them in our thoughts and prayers. Sincerely, Barack Obama U.S. Mobilizes to Help Haiti http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/14/world/americas/14prexy.html?ref=global-h ome Published: January 13, 2010 WASHINGTON ? President Obama, facing the first large-scale humanitarian crisis of his presidency, moved quickly to send help to Haiti, pledging Wednesday that the Haitians and their devastated island nation would have the ?unwavering support? of the United States. Within hours of Mr. Obama being informed of the quake in Haiti on Tuesday, United States officials were plotting a response that included ships, transport planes, helicopters and thousands of Marines. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton decided Wednesday night to cancel the rest of her Pacific trip and return to Washington. Gen. Douglas Fraser, head of the United States Southern Command, said that one of the Navy?s large amphibious ships would probably be sent to Haiti, with a Marine expeditionary unit aboard, and that other American military forces were on alert, including a brigade of 3,500 troops. He said the Pentagon was ?seriously looking? at sending thousands of Marines to help the disaster effort. The Navy aircraft carrier Carl Vinson was deployed from Norfolk, Va.; military commanders said it should arrive in two days. In addition, White House officials said the military was looking into sending the Southern Command?s hospital ship, the Comfort, in light of reports that most of Haiti?s medical facilities were severely damaged if not destroyed. The Coast Guard also dispatched four cutters. As the United States mobilized, other governments and aid agencies around the world began marshaling supplies and manpower and overwhelmed rescue workers in Haiti scrambled to set up makeshift clinics. Medical workers from Doctors Without Borders, which had 800 people in Haiti before the quake, said they were mobbed everywhere they went by people who had suffered severe traumas and crushed limbs, and by others begging for help in rescuing trapped relatives. France said that it would send three military transport planes, including one from nearby Fort-de-France, Martinique, with aid supplies, and that 100 troops based in the French West Indies would be sent, according to TF1, a French television network. Britain and Germany were sending governmental assessment teams, and Germany said it would make available 1.5 million euros, or about $2.2 million, for emergency assistance. On Wednesday, relief organizations developed aid plans from their headquarters outside of Haiti and quickly raised millions of dollars through social networking sites and donations by cellphone. But they were still struggling to get workers and supplies into Haiti, where operations at the capital?s port were shut down and runways at the main airport were open only to limited traffic because the control tower had collapsed. ?We?re looking at private charter options, looking at getting people through the Dominican Republic,? said Paul McPhun, a director of the emergency management team for Doctors Without Borders. ?We need to get people in, and get people fast. There?s not a shortage of getting people to go, but it?s how to get them there.? Mr. Obama did not make a specific aid pledge, and administration officials said they were still trying to figure out what Haiti needed. But he urged Americans to dig into their pockets and to go to www.whitehouse.gov to learn ways to donate money. ?This is a time when we are reminded of the common humanity that we all share,? Mr. Obama said Wednesday, speaking in the White House diplomatic reception room with Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. at his side. He described the reports of thousands buried under the rubble in the capital, Port-au-Prince, as ?truly heart-wrenching,? a tragedy made more cruel by Haiti?s desperate poverty. Robyn Fieser, the regional information officer for Catholic Relief Services, said, ?All they heard last night was chanting and praying,? describing reports from some of her organization?s relief workers who were in Port-au-Prince on Tuesday night. ?They did not hear any emergency vehicles or emergency efforts at all. All they saw was people doing rescue work on their own, with their bare hands.? White House officials were clearly conscious that Mr. Obama?s response to the first major humanitarian disaster of his presidency would be closely watched. President George W. Bush learned that lesson the hard way, when his initial response to the December 2004 tsunami in Asia that killed 226,000 people was derided as paltry, and a year after that when his White House fumbled its response to Hurricane Katrina. Mr. Obama canceled a trip to Lanham, Md., scheduled for Wednesday afternoon so he could make telephone calls to discuss the relief effort with staff members and foreign diplomats, White House aides said. Mr. Obama was informed about the quake at 5:52 p.m. Tuesday by Denis McDonough, his national security chief of staff; he told aides that he wanted the United States to move ?fast and aggressively,? one White House official said. By 6:22 p.m. the White House had issued a statement from the president that the United States was ?closely monitoring the situation? and stood ?ready to assist the people of Haiti.? The Coast Guard cutter Forward was at the Guant?namo Bay naval base in Cuba when the earthquake hit on Tuesday, causing the 270-foot ship to rock back and forth even though it was more than 200 miles from the epicenter. The Forward arrived in Port-au-Prince early Wednesday morning, the first American military ship on the scene and the only large vessel in the harbor, Diane W. Durham, commander of the Forward, said in a telephone interview. Commander Durham described extraordinary devastation, with collapsed buildings reaching from the port into the hills above, and said that Haitian officials had told her that half of the 80 Haitian coast guard staff members stationed at the port were killed in the earthquake. The Department of Homeland Security said it was halting the deportations of Haitians back to the island ?for the time being.? Refugee and immigration rights groups said the United States should grant temporary protective status that would allow Haitians who are now in the United States to stay here. Nations rush to help in quake's aftermath Wednesday, January 13, 2010 http://www.washingtonpost.com/ 'Thousands dead' in Haiti quake last updated at 23:30 GMT, Wednesday, 13 January 2010 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8456819.stm From maryrose333 at att.net Wed Jan 13 22:30:02 2010 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Wed, 13 Jan 2010 21:30:02 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: Stand with Haiti Message-ID: <002401ca94da$ce887070$6b995150$@net> From: Luis Morago - Avaaz.org [mailto:avaaz at avaaz.org] Sent: Wednesday, January 13, 2010 5:56 PM To: maryrose333 at att.net Subject: Stand with Haiti Dear friends, Haiti's worst earthquake in 200 years struck yesterday, devastating the capital city, killing thousands and threatening over 3 million people in this desperately poor country. Haitians are urgently appealing to the world for help -- we?re already in touch with strong local organisations mobilising community-based relief efforts. Let?s send a worldwide wave of donations to the front lines, to save lives now and help people recover and rebuild. Avaaz will work partners to make sure the help reaches those who need it most. Click below to donate: https://secure.avaaz.org/en/stand_with_haiti Based on expert advice from leading humanitarian NGOs who have been working in Haiti for over 30 years, we'll offer donations to trusted local organizations, including: 1. Honor and Respect for Bel Air, a big community-based network in Haiti?s capital Port-au-Prince, which is also supported by our friends at the respected Brazilian NGO Viva Rio 2. Coordination R?gionale des Organisations de Sud-Est (CROSE), which brings together some of the most active community groups in the South of Haiti where the earthquake struck hardest. These groups include: women's groups, schools networks and local cooperatives In 2008, Avaaz members donated over $2 million for Burmese monks to respond to the devastating Cyclone Nargis. Our money made an incredible difference there -- because it went directly to local people on the front lines of the aid effort. Times of painful tragedy can bring out the best in us by bringing people together. Let's join with the people of Haiti to help them rescue their communities from this brutal disaster -- act now at this link: https://secure.avaaz.org/en/stand_with_haiti With hope for Haiti, Luis, Paul, Graziela, Paula, Ricken, Pascal, Alice, Benjamin, Milena and the whole Avaaz team More information: Haiti devastated by massive earthquake (BBC): http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8455629.stm Thousands feared dead as major quake strikes Haiti (Reuters): http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUK126337392643._CH_.2420 Deadly earthquake hits Haiti (Reuters pictures): http://www.reuters.com/news/pictures/slideshow?articleId=USRTR28T0W#a=7 ------------------------------ 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 Thu Jan 14 10:35:08 2010 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Thu, 14 Jan 2010 09:35:08 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: [SPAM]Mexican Fisherman Meets Harvard MBA: A Rich Reminder of What Really Matters in Life Message-ID: <004301ca9540$2009f710$601de530$@net> From: PEERS: WantToKnow.info Email List [mailto:emaillist at peerservice.org] Sent: Thursday, January 14, 2010 7:01 AM To: maryrose333 at att.net Subject: [SPAM]Mexican Fisherman Meets Harvard MBA: A Rich Reminder of What Really Matters in Life 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/051230whatmattersinlife Bookmark and Share A vacationing American businessman standing on the pier of a quaint coastal fishing village in southern Mexico watched as a small boat with just one young Mexican fisherman pulled into the dock. Inside the small boat were several large yellowfin tuna. Enjoying the warmth of the early afternoon sun, the American complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish. "How long did it take you to catch them?" the American casually asked. "Oh, a few hours," the Mexican fisherman replied. "Why don't you stay out longer and catch more fish?" the American businessman then asked. The Mexican warmly replied, "With this I have more than enough to support my family's needs." The businessman then became serious, "But what do you do with the rest of your time?" Responding with a smile, the Mexican fisherman answered, "I sleep late, play with my children, watch ballgames, and take siesta with my wife. Sometimes in the evenings I take a stroll into the village to see my friends, play the guitar, sing a few songs..." The American businessman impatiently interrupted, "Look, I have an MBA from Harvard, and I can help you to be more profitable. You can start by fishing several hours longer every day. You can then sell the extra fish you catch. With the extra money, you can buy a bigger boat. With the additional income that larger boat will bring, before long you can buy a second boat, then a third one, and so on, until you have an entire fleet of fishing boats." Proud of his own sharp thinking, he excitedly elaborated a grand scheme which could bring even bigger profits, "Then, instead of selling your catch to a middleman you'll be able to sell your fish directly to the processor, or even open your own cannery. Eventually, you could control the product, processing and distribution. You could leave this tiny coastal village and move to Mexico City, or possibly even Los Angeles or New York City, where you could even further expand your enterprise." Having never thought of such things, the Mexican fisherman asked, "But how long will all this take?" After a rapid mental calculation, the Harvard MBA pronounced, "Probably about 15-20 years, maybe less if you work really hard." "And then what, se?or?" asked the fisherman. "Why, that's the best part!" answered the businessman with a laugh. "When the time is right, you would sell your company stock to the public and become very rich. You would make millions." "Millions? Really? What would I do with it all?" asked the young fisherman in disbelief. The businessman boasted, "Then you could happily retire with all the money you've made. You could move to a quaint coastal fishing village where you could sleep late, play with your grandchildren, watch ballgames, and take siesta with your wife. You could stroll to the village in the evenings where you could play the guitar and sing with your friends all you want." The moral of the story is: Know what really matters in life, and you may find that it is already much closer than you think. 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URL: From maryrose333 at att.net Thu Jan 14 11:49:52 2010 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Thu, 14 Jan 2010 10:49:52 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: The Copenhagen Accord: how COP15 became a COPout - Dave Ewoldt Message-ID: <005901ca954a$8f830f50$ae892df0$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS Thanks to Dave Ewoldt over in Tuscon, AZ for the following. Good job, Dave - what you are doing in your community is much appreciated by all. With love and hugs -- mary rose -----Original Message----- From: Dave Ewoldt [mailto:dave at reststop.net] Sent: Thursday, January 14, 2010 9:37 AM To: Daves Posts Subject: The Copenhagen Accord: how COP15 became a COPout The following article started out as a talk I was asked to give to the community issues program at Trinity Presbyterian Church in Tucson as a follow-up to the talk I gave in October for the 350.org Global Day of Climate Action. The Copenhagen Accord: how COP15 became a COPout by Dave Ewoldt January, 2010 http://naturalsystems.blogspot.com/2010/01/copenhagen-accord-how-cop15- became.html The conclusion of the December 2009 Copenhagen climate talks--known as COP15 for the 15th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change--is perhaps best summarized by the headline in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. "President Obama salvaged a nonbinding agreement that sets neither a target for cutting emissions nor a deadline for one." It is quite telling that what emerged as the Copenhagen Accords is seen as a meaningful deal by mainstream environmental organizations such as the League of Conservation Voters. Global warming is seen as little more than an impetus for what is being called clean energy reform, which is the continuation of economic growth powered by just about anything other than fossil fuels. So-called "clean" coal, nukes, and a handful of other techno fantasies that totally ignore the larger system they would have to exist within. Pretty much the entire two weeks in Copenhagen became an ongoing argument over the economics of how to best profit from cap and trade and carbon offsets. Stella Semino from Grupo de Reflexion Rural (Argentina) stated: "If these new proposals are agreed upon we will see a massive boost for crop and tree plantations alike which, in the name of `climate change mitigation', will speed up the destruction of forests and other vital ecosystems, the spread of industrial agriculture, and land- grabbing against small-farmers, indigenous peoples and forest communities. Industrial monocultures are already a major cause of climate change and their expansion will make it worse." The Copenhagen Accord (hammered out WTO style in a back room between six countries, the US, Brazil, South Africa, India, China and Japan) stipulates that global warming must not exceed two degrees centigrade, but with no mechanisms or even guidelines as to how this might be achieved, nor does it set any actual CO2 or other GHG targets, goals, or timelines. An early analysis of the non-binding pledges that were offered showed they would lead to about a 3 degree C temperature rise, which would spell the end of the Amazon rainforests. While the Accord does state that overdeveloped nations should financially help those nations still trying to catch up to the levels of overconsumption, pollution, and general exploitation of life exhibited by the Global North (although not in those exact words), it provides no guidelines as to how this should be accomplished either. So, the COP15 managed to come up with a COPout. Is anyone really surprised? The rhetoric in Copenhagen was all so phenomenally childish. The major posturing boiled down to, "I'm not going to do it unless so and so does it first. After all, we might lose a percent or two of market share." Never mind that there will be no markets on a dead planet. The final deal in Copenhagen came down to the world's largest polluters agreeing, in the analysis of Naomi Kline, to pretend that the other was doing something about global warming if the favor is reciprocated. But even that is non-binding. And poorer nations are forced to sign on the dotted line if they want any funds to help them adapt to a problem they haven't contributed to but which is affecting them the worst. It's instructive to look at the recent historical record of global warming mitigation. Before the Kyoto Protocol, global emissions were increasing at 1.5%/yr. After Kyoto the rate of emissions increased to 3%/yr. Some countries, such as Japan, bought off their increases by investing in offsets. Some European countries decreased their national emissions by moving production and pollution to developing countries. Products were then flown back to Europe, because the fuel isn't taxed, and the even greater impact on global warming by aircraft emissions is ignored. What we should do is leave the remaining fossil fuels in the ground. Barring common sense, climate scientist James Hansen says that fossil fuels should be simply taxed at the point of origin, either at the wellhead or mine, or at the port of entry. No exceptions, no exemptions, no loopholes. The strategy Hansen and many economists argue for is known as fee and dividend (harder to game and almost immune to speculation) and is being advanced as an alternative to cap and trade (which is basically privatization of the atmosphere). When you take the total amount of coal, oil, and natural gas used in the US, and put a price of $115/ton on carbon, fee and dividend would generate $670 billion dollars, which is about $7,500 to $9,000 dollars per family. This could then be used for energy retrofits, efficiency improvements, and buying locally grown food when it becomes too expensive to fly it half way around the world. This would all help families adjust their lifestyles to a lower carbon footprint. Most importantly, we must accept that the target of 350 ppm of atmospheric CO2 as the absolute safe upper limit must become the mantra for policy decisions. This is as much a moral position as it is a scientific one. Catastrophic climate destabilization is not an issue that can be compromised on. We can't say we're just going to do a little bit, but we're not going to solve the problem. Our one and only life support system is in a very real danger of passing some tipping points. Whether or not the current cycle of global warming is human caused or not (and there's really very little disagreement among reputable climate scientists that it is) at the very least it is extremely aggravated by human actions. Perhaps the most difficult realization behind 350 is that the concept of growth in the economic and material realms must be forever cast aside. It's the first step in the realization that for true sustainability to occur we actually need to be heading back toward pre-industrial levels of about 250-275 ppm. And with a sustainable human population size, zero waste clean technologies, and shifting our production focus to quality instead of quantity this _is_ an achievable goal without donning hair shirts and moving back to the cave. The only real uncertainty is the time frame as we can't know which tipping points will be surpassed due to the carbon loading and ecosystem inertia from the 30 year time lag between greenhouse gas emission and biospheric effect. The climate effects currently occurring (with less than 1 degree C warming) are a response to the GHG emissions from 30 years ago, and we've done nothing but continuously increase those emissions over the past thirty years. In some cases we've slowed the rate of increase, but in no cases, despite the evidence of the urgency for doing so, have emissions gone negative. So, there's our current challenge, and how our current crop of leaders are responding to it. In order to meet what is perhaps the greatest ethical, moral, and spiritual challenge of our times (because it's not a question of technology as much as its equitable distribution), I'd suggest that it's time to start making different choices. For the Earth... _dave_(this entire message is composed of recycled electrons) Natural Systems Solutions http://www.attractionretreat.org http://naturalsystems.blogspot.com Sustainable lifestyles, organizations, and communities From maryrose333 at att.net Thu Jan 14 12:38:11 2010 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Thu, 14 Jan 2010 11:38:11 -0800 Subject: [GJM] URGENT MUST READ: State of the World 2010: From Madison Avenue to Mad Max? Message-ID: <007201ca9551$517f7e80$f47e7b80$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS As I have written previously, by the Year 2030 it is going to take the equivalent of one more earth to supply the amount of resources necessary to provide earthlings with the equivalent of what we are using today per person. As we all know, this is impossible. And the current statistic indicates that we are already "ecologically bankrupt" in addition to being "economically bankrupt." So, we best be getting it pretty damn quick that the till is empty. The Earth is not set up like your bank account where you can "overdraw," then pay a fee and make a later deposit. As Paul Hawken says: "Money cannot buy life." So, we need to get these Community Learning and Information/Wellness Centers going, folks so that the information on how to accomplish transformation is available to everyone. We cannot leave anyone behind. And Future Dawning is setting up to enable and empower people in accomplishing this in coordination with other enterprises around the world. With love and appreciation, Mary Rose State of the World 2010: From Madison Avenue to Mad Max? http://www.worldwatch.org/node/6359 January 12, 2010 Washington, D.C.-Without an intentional cultural shift that values sustainability over consumerism, no government pledges or technological advances will be enough to rescue humanity from unacceptably hazardous environmental and climate risks, concludes the Worldwatch Institute in the latest edition of its flagship annual report, State of the World 2010. The book, subtitled Transforming Cultures: From Consumerism to Sustainability, defines "consumerism" as a cultural orientation that leads people to find meaning, contentment, and acceptance primarily through what they consume. "We've seen some encouraging efforts to combat the world's climate crisis in the past few years," says project director Erik Assadourian. "But making policy and technology changes while keeping cultures centered on consumerism and growth can only go so far. To thrive long into the future, human societies will need to shift their cultures so that sustainability becomes the norm and excessive consumption becomes taboo." In 2006, people consumed $30.5 trillion worth of goods and services, up 28 percent from just 10 years earlier. This rise in consumption has resulted in a dramatic increase in resource extraction; the world digs up the equivalent of 112 Empire State Buildings worth of materials each day, with the typical American consuming an average of 88 kilograms (194 pounds) of stuff daily-more than most Americans weigh. If the whole world lived like this, Earth could sustain only 1.4 billion people, or just a fifth of the current population, the report notes. "Cultural patterns are the root cause of an unprecedented convergence of ecological and social problems, including a changing climate, an obesity epidemic, a major decline in biodiversity, loss of agricultural land, and production of hazardous waste," says Assadourian. Government has also promoted consumerism as a lynchpin of policy, often making it synonymous with national well-being and job creation. As the global economic recession accelerated in 2009, wealthy countries primed national economies with $2.8 trillion of new government stimulus packages, only a small percentage of which focused on green initiatives. In 26 articles and 23 short text boxes, the report details dozens of innovative efforts that are tapping these key institutions, from changing business cultures and starting social enterprises to cultivating social marketing efforts, shifting family-planning norms, and tapping the power of primary schools, universities, and even school menus. Your Logo, Inc. FutureDawning.org Mary Rose, www.futuredawning.org CEO and Founder - Agent for social transformation Future Dawning.org dustysummerrose at gmail.com Always have my latest info Want a signature like this? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/gif Size: 177 bytes Desc: not available URL: From maryrose333 at att.net Thu Jan 14 12:55:32 2010 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Thu, 14 Jan 2010 11:55:32 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: [globalnetnews-summary] Our Role in Haiti's Plight Message-ID: <007d01ca9553$b7c3ff20$274bfd60$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS "This poverty is the direct legacy of perhaps the most brutal system of colonial exploitation in world history, compounded by decades of systematic postcolonial oppression." Mary Rose: What are we going to do about this? This is like the snake biting its own tail because this is what is happening in every country around the world -- it is only a matter of time. As the old expression goes: "what goes around comes around". Capitalization cannot survive without continual growth and in order to grow it must devour everything in its path -- colonialization is only another word for globalization with both being powered by the greed engendered by capitalism. We must transform our social systems so they become life-enhancing -- we cannot continue down the "death-defining" path we are currently embarked on. -----Original Message----- From: globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net [mailto:globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net] On Behalf Of TradingPostPaul Sent: Thursday, January 14, 2010 10:53 AM To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] Our Role in Haiti's Plight "This poverty is the direct legacy of perhaps the most brutal system of colonial exploitation in world history, compounded by decades of systematic postcolonial oppression." Our Role in Haiti's Plight If we are serious about assisting this devastated land we must stop trying to control and exploit it Published on Thursday, January 14, 2010 by Peter Hallward http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jan/13/our-role-in-haitis-pligh t Any large city in the world would have suffered extensive damage from an earthquake on the scale of the one that ravaged Haiti's capital city on Tuesday afternoon, but it's no accident that so much of Port-au-Prince now looks like a war zone. Much of the devastation wreaked by this latest and most calamitous disaster to befall Haiti is best understood as another thoroughly manmade outcome of a long and ugly historical sequence. The country has faced more than its fair share of catastrophes. Hundreds died in Port-au-Prince in an earthquake back in June 1770, and the huge earthquake of 7 May 1842 may have killed 10,000 in the northern city of Cap ?Haitien alone. Hurricanes batter the island on a regular basis, mostly recently in 2004 and again in 2008; the storms of September 2008 flooded the town of Gona?ves and swept away much of its flimsy infrastructure, killing more than a thousand people and destroying many thousands of homes. The full scale of the destruction resulting from this earthquake may not become clear for several weeks. Even minimal repairs will take years to complete, and the long-term impact is incalculable. What is already all too clear, ?however, is the fact that this impact will be the result of an even longer-term history of deliberate impoverishment and disempowerment. Haiti is routinely described as the "poorest country in the western hemisphere". This poverty is the direct legacy of perhaps the most brutal system of colonial exploitation in world history, compounded by decades of systematic postcolonial oppression. The noble "international community" which is currently scrambling to send its "humanitarian aid" to Haiti is largely responsible for the extent of the suffering it now aims to reduce. Ever since the US invaded and occupied the country in 1915, every serious political attempt to allow Haiti's people to move (in former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide's phrase) "from absolute misery to a dignified poverty" has been violently and deliberately blocked by the US government and some of its allies. Aristide's own government (elected by some 75% of the electorate) was the latest victim of such interference, when it was overthrown by an internationally sponsored coup in 2004 that killed several thousand people and left much of the population smouldering in resentment. The UN has subsequently maintained a large and enormously expensive stabilisation and pacification force in the country. Haiti is now a country where, according to the best available study, around 75% of the population "lives on less than $2 per day, and 56% - four and a half million people - live on less than $1 per day". Decades of neoliberal "adjustment" and neo-imperial intervention have robbed its government of any significant capacity to invest in its people or to regulate its economy. Punitive international trade and financial arrangements ensure that such destitution and impotence will remain a structural fact of Haitian life for the foreseeable future. It is this poverty and powerlessness that account for the full scale of the horror in Port-au-Prince today. Since the late 1970s, relentless neoliberal assault on Haiti's agrarian economy has forced tens of thousands of small farmers into overcrowded urban slums. Although there are no reliable statistics, hundreds of thousands of Port-au-Prince residents now live in desperately sub-standard informal housing, often perched precariously on the side of deforested ravines. The selection of the people living in such places and conditions is itself no more "natural" or accidental than the extent of the injuries they have suffered. As Brian Concannon, the director of the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti, points out: "Those people got there because they or their parents were intentionally pushed out of the countryside by aid and trade policies specifically designed to create a large captive and therefore exploitable labour force in the cities; by definition they are people who would not be able to afford to build earthquake resistant houses." Meanwhile the city's basic infrastructure - running water, electricity, roads, etc - remains woefully inadequate, often non-existent. The government's ability to mobilise any sort of disaster relief is next to nil. The international community has been effectively ruling Haiti since the 2004 coup. The same countries scrambling to send emergency help to Haiti now, however, have during the last five years consistently voted against any extension of the UN mission's mandate beyond its immediate military purpose. Proposals to divert some of this "investment" towards poverty reduction or agrarian development have been blocked, in keeping with the long-term patterns that continue to shape the ?distribution of international "aid". The same storms that killed so many in 2008 hit Cuba just as hard but killed only four people. Cuba has escaped the worst effects of neoliberal "reform", and its government retains a capacity to defend its people from disaster. If we are serious about helping Haiti through this latest crisis then we should take this comparative point on board. Along with sending emergency relief, we should ask what we can do to facilitate the self-empowerment of Haiti's people and public institutions. If we are serious about helping we need to stop ?trying to control Haiti's government, to pacify its citizens, and to exploit its economy. And then we need to start paying for at least some of the damage we've already done. From maryrose333 at att.net Thu Jan 14 13:56:50 2010 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Thu, 14 Jan 2010 12:56:50 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: please help save Dolphins in Denmark Message-ID: <009301ca955c$4ef3c990$ecdb5cb0$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS OK everyone, let?s keep this going. M. R. Thanks Lorin. From: Lorin Kiely [mailto:topdownyoga at gmail.com] Sent: Thursday, January 14, 2010 9:47 AM Subject: please help save Dolphins in Denmark This is heart breaking, that so-called "civilized" human beings could do such a thing enmasse, as some kind of entertainment or right of passage is so sad. Please keep list going around the world....hit forward and add your name to the bottom of the list before you send it on! Just sign and send on, this is serious. Denmark! The sea is stained in red and in the mean while it's not because of the climate effects of nature. It's because of the cruelty that the human beings (civilized human) kill hundreds of the famous and intelligent Calderon dolphins. This happens every year in Feroe Iland in Denmark . In this slaughter the main participants are young teens. WHY? A celebration, to show that they are adults and mature! In this big celebration, nothing is missing for the fun. Everyone is participating in one way or the other, killing or looking at the cruelty "supporting like a spectator" Is it necessary to mention that the dolphin calderon, like all the other species of dolphins, it's near extinction and they get near men to play and interact. In a way of PURE friendship They don't die instantly; they are cut 1, 2 or 3 times with thick hooks. And at that time the dolphins produce a grim cry like that of a new born child. But he suffers and there's no compassion while this magnificent creature slowly dies in its own blood Its enough! We will send this mail until this email arrives in any association defending the animals, we won't only read. That would make us accomplices, viewers. Take care of the world, it is your home! Assine contra essa crueldade: Sign Against this cruelty: 1.- Ana kARINA Rivas (m) Mexico DF 2.- Carlos Enrique Bulle-Goyri. DF 3.- Alejandra Nabarro ( Mexico Cuernavaca ) 4.- Esteban criz mejia. Mexico DF 5.-ANDREA GONZALEZ ALVAREZ ( MEXICO ) 6.-Gonz?lez Alvarez Victor Rodrigo 7.-Ines Garcia Perez (M?xico) 8.-Stella Morales (M?xico) 9.-lgarcia (M?xico) 10.-Leticia Cu?llar (M?xico) 11.-Salma Urbina Aguilar (Quintana Roo, M?xico) 12.-DIANA LUCELLY POOT PUC (quintana roo, mexico ) 13.-Josue Acero Gonzalez ( Quintana Roo , Mexico ) 14.-Micaela Medina ( Argentina ) 15.-sofia bidondo( Argentina ) 16.- Ma. Marta Soruco ( Argentina ) 17.- Cyntia Mariela Roitman ( Argentina ) 18.-Aldana Mart?nez ( Argentina ) 19.- Adriana Salomon ( Argentina ) 20.-fernando valussi( argentina ) 21.-MARIANELA SANCHEZ( ARGENTINA ) 22.- Leyes Alberto Fabian ( Argentina ).- 23.- Augusto Patricio Mateos ( Argentina - Chaco ) 24.- Maria Alejandra Bury ( Argentina - Chaco ) 25.- Claudio Alexis Agnesio ( Argentina - Chaco ) 26.- Cesar Abel Falcon(Argentina-Chaco) 27-MARIANA GOMEZ MARTINEZ 28-SILVIA CLAUDIA GIMENEZ 29-NELIDA BEATRIZ MARTINEZ 30-MARIA ESTHER URSU 31- NATHIA JUDKEVICH ( Argentina ) 32-MARINA JUDKEVICH ( Argentina ) 33-MARIANA JUDKEVICH (Aregentina) 34- Bogado Espinoza, Lorena Abi ( Argentina ) 35- Ortiz, Natalia Muriel ( Argentina ) 36- Marcelo Rodrigues de Rezende (Sorocaba-Brasil) 37- Thais Chenchi Santana (Sorocaba-Brasil) 38- Lilian Yoshie Kato ( Sorocaba - Brasil) 39 - DIOGO CRISTO ( Sorocaba - Pindorama - Gaya ) 40 - DANILO GOMES ( Sorocaba - Cidade de Mentiras) 41- Tiago Holtz Guerreiro (Sorocaba- Brasil) 42 - Laura Nunes Garcia Vieira ( Sorocaba - Brasil) 43 - Anderson Schmitt Junkes (Jandira - Brasil) 44 - Eronides Santos Filho (Jandira - Brasil) 45 - Suzana Lopes Ribeiro ( Jandira - Brasil ) 46 - Paulo Henrique Ferreira (Cotia/SP Brasil) 47 - Andr? Luiz da Fonseca Roberto ( Carapicuiba/ Brasil ) 48 - Jean Paulo Camargo Costa (CARAPICUIBA/ BRASIL) 49 - Rodrigo de Jesus Ferreira (Jandira - Brasil) 50- B?rbara Tabain Seslija de S? (Jandira - SP - Brasil) 51 - Ana paula Morina Ferreira (Barueri - SP - Brasil) 52-B?rbara Louise (S?o Paulo-SP-Brasil) 53-Diego Lima (Carapicu?ba-SP-Brasil) 54 - Wanda leila de Oliveira marra ( Osasco - SP -Brasil ) 55 - Joilva Duarte (Osasco-Brasil) 56 - Patricia M. Dias ( S?o Paulo - Brasil) 57- Eduardo M. Dias ( S?o Paulo - Brasil) 58 - Wagner R. Franco (S?o Paulo - Brasil) 59- Ruth Cristina Serafim (S?o Paulo - Brasil) 60- Thiago Silva (S?o Paulo - Brasil) 61 - Cristiano S. de Moraes (Rio de Janeiro - Brasil) 62 - Kelly Lopes Dias (S?o Paulo - Brasil) 63 - F?bio Ferreira / S?o Paulo - Brasil 64- F?bio Araujo / S?o paulo - Brasil 65- Marcia Stevaux/ S?o Paulo - Brasil 66 - D?bora Gisele Ferraz - Brasil 67- Andrea Alexandre de Carvalho 68 - Adilson dos Santos Pinto (Cruzeiro SP) 69 - Francisco ReZende (Lorena-SP) 70- Mislane Souza Prates( S?o Paulo-Brasil) 71 - Janderson Dutra (Rio de Janeiro-RJ - Brasil) 72 - CEC?LIA SANTOS (S?O PAULO) - BRASIL 73- K?TIA I. SANTOS ( S?O PAULO ) - BRASIL 74- Maria L Lima - (Rol?ndia - Brasil) 75 - Marilise G.Z. Solle (Rol?ndia-Brasil) 76- Luis Fernando Silva de Almeida (Rol?ndia Pr- Brasil) 77- Adriana Amaral de Souza (Rol?ndia Pr - Brasil) 78 - Carlos Alberto Ferreira do Amaral (Rol?ndia PR - Brasil) 79 - Lilian Carla de Souza Gonzalez ( Londrina - Pr. - Brasil) 80 - Ailton Valdivino da Silva - (Uberl?ndia - MG - Brasil) 81 - Heliza Piosiadlo (Uberl?ndia - MG - Brasil 82 - Patr?cia Cordeiro ( Joa?aba-SC-Brasil) 83 - Danielle Argenton (Herval D' Oeste - SC - Brasil) 84 - Valdirene Soares ( Joa?aba - SC - BRASIL ) 85 - Luiz S?rgio Bell? - Joa?aba SC Brasil 86- Eduardo Wieser -SC- Brasil 87- Julio Pancera ( Navegantes , SC - Brasil) 88- Fredi Goede ( Pomerode , SC Brasil) 89 - Mario L.Fanton 90 - Val?rio Littig ( Curitiba - Brasil ) 100-cassia cavalheiro 101 - Paulo Terumitsu Ishii [ Curitiba - Paran? - Brasil] 102- Caroline Niro ( Curitiba - Paran? - Brasil 103-Alexandre Batista(Londres-Inlaterra) 104-udson bergues de almeida 105 - In?s Calazans, Alemanha 106 - Anabela Martins - Portugal 107 - Luisa Sequeira - Silves / PORTUGAL 108 - Alzira Rodrigues - Silves / Portugal 109 - Cremilde Ribeiro - A. de P?ra / Portugal 110 - Augusto Miguens - Elvas / Portugal 111 - Nat?lia miguens - Elvas / Portugal 112 - Manuela Santos - Carcavelos / Portugal 113 - Carla Santos - Oeiras / Portugal 114 - Maria Carlos Barreto de Carvalho - Carcavelos / Portugal 115 - Eliete Mendes - Lisboa / Portugal 116 - Concei??o Oliveira - Lisboa / Portugal 117 - Mariana Domingues - Portugal 118 - Joana Murtinha - Portugal 119 - Filipa Almeida - Portugal 120 - Iolanda Fontes - South Africa 121 - Kalen Viljoen - South Africa 122 - Wendy Golding - South Africa 123 - Inge Strugnell - Botswana 124 - Philippa Lee - Botswana 125 - Ilse Swart 126 - Miche de beer 127 - Celeste Smit 128 - Jeneane Fourie 129. Stefnie de Beer (SA) Human beings ? How can we call ourselves that ! 130 Corn? van Staden 131 Anna-Mari? van Staden 132. Sheralee Scott ( South Africa ) 133 Bev Hindmarch ( South Africa ) 134. Ian Pardy (SA) 135. Dominic Porter (SA) 136. Carl Bennett (SA) Sick Bastards!! 137 Dieter Rossler South Africa uncivilised idiots 138. Vigie Naidoo, Johannesburg South Africa (how far western man??) 139. Rodney Reddy S.A. --- lily-livered, sure they'l never dare try this with some tiger or bull sharks 140. Mira Naidoo, Johannesburg South Africa (shameful specimens called humans) 141. Rocco Steffannelli, Bari Italy (senseless killing) 142. Christian Hoffer, Mank Austria (Neanderthals!)? 143. Sarah Caine (SA) 144. Lorraine Caine (SA) 145. Elaine Caine (Sa) 146. Lorraine Isaac (SA) 147. Ronnie Isaac(SA) 148. Angelique Mason(SA) 149. Alysha Isaac (SA) 150. Mary Joe Emde (SA) 151. Nalisha Gangadien SA) 152. Charlene Gangadien (SA) 153. Cordelia Soobramoney 154. Nicholas Soobramoney 155. Gabriela Pillay 156. Sarah Pillay 157. Jaeden Chetty 158. Sam Chetty 159. Dean Prinsloo 160. Nicole Pillay 161. Janine Geldenhys 162. Noeleen Pillay 163. Vigie Naidoo, Johannesburg South Africa (Nordic barbarism!! - Climate Change?- go figure?) 164. Colette Boyd 165. Tanya Scheffel 166. Rob Armstrong 167. Megan Adriaanzen - Jhb S.A. This is the most appallingly, disgusting thing I have ever seen!!! 168. Gareth Adriaanzen 169. Aldorette Swanepoel 170. Steve Maree - Durban , South Africa 171. Karen Robjant - and they are supposed to come from a civilised country - very sick people 172 Gerhard Janse van Rensburg - Durban South Africa 173 Keagen Janse van Rensburg - Durban South Africa 174 Trent Janse van Rensburg - Durban South Africa 175 Graham Robjant - Durban South Africa 176 Tamaryn Robjant - Durban South Africa 177 Beryl Robjant - Durban South Africa 178 Joan Austin - Durban South Africa 179 Simone Heijmans-Durban South Africa 180 REMON HEIJMANS-DURBAN SOUTH AFRICA 181 RENTIA HEIJMANS-DURBAN SOUTH AFRICA 182 RICKIE HEIJMANS - DURBAN SA 183 LEANIE HEIJMANS - DURBAN SA 184 JACKIE HEIJMANS - DURBAN SA 185 KEANU ROBERTSE - DURBAN SA 186 MALISSA ROBERTSE - DURBAN SA 187 BRIGITTA STEYN -DURBAN SA 188 MATTHEUS STEYN -DURBAN SA 189 MARCEL HEIJMANS-DURBAN SA 190 WOUTER HEIJMANS-DURBAN SA 191 EMIEL HEIJMANS-DURBAN SA 192 PASCALLE CLOETTE -DURBAN SA 193 EDWIN HEIJMANS-DURBAN SA 194 JESSICA HEIJMANS - DURBAN SA 195 LEN CLOETTE - DURBAN SA 196 GEOFFREY CLOETTE -SA 197 Janice Wittrup SA 198 Tempest Hindman (Aus) 199 Gary Hindman (Aus) 200 Eben van der Watt (UK) 201 Jeandre van der Watt (UK) 202 Armand van der Watt (UK) 203 Jetro Smith ( UK ) 204 Morne du Preez ( UK ) 205 Joey Wasiliew ( USA ) 206 Willie Olivier, Cape Town (uncivilized barbarians) 207 Andre' Groenewald, Durban (SA) 208 Chris Goldmann Carvoeiro, Portugal 209 Gary Fonternel - Australia 210 Simon Lewis - Australia 211 Scott Wetherall - New Zealand 212 Jeremy Cusiel - Perth 213 Victoria Verity - Perth 214 Karen Stockin - New Zealand 215 Monika Merriman- NZ 216..Linda Jennings Sydney , Australia 217. Margaret Burgess , New South Wales , Australia 218 Merrill Duffy Australia 219. Margaret Ward - Australia 220 Sandy Jones, NSW Aust 221 Jacqui Bright N.S.W. AUST. 222 Penelope Chambers, Qld , Australia 223 Kim Grant, Sydney , Australia 224 Pua Soliola, Sydney , Australia 225 R'Chee Saipele, Auckland , New Zealand 226 Kim Watts, Auckland , NZ 227 Jenny Korff 228 John Baker, Auckland , New Zealand 229 Paul Baker Auckland New Zealand 230 Jocelyn Dutton Auckland New Zealand 231 Michael Dutton Auckland New Zealand 232 Susan Mann Auckland New Zealand 232 Brian Mann Auckland New Zealand 233 Philip Harris Auckland 234 Eden Moss, Auckland , New Zealand 235 John Moss Auckland New Zealand 236 Pat Moss Auckland New Zealand 237 Mel Orange, Wellington , New Zealand 238 John HOLLAND , South Australia 239 Pauline Macdonald South Australia 240 Helen M south Australia 241 Deidre Coulthard Sth Australia (gee some humans can be sick-bastards alright.....you wonder what planet they come from??.....WE ARE DOOMED!!) 242. Veronica Coulthard , South Australia (sick alright, poor dolphins) 243. Rachel Salmon , South Australia , Australia (how can anyone be called a human to do such senseless acts to such beautiful creatures!!) 244. David Salmon , South Australia , Australia 245. Deb Frank , South Australia , Australia ...absolutely disgraceful! 246. Kathrine Kosmina , South Australia , Australia ....words fail me!!! 247. Leanne Mudge , South Australia , Australia 248. Sandra Martin 249. Linda Raison , South Australia , Australia 250 Peter Dorsett, South Australia 251. Helli Meinecke , South Australia 252. Clair Marslen , South Australia 253. Frank Aarts , Australia 254. Deanna Dorward , Australia 255. Thea Aarts , Australia 256. Margie Aarts , Australia 257 Maree Bath , QUeensland , Australia .. 258 Jennifer Walker , Queensland , Australia 259 Jan Deacon, Queensland , Australia - so very very sad! 260 Judy Dixon , Queensland , Australia - unbelievable 261 Susan Jenkin, currently NT, Australia .. 262 Del Aulich, Melbourne , Australia- This is unacceptable- must be stopped!w 263 Judith Shapland Melbourne Aust: Who the hell are these so called human beings I am outrages that this should be happening as a global community we need to ban together to stop it!!!!!!!! 264 Deborah Chubb 265 Ray Robinson, Melbourne , Australia . This will not stop until our tears of outrage mingle with the blood of these beautiful creatures. 266 Christina Higgs Melbourne Australia. Unbelievable and so horrible, this has to stop. 267 Diane Beck, Mansfield Australia 268 Christine Davis Redcar England 269 Maureen Tosh, Redcar, England 270 Sandra O'Shea, Nunthorpe England. 271 Moyra Gibb, Kirkcaldy, Scotland 272 Alan Gibb, Kirkcaldy, Scotland 273 Margaret Smith, Kirkcaldy, Scotland 274 Ian Smith, Kirkcaldy, Scotland 275 Anne Ward,Edinburgh, Scotland 276 G V Ward, Edinburgh, Scotland 277 D Johnstone, Sanquhar, Scotland 288 Janet Brown Edinburgh, Scotland 289 morag mccall ,scotland 290 Laura cowan Aberdeen Scotland 291 Marx Murdoch Aberdeen Scotland 292 vicki keraghan invergordon scotland 293 Mieke Horsburgh, Invergordon, Scotland 294 David Horsburgh, Invergordon Scotland 295 Moira Adam, Blackisle, Scotland. 296 Claire Russell, Daviot, Inverness, Scotland 297 Heather Sutherland-Fraser - Black Isle, Scotland 298 Alison McMillan - Inverness, Scotland 299 Gillian MacAskill, Nairn, Scotland 300 Lesley Moore, Nairn, Scotland 301 Davy Orr, Inverness, Scotland 302 Eleanor James, Johnstone Scotland - Once again males (not men) prove how cruel and idiotic they are. I'm ashamed to be human. 303 Dot Spragg. England 304 Barry Spragg. England 305 Sally Moorey, England 306 Paul Wallace, England 307 Trudi OConnor, England 308 Julie McMullen, England 309 Helen Craggs, England 310 Lisa Barmby, England 311 Steve Allison. England 312 Trish Gee 313 Jason Trentini 314 Marc Squires 315 Nick Kirk (England) 316 Jayne Kirk UK 317 Gary AustinUK 318 Mo Chatfield E Sussex England 319 Clive Paterson New Zealand ( I know, lets kill all the danes instead!!!!!) 320 Declan Paterson New Zealand 321 Andy Lawler, Canada 322 dee marchese usa 323 Laurel Stangel, USA 324 Leona Colwell, USA 325. Kelly Rhodes USA 326. Sam Rhodes USA 327. MARK ROBERTS USA 328. Antonette sciarappa, usa 329. RICHARD FREDRICKS, USA 330. Joseph Valenti, USA 331. Chris Gibby, USA 332. Rica Walz, USA 333. Bill Walz, USA 334. Franz Aubry, USA 335. Bob Gordon, USA lets stop this insanity 336. Bob Corso - write Denmark 337 Elena Plesa Do these people call themselves human beings? Why isn't the government do something to stop it? Please sing along maybe, maybe somebody hears our cry. For sure those heartless people don't care about the cries of these magnificent animals. 338 giorgio de vincenzo 339. Lawrence Rose 340.Michael Bell 341 Victoria Bell 342 Ashley Bell 343 Kathy Lander USA 344. Kathleen Gray USA 345. Kim Cookson USA 346. Tony Cookson 347. Eve Gordon 348> Lauryn Galindo Hawaii 349. L Marina Cabanilla Maza USA 350. Mary Rose ? California ? USA _____ _____ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/jpeg Size: 47858 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/jpeg Size: 57126 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... 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Name: not available Type: image/jpeg Size: 88777 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/jpeg Size: 105914 bytes Desc: not available URL: From maryrose333 at att.net Thu Jan 14 14:02:20 2010 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Thu, 14 Jan 2010 13:02:20 -0800 Subject: [GJM] Vermont Succession Movement: Nine Sttewide Candidates Push to Leave Union 01/13/10 03:21 AM Message-ID: <009901ca955d$1835da00$48a18e00$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS Thanks to Trading Post Paul for this one. Vermont Secession Movement: Nine Statewide Candidates Push To Leave Union 01/13/10 03:21 AM | http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/13/vermont-secession-movement_n_421323 .html SHELBURNE, Vt. - Peter Garritano thinks it's time for Vermont to call it quits with America. The way the 54-year-old automobile salesman sees it, the "empire" is about to implode and tiny Vermont can lead the way by becoming its own independent republic. So he's running for lieutenant governor, topping a slate of secession-minded candidates seeking statewide offices this year. Their name: Vermont Independence Day. "The only hope is to just say, 'Look, this isn't working for us. We want to start fresh again, with a real democracy,'" Garritano said. "I think that's the answer. Hopefully, it won't take another horrible economic breakdown to realize that the people running things don't look out for the little guy, or us, or the soldiers. It's all about profit and getting the last drops of oil on Earth and trampling people's rights." 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 Thu Jan 14 14:15:13 2010 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Thu, 14 Jan 2010 13:15:13 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: FW: [globalnetnews-summary] Our Role in Haiti's Plight Message-ID: <009f01ca955e$de4a34b0$9ade9e10$@net> -----Original Message----- From: TradingPostPaul [mailto:tradingpost at riseup.net] Sent: Thursday, January 14, 2010 12:36 PM To: maryrose333 at att.net Subject: Re: FW: [globalnetnews-summary] Our Role in Haiti's Plight I'm glad these articles sprout legs. A classic example of what's not allowed on CNN and why the people don't know the real picture. You do good work. *********** REPLY SEPARATOR *********** On 1/14/2010 at 11:55 AM mary rose wrote: >Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS > >"This poverty is the direct legacy of perhaps the most brutal system of >colonial exploitation in world history, compounded by decades of systematic >postcolonial oppression." > >Mary Rose: What are we going to do about this? This is like the snake >biting >its own tail because this is what is happening in every country around the >world -- it is only a matter of time. As the old expression goes: "what >goes >around comes around". Capitalization cannot survive without continual >growth >and in order to grow it must devour everything in its path -- >colonialization is only another word for globalization with both being >powered by the greed engendered by capitalism. > >We must transform our social systems so they become life-enhancing -- we >cannot continue down the "death-defining" path we are currently embarked >on. > > > >-----Original Message----- >From: globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net >[mailto:globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net] On Behalf Of >TradingPostPaul >Sent: Thursday, January 14, 2010 10:53 AM >To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net >Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] Our Role in Haiti's Plight > > >"This poverty is the direct legacy of perhaps the most brutal system of >colonial exploitation in world history, compounded by decades of systematic >postcolonial oppression." > >Our Role in Haiti's Plight >If we are serious about assisting this devastated land we must stop trying >to control and exploit it >Published on Thursday, January 14, 2010 by Peter Hallward >http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jan/13/our-role-in-haitis-plig h >t > >Any large city in the world would have suffered extensive damage from an >earthquake on the scale of the one that ravaged Haiti's capital city on >Tuesday afternoon, but it's no accident that so much of Port-au-Prince now >looks like a war zone. Much of the devastation wreaked by this latest and >most calamitous disaster to befall Haiti is best understood as another >thoroughly manmade outcome of a long and ugly historical sequence. > >The country has faced more than its fair share of catastrophes. Hundreds >died in Port-au-Prince in an earthquake back in June 1770, and the huge >earthquake of 7 May 1842 may have killed 10,000 in the northern city of Cap >?Haitien alone. Hurricanes batter the island on a regular basis, mostly >recently in 2004 and again in 2008; the storms of September 2008 flooded >the town of Gona?ves and swept away much of its flimsy infrastructure, >killing more than a thousand people and destroying many thousands of homes. >The full scale of the destruction resulting from this earthquake may not >become clear for several weeks. Even minimal repairs will take years to >complete, and the long-term impact is incalculable. > >What is already all too clear, ?however, is the fact that this impact >will be the result of an even longer-term history of deliberate >impoverishment and disempowerment. Haiti is routinely described as the >"poorest country in the western hemisphere". This poverty is the direct >legacy of perhaps the most brutal system of colonial exploitation in world >history, compounded by decades of systematic postcolonial oppression. > >The noble "international community" which is currently scrambling to send >its "humanitarian aid" to Haiti is largely responsible for the extent of >the suffering it now aims to reduce. Ever since the US invaded and occupied >the country in 1915, every serious political attempt to allow Haiti's >people to move (in former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide's phrase) "from >absolute misery to a dignified poverty" has been violently and deliberately >blocked by the US government and some of its allies. > >Aristide's own government (elected by some 75% of the electorate) was the >latest victim of such interference, when it was overthrown by an >internationally sponsored coup in 2004 that killed several thousand people >and left much of the population smouldering in resentment. The UN has >subsequently maintained a large and enormously expensive stabilisation and >pacification force in the country. > >Haiti is now a country where, according to the best available study, around >75% of the population "lives on less than $2 per day, and 56% - four and a >half million people - live on less than $1 per day". Decades of neoliberal >"adjustment" and neo-imperial intervention have robbed its government of >any significant capacity to invest in its people or to regulate its >economy. Punitive international trade and financial arrangements ensure >that such destitution and impotence will remain a structural fact of >Haitian life for the foreseeable future. > >It is this poverty and powerlessness that account for the full scale of the >horror in Port-au-Prince today. Since the late 1970s, relentless neoliberal >assault on Haiti's agrarian economy has forced tens of thousands of small >farmers into overcrowded urban slums. Although there are no reliable >statistics, hundreds of thousands of Port-au-Prince residents now live in >desperately sub-standard informal housing, often perched precariously on >the side of deforested ravines. The selection of the people living in such >places and conditions is itself no more "natural" or accidental than the >extent of the injuries they have suffered. > >As Brian Concannon, the director of the Institute for Justice and Democracy >in Haiti, points out: "Those people got there because they or their parents >were intentionally pushed out of the countryside by aid and trade policies >specifically designed to create a large captive and therefore exploitable >labour force in the cities; by definition they are people who would not be >able to afford to build earthquake resistant houses." Meanwhile the city's >basic infrastructure - running water, electricity, roads, etc - remains >woefully inadequate, often non-existent. The government's ability to >mobilise any sort of disaster relief is next to nil. > >The international community has been effectively ruling Haiti since the >2004 coup. The same countries scrambling to send emergency help to Haiti >now, however, have during the last five years consistently voted against >any extension of the UN mission's mandate beyond its immediate military >purpose. Proposals to divert some of this "investment" towards poverty >reduction or agrarian development have been blocked, in keeping with the >long-term patterns that continue to shape the ?distribution of >international "aid". > >The same storms that killed so many in 2008 hit Cuba just as hard but >killed only four people. Cuba has escaped the worst effects of neoliberal >"reform", and its government retains a capacity to defend its people from >disaster. If we are serious about helping Haiti through this latest crisis >then we should take this comparative point on board. Along with sending >emergency relief, we should ask what we can do to facilitate the >self-empowerment of Haiti's people and public institutions. If we are >serious about helping we need to stop ?trying to control Haiti's >government, to pacify its citizens, and to exploit its economy. And then we >need to start paying for at least some of the damage we've already done. From ceasig at gmail.com Thu Jan 14 23:01:05 2010 From: ceasig at gmail.com (Centre For Ecological Audit, Social Inclusion & Governance) Date: Fri, 15 Jan 2010 11:31:05 +0530 Subject: [GJM] Help for Haiti In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <31f677a31001142201g3c788e59k5e172a475422dbbd@mail.gmail.com> Respected President, Being your supporter from India right from the days when you decided to enter the campaign, I am pleased to hear your statement of support for the victims of earthquake in Haiti and I would like to do the needful only through communicating for more support as personally, I am not in a position to donate in cash. I would be finding out how the support in terms of food,clothes and medicine could reach and is there any way for collection of citizen based initiatives. I would like to take this opportunity to also suggest that we promote ecologically safe housing with traditional materials as Haiti again proves that concrete and steel buildings are the source of major loss of lives during earthquakes. May Allah bless you and all with guidance ,health, peace in US. Respectfully Dr.Muhammad Mukhtar Alam New Delhi,India On Fri, Jan 15, 2010 at 4:01 AM, President Barack Obama < info at barackobama.com> wrote: > mukhtar -- > > On Tuesday, a catastrophic earthquake struck near Port-au-Prince, Haiti. > The full extent of the damage is still being assessed, but the death toll -- > already in the thousands -- is climbing fast. > > This is the worst earthquake to hit the area in more than 200 years. Entire > communities have been ripped apart and as many as 3 million people have been > directly affected, including tens of thousands of American citizens who are > in Haiti. > > Our neighbors in Haiti are racing to confront the enormous devastation -- > and the OFA community can help. > > *Click here for more information about essential relief efforts and ways > you can help today. > * > > Footage is pouring in of homes collapsing, Haitians carrying injured family > members, and hospitals being overrun in what was already the poorest nation > in the Western Hemisphere. > > I have directed my administration to respond with a swift, coordinated, and > aggressive effort to save lives. Personnel from the United States and our > partners in the international community are on the ground in damaged areas > right now, working side by side with the Haitian people. They're providing > much-needed food, water, and sanitation supplies, saving lives and helping > local communities start to rebuild. > > Despite the fact that we are experiencing tough times here at home, I > encourage those who can to reach out and help. It's in times like these that > we must show the kind of compassion and humanity that has defined the best > of our national character for generations. > > Click here to find out what you can do: > > *http://my.barackobama.com/Haiti > * > > As this story continues to unfold, I hope you will continue to keep the > people of Haiti in your thoughts and prayers, as well as the many > Haitian-Americans who have done so much to enrich our country and who are > worried about friends and loved ones in this time of need. > > Thank you, > > 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. > > This email was sent to: ceasig at gmail.com > > Change Email Address| > Unsubscribe > -- 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 ceasig at gmail.com Fri Jan 15 08:06:58 2010 From: ceasig at gmail.com (Centre For Ecological Audit, Social Inclusion & Governance) Date: Fri, 15 Jan 2010 20:36:58 +0530 Subject: [GJM] Fw: Cancel Haiti's debt In-Reply-To: <634620.58739.qm@web27401.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> References: <634620.58739.qm@web27401.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <31f677a31001150706s5d408eefn1ff7b5eeca2152c7@mail.gmail.com> Avaaz should be talking about interest free money and bring an end to the suffering generated out of usurious debts. On Fri, Jan 15, 2010 at 4:18 PM, robert searle wrote: > > > --- On *Thu, 14/1/10, Ben Wikler - Avaaz.org * wrote: > > > From: Ben Wikler - Avaaz.org > Subject: Cancel Haiti's debt > To: "dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk" > Date: Thursday, 14 January, 2010, 23:24 > > *Make sure Avaaz alerts reach your inbox: click "Add to Contacts" to add > avaaz at avaaz.org to your address book, and click the "Not Spam" button if > you found this email in your spam folder. If you prefer to leave the Avaaz > list, just click hereto unsubscribe. > * > > Dear friends, > > *Despite the earthquake, Haiti owes crushing debt payments* to foreign > lenders for "dictator debt" run up years ago. That money should be going to > rescue and rebuild -- *sign the petition to cancel Haiti's debt* and Avaaz > will deliver it to the IMF: > > [image: Sign The Petition!] > As > families in Haiti dig through rubble for survivors, their government must > send money overseas. Even in the wake of the earthquake, *Haiti is paying > off $600 million in unfair debt* racked up years ago by corrupt > governments and unscrupulous lenders. > > After the 2004 tsunami, debt payments from countries like Sri Lanka were > suspended to ensure that funds flowed to urgent priorities like food, water, > and medicine. Haiti's crisis is no different -- *it shouldn't be forced to > send money out when it desperately needs resources flowing in*. > > *At a moment like this, global financial institutions won't be able to > ignore a worldwide outcry.* Help lift a massive burden from Haiti's > ability to rescue, recover, and rebuild -- *let's raise a million voices > for emergency debt relief for Haiti*: > > http://www.avaaz.org/en/drop_haitian_debt > > Even before the earthquake, Haiti was *one of the world's poorest > countries *-- due, in part, to a legacy of unjust debt stretching back to > France's demand for reparations after its 1804 revolution. > > In recent years, the tremendous worldwide campaign for debt relief has > shown the power of public pressure to support poor nations. But today, *Haiti > is scheduled to pay $10 million in 2010 to the IMF and Inter-American > Development Bank* -- and still more millions to specific lender countries. > > > Recovering from the earthquake will take years, even decades. As the > headlines fade, donations will slow--but the burden of paying debts incurred > by unelected governments will continue, unless we take this moment to make a > change. > > If we take action, we can achieve a permanent victory: the cancellation of > Haiti's debt. Haitians are urgently appealing for all of our help. Our > donations make a difference--and Avaaz members have given generously, > donating more than $500,000 in the last day alone. But our voices as > citizens are needed as well. *Join the call for debt relief, and pass this > message to those who feel the same:* > > http://www.avaaz.org/en/drop_haitian_debt > > As we watch the images on our televisions and computers, it's hard not to > be overwhelmed. But if moments like this can trigger our consciences and > move us to act in solidarity with those most affected, they can help us to > move to a better world -- one where we move as one to address the man-made > poverty and inequality that has left our brothers and sisters in Haiti so > vulnerable to natural crises. There is not enough that we can do. But let's > all do everything we can. > > With hope in the face of tragedy, > > Ben, Iain, Ricken, Alice, Sam, Milena, Paula, and the whole Avaaz team > > PS: To donate to support Haiti, click here: > https://secure.avaaz.org/en/stand_with_haiti > > > *SOURCES* > > Jubilee (debt campaigning group) information page on Haiti's debt: > > http://www.jubileeusa.org/jubilee-act/haiti-debt-cancellation-resolution/resources-on-haitis-debt.html > > "Cancel Haiti's Debt" - Foreign Policy blog > http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/01/13/cancel_haitis_debt > > "Haiti: the land where children eat mud" - history of Haiti's debt from The > Sunday Times, 17 May 2009 > > http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article6281614.ece > > > ---- > *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 Bebopages! You can also follow Avaaz on > Twitter! * > > You are getting this message because you signed "" > on 2007-08-02 using the email address dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk. 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=2b7c8c2a98a8e68f564b27ee124e38a1&lang=enor 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). > > > > _______________________________________________ > 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 Jan 15 14:02:53 2010 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Fri, 15 Jan 2010 13:02:53 -0800 Subject: [GJM] The End of "Don't Ask Don't Tell"? Message-ID: <000201ca9626$522c9ea0$f685dbe0$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS A lot of barriers are coming down as we move from religious dogma (although no place in the Bible does it condemn homosexuality) into spirituality and a greater understanding of how the electromagnetic energy field, which underlies all of life, works along with human endocrine fields, etc. that are affected by toxins increasingly being released into the environment. What is important to understand is that sexual-orientation is linked with hormonal imbalances which affect the body/mind field. This phenomena has increased with the release by the human family of PCBs into the environment. Research studies show that the affect of PCBs on the newborn, as well as those en utero, are dramatically increased relative to what they are in older children or adults. The following is taken from Wikipedia: * Effects during pregnancy/breastfeeding Women who were exposed to relatively high levels of PCBs in the workplace or ate large amounts of fish contaminated with PCBs had babies that weighed slightly less than babies from women who did not have these exposures. Babies born to women who ate PCB-contaminated fish also showed abnormal responses in tests of infant behavior. Some of these behaviors, such as problems with motor skills and a decrease in short-term memory, lasted for several years. Other studies suggest that the immune system was affected in children born to and nursed by mothers exposed to increased levels of PCBs. The most likely way infants will be exposed to PCBs is from breast milk. Transplacental transfers of PCBs were also reported. Studies have shown that PCBs alter estrogen levels in the body and contribute to reproduction problems. In the womb, males can be feminized or the baby may be intersex, neither a male nor a female. Also, both sets of reproductive organs may develop. More instances of this are being reported. Biological magnification of PCBs has also led to polar bears and whales that have both male and female sex organs and males that cannot reproduce. This effect is also known as endocrine disruption. Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals ( EDC's) pose a serious threat to reproduction in top-level predators. Here is more information on the NCRD website: http://www.nrdc.org/health/effects/bendrep.asp It is important that we put the blame where it belongs not on innocent individuals who are victims of the ignorant society into which they were born. MOTHER JONES January 15, 2010 THIS WEEK IN THE BLOGOSPHERE The End of "Don't Ask Don't Tell"? Technically, of course, gays aren't entirely banned. They're only banned if they admit they're gay. "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," the US military's official policy, was put in place in 1993 by a skittish Congress that was afraid Bill Clinton might tear down the barrier entirely if it didn't do something. It's been in place ever since. Barack Obama did nothing about this in 2009, but the word coming out of Capitol Hill this week suggests that a repeal will be part of this year's defense authorization bill, a must-pass piece of legislation that requires only a majority vote to pass and can't be filibustered in the Senate. DADT repeal is supported by the Democratic leaders in both the House and Senate, probably by both the Secretary of Defense and the chairman of the joint chiefs (though neither one has taken a public position yet), and polls show that two-thirds of Americans now support allowing gays to serve-including majority support even among conservatives. I've been unhappy with Obama's meekness on gay rights ever since he declined to intervene forcefully against California's anti-gay Proposition 8 in 2008. It passed by only 2 percentage points, and it's entirely possible that it might have been defeated if Obama had been willing to speak out. Still, he did sign an executive order to extend benefits to unmarried domestic partners of federal workers last year, including same-sex partners, and this year saw the end of the HIV ban on visitors to the US, a disgraceful policy in place since the Reagan era. Now it looks like DADT might finally fall too, and Obama's patient approach likely means it will fall without much of a backlash. He didn't start out with a bang on gay rights, but by the end of this year he may have done more for gays than any president before him. 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 Fri Jan 15 14:16:21 2010 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Fri, 15 Jan 2010 13:16:21 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: Continuing Endeavours for Promoting Carbon-Neutral Leisure Message-ID: <000801ca9628$0818c620$184a5260$@net> Dear Mukhtar, While I am continually impressed with your efforts to promote ?Carbon-Neutral Activities? I also continually fail to understand why the focus is on ?leisure? activities when it is well known that industrial activities are many times more polluting than are the leisure activities conducted by those who are attempting to relieve the stresses of an average person?s life in the industrial world. Would you please explain this to me so I can pass it on to other?s in the Co-learner?s List. Thank you From: carbon neutral neighbourhood discussions/leisure [mailto:mail at ecostrategiccommunicators.ning.com] Sent: Friday, January 15, 2010 2:01 AM To: maryrose333 at att.net Subject: Continuing Endeavours for Promoting Carbon-Neutral Leisure carbon neutral neighbourhood discussions/leisure Carbon Neutral Neighborhood Consultations/ Leisure for Mitigating Climate Change A message to all members of carbon neutral neighbourhood discussions/leisure Distinguished Ecostrategic Communicators, I hope and pray that this message finds you in the best health and spirits. I would like to take this opportunity to share that the reasons for creating this network are based on the need to both mitigating climate change and preparing for the end of petromodern times and dawn of post-carbon age. This is an initiative that I think feeds into the initiatives across the world especially manifested through transition movements inspired with the work of Rob Hopkins www.transitionculture.org Not sure, how you have responded to Copenhagen accord, Ithink, there is a need to continue promoting ecologically benevolent leisure that are based in the neighbourhoods. There is much that can be achieved with this. We have a huge challenge, that we need to meet while working for ecologically safe futures. I would like to seek your engagement with this forum with posts and others. We have members from across the worlds and together, I think we can contribute significantly. With warmest regards M.Mukhtar Alam On behalf of Center for Ecological Audit, Social Inclusion and Governance Visit carbon neutral neighbourhood discussions/leisure at: http://ecostrategiccommunicators.ning.com/?xg_source=msg_mes_network To control which emails you receive on carbon neutral neighbourhood discussions/leisure, click here -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From maryrose333 at att.net Fri Jan 15 14:35:37 2010 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Fri, 15 Jan 2010 13:35:37 -0800 Subject: [GJM] =?utf-8?q?FW=3A_Richard_C=2E_Cook_=C2=BB_Blog_Archive_?= =?utf-8?b?wrsgVGhvbWFzIEdyZWNv4oCZcyDigJxUaGUgRW5kIG9mIE1vbmV5IGFu?= =?utf-8?q?d_the_Future_of_Civilization=E2=80=9D=3A_A?= Message-ID: <001401ca962a$deef54a0$9ccdfde0$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS. Hi Everyone, I just discovered by accident that David Eisenberg, Founder and Director of the Development Center for Appropriate Technology has been sending article?s from his Facebook account to the list for months now. And I wanted to get this one out giving praise to Thomas Greco and his work. I have never understood OUTLOOK and since I have so many problems with it crashing, am not sure I want to do so. Almost every time I open it, it surprises me with some new feature that I?m unable to access again ? and I hear similar complaints from others ? any suggestions. Thanks David. Feed: David Eisenberg's Facebook Links Posted on: Wednesday, October 14, 2009 2:27 PM Author: David Eisenberg Subject: Richard C. Cook ? Blog Archive ? Thomas Greco?s ?The End of Money and the Future of Civilization?: A Richard C. Cook ? Blog Archive ? Thomas Greco?s ?The End of Money and the Future of Civilization?: A Source: www.richardccook.com It?s too late for anyone to pretend that the U.S. government, whether under President Barack Obama or anyone else, can divert our nation from long-term economic decline. The U.S. is increasingly in a state ... Hey all! Read this...!!! and then get Tom's book and read it! And then let's all get on with the task of creating our own monetary system - one that is reality and community based, and walk away as quickly as we can from the warmongering banking/monetary system that has literally enslaved us all. Check out Richard Cook's review of our dear colleague Thomas Greco's new book - The End of Money and the Future of Civilization http://www.richardccook.com/2009/10/12/thomas-grecos-the-end-of-money-and-the-future-of-civilization-a-review-by-richard-c-cook/ View article... -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk Sat Jan 16 03:37:27 2010 From: dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk (robert searle) Date: Sat, 16 Jan 2010 10:37:27 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [GJM] A green industrial revolution calls Message-ID: <229760.10653.qm@web27405.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> A green industrial revolution calls Copenhagen pledges on carbon emissions will mean little unless we do some radical thinking about how to finance them Comments (75) Buzz up! Digg it Noreena Hertz guardian.co.uk, Thursday 3 December 2009 12.30 GMT Article history With the world's attention focused on what will be agreed at Copenhagen, the reality is that unless there is a massive rethink about how a transition to a low-carbon economy is to be financed, whatever is agreed will not be achievable. Take solar: the economies of solar mean that putting a panel on one's roof is a huge upfront investment, only at the moment recoupable in about 40 years. No wonder solar, an energy source with limitless potential, has not yet realised its ambitions. Which is why I was really interested to learn about the $200m sale, the other day, of the startup solar company ? SunEdison. SunEdison's business model tackled the problem of financing head-on. Instead of selling panels to companies such as Wal-Mart, Walgreens and Staples, it leased the panels to them ? under 20-year contracts ? and armed with blue chip lease agreements as sureties it was able to secure financing. The company had effectively created corporate green bonds for its clients and in the process cracked the solar financing conundrum, at least for its select group of "tenants". Applying the sales leaseback model, a model more commonly seen in real estate than solar energy is the kind of out-of-the-box thinking that is desperately needed if we are to solve the essential question of how the transition to a low-carbon economy will be funded. >From solar to electric cars, from geothermal to reconfiguring the grid, the scale of investment needed in green technologies in order to meet whatever agreements on emissions reductions are finally agreed will be immense. Emissions trading, the saving of rainforests, the development of energy monitoring household devices ? though of course part of the answer ? will in no way deliver on their own the 80% drop from 1990 carbon emissions levels needed within the next 40 years if we are to avert an Armageddon scenario. And nor will our own commitment as individuals to fly less, turn our lights out more often or eat less meat or dairy, however good our individual intentions. Nothing short of a green industrial revolution will deliver what is actually needed, and at the moment there is no clear strategy and insufficient thinking on how we will fund that. The technology is there, but an ability to realise it at full scale is still absent. Bankers, financiers and finance professors need to set their minds to how to address this challenge. This means working out how to correctly assess risk. At present, financiers are overestimating the riskiness of clean tech, not only because of political uncertainty but also because of an information lag between technological advances and financial knowhow, a lag that is responsible for what now amounts to a structural barrier to growth. The long payback period we are typically talking about when it comes to renewables poses potential contractual problems as well as incentive issues, both of which need to be addressed and overcome. Governments too need to think radically about how they can best support the industrial transition, so that whatever they pledge at Copenhagen can actually be manifest. That means thinking of their roles not only as setters of the rules of the game ? necessary for ensuring that the price of carbon grows predictably higher ? but also as procurement agents, as bridge financiers, and as entities capable of changing the incentive profile for investing in renewables and green technologies. (China at the moment is head and shoulders above the rest of the world when it comes to all this. By using the engine of the state to finance clean energy it is leapfrogging over the rest of us.) Pledges to reduce emissions, whether made at Copenhagen or in the new year, can only be judged according to our ability to make good on them. Without industry, finance and government consciously and collaboratively ensuring that capital flows to where it is needed in order to ensure the scaling up of climate change solutions, whatever deal is agreed risks never being realised. Given how probable it is that such an outcome would result in nothing less than global catastrophe, it is imperative that as soon as these talks are over we shift focus from the realpolitik of global negotiators to the real world problem of how to ensure that we translate whatever their words are into meaningful and lasting outcomes. Printable version Send to a friend Share Clip Contact us larger | smaller EmailClose Recipient's email address Your first name Your surname Add a note (optional) Your IP address will be logged ShareClose Digg reddit Google Bookmarks Twitter del.icio.us StumbleUpon Newsvine livejournal Facebook Mixx it! Contact usClose Report errors or inaccuracies: userhelp at guardian.co.uk Letters for publication should be sent to: letters at guardian.co.uk If you need help using the site: userhelp at guardian.co.uk Call the main Guardian and Observer switchboard: +44 (0)20 3353 2000 Advertising guide License/buy our content Environment Copenhagen climate change conference 2009 ? Climate change ? Carbon emissions Politics Economic policy More comment More from Comment is free on Environment Copenhagen climate change conference 2009 ? Climate change ? Carbon emissions Politics Economic policy Related 13 Dec 2009 Tony Blair urges leaders to secure deal in Copenhagen as time runs short 4 Dec 2009 How much carbon dioxide will be emitted during the Copenhagen conference? | Ask Leo 3 Dec 2009 Send us your video message to Copenhagen 23 Sep 2009 Climate change is killing our people | Constance Okollet Printable version Send to a friend Share Clip Contact us Article history EmailClose Recipient's email address Your first name Your surname Add a note (optional) Your IP address will be logged ShareClose Digg reddit Google Bookmarks Twitter del.icio.us StumbleUpon Newsvine livejournal Facebook Mixx it! Contact usClose Report errors or inaccuracies: userhelp at guardian.co.uk Letters for publication should be sent to: letters at guardian.co.uk If you need help using the site: userhelp at guardian.co.uk Call the main Guardian and Observer switchboard: +44 (0)20 3353 2000 Advertising guide License/buy our content About this articleClose A green industrial revolution calls | Noreena HertzThis article was published on guardian.co.uk at 12.30 GMT on Thursday 3 December 2009. It was last modified at 13.03 GMT on Thursday 3 December 2009. google_ad_client = 'ca-guardian_js'; google_ad_channel = 'Commentisfree'; google_max_num_ads = '3'; Ads by Google Wind Turbine Investment Green Energy Investment Options. $10,000 Minimum Investment. WorldEnergyResearch.com Investing in Wind Power -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk Sat Jan 16 03:40:03 2010 From: dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk (robert searle) Date: Sat, 16 Jan 2010 10:40:03 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [GJM] Fw: [ClimateChangeAction] Affordable solar power from the roof Message-ID: <917209.62737.qm@web27408.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> --- On Sat, 16/1/10, Peter B wrote: From: Peter B Subject: [ClimateChangeAction] Affordable solar power from the roof To: ClimateChangeAction at yahoogroups.com.au Date: Saturday, 16 January, 2010, 10:24 ? >From Alternet .. "Say hello to the thing that could save our sun-splashed suburban lifestyle: affordable residential solar power that puts roof-top solar panels within reach of the most cash-strapped America consumer. This breakthrough is not a result of technological innovation, but a new financing scheme cooked up on Wall Street called a "residential solar lease," a no-money-down, low-monthly plan that has made solar electricity cheaper than the stuff we get by wire. It's an old approach to a new source of energy, and it is taking California by storm. "Go solar for $0 down. Now you can afford to go solar without the high initial cost of installing a system. Instead of buying the equipment, you simply lease it," boasts the Web site of SolarCity , a well-financed Silicon Valley start-up that has been pioneering the residential solar lease. A solar lease is a fairly simple arrangement that is not unlike a car lease. Instead of dishing out tens of thousands of dollars upfront to buy and install a rooftop solar array, homeowners simply borrow one for a low monthly fee. Like a car lease, customers sign a contract that locks them in for a specified period of time with the option of extending their lease or buying the panels at the end of the contract. It makes sense when you consider that a typical homeowner would have to cough up between $20,000 and $50,000 to buy and install a solar panel system. A solar lease, on the other hand, would only cost them somewhere around $100 a month ... [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] __._,_.___ Reply to sender | Reply to group Messages in this topic (1) Recent Activity: Visit Your Group Start a new topic Switch to: Text-Only, Daily Digest ? Unsubscribe ? Terms of Use . __,_._,___ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk Sat Jan 16 03:43:12 2010 From: dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk (robert searle) Date: Sat, 16 Jan 2010 10:43:12 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [GJM] Global Change... Message-ID: <269538.9108.qm@web27407.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> ? Dear All, ? ?????????? The following link may be of interest. ? ????????????????????????????? http://www.globalchange.com/ ? R.S. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From maryrose333 at att.net Fri Jan 15 14:48:52 2010 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Fri, 15 Jan 2010 13:48:52 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: a perfect example of the benefits of Permaculture Message-ID: <001901ca962c$beae1e90$3c0a5bb0$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS David, what an excellent idea. Let's get this forwarded to as many people as possible. BTW, for those who do not know, David is an American living in China. With love and appreciation. From: David West [mailto:dgwest7 at gmail.com] Sent: Friday, January 15, 2010 2:29 AM To: undisclosed-recipients: Subject: a perfect example of the benefits of Permaculture I think this is a perfect example of the benefits of Permaculture. Best regards David http://permaculture.org.au/2010/01/14/permaculture-relief-corps-forming-for- haiti-earthquake-response/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email Permaculture Relief Corps Forming For Haiti Earthquake Response? Aid Projects , Community Projects - by Evan Schoepke January 14, 2010 The remarkable history (and possible future) of permaculture disaster relief, by Evan Schoepke of punk rock permaculture Devastation in Port Au Prince. Photo: Carel Pedre, via twitter Two days ago the island of Hispanola was hit with a devastating 7.3 magnitude earthquake near Port-Au-Prince, the capital of Haiti. Many multiple story buildings have completely collapsed, including the major hospital in the region. Thousands may be killed or trapped in the rubble and aid is being mobilized from around the world. With little to no backup power, sewerage, water, housing, or food aid systems in place, Haiti, which is currently the poorest nation in the western hemisphere, is in a VERY DIRE SITUATION . Without a doubt, resources and expertise are moving en mass to Haiti, but beyond this temporary relief, what will sustain this nation of ten million people when it's left in an even poorer position than ever before? This is where permaculture design comes in, with an adaptable and ever-evolving tool kit that can be of vital assistance in disaster relief and the long recovery period to follow. During the war in Kosovo back in 1999, when displaced refugees flooded into Macedonia, Geoff Lawton and a crack team of eager permaculturalists secured international aid to design and implement the master plan for the Cegrane Camp Permaculture Rehabilitation Project , a large refugee camp that provided relief for over 43,000 people. Permaculture Disaster Relief Permaculture Disaster Relief Geoff created the design around water capture and storage. The final design called for 7.2 km of swales, with an estimated water holding capacity of 30 million liters, greatly reducing the flood potential. Many passive solar strawbale buildings were constructed by trained locals who quickly grasped the simplicity and efficiency of this natural building technique. Large gardens, composting toliets and chicken tractors all came together in a very short time span. The skills and systems thinking acquired during this process may help secure sustainable employment and economic development for the entire region for years to come. Another successful implementation of permaculture relief took place in Cuba during the early 90s when Cuba was suffering from a crippling petroleum embargo. Working with a grant from the Cuban government, Austrailian permaculturalists, including Robyn Francis, traveled to Cuba to work with hundreds of Cubans on sustainable food systems design. Robyn, a well traveled expert in permaculture education in the 2/3rds (developing) world, helped local organizers use permaculture design prinicpals and techniques in their urban agriculture efforts. During this time, worker cooperatives were set up and market gardens and public transportation flourished. Little to no pesticides or fertilizers were employed, and catastrophic famine was avoided. This partnership has continued to be highly successful and now some of the most experienced urban permaculture experts in the world come from Cuba because of the courageous spirit of the Cuban citizenry. Currently, the Cuba-Australia Permaculture Exchange (CAPE) is working on sustainable housing developments using natural building to compliment the work they began together with urban agriculture. Water Harvesting There are numerous ways in which a full-time Permaculture Relief Corps could operate in Haiti in short and long-term time frames. Short Term: Building sewage systems, composting toilets, compost and recyclying centers, rocket and solar stoves, temporary shelters (perma-yurts ), water catchment, and plant nurseries. Long Term: Permanent natural buildings, water storage, earth works, renewable energy, permaculture food forests, broad-scale reforestation, farms, aquaculture systems, health centers and schools. In 2003 following a intense hurricane, a team including Eric Davenport, an American architect, and David Doherty, a Peace Corps Volunteer, worked for several months with the local community to rebuild a rural village after severe flooding. This team was then joined by Frederique Mangones, a renowned Haitian architect, and engineer Frantz Severe of ORE draw to the challenge of designing low-cost housing adapted to Haitian rural family activities. In the fall of 2003, a team of permiculturalists also offered their expertise to the village project. Design for a new village Today their team, in collaboration with the local community and the Organization for the Rehabilitation of the Environment (ORE), is working on: * Low cost relief from floods * Waste management & recycling to protect the environment * Hygienic toilets to improve family health * A community center to bring people together * Privacy to reduce stress within families * Green spaces to enhance quality of life * Fruit trees to generate income * Utilizing daily wind patterns, heat and cooling cycles * Covenants to protect their community Haiti is in desperate need of our assistance which can not come soon enough. Eight out of ten Haitians live in abject poverty and need the long term commitment of folks working for a sustainable and abundant future. Please check out the links below of organizations doing great work in this field. If you are interested in the formation of a Permaculture Relief Corps like the one I'm proposing, please comment here. My heart goes out to all those working and living in Haiti right now, Sincerely, Evan Schoepke: thejulianeffect (at) gmail.com Principal of Gaia Punk Designs -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/jpeg Size: 45579 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/jpeg Size: 22642 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/jpeg Size: 21802 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/gif Size: 2568 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/jpeg Size: 7099 bytes Desc: not available URL: From maryrose333 at att.net Fri Jan 15 20:43:56 2010 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Fri, 15 Jan 2010 19:43:56 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: We want our money back Message-ID: <005e01ca965e$568501d0$038f0570$@net> FYI and consideration. From: Vice President Joe Biden [mailto:info at barackobama.com] Sent: Friday, January 15, 2010 4:28 PM To: Mary Rose Subject: We want our money back Mary -- Yesterday, President Obama announced our proposed Financial Crisis Responsibility Fee on the country's largest banks: "My commitment is to recover every single dime the American people are owed. And my determination to achieve this goal is only heightened when I see reports of massive profits and obscene bonuses at some of the very firms who owe their continued existence to the American people...We want our money back, and we're going to get it." The fee would recover every penny loaned to Wall Street during the financial crisis and stop the reckless abuses and excesses that nearly caused the collapse of our financial system in the first place. But the banking industry -- among the most powerful lobbies in Washington -- is already launching attacks to stop Congress from enacting the proposal. Barack and I aren't backing down. But to win, we'll need the American people to add their voice right away. Thankfully, OFA supporters are already signing on to a bold statement of support: "We want our money back -- and we stand with President Obama to make sure we get it." You can add your name by clicking here. Add your name The proposal is expected to recoup billions from the big banks, most of it from the ten largest. As the President said, "If these companies are in good enough shape to afford massive bonuses, they are surely in good enough shape to afford paying back every penny to taxpayers." There is much more work to do to reform the financial system and create a new era of accountability. But the Financial Crisis Responsibility Fee is a crucial step. And with the banks already working to tear it down, I hope that I can count on you to speak out to show that Americans stand with us as we take them on. Click here to add your name to the statement: http://my.barackobama.com/Banks Change isn't easy, but it's certainly worth fighting for. I'm glad you're in this fight with us. Thank you for making it possible, Vice President Joe Biden Donate 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. This email was sent to: maryrose333 at att.net Change Email Address | Unsubscribe -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From maryrose333 at att.net Fri Jan 15 20:50:12 2010 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Fri, 15 Jan 2010 19:50:12 -0800 Subject: [GJM] Moral Bankruptcy by Joseph E. Stiglitz Message-ID: <006301ca965f$348e9720$9dabc560$@net> Moral Bankruptcy By Joseph E. Stiglitz January/February 2010 Issue http://motherjones.com/politics/2010/01/joseph-stiglitz-wall-street-morals We have created a society in which materialism overwhelms moral commitment, in which the rapid growth that we have achieved is not sustainable environmentally or socially, in which we do not act together to address our common needs. Market fundamentalism has eroded any sense of community and has led to rampant exploitation of unwary and unprotected individuals. There has been an erosion of trust-and not just in our financial institutions. It is not too late to close these fissures. 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 Fri Jan 15 22:18:58 2010 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Fri, 15 Jan 2010 21:18:58 -0800 Subject: [GJM] Moral Bankruptcy by Joseph E. Stiglitz Message-ID: <000001ca966b$994196c0$cbc4c440$@net> Moral Bankruptcy By Joseph E. Stiglitz January/February 2010 Issue http://motherjones.com/politics/2010/01/joseph-stiglitz-wall-street-morals We have created a society in which materialism overwhelms moral commitment, in which the rapid growth that we have achieved is not sustainable environmentally or socially, in which we do not act together to address our common needs. Market fundamentalism has eroded any sense of community and has led to rampant exploitation of unwary and unprotected individuals. There has been an erosion of trust-and not just in our financial institutions. It is not too late to close these fissures. 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 Fri Jan 15 22:46:02 2010 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Fri, 15 Jan 2010 21:46:02 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: [globalnetnews-summary] Will USAID, Right Wing Think Tanks & Private Interests Create Aftershocks in Haiti? Message-ID: <001b01ca966f$68cf41f0$3a6dc5d0$@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, January 15, 2010 9:12 PM To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] Will USAID, Right Wing Think Tanks & Private Interests Create Aftershocks in Haiti? Will USAID, Right Wing Think Tanks & Private Interests Create Aftershocks in Haiti? January 15, 2010 at 01:43:00 http://www.opednews.com/articles/Will-USAID-Private-Intere-by-Kevin-Gosztola -100115-201.html I owe this post to Naomi Klein who explored the way that private or corporate interests "use a public's disorientation following massive collective shocks to achieve control by imposing economic shock therapy" in her book "The Shock Doctrine." All should visit her website, NaomiKlein.org, and follow her updates on the aftermath in Haiti. As I watch the images of devastation, I cannot simply consider how much damage has occurred to Haiti. I cannot cast off concerns about the plight of the Haitians and let worries about U.S. citizens visiting Haiti surpass what has happened to the Haitians with this massive earthquake either. I cannot simply search for the best relief organization to donate to or cheer at the fact that politicians may practice bipartisanship and agree that Haiti needs this nation to help its people pull through. I must put it all together. I must connect the poverty in Haiti to the history of the country --- how it has been subjected to colonization, exploitation, and foreign countries whose military and private interests have sought to control the country and violate the nation's right to self-determination. In particular, I must put the focus on the U.S. and, specifically, USAID, because at the moment USAID is in the country conducting disaster relief. What does USAID hope will happen in the aftermath? What does USAID hope to gain? That's not an unreasonable question because, as you will see in my article, USAID has pursued ventures in Haiti before this earthquake. The World Bank has agreed to give $100 million in "emergency grant funding to support recovery reconstruction in the Caribbean nation." What stipulations are attached to that? Will the World Bank only allow private interests or public-private partnerships to rebuild? Will it dole out the money to specific interests? Will they use the money as a way of oppressing the people and controlling the political or economic direction of the country? Again, you will see in my comprehensive article that the World Bank has pursued interests in Haiti before this earthquake much like USAID. What do organizations like the Heritage Foundation, which have already signaled a readiness to take advantage of the crisis, plan to do? What will the American Enterprise Institute and other pro-private enterprise think tanks be suggesting America do in Haiti? Americans should be concerned for Haiti but also be concerned about who and what organizations will be helping the country in the aftermath. THE TRUTH BEHIND THE POVERTY RESPONSIBLE FOR SO MUCH DEVASTATION Haiti is a country internationally known to be one of the poorest (if not the poorest) country in the world. Why is the damage in Haiti so catastrophic? According to the CIA World Factbook, the GDP is 9.2 billion. The real annual income per capita is $250. The population below the poverty line is 80%. Unemployment is 70%. And, it has an external debt of $1 billion that European countries and the U.S. have used to suppress and oppress social movements in the country. U.S. engineers suggest "lax building standards" played a role in the devastation. Buildings lacked quality control and were not built with good engineering knowledge. In many cases, nonductile concrete was used to build the building creating a "great seismic life safety hazard" because of the "collapse potential" of nonductile concrete. High population density along with the fact that, according to the New York Times, many poor residents live in tin-roof shacks, which sit on steep ravines, also intensified the damage. Lack of disaster preparedness also was a factor. If people were more aware of the risk, the mortality in and after an earthquake would significantly drop as it has in poor countries like Bangladesh. News reports also connected the high damage to deforestation in Haiti. But, this wasn't the fault of the people of Haiti. Ezili Dant?, award winning playwright, performance poet, author, human rights attorney, and political and social commentator from Haiti described how a century of theft and exploitation including deforestation has made Haiti so impoverished: "Haiti's deforestation is due as much to the use of wood for charcoal as the soil erosion occurring right now in Haiti (because of the current destruction of Haiti's mountains) is due to digging up for cement, marble, granite, aggregate, gold and copper by the Haitians peasant for constructing their houses! Haiti's peasants could be using charcoal and raw mountain materials for construction to meet their sustainable daily needs for centuries and would not have denuded the mountains or dug them up to the extent visible today, leaving Haiti with the soil erosion it is currently experiencing and the craters that will be left when Haiti's remaining mountain ranges and natural protection have been more thoroughly exploited and mined by the transnational corporations now in Haiti. Mining Haiti's mountains for extraction of raw materials for the foreign construction industry has been steadily going on for decades in Haiti and since before the 1980s. The digging up of Haiti, for the construction industry and, to a smaller scale at present, for its mineral wealth (gold, copper...), post-Bush Regime Change/2004 coup d'etat, has intensified. The Euro/US companies carting off Haiti's natural resources, by digging its mountains right now, and before that, by razing whole Haitian forests to the ground for lumber to meet Western profit needs, along with the destruction of Haiti's peasant economy (elimination of Haiti's indigenous black pigs and dumping of US rice that destroyed domestic agriculture) so that the peasant could not afford other fuel, are the primary reasons for the environmental degradation in Haiti." News media in the U.S. mentioned "unstable governments" as a factor behind the significant damage. While true, the Haitian people are not responsible for this as they have been controlled and exploited by foreign countries and private interests for centuries. A HISTORY OF U.S. INTERVENTION IN HAITI Ever since General Jean-Jacques Dessalines declared Haiti's independence in 1804 after defeating a French Army sent by Napoleon to re-enslave those who had led the world's first successful slave revolt, the U.S. has taken actions that show suspicion and antagonism toward Haiti. In 1806, the U.S. Congress banned trade with Haiti joining French and Spanish boycotts because of fear that the revolution in Haiti that led to the country's independence might "inspire enslaved Africans in other parts of the world to rebel." It wasn't until nearly sixty years after the slave revolution in Haiti that the U.S. recognized Haiti's independence. In 1915, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson sent forces to Haiti to prevent Germany or France from taking control of the nation. The U.S. pressured Haiti into signing a Disadvantageous Treaty, which legitimized a U.S. occupation that lasted until 1934 and placed Haitian finances and government under U.S. control for twenty years. According to Greg Guma, what happened in 1915 "led to the destruction of Haiti's democratic potential, the creation of a repressive police apparatus, and a climat e of exploitation, repression, and racism that set the stage for much of what followed." Guma's explanation of what happened features Marine hero Smedley Butler. It's possible that Haiti was one instance where Butler learned firsthand that war was a racket: "Haiti's constitution was later revised to remove a prohibition against land ownership by foreigners. US investors would henceforth be able to purchase fertile areas and go into business with plantations producing sugar cane, cacao, banana, cotton, tobacco, and sisal. This legal reform made possible the full consolidation of the Haitian oligarchy during the succeeding decades, and set the stage for a Black nationalist revolt, manipulated by the devious and brutal doctor-turned president-for-life, Francois Duvalier." Forty thousand Haitians rebelled against a U.S.-instigated law requiring forced labor. The rebellion took over much of the northern mountainous region of Haiti. U.S. forces repressed the rebellion in March of 1919 and, for the first time ever, airplanes were used to provide support for U.S. ground forces. Thirteen U.S. soldiers died and over 3,000 Haitians were killed. The U.S. appointed a new U.S. representative, Louis Borno, who admired Mussolini, to be the new president and replace Sudre Dartiguenave, who would not sign an agreement to repay debts to the U.S.-owned National City Bank (Citibank), which controlled Haiti's national bank and its railroad system. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt agreed to withdraw troops in 1933. And, in 1956, Francois Duvalier won Haiti's presidential election, created a totalitarian dictatorship, declared himself president-for-life in 1964, and ruled until 1971 when he died. Francois' heir, Jean-Claude Duvalier, ruled Haiti until 1986, when a popular uprising led him to flee the country for France. Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a reformist priest, won the presidential election in Haiti with a two-thirds majority. Election turnout was high and the election was widely perceived as one of the most honest elections in Haiti's history. But, the CIA and the U.S. would not allow Aristide to govern with popular support. They had to interfere in Aristide's plans to work to eradicate poverty. ARISTIDE MEETS THOSE SEEKING TO CREATE A CAPITAL-FRIENDLY ENVIRONMENT IN HAITI Contrary to the story delivered by the corporate media in America, Aristide did not rig the elections in 2000. Nor did he unleash violent militias on political opponents. And, he did not bring the Haitian economy to a "point of collapse" and his people to "the brink of humanitarian catastrophe" either. All the problems with Aristide occurred because the U.S. and free market interests refused to let Aristide prevent the "indiscriminate privatization of state resources" and stick "to his guns over wages, education and health" even though he accepted "a series of severe IMF structural adjustment plans." On October 31, 1991, the Front for the Advancement of Progress of the Haitian People (FRAPH) overthrew the Haitian government while Aristide was on a UN visit in New York. A repressive regime ruled and massacred hundreds if not thousands of dissidents until 1994 when the U.S. led a UN intervention to put Aristide back in power. (The leader of FRAPH later admitted to being supported by the CIA.) William Blum, author of Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions wrote, "the Clinton White House found itself in the awkward position of having to pretend-because of all their rhetoric about "democracy"-that they supported Aristide's return to power in Haiti." Blum added, "After delaying his return for more than two years, Washington finally had its military restore Aristide to office, but only after obliging the priest to guarantee that he would not help the poor at the expense of the rich, and that he would stick closely to free-market economics. This meant that Haiti would continue to be the assembly plant of the Western Hemisphere, with its workers receiving literally starvation wages." The World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the United States Agency for International Development (USAID, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), and the Organization of American States (OAS) put together a package of neoliberal reforms and managed to get Haiti to agree to it. The reforms called for the suppression of wages, reduction of tariffs, and the selling off of state-owned enterprises. The reforms were meant to "create a capital friendly macroeconomic environment for the export-manufacturing sector" and they did little for the country's rural population, which represented the activities of 65 percent of the Haitian population. As a member of the Marin Interfaith Task Force on Central America, George Friemoth described in a Spring newsletter how the U.S. blocked a $146 million loan from the IDB: "The loan had been approved by the IDB, signed by the Haitian government and intended for critically needed health care (AIDS), education (basic literacy) and public works (potable water and impassable roads). Last year, in order to avoid losing the contracted loan, Haiti paid $10 million on the loan it didn't receive. The IDB loan is part of a blocked total aid package of $500 million earmarked for Haiti by international financial institutions. This is the same $500 million that the international community determined to be necessary for Haiti in 1994 when democratic rule was restored with President Aristide's return from exile. For the last eight years, the US has managed to effectively block funds to the Haitian government while permitting $70 million to flow to the Convergence and, through USAID, to NGOs that support the Convergence." The [Democratic] Convergence, a coalition made up of roughly 200 groups, led by a former Aristide supporter and a product of a USAID program, formed. Its purpose was to "fund those sectors of the Haitian political spectrum where opposition to the Aristide government could be encouraged." The International Republican Institute (IRI), associated with the U.S. government-funded National Endowment for Democracy, provided financial support to the Convergence. In 2000, it was reported that this organization composed of "current or former Republican Party officials, Republican officeholders, or members of Republican administrations" received about $3 million annually from Congress (and millions more from private interests in the U.S. and Haiti). In May of 2000, the Lavalas party of President Aristide swept the parliamentary elections winning over 80 percent of all the seats. The U.S. cut off funding for presidential elections hoping to force postponement of the constitutionally mandated election. When postponement did not happen, the U.S. encouraged opposition candidates to boycott the election. Facing mounting opposition from forces seeking to foment a coup, Aristide forced seven of the eight Haitian senators to resign and told the General Assembly of the Organization of American States (OAS) new elections would be held within six months. In November 2000, Aristide ran unopposed in Haiti's presidential elections and won 91.5 percent of the vote. The U.S.-supported Democratic Convergence Party opted to boycott the election and claimed it was rigged instead of participating in the election. USAID commissions polls taken before and after the election indicated that many of the figures were accurate but these polls were suppressed by the U.S. Having failed to wholly discredit Aristide and his party, from 2001 to 2004 the U.S. trained an anti-Aristide army in the Dominician Republic. The U.S. government funded and trained a paramilitary army of 600 anti-Aristide Haitians with the support of the Dominican Republic's president, Hipolito Mehia. More than a million dollars in funds were directed to the IRI with the understanding that the funds would be used for "encouraging democracy in Haiti." The U.S. also shipped 20,000 M-16s for "the Jade Project" in 2002--a project where Dominican army people were secretly trained to fight in Haiti. The Organization of American States (OAS), an organization that claimed it was "mediating" between the Convergence and Aristide, called for the removal of Aristide in 2003. And, a month later, five Haitian coup plotters were arrested indicating that Contra-like rebels were present (In addition to the arrest of plotters, it is found that the U.S. has stationed 900 U.S. soldiers to patrol with the Dominican army.) By now, the U.S. had successfully convinced several European countries to suspend hundreds of millions of dollars in credit and aide and the IMF, World Bank, and the European Union had been instructed in some way or another to deny lines of credit to Haiti until Aristide reaches an agreement with the Convergence. In February 2004, rebels take over cities in north Haiti and move toward the capital, Port-au-Prince. Led by a former death squad leader, the rebels close in and Aristide is flown out of the country or kidnapped by the U.S. at the end of February in 2004. (The U.S. immediately sends forces in to secure and stabilize the country.) Jean Bertrand-Aristide, now exiled, maintained he was kidnapped. On March 1, 2004, Congresswoman Maxine Waters said on Democracy Now! : "He said that he was kidnapped; he said that he was forced to leave Haiti. He said that the American embassy sent the diplomats; he referred to them as, to his home where they was lead by Mr. Moreno. And I believe that Mr. Moreno is a deputy chief of staff at the embassy in Haiti and other diplomats, and they ordered him to leave. They said you must go NOW. He said that they said that Guy Phillipe and U.S. Marines were coming to Port Au Prince; he will be killed, many Haitians will be killed, that they would not stop until they did what they wanted to do. He was there with his wife Mildred and his brother-in-law and two of his security people, and somebody from the Steel Foundation, and they're all, there's five of them that are there. They took them where-- they did stop in Antigua then they stopped at a military base, then they were in the air for hours and then they arrived at this place and they were met by five ministers of government. It's a Francophone country, they speak French. And they were then taken to this place called the Palace of the Renaissance where they are being held and they are surrounded by military people. They are not free to do whatever they want to do. Then the phone clicked off after we had talked for about five--we talked maybe fifteen minutes and then the phone clicked off. But he, some of it was muffled in the beginning, at times it was clear. But one thing that was very clear and he said it over and over again, that he was kidnapped, that the coup was completed by the Americans that they forced him out." Guma wrote of the private interests that drove Aristide to be kidnapped: "It was far easier to identify the economic interests at stake in 1915. In a globalized economy, those who pull Haiti's strings are more numerous, and all but invisible. By the late-90s, over 60 US corporations were doing business in Haiti, many of them well-known in the apparel and sportswear trade. The names included Wilson and Star Sportswear baseballs and softballs, Universal Manufacturing, and H.H. Cutler Co., producing goods for Disney's Babies, Fisher-Price, Major League Baseball, the National Basketball Association, the National Football League, and the National Hockey League. The leading retail outlets for goods made in Haiti before and during the 1990s coup were Sears, J.C. Penney, and WalMart. At the time, Haitian labor leaders maintained that Aristide's intention to raise the minimum wage to 50 cents an hour, up from a scandalous 14 cents, was a crucial reason for his overthrow. Even if they were wrong, the wage situation, a byproduct of the World Bank's structural adjustment program for the country, said much about the true intentions behind US intervention. As in 1915, Haiti was essentially considered an endangered investment, and so US troops were deployed again to pacify the population." Jeffrey Sachs, professor of economics and director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University (and since 2004 the author of "The End of Poverty") wrote of the U.S.-backed coup: "Aristide was enormously popular in early 2001. Hopes were high that he would deliver progress against the extraordinary poverty. Together with Dr. Paul Farmer, the legendary AIDS doctor in Haiti, I visited villages in Haiti's Central Plateau, asking people about their views of politics and Aristide.? Everybody referred to the president affectionately as "Titid." Here, clearly, was an elected leader with the backing of Haiti's poor, who constituted the bulk of the population. When I returned to Washington, I spoke to senior officials in the IMF, World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank, and Organization of American States. I expected to hear that these international organizations would be rushing to help Haiti. Instead, I was shocked to learn that they would all be suspending aid, under vague "instructions" from the US. Washington, it seemed, was unwilling to release aid to Haiti because of irregularities in the 2000 legislative elections, and was insisting that Aristide make peace with the political opposition before releasing any aid. The US position was a travesty. Aristide had been elected president in an indisputable landslide. He was, without doubt, the popularly elected leader of the country -- a claim that President George W. Bush cannot make about himself. Nor were the results of the legislative elections in 2000 in doubt: Aristide's party had also won in a landslide.? It was claimed that Aristide's party had stolen a few seats. If true -- and the allegation remains unproved -- it would be nothing different from what has occurred in dozens of countries around the world receiving support from the IMF, World Bank, and the US itself. By any standard, Haiti's elections had marked a step forward in democracy, compared to the decades of military dictatorships that America had backed, not to mention long periods of direct US military occupation. The more one sniffed around Washington the less America's position made sense. People in positions of responsibility in international agencies simply shrugged and mumbled that they couldn't do more to help Haiti in view of the Bush veto on aid. Moreover, by saying that aid would be frozen until Aristide and the political opposition reached an agreement, the Bush administration provided Haiti's un-elected opposition with an open-ended veto. Aristide's foes merely had to refuse to bargain in order to plunge Haiti into chaos." Since the coup in 2004, human rights abuses have become rampant. Thomas Griffin with the Center for the Study of Human Rights of Miami University's Law School published a report documenting a "truly sickening security breakdown in Port-au-Prince with the police dominated by former Haitian army soldiers and gang warfare fomented by sinister US-supported figures like coup-instigator Andy Apaid. If one is familiar with the contents of the report, it's not hard to understand why the Legal Director Center for Constitutional Rights, Bill Quigley, a man who has been actively pushing for human rights in Haiti for years with the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti, would like to keep their guns from being pointed at Haitians who are not the enemy. Guns being pointed at victims has happened all too often. PRIVATIZE OR FACE DIVINE PUNISHMENT (IS THIS WHAT PAT ROBERTSON WAS THINKING ABOUT WHEN HE DEVELOPED HIS CRAZY THEORY ON HAITI MAKING A PACT WITH THE DEVIL?) While Haiti was hit with four tropical storms or hurricanes in 2008, killer storms in 2005 and 2004, and floods in 2007, 2006, 2003 (twice), and 2002 and while the earthquake is the fifteenth disaster that has led USAID to send money and help to Haiti, history shows how major catastrophes have been exploited by corporate or private interests. Naomi Klein wrote about the aftermath of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake, which had a magnitude of 9.0 at one point and produced a series of lethal tsunamis in December killing hundreds of thousands of people. The tsunamis killed people and produced significant damage in Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, and even had an impact in Somalia, Kenya, and Tanzania. Klein wrote a chapter on how the crisis created by the tsunami created opportunity for private interests in Sri Lanka: "[the] significance of the event was understood immediately. The newly elected government would need billions from foreign creditors to reconstruct the homes, roads, schools, and railways destroyed in the storm--and those creditors knew well that when faced with a devastating crisis even the most committed economic nationalists suddenly become flexible." President Chandrika Kumaratunga, according to Klein, had a kind of "religious epiphany" and believed the tsunami to possibly be "divine punishment for failing to sell off Sri Lanka's beaches and forests." She bowed to pressure from Washington lenders and created a group "made up of Sri Lanka's most powerful business executives from banking and industry" called the Task Force to Rebuild the Nation. Instead of allowing elected leaders in government to handle reconstruction, she gave private interests a gateway they had been hoping for before the tsunami ---an opportunity to drop barriers to private land ownership, institute more "flexible" labor laws, modernize the national infrastructure, etc. To those who remembered how the Sri Lankan people had opposed such reforms which favored private interests and engaged in militant strikes, street protests, and voted against the set of reforms favoring private interests at the polls, it may have seemed strange that there was now no real force of people standing up to the onslaught of privatization entering the country. According to Klein, the U.S. government was very excited about the potential for high-end tourism and all the possibilities for resort chains and tour operators in Sri Lanka. USAID even launched a program "to organize the Sri Lankan tourism industry into a powerful Washington-style group." But, most importantly, plans to let private interests take over the country existed before the tsunami. The U.S. used the crisis to let interests that had been kept out into the country: "The grand plan to remake Sri Lanka predated the tsunami by two years. It began when the civil war ended and the usual players descended on the country to plot Sri Lanka's entry into the world economy--most prominently USAID, World Bank, and its offshoot the Asian Development Bank. A consensus emerged that Sri Lanka's most significant advantage lay in the fact that it was one of the last places left uncolonized by go-go globalization, a by-product of its long war." Tourism Concern, a UK-based NGO, released a report detailing how private interests were keeping the people from returning to their homes: "A record amount of promised donations and aid was raised to help the victims of 400 million in the UK. Yet, ten months after the disaster, thousands of survivors are still trying to survive in temporary camps. Many of them are being refused permission to return home. Governments and big businesses have plans for the beaches and the plans don't include the people who used to live and work there." Later in the report, Tourism Concern said of Thailand: "post-tsunami reconstruction in Thailand appears on the surface to have been conducted overall in a speedy and efficient, if at times over zealous and authoritarian, manner. The government did produce Master Plans for the rebuilding of various beach resorts. However, the private sector, criticizing the government for inaction, has started to rebuild tourism amenities. Much of the rebuilding (for example on Ko Phi Phi) is theoretically illegal because laws on buffer zones and building regulations have been ignored, just as they were before the tsunami." For more on the aftermath, read Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine. Or, check out this page with sources on the economic shock therapy countries faced in the aftermath: Chapter 19 Blanking the Beach "AN OPPORTUNITY TO RESHAPE HAITI'S LONG-DYSFUNCTIONAL GOVERNMENT AND ECONOMY" While speaking to an audience in New York Wednesday night, Naomi Klein addressed the crisis in Haiti: "We have to be absolutely clear that this tragedy--which is part natural, part unnatural--must, under no circumstances, be used to, one, further indebt Haiti and, two, to push through unpopular corporatist policies in the interest of our corporations. This is not conspiracy theory. They have done it again and again." Postings by the Heritage Foundation indicate that those looking to further privatize Haiti and further violate the public sector in Haiti (which is already severely damaged) are lurking in the shadows and ready to find a way to sneak certain policy changes in possibly as an attachment to any disaster relief legislation Congress passes in response to the earthquake. Klein told an audience that the Heritage Foundation published the following less than 24 hours after the earthquake: "In addition to providing immediate humanitarian assistance, the U.S. response to the tragic earthquake in Haiti earthquake offers opportunities to re-shape Haiti's long-dysfunctional government and economy as well as to improve the public image of the United States in the region." But, it removed this revealing statement from its blog posting on what the U.S. response should be. Still, the conservative policy think tank's blog postingsuggests that: ""the U.S. must be prepared to insist that the Haiti government work closely with the U.S. to insure that corruption does not infect the humanitarian assistance flowing to Haiti. Long-term reforms for Haitian democracy and its economy are also badly overdue. Congress should immediately begin work on a package of assistance, trade, and reconstruction efforts needed to put Haiti on its feet and open the way for deep and lasting democratic reforms." [emphasis added] James M. Roberts, Research Fellow for Economic Freedom and Growth in the Center for International Trade and Economics, and Ray Walser, Ph.D., Senior Policy Analyst for Latin America in the Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies, a division of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies, at The Heritage Foundation, wrote this in "American Leadership Necessary to Assist Haiti After Devastating Earthquake": "Congress should immediately expand U.S. trade preferences for Haiti. The 2006 Haitian Hemispheric Opportunity through Partnership Encouragement Act, and an extension approved in 2008, helped to create jobs and boost apparel exports and investment by providing tariff-free access to the U.S. market. The apparel sector represents about two-thirds of Haitian exports and nearly one-tenth of Haiti's GDP. The U.S. should also establish trade preferences for other manufactures and agriculture commodity exports from Haiti to the U.S. Benefits for both Haitian and American importers and exporters are available under the Caribbean Basin Trade Partnership Act--which provides for duty-free export of many Haitian products assembled from U.S. components or materials--the successor program to the Caribbean Basin Initiative." If you read this Internationalist story from on Haitians battling over starvation wages and neocolonial occupation, you might wonder what trade preferences the Heritage Foundation hopes to see expanded. Roger F. Noriega published a response to the disaster in Haiti on the American Enterprise Institute website: "...Before the hurricanes, flooding, mudslides, and earthquakes that have befallen Haiti in the last decade came the man-made disaster. Ineffective political institutions, a predatory state, corrupt and venal politicians, and a weak civil society have conspired to wreck Haiti's western third of the island of Hispaniola. You can literally see dysfunction from space: satellite photos of the island that Haiti shares with the Dominican Republic show the denuded hillsides on the Haitian side of the border.1 Muddy hills routinely swallow up Haitian hamlets because the state does not have the wherewithal or the interest to keep villagers from stripping the hillside of trees that can be burned to warm a hovel or heat an evening meal..." Noriega's contempt for the state government in Haiti and his convenient ignorance of the reasons why political institutions may be ineffective, why the state may be predatory, why politicians may be corrupt, and why civil society may be weak should not go unchallenged. Noriega was once the U.S. permanent representative to the Organization of the American States, an organization that pushed for the removal of Aristide. As permanent representative, he was connected to the International Republican Institute, played a role in plans in 2004 that involved the take over of cities in Haiti by rebels, had deep connections to the coup that involved Aristide being kidnapped by the U.S., and contended in a speech to the American Enterprise Institute that under Aristide the people of Haiti had "lost their democracy." In the same speech, Noriega outlined neoliberal reforms he hoped Haiti would some day adopt: "We will provide technical and legal aid to update Haiti's Commercial Code, which dates from the 19th century, in order to help create the right environment for growth and wealth creation. We will also encourage the Government of Haiti to move forward, at the appropriate time, with restructuring and privatization of some public sector enterprises through a transparent process." The world can take a cue from Noriega and other outspoken individuals from think tanks and "pro-democracy" projects in America (like the Haiti Democracy project which Roger F. Noriega is connected to). The shock therapy of Haiti will most likely occur as a result of imposed political solutions and systematic discrediting and smearing of the Haitian state. Through discrediting, smearing, and the spread of disinformation and misinformation through media, entities friendly to private interests like USAID and the World Bank will hone in on the ways Cuba and Venezuela are seeking to help Haiti in the aftermath. U.S. interests may seek to influence the outcome of the next election in Haiti by electing more leaders who are unsympathetic toward Chavez in Venezuela or the government in Cuba. If the U.S. succeeds in getting a better political foothold in the nation of Haiti, it could not only influence the political direction of the country, but it could also remove enterprises from state-ownership and further privatize the country. Haiti could be a U.S. proxy that is not only a means for challenging Hugo Chavez but also an example of the kind of democracy ruled by private enterprise that U.S. interests would like to see in Venezuela, Bolivia, and other Latin American or Central American countries. For Haitians who have suffered greatly under colonialism, imperialism, neocolonialism, and neoliberalism throughout the last few centuries, one hopes that private interests do not succeed in undoing more of the public sector and influencing the Haitian government for their gain. But, leaders in place now have been fighting off the wolves for two decades. With the recent earthquake, there is reason to fear things will get way worse before they get better unless outside relief organizations take a stand for human rights in Haiti and use that stand to keep out the corporatist vultures circling the fresh carcasses in Haiti. From dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk Sun Jan 17 08:57:03 2010 From: dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk (robert searle) Date: Sun, 17 Jan 2010 15:57:03 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [GJM] Fw: Re: [toeslist] Bankers Without a Clue - Krugman Message-ID: <9382.1380.qm@web27407.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> --- On Sat, 16/1/10, ideasinc wrote: From: ideasinc Subject: Re: [toeslist] Bankers Without a Clue - Krugman To: toeslist at yahoogroups.com Date: Saturday, 16 January, 2010, 23:26 ? only one of the problems with Krugman's escape clause interpretation of the financial collapse accepting the "clueless" deflection is that all of the majors bet via the CDS in favor of the housing market crashing, and it was those pay-offs through the CDS's backed by AIG which were bailed out in the counter party payoffs. As such Krugman is accepting the deflection. Another point is that it absolutely doesn't matter if they were clueless or not they were corporately responsible for managing their corporations. The dog ate my homework blarney isn't even relevant, also because they continue to receive their bonuses. The whole gambit is a deflection to create a politically plausible WHOOPS. It is Krugman that doesn't have a clue, that we are being played yet again. On Sat, 16 Jan 2010 17:10:10 -0500, Riaz K Tayob wrote: > Op-Ed Columnist - *Bankers Without a Clue* > > By PAUL KRUGMAN > Published: January 14, 2010 > > The official Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission --- the group that aims > to hold a modern version of the Pecora hearings of the 1930s, whose > investigations set the stage for New Deal bank regulation --- began > taking testimony on Wednesday. In its first panel, the commission > grilled four major financial-industry honchos. What did we learn? > > Paul Krugman > > Well, if you were hoping for a Perry Mason moment --- a scene in which > the witness blurts out: "Yes! I admit it! I did it! And I'm glad!" --- > the hearing was disappointing. What you got, instead, was witnesses > blurting out: "Yes! I admit it! I'm clueless!" > > O.K., not in so many words. But the bankers' testimony showed a stunning > failure, even now, to grasp the nature and extent of the current crisis. > And that's important: It tells us that as Congress and the > administration try to reform the financial system, they should ignore > advice coming from the supposed wise men of Wall Street, who have no > wisdom to offer. > > Consider what has happened so far: The U.S. economy is still grappling > with the consequences of the worst financial crisis since the Great > Depression; trillions of dollars of potential income have been lost; the > lives of millions have been damaged, in some cases irreparably, by mass > unemployment; millions more have seen their savings wiped out; hundreds > of thousands, perhaps millions, will lose essential health care because > of the combination of job losses and draconian cutbacks by cash-strapped > state governments. > > *And this disaster was entirely self-inflicted. This isn't like the > stagflation of the 1970s, which had a lot to do with soaring oil prices, > which were, in turn, the result of political instability in the Middle > East. This time we're in trouble entirely thanks to the dysfunctional > nature of our own financial system. Everyone understands this --- > everyone, it seems, except the financiers themselves.* > > *There were two moments in Wednesday's hearing that stood out. One was > when Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase declared that a financial crisis is > something that "happens every five to seven years. We shouldn't be > surprised." In short, stuff happens, and that's just part of life.* > > But the truth is that the United States managed to avoid major financial > crises for half a century after the Pecora hearings were held and > Congress enacted major banking reforms. It was only after we forgot > those lessons, and dismantled effective regulation, that our financial > system went back to being dangerously unstable. > > *As an aside, it was also startling to hear Mr. Dimon admit that his > bank never even considered the possibility of a large decline in home > prices, despite widespread warnings that we were in the midst of a > monstrous housing bubble.* > > Still, *Mr. Dimon's cluelessness paled beside that of Goldman Sachs's > Lloyd Blankfein, who compared the financial crisis to a hurricane nobody > could have predicted.* Phil Angelides, the commission's chairman, was > not amused: The financial crisis, he declared, wasn't an act of God; it > resulted from "acts of men and women." > > Was Mr. Blankfein just inarticulate? No. He used the same metaphor in > his prepared testimony in which he urged Congress not to push too hard > for financial reform: *"We should resist a response ... that is solely > designed around protecting us from the 100-year storm."* So this giant > financial crisis was just a rare accident, a freak of nature, and we > shouldn't overreact. > > But there was nothing accidental about the crisis. From the late 1970s > on, the American financial system, freed by deregulation and a political > climate in which greed was presumed to be good, spun ever further out of > control. There were ever-greater rewards --- bonuses beyond the dreams > of avarice --- for bankers who could generate big short-term profits. > And the way to raise those profits was to pile up ever more debt, both > by pushing loans on the public and by taking on ever-higher leverage > within the financial industry. > > *Sooner or later, this runaway system was bound to crash. And if we > don't make fundamental changes, it will happen all over again. > * > Do the bankers really not understand what happened, or are they just > talking their self-interest? No matter. As I said, the important thing > looking forward is to stop listening to financiers about financial > reform. > > Wall Street executives will tell you that the financial-reform bill the > House passed last month would cripple the economy with overregulation > (it's actually quite mild). They'll insist that the tax on bank debt > just proposed by the Obama administration is a crude concession to > foolish populism. They'll warn that action to tax or otherwise rein in > financial-industry compensation is destructive and unjustified. > > But what do they know? The answer, as far as I can tell, is: not much. > > /Op-Ed Columnist - Bankers Without a Clue - NYTimes.com (17 January 2010) > http://www.nytimes. com/2010/ 01/15/opinion/ 15krugman. html?partner= rss&emc=rss/ __._,_.___ Reply to sender | Reply to group Messages in this topic (2) Recent Activity: Visit Your Group Start a New Topic MARKETPLACE Going Green: Your Yahoo! Groups resource for green living Switch to: Text-Only, Daily Digest ? Unsubscribe ? Terms of Use . __,_._,___ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk Sun Jan 17 08:57:54 2010 From: dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk (robert searle) Date: Sun, 17 Jan 2010 15:57:54 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [GJM] Fw: [toeslist] NY Fed worked steadily with AIG to avert bailout disclosures Message-ID: <313932.13397.qm@web27403.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> --- On Sun, 17/1/10, Riaz K Tayob wrote: From: Riaz K Tayob Subject: [toeslist] NY Fed worked steadily with AIG to avert bailout disclosures To: Date: Sunday, 17 January, 2010, 13:36 ? [How do you keep American's in the dark? ] NY Fed worked steadily with AIG to avert bailout disclosures ??? By David Lawder and Mark Felsenthal Reuters Sunday, January 17, 2010 http://www.reuters. com/article/ idUSTRE60G0BV201 00117 WASHINGTON -- The New York Federal Reserve Bank actively worked with bailed-out insurer AIG to build a case against disclosing details of AIG's payments to banks just days after the insurer considered making them public, documents released late on Saturday showed. Lawyers for the New York Fed, which had taken over a pool of AIG assets as part of a $180 billion government bailout of the insurer in 2008, advised that AIG maintain a "confidential treatment request" from the Securities and Exchange Commission, according to emails provided by U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa, a U.S. lawmaker probing the matter. A separate batch of emails made public this month showed that the New York Fed had advised AIG not to disclose the payments in a securities filing in late 2008. The email traffic has raised questions about the role of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who ran the New York Fed at the time of the AIG bailout and the insurer's payment of some $62.1 billion to banks to liquidate credit default swaps it had sold to them. Geithner is among those due to testify on the AIG payments and efforts to limit public disclosures about them at a Jan. 27 hearing of the House of Representatives Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson also has been asked to appear before the panel. Geithner has said Fed officials had no choice but to allow AIG to pay the banks in full, but has denied any involvement in discussions to suppress disclosures. He reclused himself from matters involving AIG after being nominated for Treasury Secretary in November 2008. The latest emails show a proposed letter to the SEC requesting the withdrawal of the confidential treatment request around March 10, 2009, after some information on payments was reported by media, but the letter was never sent to the SEC. Instead of withdrawing the confidentiality request, the emails show further exchanges between the New York Fed and AIG lawyers that led to the insurer days later submitting a new confidentiality request. A draft of the request shows AIG asked the SEC to keep secret details about specific securities, their notional values, collateral posted against them, and mark-downs in their market values. AIG argued in the request that the assets held in a New York Fed investment vehicle called Maiden Lane III that was managed by BlackRock Inc. could lose value if the information was disclosed. "If market participants acquired information as to the composition of ML III's securities portfolio or if the prices paid by ML III were known to market participants, BlackRock's efforts to effectively manage ML III's portfolio of securities would be seriously undermined," AIG said in the confidentiality request. By this time, AIG had already been under some pressure by the SEC to disclose the counterparty payments, and on March 15 the company disclosed gross sums paid to individual banks, including posted collateral and direct payments totaling $62.1 billion, for 100 cents on the dollar -- a disclosure that stoked public rage about the AIG bailout. Societe Generale received $16.5 billion, Goldman Sachs received $14 billion, and Deutsche Bank received $8.5 billion in what has been labeled a "backdoor bailout" for top banks. Issa, a California Republican, said the latest emails show that the Fed had a much more direct role than previously thought in determining what to disclose and what to keep confidential regarding the payments. "The underlying question that must be answered is: Why all the secrecy?" Issa said in a statement. "The ultimate goal of this investigation is to get the complete picture of who played what role in crafting the counterparty deal and keeping it out of public light in an effort to delay inevitable scrutiny." The New York Fed has said its focus in AIG disclosures has been "ensuring accuracy and protecting taxpayers' interests during a time of severe economic distress." Issa is the top Republican on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, whose chairman, Democrat Edolphus Towns, has asked former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson to testify on January 27. Towns, from New York, also has invited Stephen Friedman, the former board chairman of the New York Fed who now sits on Goldman Sachs' board of directors. Spokesmen for Paulson and Friedman were not immediately available for comment on Saturday. Along with Geithner, Neil Barofsky, special inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program; Elias Habayeb, former chief financial officer of AIG Financial Services Group; and Thomas Baxter, general counsel for the New York Fed, have been confirmed to testify. __._,_.___ 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 Switch to: Text-Only, Daily Digest ? Unsubscribe ? Terms of Use . __,_._,___ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ceasig at gmail.com Sat Jan 16 09:51:43 2010 From: ceasig at gmail.com (Centre For Ecological Audit, Social Inclusion & Governance) Date: Sat, 16 Jan 2010 22:21:43 +0530 Subject: [GJM] FW: Continuing Endeavours for Promoting Carbon-Neutral Leisure In-Reply-To: <000801ca9628$0818c620$184a5260$@net> References: <000801ca9628$0818c620$184a5260$@net> Message-ID: <31f677a31001160851w61f86c11ha39ffbc2b8a3486a@mail.gmail.com> Dear Mary, Thanks a lot for asking me the reason as to the focus on leisure . This is important considering this to be the important engagement that consumes products and services based on the utilisation of fossil fuels. In Delhi the capital of India where I have been living since 1986, I have seen the increase in the number of cars. There are roads that where at times , it takes more than an hour. Urbanisation with more cars in India is getting the primary attention and projected as hallmark of development.There are more cars now. People are buying cars for spending leisure for visiting people, going to parties, showing off to relatives and the neighbours. You may see some of the pictures at http://transitionurbanindia.ning.com of the street where my house is located. Footpath has been captured in the residential areas.Even Beijing has got more cars now. I recall Beijing has people with bicycles. Across the cities, we find that culture of conspicuous consumption is increasing among those who are getting surplus money. News papers promote energy intensive leisure, travel, tourism and even the earned leave utilisation is proposed to be travel intensive. Transforming leisure will reduce the consumption. Low consumption mean low demand and lower demand means closue of companies. Here comes the need to promote what you are promoting local food and neighbourhood relationships. I recall my village and childhoods and I am sure you have a distant childhood, when there was much less consumption of energy intensive commodities and services. Liesure time use can be transformed easily with adoption of faith based and other carbon-neutral travel based measures. Instead of transforming leisure and reducing the demand for energy, we know governments demand financing the green technologies. In stead of calling for technologies, we should be adopting the ecologically sustainable measures for reducing the demand for energy intensive services and demands. That is very much possible rather than trapping children in usurious debts for getting green technologies. As a matter of fact, recognizing the peak oil estimates, there is a need to decelerate the consumption of fossil fuel based resources rather than seeking acceleration of demand for energy intensive services and habitats. We can see that there is absence of concern for the sustainability of services and commodities that are based on fossil fuels and it is assumed that energy crisis would be addressed.This assumption could be proved wrong. It is quite likely.What will happen then? What will happen to the livelihoods that are based on the supplies of fossil fuels and hydrocarbons? What would happen to the millions who have migrated to cities in search of livelihoods hoping for a dream that would never end? What would happen to those families who have sold their land in their villages and build houses for earning rent? Recognizing such uncertainties , I had called for preparation for the end of petro-modern times and we see that there are transition movements that are active in several countries with vibrant transition communities involved in communication and practice of ecologically safe local self reliant communities. Movement for Transforming Ecologically Hostile Habitats http://transitionurbanindia.ning.com> is working for creation of policy environment for meeting the exigencies of energy crisis and making habitats ecologically safe. We need to listen to the calls of the children who may inherit this Earth in say 40th century. We need to listen to the calls and cries of poorest who have not got right to homestead land even in Independent India. Inflation is creating difficulties for many with the adoption of a development policy that has made India the 5th largest emitter of green house gases. China is second largest emitter of green house gases and its championing of ecologically hostile growth targets created problems for the ecological safety of the children in India. It is sad that both China and India has agreed to oppose the norms of emissions while demanding deep cuts in emissions from the developed countries. It is getting increasingly difficult for nations to agree to the norms and reduce emissions as it gets directly linked to growth, employment, prosperity whose definitions and measurements has not factored the ecological costs.Center for Ecological Audit, Social Inclusion has been calling for adoption of inter-faith commons for mitigating the climate change and eradicating the problems of poverty that gets exacerbated with the adoption of environmentally and ecologically hostile development paradigm. A detailed presentation can be seen at http://slideshare.net/mukhtaralam > Dr.Muhammad Mukhtar Alam On Sat, Jan 16, 2010 at 2:46 AM, mary rose wrote: > Dear Mukhtar, While I am continually impressed with your efforts to > promote ?Carbon-Neutral Activities? I also continually fail to understand > why the focus is on ?leisure? activities when it is well known that > industrial activities are many times more polluting than are the leisure > activities conducted by those who are attempting to relieve the stresses of > an average person?s life in the industrial world. > > Would you please explain this to me so I can pass it on to other?s in the > Co-learner?s List. > > Thank you > > > > > > > > > > *From:* carbon neutral neighbourhood discussions/leisure [mailto: > mail at ecostrategiccommunicators.ning.com] > *Sent:* Friday, January 15, 2010 2:01 AM > *To:* maryrose333 at att.net > *Subject:* Continuing Endeavours for Promoting Carbon-Neutral Leisure > > > > *carbon neutral neighbourhood discussions/leisure* > > Carbon Neutral Neighborhood Consultations/ Leisure for Mitigating Climate > Change > A message to all members of carbon neutral neighbourhood > discussions/leisure > > Distinguished Ecostrategic Communicators, > > > > I hope and pray that this message finds you in the best health and spirits. > I would like to take this opportunity to share that the reasons for creating > this network are based on the need to both mitigating climate change and > preparing for the end of petromodern times and dawn of post-carbon age. This > is an initiative that I think feeds into the initiatives across the world > especially manifested through transition movements inspired with the work of > Rob Hopkins www.transitionculture.org > > > > Not sure, how you have responded to Copenhagen accord, Ithink, there is a > need to continue promoting ecologically benevolent leisure that are based in > the neighbourhoods. There is much that can be achieved with this. We have a > huge challenge, that we need to meet while working for ecologically safe > futures. > > > > I would like to seek your engagement with this forum with posts and others. > We have members from across the worlds and together, I think we can > contribute significantly. > > > > With warmest regards > > > > M.Mukhtar Alam > > On behalf of Center for Ecological Audit, Social Inclusion and Governance > > Visit carbon neutral neighbourhood discussions/leisure at: > http://ecostrategiccommunicators.ning.com/?xg_source=msg_mes_network > > > > To control which emails you receive on carbon neutral neighbourhood > discussions/leisure, click here > > > _______________________________________________ > 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 Sat Jan 16 20:27:19 2010 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Sat, 16 Jan 2010 19:27:19 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: Move your money! Message-ID: <000d01ca9725$37bba930$a732fb90$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS Well, I 've been saying this for a few months and now it's official. MOVE YOUR MONEY From: Robert Ocegueda [mailto:bocegueda at gmail.com] Sent: Saturday, January 16, 2010 1:22 AM To: Bob Ocegueda Subject: Move your money! Dear friends and family, Well!... here's a Happy New Year idea that makes sense and we can all get behind. "People all over the country are choosing to move their money out of bigger banks and into smaller, community-oriented financial institutions that generally avoided the reckless investments and schemes that helped cause the financial crisis. Fueled by the personal initiatives of thousands, it's a grassroots effort that has the potential to shift power in the financial system away from Wall Street and to Main Street. Check out the video, read up on what inspired the idea, connect with others through Facebook and Twitter and then use the tools and links provided to find a community bank or credit union in your area." http://moveyourmoney.info/ >From "The Nation" magazine editorial: "Are you angry about Wall Street's reckless excesses? Are you disappointed with President Obama's limp approach to reform? You can change this, acting individually and collectively. Withdraw your deposit and savings accounts from the large banks that brought the system to ruin and were subsequently rescued with billions in government bailouts. Put your money instead in smaller, safer banks or credit unions closer to home--the thousands of community institutions that do not harvest their profits from greed and recklessness." http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100201/editors?rel=emailNation I don't know if there are such things here in Europe, but there must be something similar I'd imagine. Pass the word. With much love, Bob -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ceasig at gmail.com Sun Jan 17 01:25:56 2010 From: ceasig at gmail.com (Centre For Ecological Audit, Social Inclusion & Governance) Date: Sun, 17 Jan 2010 13:55:56 +0530 Subject: [GJM] Fwd: You Need To Be Informed Why America Is Not Free In-Reply-To: <913678.85352.qm@web80006.mail.sp1.yahoo.com> References: <913678.85352.qm@web80006.mail.sp1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <31f677a31001170025o753e580cp2592c9a67ed1a084@mail.gmail.com> This may of interest for all working on transforming governance for justice and ecological safety. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Jack Lancaster Date: Sat, Jan 16, 2010 at 11:03 PM Subject: You Need To Be Informed Why America Is Not Free To: You Need To Be Informed Why America Is Not Free Composed by Ed Rivera, Edited by Me, Emphasis by Me . Free Law Information: The Legal System Is Privately Owned 1. All courts in the United States are privately ownedby the Crown Templein London . 2. All attorneys and judges are agentsof the privately owned Crown Temple. 3. All United States Courts are Admiralty Courtsunder color-of-law, it appears to be Law but is not. 4. All defendants are wards of the court. 5. All attorneys are attorners or twisters. 6. All attorneys and judges are officersof the court, a conflict of interest. 7. Admiralty Jurisdiction means the judge has the power of an admiral on a ship 8. Admiral on a ship has absolute power over life and death. 9. Defendants have no rightsin court. 10. All statutesin the United States only apply topersons who are fictitious entities. 11. United States Courts have no jurisdiction over a man or woman, only artificial persons. 12. Most traffic tickets are infractions, 13. You cannot be put in jailfor an infraction. 14. You can plea bargain with the judge to cut down the fine against you, 15. If you cannot be put in jail for an infraction they have no way to collect the fine. 16.The Judge will try to charge you with contempt to coerce you to pay the fine. 17. You cannot be lawfully charged with contempt unless you are disrespectableto the judge. 18. If you cannot pay the fine they have to let you gobecause they cannot put you in jail. 19. They may summons you back to court again to pay the fine. 20. Since they cannot put you in jail and you obey all summons they will give up because they want the money and you are wasting the court?s time. 21. Search yahoo or Google under Crown Templeto see who owns you and your property. 22. Under Admiralty Law you cannot have a fully informed jury, 23. Common Lawis the Law of the People. 24. Path To freedom www.EdRivera.som 25. Admiralty Lawis the law of the kingor sovereign. 26. Most Americansare no longer sovereignsthey are subjects (slaves). 27. All courts in America are territorial Courtsunder Congressional jurisdiction. -- 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 ceasig at gmail.com Sun Jan 17 01:33:58 2010 From: ceasig at gmail.com (Centre For Ecological Audit, Social Inclusion & Governance) Date: Sun, 17 Jan 2010 14:03:58 +0530 Subject: [GJM] adding space for prayer Message-ID: <31f677a31001170033l6f35ae54o7cf08fec29553c69@mail.gmail.com> Dear David, I thank for posting link and story on permaculture for Mary who sent it to GJM list. I think add space for prayer hall along with community should be part of the design of ecologically self reliant communities in Haiti. In Bihar where flood savaged thousand of villages, Mosques proved to be a place for consultation and releif. With warmest regards Dr.Muhammad Mukhtar Alam -- 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 ceasig at gmail.com Sun Jan 17 01:41:48 2010 From: ceasig at gmail.com (Centre For Ecological Audit, Social Inclusion & Governance) Date: Sun, 17 Jan 2010 14:11:48 +0530 Subject: [GJM] FW: a perfect example of the benefits of Permaculture In-Reply-To: <001901ca962c$beae1e90$3c0a5bb0$@net> References: <001901ca962c$beae1e90$3c0a5bb0$@net> Message-ID: <31f677a31001170041r6455a69fk487c9e692654bc5f@mail.gmail.com> Dear Mary, I am pleased to share that I have created a note out of this important sharing of yours at http://transitionurbanindia.ning.com/notes/permaculture_disaster_releif With warmest regards Dr.Muhammad Mukhtar Alam On Sat, Jan 16, 2010 at 3:18 AM, mary rose wrote: > Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS > > David, what an excellent idea. Let?s get this forwarded to as many people > as possible. BTW, for those who do not know, David is an American living in > China. > > > > With love and appreciation. > > > > *From:* David West [mailto:dgwest7 at gmail.com] > *Sent:* Friday, January 15, 2010 2:29 AM > *To:* undisclosed-recipients: > *Subject:* a perfect example of the benefits of Permaculture > > > > I think this is a perfect example of the benefits of Permaculture. > > Best regards > > David > > > http://permaculture.org.au/2010/01/14/permaculture-relief-corps-forming-for-haiti-earthquake-response/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email > Permaculture Relief Corps Forming For Haiti Earthquake Response? Aid > Projects, > Community Projects? by Evan > Schoepke January 14, > 2010 > > *The remarkable history (and possible future) of permaculture disaster > relief, by Evan Schoepke of punk rock permaculture > * > > > *Devastation in Port Au Prince. Photo: Carel Pedre, via twitter* > > Two days ago the island of Hispanola was hit with a devastating 7.3 > magnitude earthquakenear Port-Au-Prince, the capital of Haiti. Many multiple story buildings > have completely collapsed, including the major hospital in the region. > Thousands may be killed or trapped in the rubble and aid is being mobilized > from around the world. With little to no backup power, sewerage, water, > housing, or food aid systems in place, Haiti, which is currently the poorest > nation in the western hemisphere, is in a VERY DIRE SITUATION. > Without a doubt, resources and expertise are moving en mass to Haiti, but > beyond this temporary relief, what will sustain this nation of ten million > people when it?s left in an even poorer position than ever before? This is > where permaculture design comes in, with an adaptable and ever-evolving tool > kit that can be of vital assistance in disaster relief and the long recovery > period to follow. > > During the war in Kosovo back in 1999, when displaced refugees flooded into > Macedonia, Geoff Lawtonand a crack team of eager permaculturalists secured international aid to > design and implement the master plan for the Cegrane Camp Permaculture > Rehabilitation Project > ,* *a large refugee camp that provided relief for over 43,000 people.* * > > > *Permaculture Disaster Relief* > > *Permaculture Disaster Relief* > > Geoff created the design around water capture and storage. The final > design called for 7.2 km of swales, with an estimated water holding capacity > of 30 million liters, greatly reducing the flood potential. Many passive > solar strawbale buildings were constructed by trained locals who quickly > grasped the simplicity and efficiency of this natural building technique. > Large gardens, composting toliets and chicken tractors all came together in > a very short time span. The skills and systems thinking acquired during > this process may help secure sustainable employment and economic development > for the entire region for years to come. > > Another successful implementation of permaculture relief took place in Cuba > during the early 90s when Cuba was suffering from a > crippling petroleum embargo. Working with a grant from the Cuban > government, Austrailian permaculturalists, including Robyn Francis, traveled > to Cuba to work with hundreds of Cubans on sustainable food systems design. > Robyn, a well traveled expert in permaculture education in the 2/3rds > (developing) world, helped local organizers use permaculture design > prinicpals and techniques in their urban agriculture efforts. During this > time, worker cooperatives were set up and market gardens and public > transportation flourished. Little to no pesticides or fertilizers were > employed, and catastrophic famine was avoided. This partnership has > continued to be highly successful and now some of the most experienced urban > permaculture experts in the world come from Cuba because of the courageous > spirit of the Cuban citizenry. Currently, the Cuba-Australia Permaculture > Exchange (CAPE)is working on sustainable housing developments using natural building to > compliment the work they began together with urban agriculture. > > > *Water Harvesting* > > There are numerous ways in which a full-time Permaculture Relief Corps > could operate in Haiti in short and long-term time frames. > > *Short Term:* > > Building sewage systems, composting toilets, compost and recyclying > centers, rocket and solar stoves, temporary shelters (perma-yurts), > water catchment, and plant nurseries. > > *Long Term:* > > Permanent natural buildings, water storage, earth works, renewable energy, > permaculture food forests, broad-scale reforestation, farms, aquaculture > systems, health centers and schools. > > In 2003 following a intense hurricane, a team including Eric Davenport, an > American architect, and David Doherty, a Peace Corps Volunteer, worked for > several months with the local community to rebuild a rural village after > severe flooding. This team was then joined by Frederique Mangones, a > renowned Haitian architect, and engineer Frantz Severe of ORE draw to the > challenge of designing low-cost housing adapted to Haitian rural family > activities. In the fall of 2003, a team of permiculturalists also offered > their expertise to the village project. > > *Design for a new village* > > Today their team, in collaboration with the local community and the Organization > for the Rehabilitation of the Environment(ORE), is working on: > > - Low cost relief from floods > - Waste management & recycling to protect the environment > - Hygienic toilets to improve family health > - A community center to bring people together > - Privacy to reduce stress within families > - Green spaces to enhance quality of life > - Fruit trees to generate income > - Utilizing daily wind patterns, heat and cooling cycles > - Covenants to protect their community > > Haiti is in desperate need of our assistance which can not come soon > enough. Eight out of ten Haitians live in abject poverty and need the long > term commitment of folks working for a sustainable and abundant future. > Please check out the links below of organizations doing great work in this > field. > > If you are interested in the formation of a *Permaculture Relief Corps*like the one I?m proposing, please comment here. > > My heart goes out to all those working and living in Haiti right now, > > Sincerely, > > Evan Schoepke: thejulianeffect (at) gmail.com > Principal of Gaia Punk Designs > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > 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: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/jpeg Size: 45579 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/jpeg Size: 7099 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/jpeg Size: 21802 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/jpeg Size: 22642 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/gif Size: 2568 bytes Desc: not available URL: From 121Rhahl at kilowattcards.com Sat Jan 16 09:24:30 2010 From: 121Rhahl at kilowattcards.com (Robert Hahl) Date: Sat, 16 Jan 2010 09:24:30 -0700 Subject: [GJM] Overconsuming heath care Message-ID: <5baa3532$438a077a$94ce91c$@com> http://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/Consumption.html Everyone knows that American consumers have been on a binge for the last ten or twenty years. Data connoisseurs could even tell you that the consumption share of GDP rose from an average of 64% in the 1980s to 70% in 2007-8. But while the numbers are accurate, they're not really telling the story of a binge. Much of the rise has come from spending on health care, not flat-screen TVs. Sad to say, LBO was among the many who made the binge argument. We should have known better. Sorry. The numbers Graphed nearby is a history of the consumption share of GDP, with and without health care spending. (An Econ 101 refresher: GDP is the sum of consumption, investment, government spending, and exports less imports.) Note the relative flatness of the "ex-medical care" line-its recent level is actually below 1960's-compared with the relentless ascent of the "total" line. Some numbers to make these points: at the end of 1978, consumption was 61.5% of GDP; in the second quarter of 2008, it had risen to 70.3%, or 8.8 points. Well over half that increase, 5.0 points, came from spending on medical care. The share of GDP devoted to spending on goods actually fell by 4.7 points over that 30-year period. The pattern is preserved if you start the clock in 1997, just as the stock and housing manias were taking off. Medical spending accounted for almost a third of that rise between 1997 and 2008. Energy accounted for another third. Spending on goods accounted for just 3% of the rise, or 0.1 point. In other words, the familiar story that Americans went hogwild buying all kinds of stuff is wrong. So the much-lamented decline in the U.S. savings rate begins to look less lamentable in light of this news. (Technical point: the decline in the savings rate is a function not only of people putting less money in the bank-it's also a reflection of higher borrowing.) Graphed below is the personal savings rate as reported along with how it would look had the medical bite out of after-tax income remained constant at 1991's rate over the last 18 years. The bottom line: it would have declined much less dramatically into its 2005-6 lows, and would since have risen back to 1992 levels. Meaning? Little of this vast medical spending is done directly by individuals. To understand how this all works requires a brief detour into national income accounting. Only about 40% of household spending on health care comes from paying the doctor directly out-of-pocket; most of the rest comes from paying insurance premiums (including Medicare). But it's not just the premiums that individuals pay directly; the national income accountants also attribute the employer share of health insurance premiums to households. The logic of this is that fringe benefits are a substitute for wages and salaries, which take the form of medical care (or pension contributions). That may seem a little strange-it's not income you can spend on rent or a prosciutto, arugula, and brie sandwich, but it is a form of compensation. While the morality tale of American overconsumption isn't supported by a close look at the data, that doesn't mean that the rise in reported consumption and the collapse in reported savings (at least until very recently) is meaningless. The few Wall Street analysts who've taken note of the medical contribution to the consumption spike have perversely been arguing that since there was almost no consumption bubble when you exclude medical care, the retrenchment in spending could be less severe and protracted than many expect. But that's certainly not the story that the recent retail sales figures are telling: they collapsed in late 2008 and early 2009, and have continued to erode since. With labor income very weak and credit very tight, and with neither likely to stage a vigorous recovery anytime soon, the decision to retrench might not be freely made. But there's also another point here. While the consumption spike may look like the result of an accounting convention, it's also reflecting a sad reality: an enormous, and ever-increasing share of our national income is going to health care. Of course, some unquantifiable share of that spending makes people healthier, happier, and more productive. But much of it doesn't. In economic jargon, it's a deadweight loss. As the graph above shows, the U.S. devotes a far larger share of its national income to health care than any other country: 37% more than the second-biggest spender, France; 49% more than Canada; 68% more than Sweden; 87% more than the UK. Yet U.S. health indicators are consistently among the worst in the OECD, with terrible ratings on life expectancy, infant mortality, obesity, and mental health. U.S. readings on all these are worse than countries spending far less on health care. So the rise in the consumption share of GDP and the long slide in our savings rate is telling us something. American consumers aren't the profligates of legend, but that our health care system certainly is. Robert W. Hahl, J.D., Ph.D. Chairman Kilowatt-Hour Card Corp. 121 S. Lee St. Falls Church, VA 22046 US +1 7039817447 Call (mobile) 121rhahl at kilowattcards.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From 121Rhahl at kilowattcards.com Sun Jan 17 05:18:32 2010 From: 121Rhahl at kilowattcards.com (Robert Hahl) Date: Sun, 17 Jan 2010 05:18:32 -0700 Subject: [GJM] Government's non-response to climate change Message-ID: <601c45f$67926e3a$6f00d9bd$@com> A short critique of the Stern Review Ted Trainer (University of New South Wales, Australia) real-world economics review, issue no. 45 (2008) http://www.paecon.net/PAEReview/issue45/Trainer45.pdf The application of economic modelling has led the Stern Review (2006) and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Working Group 3 (Barker, et al., 2007) to assert that the greenhouse problem can be solved at a negligible cost. These conclusions have been taken as gospel throughout the world and are now the basic assumptions underlying the policy and action of virtually all governments and official agencies, and the understanding of the situation held by the general public. I have detailed the argument that both these conclusions are incorrect; i.e., that the greenhouse problem cannot be solved at any cost in a society that is committed to high material "living standards" and economic growth. (Trainer, 2007a.) It should be stressed that this is a critique of arguments to do with the possibilities and costs of mitigation and not of the climate analysis given by Stern or the IPCC, both of which are accepted as valid and important. A brief summary of the faults in Stern's Review. The carbon dioxide emission target Stern adopts (the amount which will stabilise atmospheric carbon dioxide at 550 ppm) is far from sufficiently low. Many now say that to prevent a global temperature rise of more than 2 degrees C the limit must be 450 or even 400 ppm. (Baer and Mastrandrea, 2006.) Stern does not provide for a world of 9 billion people, which we will have soon after 2050. If his energy provision target was to supply 9 billion people with the energy per capita we in Australia will probably consume by 2050 then the target would be 5 times as great as Stern takes. (If such an equitable goal is not taken then he should deal with the problems of justice, resource inequality, envy, insecurity and global conflict that will result.) Stern deals only with the steps that must be taken by 2050 to be on track to stabilise at 550 ppm at a much later point in time. Those steps would only be the beginning and much bigger steps would have to be taken after 2050 to achieve that goal, let alone the more appropriate goal. Stern's steps, if they could be achieved, would only cut global emissions by some 30% by 2050, yet his own fine print acknowledges that they must eventually be cut by more than 70% even to achieve the 550 ppm target. The IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report shows that the 400 ppm target would require emissions to be cut to 5 - 15 GT (See Glossary of Technical Abbreviations at end of the paper) by 2050 and to more or less zero by 2100 (taking the mid range of estimates). These three highly challengeable problem-defining moves have allowed Stern to focus on a task that is far easier than the one that should have been taken, perhaps by a multiple of 15. However, by far the main fault in the Review is in the assumption that the use of "bottom up" and "top down" economic modelling of the costs of carbon abatement is appropriate and sufficient. "Bottom up" modelling focuses on a particular action or technology 54 ...http://www.paecon.net/PAEReview/issue45/Trainer45.pdf Robert W. Hahl, J.D., Ph.D. Chairman Kilowatt-Hour Card Corp. 121 S. Lee St. Falls Church, VA 22046 US +1 7039817447 Call (mobile) 121rhahl at kilowattcards.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk Mon Jan 18 03:57:18 2010 From: dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk (robert searle) Date: Mon, 18 Jan 2010 10:57:18 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [GJM] Fw: CV FOR YOUR PERUSAL. Message-ID: <817923.63539.qm@web27407.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> ? ?Dear Sir, or Madame, ??????????????????????Counter Buyer/Cheque?Cashier. I? enclose below the CV for your perusal as I am interested in the position concerned. I am sure I have the right qualities for the job.. ? ? ? ? ? R.Searle. ? ? ? ? ? ? ??? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ???ROBERT MICHAEL SEARLE/CV. ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ???56 Church Street, ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ???Chalvey, ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ???SL1 2PE. ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? 07522 551427. ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ??? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? PERSONAL PROFILE: ? ? ? ? A conscientous,punctual and hardworking person who is able to work on own intiative as well as part of a team. A person with excellent communication skills on all levels and always strives to achieve a high standard in all work undertaken. Demonstrates a creative and flexible approach to work. SKILLS. . Experience of clerical/administrative work and sales. . Awareness of Health and Safety procedures. . Good record keeping skills. . Excellent communication skills with people of all ages, levels, and backgrounds. . Good at practical tasks including gardening. ? QUALIFICATIONS. ? ? ? ? ? ? 0-Levels in French, History, Biology, and English plus Royal Horticulture Certificate. I was educated at the Royal Free, and received a private education at the Tutorials Windsor. ???EMPLOYMENT HISTORY. i) Temping as a clerical worker from 1979-1980. ? ? ???I did a variety of activities including filing, computer work, sales, telephoning, typing, et al. I worked at Sony, and the Department of Health, and Social Security in Slough. ii) Self-employed gardener from 1980-1996. ? ? ? ? I worked in a number of gardens in Gerrards Cross, Farnham Common, Burnham, Stoke Poges, and elsewhere. I undertook general maintenance which include weeding, edging, mowing, digging, and the like. iii) Charity worker selling competition tickets from 1996-2005. ? ? ? ???This was essentially door-to-door work, and required total politeness, and persistence. I have dealt with a whole range of people, and raised alot of money in the position of professional fundraiser. Since 2005 I have done some voluntary charity work. ? ???HOBBIES, AND INTEREST? I enjoy music, reading, history, science, power walking,swimming, tennis, et al. ? ???REFERENCES CAN BE SUPPLIED ON REQUEST -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk Mon Jan 18 04:11:21 2010 From: dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk (robert searle) Date: Mon, 18 Jan 2010 11:11:21 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [GJM] APOLOGIES CV sent by mistake.... Message-ID: <69648.22750.qm@web27404.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> ? ? I would be grateful if my CV could be removed from the discussion group?as it was sent by mistake. ? I have asked Janos to do this via an email. ? ? R.S. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk Tue Jan 19 03:44:03 2010 From: dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk (robert searle) Date: Tue, 19 Jan 2010 10:44:03 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [GJM] Fw: [toeslist] Financial Times prints a column complaining of market rigging Message-ID: <984227.8433.qm@web27401.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> --- On Tue, 19/1/10, Riaz K Tayob wrote: From: Riaz K Tayob Subject: [toeslist] Financial Times prints a column complaining of market rigging To: Date: Tuesday, 19 January, 2010, 8:30 ? Financial Times prints a column complaining of market rigging How the Big Banks Rigged the Market By Philip Stephens Financial Times, London Monday, January 18, 2010 http://www.ft. com/cms/s/ 0/d2424f46- 0461-11df- 8603-00144feabdc 0.html When Lloyd Blankfein met politicians in London a little while ago he brushed aside warnings that investment banks faced higher taxes if they ignored the rising public outcry about multibillion- dollar bonus pools. The Goldman chief executive seemed to believe governments would not dare. That misjudgment -- a measure of the breathtaking hubris that, even after all that has happened, continues to separate bankers from just about everyone else -- may explain Goldman's response to the British government's decision to apply a 50 per cent tax to this year's payouts. In the description of Whitehall insiders, Goldman executives reacted with anger and aggression. The threat was that the bank would scale back its business in London. For a moment it seemed Gordon Brown's administration might wobble. In the event, Goldman's lobbying failed to persuade it to soften the impact of the tax. Britain, of course, is not alone. France has imposed its own bonus tax. Barack Obama's administration has just announced a levy to recover an estimated $90 billion (L55 billion, E63 billion) over 10 years. The centre-right government in Sweden has gone further by introducing a permanent "stability levy" to discourage excessive risk-taking. It is a measure of how far the political debate has shifted against the financial plutocrats that George Osborne, the Tory shadow chancellor, has applauded the Swedish plan. If the Tories win the coming general election, they would support a worldwide levy along similar lines. It is "unacceptable, " Mr Osborne remarked the other day, for the banks to be paying big bonuses rather than building resilience against future crises. So far, so encouraging. But the process cannot end here. Irritating as it may be to Mr Blankfein, a one-off bonus tax is not going to change anything in the medium to long term. Levies such as that in Sweden mark a recognition that the profits and remuneration policies of the banks are more than a fleeting problem. But forcing bankers to strengthen balance sheets with money they would rather put in their own pockets addresses only part of the problem. The next stage must be scrutiny of the structural distortions that allow these institutions to rack up such huge profits. Broadly speaking, the leading players in at least three areas of investment banking -- wholesale markets, underwriting, and mergers and acquisitions -- have been operating natural oligopolies. Their profits have been in significant part a reflection of the absence of robust competition. There are different reasons for this in the different areas of business -- what economists call asymmetries in some and market dominance in others. But as long as they are not addressed, the banks will make profits -- or more accurately, extract rents -- out of all proportion to any contribution they make to the wider economy. During the good times no one worried too much about these oligopolies. Markets were booming and the investment banks persuaded policymakers that they made a big net contribution to economic dynamism. That myth has now been exploded. The absence of sufficient competition has been raised by Lord Turner, the chairman of Britain's Financial Services Authority. He has suggested a transaction tax to deal with the problem in wholesale markets. Christine Lagarde, France's finance minister, has recently circulated a more detailed paper to governments and regulators. But too many policymakers have so far ducked the issue. Even if the banks can be forced to take fewer risks they will likely continue to make excess profits. The issue is one of competition rather than regulation. A possible answer might be a move by competition authorities to lower barriers to new entrants. More likely, a serious examination would conclude that the excess profits are best dealt with through taxation. Many in Mr Blankfein's world want to pretend the backlash against the banks is a conspiracy between the mob and populist politicians. They hope, and expect, the pressure will go away when prosperity returns. Tax and regulation should not be used as weapons to settle scores, however tempting that might be. But the banks have had it too good for too long; and the rest of us are now paying the bill. Institutions in the vanguard of spreading liberal market economics around the world were all the while making fortunes in markets that were rigged to their advantage. __._,_.___ 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 Switch to: Text-Only, Daily Digest ? Unsubscribe ? Terms of Use . __,_._,___ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mukhtaralam2000 at yahoo.com Tue Jan 19 04:40:49 2010 From: mukhtaralam2000 at yahoo.com (Dr.Muhammad Mukhtar Alam) Date: Tue, 19 Jan 2010 17:10:49 +0530 (IST) Subject: [GJM] Fw: UPA comes forward to save Islamic Banking concept of Kerala Message-ID: <310390.81257.qm@web94901.mail.in2.yahoo.com> Indeed positive winds in India towards interest free Banking. 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 ----- Forwarded Message ---- From: Aleem Faizee To: ummid_mlg at googlegroups.com; aligarhnetwork at yahoogroups.com; wvns-owner at yahoogroups.com; S4Sameera at yahoogroups.com Sent: Tue, 19 January, 2010 3:14:13 PM Subject: UPA comes forward to save Islamic Banking concept of Kerala UPA comes forward to save Islamic Banking concept of KeralaTuesday, January 19, 2010 03:02:54 PM, ummid.com Staff Reporter Malegaon: In an important development for interest-free banking in India, the UPA Government at the centre has come forward to save the initiatives taken by the Kerala Government to establish a financial institution in line with Islamic Banking. The proposal was in doldrums after the High Court in Kerala stayed the activities of Kerala State Industrial Development Corporation (KSIDC) which was working to establish first interest-free bank of the country in Kerala. http://www.ummid.com/news/2010/January/19.01.2010/khurshid_comes_forward_for_islamic_banking.htm -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "ummid" group. To post to this group, send an email to ummid_mlg at googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to ummid_mlg+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/ummid_mlg?hl=en-GB. 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 Tue Jan 19 05:05:20 2010 From: dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk (Robert Searle) Date: Tue, 19 Jan 2010 12:05:20 GMT Subject: [GJM] BBC E-mail: UK inflation rate jumps to 2.9% Message-ID: <20100119_120520_024769.dharao4@yahoo.co.uk> Robert Searle saw this story on the BBC News website and thought you should see it. ** UK inflation rate jumps to 2.9% ** UK inflation rose at its fastest annual pace in nine months in December, climbing to an annual rate of 2.9%. < http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/1/hi/business/8467305.stm > ** BBC Daily E-mail ** Choose the news and sport headlines you want - when you want them, all in one daily e-mail < http://www.bbc.co.uk/email > ** Disclaimer ** The BBC is not responsible for the content of this e-mail, and anything written in this e-mail does not necessarily reflect the BBC's views or opinions. Please note that neither the e-mail address nor name of the sender have?been verified. If you do not wish to receive such e-mails in the future or want to know more about the BBC's Email a Friend service, please read our frequently asked questions. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/help/4162471.stm From dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk Tue Jan 19 05:09:58 2010 From: dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk (robert searle) Date: Tue, 19 Jan 2010 12:09:58 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [GJM] Fw: BBC E-mail: UK inflation rate jumps to 2.9% Message-ID: <436732.58440.qm@web27404.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> --- On Tue, 19/1/10, Robert Searle wrote: From: Robert Searle Subject: BBC E-mail: UK inflation rate jumps to 2.9% To: dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk Date: Tuesday, 19 January, 2010, 12:05 Robert Searle saw this story on the BBC News website and thought you should see it. ** UK inflation rate jumps to 2.9% ** UK inflation rose at its fastest annual pace in nine months in December, climbing to an annual rate of 2.9%. < http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/1/hi/business/8467305.stm > ** BBC Daily E-mail ** Choose the news and sport headlines you want - when you want them, all in one daily e-mail < http://www.bbc.co.uk/email > ** Disclaimer ** The BBC is not responsible for the content of this e-mail, and anything written in this e-mail does not necessarily reflect the BBC's views or opinions. Please note that neither the e-mail address nor name of the sender have?been verified. If you do not wish to receive such e-mails in the future or want to know more about the BBC's Email a Friend service, please read our frequently asked questions. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/help/4162471.stm -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk Tue Jan 19 08:13:04 2010 From: dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk (robert searle) Date: Tue, 19 Jan 2010 15:13:04 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [GJM] Fw: Whither Banking? - Jan 2010 Message-ID: <883428.44458.qm@web27404.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> --- On Mon, 18/1/10, CfAE AE Bulletin wrote: From: CfAE AE Bulletin Subject: Whither Banking? - Jan 2010 To: dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk Date: Monday, 18 January, 2010, 22:10 January 2010 1) Whither Banking? 2) The Colours of Money Seminar. UK - Feb /?USA - Mar 3)?Finance and Education -?Towards an Independent Youth College 4) Associate!?January?2010? 1) Whither Banking? In this issue we consider the question of whether banking as we know it has become out-moded, and that the crisis is really not knowing what should take the place of banking? We treat the topic by way of a medley of commentaries, mainly from people who are close to and professionally involved in the institutions they are critiquing.?Roger Bootle points out the difference between creative and distributive activities, locating banking in the latter. Simon Johnson's postscript highlights the need to be careful when using terms such as casino finance. Sign of our Time touches on the fragility of banking in the matter of off-balance sheet accounting. By way of a practical and positive response to these concerns, Chris Cook argues the case for Peer to Peer Financing.?Christopher Houghton Budd's piece draws attention to the subtler yet central problems today's situation highlights concerning narrow and broad money, surrogates in effect for the real and financial economy and therefore representative of the all-important relationship between the two. Friends' Page and AE hero have now been combined under News and Views as a forum for proponents of associative economics to conduct forthright and rigorous public debate.?Accounting Corner reiterates the question of the future of banking by a precise consideration on whether spreadsheet accounting by individuals, groups and organisations does not point the way forwards. 2)?The Colours of Money Seminar (UK &US) UK: 5-7 February 2010 In?Stroud?UK, see here?for details The next Colours of Money seminar will be taking place in Stroud from February 5-7 2010. It begins with a public lecture ?(Beyond the Market) on the Friday evening.? Comments on the Colours of Money Seminar from April 2009: Thank you all for a brain-wrangling but illuminating Colours of Money weekend ? there's definitely a light switched on! I really enjoyed the workshop and found some of the ideas very Stimulating ? many thanks for a thought-provoking and actually quite hope-making two days. Thank you both for a really stimulating and engaging seminar. It has struck many a chord and has given me a shot of enthusiasm for going deeper into the ae perspective. ? this is (for now) a brief note to express my thanks and to give you both 'credit' for the great work. For?The Colours of Money Seminar -?USA , Mar 2010?in Washington DC area -?Please take contact if interested 3)?Finance and Education Seminar - London 14 February /?14 March Towards an Independent Youth College Details here: http://www.anthromedia.com/index.php?id=7389 On-going research concerning finance and education, with particular reference to the Waldorf movement and Rudolf Steiner?s insights. Education is facing growing pressures, the essence of which is to undermine a free spiritual life. Many ofthe pressures are financial in guise, but also rely on an inadequate understanding of law and equity. In this project the case of Waldorf (Steiner) education is explored, both as a case in point and for the contribution it might make to the wider debate. 4) Associate! January 2010 Click image to subscribe Welcome to 2010:?Our 30th Anniversary!?Editors Lead:?Creative or distributive?- The Economic Nature of Banking Roger Bootle A Sign of Our Time:?The Fragility of Banking Feature:?'Peer-to-Peer Finance?Chris Cook Feature:?Narrow and Broad Money??Christopher Houghton Budd Glossary: F??Fiduciary News and Views:??Capital Markets / The Future of Money / Mainstream Interface Accounting Corner: Bookkeeping=Banking?Stephen Torr Click here to subscribe The Friends of Associative Economics Bulletin provides an overview of what is going on around the world?in the associative economics movement. The bulletin is viewable as a webpage at www.cfae.biz/fae-bulletin/10Jan/ ? Click here to unsubscribe or edit your subscription A service provided by the Centre for Associative Economics Copyright 2009 Centre for Associative Economics. All rights reserved. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mukhtaralam2000 at yahoo.com Tue Jan 19 08:16:25 2010 From: mukhtaralam2000 at yahoo.com (Dr.Muhammad Mukhtar Alam) Date: Tue, 19 Jan 2010 20:46:25 +0530 (IST) Subject: [GJM] Fw: Fwd: Khurshid backs Islamic banking concept of Kerala Message-ID: <834303.47920.qm@web94904.mail.in2.yahoo.com> Dear?all, We?have good news in India?and let's hope?and pray that resitance to?interest free banking?is removed through communicative action. Subramaniam?Swami, the leader of?Janta?Party thinks that Islamic banking?from the perspective of religion should?not be considered in India. I hope he gets to learn about arguments from diverse analysis that there?are virtues in accepting the?interest free banking recognising the fact that?prohibition of usury is an interfaith commons. ?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 ----- Forwarded Message ---- From: Ghulam Muhammed To: 2020 at abc.com; 48hours at cbsnews.com; aalamisahara at rediffmail.com; abdulruff_jnu at yahoo.com; afzal_mir at hotmail.com; aghaksaeed at yahoo.com; agnitimes at yahoo.com; ahmadinteraction at gmail.com; aijazsyed at khaleejtimes.com; akhbarenaunews at yahoo.co.in; almaeena at arabnews.com; amahmadi at detaone.in; amana at arf-asia.org; ambassador at embassyofpakistanusa.org; amkindia at gmail.com; andalib2001 at yahoo.com; arshad662 at gmail.com; ashraf.engineer at hindustantimes.com; 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M. Jigeesh in New Delhi THE CENTRE has offered a helping hand to Kerala in revoking a stay order by the state high court against setting up of an Islamic bank. Noting that the court order could hamper investment opportunities in the country, Union minority affairs minister Salman Khurshid said the Centre would coordinate with the state government in dealing with the issue legally. Speaking at the editors? conference on social sector issues on Monday, Khurshid backed the concept of Islamic banking. ? A lot of other countries are snatching investment from Islamic countries,? he said. The country is being deprived of such funds for the lack of an Islamic banking system, Khurshid added. He said the high court would be informed of the Centre?s stand on the matter. ? I think the finance ministry will deal with the matter,? he told the gathering. He said, if needed, the banking norms should be amended to comply with the Islamic banking system. Two weeks ago, a division bench of the Kerala High Court had stayed ? all further moves? by the state government- owned Kerala State Industrial Development Corporation ( KSIDC) to set up an Islamic bank in the state. Former union minister Subramanian Swamy had approached the high court complaining that the proposed Islamic bank was against India?s secular credentials and its banking norms. The Kerala government cleared the project after a feasibility study found that Islamic bank was a viable proposition in Kerala. A company was also registered to take the process forward. The share capital of the proposed bank had been fixed at Rs 1,000 crore. According to the Islamic banking concept, the bank will not pay any interest to customers. A Sharia board can decide what sort of investments the bank can make. The bank will also have Sharia- compliant banking products. Profits made out of the investments will be distributed to shareholders. Convener of National Committee on Islamic Banking H. Abdur Raqeeb had met Khurshid last June on the feasibility of interest- free Islamic banking in India. ? Islamic banking will be beneficial for the marginalised and the minorities in terms of microfinance. Major investment from the Gulf countries could also be attracted,? Raqeeb said. He said if London, Singapore, Tokyo and Hong Kong can become ? hub and house of Islamic Finance & Banking?, Mumbai and Kochi can also follow suit. Khurshid also said the Centre preferred a cautious approach on the issue of reservation for minorities. ? Our manifesto is clear on this. We will apply Karnataka- Tamil Nadu model, which says backward among Muslims should get reservation, according to their population,? he said. 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 Tue Jan 19 08:20:48 2010 From: dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk (robert searle) Date: Tue, 19 Jan 2010 15:20:48 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [GJM] Fw: [Radical Economics] Re: U. S. debt & hyperinflation.... or just Scaremongering? Message-ID: <784143.48503.qm@web27404.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> --- On Tue, 19/1/10, Donald Vreeland wrote: From: Donald Vreeland Subject: [Radical Economics] Re: U. S. debt & hyperinflation.... To: "Carb Copy" Date: Tuesday, 19 January, 2010, 13:44 ? Thx for this Econ msg.? Exaggeration!? Fed won't allow this to happen...they' ll B very, very careful.??Investors R voraciously 'grabbing' U S treasuries -?EVEN 5yr & 10yr @ 2.5% & 3%.? This danger doesn't exist @ this tm...? ____________ _________ _________ __ From: Stewart Vreeland To: don Vreeland Sent: Sun, January 17, 2010 8:28:01 PM Subject: FW: China's secret message to their investors Hi Don, What?do think of this out-look??? It predictions look very dismal to me.? How can one protect against the?hyper inflation??? ??! Love, Dad ? ____________ _________ _________ __ To: stew.vreeland@ hotmail.com Subject: China's secret message to their investors Date: Fri, 15 Jan 2010 09:15:20 -0800 From: eletter at personallib erty.com Hyperinflation Nightmare Dead Ahead! View As Webpage | White List Us | Unsubscribe China's secret message to their investors: "dump your dollars as fast possible because there's a... "Hyperinflation Nightmare Dead Ahead!" In this Urgent, Eye-Opening Report you'll learn: * Why China is jumping ship... * Why world confidence in the U.S. dollar is evaporating. .. * PLUS, how the Fat Cats in Washington are lying through their teeth about the Federal Deficit...All while international investors watch mountains of toxic debt pile up faster than at any point in American history! Read below to find out why you are now faced with the single most menacing economic crisis of your lifetime... Dear Fellow American, Ignore this sober warning and you may as well take your savings... your retirement?and your very financial security?and KISS THEM GOODBYE. On the other hand, if you HEED the warning on this page?and ACT on the advice I send you in my newest FREE guide?not only will you have plenty of time to insulate your wealth... ...you'll have the opportunity to ensure your family's welfare and prosperity for life! Look, it's no secret that our government is bleeding the single greatest gushing of red ink in history. And no institution on earth?not the White House, not Congress... and certainly not the abomination we so politely refer to as the 'Federal Reserve'?has the faintest hope of slowing it?let alone STOPPING it. Despite what the Fat Cats and Bureaucrats try to tell you, the undeniable truth is that Washington has completely LOST CONTROL of the federal budget. And far worse than that, they're oblivious to what this means for you and me?namely, that a nightmarish wave of hyperinflation is set to demolish everything we've EVER worked for. Hyperinflation is Coming?And There's Absolutely No Time to Waste! The definition of hyperinflation is "inflation that is very high or 'out of control', a condition in which prices increase rapidly as a currency loses its value." This happened in Germany after World War I... when hyperinflation caused the inflation rate to swell from 300 to 800 billion percent, or 300,000,000, 000% to 800,000,000, 000% over a six-month period. The value of German mortgages in 1913 was roughly $10 billion US dollars. At the height of hyperinflation in late 1923, these mortgages were only worth one US penny! Trust me, this was NOT a pretty picture... In fact, hyperinflation was so bad that workers demanded to be paid daily, or even multiple times per day, so that their wages would not be worthless at the end of the day. When they received their pay, workers literally RAN from their jobs to the store in the hopes that their paychecks would still be enough to purchase a meal or some goods. Prices often changed hourly. There are stories of people using wheelbarrows to haul enough money to buy a loaf of bread. Money was sold or traded by weight and creative minds found other uses for the money, including making clothing with it, using it for wallpaper, and stuffing it in clothing and walls for insulation. Some citizens actually BURNED their money just to keep warm! This period of hyperinflation literally destroyed most of the middle and upper classes in Germany. Why Hyperinflation Is Now Dangerously Looming Before I tell you why China's elite and middle classes are preparing for a hyperinflation collapse?let's look at the "other side of the story" that no one is talking about... First off, we know that the dollar IS falling. For example, according to shadowstats. com?a leading producer of real and UNBIASED government statistics?the dollar has lost almost 20% of its international value just in the last 30 months or so. In other words... it's falling steeply in terms of how much corn, wheat, soybeans, beef, copper, silver and gold it can buy. And it's also falling against the euro, the yen, the pound and the Swiss franc. It's even going down against many third-world currencies! Think about that: For generations now, the United States has been the primary source of capital throughout the world. It was the U.S. that owned big stakes in foreign economies. So we certainly didn't need their capital to sustain us. Yet today, like a third-world country, we depend far too heavily on foreign capital. Every time we run a deficit in our federal budget, our government officials must go, hat in hand, asking for money from central banks and investors in Europe... Asia... and even Latin America. Now, after thousands of such trips, and trillions of such transactions, a significant chunk of America's wealth has literally been sold off or thrown away. And Up Until Now?Because America Was the Only Game in Town?He Had No Choice! This could NOT be said for smaller economic powers, like Brazil for instance. With a country like Brazil, the foreign investor DID have a choice. Whenever he lost faith in Brazil, for whatever reason, he pulled out in a big hurry, along with countless others, sending Brazil's financial market into periodic crashes. This was the biggest difference that separated the U.S. from a country like Brazil?whenever Brazil slacked off or did the wrong thing, it got slapped down, hard! But when the U.S. made similar mistakes, it usually got away with it. And so it was that we merrily ran huge deficits and borrowed to the hilt, as if nothing was wrong. And despite it all, foreign investors continued to pour more and more money into America. In the 1980s it was primarily the cash-rich Japanese who led the way, investing billions into U.S. stocks and bonds, helping to lift the Dow and the Treasury bond market out of their worst slumps of the postwar era. In the 1990s it was mostly Germans who played that role, helping to drive the big tech boom. And for much of this decade it has been India and China, with their exploding industries which thrived on U.S. consumption. But now, after nearly three decades of massive, virtually non-stop capital flows into the U.S. from abroad... some countries are beginning to realize it was NOT such a good idea after all. And in case you hadn't guessed... China Is One of Those Countries! When Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner recently visited China in a rah-rah session for the dollar?their reaction was almost appalling. In fact, while speaking to Chinese university students... he promised them that the dollars owned by their government were "very safe." And their reaction? Simple: They nearly laughed him off the stage! Think about that for a second... in an Asian country?where politeness, inscrutability and "saving face" are paramount?this is shocking, indeed. Then there's the experience of Richard Fisher, president of the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank. He recently visited China and met with government officials. In an interview afterward, he said he was grilled about the Fed's purchases of Treasury debt. "I must have been asked about that a hundred times in China. I was asked at every single meeting about our purchases of Treasury Notes. That seemed to be the principal preoccupation of those that were invested with their surpluses mostly in the United States." As the British Telegraph noted, this is "a stark reminder that Asia's 'Confucius' culture of right action does not look kindly on the insouciant policy of printing money by Anglo-Saxons. " It's clear that the Chinese, along with other foreign dollar holders, are scared about what the U.S. might do to the dollar. Unfortunately, U.S. officials don't seem to be concerned. After all, as the Financial Times explained, China is "caught in a 'dollar trap' and has little choice but to keep pouring the bulk of its growing reserves into the U.S. Treasury, which remains the only market big enough and liquid enough to support its huge purchases." Well... That USED to Be True. But NOT NOW?Not Any More! The People's Bank of China just issued a report that should have sent shock waves through our financial markets. Part of it said: "To avoid the shortcomings of sovereign credit currencies acting as reserve currencies, we need to create an... international reserve currency that can maintain the long-term stability of its value." Which "sovereign credit currencies" was the Bank talking about? The primary one in the world today is the U.S. dollar. In other words, China does NOT want to own dollars anymore! Instead, it wants a new international currency?it's OWN. In fact, the Chinese are proposing that the International Monetary Fund's unit of accounting (the Special Drawing Right, or SDR) replace the dollar as the dominant global reserve currency. And as if to demonstrate its commitment to the idea, China just bought $50 billion of bonds denominated in SDRs. Not only that, China is proposing that the SDR itself be changed. Currently, SDRs are made up of dollars (44%), euros (34%), yen (11%), and sterling (11%). The Chinese want the SDR to be 20% each of dollars, euros, yen, sterling... and yuan. This is the real shocker: China wants the yuan to be a global reserve currency. And that would put it in direct competition with the dollar! On the surface, China is only proposing the yuan as a component of the SDR. Yet the truth is, everybody knows that few SDRs are used as international reserves. The scary part is... if the yuan becomes part of the SDR, it gets instant legitimacy as a global reserve currency... and then it goes head-to-head with the dollar on international markets. Obviously, why all the effort? With so much invested in the U.S. dollar?why go through all this? Question: What Do THEY See that We Don't? Answer: Runaway Out-of-Control Deficits With No End In Sight! I honestly wish I could do something to stop hyperinflation, but at this point in time, I can't, nor can you. The forces aligned against us are simply too massive, too powerful and coming on too soon: Against what had been the recently publicized, cash-based "official" fiscal 2008 (year-ended Sept. 30) federal deficit of $454.8 billion, and parallel $161.8 billion deficit in 2007... ...The U.S. Treasury reported that the 2008 deficit [change in net position] was $1,009.1 billion, versus $275.5 billion in 2007, using GAAP. However, since 2002 the Treasury has been reporting the government's finances using annual statements prepared using accounting standards similar to those used in corporate America. Those numbers, however, did NOT account for the annual change in the net present value of unfunded Social Security and Medicare liabilities, except in discussions and footnotes. Not once in the "official" reporting! Counting those changes, as a corporation would for its pension and healthcare liabilities for retirees, the 2008 annual deficit was $5.1 trillion, versus $1.2 trillion in 2007. Which means that total U.S. obligations?gross federal debt outstanding plus the net present value of unfunded liabilities?is at $66 TRILLION: Roughly 4.6 times the level of reported U.S. gross domestic product (GDP), and GREATER THAN THE TOTAL ESTIMATED GDP! These numbers are truly beyond our conception.. . spinning out of control... and show that the government is clearly lying about what's really happening. Not to mention that they have been deteriorating severely for fiscal 2009. Still, perhaps you're wondering, "Okay but how do they doom the U.S. dollar to hyperinflation? " Simple: With this level of liability... if anything occurs to reduce demand for U.S. debt (which we see happening with China's actions), it's doomsday for the dollar. Because their solution is always the same: If Washington can't borrow the money it 'needs', it will just print it instead. That's the classic recipe for massive hyperinflation, plunging currency values and a crisis of epic proportions. Any 'market share' the yuan receives will come mostly from the dollar?which will reduce demand for the greenback, and the house of cards will begin its collapse. As China begins to pull away and its currency competes with ours... other foreign investors will also jump as well. And That Means We are Literally a "Sneeze" Away from a Hyperinflation Crisis Beyond What Anyone Has Ever Seen! As the saying goes, "The bigger they are... the harder they fall." Such is the case with the U.S. economy. In other words, our hyperinflation crisis has taken longer to come about?but when it happens, it's almost certain to be many times uglier. No, I can't tell you the exact day it will happen... no one can. But it's obvious that the Bureaucrats and Fat Cats in Washington care too little about the repercussions of their actions?and how their spending spree is risking our savings... our retirement.. . everything you and I hold dear. Now, when things really get bad?do you think the Bureaucrats in Washington are going to be there for you? Do you think they will make personal sacrifices so that we can live happily ever after? Unfortunately, the answer is no. They WON'T! Therefore, it's up to you to protect yourself?and ensure your family's survival and well being! That's Exactly Why I Created My Latest Manual? Burning Your Money, 7 Reasons Why the Coming Hyperinflation Disaster is Set to Shatter the U.S. Dollar? And Why I Want to Rush It to You, ABSOLUTELY FREE! You see, because this hyperinflation crisis is so menacing... and literally could be triggered at any time... I've been burning the midnight oil, putting together a solution. The result is a handbook that I'm incredibly proud of?including step-by-step information you can use to recognize when the collapse is about to hit... and protect your family all along the way. The first point is key?because there are actually 7 deadly triggers that set hyperinflation in motion beyond all reversal. More than I've been able to discuss in this letter... and many of which are in motion right now! Which is why I spend the first section of the manual detailing and explaining them?so that you can recognize when they are happening, and then take steps to protect yourself. For example, you'll discover: The seven deadly triggers that have?and always will?indicate that hyperinflation is dangerously close... How to look at the real estate market and almost immediately tell how much time you have... The sneaky ways in which the government lies and distorts their statistics?and how to properly "decipher" what their phony numbers really mean! Which signs will help you get a jump on others who are unprepared?essential if you want to beat the panic that's guaranteed to happen as the crisis reaches full force... And so much more! This first section of the handbook is the ultimate crash course in hyperinflation. .. HOWEVER, it's not entertainment by any means! Rather, it's designed to SHOW YOU?in the clearest possible detail?which factors are present when hyperinflation approaches emergency levels. Which brings us to the second section: The Two Best Ways to Protect Your Assets And Family from the Ravages of Hyperinflation Even though hyperinflation is?in many ways?a complex economic problem... the process of protecting yourself is simpler than you might think. In fact, there are two primary things you must do: 1) Get your assets to safety... and 2) make sure your basic needs (and those of your family's) will be taken care of. In these final chapters, you'll discover: The single biggest mistake most people make when using gold or silver as a way to hedge against hyperinflation (and the RIGHT way to do it!) A simple way to grow your money by as much as 100% annually?while keeping it safer than it's ever been before! Items?which cost very little now?that will be worth many times more than gold or silver... should the crisis get bad... How to prepare two to three times faster (and earlier) than anyone else... which is an absolute MUST to escape the panic and most significant dangers other countries have faced... And LOTS more! As you can see, this is potentially lifesaving information that you do NOT want to be without should things get bad. And I think you see from the evidence I've presented... it will be almost impossible for it NOT to get ugly... And it will happen faster than most people realize. That's when I realized, as a loyal American, that I needed to help others?those like you who have become innocent victims in the cruel con game Washington is playing with us all. And That's When I Immediately Got Busy Working on This Manual... Even though I've seen lesser reports selling on the Internet for as much as $175... I'm not going to do that. I consider this information too urgent, and far too crucial to your survival in the months and days ahead to hold back like that. I want you to have every possible chance of making it through this hyperinflation disaster with everything you value 100% intact. However, because I also only want this in the hands of serious individuals who will take full advantage of all the hard work my team and I have put into it... ...I've decided to send the manual as a gift to the first individuals who read this letter and subscribe to The Bob Livingston Letter?(while supplies last). It's my way of sincerely saying "thank you" for giving my newsletter a try. Besides... The Bob Livingston Letter? is the perfect, ongoing compliment to Burning Your Money, 7 Reasons Why the Coming Hyperinflation Disaster is Set to Shatter the U.S. Dollar, Burn Away Your Retirement and Collapse Our Nation's Economy?because it tells you exactly what the Fat Cats and greedy establishment have attempted to hide from you for years! Believe me, at a time in America when the stakes are this unbelievably high?when your life and complete economic well being are at risk?you NEED accurate, unbiased information. You need the TRUTH. The "Other Side of the Story" for 40 Years! With The Bob Livingston Letter?, the truth is exactly what you get. You see... back in 1969, I started publishing The Bob Livingston Letter? to give folks like you the "other side of the story"?the truth behind today's biggest health and wealth headlines. Much like you're experiencing now... I came to a point where I could no longer stomach all the lies and half-truths the mainstream media was feeding me. Especially since I knew it was all just a smokescreen?so that the Fat Cats in power could better keep me "under control" and following their own private agenda. >From risky, unnecessary medical procedures.. . all the way to the many blatant lies being spoon-fed to us by the talking heads on Wall Street... I refused to just blindly accept what I was told. And I learned the hard way that doing my own research... establishing my own network of trusted contacts... and relying on hard facts and legitimate, scientific or medical evidence is the best way to live. It's enriched my life... and many tens of thousands of readers have enjoyed safer, happier, healthier lives since the publication of our first issue. Now I want the same for you: Join Me as I Blow the Whistle on the Fat Cats in Power?So You Can Protect Your Health and Wealth In the Years to Come! Over the years, The Bob Livingston Letter? has been meticulously informing and protecting Americans just like you from big government, greedy financial institutions and our dangerous medical establishment. Because let's face the facts, it's in their best interest to keep you ignorant. Which is why they HATE the fact that our subscribers were among the very first to learn about things like: The 10-minute heart attack stopper... Easy 89% investment gains in oil... The cholesterol hoax that fooled 39 million Americans... The crash of Internet and dot.com stocks... The astonishing healing miracles of Vitamin D (later confirmed by the New England Journal of Medicine)... The great high fructose corn syrup scam (now gaining widespread medical recognition for contributing to America's obesity epidemic)... And way more than I can list here! The fact of the matter is, when you want to know something FIRST?when you want the real facts that will protect your health and wealth?then there's no better resource than The Bob Livingston Letter?. Not only will you be thrilled and fascinated with each month's issue... you'll see that getting the "other side of the story" is your key to living independently healthy and wealthy for the rest of your life! Plus, I can assure you: Nobody Appreciates The Bob Livingston Letter? More than Those Who Receive It Each Month! Just look at what some of our subscribers have to say: "You give me the three most important things..." "Dear Mr. Livingston.. . Please do NOT change your newsletter. I like it just the way you have it. It covers the three most important things I want to know about: (1) current events in government (2) health (3) how to protect our assets before the 'crash' comes." ?C. C., Waterloo, IA 200% PROFIT! "Out of over 20 no nonsense publications (farm, finance, health, etc.) I receive, yours is tops in your category. It is intellectually devoured on arrival. On your advice, I bought Newmont Mining at $15.53?now at $46.63... Thank you." ?L.S., Pencil Bluff, AR Famous M.D. Loves The Bob Livingston Letter! "Dear Bob: Your newsletter has long been my favorite?keep at it?the people need the truth! I especially like your health info?it's 'cutting edge' and it's diligent research." ?Dr. James Balch, M.D. (Editor of Prescription for Healthy Living and author of Prescription for Nutritional Healing) 89-YEAR OLD HAS HEART OF A 23-YEAR OLD! "The first thing I remember reading from you was an article that said, the heart is the fastest healing muscle in the body. That was the most valuable information I ever read in print. My mother needed help, so I ordered her the B vitamins [you wrote about]. After that, and until her death at age 89, every time she saw a doctor they asked how she happened to have the heartbeat of a 23 year old." ?L. H., Livingston, TX Protects us from government actions! "I am glad that I am subscribing again to your letter. I have always found it filled with information that one does not get elsewhere. I especially like your advice relative to financial matters that protect us from governmental actions... Your advice on health and political history is on target." ?D. P., Canton, GA Claim Your FREE Copy of Burning Your Money, Plus Two Additional Free Bonus Reports When You Accept a Two-Year Subscription to The Bob Livingston Letter?... ...That's $198.85 in FREE Gifts and Savings! Here's my absolute BEST OFFER: Claim your subscription to The Bob Livingston Letter? for two years for only $79.00... a savings of $39 off the regular price. You'll get your FREE copy of Burning Your Money... a $99.95 value, yours FREE... PLUS GET TWO ADDITIONAL BONUS REPORTS: Bonus Report #1: The Ultimate Gold and Silver Buying Survival Guide, a $39.95 value... Yours FREE! The perfect companion to your new book, this report gives you everything you need to know about buying gold and silver in these tumultuous times. You'll discover... * What forms of gold and silver you should NEVER buy (and why these are the #1 choice of those who don't know any better)... * Where to find the best deals on these precious metals... * How to "fly under the radar" so the government has no knowledge of your purchases (believe me, they perceive gold buying as a BIG threat and keep tabs on those who do!) * And so much more! Ordinarily, we'd charge at least $39.95 for this newly created report. After all, it has the potential to make you?and SAVE you?many thousands of dollars within hours of reading it! But it's yours FREE when you claim your subscription to The Bob Livingston Letter? today. Bonus Report #2: Lifesavers from Nature's Pharmacy, a $19.95 value... Yours FREE! Let's face it, as the economy begins to fall apart?it's more important than ever that you be able to manage your own health. You may not have access to a doctor?and even if you do, it might be one who's considerably less qualified than before. It's just the potentially harsh reality we all face. Which is why it's imperative that you arm yourself with the lifesaving information you'll find in this report! In it, you'll discover... * Nature's "wonder drug" for your eyes, PLUS 13 nutrients you can take to quickly enhance your vision... * Why this little four-letter word could save your heart?and your life! * The best types of vegetables to eat for cancer prevention, and the one nutrient that can slash your risk in HALF! * And much, much more......both reports are absolutely FREE?plus, you'll get 24 information- packed issues of The Bob Livingston Letter?. That's $198.85 in FREE gifts and savings?just for giving the newsletter a try! Plus, You're Completely Protected By My Iron-Clad, Money-Back Guarantee As always, you must be absolutely thrilled with The Bob Livingston Letter?... with the straight facts and "other side of the story"... with the money-saving and health-preserving tips... with EVERYTHING you imagined it to be... otherwise you pay nothing. You're free to cancel?even up until the very last day of your subscription?and I'll promptly refund every cent you paid... plus, either way, your copy of Burning Your Money, 7 Reasons Why the Coming Hyperinflation Disaster is Set to Shatter the U.S. Dollar, Burn Away Your Retirement and Collapse Our Nation's Economy, and your two FREE reports will be yours to keep no matter what. Look, you and I both know that hyperinflation isn't going to solve itself. ESPECIALLY with the runaway spending and printing presses raging like never before! And it's also abundantly clear that our government is looking out for itself first, and simply CANNOT be relied upon. So you can try to figure out a hyperinflation defense plan on your own. Which is not only costly and challenging. .. but also very, very risky. Or you can join me as a subscriber who's privy to the "other side of the story"?and get all the honest-to-goodness facts you need to make accurate, timely decisions in these tough times. I've already offered to send you Burning Your Money, 7 Reasons Why the Coming Hyperinflation Disaster is Set to Shatter the U.S. Dollar, Burn Away Your Retirement and Collapse Our Nation's Economy, a $99.95 value?which is one of the most valuable gifts I've ever given away in my 40 years in business. It's a tool I'm convinced you'll use to safeguard your money and grow wealthier in the months and years to come. Plus, I've thrown in two additional reports... for total gifts and discounts worth $198.85. And so now, my friend, the choice is yours. Please, if your economic safety and prosperity mean anything to you, let me hear from you today! Sincerely, Bob Livingston Get $198.85 in FREE Gifts and Savings! EMERGENCY SAVINGS CERTIFICATE YES! Bob, I want to protect my assets and family from the ravages of hyperinflation. Please send me my FREE copy of Burning Your Money?plus my two FREE reports?and enter my subscription to The Bob Livingston Letter? as indicated below. Also, be sure to subscribe me to your complimentary Personal Liberty Digest e-letter. I understand that in the unlikely event that I'm dissatisfied, I can cancel (even up to the last issue) for a full 100% refund?and keep all my FREE Gifts... RECOMMENDED: BEST VALUE: Two years (24 issues) of The Bob Livingston Letter? for just $79 (Save $39) plus $6.95 S&H* and I'll receive: Burning Your Money, 7 Reasons Why the Coming Hyperinflation Disaster is Set to Shatter the U.S. Dollar?a $99.95 value, FREE! Gold and Silver Buying Survival Guide?a $39.95 value, FREE! Lifesavers from Nature's Pharmacy?a $19.95 value, FREE! OR... PLEASE SEND ME: BOOK ONLY: Burning Your Money, 7 Reasons Why the Coming Hyperinflation Disaster is Set to Shatter the U.S. Dollar?$99.95 (Save 50%) plus $6.95 S&H*! * Orders shipped to Canada and internationally will incur $12.95 shipping and handling. ** Free bonus subscription to The Bob Livingston Letter? will be delivered monthly by email for all international orders. ? 2010 Personal Liberty Digest | Entries (RSS) | Comments (RSS) | Privacy Policy | Unsubscribe | Contact Us TO UNSUBSCRIBE: You subscribed to Personal Liberty Alerts and are receiving this email at Stew.vreeland@ hotmail.com because you indicated an interest in receiving special updates and offers from Personal Liberty Alerts. We hope you'll find these updates interesting and informative. But if you'd rather not receive them, click here. You will be immediately removed from our database. Remember, your personal information will never be rented or sold and you may unsubscribe at any time. Personal Liberty Digest Post Office Box 3623 Hueytown, AL 35023 Our Privacy Policy ____________ _________ _________ __ Hotmail: Trusted email with Microsoft?s powerful SPAM protection. Sign up now. [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 Going Green: Your Yahoo! Groups resource for green living Switch to: Text-Only, Daily Digest ? Unsubscribe ? Terms of Use . __,_._,___ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk Tue Jan 19 08:41:29 2010 From: dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk (robert searle) Date: Tue, 19 Jan 2010 15:41:29 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [GJM] Interesting Site.. Message-ID: <764933.33749.qm@web27403.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> ? Dear All ? ???? This site might be of interest run by Melanie Swan. Her blog deals with hi-tech subjects, and a link to one of her papers entitled Future Economy is interesting as deals with the concept of post-scarcity. ? ??? http://www.melanieswan.com/ ? ? ? R.Searle ? ? ? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mukhtaralam2000 at yahoo.com Wed Jan 20 01:44:17 2010 From: mukhtaralam2000 at yahoo.com (Dr.Muhammad Mukhtar Alam) Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2010 14:14:17 +0530 (IST) Subject: [GJM] Discussing Measure for taking out US from Toxic Usurous Debts and Hyperinflation In-Reply-To: <784143.48503.qm@web27404.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> References: <784143.48503.qm@web27404.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <568489.76728.qm@web94906.mail.in2.yahoo.com> Dear Rodney Shakespeare, Robert Searle and all concerned with GJM's advocacy and impacts, I think GJM should discuss policy recommendations for US for getting out of mounting debts. I think this is very critical for making economies stable and ecologically safe. From analysis presented by GJM, it is clear that US policy makers especially dealing with finance sector and macro-economics need to address these issue soon. Few week ago, it was pointed out that investors grabbing treasury bonds would seek higher returns and if that does not come by, they would behave along with key industries in dangerously unpredictable ways. A similar call has been posted as my blog at http://transitionurbanindia.ning.com I am pleased to share that I got kilowatt coupons for my communication against usury. 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: robert searle To: discussion at globaljusticemovement.net Sent: Tue, 19 January, 2010 8:50:48 PM Subject: [GJM] Fw: [Radical Economics] Re: U. S. debt & hyperinflation.... or just Scaremongering? --- On Tue, 19/1/10, Donald Vreeland wrote: >From: Donald Vreeland >Subject: [Radical Economics] Re: U. S. debt & hyperinflation.... >To: "Carb Copy" >Date: Tuesday, 19 January, 2010, 13:44 > > > >Thx for this Econ msg. > >Exaggeration! Fed won't allow this to happen...they' ll B very, very careful. Investors R voraciously 'grabbing' U S treasuries - EVEN 5yr & 10yr @ 2.5% & 3%. > >This danger doesn't exist @ this tm... > >____________ _________ _________ __ >From: Stewart Vreeland >To: don Vreeland >Sent: Sun, January 17, 2010 8:28:01 PM >Subject: FW: China's secret message to their investors > >Hi Don, >What do think of this out-look? It predictions look very dismal to > me. How can one protect against the hyper inflation??? ??! >Love, >Dad > >____________ _________ _________ __ >To: stew.vreeland@ hotmail.com >Subject: China's secret message to their investors >Date: Fri, 15 Jan 2010 09:15:20 -0800 >From: eletter at personallib erty.com > >Hyperinflation Nightmare Dead Ahead! > >View As Webpage | White List Us | Unsubscribe > >China's secret message to their investors: > >"dump your dollars as fast possible because there's a... > >"Hyperinflation Nightmare >Dead Ahead!" >In this Urgent, Eye-Opening Report you'll learn: > >* Why China is > jumping ship... > >* Why world confidence in the U.S. dollar is evaporating. .. > >* PLUS, how the Fat Cats in Washington are lying through their teeth about the Federal Deficit...All while international investors watch mountains of toxic debt pile up faster than at any point in American history! > >Read below to find out why you are now faced with the single most menacing economic crisis of your lifetime... > >Dear Fellow American, > >Ignore this sober warning and you may as well take your savings... your retirement?and your very financial security?and KISS THEM GOODBYE. > >On the other hand, if you HEED the warning on this page?and ACT on the advice I send you in my newest FREE guide?not only will you have plenty of time to insulate your wealth... > >...you'll have the opportunity to ensure your family's welfare and prosperity for life! > >Look, it's no secret that our government is bleeding the single greatest > gushing of red ink in history. > >And no institution on earth?not the White House, not Congress... and certainly not the abomination we so politely refer to as the 'Federal Reserve'?has the faintest hope of slowing it?let alone STOPPING it. > >Despite what the Fat Cats and Bureaucrats try to tell you, the undeniable truth is that Washington has completely LOST CONTROL of the federal budget. > >And far worse than that, they're oblivious to what this means for you and me?namely, that a nightmarish wave of hyperinflation is set to demolish everything we've EVER worked for. > >Hyperinflation is Coming?And There's >Absolutely No Time to Waste! >The definition of hyperinflation is "inflation that is very high or 'out of control', a condition in which prices increase rapidly as a currency loses its value." > >This happened in Germany after World War I... when hyperinflation caused the inflation rate to swell from 300 to 800 > billion percent, or 300,000,000, 000% to 800,000,000, 000% over a six-month period. > >The value of German mortgages in 1913 was roughly $10 billion US dollars. At the height of hyperinflation in late 1923, these mortgages were only worth one US penny! > >Trust me, this was NOT a pretty picture... > >In fact, hyperinflation was so bad that workers demanded to be paid daily, or even multiple times per day, so that their wages would not be worthless at the end of the day. > >When they received their pay, workers literally RAN from their jobs to the store in the hopes that their paychecks would still be enough to purchase a meal or some goods. > >Prices often changed hourly. > >There are stories of people using wheelbarrows to haul enough money to buy a loaf of bread. Money was sold or traded by weight and creative minds found other uses for the money, including making clothing with it, using it for wallpaper, and stuffing it in > clothing and walls for insulation. > >Some citizens actually BURNED their money just to keep warm! > >This period of hyperinflation literally destroyed most of the middle and upper classes in Germany. > >Why Hyperinflation Is Now Dangerously Looming >Before I tell you why China's elite and middle classes are preparing for a hyperinflation collapse?let's look at the "other side of the story" that no one is talking about... > >First off, we know that the dollar IS falling. > >For example, according to shadowstats. com?a leading producer of real and UNBIASED government statistics?the dollar has lost almost 20% of its international value just in the last 30 months or so. > >In other words... it's falling steeply in terms of how much corn, wheat, soybeans, beef, copper, silver and gold it can buy. And it's also falling against the euro, the yen, the pound and the Swiss franc. > >It's even going down against many > third-world currencies! > >Think about that: For generations now, the United States has been the primary source of capital throughout the world. It was the U.S. that owned big stakes in foreign economies. So we certainly didn't need their capital to sustain us. > >Yet today, like a third-world country, we depend far too heavily on foreign capital. > >Every time we run a deficit in our federal budget, our government officials must go, hat in hand, asking for money from central banks and investors in Europe... Asia... and even Latin America. > >Now, after thousands of such trips, and trillions of such transactions, a significant chunk of America's wealth has literally been sold off or thrown away. > >And Up Until Now?Because America Was >the Only Game in Town?He Had No Choice! >This could NOT be said for smaller economic powers, like Brazil for instance. > >With a country like Brazil, the foreign investor DID have a > choice. Whenever he lost faith in Brazil, for whatever reason, he pulled out in a big hurry, along with countless others, sending Brazil's financial market into periodic crashes. > >This was the biggest difference that separated the U.S. from a country like Brazil?whenever Brazil slacked off or did the wrong thing, it got slapped down, hard! > >But when the U.S. made similar mistakes, it usually got away with it. > >And so it was that we merrily ran huge deficits and borrowed to the hilt, as if nothing was wrong. And despite it all, foreign investors continued to pour more and more money into America. > >In the 1980s it was primarily the cash-rich Japanese who led the way, investing billions into U.S. stocks and bonds, helping to lift the Dow and the Treasury bond market out of their worst slumps of the postwar era. > >In the 1990s it was mostly Germans who played that role, helping to drive the big tech boom. > >And for much > of this decade it has been India and China, with their exploding industries which thrived on U.S. consumption. > >But now, after nearly three decades of massive, virtually non-stop capital flows into the U.S. from abroad... some countries are beginning to realize it was NOT such a good idea after all. > >And in case you hadn't guessed... > >China Is One of Those Countries! >When Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner recently visited China in a rah-rah session for the dollar?their reaction was almost appalling. > >In fact, while speaking to Chinese university students... he promised them that the dollars owned by their government were "very safe." > >And their reaction? > >Simple: They nearly laughed him off the stage! > >Think about that for a second... in an Asian country?where politeness, inscrutability and "saving face" are paramount?this is shocking, indeed. > >Then there's the experience of Richard Fisher, > president of the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank. He recently visited China and met with government officials. > >In an interview afterward, he said he was grilled about the Fed's purchases of Treasury debt. "I must have been asked about that a hundred times in China. I was asked at every single meeting about our purchases of Treasury Notes. That seemed to be the principal preoccupation of those that were invested with their surpluses mostly in the United States." > >As the British Telegraph noted, this is "a stark reminder that Asia's 'Confucius' culture of right action does not look kindly on the insouciant policy of printing money by Anglo-Saxons. " > >It's clear that the Chinese, along with other foreign dollar holders, are scared about what the U.S. might do to the dollar. > >Unfortunately, U.S. officials don't seem to be concerned. > >After all, as the Financial Times explained, China is "caught in a 'dollar trap' and has little > choice but to keep pouring the bulk of its growing reserves into the U.S. Treasury, which remains the only market big enough and liquid enough to support its huge purchases." > >Well... > >That USED to Be True. >But NOT NOW?Not Any More! >The People's Bank of China just issued a report that should have sent shock waves through our financial markets. Part of it said: "To avoid the shortcomings of sovereign credit currencies acting as reserve currencies, we need to create an... international reserve currency that can maintain the long-term stability of its value." > >Which "sovereign credit currencies" was the Bank talking about? The primary one in the world today is the U.S. dollar. > >In other words, China does NOT want to own dollars anymore! > >Instead, it wants a new international currency?it's OWN. > >In fact, the Chinese are proposing that the International Monetary Fund's unit of accounting (the Special Drawing > Right, or SDR) replace the dollar as the dominant global reserve currency. > >And as if to demonstrate its commitment to the idea, China just bought $50 billion of bonds denominated in SDRs. > >Not only that, China is proposing that the SDR itself be changed. Currently, SDRs are made up of dollars (44%), euros (34%), yen (11%), and sterling (11%). > >The Chinese want the SDR to be 20% each of dollars, euros, yen, sterling... and yuan. > >This is the real shocker: China wants the yuan to be a global reserve currency. > >And that would put it in direct competition with the dollar! > >On the surface, China is only proposing the yuan as a component of the SDR. Yet the truth is, everybody knows that few SDRs are used as international reserves. > >The scary part is... if the yuan becomes part of the SDR, it gets instant legitimacy as a global reserve currency... and then it goes head-to-head with the dollar on international > markets. > >Obviously, why all the effort? With so much invested in the U.S. dollar?why go through all this? > >Question: What Do THEY See that We Don't? >Answer: Runaway Out-of-Control Deficits >With No End In Sight! >I honestly wish I could do something to stop hyperinflation, but at this point in time, I can't, nor can you. The forces aligned against us are simply too massive, too powerful and coming on too soon: > >Against what had been the recently publicized, cash-based "official" fiscal 2008 (year-ended Sept. 30) federal deficit of $454.8 billion, and parallel $161.8 billion deficit in 2007... > >...The U.S. Treasury reported that the 2008 deficit [change in net position] was $1,009.1 billion, versus $275.5 billion in 2007, using GAAP. > >However, since 2002 the Treasury has been reporting the government's finances using annual statements prepared using accounting standards similar to those used in corporate > America. > >Those numbers, however, did NOT account for the annual change in the net present value of unfunded Social Security and Medicare liabilities, except in discussions and footnotes. Not once in the "official" reporting! > >Counting those changes, as a corporation would for its pension and healthcare liabilities for retirees, the 2008 annual deficit was $5.1 trillion, versus $1.2 trillion in 2007. > >Which means that total U.S. obligations?gross federal debt outstanding plus the net present value of unfunded liabilities?is at $66 TRILLION: Roughly 4.6 times the level of reported U.S. gross domestic product (GDP), and GREATER THAN THE TOTAL ESTIMATED GDP! > >These numbers are truly beyond our conception.. . spinning out of control... and show that the government is clearly lying about what's really happening. Not to mention that they have been deteriorating severely for fiscal 2009. > >Still, perhaps you're wondering, "Okay > but how do they doom the U.S. dollar to hyperinflation? " > >Simple: With this level of liability... if anything occurs to reduce demand for U.S. debt (which we see happening with China's actions), it's doomsday for the dollar. > >Because their solution is always the same: If Washington can't borrow the money it 'needs', it will just print it instead. > >That's the classic recipe for massive hyperinflation, plunging currency values and a crisis of epic proportions. > >Any 'market share' the yuan receives will come mostly from the dollar?which will reduce demand for the greenback, and the house of cards will begin its collapse. > >As China begins to pull away and its currency competes with ours... other foreign investors will also jump as well. > >And That Means We are Literally a "Sneeze" Away from a Hyperinflation Crisis Beyond What Anyone Has Ever Seen! >As the saying goes, "The bigger they are... the harder they fall." > Such is the case with the U.S. economy. > >In other words, our hyperinflation crisis has taken longer to come about?but when it happens, it's almost certain to be many times uglier. > >No, I can't tell you the exact day it will happen... no one can. > >But it's obvious that the Bureaucrats and Fat Cats in Washington care too little about the repercussions of their actions?and how their spending spree is risking our savings... our retirement.. . everything you and I hold dear. > >Now, when things really get bad?do you think the Bureaucrats in Washington are going to be there for you? Do you think they will make personal sacrifices so that we can live happily ever after? > >Unfortunately, the answer is no. They WON'T! > >Therefore, it's up to you to protect yourself?and ensure your family's survival and well being! > >That's Exactly Why I Created My Latest Manual? >Burning Your Money, 7 Reasons Why the Coming > Hyperinflation Disaster is Set to Shatter the U.S. Dollar? >And Why I Want to Rush It to You, ABSOLUTELY FREE! >You see, because this hyperinflation crisis is so menacing... and literally could be triggered at any time... I've been burning the midnight oil, putting together a solution. > >The result is a handbook that I'm incredibly proud of?including step-by-step information you can use to recognize when the collapse is about to hit... and protect your family all along the way. > >The first point is key?because there are actually 7 deadly triggers that set hyperinflation in motion beyond all reversal. More than I've been able to discuss in this letter... and many of which are in motion right now! > >Which is why I spend the first section of the manual detailing and explaining them?so that you can recognize when they are happening, and then take steps to protect yourself. > >For example, you'll discover: > >The seven > deadly triggers that have?and always will?indicate that hyperinflation is dangerously close... > >How to look at the real estate market and almost immediately tell how much time you have... > >The sneaky ways in which the government lies and distorts their statistics?and how to properly "decipher" what their phony numbers really mean! > >Which signs will help you get a jump on others who are unprepared?essential if you want to beat the panic that's guaranteed to happen as the crisis reaches full force... > >And so much more! > >This first section of the handbook is the ultimate crash course in hyperinflation. .. HOWEVER, it's not entertainment by any means! > >Rather, it's designed to SHOW YOU?in the clearest possible detail?which factors are present when hyperinflation approaches emergency levels. > >Which brings us to the second section: > >The Two Best Ways to Protect Your Assets >And Family from the > Ravages of Hyperinflation >Even though hyperinflation is?in many ways?a complex economic problem... the process of protecting yourself is simpler than you might think. > >In fact, there are two primary things you must do: 1) Get your assets to safety... and 2) make sure your basic needs (and those of your family's) will be taken care of. > >In these final chapters, you'll discover: > >The single biggest mistake most people make when using gold or silver as a way to hedge against hyperinflation (and the RIGHT way to do it!) > >A simple way to grow your money by as much as 100% annually?while keeping it safer than it's ever been before! > >Items?which cost very little now?that will be worth many times more than gold or silver... should the crisis get bad... > >How to prepare two to three times faster (and earlier) than anyone else... which is an absolute MUST to escape the panic and most significant dangers other > countries have faced... > >And LOTS more! > >As you can see, this is potentially lifesaving information that you do NOT want to be without should things get bad. And I think you see from the evidence I've presented... it will be almost impossible for it NOT to get ugly... And it will happen faster than most people realize. > >That's when I realized, as a loyal American, that I needed to help others?those like you who have become innocent victims in the cruel con game Washington is playing with us all. > >And That's When I Immediately >Got Busy Working on This Manual... >Even though I've seen lesser reports selling on the Internet for as much as $175... I'm not going to do that. > >I consider this information too urgent, and far too crucial to your survival in the months and days ahead to hold back like that. > >I want you to have every possible chance of making it through this hyperinflation disaster with everything you > value 100% intact. > >However, because I also only want this in the hands of serious individuals who will take full advantage of all the hard work my team and I have put into it... > >...I've decided to send the manual as a gift to the first individuals who read this letter and subscribe to The Bob Livingston Letter?(while supplies last). > >It's my way of sincerely saying "thank you" for giving my newsletter a try. > >Besides... The Bob Livingston Letter? is the perfect, ongoing compliment to Burning Your Money, 7 Reasons Why the Coming Hyperinflation Disaster is Set to Shatter the U.S. Dollar, Burn Away Your Retirement and Collapse Our Nation's Economy?because it tells you exactly what the Fat Cats and greedy establishment have attempted to hide from you for years! > >Believe me, at a time in America when the stakes are this unbelievably high?when your life and complete economic well being are at risk?you NEED accurate, > unbiased information. > >You need the TRUTH. > >The "Other Side of the Story" for 40 Years! >With The Bob Livingston Letter?, the truth is exactly what you get. > >You see... back in 1969, I started publishing The Bob Livingston Letter? to give folks like you the "other side of the story"?the truth behind today's biggest health and wealth headlines. > >Much like you're experiencing now... I came to a point where I could no longer stomach all the lies and half-truths the mainstream media was feeding me. Especially since I knew it was all just a smokescreen?so that the Fat Cats in power could better keep me "under control" and following their own private agenda. > >From risky, unnecessary medical procedures.. . all the way to the many blatant lies being spoon-fed to us by the talking heads on Wall Street... I refused to just blindly accept what I was told. > >And I learned the hard way that doing my own research... > establishing my own network of trusted contacts... and relying on hard facts and legitimate, scientific or medical evidence is the best way to live. > >It's enriched my life... and many tens of thousands of readers have enjoyed safer, happier, healthier lives since the publication of our first issue. > >Now I want the same for you: > >Join Me as I Blow the Whistle on the Fat Cats in Power?So You Can Protect Your Health and Wealth In the Years to Come! >Over the years, The Bob Livingston Letter? has been meticulously informing and protecting Americans just like you from big government, greedy financial institutions and our dangerous medical establishment. > >Because let's face the facts, it's in their best interest to keep you ignorant. > >Which is why they HATE the fact that our subscribers were among the very first to learn about things like: > >The 10-minute heart attack stopper... > >Easy 89% investment gains in > oil... > >The cholesterol hoax that fooled 39 million Americans... > >The crash of Internet and dot.com stocks... > >The astonishing healing miracles of Vitamin D (later confirmed by the New England Journal of Medicine)... > >The great high fructose corn syrup scam (now gaining widespread medical recognition for contributing to America's obesity epidemic)... > >And way more than I can list here! > >The fact of the matter is, when you want to know something FIRST?when you want the real facts that will protect your health and wealth?then there's no better resource than The Bob Livingston Letter?. > >Not only will you be thrilled and fascinated with each month's issue... you'll see that getting the "other side of the story" is your key to living independently healthy and wealthy for the rest of your life! > >Plus, I can assure you: > >Nobody Appreciates The Bob Livingston Letter? >More than Those Who Receive It > Each Month! >Just look at what some of our subscribers have to say: > >"You give me the three most important things..." >"Dear Mr. Livingston.. . Please do NOT change your newsletter. I like it just the way you have it. It covers the three most important things I want to know about: (1) current events in government (2) health (3) how to protect our assets before the 'crash' comes." >?C. C., Waterloo, IA > >200% PROFIT! >"Out of over 20 no nonsense publications (farm, finance, health, etc.) I receive, yours is tops in your category. It is intellectually devoured on arrival. On your advice, I bought Newmont Mining at $15.53?now at $46.63... Thank you." >?L.S., Pencil Bluff, AR > >Famous M.D. Loves The Bob Livingston Letter! >"Dear Bob: Your newsletter has long been my favorite?keep at it?the people need the truth! I especially like your health info?it's 'cutting edge' and it's diligent research." >?Dr. > James Balch, M.D. (Editor of Prescription for Healthy Living and author of Prescription for Nutritional Healing) > >89-YEAR OLD HAS HEART OF A 23-YEAR OLD! >"The first thing I remember reading from you was an article that said, the heart is the fastest healing muscle in the body. That was the most valuable information I ever read in print. My mother needed help, so I ordered her the B vitamins [you wrote about]. After that, and until her death at age 89, every time she saw a doctor they asked how she happened to have the heartbeat of a 23 year old." >?L. H., Livingston, TX > >Protects us from government actions! >"I am glad that I am subscribing again to your letter. I have always found it filled with information that one does not get elsewhere. I especially like your advice relative to financial matters that protect us from governmental actions... Your advice on health and political history is on target." >?D. P., Canton, GA > > >Claim Your FREE Copy of Burning Your Money, >Plus Two Additional Free Bonus Reports When You Accept >a Two-Year Subscription to The Bob Livingston Letter?... >...That's $198.85 in FREE Gifts and Savings! >Here's my absolute BEST OFFER: Claim your subscription to The Bob Livingston Letter? for two years for only $79.00... a savings of $39 off the regular price. You'll get your FREE copy of Burning Your Money... a $99.95 value, yours FREE... > >PLUS GET TWO ADDITIONAL BONUS REPORTS: > >Bonus Report #1: >The Ultimate Gold and >Silver Buying Survival Guide, >a $39.95 value... Yours FREE! >The perfect companion to your new book, this report gives you everything you need to know about buying gold and silver in these tumultuous times. > >You'll discover... > >* What forms of gold and silver you should NEVER buy (and why these are the #1 choice of those who don't know any better)... > >* Where to find the best > deals on these precious metals... > >* How to "fly under the radar" so the government has no knowledge of your purchases (believe me, they perceive gold buying as a BIG threat and keep tabs on those who do!) > >* And so much more! > >Ordinarily, we'd charge at least $39.95 for this newly created report. After all, it has the potential to make you?and SAVE you?many thousands of dollars within hours of reading it! > >But it's yours FREE when you claim your subscription to The Bob Livingston Letter? today. > >Bonus Report #2: >Lifesavers from Nature's Pharmacy, >a $19.95 value... Yours FREE! >Let's face it, as the economy begins to fall apart?it's more important than ever that you be able to manage your own health. > >You may not have access to a doctor?and even if you do, it might be one who's considerably less qualified than before. It's just the potentially harsh reality we all face. > >Which is why it's > imperative that you arm yourself with the lifesaving information you'll find in this report! In it, you'll discover... > >* Nature's "wonder drug" for your eyes, PLUS 13 nutrients you can take to quickly enhance your vision... > >* Why this little four-letter word could save your heart?and your life! > >* The best types of vegetables to eat for cancer prevention, and the one nutrient that can slash your risk in HALF! > >* And much, much more......both reports are absolutely FREE?plus, you'll get 24 information- packed issues of The Bob Livingston Letter?. That's $198.85 in FREE gifts and savings?just for giving the newsletter a try! > >Plus, You're Completely Protected >By My Iron-Clad, Money-Back Guarantee >As always, you must be absolutely thrilled with The Bob Livingston Letter?... with the straight facts and "other side of the story"... with the money-saving and health-preserving tips... with EVERYTHING you > imagined it to be... otherwise you pay nothing. > >You're free to cancel?even up until the very last day of your subscription?and I'll promptly refund every cent you paid... plus, either way, your copy of Burning Your Money, 7 Reasons Why the Coming Hyperinflation Disaster is Set to Shatter the U.S. Dollar, Burn Away Your Retirement and Collapse Our Nation's Economy, and your two FREE reports will be yours to keep no matter what. > >Look, you and I both know that hyperinflation isn't going to solve itself. ESPECIALLY with the runaway spending and printing presses raging like never before! > >And it's also abundantly clear that our government is looking out for itself first, and simply CANNOT be relied upon. > >So you can try to figure out a hyperinflation defense plan on your own. Which is not only costly and challenging. .. but also very, very risky. > >Or you can join me as a subscriber who's privy to the "other side of the > story"?and get all the honest-to-goodness facts you need to make accurate, timely decisions in these tough times. > >I've already offered to send you Burning Your Money, 7 Reasons Why the Coming Hyperinflation Disaster is Set to Shatter the U.S. Dollar, Burn Away Your Retirement and Collapse Our Nation's Economy, a $99.95 value?which is one of the most valuable gifts I've ever given away in my 40 years in business. It's a tool I'm convinced you'll use to safeguard your money and grow wealthier in the months and years to come. > >Plus, I've thrown in two additional reports... for total gifts and discounts worth $198.85. > >And so now, my friend, the choice is yours. > >Please, if your economic safety and prosperity mean anything to you, let me hear from you today! > >Sincerely, > >Bob Livingston > >Get $198.85 in FREE Gifts and Savings! >EMERGENCY SAVINGS CERTIFICATE > >YES! Bob, I want to protect my assets and > family from the ravages of hyperinflation. Please send me my FREE copy of Burning Your Money?plus my two FREE reports?and enter my subscription to The Bob Livingston Letter? as indicated below. Also, be sure to subscribe me to your complimentary Personal Liberty Digest e-letter. I understand that in the unlikely event that I'm dissatisfied, I can cancel (even up to the last issue) for a full 100% refund?and keep all my FREE Gifts... > >RECOMMENDED: > >BEST VALUE: Two years (24 issues) of The Bob Livingston Letter? for just $79 (Save $39) plus $6.95 S&H* and I'll receive: > >Burning Your Money, 7 Reasons Why the Coming Hyperinflation Disaster is Set to Shatter the U.S. Dollar?a $99.95 value, FREE! >Gold and Silver Buying Survival Guide?a $39.95 value, FREE! >Lifesavers from Nature's Pharmacy?a $19.95 value, FREE! > >OR... PLEASE SEND ME: >BOOK ONLY: Burning Your Money, 7 Reasons Why the Coming Hyperinflation > Disaster is Set to Shatter the U.S. Dollar?$99.95 (Save 50%) plus $6.95 S&H*! > > >* Orders shipped to Canada and internationally will incur $12.95 shipping and handling. >** Free bonus subscription to The Bob Livingston Letter? will be delivered monthly by email for all international orders. >? 2010 Personal Liberty Digest | Entries (RSS) | Comments (RSS) | Privacy Policy | Unsubscribe | Contact Us > >TO UNSUBSCRIBE: >You subscribed to Personal Liberty Alerts and are receiving this email at Stew.vreeland@ hotmail.com because you indicated an interest in receiving special updates and offers from Personal Liberty Alerts. We hope you'll find these updates interesting and informative. But if you'd rather not receive them, click here. You will be immediately removed from > our database. Remember, your personal information will never be rented or sold and you may unsubscribe at any time. > >Personal Liberty Digest >Post Office Box 3623 >Hueytown, AL 35023 > >Our Privacy Policy >____________ _________ _________ __ >Hotmail: Trusted email with Microsoft?s powerful SPAM protection. Sign up now. > >[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 >Going Green: Your Yahoo! Groups resource for green living > >Switch to: Text-Only, Daily Digest ? Unsubscribe ? Terms of Use >. > >__,_._,___ The INTERNET now has a personality. YOURS! See your Yahoo! Homepage. http://in.yahoo.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mukhtaralam2000 at yahoo.com Wed Jan 20 01:47:49 2010 From: mukhtaralam2000 at yahoo.com (Dr.Muhammad Mukhtar Alam) Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2010 14:17:49 +0530 (IST) Subject: [GJM] Fw: Whither Banking? - Jan 2010 In-Reply-To: <883428.44458.qm@web27404.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> References: <883428.44458.qm@web27404.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <311584.27244.qm@web94911.mail.in2.yahoo.com> What are the key proposals of associative economics, How it is different from the precepts of Islamic Economics how these are different from Ecological Economics and Binary Economics.I would be grateful for responses from the learned members of GJM. 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: robert searle To: discussion at globaljusticemovement.net Sent: Tue, 19 January, 2010 8:43:04 PM Subject: [GJM] Fw: Whither Banking? - Jan 2010 --- On Mon, 18/1/10, CfAE AE Bulletin wrote: >From: CfAE AE Bulletin >Subject: Whither Banking? - Jan 2010 >To: dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk >Date: Monday, 18 January, 2010, 22:10 > > > > > >January 2010 >1) Whither Banking? >2) The Colours of Money Seminar. UK - Feb / USA - Mar >3) Finance and Education - Towards an Independent Youth College >4) Associate! January 2010 >1) Whither Banking? >In this issue we consider the question of whether banking as we know it has become out-moded, and that the crisis is really not knowing what should take the place of banking? We treat the topic by way of a medley of commentaries, mainly from people who are close to and professionally involved in the institutions they are critiquing. Roger Bootle points out the difference between creative and distributive activities, locating banking in the latter. Simon Johnson's postscript highlights the need to be careful when using terms such as casino finance. Sign of our Time touches on the fragility of banking in the matter of off-balance sheet accounting. By way of a practical and positive response to these concerns, Chris Cook argues the case for Peer to Peer Financing. Christopher Houghton Budd's piece draws attention to the subtler yet central problems today's situation highlights concerning narrow and broad money, surrogates in > effect for the real and financial economy and therefore representative of the all-important relationship between the two. Friends' Page and AE hero have now been combined under News and Views as a forum for proponents of associative economics to conduct forthright and rigorous public debate. Accounting Corner reiterates the question of the future of banking by a precise consideration on whether spreadsheet accounting by individuals, groups and organisations does not point the way forwards. >2) The Colours of Money Seminar (UK &US) >UK: 5-7 February 2010 >In Stroud UK, see here for details >The next Colours of Money seminar will be taking place in Stroud from February 5-7 2010. It begins with a public lecture (Beyond the Market) on the Friday evening. > >Comments on the Colours of Money Seminar from April 2009: > > * Thank you all for a brain-wrangling but illuminating Colours of Money weekend ? there's definitely a light switched on! > * I really enjoyed the workshop and found some of the ideas very Stimulating ? many thanks for a thought-provoking and actually quite hope-making two days. > * Thank you both for a really stimulating and engaging seminar. It has struck many a chord and has given me a shot of enthusiasm for going deeper into the ae perspective. ? this is (for now) a brief note to express my thanks and to give you both 'credit' for the great work. >For The Colours of Money Seminar - USA , Mar 2010 in Washington DC area - Please take contact if interested >3) Finance and Education Seminar - London >14 February / 14 March Towards an Independent Youth College > >Details here: >http://www.anthromedia.com/index.php?id=7389 >On-going research concerning finance and education, with particular reference to the Waldorf movement and Rudolf Steiner?s insights. Education is facing growing pressures, the essence of which is to undermine a free spiritual life. Many ofthe pressures are financial in guise, but also rely on an inadequate understanding of law and equity. In this project the case of Waldorf (Steiner) education is explored, both as a case in point and for the contribution it might make to the wider debate. >4) Associate! January 2010 >Click image to subscribe >Welcome to 2010: Our 30th Anniversary! Editors >Lead: Creative or distributive?- The Economic Nature of Banking Roger Bootle >A Sign of Our Time: The Fragility of Banking >Feature: 'Peer-to-Peer Finance Chris Cook >Feature: Narrow and Broad Money Christopher Houghton Budd >Glossary: F Fiduciary >News and Views: Capital Markets / The Future of Money / Mainstream Interface >Accounting Corner: Bookkeeping=Banking Stephen Torr >Click here to subscribe >The Friends of Associative Economics Bulletin provides an overview of what is going on around the world in the associative economics movement. The bulletin is viewable as a webpage at www.cfae.biz/fae-bulletin/10Jan/ > >Click here to unsubscribe or edit your subscription > >A service provided by the Centre for Associative Economics >Copyright 2009 Centre for Associative Economics. All rights reserved. > > 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 Jan 20 02:59:04 2010 From: dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk (robert searle) Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2010 09:59:04 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [GJM] Fw: [Hgs] [UMKCLEE-URPE] Heterodox Economics Newsletter 93: January18, 2010] Message-ID: <562610.22857.qm@web27401.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> ??? Hopefully the links?may work! ? --- On Tue, 19/1/10, Lee, Frederic wrote: From: Lee, Frederic Subject: [Hgs] [UMKCLEE-URPE] Heterodox Economics Newsletter 93: January18, 2010] To: UMKCLEE-URPE at LISTSERV.UMKC.EDU Date: Tuesday, 19 January, 2010, 20:29 ? Issue 93: January 18, 2010 http://heterodoxnews.com/n/htn93.htm ? >From the Editor Let the revolution continue! ? We are excited and honored to continue the great work that Fred Lee began over five years ago. We are sure that everyone on this list joins us in saying a big ?THANK YOU FRED!? Knowing his dedication and hard work, we expect that the additional time will be put to good use, and there will be an increasing trend in publications by Dr. Lee. For those who do not know us, let us introduce ourselves briefly: I (Ted Schmidt) completed my dissertation under the guidance of Bob Pollin at the University of California, Riverside in 1991. I have been at Buffalo State College since 1990. My teaching/research interests are in the areas of macro-finance. I was fortunate enough to start my graduate work at UCR when Fred Lee was there in the early 1980s, and took my first semester micro course with him. Fred?s influence goes wide and far. By the way, for those who didn?t know, Fred was a pretty good softball player in his youth! I (Tae-Hee Jo) am a heterodox microeconomist, a rare breed in the world of heterodoxy and one of few doctoral students of Fred Lee. Upon graduating University of Missouri-Kansas City in 2007, I joined Buffalo State College where I teach all microeconomics-related courses. My research interests are, among others, heterodox microfoundations, the theory of effective demand, and the theory of the business enterprise. Currently, I am a member of Association for Evolutionary Economics, Association for Institutional Thought, Association for Social Economics, and Korea Social and Economic Studies Association. We have several ideas about making the Newsletter even better, and as we become more familiar with the process of publishing the Newsletter, we will gradually begin to implement them (one example is a film review. See Brian Werner's review of "The Yes Men Fix The World" in this issue). We know there will be some bumps and fits along the way, so please bear with us in these first few issues. We certainly appreciate any feedback and constructive criticism too. ? In this first editorial we would like to take up where Fred left off, with heterodox economics education and research; that is, what are we doing to advance heterodox economics? The 2008 global crisis gave us a great opportunity and we all must continue the attack against an irrelevant mainstream discipline. In this issue of the Newsletter you will find a link to a public debate at the LSE January 20th, ?What kind of economics should we teach?? Under the FYI section we?ve linked Peter Earl?s ?10 Suggested Resolutions for Real-World Economists in 2010,? where he exhorts us to ?stop teaching anything that you do not believe to be a good representation of the real world?[and].. if you care about making an impact, write what you think is worth saying, rather than choosing what to write based on the ranking of the journal likely to take it!" Peter Earl?s 10 resolutions remind us of Fred Lee?s 15-year-old ?gloomy forecast? of Post Keynesian economics (it can also be read as ?heterodox? economics): ?[B]y denigrating the intellectual value of their own theoretical views, and therefore not teaching it to their students in place of mainstream theory, it appears that Post Keynesian economists are committing paradigm suicide? (Post Keynesian Study Group Newsletter, Issue 1, January 1995; it can be found here:?http://postkeyn.mws.csx.cam.ac.uk/about.htm). We believe the future of heterodox economics is still gloomy unless there are such actions as?Peter Earl and Fred Lee suggest. Also in that section is an article from The New Yorker, ?After the Blowup,? by John Cassidy about the demise of the Chicago School and the ?coming out? of Richard Posner (one of the founders of the law and economics movement at Chicago) as a Keynesian. Asked what economists learned the past two years, Posner replied: ?Well, one possibility is that they have learned nothing?. They have techniques that they know and are comfortable with. It takes a great deal to drive them out of their accustomed way of doing business? ("Interview with Richard Posner," New Yorker Online). It will take a great deal to drive a stake through this beast. The opportunity has not passed. So, as Fred would exhort us, let?s keep up the good fight?the revolution is now! In solidarity, The Editors, Tae-Hee Jo and Ted Schmidt ? P.S. As a part of the editorship transition, we have set up a new email address and mailing lists for the Newsletter. To contact editors and to (un)subscribe the Newsletter, please send an email to heterodoxnews at gmail.com (including the name of country where you are working/studying). Our mailing lists are geographically separated. For example, for subscribers in the U.S. the distribution list is HEN-US at heterodoxnews.com. Other lists are HEN-UK, HEN-EUROPE, HEN-LATIN, HEN-CANADA, HEN-URPE, and HEN-OTHER. Please add heterodoxnews at gmail.com to your email address book. In this issue: ? Call for Papers -?Coimbra Conference on The Revival of Political Economy - IIPPE in Brief, Issue 4 ? Call for Contributions - PEF/CEA Panels/Sessions and JKG Prize 2010 - Paper Money in Theory and Practice in History - Twenty Years of Human Development: The Past and the Future of the Human Development Index - APORDE: African Programme on Rethinking Development Economics - Conference Developments in Economic Theory and Policy - Future Research in Economic and Social History (FRESH) - History of Economic Ideas - History of Economics as Culture - Annual Scientific Meeting on Social Enterprise - Revue de la R?gulation, Capitalisme, Institutions, Pouvoirs - 4th ISRICH Conference on Health Economics - Prometheus: Critical Studies in Innovation ? Conferences, Seminars and Lectures ? - LSE public debate: What kind of economics should we teach? - Conference in Paris on Communism - Bristol reading group: "Capital and Capitalism" - International Socialism journal seminar - Cambridge Lectures - URPE at Eastern Economic Association - Religious-Secular Distinctions conference at the British Academy - Socialist Register, Jan. 2010 Events - Symposium on Class - The Hyman P. Minsky Summer Seminar - Noam Chomsky to speak at Left Forum 2010 - London Marx-Hegel Reading group: Hegel?s Phenomenology of Spirit - The Colours of Money Seminar - King's College London Reading Caapital Society - Symposium on Georg Luk?cs's 'Reification and the Consciousness of the Proletariat' - The Globalisation Lectures ? Job Postings for Heterodox Economists - University of Connecticut - University of Cologne / Universit?t K?ln - Information Technology and Innovation Foundation - John Jay College of Criminal Justice (CUNY) - Corporate Accountability International - Demos - Institute for Women?s Policy Research - Economics for Equity and the Environment Network ? Heterodox Conference Papers and Reports and Articles ? - Development Viewpoint 43 - Development Viewpoint 44 - Debating Aggregate Supply and Aggregate Demand | URPE/ASSA - The 4th Bi-Annual Conference on the financial and monetary crisis - "Post-Election Iran: Crossroads of History and a Critique of Prevailing Political Perspectives" - International Development Economics Associates (IDEAs) - Neoliberalism and the Current Crisis in Mexico: Indigenous and Campesino Movements Respond - Lessons from NAFTA Heterodox Journals and Newsletters ? - Cambridge Journal of Economics, Vol. 33, N. 6: November 2009 - Cambridge Journal of Economics, Vo;. 24, N. 1: January 2010 - Deleuze Studies, Vol. 3, No. suppl: December 2009? - Feminist Economics, Vol. 16, Issue 1: January 2010 - History of Economics Review, No. 50: Summer 2009 - Historical Materialism, Vol. 17, Issue. 4 - International Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 38, No. 4: Winter 2009-10 - International Review of Economics Education, Volume 8, Issue 2: November 2009 - Interface: a journal for and about social movements, Vol. 1, No. 2: November 2009 - International Socialism, Issue 125: Winter 2009 - Journal of Economics Issues, Vol. 43, No. 4: December 2009 - Journal of Economic Methodology, Vol. 16, Issue 4 - Journal of Innovation Economics, No. 4 - Journal of Institutional Economics, Vol.5, No.3 - Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Vol. 31, Issue 4: December 2009 - Marxism 21, Vol. 16: December 2009 - Metroeconomica, Vol. 60, Issue 4: November 2009 - Metroeconomica, Vol. 61 Issue 1: February 2010 - Oikos, Vol. 8, No. 2 - Prokla: September 2009 - Review of Political Economy, Vol. 22, Issue 1: January 2010 - Review of Social Economy, Vol. 67 Issue 4: December 2009 - Review of Radical Political Economics, Vol. 41, No. 4: December 2009 - Review of Social & Economic Studies, Vol. 33: November 2009 - Review of Social & Economic Studies, Vol. 32: May 2009 - Revista de Econom?a Institucional, No. 21 - Revue de la r?gulation n?6: 2e semestre 2009 - Upping the Anti #9 - Levy News - nef e-letter, December 2009 - eInsight - Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives ? Heterodox Books and Book Series ? - Joan Robinson - Human Resource Economics and Public Policy - Institutional Analysis and Praxis: The Social Fabric Matrix Approach - Path Dependency and Macroeconomics - The New Behavioral Economics - Happiness, Economics and Politics: Towards a Multi-Disciplinary Approach - The Economic Crisis Reader - Political Economy and Globalization - Confronting Global Neoliberalism: Third World Resistance and Development Strategies - Class Struggle on the Homefront - Tax Havens: How Globalization Really Works - Seven Deadly Frauds of Economic Policy Heterodox Book Reviews ? -?After Adam Smith: A Century of Transformation in Politics and Political Economy - Editor's Note on Book Reviews for HEN Heterodox Film Review - The Yes Men Fix the World ? Heterodox Graduate Program and PhD Scholarships ? - PhD opportunity at City University London ? Heterodox Web Sites and Associations ? - Real-World Economics in Germany Queries from Heterodox Economists ? - Surveys, articles, and/or books that critique mainstream theory - Introductory readings, lectures and videos of Marxism ? For Your Information ? - 10 Suggested Resolutions for Real-World Economist in 2010 - Spring 2010 teach-in suggestions for Employee Free Choice Act - Please post in Real-World Economics Review Blog - HET module at City University London - Academic Prizes ESHET 2010 - Historical Materialism: Special Subscription Offer - Elegant Theories That Didn't Work: The Problem with Paul Samuelson - After the Blowup - Unions and the Crisis: Ways Ahead? - Indian Trade Unions' position on Copenhagen - New York Area Study Group on Capital vols. II and III beginning in January - "Revolutionizing Economic Thought" by Frank Rotering - ATLANTIS PROGRAMME - The Ignoble and Noble Prizes for Economics?? ? ? ********* Ted P. Schmidt and Tae-Hee Jo, Editors Heterodox Economics Newsletter Economics and Finance Department SUNY Buffalo State College 1300 Elmwood Avenue Buffalo, NY 14222 USA Newsletter Website: http://heterodoxnews.com ? -----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 mukhtaralam2000 at yahoo.com Wed Jan 20 05:05:40 2010 From: mukhtaralam2000 at yahoo.com (Dr.Muhammad Mukhtar Alam) Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2010 17:35:40 +0530 (IST) Subject: [GJM] Swiss Banker Blows Whistle on Tax Evasion Message-ID: <780511.74695.qm@web94915.mail.in2.yahoo.com> Swiss Banker Blows Whistle on Tax Evasion http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/19/business/19whistle.html By LYNNLEY BROWNING Published: January 18, 2010 Enlarge This Image Rudolf M. Elmer ran the Caribbean operations of the Swiss bank Julius Baer for eight years until he was dismissed in 2002. From his home in the quiet village of Rorbas, outside Zurich, Rudolf M. Elmer is chipping away at the centuries-old traditions of Swiss banking secrecy. Mr. Elmer, who ran the Caribbean operations of the Swiss bank Julius Baer for eight years until he was dismissed in 2002, moved to Mauritius in the Indian Ocean and began parceling out to global tax authorities what he said were the secrets of his former employer. Now back in his native country, he continues to disclose the inner workings of Julius Baer ? one of many Swiss institutions that investigators say help clients evade billions of dollars in taxes by routing money through offshore havens in the Caribbean and Switzerland. ?It is a global problem, and I am only the messenger who provides the bad news, or even better, the truth,? Mr. Elmer, 54, wrote in a recent e-mail message. ?Offshore tax evasion is the biggest theft among societies and neighbor states in this world.? He said that he would fly on Tuesday to D?sseldorf, Germany, where the tax authorities are putting him up in a five-star hotel as he prepares to divulge client secrets. Mr. Elmer joins a group of whistle-blowers that includes Bradley Birkenfeld, the former UBS private banker who disclosed the bank?s secrets, pushing it toward a settlement with the United States government, and Heinrich Kieber, a former data clerk at the LGT Group, the Liechtenstein royal bank, who stole client data and funneled it to American and European authorities. Mr. Elmer?s disclosures are attracting particular interest as the Internal Revenue Service and the Justice Department embark upon a strategy of ?it takes a rogue to catch a thief? to encourage insiders who engaged in wrongdoing to reveal the secrets of their employers. Lawyers and Congressional investigators who have begun to review Mr. Elmer?s claims say that his internal bank and client documents provide fresh ammunition for American authorities as they take their crackdown on offshore tax evasion beyond UBS to clients of other banks. Mr. Elmer has given documents to the I.R.S., a Senate subcommittee investigating tax evasion and investigators for Robert M. Morgenthau, then the Manhattan district attorney, his lawyer Jack Blum said. They cover more than 100 trusts, dozens of companies and hedge funds and more than 1,300 individuals, from 1997 through 2002, Mr. Blum said. Mr. Elmer contends that his documents detail the undisclosed role of American investment management companies in funneling American, European and South American clients who wished to avoid taxes to Julius Baer; the backdating of documents to establish trusts and foundations used to evade taxes; and the funneling of trades for hedge funds and private equity firms from high-tax jurisdictions through Baer entities in the Cayman Islands. ?What he has is the confirmation of something very important: that a number of other banks in the voluntary disclosure process are turning up,? Mr. Blum said, referring to 14,700 wealthy Americans, many of them UBS clients, who came forward to disclose their secret accounts last year. The I.R.S. declined to comment on Mr. Elmer?s case but said in a statement that it was ?investigating other banks that have enabled Americans to evade taxes.? Nothing indicates that Julius Baer, a 120-year-old private bank, is under I.R.S. investigation. The bank is known for intense privacy. Its board chairman, Raymond J. Baer, told shareholders last April that ?the fiction of citizens being fully transparent must never become reality.? Julius Baer, based in Zurich, had profits of more than $245 million in the first half of 2009 on more than $200 billion in client assets. In 2004, it sold its American wealth management business to UBS, whose offshore private banking operations for Americans came under federal scrutiny and led the bank to pay a $780 million fine in 2009 and admit to criminal wrongdoing. The acquired business was folded into a group led by Raoul Weil, the top UBS private banker who fled to Switzerland in 2009, after being indicted in the UBS case touched off by Mr. Birkenfeld. Mr. Elmer worked for Julius Baer nearly two decades, the first 15 years in Switzerland and then as chief operating officer of Julius Baer Bank and Trust in Grand Cayman, beginning in 1994. As far as his own role in helping clients evade taxes, he said, ?I didn?t realize what was going on.? Mr. Elmer said he discovered the tax evasion in 2002 and decided to expose Julius Baer?s operations. Julius Baer denies that version of events. It contends that Mr. Elmer stole internal documents and client data around 2002, the year he was dismissed after raising concerns about the bank in the wake of being passed over for a promotion. He moved to Mauritius a year later. ?Shortly after leaving the employment of the Julius Baer Group in 2002, Cayman-based Elmer, clearly annoyed at having been dismissed and unable to secure a financial settlement to his satisfaction, engaged in a campaign to seek to discredit the Julius Baer group and certain of its clients,? the bank wrote by e-mail in December. ?This campaign has included threats against individuals and the use of documents inappropriately obtained and/or retained by Elmer following the termination of his employment, many of which were altered to create a distorted fact pattern or supplemented by forged documents, the creation of which Elmer has since admitted,? the bank wrote. Swiss authorities, who briefly held Mr. Elmer in jail in 2005 on charges of breaching Swiss bank secrecy laws, are investigating whether he stole the documents. In 2008, Mr. Elmer posted some of his documents on Wikileaks, a Web site that publishes whistle-blower information about government and corporate activity. In court papers the bank filed in February of that year, seeking unsuccessfully to prevent the disclosure of the records, the bank revealed the names of certain clients that Mr. Elmer had accused of tax evasion. They include Jonathan Lampitt, the president and chief executive of the Jupiter Investment Group, in Rancho Santa Fe, Calif.; Winston B. Layne, a wealthy resident of New York; and Anna Kanellakis, an owner of a shipping company, Alpha Tankers and Freighters, based in Athens. A spokesman for Mr. Lampitt did not respond to requests for comment. Messages left at Mr. Layne?s Upper East Side home were not answered. A spokesman for Alpha Tankers said that it knew nothing about accounts at Julius Baer. Elements of the dispute between Mr. Elmer and Julius Baer resemble a spy thriller. He said that Julius Baer had him followed by private investigators in Zurich and that superiors told him ?it might be a good idea to go for a deep dive in the sea? ? assertions that the bank denies. The bank said it suspected Mr. Elmer of having mailed a suspicious white powder to its offices, which he denies. It also said that he forged a 2007 document on Julius Baer letterhead notifying Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany that the bank was closing her accounts because they ?hid funds in offshore accounts.? Mr. Elmer says the letter, which he has posted on Wikileaks, is authentic. His actions are ?symptomatic of a generalized breakdown of bank secrecy,? said Christopher S. Rizek, a tax lawyer at Caplin & Drysdale in Washington who has represented scores of wealthy American clients of Swiss banks. 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 Jan 20 05:13:30 2010 From: dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk (robert searle) Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2010 12:13:30 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [GJM] Fw: [toeslist] US - Protect the Clean Air Act Message-ID: <211569.52044.qm@web27403.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> --- On Tue, 19/1/10, Riaz K Tayob wrote: From: Riaz K Tayob Subject: [toeslist] US - Protect the Clean Air Act To: "The Other Economic Summit (TOES)" Date: Tuesday, 19 January, 2010, 20:56 ? the, With climate legislation held up in the Senate and the Copenhagen climate talks' failure to produce a binding, international agreement, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has emerged as the critical agency in regulating greenhouse gas emissions.? Through application of the Clean Air Act, the EPA has the authority to curb climate change. Unfortunately, U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and lobbyists for some of the biggest polluters in the country have other plans for the Clean Air Act. Tomorrow, Senator Murkowski is planning to introduce an amendment that would halt the EPA's implementation of the Clean Air Act and undermine one of our most important environmental laws. We know that big energy likes the amendment, since they helped draft it. In the Washington Post, a lobbyist for energy giants like Southern Co. and Duke Energy, Jeff Holmsted, admitted to working with Murkowski's staff on the exact language of the amendment.This is after Senator Murkowski received more than $124,500 from Holmsted's clients. Don't let Big Energy write the law to pollute more! Tell your Senator to protect the Clean Air Act. The Murkowski amendment seeks to reverse the EPA's critical finding that greenhouse gas pollution endangers public health. The endangerment finding triggers the Clean Air Act and prompts the EPA to take the first step toward curbing climate change pollution. Murkowski's attempt to eviscerate our best existing tool for reducing greenhouse gas pollution not only threatens our ability to reduce the carbon in our atmosphere, but also serves as another shameful example of the role Big Polluters are playing in stalling climate change action. Please act today to tell the Senate we need the Clean Air Act to curb global warming, and to oppose the attempts of Murkowski and Big Polluters to gut the Act. Thank you for all you do, Allison Fisher Public Citizen Energy Organizer Stay informed and speak out when it counts. Sign up for the Public Citizen Action Network or other online announcements. This recommended action was sent to riazt at IAFRICA. COM . Manage your subscriptions or if you do not wish to receive any e-mail messages from Public Citizen in the future, please click here. Join the Public Citizen Action Network | Support Us | Take Action | Copyright 2008 Public Citizen __._,_.___ 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 Switch to: Text-Only, Daily Digest ? Unsubscribe ? Terms of Use . __,_._,___ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk Thu Jan 21 02:52:05 2010 From: dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk (robert searle) Date: Thu, 21 Jan 2010 09:52:05 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [GJM] Fw: [toeslist] CNBC - Big Banks Accused of Short Sale Fraud Message-ID: <457597.54001.qm@web27408.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> --- On Wed, 20/1/10, Emilie F. Nichols wrote: From: Emilie F. Nichols Subject: [toeslist] CNBC - Big Banks Accused of Short Sale Fraud To: "TOESLIST" Date: Wednesday, 20 January, 2010, 22:29 ? http://www.cnbc. com/id/34877347 ? CNBC.com ? Big Banks Accused of Short Sale Fraud ? SHORT SALE FRAUD, CITI MORTGAGE, JPM, JP MORGAN, BANK OF AMERICA , HOUSING CRISIS, SHORT SALES ? Posted By: Diana Olick | CNBC Real Estate Reporter ? cnbc.com | 15 Jan 2010 | 12:13 PM ET ? Just as regulators, lawmakers and all forms of financial oversight boards are talking about new regulations to guard against mortgage fraud and another mortgage meltdown, there appears to be yet a new mortgage fraud out there today, allegedly perpetuated by agents of, yes, the big banks. ? I was first alerted to this by Jeremy Brandt, the CEO of several companies that bring short sale agents, investors and sellers together. ? His companies include 1800CashOffer, HomeFlux.com and FastHomeOffer. com. Brandt has a huge network of short sale real estate agents, and over the past several months he's been receiving all kinds of questions and complaints about trouble with second lien holders. ? As we all know, during the housing boom, millions of Americans pulled cash out of their homes in the form of home equity loans and lines of credit. They also used "piggy back" loans in order to get even lower interest rates on their primary mortgages. Now, many of the borrowers in trouble, and many who are so far underwater on their loans that they don't qualify for any refi or modification, are choosing short sales as a way out. (Short sales are when the lender allows the home to be sold for less than the value of the loan). About 12 percent of all home sales by the end of 2009 were short sales, according to the National Association of Realtors. ? In order for a short sale with two loans to happen, the second lien holder has to drop the lien. ? If they don't, and there's no short sale, the home goes to foreclosure and the first lien holder gets the house because second liens are subordinated debt to the primary loan. ? In short, the second lien holder gets nothing. In order to get the second lien holder to drop the lien, the first lien holder generally negotiates some partial payment to the second lien holder. The second lien holder doesn't have to agree, but more and more are doing so. ? That's all legal. ? But here's what's not legal and what's apparently happening quite often recently. Since many second lien holders are getting very little, they are now allegedly requesting money on the side from either real estate agents or the buyers in the short sale. When I say "on the side," I mean in cash, off the HUD settlement statements, so the first lien holder doesn't see it. ? "They are pretty clear and pretty upfront about the fact that if the first lender knows they are getting paid, the first lender will kill the short sale," says Brandt. "So these second lenders are asking for the payments off the closing documents, off the HUD statement, usually in a cashiers check prior to closing. Once they receive that payment, they will allow the short sale to go through, which according to RESPA laws and the lawyers that we have spoken to on the topic is not legal." ? (RESPA is the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act, the 2008 law requiring that consumers receive disclosures at various times in the transaction. It outlaws kickbacks that increase the cost of settlement services. RESPA is a HUD consumer protection statute designed to help homebuyers be better shoppers in the home buying process, and is enforced by HUD. Read more about it here.). ? I told RESPA specialist Brian Sullivan over at HUD about all this and he replied, "That's a red flag!" ? Clearly illegal. ? Brandt told me he's heard from at least 200 agents that they've had these requests made by representatives of Citi Mortgage , JP Morgan Chase , Bank of America and other large banks. ? Most agents wouldn't go on the record with me, for fear of retribution by the banks with whom they have to work every day. But one agent, Kayte Gentry, of Keller Williams Integrity First Realty, was brave enough to blow the whistle. ? "I think it's wrong, and I think somebody needs to hold them accountable, and every time I lose a house in foreclosure because of this, it hurts my client," says Gentry matter-of-factly. "Aside from being illegal and a violation of RESPA, it's immoral and truly it's just sad for the client that it's hurting." ? Gentry says she has had the requests made three times and claims she lost one sale because of it. ? "The big banks that have recently made this request, specifically payments outside of the closing statement have been Citi Mortgage and JP Morgan Chase." ? JP Morgan Chase simply answered, "No Comment," when I relayed the charge to their media representative. ? Bank of America denied the practice to CNBC in a written statement: ? "Bank of America enforces a policy that all disbursements are documented on the settlement statement for short sales. When we are servicing a first mortgage with a second lien held by another investor, if the second lien holder asks for off-HUD payments, we will not approve the transaction (if we have knowledge of it). It is also against Bank of America?s policy to accept off-HUD payments on its second liens." Citi 's reply was a bit more complicated: ? ?We work very hard to help distressed homeowners find solutions for their financial challenges. In our attempt to amicably resolve the debt, we will generally negotiate a reduced settlement with the homeowner in order to release a second lien. Unlike some lenders who refuse to reduce the payoffs on second liens, we choose to reduce the payoff amounts in some situations to assist the borrower. We do not provide instructions to settlement agents on how to fill out the settlement statement or any other closing documents, and we certainly do not require settlement agents or any other parties to violate applicable laws." ? "When we confront the lenders and tell them that this request is illegal and a violation of RESPA, they tell us it's been cleared through legal and they don't care. Do it anyway," charges Gentry. ? I personally heard a recording of a phone conversation between a short sale real estate agent and a second lien lender, during which the second lien lender clearly asked for cash outside of the settlement and threatened to kill the deal without it. ? The real estate agent was rightly concerned and reluctant (the recording was given to me by Brandt who got it from the agent. The agent would provide no information on the lender, for fear of retribution) : ? AGENT: Well yes, I don?t want to lose my license, go to jail, I mean, I have to sign? ? LENDER: You're not going to lose your license - we have plenty of realtors who do this, who actually understand how this whole process goes - and they realize that OK, if I want to get this done, this will take place." ? I contacted the Treasury Department, HUD, FINCEN (Financial Crimes Enforcement Network) and the Federal Trade Commission, and none of their representatives could tell me of any active investigation into this. The folks at HUD said they'd be very interested to see my story. ? Questions?? Comments?? RealtyCheck@ cnbc.com ? __._,_.___ 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 Switch to: Text-Only, Daily Digest ? Unsubscribe ? Terms of Use . __,_._,___ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk Thu Jan 21 06:23:55 2010 From: dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk (Robert Searle) Date: 21 Jan 2010 05:23:55 -0800 Subject: [GJM] Public borrowing worsens less than expected  - Yahoo! News UK Message-ID: Robert Searle (dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk) has sent you a news article X-Originating-IP: 77.238.190.40 -------------------- Personal message text: -------------------- Public borrowing worsens less than expected?? http://uk.news.yahoo.com/22/20100121/tuk-uk-britain-borrowing-fa6b408.html ============================================================ From dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk Fri Jan 22 02:17:36 2010 From: dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk (robert searle) Date: Fri, 22 Jan 2010 09:17:36 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [GJM] Fw: 1 million raised for Haiti Message-ID: <530684.45670.qm@web27404.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> --- On Thu, 21/1/10, Luis Morago - Avaaz.org wrote: From: Luis Morago - Avaaz.org Subject: 1 million raised for Haiti To: "dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk" Date: Thursday, 21 January, 2010, 16:49 Make sure Avaaz alerts reach your inbox: click "Add to Contacts" to add avaaz at avaaz.org to your address book, and click the "Not Spam" button if you found this email in your spam folder. If you prefer to leave the Avaaz list, just click here to unsubscribe. Dear friends, Avaaz members have surged to the help of Haiti raising over $1 million in just a few days! Every dollar/euro/yen donated is immediately being sent to empower trustworthy local partner organizations to scale up their efforts, but the devastation is staggering and the needs remain massive. See the email below -- let?s stand with the Haitian people, help now! https://secure.avaaz.org/en/stand_with_haiti ******* Dear friends, Haiti's worst earthquake in 200 years struck last week, devastating the capital city, killing tens of thousands and threatening over 3 million people in this desperately poor country. Haitians are urgently appealing to the world for help -- we?re already working with strong local organisations mobilising community-based relief efforts. Let?s send a worldwide wave of donations to the front lines, to save lives now and help people recover and rebuild. Avaaz will work partners to make sure the help reaches those who need it most. Click below to donate: https://secure.avaaz.org/en/stand_with_haiti Based on expert advice from leading humanitarian NGOs who have been working in Haiti for over 20 years, we're offering donations to trusted local organizations, including: Honor and Respect for Bel Air, a big community-based network in Haiti?s capital Port-au-Prince, which is also supported by our friends at the respected Brazilian NGO Viva Rio Coordination R?gionale des Organisations de Sud-Est (CROSE), which brings together some of the most active community groups in the South of Haiti where the earthquake struck hardest. These groups include: women's groups, schools networks and local cooperatives Zanmi Lasante, sister organization of Partners in Health (PiH) in Haiti. PiH and its partners have been among the first to respond with emergency medical services to the most vulnerableIn 2008, Avaaz members donated over $2 million for Burmese monks to respond to the devastating Cyclone Nargis. Our money made an incredible difference there -- because it went directly to local people on the front lines of the aid effort. Times of painful tragedy can bring out the best in us by bringing people together. Let's join with the people of Haiti to help them rescue their communities from this brutal disaster -- act now at this link: https://secure.avaaz.org/en/stand_with_haiti With hope for Haiti, Luis, Paul, Graziela, Paula, Ricken, Pascal, Alice, Benjamin, Milena and the whole Avaaz team More information: Haiti devastated by massive earthquake (BBC): http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8455629.stm Haiti hit by second strong earthquake (The Guardian): http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/20/haiti-hit-by-second-earthquake Tiny steps toward basic services (New York Times): http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/20/world/americas/20services.html?pagewanted=2&ref=world Deadly earthquake hits Haiti (Reuters pictures): http://www.reuters.com/news/pictures/slideshow?articleId=USRTR28T0W#a=7 ------------------------------ 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 "" on 2007-08-02 using the email address dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk. 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=2b7c8c2a98a8e68f564b27ee124e38a1&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 dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk Fri Jan 22 03:37:48 2010 From: dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk (robert searle) Date: Fri, 22 Jan 2010 10:37:48 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [GJM] Total Lack of Imagination, and Creativity!! The LSE Encounter. Message-ID: <894834.82293.qm@web27404.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> ? ? I went on Wednesday to the LSE meeting in regards to the status quo of economics. It had some distinguished guests including Professor Ormerod, and Professor Hodgson. They gave some insignts into the parlous, and highly questionable nature of mainstream economics. But inevitably they did not offer anything new, or anything of real importance. ? After the presentations there was a session in which the mainly student audience asked some questions. However, they had the tendency of rambling on, and on...until my time came... ? I made the point in no uncertain terms that economics lack imagination, and creativity! This caused a stir, and the audience laughed, or in part "glared" at me. I went further by suggesting the need for a new global paradigm, and referred to my developing project of TRANSFINANCIAL ECONOMICS which I believe could be the system of the future. I also made the point that money itself was created electronically by banks out of thin air by means of credit creation. I got the distinct impression that in spite of their education the audience did not really fully understand the full import of what was said..though I may be wrong. ? Anyway, Professor Hodgson seemed to indicate that no paradigm could be ruled out, and another academic hinted at the possibility of misuse of anything new. This is just the gist of what they seemed to have said. ? ? http://www.p2pfoundation.net/Transfinancial_Economics ? ? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_Hodgson ? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Ormerod ? ? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk Fri Jan 22 03:49:36 2010 From: dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk (Robert Searle) Date: 22 Jan 2010 10:49:36 +0000 Subject: [GJM] China says U.S. Internet accusations " baseless"   - Yahoo! News UK Message-ID: Robert Searle (dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk) has sent you a news article X-Originating-IP: 77.238.190.43 -------------------- Personal message text: Might be of interest................. -------------------- China says U.S. Internet accusations "baseless"?? http://uk.news.yahoo.com/22/20100122/tts-uk-china-usa-ca02f96.html ============================================================ From rodney.shakespeare1 at btopenworld.com Fri Jan 22 07:04:46 2010 From: rodney.shakespeare1 at btopenworld.com (Rodney Shakespeare) Date: Fri, 22 Jan 2010 14:04:46 -0000 Subject: [GJM] Total Lack of Imagination, and Creativity!! The LSE Encounter. References: <894834.82293.qm@web27404.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <008601ca9b6b$daf51060$4001a8c0@your447023ae6b> Robert, Good try. These conventional academic economists are hopeless. At a time when President Obama is supposedly launching an attack at least on parts of the banking system for the disaster it has caused, these nerks having nothing to say. Rodney Shakespear.e ----- Original Message ----- From: robert searle To: discussion at globaljusticemovement.net Sent: Friday, January 22, 2010 10:37 AM Subject: [GJM] Total Lack of Imagination, and Creativity!! The LSE Encounter. I went on Wednesday to the LSE meeting in regards to the status quo of economics. It had some distinguished guests including Professor Ormerod, and Professor Hodgson. They gave some insignts into the parlous, and highly questionable nature of mainstream economics. But inevitably they did not offer anything new, or anything of real importance. After the presentations there was a session in which the mainly student audience asked some questions. However, they had the tendency of rambling on, and on...until my time came... I made the point in no uncertain terms that economics lack imagination, and creativity! This caused a stir, and the audience laughed, or in part "glared" at me. I went further by suggesting the need for a new global paradigm, and referred to my developing project of TRANSFINANCIAL ECONOMICS which I believe could be the system of the future. I also made the point that money itself was created electronically by banks out of thin air by means of credit creation. I got the distinct impression that in spite of their education the audience did not really fully understand the full import of what was said..though I may be wrong. Anyway, Professor Hodgson seemed to indicate that no paradigm could be ruled out, and another academic hinted at the possibility of misuse of anything new. This is just the gist of what they seemed to have said. http://www.p2pfoundation.net/Transfinancial_Economics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_Hodgson http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Ormerod ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ 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 Jan 23 02:27:03 2010 From: dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk (robert searle) Date: Sat, 23 Jan 2010 09:27:03 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [GJM] Fw: [ics-net] Fwd: INFIM : Power & Knowledge Conference Tampere Sept 6-8, 2010 Message-ID: <65511.64319.qm@web27405.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> --- On Fri, 22/1/10, Jarkko Kari wrote: From: Jarkko Kari Subject: [ics-net] Fwd: INFIM : Power & Knowledge Conference Tampere Sept 6-8, 2010 To: ics-net at yahoogroups.com Date: Friday, 22 January, 2010, 22:42 Hello all, Below is some information on a conference which appears relevant to us. During January, we could submit a session proposal (abstract) related to our theme - information, communication and spirituality. Any ideas? Jarkko Kari Edelleenl?hetetty viesti alkaa: L?hett?j?: "Raija Aaltonen" P?iv?ys: 12. tammikuuta 2010 klo 0.00.05 Vastaanottaja: "Jarkko Kari" Aihe: INFIM : Power & Knowledge Conference Tampere Sept 6-8, 2010 INFIM???Keskustelualueet???Konferenssit, CFP:t ja tieteelliset menovinkit???Power & Knowledge Conference Tampere Sept 6-8, 2010 Power & Knowledge Conference Tampere Sept 6-8, 2010 Raija Aaltonen?- tiistai, 12 tammikuu 2010, 09:42 ? Power & Knowledge The 2nd International Conference, Tampere, September 6-8, 2010 Call for Session Proposals Inspired by the great success of the first conference (Power: Forms, Dynamics and Consequences, September 22-24, 2008), we carry on probing questions of power. This time the conference concentrates on the links between power and knowledge. As is well known, Michel Foucault argued that power and knowledge are like two sides of the same coin. There are however many other approaches and research traditions that tackle the role of knowledge production in affecting and constituting power relations. What are the roles of science, research and research-based knowledge production in promoting policy models? Does scientific research or evidence-based consultancy save the world and lead us to a better future? What effects does the key role of knowledge production in contemporary societies have on power and politics? How are the established databases and statistical classifications of the public and private organizations constructed and reproduced? What is the role of everyday knowledge in society? What is the relationship between knowledge and resistance? By bringing together scholars who approach these questions from different angles this conference will advance our understanding about power relations in social reality. Keynote speakers will include: - Patrick Carroll - Gili S. Drori - Susan Haack - Sandra Harding - Sakari H?nninen - Michael Mann - Yuval Millo - Soile Veijola To send a session proposal and to get more information about the conference, please email a session title and abstract (100-200 words describing the session) to?power2010 at uta.fi. The conference website is in http://www.uta.fi/power2010/ The latest day to submit the proposal is January 31st 2010. Call for papers will be launched after approved sessions are confirmed. Risto Heiskala Professor, Director Chair of the Organizing Committee Vastaa Katso t?t? viesti? asiayhteydess??n Peru t?m?n keskustelualueen tilaus??Poista tilaus kaikilta keskustelualueilta -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: f2.jpg Type: image/png Size: 50067 bytes Desc: not available URL: From dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk Sat Jan 23 02:43:45 2010 From: dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk (robert searle) Date: Sat, 23 Jan 2010 09:43:45 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [GJM] More on the LSE Debate....! Message-ID: <431417.55445.qm@web27408.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> ? This may be of interest...hope the link works ? ????? http://rwer.wordpress.com/2010/01/21/the-lse-debate-ormerod-and-hodgson/#comments ? Robert S. ? ? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk Sat Jan 23 04:48:37 2010 From: dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk (robert searle) Date: Sat, 23 Jan 2010 11:48:37 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [GJM] Fw: [toeslist] American NGO's rally vs "Corporate Personhood" decision [compilation + PPt Ref] [1 Attachment] Message-ID: <981586.31175.qm@web27405.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> --- On Fri, 22/1/10, Janet M Eaton wrote: From: Janet M Eaton Subject: [toeslist] American NGO's rally vs "Corporate Personhood" decision [compilation + PPt Ref] [1 Attachment] To: toeslist at yahoogroups.com Date: Friday, 22 January, 2010, 7:20 ? [Attachment(s) from Janet M Eaton included below] A compilation I put together for my lists fyi-janet ============ ========= === [1] http://www.theallia ncefordemocracy. org/ Supreme Court throws its weight behind the corporations. .. "Today's Supreme Court opinion in Citizens United v. FEC opens the floodgates on unlimited corporate spending to influence elections and further entrenches corporate rule in our nation. We demand mandatory public financing of state and federal elections and a constitutional amendment to deny corporations the false claim they've made to First Amendment free speech and other personhood rights. " [2] Public Citizen Take Action Sign Petition http://action. citizen.org/ t/10315/petition .jsp?petition_ KEY=2190 "The court has put our democracy up for sale. Public Citizen is launching a historic campaign to pass a constitutional amendment to restore people to the center of the political process." [3] The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund P.O. Box 2016, Chambersburg, PA 17201 www.celdf.org "today?s decision should be understood as just another brick in the wall, another step in a direction that will only continue unless and until a real movement for the rights of people, communities, and nature is built. That is the work we are doing. We hope you will join us. " [4] New Coalition Responds to Citizens United Decision with a Call to Amend the U.S. Constitution to Overrule the Supreme Court?s Activist Expansion of Corporate "Rights" www.movetoamend. org. "After justices on the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of corporate "rights" in the Citizens United case, a new national coalition of diverse public interest, community, and business organizations responded with a bold call to overrule the decision and amend the Constitution to restore the power of people over corporations, beyond election law.? A complete list of the "Move to Amend" Steering Committee is attached. A list of other groups and people who have endorsed this new campaign is available at the coalition?s new website:? www.movetoamend. org.? More groups join daily." [5] From: "Liberty Tree" Subject: OUTRAGE: Court says corporations are people: Join the move to amend! Date sent: Thu, 21 Jan 2010 10:54:54 -0600 "They've gone after our tax dollars. Our services. Our jobs. Our schools. Our military. Our votes. Our future. Our freedoms. And the federal courts have helped them every step of the way. ? Today,?with its ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Supreme Court ruled that corporations are persons, entitled by the U.S. Constitution to buy elections and run our government. ? Human beings are people; corporations are legal fictions. The Supreme Court is misguided in principle, and wrong on the law. In a democracy, the people rule. ?We Move to Amend." fyi-janet p.s. A Backgrounder on the Personhood Case and Corporate Rigths & Power can be found at: http://www.sierracl ub.org/committee s/cac/corporatep ower/ Scroll down to link for Power Point Presentation on Corporations and the Deterioration of Democracy SLIDE 53,54, 59 / 81 1886: A Turning Point One of the most important Supreme Court cases you may never have heard of... Santa Clara County vs. Southern Pacific Railroad In 1886, the Supreme Court ruled that a private corporation was a natural person, entitled to the same rights and protections as human beings under the Bill of Rights. Since Santa Clara, those rights and privileges have been expanded to exceed those of the natural persons creating them. By granting "personhood" rights to corporations, courts have allowed them to grow and maximize profits in ways that harm the environment, public health and democracy. In 1886 alone, federal courts struck down 230 state laws regulating corporations. Corporations took advantage of laws written for human beings. The 14th Amendment was passed to protect freed slaves. Of the 307 14th Amendment cases brought before the Supreme Court between 1890 and 1910: -19 dealt with African Americans -288 dealt with corporations In latter years many groups in the US like SC, Alliance for Democracy, WILPF, Public Citizen, POCLAD and many others have worked to educate citizens about and to lobby against the personhood case and its implications regarding corporate rights and abuse of power. fyi- I served as the Sierra Club of Canada International liaison on the SC Corporate Accountability Committee that helped to produce the above power point. ============ ========= ========= ========= = [1] http://www.theallia ncefordemocracy. org/ Supreme Court throws its weight behind the corporations. .. Supreme Court throws its weight behind the corporations. .. Citizens United: SCOTUS decision says corporations are people, money is speech, and our democracy is up for sale Today's Supreme Court opinion in Citizens United v. FEC opens the floodgates on unlimited corporate spending to influence elections and further entrenches corporate rule in our nation. This 5-4 decision overturns previous Court decisions that banned corporate "independent expenditures, " thereby scrapping campaign finance regulations in 22 states and establishing "fee-for-service" politics as the law of the land. >From our founding, the Alliance for Democracy has stood for public funding for elections and against the legal fiction of corporate personhood. Now we call on the American people to stand up and take back our democracy and its laws from corporate rule. We demand mandatory public financing of state and federal elections and a constitutional amendment to deny corporations the false claim they've made to First Amendment free speech and other personhood rights. Continuing our work against corporate rule, and in anticipation of this decision, Alliance for Democracy has joined the steering committee of the Campaign to Legalize Democracy. We urge you to visit www.MovetoAmend. org for more information about this coalition effort to amend the Constitution to protect our rights as human persons, communities, and voters. Read our statement on the decision here and see our AfD Corporate Person Home Page for up-to-date: Information and links on this case and the issue of corporate personhood Analysis and observations from the media Videos on the case and implications for democracy The Alliance for Democracy PO Box 540115, Waltham, MA 02454 781-894-1179 * www.theallianceford emocracy. org <><><><><><> <><> [2] http://action. citizen.org/ t/10315/petition .jsp?petition_ KEY=2190 PUbilc Citizen Take Action / Sign Petition As we told you in an email this morning, the Supreme Court today allowed corporations to use their immense wealth to take over our elections. The court has put our democracy up for sale. Public Citizen is launching a historic campaign to pass a constitutional amendment to restore people to the center of the political process. Join our grassroots mobilization to take back our democracy. The more people who join, the more power we have to fight a corporate takeover. Forward this email to everyone you know who recognizes that letting unlimited corporate cash into our elections will be a catastrophe. Click here to watch a short video about the ruling and Public Citizen's response to it. And sign our petition calling for a constitutional amendment to prevent corporate money from overwhelming our democracy. The shocking decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission struck down 60 years of legal precedent prohibiting corporations from making campaign expenditures to attack or support political candidates. The court ruled that the First Amendment - meant to protect the speech of actual human beings - gives for-profit corporations the right to influence elections. People or corporations? Corporations are not human beings. Corporations should not be able to use their vast financial power to drown out the voices of real people. Forward this email to friends, family, neighbors and coworkers to let them know about our campaign to fight unfettered corporate power. Then watch the video and sign the petition. Please help me spread the word and build a massive movement to save our democracy. Forward this email. Watch the video. Sign the petition. Thank you. Robert Weissman, President Contribute | ? 2010 Public Citizen | Take Action http://action. citizen.org/ t/10315/petition .jsp?petition_ KEY=2190 Don't Get Rolled: Take Action Pubilc Citizen The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that corporations are entitled to spend unlimited funds in our elections, rolling back a century of modest limits. The First Amendment was never intended to protect corporations. This cannot stand. Join our campaign to protest this decision. Protect our democracy! Two things that can be done now: 1) Fair Elections Now Act: Give congressional candidates a public financing alternative to elections bankrolled by corporations. Also fix the presidential public financing system. 2) Shareholder Accountability: Give shareholders a say over corporate spending in elections. But ultimately, we must pass a constitutional amendment to ensure corporate money does not overwhelm our democracy and clarify that the First Amendment is for people -- not corporations. Add your name to the petition to Congress today! FREE SPEECH FOR PEOPLE AMENDMENT PETITION: WHEREAS the First Amendment to the United States Constitution was designed to protect the free speech rights of people, not corporations; WHEREAS, for the past three decades, a divided United States Supreme Court has transformed the First Amendment into a powerful tool for corporations seeking to evade and invalidate democratically- enacted reforms; WHEREAS, the United States Supreme Court?s ruling in Citizens United v. FEC overturned longstanding precedent prohibiting corporations from spending their general treasury funds in our elections; WHEREAS, this corporate takeover of the First Amendment has reached its extreme conclusion in the United States Supreme Court?s recent ruling in Citizens United v. FEC; WHEREAS, the United States Supreme Court?s ruling in Citizens United v. FEC will now unleash a torrent of corporate money in our political process unmatched by any campaign expenditure totals in United States history; WHEREAS, the United States Supreme Court?s ruling in Citizens United v. FEC presents a serious and direct threat to our democracy; WHEREAS, the people of the United States have previously used the constitutional amendment process to correct those egregiously wrong decisions of the United States Supreme Court that go to the heart of our democracy and self-government; Now hereby be it resolved that we the undersigned voters of the United States call upon the United States Congress to pass and send to the states for ratification a constitutional amendment to restore the First Amendment and fair elections to the people. Learn More The Problem The Solutions Constitutional Amendment FAQ The Supreme Court's Decision (.pdf) What we told the Supreme Court (.pdf) Statement of Public Citizen's president Press statements Get the latest from CitizenVox blog Take Action Sign the Free Speech for People Amendment Petition Tell Congress to support the solutions Protest Spread the word Stay informed <><><><><><> <><><> [3] The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund P.O. Box 2016, Chambersburg, PA 17201 www.celdf.org CONTACT: Mari Margil (503) 381-1755 mmargil at celdf. org January 21, 2010 Legal Defense Fund: Supreme Court Decision in Citizens United Case "Inevitable" Continues Long History of Expansion of Corporate Rights over the Rights of People, Communities, and Nature FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund is the only public interest law firm in the U.S. that has worked with municipalities to question whether corporate "rights" can coexist with the democratic rights of communities to local self-government. Those communities have recognized that corporate rights and privileges are routinely wielded to override democratic decision making and undermine efforts to protect the environment and public health, local economies and local agriculture. Through the adoption of local, binding laws, these communities are pioneering a new structure of law which does not recognize the rights and privileges of corporations. Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission Decision Today?s U.S. Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission - giving corporations the ability to spend money directly to influence federal elections under the Constitution? s First Amendment - was inevitable. It represents a logical expansion of corporate constitutional "rights" - which include the rights of persons which have been judicially conferred upon corporations. "Personhood" rights mean that corporations possess First Amendment rights to free speech, along with a litany of other rights that are secured to persons under the federal Bill of Rights. The expansion of corporate rights and privileges under the law has been deliberate, beginning nearly two hundred years ago with the Dartmouth decision in which the Supreme Court ruled that private corporations have rights that municipal corporations - governments composed of "we the people" - did not. The expansion of these rights and privileges occurred during the 1800s, throughout the 1900s, until today. For those who think that the way to stem this tide is to find the perfect lawsuit, we say, stop looking. It doesn?t exist, for there is no magic bullet. Rather, in order to reverse decisions like Citizens United, the whole concept of corporate "rights" must be examined, and how corporations possessing "rights" interferes with the exercise of rights by people, communities, and nature. And, it?s not simply that corporations have "personhood" rights. It goes well beyond that. Today?s structure of law gives corporations a spectrum of legal and constitutional rights which they routinely wield against people, communities, and nature. Corporations have more rights, for example, than the communities in which they seek to do business. They have rights which they use to lobby Congress, impact elections, to decide for us what we eat, whether mountaintops are blown off or not, whether there are fish in the oceans, and on and on. Coupling their wealth with constitutional and other legal rights guarantees that they write the laws which determine these things, along with defining the debate that leads to the adoption of the new laws. Thus the context for understanding today?s decision is that we have a minority set of corporate interests, empowered by government, which wield their rights against a majority. It is the history of this nation. Whether with the Abolitionists, the Suffragists, the Civil Rights Movement - all found it necessary to build movements of people to drive rights into law - rights for slaves, rights for women, rights of African Americans - which necessarily meant eliminating rights for a minority such as the slaveholder. In the end, it is our constitutional structure of law that purposefully placed the rights of property and commerce over the rights of people, communities, and nature. In some ways, the Citizens United ruling is merely part of a predetermined destiny set by a 1700?s constitutional structure which placed greater priority on the rights of property and commerce than on people and nature. Reversing Citizens United means reversing that constitutional legacy. And today - those who recognize that we do not have democracy when corporations located thousands of miles away are making decisions about our community instead of us, who recognize that we cannot have sustainability so long as corporations are able to decide how clean our air is and our water is, who recognize that we?ll never have true health care reform so long as corporations have greater access to our elected representatives than the people who voted for them - to those people -today?s decision should be understood as just another brick in the wall, another step in a direction that will only continue unless and until a real movement for the rights of people, communities, and nature is built. That is the work we are doing. We hope you will join us. - 30 - <><><><><><> <><><> [4] New Coalition Responds to Citizens United Decision with a Call to Amend the U.S. Constitution to Overrule the Supreme Court?s Activist Expansion of Corporate "Rights" www.movetoamend. org. For immediate release Contact: (202) 642-1848 or (707) 362-0333 Washington, DC-After justices on the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of corporate "rights" in the Citizens United case, a new national coalition of diverse public interest, community, and business organizations responded with a bold call to overrule the decision and amend the Constitution to restore the power of people over corporations, beyond election law.? A complete list of the "Move to Amend" Steering Committee is attached. A list of other groups and people who have endorsed this new campaign is available at the coalition?s new website:? www.movetoamend. org.? More groups join daily. ?"This decision is Pearl Harbor for our democracy," said Ben Manski, Executive Director of Liberty Tree and a lawyer helping to lead the coalition.? "Decades of judicial activism culminating in today?s decision have eroded the power of `We the People? to govern ourselves. Our move to amend the Constitution is not limited to the powers of the Federal Election Commission, but focuses on the broader implications of the decision." "We are inspired by historic social movements that recognized the necessity of altering fundamental power relationships, " added Riki Ott, the Director of Ultimate Civics and a marine toxicologist whose activism was galvanized by the Exxon Valdez spill.? "America has always progressed through ordinary people joining together-from the Revolutionaries to Abolitionists, Suffragists, Trade Unionists, and Civil Rights activists." "In this decision, a handful of unelected judges have revealed their agenda to expand the influence of corporations at the expense of the rights of individuals, and it will not stand the test of time," said Lisa Graves, Executive Director of the Center for Media and Democracy and former Chief Counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee and Deputy Assistant Attorney General.? "Corporations aren?t people and simply don?t deserve the same rights as people; we have to work together to put people before corporations. "? "The movement we are launching is a long-term effort to make the U.S. Constitution more democratic," noted David Cobb, of Democracy Unlimited of Humboldt County.? "We are a diverse coalition with deep roots in communities nationwide.? We recognize that amending the Constitution to restore the power of the people over corporations will not be easy, but it must be done." ?### (See page two for the coalition?s Steering Committee and contact information) New Coalition Responds to Citizens United Decision with a Call to Amend the U.S. Constitution to Overrule the Supreme Court?s Activist Expansion of Corporate "Rights" Page two FOR MORE INFORMATION, contact the Move to Amend Steering Committee: Ben Manski, Liberty Tree (www.libertytree. org), (202) 642-1848, Manski at LibertyTreeF DR.org Riki Ott, PhD, Ultimate Civics (www.ultimatecivics .org), (907) 424- 3915, otter2 at ak.net Lisa Graves, Center for Media and Democracy (www.prwatch. org), (608) 260-9713,?lisa at prwatch. org ?David Cobb, Program on Corporations Law & Democracy?(www. poclad.org) , (707) 362-0333, david at duhc.org George Friday, National Director of Independent Progressive Politics Network (www.ippn.org) (862) 668-8172,? ippn at igc.org Marybeth Gardam, Women's International League for Peace & Freedom Corporations vs. Democracy Committee Leadership Team (www.wilpf.org) , (515) 210-7928, mbgardam at gmail. com Kaitlin Sopoci-Belknap, Democracy Unlimited of Humboldt County (www.duhc.org) (707) 269-0984, kaitlin at duhc. org ? Nancy Price, Alliance for Democracy (www.thealliancefor democracy. org) (781) 894-1179 or (530) 758-0726, nancytprice@ juno.com ? David Swanson, After Downing Street, (202) 329-7847, david at davidswanson. org ? ?[5] From: "Liberty Tree" Subject: OUTRAGE: Court says corporations are people: Join the move to amend! Date sent: Thu, 21 Jan 2010 10:54:54 -0600 URGENT CALL TO ACTION FROM HOWARD ZINN, THOM HARTMANN, MEDEA BENJAMIN, FRAN & DAVID KORTEN, BILL MCKIBBEN, BILL FLETCHER, JIM HIGHTOWER, TOM HAYDEN, REV. YEARWOOD,?& MORE ? They've gone after our tax dollars. Our services. Our jobs. Our schools. Our military. Our votes. Our future. Our freedoms. And the federal courts have helped them every step of the way. ? Today,?with its ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Supreme Court ruled that corporations are persons, entitled by the U.S. Constitution to buy elections and run our government. ? Human beings are people; corporations are legal fictions. The Supreme Court is misguided in principle, and wrong on the law. In a democracy, the people rule. ?We Move to Amend. ? We, the People of the United States of America, reject the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Citizens United, and move to amend our Constitution to: ? Firmly establish that money is not speech, and that human beings, not corporations, are persons entitled to constitutional rights. Guarantee the right to vote and to participate, and to have our votes and participation count. Protect local communities, their economies, and democracies against illegitimate "preemption" actions by global, national, and state governments.? Adrienne Maree Brown, Ruckus Society Alec Loorz, Kids vs Global Warming Andrew Kimbrell, International Center for Technology Assessment Andy Gussert, Citizens Trade Campaign Anne Feeney, musician Ben Manski, attorney, Exec. Director, Liberty Tree Benno Friedman, photographer Benson Scotch, former Staff Counsel to Sen. Leahy, U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Bill Fletcher, Exec. Editor, BlackCommentator. com Bill McKibben, founder, 350.org Bill Moyer, Backbone Campaign Brad Friedman, Publisher, The BRAD BLOG Brad Thacker, Be The Change USA Brett Kimberlin, Director, Justice Through Music Brian McLaren, Christian activist & author Carl Davidson, Progressive America Rising Carolyn Oppenheim, Shays 2 Charlie Cray, Center for Corporate Policy Dal LaMagna, founder, Tweezerman, Inc. Dave Wells, formerly Board of Directors, Sierra Club David Cobb, initiator of 2004 Ohio Recount David Gespass, president, National Lawyers Guild David Korten, author of When Corporations Rule the World David Rovics, musician David Swanson, AfterDowningStreet. org David Wells, Jr., Nashville Urban Harvest Dean Myerson, Executive Director, Green Institute Diane Wittner & Margaret Flowers, Chesapeake Citizens Dr. Jill Stein, candidate for Governor of Massachusetts Ed Garvey, attorney at law, editor, FightingBob. com Emily Levy, Velvet Revolution Fran Korten, Editor, YES! Magazine Frank Arundel, activist Gary Zuckett, WV Citizen Action George Friday, National Coordinator, IPPN George Martin, United for Peace & Justice Georgia Kelly, Praxis Peace Institute Glen Ford, Executive Editor, BlackAgendaReport. com Greg Coleridge, NE OH American Friends Service Committee Howard Zinn, historian Jackie Cabasso, Executive Director, Western State Legal Foundation James Gustave Speth, Distinguished Senior Fellow, Demos Jan Edwards, writer Jane Anne Morris, author, Gaveling Down The Rabble Jeff Cohen, founder, FAIR Jeff Milchen, founder, ReclaimDemocracy. org Jeffrey Short, Ph.D., Pacific Science Director, OCEANA Jerome Scott, League of Revolutionaries for a New America Jill Bussiere, Co-Chair, Green Party of the U.S. James M. Cullen, editor of The Progressive Populist Jim Hightower, author, columnist, and radio commentator Joel Bleifuss, Editor & Publisher, In These Times John E. Peck, Executive Director, Family Farm Defenders John Nichols, Washington Correspondent, The Nation John Rensenbrink, President, Green Horizon Foundation John Stauber, author, Weapons of Mass Deception Jonathan Frieman, social entrepreneur Josh Healey, Youth Speaks Josh Lerner, The New School for Social Research Josh Silver, Executive Director, Free Press Judith Pedersen-Benn, Unitarian Universalists for a Just Economic Community Kai Huschke, Envision Spokane Kaitlin Sopoci- Belknap, Democracy Unlimited of Humboldt County Ken Reiner, inventor and founder, Kaynar Corp. Kevin Danaher, Executive Co-Producer, Green Festivals Kevin Zeese, Executive Director, TrueVote.US Leah Bolger, CDR, USN (Ret), Bring the Guard Home! It's the Law. Lewis Pitts, Lawyer, Legal Aid of NC Lisa Graves, Executive Director, Center for Media and Democracy Lori Price, Managing Editor, Citizens for Legitimate Government Makani Themba-Nixon, Executive Director, The Praxis Project Margo Baldwin, Publisher, Chelsea Green Mark Crispin Miller, author, Fooled Again Mary Zepernick, Program on Corporations Law and Democracy Marybeth Gardam, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom Matt Nelson, Just Cause Matt Rothschild, Editor, The Progressive Medea Benjamin, co-founder, Code Pink Michael Albert, Z Communications Michael Bonnano, OpEdNews Michael Marx, Corporate Ethics International Michael Shuman, attorney, economic, author of "The Small-Mart Revolution" Mike Ferner, President, Veterans for Peace Mimi Kennedy, actress, activist Miriam Simos, Starhawk, activist and writer Nancy Price, Alliance for Democracy Nick Pavloff, Jr., Gulf of Alaska Aleut from Kodiak Island Norman Solomon, author, co-chair, Healthcare Not Warfare campaign Patrick Reinsborough, SmartMeme Paul Saginaw, founder, Zingerman's, Inc. Prof. Peter Gabel, School of Law, New College of California Prof. Victor Wallis, Managing Editor, Socialism & Democracy Rabbi Arthur Waskow Rep. Michael Fisher, House of Representatives, Vermont Rev. Edward Pinkney, Black Autonomy Network Community Organization Rev. Lennox Yearwood, President, Hip Hop Caucus Richard Mazess, Prof. Medical Physics, UW-Madison, CEO of Lunar Corp & Bone Care Intl. Riki Ott, Executive Director, Ultimate Civics Robert McChesney, professor, co- author, The Death and Life of American Journalism Ronnie Cummins, founder, Grassroots Netroots Alliance Sally Castleman, Election Defense Alliance Sam Smith, Editor, Progressive Review Sarah Manski, CEO, PosiPair.com Shahid Buttar, Rule of Law Institute Ted Glick, climate change activist Ted Nace, author, Gangs of America: The Rise of Corporate Power Thom Hartmann, nation's #1 nationally syndicated progressive talk show host Tia Oros & Christopher Peters, Seventh Generation Fund for Indian Development Tiffiniy Cheng, Executive Director, A New Way Forward Tim Carpenter, Executive Director, Progressive Democrats of America Tom Hayden, activist Ward Morehouse, chair, National Lawyers Guild's Committee on Corporations * organizations listed for identification purposes only 122 State Street Suite 405 | Madison, WI 53703 US This email was sent to jmeaton at ns.sympatic o.ca. To ensure that you continue receiving our emails, please add us to your address book or safe list. <><><><><><> <><> Attachments: C:\DOCUME~1\ JANETM~1\ LOCALS~1\ Temp\WPM$ 341F.PM$ ------- End of forwarded message ------- __._,_.___ Attachment(s) from Janet M Eaton 1 of 1 File(s) WPM$189F.PM$ 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 Switch to: Text-Only, Daily Digest ? Unsubscribe ? Terms of Use . __,_._,___ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk Sat Jan 23 07:48:28 2010 From: dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk (robert searle) Date: Sat, 23 Jan 2010 14:48:28 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [GJM] The Crom Alternative.... Message-ID: <905830.81174.qm@web27404.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> ? The following link may be of interest. ? http://cromalternativemoney.org/ ? ? Robert.$ ! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk Sat Jan 23 08:06:16 2010 From: dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk (robert searle) Date: Sat, 23 Jan 2010 15:06:16 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [GJM] The Power of Control Message-ID: <310641.92268.qm@web27408.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> ? This is another link which appears to be rather interesting................ ? ? http://www.pctweb.org/ ? R.S. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mukhtaralam2000 at yahoo.com Sat Jan 23 09:58:03 2010 From: mukhtaralam2000 at yahoo.com (Dr.Muhammad Mukhtar Alam) Date: Sat, 23 Jan 2010 22:28:03 +0530 (IST) Subject: [GJM] Peace Building Required International Cooperation: Destabilsing Obama Could be deadly In-Reply-To: <1264260834.3854.1356183725@webmail.messagingengine.com> References: <1264260834.3854.1356183725@webmail.messagingengine.com> Message-ID: <626446.18643.qm@web94915.mail.in2.yahoo.com> I think?these men and women should learn about the pulse of the US nation constituted by?people of all races and religions and the signs?are men like Obamas would come back democratically again and again?as he is building peace across the civilisations at a time it is needed most. We collectively need to prepare for post-carbon age with equity ,ecological justice and social inclusion across the lands.?Barak Hussein Obama deserves another presidency for?letting US out of the crisis that it faces economically and it requires cooperation on the virtuous goals.Intergation of inter-faith common perspective for transforming ecologically hostile consumption patterns, reforming finance sector?and reviving ecologically safe livelihoods is needed.?Destruction in Haiti should be? lesson in designing ecologically safe habitats?for all who have been championing?expansion of ecologically hostile habitats. ?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: Sorcha Faal Sent: Sat, 23 January, 2010 9:03:54 PM Subject: Obama Warned Is ?Main Target? Of CIA Coup [Ed. Note: This report should be read from its website location at http://www.whatdoesitmean.com/index1326.htm as this email copy does not include the links embedded in the original report.] January 23, 2010 Obama Warned Is ?Main Target? Of CIA Coup By: Sorcha Faal, and as reported to her Western Subscribers Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) analysts are reporting to Prime Minister Putin today that the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is nearing its ?end game move? against their ?main target? President Obama in what they state, ?for all intents and purposes?, will be the most successful coup of a major power in modern history rivaling the attempted overthrow of President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933 by these same ?right wing forces? in what was known as the ?Business Plot?. Unfortunately for the American people, who in 1933 were protected from the destruction of their Nation by the heroic, and most decorated Marine in American history, US Marine General Smedley Butler (who was recruited by the Wall Street coup plotters to lead the overthrow of Roosevelt but, instead, turned against them) today have only their former Presidential candidate, and current US Congressman, Dr. Ron Paul warning them of what is occurring, and as we can read from Dr. Paul?s own words spoken to a gathering of his followers this past week: ?There's been a coup, have you heard? It's the CIA coup. The CIA runs everything, they run the military. They're the ones who are over there lobbing missiles and bombs on countries. ... And of course the CIA is every bit as secretive as the Federal Reserve. ... And yet think of the harm they have done since they were established [after] World War II. They are a government unto themselves. They're in businesses, in drug businesses, they take out dictators ... We need to take out the CIA.? So alarmed have many former US allies become over the impending coup against Obama, and those forces remaining loyal to him, that two of them, Pakistan and Turkey, have begun taking immediate steps to protect their own governments from, likewise, being destroyed by the CIA. In Pakistan this past week the former Director of the CIA, and current US Defense Secretary Robert Gates was forced to admit that his CIA forces were employing their Blackwater private army forces against Pakistani interests, and to which Pakistan quickly responded by telling the Americans they were immediately halting all military operations supporting the US and would further open negotiations with Afghanistan?s Taliban forces.? In Turkey Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed not to bow to ?dirty games? after a new CIA-Turkish Military coup-plot against him was uncovered and also ordered his police forces to stage a series of pre-dawn raids to round up all known and suspected CIA-linked al Qaida terrorists operating in his Nation. Important to note is the information that top CIA officials had already openly admitted that al-Qaeda is a total and complete fabrication, never having existed at any time. The Bush administration needed a reason that complied with the Laws so they could go after ?the bad guy of their choice? namely laws that had been set in place to protect us from mobs and ?criminal organizations? such as the Mafia. They paid Jamal al Fadl, hundreds of thousands of dollars to back the U.S. Government?s story of al-Qaeda, a ?group? or criminal organization they could ?legally? go after. Also important to note about the CIA is its longstanding reputation as America's ?Premier International Terrorist Organization? and which controls the vast majority of our Planet?s drug trafficking from its Narco-puppet states Colombia and Afghanistan. To the reasons behind the CIA?s coup against their own government, these reports continue, is their decades long plan to destroy the United States in order for it to be ?remade? into a totalitarian capitalist society for the benefit of its wealthy banking, corporate and industrialist elite classes, and which Obama stands firmly opposed against. To how successful the CIA and America?s right-wing forces have been in destroying the United States the results are enough to stagger the mind, and include: a deliberately manufactured banking crisis that has left over 18 million homes foreclosed upon and millions more to follow in what is being called ?The Housing Tsunami?s Second Wave?; a job crisis so grim that over 1 million Americans have given up even trying to find work and new data showing a further 22-29% of their jobs will go overseas in a few more years; a society growing so poor that over 37 million Americans are reported now receiving food assistance; a financial crisis so severe that nearly all American cities and States and their Federal Government are nearing default as their US Federal Reserve private banking system has been forced to buy over 80% of their own debt; a staggering toll of their citizens going broke as over 1.4 million of them were forced into bankruptcy in 2009 alone; a pension crisis of such unprecedented magnitude that will reduce to poverty their entire Baby Boom generation; all of which it must be remembered the American people have allowed to be done to them. As to Obama?s ability to fight back against the CIA led right-wing forces seeking his overthrow, these reports continue, it does not appear likely as new reports from the US are showing that over 77% of their moneyed class view him as anti-business and are openly questioning his ability to manage a financial crisis. Even worse for Obama is that his own Supreme Court dealt him a near fatal blow in their allowing this past week Americas corporations to pour, literally, billions of dollars into the American political system destroying the ability of average Americans to choose who their leaders will be. And to the new, and very sick, World the CIA and its right-wing corporate masters are creating for the American people can be evidenced in one of their largest corporations, Microsoft, owned by the World?s richest man, Bill Gates, slamming Google for not giving in to communist China?s censorship of its people, and as we can read: ?At a conference in Houston on Thursday, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer spoke critically of Google?s recent decision to stop censoring its search results in China. Paraphrasing some of Ballmer?s statements, Forbes says Ballmer called it an ?irrational business decision? on Google?s part. Ballmer suggested that Google?s decision to no longer filter out internet searches objectionable to the Chinese government was an irrational business decision. After all, Ballmer said, the U.S. imports oil from Saudi Arabia despite the censorship that goes on in that country.? To the Americans ability to fight back against the destruction of their Nation there remains little evidence to be seen of their doing so, and which should they in the future decide to do so they are warned they will be met by a new US Fedearl-Military police force being proposed by the Rand Corporation to better control them. As these grave events being reported show the American people being pushed ever closer towards an abyss of annihilation, one can only hope that their ability to defend themselves, and their President, against those right-wing forces seeking to destroy them will emerge. If not there remains no hope for them, and like the Soviet Communists and the Nazi Germans before them, a grim future of slavery awaits those who allow tyrants to rule over them. ? January 23, 2010 EU and US all rights reserved http://www.whatdoesitmean.com/index1326.htm? -- ? Sorcha Faal ? sorchafaal at fastmail.fm The INTERNET now has a personality. YOURS! See your Yahoo! Homepage. http://in.yahoo.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rodney.shakespeare1 at btopenworld.com Sat Jan 23 15:38:24 2010 From: rodney.shakespeare1 at btopenworld.com (Rodney Shakespeare) Date: Sat, 23 Jan 2010 22:38:24 -0000 Subject: [GJM] Fw: [toeslist] American NGO's rally vs "Corporate Personhood"decision [compilation + PPt Ref] [1 Attachment] References: <981586.31175.qm@web27405.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <004401ca9c7c$c6271bd0$4001a8c0@your447023ae6b> Robert, The Supreme Court (consisting of supporters of the financial mafia ) has destroyed the last vestige of hope for American democracy. From now on huge sums can, and will be spent, by the corporations to justify a corrupt and corrupting system. Expect the development of a new sort of propaganda "entertainment". O America! That it should come to this! Rodney Shakespeare. ----- Original Message ----- From: robert searle To: discussion at globaljusticemovement.net Sent: Saturday, January 23, 2010 11:48 AM Subject: [GJM] Fw: [toeslist] American NGO's rally vs "Corporate Personhood"decision [compilation + PPt Ref] [1 Attachment] --- On Fri, 22/1/10, Janet M Eaton wrote: From: Janet M Eaton Subject: [toeslist] American NGO's rally vs "Corporate Personhood" decision [compilation + PPt Ref] [1 Attachment] To: toeslist at yahoogroups.com Date: Friday, 22 January, 2010, 7:20 [Attachment(s) from Janet M Eaton included below] A compilation I put together for my lists fyi-janet ============ ========= === [1] http://www.theallia ncefordemocracy. org/ Supreme Court throws its weight behind the corporations. .. "Today's Supreme Court opinion in Citizens United v. FEC opens the floodgates on unlimited corporate spending to influence elections and further entrenches corporate rule in our nation. We demand mandatory public financing of state and federal elections and a constitutional amendment to deny corporations the false claim they've made to First Amendment free speech and other personhood rights. " [2] Public Citizen Take Action Sign Petition http://action. citizen.org/ t/10315/petition .jsp?petition_ KEY=2190 "The court has put our democracy up for sale. Public Citizen is launching a historic campaign to pass a constitutional amendment to restore people to the center of the political process." [3] The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund P.O. Box 2016, Chambersburg, PA 17201 www.celdf.org "today?s decision should be understood as just another brick in the wall, another step in a direction that will only continue unless and until a real movement for the rights of people, communities, and nature is built. That is the work we are doing. We hope you will join us. " [4] New Coalition Responds to Citizens United Decision with a Call to Amend the U.S. Constitution to Overrule the Supreme Court?s Activist Expansion of Corporate "Rights" www.movetoamend. org. "After justices on the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of corporate "rights" in the Citizens United case, a new national coalition of diverse public interest, community, and business organizations responded with a bold call to overrule the decision and amend the Constitution to restore the power of people over corporations, beyond election law. A complete list of the "Move to Amend" Steering Committee is attached. A list of other groups and people who have endorsed this new campaign is available at the coalition?s new website: www.movetoamend. org. More groups join daily." [5] From: "Liberty Tree" Subject: OUTRAGE: Court says corporations are people: Join the move to amend! Date sent: Thu, 21 Jan 2010 10:54:54 -0600 "They've gone after our tax dollars. Our services. Our jobs. Our schools. Our military. Our votes. Our future. Our freedoms. And the federal courts have helped them every step of the way. Today, with its ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Supreme Court ruled that corporations are persons, entitled by the U.S. Constitution to buy elections and run our government. Human beings are people; corporations are legal fictions. The Supreme Court is misguided in principle, and wrong on the law. In a democracy, the people rule. We Move to Amend." fyi-janet p.s. A Backgrounder on the Personhood Case and Corporate Rigths & Power can be found at: http://www.sierracl ub.org/committee s/cac/corporatep ower/ Scroll down to link for Power Point Presentation on Corporations and the Deterioration of Democracy SLIDE 53,54, 59 / 81 1886: A Turning Point One of the most important Supreme Court cases you may never have heard of... Santa Clara County vs. Southern Pacific Railroad In 1886, the Supreme Court ruled that a private corporation was a natural person, entitled to the same rights and protections as human beings under the Bill of Rights. Since Santa Clara, those rights and privileges have been expanded to exceed those of the natural persons creating them. By granting "personhood" rights to corporations, courts have allowed them to grow and maximize profits in ways that harm the environment, public health and democracy. In 1886 alone, federal courts struck down 230 state laws regulating corporations. Corporations took advantage of laws written for human beings. The 14th Amendment was passed to protect freed slaves. Of the 307 14th Amendment cases brought before the Supreme Court between 1890 and 1910: -19 dealt with African Americans -288 dealt with corporations In latter years many groups in the US like SC, Alliance for Democracy, WILPF, Public Citizen, POCLAD and many others have worked to educate citizens about and to lobby against the personhood case and its implications regarding corporate rights and abuse of power. fyi- I served as the Sierra Club of Canada International liaison on the SC Corporate Accountability Committee that helped to produce the above power point. ============ ========= ========= ========= = [1] http://www.theallia ncefordemocracy. org/ Supreme Court throws its weight behind the corporations. .. Supreme Court throws its weight behind the corporations. .. Citizens United: SCOTUS decision says corporations are people, money is speech, and our democracy is up for sale Today's Supreme Court opinion in Citizens United v. FEC opens the floodgates on unlimited corporate spending to influence elections and further entrenches corporate rule in our nation. This 5-4 decision overturns previous Court decisions that banned corporate "independent expenditures, " thereby scrapping campaign finance regulations in 22 states and establishing "fee-for-service" politics as the law of the land. From our founding, the Alliance for Democracy has stood for public funding for elections and against the legal fiction of corporate personhood. Now we call on the American people to stand up and take back our democracy and its laws from corporate rule. We demand mandatory public financing of state and federal elections and a constitutional amendment to deny corporations the false claim they've made to First Amendment free speech and other personhood rights. Continuing our work against corporate rule, and in anticipation of this decision, Alliance for Democracy has joined the steering committee of the Campaign to Legalize Democracy. We urge you to visit www.MovetoAmend. org for more information about this coalition effort to amend the Constitution to protect our rights as human persons, communities, and voters. Read our statement on the decision here and see our AfD Corporate Person Home Page for up-to-date: Information and links on this case and the issue of corporate personhood Analysis and observations from the media Videos on the case and implications for democracy The Alliance for Democracy PO Box 540115, Waltham, MA 02454 781-894-1179 * www.theallianceford emocracy. org <><><><><><> <><> [2] http://action. citizen.org/ t/10315/petition .jsp?petition_ KEY=2190 PUbilc Citizen Take Action / Sign Petition As we told you in an email this morning, the Supreme Court today allowed corporations to use their immense wealth to take over our elections. The court has put our democracy up for sale. Public Citizen is launching a historic campaign to pass a constitutional amendment to restore people to the center of the political process. Join our grassroots mobilization to take back our democracy. The more people who join, the more power we have to fight a corporate takeover. Forward this email to everyone you know who recognizes that letting unlimited corporate cash into our elections will be a catastrophe. Click here to watch a short video about the ruling and Public Citizen's response to it. And sign our petition calling for a constitutional amendment to prevent corporate money from overwhelming our democracy. The shocking decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission struck down 60 years of legal precedent prohibiting corporations from making campaign expenditures to attack or support political candidates. The court ruled that the First Amendment - meant to protect the speech of actual human beings - gives for-profit corporations the right to influence elections. People or corporations? Corporations are not human beings. Corporations should not be able to use their vast financial power to drown out the voices of real people. Forward this email to friends, family, neighbors and coworkers to let them know about our campaign to fight unfettered corporate power. Then watch the video and sign the petition. Please help me spread the word and build a massive movement to save our democracy. Forward this email. Watch the video. Sign the petition. Thank you. Robert Weissman, President Contribute | ? 2010 Public Citizen | Take Action http://action. citizen.org/ t/10315/petition .jsp?petition_ KEY=2190 Don't Get Rolled: Take Action Pubilc Citizen The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that corporations are entitled to spend unlimited funds in our elections, rolling back a century of modest limits. The First Amendment was never intended to protect corporations. This cannot stand. Join our campaign to protest this decision. Protect our democracy! Two things that can be done now: 1) Fair Elections Now Act: Give congressional candidates a public financing alternative to elections bankrolled by corporations. Also fix the presidential public financing system. 2) Shareholder Accountability: Give shareholders a say over corporate spending in elections. But ultimately, we must pass a constitutional amendment to ensure corporate money does not overwhelm our democracy and clarify that the First Amendment is for people -- not corporations. Add your name to the petition to Congress today! FREE SPEECH FOR PEOPLE AMENDMENT PETITION: WHEREAS the First Amendment to the United States Constitution was designed to protect the free speech rights of people, not corporations; WHEREAS, for the past three decades, a divided United States Supreme Court has transformed the First Amendment into a powerful tool for corporations seeking to evade and invalidate democratically- enacted reforms; WHEREAS, the United States Supreme Court?s ruling in Citizens United v. FEC overturned longstanding precedent prohibiting corporations from spending their general treasury funds in our elections; WHEREAS, this corporate takeover of the First Amendment has reached its extreme conclusion in the United States Supreme Court?s recent ruling in Citizens United v. FEC; WHEREAS, the United States Supreme Court?s ruling in Citizens United v. FEC will now unleash a torrent of corporate money in our political process unmatched by any campaign expenditure totals in United States history; WHEREAS, the United States Supreme Court?s ruling in Citizens United v. FEC presents a serious and direct threat to our democracy; WHEREAS, the people of the United States have previously used the constitutional amendment process to correct those egregiously wrong decisions of the United States Supreme Court that go to the heart of our democracy and self-government; Now hereby be it resolved that we the undersigned voters of the United States call upon the United States Congress to pass and send to the states for ratification a constitutional amendment to restore the First Amendment and fair elections to the people. Learn More The Problem The Solutions Constitutional Amendment FAQ The Supreme Court's Decision (.pdf) What we told the Supreme Court (.pdf) Statement of Public Citizen's president Press statements Get the latest from CitizenVox blog Take Action Sign the Free Speech for People Amendment Petition Tell Congress to support the solutions Protest Spread the word Stay informed <><><><><><> <><><> [3] The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund P.O. Box 2016, Chambersburg, PA 17201 www.celdf.org CONTACT: Mari Margil (503) 381-1755 mmargil at celdf. org January 21, 2010 Legal Defense Fund: Supreme Court Decision in Citizens United Case "Inevitable" Continues Long History of Expansion of Corporate Rights over the Rights of People, Communities, and Nature FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund is the only public interest law firm in the U.S. that has worked with municipalities to question whether corporate "rights" can coexist with the democratic rights of communities to local self-government. Those communities have recognized that corporate rights and privileges are routinely wielded to override democratic decision making and undermine efforts to protect the environment and public health, local economies and local agriculture. Through the adoption of local, binding laws, these communities are pioneering a new structure of law which does not recognize the rights and privileges of corporations. Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission Decision Today?s U.S. Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission - giving corporations the ability to spend money directly to influence federal elections under the Constitution? s First Amendment - was inevitable. It represents a logical expansion of corporate constitutional "rights" - which include the rights of persons which have been judicially conferred upon corporations. "Personhood" rights mean that corporations possess First Amendment rights to free speech, along with a litany of other rights that are secured to persons under the federal Bill of Rights. The expansion of corporate rights and privileges under the law has been deliberate, beginning nearly two hundred years ago with the Dartmouth decision in which the Supreme Court ruled that private corporations have rights that municipal corporations - governments composed of "we the people" - did not. The expansion of these rights and privileges occurred during the 1800s, throughout the 1900s, until today. For those who think that the way to stem this tide is to find the perfect lawsuit, we say, stop looking. It doesn?t exist, for there is no magic bullet. Rather, in order to reverse decisions like Citizens United, the whole concept of corporate "rights" must be examined, and how corporations possessing "rights" interferes with the exercise of rights by people, communities, and nature. And, it?s not simply that corporations have "personhood" rights. It goes well beyond that. Today?s structure of law gives corporations a spectrum of legal and constitutional rights which they routinely wield against people, communities, and nature. Corporations have more rights, for example, than the communities in which they seek to do business. They have rights which they use to lobby Congress, impact elections, to decide for us what we eat, whether mountaintops are blown off or not, whether there are fish in the oceans, and on and on. Coupling their wealth with constitutional and other legal rights guarantees that they write the laws which determine these things, along with defining the debate that leads to the adoption of the new laws. Thus the context for understanding today?s decision is that we have a minority set of corporate interests, empowered by government, which wield their rights against a majority. It is the history of this nation. Whether with the Abolitionists, the Suffragists, the Civil Rights Movement - all found it necessary to build movements of people to drive rights into law - rights for slaves, rights for women, rights of African Americans - which necessarily meant eliminating rights for a minority such as the slaveholder. In the end, it is our constitutional structure of law that purposefully placed the rights of property and commerce over the rights of people, communities, and nature. In some ways, the Citizens United ruling is merely part of a predetermined destiny set by a 1700?s constitutional structure which placed greater priority on the rights of property and commerce than on people and nature. Reversing Citizens United means reversing that constitutional legacy. And today - those who recognize that we do not have democracy when corporations located thousands of miles away are making decisions about our community instead of us, who recognize that we cannot have sustainability so long as corporations are able to decide how clean our air is and our water is, who recognize that we?ll never have true health care reform so long as corporations have greater access to our elected representatives than the people who voted for them - to those people -today?s decision should be understood as just another brick in the wall, another step in a direction that will only continue unless and until a real movement for the rights of people, communities, and nature is built. That is the work we are doing. We hope you will join us. - 30 - <><><><><><> <><><> [4] New Coalition Responds to Citizens United Decision with a Call to Amend the U.S. Constitution to Overrule the Supreme Court?s Activist Expansion of Corporate "Rights" www.movetoamend. org. For immediate release Contact: (202) 642-1848 or (707) 362-0333 Washington, DC-After justices on the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of corporate "rights" in the Citizens United case, a new national coalition of diverse public interest, community, and business organizations responded with a bold call to overrule the decision and amend the Constitution to restore the power of people over corporations, beyond election law. A complete list of the "Move to Amend" Steering Committee is attached. A list of other groups and people who have endorsed this new campaign is available at the coalition?s new website: www.movetoamend. org. More groups join daily. "This decision is Pearl Harbor for our democracy," said Ben Manski, Executive Director of Liberty Tree and a lawyer helping to lead the coalition. "Decades of judicial activism culminating in today?s decision have eroded the power of `We the People? to govern ourselves. Our move to amend the Constitution is not limited to the powers of the Federal Election Commission, but focuses on the broader implications of the decision." "We are inspired by historic social movements that recognized the necessity of altering fundamental power relationships, " added Riki Ott, the Director of Ultimate Civics and a marine toxicologist whose activism was galvanized by the Exxon Valdez spill. "America has always progressed through ordinary people joining together-from the Revolutionaries to Abolitionists, Suffragists, Trade Unionists, and Civil Rights activists." "In this decision, a handful of unelected judges have revealed their agenda to expand the influence of corporations at the expense of the rights of individuals, and it will not stand the test of time," said Lisa Graves, Executive Director of the Center for Media and Democracy and former Chief Counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee and Deputy Assistant Attorney General. "Corporations aren?t people and simply don?t deserve the same rights as people; we have to work together to put people before corporations. " "The movement we are launching is a long-term effort to make the U.S. Constitution more democratic," noted David Cobb, of Democracy Unlimited of Humboldt County. "We are a diverse coalition with deep roots in communities nationwide. We recognize that amending the Constitution to restore the power of the people over corporations will not be easy, but it must be done." ### (See page two for the coalition?s Steering Committee and contact information) New Coalition Responds to Citizens United Decision with a Call to Amend the U.S. Constitution to Overrule the Supreme Court?s Activist Expansion of Corporate "Rights" Page two FOR MORE INFORMATION, contact the Move to Amend Steering Committee: Ben Manski, Liberty Tree (www.libertytree. org), (202) 642-1848, Manski at LibertyTreeF DR.org Riki Ott, PhD, Ultimate Civics (www.ultimatecivics .org), (907) 424- 3915, otter2 at ak.net Lisa Graves, Center for Media and Democracy (www.prwatch. org), (608) 260-9713, lisa at prwatch. org David Cobb, Program on Corporations Law & Democracy (www. poclad.org) , (707) 362-0333, david at duhc.org George Friday, National Director of Independent Progressive Politics Network (www.ippn.org) (862) 668-8172, ippn at igc.org Marybeth Gardam, Women's International League for Peace & Freedom Corporations vs. Democracy Committee Leadership Team (www.wilpf.org) , (515) 210-7928, mbgardam at gmail. com Kaitlin Sopoci-Belknap, Democracy Unlimited of Humboldt County (www.duhc.org) (707) 269-0984, kaitlin at duhc. org Nancy Price, Alliance for Democracy (www.thealliancefor democracy. org) (781) 894-1179 or (530) 758-0726, nancytprice@ juno.com David Swanson, After Downing Street, (202) 329-7847, david at davidswanson. org [5] From: "Liberty Tree" Subject: OUTRAGE: Court says corporations are people: Join the move to amend! Date sent: Thu, 21 Jan 2010 10:54:54 -0600 URGENT CALL TO ACTION FROM HOWARD ZINN, THOM HARTMANN, MEDEA BENJAMIN, FRAN & DAVID KORTEN, BILL MCKIBBEN, BILL FLETCHER, JIM HIGHTOWER, TOM HAYDEN, REV. YEARWOOD, & MORE They've gone after our tax dollars. Our services. Our jobs. Our schools. Our military. Our votes. Our future. Our freedoms. And the federal courts have helped them every step of the way. Today, with its ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Supreme Court ruled that corporations are persons, entitled by the U.S. Constitution to buy elections and run our government. Human beings are people; corporations are legal fictions. The Supreme Court is misguided in principle, and wrong on the law. In a democracy, the people rule. We Move to Amend. We, the People of the United States of America, reject the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Citizens United, and move to amend our Constitution to: Firmly establish that money is not speech, and that human beings, not corporations, are persons entitled to constitutional rights. Guarantee the right to vote and to participate, and to have our votes and participation count. Protect local communities, their economies, and democracies against illegitimate "preemption" actions by global, national, and state governments. Adrienne Maree Brown, Ruckus Society Alec Loorz, Kids vs Global Warming Andrew Kimbrell, International Center for Technology Assessment Andy Gussert, Citizens Trade Campaign Anne Feeney, musician Ben Manski, attorney, Exec. Director, Liberty Tree Benno Friedman, photographer Benson Scotch, former Staff Counsel to Sen. Leahy, U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Bill Fletcher, Exec. Editor, BlackCommentator. com Bill McKibben, founder, 350.org Bill Moyer, Backbone Campaign Brad Friedman, Publisher, The BRAD BLOG Brad Thacker, Be The Change USA Brett Kimberlin, Director, Justice Through Music Brian McLaren, Christian activist & author Carl Davidson, Progressive America Rising Carolyn Oppenheim, Shays 2 Charlie Cray, Center for Corporate Policy Dal LaMagna, founder, Tweezerman, Inc. Dave Wells, formerly Board of Directors, Sierra Club David Cobb, initiator of 2004 Ohio Recount David Gespass, president, National Lawyers Guild David Korten, author of When Corporations Rule the World David Rovics, musician David Swanson, AfterDowningStreet. org David Wells, Jr., Nashville Urban Harvest Dean Myerson, Executive Director, Green Institute Diane Wittner & Margaret Flowers, Chesapeake Citizens Dr. Jill Stein, candidate for Governor of Massachusetts Ed Garvey, attorney at law, editor, FightingBob. com Emily Levy, Velvet Revolution Fran Korten, Editor, YES! Magazine Frank Arundel, activist Gary Zuckett, WV Citizen Action George Friday, National Coordinator, IPPN George Martin, United for Peace & Justice Georgia Kelly, Praxis Peace Institute Glen Ford, Executive Editor, BlackAgendaReport. com Greg Coleridge, NE OH American Friends Service Committee Howard Zinn, historian Jackie Cabasso, Executive Director, Western State Legal Foundation James Gustave Speth, Distinguished Senior Fellow, Demos Jan Edwards, writer Jane Anne Morris, author, Gaveling Down The Rabble Jeff Cohen, founder, FAIR Jeff Milchen, founder, ReclaimDemocracy. org Jeffrey Short, Ph.D., Pacific Science Director, OCEANA Jerome Scott, League of Revolutionaries for a New America Jill Bussiere, Co-Chair, Green Party of the U.S. James M. Cullen, editor of The Progressive Populist Jim Hightower, author, columnist, and radio commentator Joel Bleifuss, Editor & Publisher, In These Times John E. Peck, Executive Director, Family Farm Defenders John Nichols, Washington Correspondent, The Nation John Rensenbrink, President, Green Horizon Foundation John Stauber, author, Weapons of Mass Deception Jonathan Frieman, social entrepreneur Josh Healey, Youth Speaks Josh Lerner, The New School for Social Research Josh Silver, Executive Director, Free Press Judith Pedersen-Benn, Unitarian Universalists for a Just Economic Community Kai Huschke, Envision Spokane Kaitlin Sopoci- Belknap, Democracy Unlimited of Humboldt County Ken Reiner, inventor and founder, Kaynar Corp. Kevin Danaher, Executive Co-Producer, Green Festivals Kevin Zeese, Executive Director, TrueVote.US Leah Bolger, CDR, USN (Ret), Bring the Guard Home! It's the Law. Lewis Pitts, Lawyer, Legal Aid of NC Lisa Graves, Executive Director, Center for Media and Democracy Lori Price, Managing Editor, Citizens for Legitimate Government Makani Themba-Nixon, Executive Director, The Praxis Project Margo Baldwin, Publisher, Chelsea Green Mark Crispin Miller, author, Fooled Again Mary Zepernick, Program on Corporations Law and Democracy Marybeth Gardam, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom Matt Nelson, Just Cause Matt Rothschild, Editor, The Progressive Medea Benjamin, co-founder, Code Pink Michael Albert, Z Communications Michael Bonnano, OpEdNews Michael Marx, Corporate Ethics International Michael Shuman, attorney, economic, author of "The Small-Mart Revolution" Mike Ferner, President, Veterans for Peace Mimi Kennedy, actress, activist Miriam Simos, Starhawk, activist and writer Nancy Price, Alliance for Democracy Nick Pavloff, Jr., Gulf of Alaska Aleut from Kodiak Island Norman Solomon, author, co-chair, Healthcare Not Warfare campaign Patrick Reinsborough, SmartMeme Paul Saginaw, founder, Zingerman's, Inc. Prof. Peter Gabel, School of Law, New College of California Prof. Victor Wallis, Managing Editor, Socialism & Democracy Rabbi Arthur Waskow Rep. Michael Fisher, House of Representatives, Vermont Rev. Edward Pinkney, Black Autonomy Network Community Organization Rev. Lennox Yearwood, President, Hip Hop Caucus Richard Mazess, Prof. Medical Physics, UW-Madison, CEO of Lunar Corp & Bone Care Intl. Riki Ott, Executive Director, Ultimate Civics Robert McChesney, professor, co- author, The Death and Life of American Journalism Ronnie Cummins, founder, Grassroots Netroots Alliance Sally Castleman, Election Defense Alliance Sam Smith, Editor, Progressive Review Sarah Manski, CEO, PosiPair.com Shahid Buttar, Rule of Law Institute Ted Glick, climate change activist Ted Nace, author, Gangs of America: The Rise of Corporate Power Thom Hartmann, nation's #1 nationally syndicated progressive talk show host Tia Oros & Christopher Peters, Seventh Generation Fund for Indian Development Tiffiniy Cheng, Executive Director, A New Way Forward Tim Carpenter, Executive Director, Progressive Democrats of America Tom Hayden, activist Ward Morehouse, chair, National Lawyers Guild's Committee on Corporations * organizations listed for identification purposes only 122 State Street Suite 405 | Madison, WI 53703 US This email was sent to jmeaton at ns.sympatic o.ca. To ensure that you continue receiving our emails, please add us to your address book or safe list. <><><><><><> <><> Attachments: C:\DOCUME~1\ JANETM~1\ LOCALS~1\ Temp\WPM$ 341F.PM$ ------- End of forwarded message ------- __._,_.___ Attachment(s) from Janet M Eaton 1 of 1 File(s) WPM$189F.PM$ 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 Switch to: Text-Only, Daily Digest ? Unsubscribe ? Terms of Use. __,_._,___ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ Discussion mailing list Discussion at globaljusticemovement.net http://globaljusticemovement.net/mailman/listinfo/discussion_globaljusticemovement.net -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ceasig at gmail.com Fri Jan 22 08:14:56 2010 From: ceasig at gmail.com (Centre For Ecological Audit, Social Inclusion & Governance) Date: Fri, 22 Jan 2010 20:44:56 +0530 Subject: [GJM] Total Lack of Imagination, and Creativity!! The LSE Encounter. In-Reply-To: <008601ca9b6b$daf51060$4001a8c0@your447023ae6b> References: <894834.82293.qm@web27404.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> <008601ca9b6b$daf51060$4001a8c0@your447023ae6b> Message-ID: <31f677a31001220714q65a7645yee985afebb3ab89e@mail.gmail.com> Dear Rodney, You are right, do these economist taught on the theory of interest would ever delearn the lesson. In the post usury economy, I think we will have to ensure that the new paradigm is made a mandatory part of curriculum before this is instituted across the world. Dr.Muhammad Mukhtar Alam On Fri, Jan 22, 2010 at 7:34 PM, Rodney Shakespeare < rodney.shakespeare1 at btopenworld.com> wrote: > Robert, > Good try > > These conventional academic economists are hopeless. At a time when > President Obama is supposedly launching an attack at least on parts of the > banking system for the disaster it has caused, these nerks having nothing > to say. > > Rodney Shakespear.e > > ----- Original Message ----- > *From:* robert searle > *To:* discussion at globaljusticemovement.net > *Sent:* Friday, January 22, 2010 10:37 AM > *Subject:* [GJM] Total Lack of Imagination, and Creativity!! The LSE > Encounter. > > > > I went on Wednesday to the LSE meeting in regards to the status quo of > economics. It had some distinguished guests including Professor Ormerod, and > Professor Hodgson. They gave some insignts into the parlous, and highly > questionable nature of mainstream economics. But inevitably they did not > offer anything new, or anything of real importance. > > After the presentations there was a session in which the mainly student > audience asked some questions. However, they had the tendency of rambling > on, and on...until my time came... > > I made the point in no uncertain terms that economics lack imagination, and > creativity! This caused a stir, and the audience laughed, or in part > "glared" at me. I went further by suggesting the need for a new global > paradigm, and referred to my developing project of TRANSFINANCIAL ECONOMICS > which I believe could be the system of the future. I also made the point > that money itself was created electronically by banks out of thin air by > means of credit creation. I got the distinct impression that in spite of > their education the audience did not really fully understand the full import > of what was said..though I may be wrong. > > Anyway, Professor Hodgson seemed to indicate that no paradigm could be > ruled out, and another academic hinted at the possibility of misuse of > anything new. This is just the gist of what they seemed to have said. > > > http://www.p2pfoundation.net/Transfinancial_Economics > > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_Hodgson > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Ormerod > > > > ------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > Discussion mailing list > Discussion at globaljusticemovement.net > > http://globaljusticemovement.net/mailman/listinfo/discussion_globaljusticemovement.net > > > _______________________________________________ > 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 Fri Jan 22 02:19:11 2010 From: dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk (robert searle) Date: Fri, 22 Jan 2010 09:19:11 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [GJM] Fw: [Arthakranti] An Extraordinary Indian! Message-ID: <624702.56563.qm@web27401.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> --- On Fri, 22/1/10, Narendra Khot wrote: From: Narendra Khot Subject: [Arthakranti] An Extraordinary Indian! To: nvkhot at gmail.com Date: Friday, 22 January, 2010, 8:31 ? ? We still have a few good human beings around who are doing some yeoman service without expecting anything in return. ------------ --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- ------ ? 'I don't feed beggars. They can look after themselves. The mentally ill won't ask anyone for food or money,' says N Krishnan who has been feeding them thrice a day for the past seven years. For more information on N Kris hnan's trust, log on to: http://www.akshayat rust.org/ Left 5-star job to feed the mentally ill N Krishnan feeds 400 mentally ill people on the streets of Madurai three times a day, every day, all 365 days of the year. The 28 year old has been doing this for seven years via a charity called the Akshaya Trust. A look into the kitchen reveals a spotlessly clean room.. Sparkling vessels stacked neatly, groceries and provisions all lined up in rows -- rice, dal, vegetables, spices -- all of the best quality.. One would think this was the kitchen of a five star hotel. Maybe Kris hnan achieves that effect because he was once a chef at a five star hotel in Bengaluru. "Today's lunch is curd rice, with home made pickle, please taste it," he says, serving me on a plate made of dried leaves. The food is excellent. "I change the menu for different days of the week. They will get bored if I serve the same food every day," he says with an enthusiastic and infectious smile. Image: N Krishnan feeds a mentally ill person on a Madurai street Photographs: A Ganesh Nadar Krishnan feeds 400 mentally ill people every day Krishnan cooks breakfast, lunch and dinner with the help of two cooks. He takes it himself to his wards on the street each day. "I don't feed beggars. They can look after themselves. The mentally ill won't ask anyone for food or money. They don't move around much too. I find them in the same place every day." That morning he put the food in a large vessel, the pickle in a smaller one and loaded it into a Maruti van donated by a Madurai philanthropist. Ten minutes later we stopped near a man lying on the ground by a high wall. Krishnan put the food next to him. The man refused to even look at it, but grabbed the water bottle and drank eagerly. "He will eat the food later, looks like he was very thirsty," said Kris hnan. At the next stop, he laid the dry leaf-plate and served the food. He then scooped some food and started feeding the mentally ill man himself. After two morsels, the man started eating on his own. We then crossed a crowded traffic signal and stopped the vehicle. On seeing Kris hnan, four individuals moved slowly towards the Maruti van. They stood out in the crowd with their dirty, tattered clothes and unshaven beards. They knew this Maruti van meant food. But they did not hurry, knowing that Kris hnan would wait for them. Krishnan served them under a tree and carried water for them. "They are not aware enough to get their own water," he explained. And thus we went around the city till the Akshaya patra was empty. Of course, it would be full again for dinner later in the day. Image: Krishnan's wards often approach him when they see his food-laden van Past 7 years As we returned, a startling fact hit me. Not a single mentally challenged person had thanked Kris hnan. They did not even smile or acknowledge him. Still Kris hnan carried on in a world where most of us get offended if someone doesn't say thank you, sometimes even for doing our jobs. The food costs Rs 8,000 a day, but that doesn't worry him. "I have donors for 22 days. The remaining days, I manage myself. I am sure I will get donors for that too, people who can afford it are generally generous, particularly when they know that their hard earned money is actually going to the poor. That is why I maintain my accounts correctly and scrupulously. " He then pulled out a bill from the cabinet and showed it to me. It was a bill for groceries he had bought seven years ago. "This bill has sentimental value. It is the first one after I started Akshaya." The economic slowdown has resulted in a drop in the number of donors. Earlier, they sustained meals for 25 days. Software giants Infosys and TCS were so impressed with his work that they donated three acres of land to him in Madurai . Kris hnan hopes to build a home for his wards there. He has built the basement for a woman's block which will house 80 inmates, but work has currently halted due to a lack of funds. Five idlis This, however, is not the sum of his good deeds. Kris hnan also performs the funerals of unclaimed bodies in Madurai . He collects the body, bathes it and gives it a decent burial or cremation as the need may be. He gets calls, both from the municipal corporation and general hospital for the funerals. He recalls with a little prompting how one day he saw a mentally ill man eating?excreta. He rushed to the nearest restaurant and bought the man five idlis. The man ate voraciously, and then smiled at him. The smile made Kris hnan want to do it again and again. Kris hnan has not married and wonders if anyone would want to marry a man who spends his days cooking food for others. He is firm that his life partner has to agree to this kind of life. His parents were initially shocked, but are now very supportive of their son. They advise him about the cuisine and also about how he can streamline the process. One wonders why he left his job in a five star hotel to bury the dead and feed the mentally ill. To this he just smiles and says, "I like doing it." For more information on N Kris hnan's trust, log on to: http://www.akshayat rust.org/ ? Mr. Kris hnan is doing this ** not by?political motive, because they can't vote ** not?for religious?conversion , because they don't know what they are ** not?having any expecations in return, because they wouldn't remember him even they become normal ** not spoiling the beggars by giving freebies We are proud to see you and feel?that there are some great human hearts around us. T H A N K you Mr. Krishnan ! ? __._,_.___ Reply to sender | Reply to group Messages in this topic (1) Recent Activity: New Members 1 Visit Your Group Start a new topic Switch to: Text-Only, Daily Digest ? Unsubscribe ? Terms of Use . __,_._,___ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/jpeg Size: 12372 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/jpeg Size: 37799 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/jpeg Size: 37518 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/jpeg Size: 23282 bytes Desc: not available URL: From maryrose333 at att.net Sun Jan 17 17:47:32 2010 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Sun, 17 Jan 2010 16:47:32 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: Continuing Endeavours for Promoting Carbon-Neutral Liesure (Mukhtar Alam) Message-ID: <002b01ca97d8$0378d0e0$0a6a72a0$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS Mukhtar, thank you for your response to my question. I understand more now where you are coming from. When I think of leisure time here in the U.S. what comes to mind is people in their motor homes or cars going on vacations. However, many of those owning motor homes are retired and fewer and fewer of them can afford to drive them for leisure time activities as the price of gas increases into the $3.00 gal range. However, many of these people now live in their RVs in Motor Home Parks as they do not have to pay the taxes associated with a cabin or other structure that is attached to the ground. Here in the U.S. we also have the traffic jams created by automobile use as more and more people are forced to commute back and forth to work as wage slaves. Fewer people are able to enjoy today the homes they have mortgaged their lives to pay for as the work time required to meet the mortgage payment keeps them away for long hours each day with the commute time back and forth to work being factored in. Creating sustainable living communities in which people live, work, grow their own food, and play would go a long way toward solving this problem. -----Original Message----- From: discussion-bounces at globaljusticemovement.net [mailto:discussion-bounces at globaljusticemovement.net] On Behalf Of discussion-request at globaljusticemovement.net Sent: Sunday, January 17, 2010 11:58 AM To: discussion at globaljusticemovement.net Subject: Discussion Digest, Vol 76, Issue 56 Send Discussion mailing list submissions to discussion at globaljusticemovement.net or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to discussion-request at globaljusticemovement.net You can reach the person managing the list at discussion-owner at globaljusticemovement.net When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of Discussion digest..." Today's Topics: 1. Re: FW: Continuing Endeavours for Promoting Carbon-Neutral Leisure (Centre For Ecological Audit, Social Inclusion & Governance) 2. FW: Move your money! (mary rose) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: 1 Date: Sat, 16 Jan 2010 22:21:43 +0530 From: "Centre For Ecological Audit, Social Inclusion & Governance" To: Discussion Forum for Global Justice Subject: Re: [GJM] FW: Continuing Endeavours for Promoting Carbon-Neutral Leisure Message-ID: <31f677a31001160851w61f86c11ha39ffbc2b8a3486a at mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252" Dear Mary, Thanks a lot for asking me the reason as to the focus on leisure . This is important considering this to be the important engagement that consumes products and services based on the utilisation of fossil fuels. In Delhi the capital of India where I have been living since 1986, I have seen the increase in the number of cars. There are roads that where at times , it takes more than an hour. Urbanisation with more cars in India is getting the primary attention and projected as hallmark of development.There are more cars now. People are buying cars for spending leisure for visiting people, going to parties, showing off to relatives and the neighbours. You may see some of the pictures at http://transitionurbanindia.ning.com of the street where my house is located. Footpath has been captured in the residential areas.Even Beijing has got more cars now. I recall Beijing has people with bicycles. Across the cities, we find that culture of conspicuous consumption is increasing among those who are getting surplus money. News papers promote energy intensive leisure, travel, tourism and even the earned leave utilisation is proposed to be travel intensive. Transforming leisure will reduce the consumption. Low consumption mean low demand and lower demand means closue of companies. Here comes the need to promote what you are promoting local food and neighbourhood relationships. I recall my village and childhoods and I am sure you have a distant childhood, when there was much less consumption of energy intensive commodities and services. Liesure time use can be transformed easily with adoption of faith based and other carbon-neutral travel based measures. Instead of transforming leisure and reducing the demand for energy, we know governments demand financing the green technologies. In stead of calling for technologies, we should be adopting the ecologically sustainable measures for reducing the demand for energy intensive services and demands. That is very much possible rather than trapping children in usurious debts for getting green technologies. As a matter of fact, recognizing the peak oil estimates, there is a need to decelerate the consumption of fossil fuel based resources rather than seeking acceleration of demand for energy intensive services and habitats. We can see that there is absence of concern for the sustainability of services and commodities that are based on fossil fuels and it is assumed that energy crisis would be addressed.This assumption could be proved wrong. It is quite likely.What will happen then? What will happen to the livelihoods that are based on the supplies of fossil fuels and hydrocarbons? What would happen to the millions who have migrated to cities in search of livelihoods hoping for a dream that would never end? What would happen to those families who have sold their land in their villages and build houses for earning rent? Recognizing such uncertainties , I had called for preparation for the end of petro-modern times and we see that there are transition movements that are active in several countries with vibrant transition communities involved in communication and practice of ecologically safe local self reliant communities. Movement for Transforming Ecologically Hostile Habitats http://transitionurbanindia.ning.com> is working for creation of policy environment for meeting the exigencies of energy crisis and making habitats ecologically safe. We need to listen to the calls of the children who may inherit this Earth in say 40th century. We need to listen to the calls and cries of poorest who have not got right to homestead land even in Independent India. Inflation is creating difficulties for many with the adoption of a development policy that has made India the 5th largest emitter of green house gases. China is second largest emitter of green house gases and its championing of ecologically hostile growth targets created problems for the ecological safety of the children in India. It is sad that both China and India has agreed to oppose the norms of emissions while demanding deep cuts in emissions from the developed countries. It is getting increasingly difficult for nations to agree to the norms and reduce emissions as it gets directly linked to growth, employment, prosperity whose definitions and measurements has not factored the ecological costs.Center for Ecological Audit, Social Inclusion has been calling for adoption of inter-faith commons for mitigating the climate change and eradicating the problems of poverty that gets exacerbated with the adoption of environmentally and ecologically hostile development paradigm. A detailed presentation can be seen at http://slideshare.net/mukhtaralam > Dr.Muhammad Mukhtar Alam On Sat, Jan 16, 2010 at 2:46 AM, mary rose wrote: > Dear Mukhtar, While I am continually impressed with your efforts to > promote ?Carbon-Neutral Activities? I also continually fail to understand > why the focus is on ?leisure? activities when it is well known that > industrial activities are many times more polluting than are the leisure > activities conducted by those who are attempting to relieve the stresses of > an average person?s life in the industrial world. > > Would you please explain this to me so I can pass it on to other?s in the > Co-learner?s List. > > Thank you > > > > > > > > > > *From:* carbon neutral neighbourhood discussions/leisure [mailto: > mail at ecostrategiccommunicators.ning.com] > *Sent:* Friday, January 15, 2010 2:01 AM > *To:* maryrose333 at att.net > *Subject:* Continuing Endeavours for Promoting Carbon-Neutral Leisure > > > > *carbon neutral neighbourhood discussions/leisure* > > Carbon Neutral Neighborhood Consultations/ Leisure for Mitigating Climate > Change > A message to all members of carbon neutral neighbourhood > discussions/leisure > > Distinguished Ecostrategic Communicators, > > > > I hope and pray that this message finds you in the best health and spirits. > I would like to take this opportunity to share that the reasons for creating > this network are based on the need to both mitigating climate change and > preparing for the end of petromodern times and dawn of post-carbon age. This > is an initiative that I think feeds into the initiatives across the world > especially manifested through transition movements inspired with the work of > Rob Hopkins www.transitionculture.org > > > > Not sure, how you have responded to Copenhagen accord, Ithink, there is a > need to continue promoting ecologically benevolent leisure that are based in > the neighbourhoods. There is much that can be achieved with this. We have a > huge challenge, that we need to meet while working for ecologically safe > futures. > > > > I would like to seek your engagement with this forum with posts and others. > We have members from across the worlds and together, I think we can > contribute significantly. > > > > With warmest regards > > > > M.Mukhtar Alam > > On behalf of Center for Ecological Audit, Social Inclusion and Governance > > Visit carbon neutral neighbourhood discussions/leisure at: > http://ecostrategiccommunicators.ning.com/?xg_source=msg_mes_network > > > > To control which emails you receive on carbon neutral neighbourhood > discussions/leisure, click here > > > _______________________________________________ > Discussion mailing list > Discussion at globaljusticemovement.net > > http://globaljusticemovement.net/mailman/listinfo/discussion_globaljusticemo vement.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: ------------------------------ Message: 2 Date: Sat, 16 Jan 2010 19:27:19 -0800 From: "mary rose" To: "'Discussion Forum for Global Justice'" , "FixGov at yahoogroups. com" Subject: [GJM] FW: Move your money! Message-ID: <000d01ca9725$37bba930$a732fb90$@net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS Well, I 've been saying this for a few months and now it's official. MOVE YOUR MONEY From: Robert Ocegueda [mailto:bocegueda at gmail.com] Sent: Saturday, January 16, 2010 1:22 AM To: Bob Ocegueda Subject: Move your money! Dear friends and family, Well!... here's a Happy New Year idea that makes sense and we can all get behind. "People all over the country are choosing to move their money out of bigger banks and into smaller, community-oriented financial institutions that generally avoided the reckless investments and schemes that helped cause the financial crisis. Fueled by the personal initiatives of thousands, it's a grassroots effort that has the potential to shift power in the financial system away from Wall Street and to Main Street. Check out the video, read up on what inspired the idea, connect with others through Facebook and Twitter and then use the tools and links provided to find a community bank or credit union in your area." http://moveyourmoney.info/ >From "The Nation" magazine editorial: "Are you angry about Wall Street's reckless excesses? Are you disappointed with President Obama's limp approach to reform? You can change this, acting individually and collectively. Withdraw your deposit and savings accounts from the large banks that brought the system to ruin and were subsequently rescued with billions in government bailouts. Put your money instead in smaller, safer banks or credit unions closer to home--the thousands of community institutions that do not harvest their profits from greed and recklessness." http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100201/editors?rel=emailNation I don't know if there are such things here in Europe, but there must be something similar I'd imagine. Pass the word. With much love, Bob -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: ------------------------------ _______________________________________________ Discussion mailing list Discussion at globaljusticemovement.net http://globaljusticemovement.net/mailman/listinfo/discussion_globaljusticemo vement.net End of Discussion Digest, Vol 76, Issue 56 ****************************************** From maryrose333 at att.net Sun Jan 17 18:42:23 2010 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Sun, 17 Jan 2010 17:42:23 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: [FixGov] FW: Move your money! Comment from Rick Kissell Message-ID: <002e01ca97df$af0e1f80$0d2a5e80$@net> From: FixGov at yahoogroups.com [mailto:FixGov at yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Rick Kiss?ll Sent: Saturday, January 16, 2010 9:54 PM To: FixGov at yahoogroups.com Subject: Re: [FixGov] FW: Move your money! I think that putting your money into credit unions or cooperative banks is a good idea. I think that moving one' s money from one for-profit corporation to another is a lot more problematic. See the 2003 documentary film "The Corporation" for details. It's available on DVD from your local public library (if only via inter-library loan). http://www.thecorporation.com/ Rick, thanks for your comment. I have viewed the movie ?The Corporation? quite awhile back, so am not up on the details right now, but recall that it is a good DVD to watch. And, while I have mentioned this previously, I watched for about the third time last night, the DVD ?Power of Community? which reveals how Cuba transcended the ?end of oil? crisis when the Russians pulled out after the Cuban Missile Crisis. This is quite probably THE most effective DVD to watch in all of the series with regard to the end of oil crisis as it involves real people doing real things in a real crisis. --- On Sat, 1/16/10, mary rose > wrote: From: mary rose > Subject: [FixGov] FW: Move your money! To: "'Discussion Forum for Global Justice'" >, "FixGov at yahoogroups. com" > Date: Saturday, January 16, 2010, 9:27 PM Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS Well, I 've been saying this for a few months and now it's official. MOVE YOUR MONEY From: Robert Ocegueda [mailto:bocegueda at gmail. com] Sent: Saturday, January 16, 2010 1:22 AM To: Bob Ocegueda Subject: Move your money! Dear friends and family, Well!... here's a Happy New Year idea that makes sense and we can all get behind. "People all over the country are choosing to move their money out of bigger banks and into smaller, community-oriented financial institutions that generally avoided the reckless investments and schemes that helped cause the financial crisis. Fueled by the personal initiatives of thousands, it's a grassroots effort that has the potential to shift power in the financial system away from Wall Street and to Main Street. Check out the video, read up on what inspired the idea, connect with others through Facebook and Twitter and then use the tools and links provided to find a community bank or credit union in your area." http://moveyourmone y.info/ >From "The Nation" magazine editorial: "Are you angry about Wall Street's reckless excesses? Are you disappointed with President Obama's limp approach to reform? You can change this, acting individually and collectively. Withdraw your deposit and savings accounts from the large banks that brought the system to ruin and were subsequently rescued with billions in government bailouts. Put your money instead in smaller, safer banks or credit unions closer to home--the thousands of community institutions that do not harvest their profits from greed and recklessness. " http://www.thenatio n.com/doc/ 20100201/ editors?rel= emailNation I don't know if there are such things here in Europe, but there must be something similar I'd imagine. Pass the word. With much love, Bob [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] __._,_.___ Reply to sender | Reply to group Messages in this topic (2) 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 maryrose333 at att.net Wed Jan 20 14:36:55 2010 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2010 13:36:55 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: GCI Commentaries: The Impact of Magnetic Pulsations on Humans and Animals Message-ID: <005901ca9a18$e22b1f90$a6815eb0$@net> FYI and consideration. From: Global Coherence Initiative [mailto:info at glcoherence.org] Sent: Tuesday, January 19, 2010 3:00 PM To: maryrose333 at att.net Subject: GCI Commentaries: The Impact of Magnetic Pulsations on Humans and Animals Click here for online version. Global Coherence Initiative The Impact of Magnetic Pulsations on Humans and Animals Global Coherence Initiative www.glcoherence.org GCI Message Dear GCI Member, With the start of the New Year, the GCI team is excited to announce that we now have over 20,000 members! We are grateful for our growing community and your contributions and care towards raising global consciousness at such an important time of the planetary shift. The future of our planet depends on all of us because we are co-creating the world we live in. The Magnetic Sense of Animals As many of you may be aware, a large variety of animals possess a "magnetic sense." The Earth is surrounded by a magnetic field which is generated by the flow of molten material in the earth?s core and the flow of ions in the atmosphere. Amazingly, a number of animals are able to sense this magnetic field. Just as a compass helps us navigate by detecting Magnetic North, animals that possess a magnetic sense are able to identify direction and navigate over long distances. It is not fully understood how these animals actually sense the earth?s magnetic field. However, researchers have found that each of these animals have deposits of biological magnetite in their nervous systems. Magnetite is a small magnetic mineral. The presence of magnetite is not a definite evidence for the perception of the earth?s magnetic field. However, these magnet-like minerals align themselves with the magnetic fields of the Earth and might act like microscopic compass needles. Migratory birds use magnetic clues to guide their journey during migration. When birds migrate over long distances they usually end up in the same place, year after year. One of the first concrete signs that animals can tap into the magnetic field was observed by chance in the fall of 1957 as Hans Fromme, a researcher at the Frankfurt Zoological Institute in Germany, noticed that several European robins he kept in a cage were becoming restless and were fluttering up into the southwestern part of the cage. A paper published in Nature in 2004 reported, "Resonance effects indicate a radical-pair mechanism for avian magnetic compass," suggesting that birds "see" the earth?s magnetic field with their eyes, where receptors sensitive to magnetic fields feed data to the brain through the optic nerves. Turtle Also marine animals, like salmon, whales and turtles to name only a few, are known to migrate with the seasons, and studies of turtles reveal that hatchlings have the ability to sense the direction and strength of the earth?s magnetic field, which they use for navigating along their regular migration route (Triverdi, 2001). Earth's Magnetic Field Figure: Earth?s magnetic field, courtesy NASA However, even animals not known for their migration habits display a magnetic sense, also called magnetoreception. Recent publications from a German research group (Begall et al, 2008), made the discovery that cattle (and other herd animals, such as red and roe deer) tend to situate themselves on a magnetic North-South axis, as if involuntarily directed by the earth?s magnetic field. These surprising results were discovered when satellite images provided by Google Earth were used to analyze herding patterns and behavior. However, the built-in magnetic compass gets out of alignment the closer the cattle get to high voltage power lines, and the cattle then align with the power lines instead. But what about humans? Dr. Kirschvink of the California Institute of Technology detected magnetite in the human brain and heart. Some people report that they can sense Magnetic North, however, it is not clear if the magnetite helps the orientation sense of all humans. It has been speculated that maintaining a symmetric position to the earth?s field lines somehow influences certain physiological processes. For example, the onset of rapid eye movement in sleeping humans is shortened in the E-W orientation of sleepers compared to the N-S position (Ruhenstroth-Bauer et al,1987). Not only is there a fascinating connection between mammal and human magnetic sense, but also processes in the magnetosphere and solar wind produce magnetic waves which influence us. The presence of Ultra Low Frequencies (ULF) has already been mentioned in previous commentaries. The GCI team is pleased to now have the ability to see these ULF waves (also called geomagnetic pulsations) in the spectrogram data we are recording due to the new magnetometers we are using. These waves overlap closely with the frequencies of the heart, while Schumann resonances overlap with the frequencies of the brain waves. (To see the Live Data go to: http://www.glcoherence.org/monitoring-system/live-data.html). Ultra Low Frequency (ULF) waves on the Earth are produced by processes occurring in the magnetosphere and by the solar wind. Some of these waves originate as far away as the Sun and are carried by the solar wind, while other sources are much closer to Earth. There are many sources of these waves, both external and internal to the earth?s magnetosphere. ULF waves are created by a variety of processes in magnetized plasma. Plasma is the name given to ionized gases (see "Plasma Sheet", in the figure below) which is formed by the earth?s magnetic field. In a magnetized plasma at ULF frequencies there are three wave modes and a variety of names used to describe each mode. Any force that moves the ions also moves the magnetic field (and vice versa). Hannes Alfven was the first person to describe the process that creates a low frequency wave which propagates along the magnetic field lines, for which he received a Nobel Prize for his discovery in 1970. Hence, this wave is named after him. However, the Alfven wave is only one type of wave which can propagate in plasma. In addition, a gas (such as the ionosphere) also supports sound or pressure waves which travel through the density the gas provides. Magnetosphere The nonspherical shape is due to the solar wind. The surface facing to the sun is flattened; while the surface facing away from the sun has a tail, also called the magnetotail. The forces of the solar wind are carried by charged particles that are pushing against the earth?s magnetic field, thus creating distortions around a cavity of the Earth, named magnetosphere (see figure to the right). The magnetosphere is the region in space where the earth?s magnetic field is present. In spite of its name, the magnetosphere?s actual shape is nonspherical. Its shape and size is determined by the magnitude of the earth?s internally generated field, the solar wind pressure and the interplanetary magnetic field. The particles carried by the solar wind create a tiny magnetic field that shifts as it flows through the solar system. Scientists call this the interplanetary magnetic field. Earth's Atmosphere Visible phenomena from the collision of charged solar particles with the earth?s magnetosphere are called auroras, or the northern and southern polar lights. The following paragraph is a summary from: Sources of variation in the steady magnetic field, Robert L. McPherron, Encyclopedia Britannica. 2009. Encyclopedia Britannica Online. 04 Nov. 2009. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/229754/geomagnetic-field. There are also other sources causing variations in the earth?s steady magnetic field. Waves originating in the outer regions of the magnetic field propagate along the fields and reach the earth?s surface where they can be measured. On reaching the earth?s surface they cause minute oscillations in the magnetic field, and are therefore often called micropulsations. Magnetic pulsations have been classified into two types: pulsations continuous (Pc) and pulsations irregular (Pi). Because the frequencies are so low, they are usually characterized by their period of oscillation or the time it takes them to complete one cycle (periods from 1 to 1,000 seconds), rather than by their frequency as expressed in the number of cycles occurring in a second. There are a variety of interesting mechanisms that produce such low frequency waves. One mechanism is the resonant oscillation of the earth?s main magnetic field in response to interactions with the solar wind. In simple words, we can imagine a wave travelling along a stretched string. The magnetic field line tension is analogous to string tension, and when the magnetic field is "plucked" by a perturbation, the disturbance propagates along the field line. In summary, the ULF waves seen on Earth contain information about the processes that created them and the regions through which they have traveled. Each type of magnetic pulsation is further subdivided into frequency bands or ranges that roughly correspond to the specific phenomena that created them (Jacobs et al, 1964). Figure 1: Irregular Pulsations Irregular Pulsations Figure 2: Continuous Pulsations Continuous Pulsations The first class of pulsations is characterized by their irregular form and is divided into two sub-groups, depending on their period (figure 1). The second class, known as Pc, covers the whole range of pulsations with periods from 0.2 to 600 s (figure 2). On the spectrogram, these resonant or continuous magnetic waves can be seen between 0.001Hz and 5 Hz (see green arrow in figure 3 below). A segment of Pc-1 frequencies can be seen in figure 4 in the range of 0.2-5Hz. The Pc1 waves are often created as the solar wind compresses the magnetosphere facing the sun. They then move towards the ionosphere along the magnetic field lines, interact with the ions and fields they encounter and finally end up being measured on the ground, (which was first observed by Sucksdorff in 1936). Figure 3 Geomagnetic Pulsations Figure 4 Frequency The Impact of Pc Frequencies On Humans and Animals Scientific research has reported that an increase in Pc-1 frequencies can affect the human cardiovascular system because Pc-1 frequencies are in a comparable range with those of the human heartbeat and rhythms (Kleimenova et al, 2007). A study carried out in India on animals and humans also demonstrated that humans and animals can be affected by Pc frequencies (Subrahmanyam et al, 1985). The experiments on the animals showed changes in the electrophysiological, neurochemical and biochemical parameters. The following results were observed: * Changes in the cardiac functions during exposure to 0.01 Hz and 0.1 Hz frequency waves. * Biochemically: the exposure to 0.01 Hz to 0.1 Hz (facing North), caused an increase in blood sugar in animals. * Brainwaves (EEG): An accentuation of alpha and beta rhythms was observed in humans facing East, indicating a state of restful mental alertness. Yoga practitioners had a more prominent accentuation of alpha and beta waves. The subjects felt calm and relaxed and reported a state of pleasant feelings. * In normal subjects facing North, the EEG was reduced considerably (as compared to before the recording). The subjects experienced uneasiness, confusion and restlessness and a lack of sense of well-being when subjected to the pulsating fields. Some complained of headaches. The effects were less severe in yoga practitioners. Obviously, the geographic location will impact the experience of humans and animals, when exposed to the magnetic waves in the Pc-1 range and more experimentation is required to study the effects at different geographical locations. Subrahmanyam et al, 1985, found, that yoga practitioners were able to better remain in balance when subjected to stress generating fields. Almost two decades of stress research carried out by the Institute of HeartMath also provides evidence that humans are better able to adjust to stress when trained in heart coherence. The advantage of heart coherence is that even for people with very little time to spare, a few minutes of daily heart coherence practice can help to significantly reduce daily stress. Much still has to be learned about the processes that generate the Pc waves and the GCI team is continuing to work on observing these waves in regards to our global coherence research. We hope to be able to report more concrete results in the future. Time seems to be moving quickly and as we begin 2010, let's join our hearts? intentions together in love as we acknowledge, honor and give gratitude and appreciation for those who have contributed both energetically and monetarily to GCI from around the world. With gratitude, Annette Deyhle, Ph.D. and GCI Research Team Global Coherence Initiative 14700 West Park Ave., Boulder Creek, CA 95006 | tel (831) 706-2981 | fax (831) 338-8504 | info at glcoherence.org To unsubscribe, reply to this e-mail with "unsubscribe" in the subject line. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From maryrose333 at att.net Wed Jan 20 16:33:15 2010 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2010 15:33:15 -0800 Subject: [GJM] Freedom Central Interviews Drs John Consemulder Neuropsychologist, Sound Healer, 1 of 16 Message-ID: <006c01ca9a29$26074df0$7215e9d0$@net> This information came from a post to Facebook. It is amazing how quickly information regarding the biology of consciousness is emerging and signifying a dramatic move away from religious dogma and into a science-based view of who we really are. Freedom Central Interviews Drs John Consemulder Neuropsychologist, Sound Healer, 1 of 16 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afuj1TOfs6w &feature=channel 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 Fri Jan 22 12:04:17 2010 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Fri, 22 Jan 2010 11:04:17 -0800 Subject: [GJM] Will's Wisdom - A must watch video Message-ID: <000501ca9b95$f80f38e0$e82daaa0$@net> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLN2k0b3g70 &feature=related One of the most moving videos I have ever seen. 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 Fri Jan 22 17:29:26 2010 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Fri, 22 Jan 2010 16:29:26 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: [globalnetnews-summary] Haitians Dying By The Thousands As US Escalates Military Intervention Message-ID: <000801ca9bc3$568fc0b0$03af4210$@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, January 22, 2010 11:15 AM To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] Haitians Dying By The Thousands As US Escalates Military Intervention Haitians Dying By The Thousands As US Escalates Military Intervention By Bill Van Auken 22 January, 2010 http://www.countercurrents.org/auken220110.htm Thousands of Haitians are dying every day for lack of medical care and supplies, according to a leading humanitarian aid group. Meanwhile, the Pentagon has announced that it is expanding the US military presence in the country, maintaining Washington?s priority of troops over humanitarian aid. The US-based medical aid group Partners in Health has warned that as many as 20,000 Haitians may be dying daily due to infections such as gangrene and sepsis that have set in, as the majority of the injured receive no medical care or are treated in facilities that lack the most basic supplies. ?Tens of thousands of earthquake victims need emergency surgical care now!!!,? the organization said in a statement posted on its web site. ?The death toll and the incidence of gangrene and other deadly infections will continue to rise unless a massive effort is made to open and staff more operating rooms and to deliver essential equipment and supplies.? Partners in Health has worked in Haiti for more than 20 years. Its co-founder, Dr. Paul Farmer, is the deputy United Nations envoy to Haiti and a senior professor of public health at Harvard University. While Haitian officials and other organizations have claimed the Partners in Health figure is too high, it is indisputable that Haiti confronts a disaster that could equal or even eclipse that of the quake itself because of the delays in the provision of health care to hundreds of thousands of sick and injured people. The New York Times Thursday quoted Dr. Eduardo de Marchena, a University of Miami cardiologist overseeing one field hospital in Haiti, who provided a similarly grim prognosis. ?There are still thousands of patients with major fractures, major wounds, that have not been treated yet,? he said. ?There are people, many people, who are going to die unless they?re treated.? As the Times reported, ?In the squatter camps now scattered across this capital, there are still people writhing in pain, their injuries bound up by relatives but not yet seen by a doctor eight days after the quake struck. On top of that, the many bodies still in the wreckage increase the risk of diseases spreading, especially, experts say, if there is rain.? The Wall Street Journal reported that the Port-au-Prince General Hospital is continuously besieged by more than 1,000 patients waiting for surgery. ?Armed guards in tanks kept out mobs,? the newspaper reported. It added, ?At any given moment, thousands of injured, some grievously, wait outside virtually any hospital or clinic, pleading for treatment.? CNN?s Karl Penhaul reported from Port-au-Prince General Hospital, where US paratroopers have taken up positions. He said that Haitians questioned why so many US troops were pouring into the country. ?They say they need more food and water and fewer guys with guns,? he reported. He also indicated that American doctors at the hospital seemed mystified by the military presence. ?They say there has never been a security problem here at the hospital, but there is a problem of getting supplies in.? He added, ?They can get nine helicopters of troops in, but some of the doctors here say if they can do that, then why can?t they also bring with them IV fluids and other much needed supplies.? The Spanish daily El Pa?s quoted one of these American doctors, Jim Warsinguer: ?We lack a lot of things, too many for so much time having passed since the earthquake: betadine, bandages, gloves. And, above all, morphine. We have to do amputations without anesthesia. You see them suffer, and it is terrible. The Haitians are very brave, but they are suffering a lot.? The desperate conditions and lack of sanitation for the estimated 2 million Haitians left homeless by the earthquake threaten to trigger a public health disaster. ?The next health risk could include outbreaks of diarrhea, respiratory tract infections and other diseases among hundreds of thousands of Haitians living in overcrowded camps with poor or non-existent sanitation,? said Doctors Without Borders deputy operations manager Greg Elder. While media reports claim that ever-growing amounts of material aid are coming into the country, reporters on the ground have said that there is still no sign that it is getting into the hands of the overwhelming majority of those who need it. The British Broadcasting Corporation reported Thursday, ?Correspondents say the aid that has thus far arrived at the port is being driven for 45 minutes across the city to the airport, where it is piling up and not being distributed to those who need it.? The BBC continued, ?The US and UN World Food Programme insist the distribution of food and water is well under way, but the BBC?s Adam Mynott in Port-au-Prince says many people have still seen no international relief at all.? Aid organizations have charged that since establishing its unilateral control over the Port-au-Prince airport and the city?s port facilities, and assuming essential governmental powers in Haiti, the US military has given the beefing up of its presence in the country priority over the provision of aid. Doctors Without Borders, for example, has protested that military air traffic controllers have since January 14 refused permission to land to five of its planes carrying 85 tons of medical supplies. With the Haitian catastrophe now in its 10th day, it is becoming increasingly clear that the response of the Obama administration and the Pentagon, which have made military occupation of the Caribbean nation its first objective, has deepened the immense suffering of millions of injured, homeless and hungry people. The Pentagon has announced that it is sending 4,000 more troops to Haiti, which will boost the US military occupation force to 16,000. For the first time, a unit that had been slated for deployment by the US Central Command, which oversees the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, is being diverted to the Caribbean nation. Meanwhile, a naval encirclement of Haiti?s coastline is growing. The Miami Herald reported Thursday that the US military has also prepared a detention camp at the Guant?namo Bay Navy Base in Cuba?site of the infamous prison where detainees were tortured?to hold up to 1,000 Haitians should they manage to elude the US warships. By using Guant?namo as a holding pen for refugees fleeing the horrific conditions of Haiti, the US government will insist that they have no legal rights and cannot appeal their deportation back to their homeland. This same procedure was used in 1991, when thousands of Haitians fled the country following a violent military coup. The claim that this military ?surge? into Haiti is an indispensable prerequisite for delivering aid to the Haitian people is a lie. Relief agencies operating in the country insist that they have not been threatened by the Haitian people, but rather hindered by the attempt to impose war zone-style security over their efforts. The US media never so much as hints that there could be anything but the sincerest humanitarian motives behind Washington?s assertion of control over Haiti. It makes no reference to the country?s history, which includes a two-decade US occupation at the beginning of the twentieth century, the deployment of US troops twice in the last 20 years, and Washington?s orchestration of a 2004 coup that ousted and exiled Haiti?s elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. In publications reflecting the views of the military-intelligence apparatus, however, there are franker assessments of Washington?s objectives and the real mission. The American Enterprise Institute?s Center for Defense Studies issued a ?crisis update? on Haiti, warning: ?Conducting a ?humanitarian relief? mission in a poor country stricken by a natural disaster can quickly embroil the United States in local politics. And desperate people can easily become violent people.? The statement continued by affirming, ?Beyond delivering relief, US soldiers and Marines will inevitably find themselves securing the peace.? Part of this mission, it added, would be ?to ensure that Haiti?s gangs?particularly those loyal to ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide?are suppressed.? Similarly, William Kristol and Thomas Donnelly, writing in the Weekly Standard, argued that beyond the humanitarian pretext for intervening in Haiti, ?the strategic case is also compelling.? ?With a transition looming in Cuba and challenges in Central America among others, there is a political reason to be?and to be seen to be?a good and strong neighbor.? In other words, Washington is exploiting the tragedy that has been inflicted upon the people of Haiti to assert colonial-style control over the country. Its aim is to reaffirm US imperialist hegemony in the broader region and to suppress any social revolt by the Haitian masses. It is only a matter of time before the horrendous death toll caused by the January 12 earthquake will be augmented by victims shot to death by US occupation forces. From maryrose333 at att.net Fri Jan 22 17:36:04 2010 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Fri, 22 Jan 2010 16:36:04 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: Amazing Fr.e.e Interview Message-ID: <000901ca9bc4$4422b120$cc681360$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS With the catastrophe's that are going on around the world, information like this is increasingly valuable since many will not have access to pharmaceutical medications. Over the long haul this may be a blessing in disguise as we learn how to take care of ourselves with food and other herbal products. From: David Wolfe [mailto:Dave at longevitynowprogram.com] Sent: Friday, January 22, 2010 12:36 PM To: maryrose333 at att.net Subject: Amazing Fr.e.e Interview I wanted to take some time today to share some amazing information with you. I have a sneak preview of what to expect at the Longevity Conference. We've had quite a response since we opened the doors to register. 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Click here to find out more about The Longevity Conference: http://www.LongevityConference.com Paul Stamets is just ONE of the extraordinary speakers we have presenting at The Longevity Conference, March 26th-28th at The Orange County Hilton in Costa Mesa, CA. Others include: Dr. Joseph Mercola, Donna Gates, Truth Calkins, your host David Wolfe and more! Take back your health by learning about the most powerful healing technologies on the planet. Click here to register now. WE HAVE LIMITED AVAILABILITY FOR THIS EVENT. Please don't miss your opportunity to be a part of the most informative, insightful, educational health event out there. Register now. Committed To Your Longevity, David Wolfe PS We are giving away Thousands of dollars of F.REE superfoods, herbs, and healing technologies at the conference. Give yourself a chance to be a WINNER at our event! Register now!? 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 Sat Jan 23 18:40:53 2010 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Sat, 23 Jan 2010 17:40:53 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: Discussion Digest, Vol 76, Issue 72 Message-ID: <004801ca9c96$7657e660$6307b320$@net> -----Original Message----- From: discussion-bounces at globaljusticemovement.net [mailto:discussion-bounces at globaljusticemovement.net] On Behalf Of discussion-request at globaljusticemovement.net Sent: Saturday, January 23, 2010 11:00 AM Today's Topics: . Peace Building Required International Cooperation: Destabilsing Obama Could be deadly (Dr.Muhammad Mukhtar Alam) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: 3 Date: Sat, 23 Jan 2010 22:28:03 +0530 (IST) From: "Dr.Muhammad Mukhtar Alam" To: Sorcha Faal Cc: Discussion Forum for Global Justice Subject: [GJM] Peace Building Required International Cooperation: Destabilsing Obama Could be deadly Message-ID: <626446.18643.qm at web94915.mail.in2.yahoo.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" I think?these men and women should learn about the pulse of the US nation constituted by?people of all races and religions and the signs?are men like Obamas would come back democratically again and again?as he is building peace across the civilisations at a time it is needed most. We collectively need to prepare for post-carbon age with equity ,ecological justice and social inclusion across the lands.?Barak Hussein Obama deserves another presidency for?letting US out of the crisis that it faces economically and it requires cooperation on the virtuous goals.Intergation of inter-faith common perspective for transforming ecologically hostile consumption patterns, reforming finance sector?and reviving ecologically safe livelihoods is needed.?Destruction in Haiti should be? lesson in designing ecologically safe habitats?for all who have been championing?expansion of ecologically hostile habitats. ?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: Sorcha Faal Sent: Sat, 23 January, 2010 9:03:54 PM Subject: Obama Warned Is ?Main Target? Of CIA Coup [Ed. Note: This report should be read from its website location at http://www.whatdoesitmean.com/index1326.htm as this email copy does not include the links embedded in the original report.] January 23, 2010 Obama Warned Is ?Main Target? Of CIA Coup By: Sorcha Faal, and as reported to her Western Subscribers Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) analysts are reporting to Prime Minister Putin today that the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is nearing its ?end game move? against their ?main target? President Obama in what they state, ?for all intents and purposes?, will be the most successful coup of a major power in modern history rivaling the attempted overthrow of President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933 by these same ?right wing forces? in what was known as the ?Business Plot?. Unfortunately for the American people, who in 1933 were protected from the destruction of their Nation by the heroic, and most decorated Marine in American history, US Marine General Smedley Butler (who was recruited by the Wall Street coup plotters to lead the overthrow of Roosevelt but, instead, turned against them) today have only their former Presidential candidate, and current US Congressman, Dr. Ron Paul warning them of what is occurring, and as we can read from Dr. Paul?s own words spoken to a gathering of his followers this past week: ?There's been a coup, have you heard? It's the CIA coup. The CIA runs everything, they run the military. They're the ones who are over there lobbing missiles and bombs on countries. ... And of course the CIA is every bit as secretive as the Federal Reserve. ... And yet think of the harm they have done since they were established [after] World War II. They are a government unto themselves. They're in businesses, in drug businesses, they take out dictators ... We need to take out the CIA.? So alarmed have many former US allies become over the impending coup against Obama, and those forces remaining loyal to him, that two of them, Pakistan and Turkey, have begun taking immediate steps to protect their own governments from, likewise, being destroyed by the CIA. In Pakistan this past week the former Director of the CIA, and current US Defense Secretary Robert Gates was forced to admit that his CIA forces were employing their Blackwater private army forces against Pakistani interests, and to which Pakistan quickly responded by telling the Americans they were immediately halting all military operations supporting the US and would further open negotiations with Afghanistan?s Taliban forces.? In Turkey Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed not to bow to ?dirty games? after a new CIA-Turkish Military coup-plot against him was uncovered and also ordered his police forces to stage a series of pre-dawn raids to round up all known and suspected CIA-linked al Qaida terrorists operating in his Nation. Important to note is the information that top CIA officials had already openly admitted that al-Qaeda is a total and complete fabrication, never having existed at any time. The Bush administration needed a reason that complied with the Laws so they could go after ?the bad guy of their choice? namely laws that had been set in place to protect us from mobs and ?criminal organizations? such as the Mafia. They paid Jamal al Fadl, hundreds of thousands of dollars to back the U.S. Government?s story of al-Qaeda, a ?group? or criminal organization they could ?legally? go after. Also important to note about the CIA is its longstanding reputation as America's ?Premier International Terrorist Organization? and which controls the vast majority of our Planet?s drug trafficking from its Narco-puppet states Colombia and Afghanistan. To the reasons behind the CIA?s coup against their own government, these reports continue, is their decades long plan to destroy the United States in order for it to be ?remade? into a totalitarian capitalist society for the benefit of its wealthy banking, corporate and industrialist elite classes, and which Obama stands firmly opposed against. To how successful the CIA and America?s right-wing forces have been in destroying the United States the results are enough to stagger the mind, and include: a deliberately manufactured banking crisis that has left over 18 million homes foreclosed upon and millions more to follow in what is being called ?The Housing Tsunami?s Second Wave?; a job crisis so grim that over 1 million Americans have given up even trying to find work and new data showing a further 22-29% of their jobs will go overseas in a few more years; a society growing so poor that over 37 million Americans are reported now receiving food assistance; a financial crisis so severe that nearly all American cities and States and their Federal Government are nearing default as their US Federal Reserve private banking system has been forced to buy over 80% of their own debt; a staggering toll of their citizens going broke as over 1.4 million of them were forced into bankruptcy in 2009 alone; a pension crisis of such unprecedented magnitude that will reduce to poverty their entire Baby Boom generation; all of which it must be remembered the American people have allowed to be done to them. As to Obama?s ability to fight back against the CIA led right-wing forces seeking his overthrow, these reports continue, it does not appear likely as new reports from the US are showing that over 77% of their moneyed class view him as anti-business and are openly questioning his ability to manage a financial crisis. Even worse for Obama is that his own Supreme Court dealt him a near fatal blow in their allowing this past week Americas corporations to pour, literally, billions of dollars into the American political system destroying the ability of average Americans to choose who their leaders will be. And to the new, and very sick, World the CIA and its right-wing corporate masters are creating for the American people can be evidenced in one of their largest corporations, Microsoft, owned by the World?s richest man, Bill Gates, slamming Google for not giving in to communist China?s censorship of its people, and as we can read: ?At a conference in Houston on Thursday, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer spoke critically of Google?s recent decision to stop censoring its search results in China. Paraphrasing some of Ballmer?s statements, Forbes says Ballmer called it an ?irrational business decision? on Google?s part. Ballmer suggested that Google?s decision to no longer filter out internet searches objectionable to the Chinese government was an irrational business decision. After all, Ballmer said, the U.S. imports oil from Saudi Arabia despite the censorship that goes on in that country.? To the Americans ability to fight back against the destruction of their Nation there remains little evidence to be seen of their doing so, and which should they in the future decide to do so they are warned they will be met by a new US Fedearl-Military police force being proposed by the Rand Corporation to better control them. As these grave events being reported show the American people being pushed ever closer towards an abyss of annihilation, one can only hope that their ability to defend themselves, and their President, against those right-wing forces seeking to destroy them will emerge. If not there remains no hope for them, and like the Soviet Communists and the Nazi Germans before them, a grim future of slavery awaits those who allow tyrants to rule over them. ? January 23, 2010 EU and US all rights reserved http://www.whatdoesitmean.com/index1326.htm? -- ? Sorcha Faal ? sorchafaal at fastmail.fm The INTERNET now has a personality. YOURS! See your Yahoo! Homepage. http://in.yahoo.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: ------------------------------ _______________________________________________ Discussion mailing list Discussion at globaljusticemovement.net http://globaljusticemovement.net/mailman/listinfo/discussion_globaljusticemo vement.net End of Discussion Digest, Vol 76, Issue 72 ****************************************** From radu_seserman at yahoo.com Sun Jan 17 14:26:56 2010 From: radu_seserman at yahoo.com (radu Seserman) Date: Sun, 17 Jan 2010 13:26:56 -0800 (PST) Subject: [GJM] FW: Move your money! In-Reply-To: <000d01ca9725$37bba930$a732fb90$@net> References: <000d01ca9725$37bba930$a732fb90$@net> Message-ID: <222972.21551.qm@web63903.mail.re1.yahoo.com> Also, help build new type of banks http://commongoodbank.com I bank with a Credit Union and I am looking to establish a branch of Common Good Bank in my community. Radu Seserman "Be the change that you want to see in the world." M. Gandhi "Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning." A. Einstein ________________________________ From: mary rose To: Discussion Forum for Global Justice ; "FixGov at yahoogroups. com" Sent: Sat, January 16, 2010 10:27:19 PM Subject: [GJM] FW: Move your money! Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS Well, I ?ve been saying this for a few months and now it?s official. MOVE YOUR MONEY From:Robert Ocegueda [mailto:bocegueda at gmail.com] Sent: Saturday, January 16, 2010 1:22 AM To: Bob Ocegueda Subject: Move your money! Dear friends and family, Well!... here's a Happy New Year idea that makes sense and we can all get behind. "People all over the country are choosing to move their money out of bigger banks and into smaller, community-oriented financial institutions that generally avoided the reckless investments and schemes that helped cause the financial crisis. Fueled by the personal initiatives of thousands, it?s a grassroots effort that has the potential to shift power in the financial system away from Wall Street and to Main Street. Check out the video, read up on what inspired the idea, connect with others through Facebook and Twitter and then use the tools and links provided to find a community bank or credit union in your area." http://moveyourmoney.info/ >From "The Nation" magazine editorial: "Are you angry about Wall Street's reckless excesses? Are you disappointed with President Obama's limp approach to reform? You can change this, acting individually and collectively. Withdraw your deposit and savings accounts from the large banks that brought the system to ruin and were subsequently rescued with billions in government bailouts. Put your money instead in smaller, safer banks or credit unions closer to home--the thousands of community institutions that do not harvest their profits from greed and recklessness." http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100201/editors?rel=emailNation I don't know if there are such things here in Europe, but there must be something similar I'd imagine. Pass the word. With much love, Bob -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mukhtaralam2000 at yahoo.com Sun Jan 24 01:14:43 2010 From: mukhtaralam2000 at yahoo.com (Dr.Muhammad Mukhtar Alam) Date: Sun, 24 Jan 2010 13:44:43 +0530 (IST) Subject: [GJM] Fw: Haiti and a Fair New World Message-ID: <666781.89085.qm@web94910.mail.in2.yahoo.com> ?Pain from Haiti needs collective action for relief.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 ----- Forwarded Message ---- From: pippa bartolotti To: mukhtaralam2000 at yahoo.com Sent: Sun, 24 January, 2010 1:08:05 AM Subject: Haiti and a Fair New World ? ? There are two types of people who will tell you that you cannot make a difference in this world. Those who are afraid to try themselves, and those who are afraid that you will succeed ? ?Our money, credit and tax systems are confused and overly complicated. They are designed to discourage the subversion of justice by the greedy few, but no-one really understands them. Systems are created by humans.? If they are flawed or incomplete only humans can change them. Systems should be targeted by our emotions and minds, not by socialists or capitalists.? The systems we have compelled ourselves to work with determine whether our behaviour and thoughts will encourage vices like greed or envy, or virtue and the good habit of justice Every citizen has the personal responsibility to organize with others to make their social system as fair as possible. A simple tax shift would keep more money in the pockets of ordinary taxpayers to cover, education, housing and other basic household living expenses. Elected representatives could be more directly accountable and responsive. In one move we could eliminate the tax loopholes and exemptions for the super-rich that unjustly discriminate against poor and non-rich families. You and I are the leaders and activists who need to?come together with passionate clarity?concerning the fundamentals of economic justice in order to build a powerful?force and create?a fair global society, a world that works for everyone, a Fair New World. The rebuilding of Haiti can help serve this larger purpose. Haiti's vulnerability to natural disasters, its food shortages, poverty, deforestation and lack of infrastructure, are not accidental. To say that it is the poorest nation in the Western hemisphere is to miss the point; Haiti was made poor - by France, the United States, Great Britain, other Western powers and by the IMF and the World Bank. ?Very few individuals and corporations in Haiti - less than 1% - own and control most of the land. The island is 99% deforested, the cash crops are exported under unfair trade deals which have led to greater and greater debt. Most of the people are landless or have no papers to show that the land they have lived on for generations is indeed theirs. Vast numbers?have been trying?to survive on just one or two dollars a day; children scavenge garbage?dumps for scraps?of food leftover from the plates of?US soldiers stationed there; and that was before the earthquake. Up to about 30 years ago, Haiti was self sufficient in the production of rice, but the terms of the IMF loan required that the island reduce tariff protections for its rice and other agricultural products.? By 1988, so much American rice had invaded the country (the US has by far the largest voice in decisions of the IMF), that it became unprofitable for many Haitian farmers to continue planting. The US rice farmers were enjoying subsidies totalling around US$1B per year. The farmers in Haiti got nothing and were forced to move with their families to the cities to find work. That is why so many have died. Development beyond the current crisis: It is possible for a fair and just society?to be raised from this human disaster. For basic needs to be secured for all, the land problem in Haiti?must be addressed through land reform and land value taxation. There needs to be: ????????? Establishment of?community land trusts?and allocation of?land for?ecological villages. ????????? Implementation of?a transparent public finance system based on land value taxation as called for by?the UN Habitat and the Global Land Tool Network. ?When secure and equitable land tenure is established, the following basic human needs can be met: 1.?????? potable water 2.?????? reforestation 3.?????? agricultural fields (rice and root crops) and?appropriate technology 4.?????? wind and solar energy 5.?????? dairy farms (goats, cows) 6.?????? cotton and hemp?fields for fabric and building material 7.?????? mangosteen, mango, pineapple, papaya,?trees, nut trees/ coconut trees, ground nuts 8.?????? holistic heath centres. 9.?????? educational institutions 10.?? cooperatives. 11.?? small industries. ? One way we can help Haitians build a better tomorrow is to convince global creditors to cancel Haiti?s $890 million international debt.Doing so will help make sure that every possible future dollar goes towards rebuilding a stronger Haiti, not to servicing old debts. This is not charity ? it is justice. ? Sign the petition below to ask Haiti's creditors to act quickly and cancel Haiti's debts: http://one.org/international/actnow/haiti/index.html?rc=haiticonfemail ? With thanks to Allanna Hartzok http://www.earthrights.net/about/hartzok.html and Don Killoran Info on Land reform: http://www.policyinnovations.org/ideas/innovations/data/000150? and http://policy.greenparty.org.uk/mfss/mfssec.html#Direct ?Enlightened contributions are always welcome. Catch up with past mailings at www.coexister.blogspot.com COEXIST is an ever growing group of people and organisations who believe that true and lasting Peace can only be sustained when economic, social and environmental justice have been achieved.? Our membership is open and free.? All we ask is that you pass this email to people in your network who share our values and who would like to be part of the construction of a more just and sustainable future. To join or unsubscribe all you have to do is send us an email at coexist at pippa-bartolotti.co.uk The INTERNET now has a personality. YOURS! See your Yahoo! Homepage. http://in.yahoo.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/png Size: 46360 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/vnd.ms-officetheme Size: 3097 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/xml Size: 313 bytes Desc: not available URL: From rodney.shakespeare1 at btopenworld.com Sun Jan 24 01:56:41 2010 From: rodney.shakespeare1 at btopenworld.com (Rodney Shakespeare) Date: Sun, 24 Jan 2010 08:56:41 -0000 Subject: [GJM] Total Lack of Imagination, and Creativity!! The LSE Encounter. References: <894834.82293.qm@web27404.mail.ukl.yahoo.com><008601ca9b6b$daf51060$4001a8c0@your447023ae6b> <31f677a31001220714q65a7645yee985afebb3ab89e@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <007f01ca9cd3$2605d770$4001a8c0@your447023ae6b> Mukhtar, Exactly Rodney S. ----- Original Message ----- From: Centre For Ecological Audit,Social Inclusion & Governance To: Discussion Forum for Global Justice Sent: Friday, January 22, 2010 3:14 PM Subject: Re: [GJM] Total Lack of Imagination,and Creativity!! The LSE Encounter. Dear Rodney, You are right, do these economist taught on the theory of interest would ever delearn the lesson. In the post usury economy, I think we will have to ensure that the new paradigm is made a mandatory part of curriculum before this is instituted across the world. Dr.Muhammad Mukhtar Alam On Fri, Jan 22, 2010 at 7:34 PM, Rodney Shakespeare wrote: Robert, Good try These conventional academic economists are hopeless. At a time when President Obama is supposedly launching an attack at least on parts of the banking system for the disaster it has caused, these nerks having nothing to say. Rodney Shakespear.e ----- Original Message ----- From: robert searle To: discussion at globaljusticemovement.net Sent: Friday, January 22, 2010 10:37 AM Subject: [GJM] Total Lack of Imagination, and Creativity!! The LSE Encounter. I went on Wednesday to the LSE meeting in regards to the status quo of economics. It had some distinguished guests including Professor Ormerod, and Professor Hodgson. They gave some insignts into the parlous, and highly questionable nature of mainstream economics. But inevitably they did not offer anything new, or anything of real importance. After the presentations there was a session in which the mainly student audience asked some questions. However, they had the tendency of rambling on, and on...until my time came... I made the point in no uncertain terms that economics lack imagination, and creativity! This caused a stir, and the audience laughed, or in part "glared" at me. I went further by suggesting the need for a new global paradigm, and referred to my developing project of TRANSFINANCIAL ECONOMICS which I believe could be the system of the future. I also made the point that money itself was created electronically by banks out of thin air by means of credit creation. I got the distinct impression that in spite of their education the audience did not really fully understand the full import of what was said..though I may be wrong. Anyway, Professor Hodgson seemed to indicate that no paradigm could be ruled out, and another academic hinted at the possibility of misuse of anything new. This is just the gist of what they seemed to have said. http://www.p2pfoundation.net/Transfinancial_Economics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_Hodgson http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Ormerod -------------------------------------------------------------------------- _______________________________________________ Discussion mailing list Discussion at globaljusticemovement.net http://globaljusticemovement.net/mailman/listinfo/discussion_globaljusticemovement.net _______________________________________________ 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 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ 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 Mon Jan 25 04:24:23 2010 From: dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk (robert searle) Date: Mon, 25 Jan 2010 11:24:23 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [GJM] Beyond Redistribution................. Message-ID: <550663.13468.qm@web27405.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> ? The following is in connection with a post on the question of introducing a Global Transaction Tax, and comes from the Real Economics Blogspot (ie. Paecon). I give a reply below in connection with it. ? ? ? Morally, the old idea of a Global Transaction Tax is correct. But as we all know, or should know it is unlikely to happen even with the help of a petition from ?respected? economists!! It ultimately requires global cooperation with governments, and huge public support. In the latter case a form of grassroots activism known as Simultaneous Policy could prove ?invaluable?. ? As far as I am concerned taxation is backward economic thinking. It is old hat. At first sight it can appear fair. But what ?price? should we put on global warming, and economic development issues?? Would it not be a better, and more powerful way for ?enough? new money to be created electronically in a responsible manner with, or without benefit to the banking system? Or would a campaign based on the notion of redistribution which would probably take many years to come about if at all be a better approach? It does not require an economist to understand what is the best way forward, and more importantly the easiest approach with the right legal framework. What is at stake here is not just the present banking system but quite literally the survival of humanity especially in regards to global warming? Can we not think outside of the box of the redistribution mantra?? ? ? The point to understand here is that it is not really important whether the bankers, and their ilke get more wealthy. Yet, it does if it leads to greater environmental degradation, and poverty. The solution is Transfinancial Economics because with it there are always financial incentives to undertake projects (especially ?unviable? ones) concerned with the environment, and poverty reduction. Using redistribution methods of charity, and taxation only slows down the process making it UNNECESSARILY more difficult.. ? Do we understand this, or not? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk Mon Jan 25 04:38:58 2010 From: dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk (robert searle) Date: Mon, 25 Jan 2010 11:38:58 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [GJM] Fw: Re: [toeslist] Economic Crisis Savages Public Education [ [ re corporate contribution to / control of political sysetm core problem] Message-ID: <604.15851.qm@web27404.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> --- On Mon, 25/1/10, robert searle wrote: From: robert searle Subject: Re: [toeslist] Economic Crisis Savages Public Education [ [ re corporate contribution to / control of political sysetm core problem] To: toeslist at yahoogroups.com Date: Monday, 25 January, 2010, 11:38 ? ? ? Why can t corporations, and banks be part of the solution. Why must it continually be a them and us scenario? See my project ? ?? http://www.p2pfoundation.net/Transfinancial_Economics ? ? The key to the problem is a NEW UNDERSTANDING OF CAPITAL. It is also true that who, or what has this power is very important. However, it is not totally impossible to create a system in which corporation, and banks are not a problem with the right financial incentives that are more in line with global justice. ? ? --- On Mon, 25/1/10, Janet M Eaton wrote: From: Janet M Eaton Subject: [toeslist] Economic Crisis Savages Public Education [ [ re corporate contribution to / control of political sysetm core problem] To: toeslist at yahoogroups.com Date: Monday, 25 January, 2010, 11:26 ? Capitalist crises, especially severe ones, are case studies in that system's social costs.... Reacting to the economic crisis, both Bush's and Obama's administrations have allowed the state and local funding supports for public education to decline nationwide. Educational opportunities shrink as educational inequality rises. The explanation for this state of affairs exposes core problems of US politics. Politicians depend on corporations and the rich for the contributions and contacts needed for election. Campaigns for all major local, regional, and national offices now depend especially on buying expensive mass media exposure. Candidates' ads must pander to "common sense" ideas such as those that demonize all taxes and government economic interventions. Those ideas are promoted by think tanks, foundations, university institutes, etc. likewise financed by corporations and the rich. Politicians concerned about their careers dare not seek extra state revenues from the corporations and the rich. Instead they cut state services not favored by their patrons. Since children of the rich increasingly attend private schools or certain elite public schools, politicians end up cutting chiefly the public education that serves everyone else. As US corporations shift ever more skilled jobs overseas, they need fewer educated US workers. The US government's response to economic crisis might well be ironically renamed as "leave no banker behind." Yet a collapsing public education system threatens society's future no less than a collapsing credit market. A president who campaigned on a program of hope presides over its evaporation for most children. ---Rick Wolff, Professor Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, a Visiting Professor at the Graduate Program in International Affairs of the New School University in New York and author of a new book Capitalism Hits the Fan: The Global Economic Meltdown and What to Do about It.See website below. ============ ========= ========= ========= Economic Crisis Savages Public Education Posted December 21st, 2009 by Rick Wolff Capitalist crises, especially severe ones, are case studies in that system's social costs. Because the dutifully conservative economics profession rarely studies such cases, let's do just that here by focusing on how the current capitalist crisis is damaging public education. Deteriorating schools leave scars lasting for many years. They undercut the quality of the skills and knowledge of the next generation in their individual capacities as workers, citizens, friends, parents, and so on. Nothing less than this nation's future is at stake. At one end of the country, California's Republican governor is cutting billions of dollars from the state's public education institutions and programs to cope with the impact of a 12 per cent unemployment rate on state revenues. The California Board of Regents on November 19, 2009 voted to raise tuition at the University of California (the nation's largest public university) by 32 per cent and to impose similar increases in graduate student and professional school fees. Tens of thousands of students have been excluded from public higher education enrollment this year in California. Partly students' deteriorating economic situations forced them to drop out, and partly they are responding to major tuition and fee increases in recent years. Even at the state's community colleges, fees rose 30 percent last year. Instead of finding revenues for the state from those most able to pay and best positioned economically to weather the current crisis, public education gets savaged. Meanwhile, "over the last two decades, the annual share of California's total income garnered by the top 1% of the state's earners went from 13.8% to 25.2%" according to the Los Angeles Times. The explanation for this state of affairs exposes core problems of US politics. Politicians depend on corporations and the rich for the contributions and contacts needed for election. Campaigns for all major local, regional, and national offices now depend especially on buying expensive mass media exposure. Candidates' ads must pander to "common sense" ideas such as those that demonize all taxes and government economic interventions. Those ideas are promoted by think tanks, foundations, university institutes, etc. likewise financed by corporations and the rich. Politicians concerned about their careers dare not seek extra state revenues from the corporations and the rich. Instead they cut state services not favored by their patrons. Since children of the rich increasingly attend private schools or certain elite public schools, politicians end up cutting chiefly the public education that serves everyone else. As US corporations shift ever more skilled jobs overseas, they need fewer educated US workers. At the opposite end of the country, on New York's densely populated Long Island, a recent study of public elementary and secondary schools documented anew the profound economic inequalities embedded within that part of the public education system in the US. Such public schools' funding depends on local property taxes plus help from the state government (as in all of the states). The new study proved yet again the resulting unequal educational opportunity forced on this nation's children: schools in rich neighborhoods could afford far better education than was afforded in all other schools. The study's lead author, Columbia University Professor Amy S. Wells, wrote: "In poorer schools, their ceiling is meeting state mandates; for more affluent schools, the academic floor is even higher than the poorer schools' ceiling." She added, "We found that in some wealthy districts, there were hundreds of applicants for a single teaching job, while in poorer districts just miles away, schools had difficulty attracting a single applicant for a teaching job." In the study's key conclusion: "There is a tremendous difference in what districts spend per-pupil. Even the state funding formula which is supposed to even out the disparities between districts does not end up doing that when all the funding streams are looked at in their totality." The economic crisis sharply worsens these public school inequalities in New York. The middle and poorer school districts display higher rates of unemployment and home foreclosures, more rapidly declining real estate values, and more tightly constricted family budgets than the rich school districts. The resulting pressures to lower property taxes will be greater in the middle and poorer districts than in the rich districts. School funding will suffer accordingly. Inequality inside public education will grow alongside that between public and private education. Deepening educational inequality will reinforce the subsequent inequality of qualifications, jobs, and incomes that this generation of young people will suffer. Nor is the state of New York helping, let alone offsetting, Long Island's deteriorating public schools. On the contrary, responding to the economic crisis, Democratic governor Patterson this December cut $750 million from the current budget's provision for schools and local governments and has proposed a 2009-2010 budget that would cut school aid by another $700 million while also imposing new fees such as an 18 per cent sales tax on soft drinks ("to combat obesity"), eliminating the sales-tax exemption on clothing and footwear under $110, and imposing a sales tax on cable and satellite radio. While such aid cuts damage public education directly, the proposed additional regressive tax increases will further fuel demands for property tax relief that undermines funding for schools. Reacting to the economic crisis, both Bush's and Obama's administrations have allowed the state and local funding supports for public education to decline nationwide. Educational opportunities shrink as educational inequality rises. >From coast to coast, most students' job, income, and life prospects fall ever further behind those of children of the rich. The US government's response to economic crisis might well be ironically renamed as "leave no banker behind." Yet a collapsing public education system threatens society's future no less than a collapsing credit market. A president who campaigned on a program of hope presides over its evaporation for most children. Rick Wolff is a Professor Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst and also a Visiting Professor at the Graduate Program in International Affairs of the New School University in New York. He is the author of New Departures in Marxian Theory (Routledge, 2006) among many other publications. Check out Rick Wolff's documentary film on the current economic crisis, Capitalism Hits the Fan, at www.capitalismhitst hefan.com. Visit Wolff's Web site at www.rdwolff. com, and order a copy of his new book Capitalism Hits the Fan: The Global Economic Meltdown and What to Do about It. URL: mrzine.monthlyrevie w.org/wolff18120 9.html ------- End of forwarded message ------- __._,_.___ 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 Switch to: Text-Only, Daily Digest ? Unsubscribe ? Terms of Use . __,_._,___ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk Mon Jan 25 09:24:31 2010 From: dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk (robert searle) Date: Mon, 25 Jan 2010 16:24:31 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [GJM] Fw: Re: [toeslist] Economic Crisis Savages Public Education [ [ re corporate contribution to / control of political sysetm core pr Message-ID: <729423.54513.qm@web27405.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> --- On Mon, 25/1/10, Janet M Eaton wrote: From: Janet M Eaton Subject: Re: [toeslist] Economic Crisis Savages Public Education [ [ re corporate contribution to / control of political sysetm core pr To: toeslist at yahoogroups.com Date: Monday, 25 January, 2010, 14:13 ? MY sense is that we must move beyond big banks to alternatives where people and communities matter - people centered economics as David Korten talks about and people and community centered financing as this list has been discussing !! Big banks are too deep in the mire of corruption to be reformed and as analysis of corporate globalization of which big banks, IMF, World Bank are a part, has shown it has led to the collapse of financial systems, the food system, collapse of ecosystems [climate change, water scarcity, sick seas etc] and end of cheap oil alias peak oil] and end of American empire [ or to the post -American world as Fareed Zakaria calls it even though his analysis is very conservative] Only people centred, community centred ecologically sustainable economic, financial and political systems [ paradigm ] change offers any hope for the future. Of course with some kind of humane and principled international system of coordination - hopefully with ideas of citizens managing the commons. The only way that can happen is with Leadership from many countries coming together as they did with the financial crisis only recognizing the planet and people as foremost instead of maintaining failed and flawed systems It is time for a new economic analysis and a major critiquing of the underlying flawed assumptions of classical economic model and of neoliberal globalization which perpetrates its injustices and undermines years of progressive legislation designed to provide balance in our systems. Throughout history robber barons, corporations under personhood, have continually passed legislation to their advantage or undermined legislation in place to control them. At this eleventh hour with the chaos and collapse on every horizon the only choice is citizen led movements for change as many have noted. all the best, janet p.s In Canada yesterday we had thousands of citizens speaking out and protesting against a prime minister who is a libertarian conservative attempting to undermine democracy while masquerading as a strong manger of the economy. There is talk of a social movement emerging to reclaim democracy... More on that later. On 25 Jan 2010 at 11:38, robert searle wrote: To: toeslist at yahoogroup s.com From: robert searle Date sent: Mon, 25 Jan 2010 11:38:05 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Re: [toeslist] Economic Crisis Savages Public Education [ [ re corporate contribution to / control of political sysetm core problem] Send reply to: toeslist at yahoogroup s.com __._,_.___ Reply to sender | Reply to group Messages in this topic (3) Recent Activity: Visit Your Group Start a New Topic MARKETPLACE Going Green: Your Yahoo! Groups resource for green living Switch to: Text-Only, Daily Digest ? Unsubscribe ? Terms of Use . __,_._,___ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk Mon Jan 25 09:30:43 2010 From: dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk (Robert Searle) Date: 25 Jan 2010 08:30:43 -0800 Subject: [GJM] UFOs on top scientist's agenda - Yahoo! News UK Message-ID: Robert Searle (dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk) has sent you a news article X-Originating-IP: 77.238.190.42 -------------------- Personal message text: Might be of interest!!! -------------------- UFOs on top scientist's agenda http://uk.news.yahoo.com/4/20100125/tuk-ufos-on-top-scientist-s-agenda-dba1618.html ============================================================ From dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk Tue Jan 26 04:11:01 2010 From: dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk (dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk) Date: 26 Jan 2010 06:11:01 -0500 Subject: [GJM] May the Best Theory Win Message-ID: <201001261111.o0QBB1NO028246@relay2.wpprivate.com> Your friend, dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk, wants you to check out this article: http://www.newsweek.com/id/232111 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk Wed Jan 27 03:12:04 2010 From: dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk (Robert Searle) Date: 27 Jan 2010 02:12:04 -0800 Subject: [GJM] What us, worry? Banks double down on risk - Yahoo! News UK Message-ID: Robert Searle (dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk) has sent you a news article X-Originating-IP: 217.12.6.109 -------------------- Personal message text: -------------------- What us, worry? Banks double down on risk http://uk.news.yahoo.com/22/20100127/tts-uk-davos-specialreport-ca02f96.html ============================================================ From maryrose333 at att.net Sun Jan 24 18:05:04 2010 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Sun, 24 Jan 2010 17:05:04 -0800 Subject: [GJM] Change Your Mind Change Your Life Message-ID: <000701ca9d5a$a1049510$e30dbf30$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS Reprogramming the human mind so that we are moving out of fundamentalist belief systems and into multi-dimensional ones that are more in tune with the complexity of life on Earth today is vital if we are to survive as the human family. We simply cannot survive today in a world where fundamentalism is the core belief system - it simply is not adequate to address the reality in which we live. So, I'm posting two videos here in which four of the world's most respected physicists and researchers discuss how changing one's thoughts can affect change in one's life. The four are: J. D. Knight who channels as Ramantha; Candace Pert, a research pharmacologist formerly associated with NIH; researcher Dean Radin now associated with the Institute of Noetic Science; and quantam physicist: Fred Alan Woolf. Incidentally, I do not believe that people channel thoughts. My belief is that their body/mind field is configured in such a way as to create the "holographic" brain/mind field which is "all-knowing and all-seeing" and thus able to tap into the Zero Point or Akashic energy field where all memory of all time is stored. And, in so doing they have encountered the energy field of someone who is now deceased and are reading that field. Change your mind change your life part 1 - Larry King http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeZnXD7jbYk &NR=1 Change your mind change your life part 2 - Larry King http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oumw_w0RdxA 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 ceasig at gmail.com Mon Jan 25 10:52:16 2010 From: ceasig at gmail.com (Centre For Ecological Audit, Social Inclusion & Governance) Date: Mon, 25 Jan 2010 23:22:16 +0530 Subject: [GJM] Fw: Re: [toeslist] Economic Crisis Savages Public Education [ [ re corporate contribution to / control of political sysetm core pr In-Reply-To: <729423.54513.qm@web27405.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> References: <729423.54513.qm@web27405.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <31f677a31001250952v5240e65eleefbf97c60d69979@mail.gmail.com> Dear Robert, I am pleased to share that I have shared the letter as a blog at http://transitionurbanindia.ning.com/profiles/blogs/signs-of-the-times-call-of I hope Janet would not have objections for this. Dr.Muhammad Mukhtar Alam On Mon, Jan 25, 2010 at 9:54 PM, robert searle wrote: > > > --- On *Mon, 25/1/10, Janet M Eaton * wrote: > > > From: Janet M Eaton > Subject: Re: [toeslist] Economic Crisis Savages Public Education [ [ re > corporate contribution to / control of political sysetm core pr > To: toeslist at yahoogroups.com > Date: Monday, 25 January, 2010, 14:13 > > > MY sense is that we must move beyond big banks to alternatives where > people and communities matter - people centered economics as David > Korten talks about and people and community centered financing as > this list has been discussing !! > Big banks are too deep in the mire of corruption to be reformed and > as analysis of corporate globalization of which big banks, IMF, World > Bank are a part, has shown it has led to the collapse of financial > systems, the food system, collapse of ecosystems [climate change, > water scarcity, sick seas etc] and end of cheap oil alias peak oil] > and end of American empire [ or to the post -American world as Fareed > Zakaria calls it even though his analysis is very conservative] > Only people centred, community centred ecologically sustainable > economic, financial and political systems [ paradigm ] change offers > any hope for the future. Of course with some kind of humane and > principled international system of coordination - hopefully with > ideas of citizens managing the commons. > > The only way that can happen is with Leadership from many countries > coming together as they did with the financial crisis only > recognizing the planet and people as foremost instead of maintaining > failed and flawed systems > > It is time for a new economic analysis and a major critiquing of the > underlying flawed assumptions of classical economic model and of > neoliberal globalization which perpetrates its injustices and > undermines years of progressive legislation designed to provide > balance in our systems. > > Throughout history robber barons, corporations under personhood, have > continually passed legislation to their advantage or undermined > legislation in place to control them. At this eleventh hour with the > chaos and collapse on every horizon the only choice is citizen led > movements for change as many have noted. > > all the best, > janet > > p.s In Canada yesterday we had thousands of citizens speaking out and > protesting against a prime minister who is a libertarian conservative > attempting to undermine democracy while masquerading as a strong > manger of the economy. There is talk of a social movement emerging to > reclaim democracy... > > More on that later. > > On 25 Jan 2010 at 11:38, robert searle wrote: > > To: toeslist at yahoogroup s.com > From: robert searle > > > Date sent: Mon, 25 Jan 2010 11:38:05 +0000 (GMT) > Subject: Re: [toeslist] Economic Crisis Savages Public Education [ [ > re corporate contribution to / control of political sysetm core > problem] > Send reply to: toeslist at yahoogroup s.com > > __._,_.___ > Reply to sender| Reply > to group > Messages in this topic( > 3) > Recent Activity: > > > Visit Your Group Start > a New Topic > MARKETPLACE > Going Green: Your Yahoo! Groups resource for green living > [image: Yahoo! Groups] > Switch to: Text-Only, > Daily Digest? > Unsubscribe? Terms > of Use > . > > __,_._,___ > > > > _______________________________________________ > 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 Mon Jan 25 15:33:07 2010 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Mon, 25 Jan 2010 14:33:07 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: 5 Handi-Wipes or Hot Shower? Message-ID: <007a01ca9e0e$8b383d90$a1a8b8b0$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS From: do_not_reply at motherjones.com [mailto:do_not_reply at motherjones.com] Sent: Monday, January 25, 2010 3:03 AM To: maryrose333 at att.net Subject: 5 Handi-Wipes or Hot Shower? ECONUNDRUMS YOUR ENVIRONMENTAL DILEMMAS SOLVED MOTHER JONES January 25, 2010 THIS WEEK'S CONUNDRUM 5 Handi Wipes or Hot Shower? This question comes by way of Mother Jones board member Jon Pageler , who's currently helping with the relief effort in Haiti, where water is in short supply. But I've heard of folks taking waterless showers in nonemergency situations, too. Last year, for example, People reported that Brad Pitt sometimes cleans up with baby wipes. Granted, Pitt does it to save time between scene changes on the set. But considering that showers comprise 17 percent of indoor residential water use in the US, could bathing with wipes be better for the planet, too? Probably not, says Jonathan Kaledin, a water conservation expert at the Nature Conservancy. "You have to consider all the water it takes to make the Handi Wipes," he says. "The wipes, the chemicals-it all adds up." The Water Footprint Network, a water conservation nonprofit based in the Netherlands, estimates that growing the wood to make a single sheet of paper requires 2.6 gallons of water. That's already 13.2 gallons for 5 sheets of paper-and that's just the wood. By the time you figure in the water costs associated with the manufacture of the paper, producing the solution the wipes are soaked in, and packaging and shipping the wipes, you're looking at significantly more water (and energy, for that matter) than a five-minute shower, which, if you're using a low-flow showerhead, requires only about 10 gallons of water. Under extenuating circumstances-disasters that jeopardize water supply, or even regional droughts-wipes might still be a better choice, says Kaledin. But as a general rule, a short shower is a better bet than wipes. Especially if you bathe efficiently: Keep the heat down to save energy. Turn the water off while you soap up. And if you haven't already installed a low-flow showerhead, do it now-it'll save as much as 15 gallons of water per shower, not to mention moola on your water bill. Shopping tip: Showerheads bearing the EPA's WaterSense label are about 20 percent more efficient than their conventional counterparts. [READ MORE] MORE FROM MOJO Curing the Copenhangover Now that we have a little perspective on the Copenhagen climate talks, it's time for reflection. "Depending on how you look at it," writes Bill McKibben , "the talks ended either in ignominious failure, or vanilla failure, or just-about-but-not-quite-that-bad failure." Ouch. So is it time to throw in the towel? No way. The talks' failure means it's even more important that we take action, and soon. First up: capping carbon and investing in tech solutions. But we can't stop there. Next: Quit infighting and build a bigger movement. MORE ENVIRONMENTAL & HEALTH COVERAGE Mud: The New Plastic Reasearchers have fashioned a super strong, self-healing, transparent, and elastic "plastic" from clay, water, a thickening agent, and an organic "molecular glue." [READ MORE] Why Lawns Suck The turfgrass in lawns works hard to store our harmful CO2 emissions in the form of organic carbon in the soil. But the way we tend lawns actually creates four times more emissions than the grasses sequester. [READ MORE] Ironweed MOST POPULAR * Meet the Madoff Minions * Email Dump * Stevens Accuses Supreme Court Conservatives of Judicial Activism * Corruption in Afghanistan: It's Even Worse Than You Think MOST ACTIVE DISCUSSION Pass the Damn Bill! Kevin Drum: It's beyond belief that we could get this close to a century-old goal of liberalism-and then allow the most significant social legislation of the past 40 years to slip from our grasp just because we're tired and pissed. So let's pass the healthcare reform bill already! [READ MORE] Follow MoJo's environmental coverage on Twitter Read the Blue Marble Want more environmental coverage from Mother Jones? Subscribe to the magazine for just $10/year by clicking here ! Ironweed Hi. Thanks for signing up for Mother Jones' Econundrums newsletter. Wait, that was your cat? Smart cat! If you don't want to get Econundrums, or to make changes to your subscription, click here. And lock up the cat. WWW.MOTHERJONES.COM Mother Jones 222 Sutter Street, Suite 600, San Francisco, CA 94108 Mother Jones -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From maryrose333 at att.net Mon Jan 25 15:42:07 2010 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Mon, 25 Jan 2010 14:42:07 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: A Little Consciousness Physics News Message-ID: <007f01ca9e0f$d8e75de0$8ab619a0$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS Thanks to Robynne McWayne for this one. As one contemplates the multi-dimensional universe In which we find ourselves living today, one is forced to ask whether or not a fundamental belief system can adequately address the challenges we face. From: Rob McWayne [mailto:wrmcwayne at hotmail.com] Sent: Monday, January 25, 2010 11:09 AM Subject: A Little Consciousness Physics News This is pretty cool! (From Terra Daily out of the UK, my ~ only "newspaper") EXO LIFE Looking For Life In The Multiverse Alejandro Jenkins is a researcher at Florida State University. Credit: Florida State University by Alejandro Jenkins Miami FL (SPX) Jan 18, 2010 Is there anybody out there? In Alejandro Jenkins' case, the question refers not to whether life exists elsewhere in the universe, but whether it exists in other universes outside of our own. While that might be a mind-blowing concept for the layperson to ponder, it's all in a day's work for Jenkins, a postdoctoral associate in theoretical high-energy physics at The Florida State University. In fact, his deep thoughts on the hypothetical "multiverse" - think of it as a mega-universe full of numerous smaller universes, including our own - are now receiving worldwide attention, thanks to a cover article he co-wrote for the January 2010 issue of Scientific American magazine. In "Looking for Life in the Multiverse," Jenkins and co-writer Gilad Perez, a theorist at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, discuss a provocative hypothesis known as the anthropic principle, which states that the existence of intelligent life (capable of studying physical processes) imposes constraints on the possible form of the laws of physics. "Our lives here on Earth - in fact, everything we see and know about the universe around us - depend on a precise set of conditions that makes us possible," Jenkins said. "For example, if the fundamental forces that shape matter in our universe were altered even slightly, it's conceivable that atoms never would have formed, or that the element carbon, which is considered a basic building block of life as we know it, wouldn't exist. So how is it that such a perfect balance exists? Some would attribute it to God, but of course, that is outside the realm of physics." The theory of "cosmic inflation," which was developed in the 1980s in order to solve certain puzzles about the structure of our universe, predicts that ours is just one of countless universes to emerge from the same primordial vacuum. We have no way of seeing those other universes, although many of the other predictions of cosmic inflation have recently been corroborated by astrophysical measurements. Given some of science's current ideas about high-energy physics, it is plausible that those other universes might each have different physical interactions. So perhaps it's no mystery that we would happen to occupy the rare universe in which conditions are just right to make life possible. This is analogous to how, out of the many planets in our universe, we occupy the rare one where conditions are right for organic evolution. "What theorists like Dr. Perez and I do is tweak the calculations of the fundamental forces in order to predict the resulting effects on possible, alternative universes," Jenkins said. "Some of these results are easy to predict; for example, if there was no electromagnetic force, there would be no atoms and no chemical bonds. And without gravity, matter wouldn't coalesce into planets, stars and galaxies. "What is surprising about our results is that we found conditions that, while very different from those of our own universe, nevertheless might allow - again, at least hypothetically - for the existence of life. (What that life would look like is another story entirely.) This actually brings into question the usefulness of the anthropic principle when applied to particle physics, and might force us to think more carefully about what the multiverse would actually contain." Jenkins has degrees from Harvard University and the California Institute of Technology, and he previously conducted postgraduate research on the topic of alternative universes while at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Despite all of his training, however, the Scientific American article was unexpected. "I am very proud of our research, but to be honest, I think that this had something to do with the fact that people are naturally intrigued by speculative ideas about cosmology and the 'big picture.' "The idea of parallel universes, in particular, is one that many people find exciting," Jenkins said. "The current season of (the Fox-TV comedy) 'Family Guy' recently premiered with an episode called 'Road to the Multiverse,' which was premised on the idea that one can visit other universes - although that seems impossible given what we know about physics. Nevertheless, whether other universes actually exist is a question that has consequences for our understanding of physics in this world. I think our research raises important questions in that regard." Hot Tips of the Day: Order fresh, flash frozen environmentally caught SALMON online from our awesome one-boat family business at http://www.lokifish.com/store.html Automate keeping in touch with your clients, (friends and family, too!) with real, stamped, mailed cards via the internet: http://www.SendOutCards.com/greatcardswork Top grossing, all inclusive, quick start-up, home based business, Check it out:: http://www.HomeJobs-OfflineBiztoWeb.com Specific directions to save gas and the planet by building your own easy hydrogen-hybrid system (with on-demand hydrogen, so no dangerous storage tank) for your gasoline or diesel powered car, truck, or generator. Info, plans, instructions - 6 ebooks total, soon for FREE! Get on the waiting list: http://www.WaterHybridYourCar.info i'mEMAILING FOR THE GREATER GOOD Join me -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From maryrose333 at att.net Mon Jan 25 19:38:48 2010 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Mon, 25 Jan 2010 18:38:48 -0800 Subject: [GJM] Economic Crisis Savages Public Education Message-ID: <00aa01ca9e30$e0a0bdd0$a1e23970$@net> Moving Into TOTAL WELLNESS My comment on this is that schooling as we know it today is definitely pass?. As Einstein indicated, we cannot address the challenges we face with the same kind of thinking that got us into the mess in the first place. As we have discussed previously, the school system is rampant with teachers who ?teach? to the left hemisphere of the brain turning out left-brain linear thinkers. In The Biology of Transcendence, Joseph Chilton Pearce points out that approximately 75% of the population of the U.S.is left-brain oriented. A decidedly out of balance situation since the norm into which most children are born is ?whole brain?oriented?. However, by the age of about 7 to 10 years, through the influence of significant others in a child?s life coupled with the current style of teaching, most children are moving into the left-brain configuration pattern which will remain with them the rest of their life unless and conscious effort is made to transform the pattern. So, it is not continued attendance in the present system which directs attention toward the development of corporate programs that is needed, but a whole new way of thinking about education. What appears to be needed most is a system whereby learning is directed toward restoring the Earth?s fragile ecosystems so that they are operating at peak performance and thus able to expand carrying capacity. And, there is no better way to do this than to engage the community itself in hands-on-experiential learning programs which bring the minds of community members into play as a group with the community itself being the experiential classroom. As I have written previously, we must break the mold here and move into a new paradigm that is not based on job creation, but on bringing food sovereignty into play and re-establishing it as the cornerstone of the freedom we once knew. When the whole economy is dependent upon people working in jobs in order to earn money to purchase the necessities of life, and the job market collapses as it is today, there is no place for people to turn for sustenance. The result of this is millions and millions of people migrating around the world in search of food, shelter and a better way of life. In 1997, there were one hundred million people, many of them women and children, in migration searching for a place that would allow them to keep food in mouth and shelter over head. Let me repeat here again that due to advances in technology it only takes 30% of the presently available worldwide labor force necessary to provide all the goods and services necessary for the 6.7 billion of us on the planet. And as we move more and more into nanotechnology which we must do in order to conserve on scarce-growing natural resources, it will in the end require only 3 -4% of the presently available labor force to produce what is needed. As for scarce resources, the Ecological Footprint reveals that by the year 2030, just 20 short years away, it will require the equivalent of another Earth just to produce the equivalent of what we are using today. Something we know cannot happen. What these statistics reveal is that we are both ecologically and economically bankrupt today with no apparent exit strategy available to move us out of this quagmire and into another level of consciousness. We must begin to think out of the box and use more of our heart and mind to find solutions to challenges that appear to have none. While much of the world has moved into a system of working fewer hours with no reduction in pay, the U.S. has held fast and has continued to employ 75 percent of the presently available labor force. And it has done so by manufacturing luxury goods for sale to the elite. However, this practice has caused an extensive drawdown on the world?s resources resulting in the scenario mentioned above. While mining of the world?s waste dumps and recovering materials such as paper, and other items that may be recycled in order to provide some respite there is at present no way to retrieve the metals and other precious ores that have been utilized to fight endless wars and for which there is now no replacement. This post was submitted by Robert Searle of the GJM List From: Janet M Eaton Subject: Re: [toeslist] Economic Crisis Savages Public Education [ [ re corporate contribution to / control of political system core pr To: toeslist at yahoogroups.com Date: Monday, 25 January, 2010, 14:13 MY sense is that we must move beyond big banks to alternatives where people and communities matter - people centered economics as David Korten talks about and people and community centered financing as this list has been discussing !! Big banks are too deep in the mire of corruption to be reformed and as analysis of corporate globalization of which big banks, IMF, World Bank are a part, has shown it has led to the collapse of financial systems, the food system, collapse of ecosystems [climate change, water scarcity, sick seas etc] and end of cheap oil alias peak oil] and end of American empire [ or to the post -American world as Fareed Zakaria calls it even though his analysis is very conservative] Only people centered, community centered ecologically sustainable economic, financial and political systems [ paradigm ] change offers any hope for the future. Of course with some kind of humane and principled international system of coordination - hopefully with ideas of citizens managing the commons. The only way that can happen is with Leadership from many countries coming together as they did with the financial crisis only recognizing the planet and people as foremost instead of maintaining failed and flawed systems It is time for a new economic analysis and a major critiquing of the underlying flawed assumptions of classical economic model and of neoliberal globalization which perpetrates its injustices and undermines years of progressive legislation designed to provide balance in our systems. Throughout history robber barons, corporations under personhood, have continually passed legislation to their advantage or undermined legislation in place to control them. At this eleventh hour with the chaos and collapse on every horizon the only choice is citizen led movements for change as many have noted. all the best, janet p.s In Canada yesterday we had thousands of citizens speaking out and protesting against a prime minister who is a libertarian conservative attempting to undermine democracy while masquerading as a strong manger of the economy. There is talk of a social movement emerging to reclaim democracy... 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 Jan 25 21:57:21 2010 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Mon, 25 Jan 2010 20:57:21 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: David Wolfe and Dr. Mercola LIVE! Message-ID: <00b501ca9e44$40544630$c0fcd290$@net> From: David Wolfe [mailto:Dave at longevitynowprogram.com] Sent: Monday, January 25, 2010 12:46 PM To: maryrose333 at att.net Subject: David Wolfe and Dr. Mercola LIVE! I'm excited so many of you will be joining me along with 750 fellow health enthusiasts at the Longevity Conference this March! We don't have many seats left to this epic event, grab your ticket today if you don't already have one. We've brought in so many masters for you to learn from, many whom I have studied with and trust with my own health. They will "boost" your brain and body with the latest research, strategies, and power tools for feeling and looking your very best. To give you a small glimpse of what you'll discover at the live event, I want to give you this almost hour long preview interview with the brilliant Dr. Mercola. There is no cost or email to enter... Go Here And Listen Immediately When you go to the link, you will discover: + The importance of the vital energy contained in raw superfoods (biophoton availability) and how it increases your longevity and health. + The "B-Vitamin Dilemma" and what you can do to ensure these vital nutrients are part of your diet. + The #1 source of calories in the United States - and why you need to avoid it! + Learn the difference between vitamins D1, D2, and D3 and which one you may need immediately. + What are the best sources of DHA and EPA - and whether animal sources are the only options? + Get a unique medical doctors point of view on the health challenges that face us today. + The importance of having "Longevity Insurance" by supplementing your diet with the correct herbs and nutrients. + And so much more! This Call Is Packed Full Of Valuable Info (Click Here) Have the Best Day Ever! David "Avocado" Wolfe P.S. Remember tickets to this event are going fast, be sure and reserve your seat today to guarantee your seat! The amazing information you will hear on this interview is just the tip of the iceberg of what will be shared and revealed at the event. http://www.LongevityConference.com? 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 ceasig at gmail.com Tue Jan 26 03:41:44 2010 From: ceasig at gmail.com (Centre For Ecological Audit, Social Inclusion & Governance) Date: Tue, 26 Jan 2010 16:11:44 +0530 Subject: [GJM] Concept note for an international conference on Alternatives to Usurious and Ecologically Hostile Finance System Message-ID: <31f677a31001260241g54438b90y8e4ec038bc595285@mail.gmail.com> Dear Rodney and all distinguished members of Global Justice Movement, I am pleased to share that an international conference for disuccing the alternative to the dominant atheistic and ecologically hostile economic paradigm is being organised in New Delhi with the key facilitation by Centre for Agriculture and Rural Development on 21 and 22 April, 2010. I have included names of potential speakers. The list could have more .Please advice.I would like to share the concept note for the conference for your comments. Your support and advice would enable us to realise the objectives. Yours sincerely Dr.Muhammad Mukhtar Alam On Sun, Jan 24, 2010 at 2:26 PM, Rodney Shakespeare < rodney.shakespeare1 at btopenworld.com> wrote: > Mukhtar, > Exactly > Rodney S. > > ----- Original Message ----- > *From:* Centre For Ecological Audit,Social Inclusion & Governance > *To:* Discussion Forum for Global Justice > *Sent:* Friday, January 22, 2010 3:14 PM > *Subject:* Re: [GJM] Total Lack of Imagination,and Creativity!! The LSE > Encounter. > > Dear Rodney, > > You are right, do these economist taught on the theory of interest would > ever delearn the lesson. In the post usury economy, I think we will have to > ensure that the new paradigm is made a mandatory part of curriculum before > this is instituted across the world. > > Dr.Muhammad Mukhtar Alam > > On Fri, Jan 22, 2010 at 7:34 PM, Rodney Shakespeare < > rodney.shakespeare1 at btopenworld.com> wrote: > >> Robert, >> Good try >> >> These conventional academic economists are hopeless. At a time when >> President Obama is supposedly launching an attack at least on parts of the >> banking system for the disaster it has caused, these nerks having nothing >> to say. >> >> Rodney Shakespear.e >> >> ----- Original Message ----- >> *From:* robert searle >> *To:* discussion at globaljusticemovement.net >> *Sent:* Friday, January 22, 2010 10:37 AM >> *Subject:* [GJM] Total Lack of Imagination, and Creativity!! The LSE >> Encounter. >> >> >> >> I went on Wednesday to the LSE meeting in regards to the status quo of >> economics. It had some distinguished guests including Professor Ormerod, and >> Professor Hodgson. They gave some insignts into the parlous, and highly >> questionable nature of mainstream economics. But inevitably they did not >> offer anything new, or anything of real importance. >> >> After the presentations there was a session in which the mainly student >> audience asked some questions. However, they had the tendency of rambling >> on, and on...until my time came... >> >> I made the point in no uncertain terms that economics lack imagination, >> and creativity! This caused a stir, and the audience laughed, or in part >> "glared" at me. I went further by suggesting the need for a new global >> paradigm, and referred to my developing project of TRANSFINANCIAL ECONOMICS >> which I believe could be the system of the future. I also made the point >> that money itself was created electronically by banks out of thin air by >> means of credit creation. I got the distinct impression that in spite of >> their education the audience did not really fully understand the full import >> of what was said..though I may be wrong. >> >> Anyway, Professor Hodgson seemed to indicate that no paradigm could be >> ruled out, and another academic hinted at the possibility of misuse of >> anything new. This is just the gist of what they seemed to have said. >> >> >> http://www.p2pfoundation.net/Transfinancial_Economics >> >> >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_Hodgson >> >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Ormerod >> >> >> >> ------------------------------ >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Discussion mailing list >> Discussion at globaljusticemovement.net >> >> http://globaljusticemovement.net/mailman/listinfo/discussion_globaljusticemovement.net >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> 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 > > ------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > Discussion mailing list > Discussion at globaljusticemovement.net > > http://globaljusticemovement.net/mailman/listinfo/discussion_globaljusticemovement.net > > > _______________________________________________ > 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: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Concept_Note_International_Workshop_for_Interest_Free_Universal_Paradigm.doc Type: application/msword Size: 44544 bytes Desc: not available URL: From maryrose333 at att.net Tue Jan 26 12:35:53 2010 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Tue, 26 Jan 2010 11:35:53 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: Economic Crisis Savages Public Education - Marion Brady Message-ID: <000201ca9ebe$fb711ef0$f2535cd0$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS Comment from Co-learner's list member MARION BRADY -----Original Message----- From: Marion Brady [mailto:mbrady22 at cfl.rr.com] Sent: Tuesday, January 26, 2010 2:34 AM To: mary rose Subject: Re: Economic Crisis Savages Public Education Mary Rose wrote: >My comment on this is that schooling as we know it today is definitely pass?. As Einstein indicated, we cannot address the challenges we face with the same kind of thinking that got us into the mess in the first place.... Marion Brady asks: Did I post this? And contributes the following URL to an article published by him in the Washington Post. http://www.marionbrady.com/articles/2009-WashingtonPost12-23.pdf/ Marion Check out Marion's profile at: http://www.marionbrady.com/ From maryrose333 at att.net Tue Jan 26 13:29:04 2010 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Tue, 26 Jan 2010 12:29:04 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: The Education Reform Train is Off the Track - by Marion Brady (was: Economic Crisis Savages Public Education) - Message-ID: <001801ca9ec6$71219560$5364c020$@net> Sorry, everyone -- the link to Marion's article doesn't work so here is the real thing. Thanks Marion -----Original Message----- From: Marion Brady [mailto:mbrady22 at cfl.rr.com] Sent: Tuesday, January 26, 2010 12:11 PM To: mary rose Subject: Re: Economic Crisis Savages Public Education - Marion Brady comments >Marion Brady .... contributes the following URL to an article written by >him and published in the Washington Post. The URL doesn't work. Below is the Washington Post piece for 12-23-09 on education reform, cost, etc. Marion ----------------------- The Education Reform Train is Off the Track My more than 75 years in education as student, teacher, college professor, administrator, book and article author, newspaper columnist, publisher consultant, and visitor to schools around the world, have convinced me that most Americans are over-schooled and under-educated. Unfortunately, the federal dollars about to be channeled to the nation's schools will make the problem worse. Instead of triggering a fundamental rethinking of education, Arne Duncan's billions will simply hasten the destruction of the institution I love - universal, free, public schooling. Notwithstanding the press releases about the expected miracles from unleashed market forces, the money will be spent trying to salvage the institution rather than transform it (a strategy familiar to those who follow the banking industry). American education, simply and emphatically, is on a wrong track. As a vehicle for intellectual development, it began to slow down the day the young were pulled out of apprenticeships and other real-world learning experiences, put in rooms insulated from the real world, and made to sit, hands on desks, eyes front, mouths shut, being fire-hosed with facts. The vehicle moved slower still starting in 1893, when the so-called "core curriculum" was adopted, narrowing the focus of study to math, science, language arts and social studies, and ignoring the integrated nature of knowledge. It came to a stop and reversed when Congress mandated No Child Left Behind. Race To The Top will accelerate its backward movement. But the money will eventually run out. And when it does - when our aversion to taxes combines with our treasure-draining military adventures and forces us to live within our means - there will be genuine educational change. "Human history," said H.G. Wells, "is a race between education and catastrophe." Catastrophe has an ever-widening lead, and when the money's gone and the catastrophe hits, "genuine educational change" is inevitable. There will then be formal, official acceptance of a two-tier system - a privatized one for the relative few who can afford it, and a public one for the peasants. It's this public system that most interests me, for if we're to survive, it's the system that, much altered, will take the lead. The private one will be too preoccupied with trying to improve the teaching of the core curriculum. So, in no particular order, here are a few boundary-stretching suggestions aimed at those interested in thinking about building a system that costs a lot less money while helping kids get smarter: - Paying for student "seat time" is where the biggest chunk of money goes. Since most adults remember very little and use even less of what they "learned" in school after fourth grade, discontinue automatic seat-time funding for learners older than ten years of age. - Take the term "neighborhood school" seriously. Where there's interest, form mixed-age steering committees to think and talk about neighborhood educational needs. Give the committees a little working money, assistance if requested, and let a thousand flowers bloom. Sure, some will die, but only totalitarians think top down social change works better than bottom up. - Don't think "school building." Rent or lease centrally located space large enough to accommodate, say, 25 people, not necessarily in the same room at the same time. A house will do. - Radically cut the list of required subjects. Capitalizing on the integrated nature of knowledge makes possible efficiencies that can shorten the need for coaching to two or three hours a day, allowing the same facility to accommodate more than one session. - Hire two- or three-person professional instructional teams, based on interviews and team-written proposals for meeting learner needs, and identify neighborhood expertise, talent, and ability. - Stop buying textbooks. The real world surrounding every kid is a learning resource far richer and more challenging than any textbook. Help teachers learn how to use it. Add Internet access if desired. - Specialized, occupation-related instruction such as that now being offered in magnet schools will never be able to keep up with the rate of change in the world of work, so transfer responsibility for teaching specific skills and knowledge to users of those skills and knowledge - employers. They may resist, so sweeten the pot with subsidies as necessary. (A bonus: Apprenticeship and internship arrangements will go far toward smoothing the transition to responsible adulthood.) - Spend whatever it costs to test and fix sight and hearing problems, fill empty stomachs, and provide some stability. It's a waste of money to try to educate learners who don't hear or see well, are hungry or afraid. - Get corporate hands out of the education till, starting with standardized testing and test prep materials. No way can computer-scored tests measure what kids know, much less what they can actually do with what they know. Neither can they evaluate the complex thinking skills that survival requires. (Don't worry about accountability. After a few weeks, even a lousy teacher knows far more about a kid's performance and potential than can be learned from any paper and pencil test.) - Find out who each learner really is. It's a mystery to me how a society can simultaneously sing the praises of individualism while forcing every kid down the same assembly line. For a tiny fraction of the cost of high-stakes subject-matter tests, every kid's potential can be explored using inexpensive, off-the-shelf inventories of individual interests, abilities, personalities, and learning styles. - Forget grade and age levels. Start with where learners are and help them go as far as they can go in the direction they want to go. - Eliminate school buses, staff cars, athletic departments, athletic fields, cops on campus, attendance officers, warehouse workers, support personnel, and most non-teaching administrators. - Drastically shrink central administrations. Have them coordinate the forming of teacher teams, handle payroll, and relieve teams of paper shuffling, resource acquisition, and other non-instructional tasks. - Strip away all the non-academic roles and responsibilities state legislators piled on schools during the 20th Century. Create autonomous support systems for neighborhood-level, multi-age programs for music, art, dance, drama, sports, play, whatever. - See value in approaches to educating that contribute to self-reliance, a strong sense of neighborhood, vastly increased contact between generations, and family-based activities. - Assume that the transition from authoritarian, top-down, bureaucratic control of education to democratic, bottom-up leadership will take years and political will, but know that people will rise to the challenge. - Add in the tax savings from reduced prison populations, less need for neighborhood policing, and better physical and mental health. Think my ideas are outrageous? Dream up your own. But start by accepting that what we're doing isn't working, it hasn't responded to a century of tinkering, it's at odds with democracy and human nature, and it costs far more than we can now afford. From maryrose333 at att.net Tue Jan 26 17:26:46 2010 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Tue, 26 Jan 2010 16:26:46 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: Economic Crisis Savages Public Education - Comment by Trading Post Paul Message-ID: <003101ca9ee7$a15fe210$e41fa630$@net> -----Original Message----- From: TradingPostPaul [mailto:tradingpost at riseup.net] Sent: Tuesday, January 26, 2010 11:47 AM To: maryrose333 at att.net Subject: Re: FW: Economic Crisis Savages Public Education - Marion Brady This is a post I made to the Livingontheland list I run. I think you both have some good points. But let's recall the schooling of the old days. Small, local public schools did a fair job at very, very low cost. But today that's gone. What we have is government schools. Local school boards and parents have almost no input or control over what's taught or how it's taught. It's standardized. It's a bureacracy from the big consolidated schools to the statehouse and Washington. Textbook selection is mostly dictated by loud pressure groups in two big states that control what their local districts can use, Texas and California. I know, my dad was a country school superintendant in Texas. The publishers have to publish for those two big markets, so it isn't economical to publish for other states what won't sell in those two. And of course we see the results. When schools can't do the job they simply blame parents - the "home environment". Most teachers who quit leave in the first two years, and statistically they blame the school bureacracy more than the students, saying they aren't allowed to teach. They want to inspire kids to learn. Get the kids ready for tests is all that matters. I want to bring back real "public" schools, locally controlled and funded, and see the malls and palaces they call schools now turned into affordable apartments and shops. It's not unthinkable, with education budgets being cut in most states for lack of tax revenue. But I see nothing to stop local communities and small towns from setting up community owned private schools for their own local areas right now, and running them economically as the community sees fit. They might even bring back home ec classes and teach kids how to cook. I'll stop before I get into the ridiculous long lists of all the school supplies they make parents spring for, regardless of income or lack thereof. paul tradingpost at lobo.net comment by Mary Rose: I remember my old school days as well when what was taught were mostly the three "R's" along with history and geography, a little math and that was it. Today, in this complex world we need a lot more information upon which to base informed decisions. But the information we are getting is mostly what the corporations want us to have so that we become "good workers" for them. And while as the later R. Buckminster Fuller pointed out, the TV could be one of the best means of dissemination for good education, this medium became one for the purpose of mass distribution of entertainment which served the purpose of deflecting our minds from thinking intelligent thoughts and turned them into "garbage pails" as they were titled by Fritz Perls, founder of Gestalt therapy. And certainly as the media outlets selected programming that polluted our minds more people began to need therapy in order to keep them from going insane from the constant chaos patterns that are ever present in our body/mind field as a result. Brought into the United States from Prussia by the Rockefellars, the "teaching" programs that were, and are directed to the left hemisphere of the brain and which created "rote" learning patterns, were exactly what the new industrialists wanted as there was no need, nor room, for creative thinking on the assembly lines that began to define the new society with its burgeoning middle class. A middle class that was largely built on the backs of developing countries as colonialization became the order of the day. Close upon the heels of colonialization came "globalization" a practice that was little different from colonialism except that its practices were ones which benefitted from the "high tech" of the modern world -- one in which the need for human labor has become increasingly diminished as advanced technologies, which do the job much more efficiently and at less cost, have replaced the need for human beings. As I have written over and over again, the needs of the 6.7 billion people on the planet today for goods and services can be fulfilled by less than 30% of the presently available labor force. And unable to think outside the box and define other ways to resolve this situation, the present global monetocracy system has resorted to continual war and genocide as the only way it knows how to deal with a now very overpopulated world citizenry for which there are no jobs. And, without jobs with which to purchase the necessities of life, nor land upon which to become subsistence farmers, we have a world citizenry which is continually in migration in search of ways to keep food in mouth and roof over head. Or, in large numbers, they volunteer to serve in military organizations which have high death rates but which guarantee the necessities of life for those who survive the chaos of the killing fields. It is also increasingly the Westernized white man who is the survivor of these tactics as increasingly the indigenous of the world become the victims, as noted by the number of survivors of the wars and predatory practices waged in countries such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine and Haiti. Yet, as evidenced by the growing numbers of those who are becoming homeless in the G-8 Countries and especially in the United States as the middle class is decimated by the fall out of predatory lending practices, we see the snake eating its own tail as the practice of capitalism devours everything in its path in its attempt to succeed. While the past has largely been fueled by oil, this practice is on its way out as cheap oil disappears from the face of the Earth, leaving those in the wake of its destruction bereft in a sea of change that appears to have no viable answers. Yet, a model has arisen for us to follow -- when the Russians bailed out of Cuba, leaving this country destitute and barricaded by the US Americans, Fidel Castro led the way out of this quagmire by instituting sustainable practices throughout the country. Many scientists were trained in organic and natural ways which allowed the country to regain its balance and provide for its people. An excellent documentary available on how this was accomplished is "the Power of Community - How Cuba Survived Peak Oil" It is available through Community Service, Inc. 2006. The Community Solution: P.O. Box, 243, Yellow Springs, Ohio 45387 Other links may be found at http://www.powerofcommunity.org/cm/index.php/ and http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1721584909067928384#. The original full video is 53 minutes long so try to get this one as there are several versions on YouTube. More later on this. *********** REPLY SEPARATOR *********** On 1/26/2010 at 11:35 AM mary rose wrote: >Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS > >Comment from Co-learner's list member MARION BRADY > >-----Original Message----- >From: Marion Brady [mailto:mbrady22 at cfl.rr.com] >Sent: Tuesday, January 26, 2010 2:34 AM >To: mary rose >Subject: Re: Economic Crisis Savages Public Education > >Mary Rose wrote: > >>My comment on this is that schooling as we know it today is definitely >pass?. As Einstein indicated, we cannot address the challenges we face >with >the same kind of thinking that got us into the mess in the first place.... > >Marion Brady asks: > > Did I post this? > >And contributes the following URL to an article published by him in the >Washington Post. > >http://www.marionbrady.com/articles/2009-WashingtonPost12-23.pdf/ > > >Marion >Check out Marion's profile at: >http://www.marionbrady.com/ From maryrose333 at att.net Tue Jan 26 17:55:04 2010 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Tue, 26 Jan 2010 16:55:04 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: FW: Economic Crisis Savages Public Education - Marion Brady comments Message-ID: <003e01ca9eeb$8ddc7920$a9956b60$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS OK, everyone we?re on a roll here as others in the Co-learner?s Group begin to connect and provide further information. So thanks to Peter Challen and Mario Molinari here. And since we are talking about ?community? with regard to education and sustainability, I want to add another link to a very important person who has an excellent grasp of the situation: Thomas Greco author of a new book: ?The End of Currency and the Future of Civilization.? www.chelseagreen.com/.../watch-thomas-greco-the-end-of-money-and-the-beginni ng-of-civilization/ - Cached ? or go to his ?Re-inventing Money? website. www.reinventingmoney.com/ I don?t? believe there is anyone who has a better grasp of what getting local currencies into circulation can mean to those who are being disenfranchised from the corporate system ? it is like handing them a life boat when they are treading water after the Titanic has sunk. And, I want to link to another remarkable person/woman who understands how to ?live simply so others may simply live? (the motto of Future Dawning) ? the Co-author of ?Your Money Or Your Life? Vicki Robbins. http://yourmoneyoryourlife.info/ Thanks to all those participating in this dialog. From: mario [mailto:mario at newliteracy.co.uk] Sent: Tuesday, January 26, 2010 2:00 PM To: maryrose333 at att.net Cc: 'Peter Challen' Subject: FW: FW: Economic Crisis Savages Public Education - Marion Brady comments Hi Marion, got to know about you via Global Table (see below). Education is rigged, my own New Literacy work sets out to promote a different education, that of the essentials of life ? food and energy. The New Literacy website includes: - Homepage, or an abstract of my work - Overview, or Introduction, and - a full length working document Main thrust of my work is that the education of these essentials is denied to us ? what future for humankind then? My website is www.newliteracy.co.uk . Be good to hear from you and compare notes. best mario - - - - - Mario Molinari New Literacy 10 Marsham St Maidstone Kent ME14 1EP 01622 662524 077 99 264031 www.newliteracy.co.uk _____ From: Peter Challen [mailto:peterchallen at googlemail.com] Sent: 26 January 2010 21:08 To: mario Subject: Fwd: FW: Economic Crisis Savages Public Education - Marion Brady comments Dear Mario, The sender of the words below is a wise woman in the USA with a profound commitment to a change in the human mindset. It struck me that you might wish to introduce her [and therefore even to the large network she feeds] to your insights and the book. Yours Peter ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: mary rose Date: 2010/1/26 Subject: FW: Economic Crisis Savages Public Education - Marion Brady comments To: dustysummerrose at gmail.com Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS Co-learner's List Member MARION BRADY comments on this subject: -----Original Message----- From: Marion Brady [mailto:mbrady22 at cfl.rr.com] Sent: Tuesday, January 26, 2010 2:34 AM To: mary rose Subject: Re: Economic Crisis Savages Public Education Mary Rose wrote: >My comment on this is that schooling as we know it today is definitely pass?. As Einstein indicated, we cannot address the challenges we face with the same kind of thinking that got us into the mess in the first place.... Marion Brady comments: Did I post this? And contributes the following URL to an article written by him and published in the Washington Post. http://www.marionbrady.com/articles/2009-WashingtonPost12-23.pdf/ Marion http://www.marionbrady.com/ -- "Financially, the World is living on drafts upon the future: Economically, it is living on the Products of the past." unknown -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From maryrose333 at att.net Tue Jan 26 20:57:51 2010 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Tue, 26 Jan 2010 19:57:51 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: FW: Economic Crisis Savages Public Education - Comment by Dave Ewoldt Message-ID: <004e01ca9f05$22c43fa0$684cbee0$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS Dave there are times when like right now I feel 150. But I went to school in a very small town located in a lightly populated rural area in Ohio. There were three different classes in each room, e.g., 1st, 2nd, and 3rd, etc. The elementary and high school was combined. In addition to the classrooms, there was a study hall, a home economics center, an industrial shop, and a gym with a stage for art performances, along with a cafeteria. The teacher use to rap us across our knuckles when we misbehaved -- fortunately this never happened to me. The library truck came by once a week. I lived on a farm where my closest companions were my horse and dog. We raised our food organically, butchered a hog in the fall, and in the summer I worked either on the hay bailer or on the hay wagon tramping hay. There was always chocolate cake, different kinds of pies, fried chicken and ham salad available to eat. My mother made almost all of my clothes. Life was good and very simple. I missed the industrial propaganda. -----Original Message----- From: Dave Ewoldt [mailto:dave at reststop.net] Sent: Tuesday, January 26, 2010 6:40 PM To: mary rose Subject: Re: FW: Economic Crisis Savages Public Education - Comment by Trading Post Paul On 26 Jan 2010 at 16:26, mary rose wrote: > comment by Mary Rose: I remember my old school days as well when what was > taught > were mostly the three "R's" along with history and geography, a little math and > that was it. Mary Rose, you'd have to be 150 years old, at least, for this to be true :-) If you went to American public schools in the 1950s and '60s as I did, you were not taught the 3Rs, you were taught industrial propaganda. As John Taylor Gatto points out in "The Underground History of American Education," the populist uprisings in the late 19th Century caused the Secretary of Education, in testimony before Congress, to state that the major troubles facing the US sprang from the fact that the public was too well educated. Good education should be reserved for the sons and daughters of the landed gentry and the elite of the merchant class. This is when public education in the US was "retooled." Literally. A very large part of it was paid for by Carnegie and Rockefeller. Desks in neatly separated rows, no windows in classrooms, no talking, no distractions. Way before Pavlov, the class start and end bells (in what was probably the original 50 minute hour) got the little ones conditioned for the rat race. Critical thinking isn't required because you're not allowed to ask questions. Don't learn any more than necessary to read instruction manuals in order to flip the correct switches at the correct time to turn the wheels of industry. Then go home and propagate. The mantra is, after all, More. Shinier. Now. It's impossible to work hard enough, or long enough, to be to afford it all. But your credit will always be good as long as you don't step out of line. All you have to do is try a little bit harder and your every fantasy will be fulfilled. Tomorrow. Or just accept that you're a loser and if you want to stay out of jail, don't quit your job. You'll need it to buy enough alcohol to self-medicate your misery. This is a very sad story, especially for an entire culture. And we legitimize it. > Today, in this complex world we need a lot more information upon > which to base informed decisions. But the information we are getting is mostly > what the corporations want us to have so that we become "good workers" for them. Yeah, true, but I don't think we need more information. We could definitely do with fewer distractions. But, while interrelated, that's a side issue. I think we need to remember. Remember that everything's connected to everything else; that we _know_ how to do things differently. We can think systemically--connect the dots--because we are systems ourselves and are wired to think that way. The neural pathways may be overgrown with weeds, but they're still there. And then, as you say, The Power of Community, the Transition Movement, and similar relocalization efforts can demonstrate how we can meet our needs and improve quality of life in a powered-down post-industrial society. While capitalism does need to be relegated to the dustbin of history, we must remember that industrialism is what is making the anti-life thrust (greed, selfishness, and competition) of capitalism so apparent. But we must also be aware that *industrialism* was instrumental in the downfall of communism, and will do the same to socialism if allowed to continue festering--with or without fossil fuels. We could very greenly and with complete equity consume what's left of the life support services of this planet. For the Earth... _dave_(this entire message is composed of recycled electrons) Natural Systems Solutions http://www.attractionretreat.org http://naturalsystems.blogspot.com Sustainable lifestyles, organizations, and communities From maryrose333 at att.net Wed Jan 27 09:28:41 2010 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Wed, 27 Jan 2010 08:28:41 -0800 Subject: [GJM] URGENT READ: FW: [globalnetnews-summary] Myths of Recovery Message-ID: <003701ca9f6e$01a0ba10$04e22e30$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS Back in the mid 1990's, for the first time in the history of the world, the stocks markets became disconnected from human labor as passive investments gave more ROI than did human labor. This left Wall Street in charge with "we-the-people" becoming an increasing non-necessity in the market place as advances in technology did the job more effectively with an increase in profits. (End of Work - Jeremy Rifkin, 1997 - 2003) If we-the-people are to survive, we must create our own economy based on creating sustainable living communities based on local currencies. If you do nothing else, get a copy of Thomas Greco's book: "The End of Currency and the Future of Civilization," read it and understand it. And do it today. Please pay attention to what I am saying here. And get this information out to as many people as possible as fast as possible. The life you save may be that of you and your family! We must be the change we wish to see in our lives. M. Gandhi With love and in gratitude to all for all that we do together 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, January 26, 2010 9:54 PM To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] Myths of Recovery (To change your settings or unsubscribe please go to http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/globalnetnews-summary) Myths of Recovery By MICHAEL HUDSON http://www.counterpunch.org/hudson01262010.html January 26, 2010 Which Economy is Obama Talking About? The State of the Union address is in danger of purveying the usual euphemisms. I expect Obama to brag that he has overseen a recovery. But can there be any such thing as a jobless recovery? What has recovered are stock market averages and Wall Street bonuses, not disposable personal income or discretionary spending after paying debt service. There is a dream that what can be "recovered" is something so idyllic as to be mythical: a Bubble Economy enabling people to make money without actually working, by borrowing and riding the tide of asset-price inflation to make capital gains. Corporate Democrat Harold Ford Jr. writes nostalgically that Bill Clinton's eight years in office created 22 million jobs, "balanced the budget and left his successor with a surplus. This can be done again," if only Obama moves further to the right (which Ford calls the center, meaning the Bayhs and Republicans). It can't be done again. Pres. Clinton's administration balanced the budget by "welfare reform" to cut back public spending. This would be lethal today. Meanwhile, his explosion of bank credit and the dot.com boom (rising stock prices and bonuses without any earnings) fueled the early stages of the Greenspan bubble. It was a debt-leveraged illusion. Instead of the government running budget deficits to expand domestic demand, Clinton left it to banks to extend interest-bearing credit-debt pollution that we are still struggling to clean up. The danger is that when Obama speaks of "stabilizing the economy," he means trying to sustain the rise in compound interest and debt. This mathematical financial dynamic is autonomous from the "real" industrial economy, overwhelming it economically. That is what makes the present economic road to debt peonage so self-defeating. Debts that can't be paid, won't be. So defaults are rising. The question that Obama should be addressing is how to deal with the excess of debt above the ability to pay - and of negative equity for the one-quarter of U.S. real estate that has a higher mortgage debt than the market price is worth. If the hope is still to "borrow our way out of debt" by getting the banks to start lending again, then listeners on Wednesday will know that Obama's second year in office will be worse for the economy than his first. How realistic is it to expect the speech to make clear that "we can't go home again"? Obama promised change. "We simply cannot return to business as usual," he said on Jan. 21, introducing the "Volcker plan." But how can there be meaningful structural change if the plan is to return to an idealized dynamic that enriched Wall Street but not the rest of the economy? The word "recession" implies that economic trends will return to normal almost naturally. Any dream of "recovery" in today's debt-leveraged economy is a false hope. Yet high financial circles expect Obama to insist that the economy cannot recover without first reimbursing and enriching Wall Street. To re-inflate asset prices, Obama's team looks to Japan's post-1990 model. A compliant Federal Reserve is to flood the credit markets to lower interest rates to revive bank lending -- interest-bearing debt borrowed to buy real estate already in place (and stocks and bonds already issued), enabling banks to work out of their negative equity position by inflating asset prices relative to wages. The promise is that re-inflating prices will help the "real" economy. But what will "recover" is the rising trend of consumer and homeowner debt responsible for stifling the economy with debt deflation in the first place. This end-result of the Clinton-Bush bubble economy is still being applauded as a model for recovery. We are not really emerging from a "recession." The word means literally a falling below a trend line. The economy cannot "recover" its past exponential growth, because it was not really normal. GDP is rising mainly for the FIRE sector - finance, insurance and real estate - not the "real economy." Financial and corporate managers are paying themselves more for their success in paying their employees less. This is the antithesis of recovery for Main Street. That is what makes the FIRE sector so self-destructive, and what has ended America's great post-1945 upswing. There are two economies - and the extractive FIRE sector dominates the "real" economy When listening to the State of the Union speech, one should ask just which economy Obama means when he talks about recovery. Most wage earners and taxpayers will think of the "real" economy of production and consumption. But Obama believes that this "Economy #1" is dependent on that of Wall Street. His major campaign contributors and "wealth creators" in the FIRE sector - Economy #2, wrapped around the "real" Economy #1. Economy #2 is the "balance sheet" economy of property and debt. The wealthiest 10 per cent lend out their savings to become debts owed by the bottom 90 per cent. A rising share of gains are made in extractive ways, by charging rent and interest, by financial speculation ("capital gains"), and by shifting taxes off itself onto the "real" Economy #1. John Edwards talked about "the two economies," but never explained what he meant operationally. Back in the 1960s when Michael Harrington wrote The Other America, the term meant affluent vs. poor America. For 19th-century novelists such as Charles Dickens and Benjamin Disraeli, it referred to property owners vs. renters. Today, it is finance vs. debtors. Any discussion of economic polarization betweens rich and poor must focus on the deepening indebtedness of most families, companies, real estate, cities and states to an emerging financial oligarchy. Financial oligarchy is antithetical to democracy. That is what the political fight in Washington is all about today. The Corporate Democrats are trying to get democratically elected to bring about oligarchy. I hope that this is a political oxymoron, but I worry about how many people buy into the idea that "wealth creation" requires debt creation. While wealth gushes upward through the Wall Street financial siphon, trickle-down economic ideology fuels a Bubble Economy via debt-leveraged asset-price inflation. The role of public spending - and hence budget deficits - no longer means taxing citizens to spend on improving their well-being within Economy #1. Since the 2008 financial meltdown the enormous rise in national debt has resulted from the reimbursing of Wall Street for its bad gambles on derivatives, collateralized debt obligations and credit default swaps that had little to do with the "real" economy. They could have been wiped out without bringing down the economy. That was an idle threat. A.I.G.'s swap insurance department could have collapsed (it was largely in London anyway) while keeping its normal insurance activities unscathed. But the government paid off the financial sector's bad speculative debts by taking them onto the public balance sheet. The economy is best viewed as the FIRE sector wrapped around the production and consumption core, extracting financial and rent charges that are not technologically or economically necessary costs. Say's Law of markets, taught to every economics student, states that workers and their employers use their wages and profits to buy what they produce (consumer goods and capital goods). Profits are earned by employing labor to produce goods and services to sell at a markup. (M - C - M' to the initiated.) The financial and property sector is wrapped around this core, siphoning off revenue from this circular flow. This FIRE sector is extractive. Its revenue takes the form of what classical economists called "economic rent," a broad category that includes interest, monopoly super-profits (price gouging) and land rent, as well as "capital" gains. (These are mainly land-price gains and stock-market gains, not gains from industrial capital as such.) Economic rent and capital gains are income without a corresponding necessary cost of production (M - M' to the initiated). Banks have lent increasingly to buy up these rentier rights to extract interest, and less and less to promote industrial capital formation. Wealth creation" FIRE-style consists most easily of privatizing the public domain and erecting tollbooths to charge access fees for basic necessities such as health insurance, land sites, home ownership, the communication spectrum (cable and phone rights), patent medicine, water and electricity, and other public utilities, including the use of convenient money (credit cards), or the credit needed to get by. This kind of wealth is not what Adam Smith described in The Wealth of Nations. It is a form of overhead, not a means of production. The revenue it extracts is a zero-sum economic activity, meaning that one party's gain (that of Wall Street usually) is another's loss. Debt deflation resulting from a distorted "financialized" economy The problem that Obama faces is one that he cannot voice politically without offending his political constituency. The Bubble Economy has left families, companies, real estate and government so heavily indebted that they must use current income to pay banks and bondholders. The U.S. economy is in a debt deflation. The debt service they pay is not available for spending on goods and services. This is why sales are falling, shops are closing down and employment continues to be cut back. Banks evidently do not believe that the debt problem can be solved. That is why they have taken the $13 trillion in bailout money and run - paying it out in bonuses, or buying other banks and foreign affiliates. They see the domestic economy as being all loaned up. The game is over. Why would they make yet more loans against real estate already in negative equity, with mortgage debt in excess of the market price that can be recovered? Banks are not writing more "equity lines of credit" against homes or making second mortgages in today's market, so consumers cannot use rising mortgage debt to fuel their spending. Banks also are cutting back their credit card limits. They are "earning their way out of debt," making up for the bad gambles they have taken with depositor funds, by raising interest rates, penalties and fees, by borrowing low-interest credit from the Federal Reserve and investing it abroad - preferably in currencies rising against the dollar. This is what Japan did in the "carry trade." It kept the yen's exchange rate down, and it is lowering the dollar's exchange rate today. This threatens to raise prices for imports, on which domestic consumer prices are based. So easy credit for Wall Street means a cost squeeze for consumers. The President needs a better set of advisors. But Wall Street has obtained veto power over just who they should be. Control over the President's ear time has been part of the financial sector's takeover of government. Wall Street has threatened that the stock market will plunge if oligarch-friendly Fed Chairman Bernanke is not reappointed. Obama insists on keeping him on board, in the belief that what's good for Wall Street is good for the economy at large. But what's good for the banks is a larger market for their credit - more debt for the families and companies that are their customers, higher fees and penalties, no truth-in-lending laws, harsher bankruptcy terms, and further deregulation and bailouts. This is the program that Bernanke has advised Washington to follow. Wall Street hopes that he will be kept on board. Bernanke's advice has helped bolster that of Tim Geithner at Treasury and Larry Summers as chief advisor to convince Pres. Obama that "recovery" requires more credit. Going down this road will make the debt overhead heavier, raising the cost of living and doing business. So we must beware of the President using the term "recovery" in his State of the Union speech to mean a recovery of debt and giving more money to Wall Street Jobs cannot revive without consumers having more to spend. And consumer demand (a hateful, jargon word, because only Wall Street and the Pentagon's military-industrial complex really make demands) cannot be revived without reducing the debt burden. Bankers are refusing to write down mortgages and other debts to reflect the ability to pay. That act of economic realism would mean taking a loss on their bad debts. So they have asked the government to lend new buyers enough credit to re-inflate housing prices. This is the aim of the housing subsidy to new homebuyers. It leaves more revenue to be capitalized into higher mortgage loans to support prices for real estate fallen into negative equity. The pretense is that this is subsidizing the middle class, but homebuyers are only the intermediaries for government credit (debt to be paid off by taxpayers) to mortgage bankers. Nearly 90 per cent of new home mortgages are being funded or guaranteed by the FHA, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac - all providing a concealed subsidy to Wall Street. Obama's most dangerous belief is in the myth that the economy needs the financial sector to lead its recovery by providing credit. Every economy needs a means of payment, which is why Wall Street has been able to threaten to wreck the economy if the government does not give in to its demands. But the monetary function should not be confused with predatory lending and casino gambling, not to mention Wall Street's use of bailout funds on lobbying efforts to spread its gospel. Deficit reduction It seems absurd for politicians to worry that running a deficit from health care or Social Security can cause serious economic problems, after having given away $13 trillion to Wall Street and a blank check to the Pentagon. The "stimulus package" was only about 5 per cent of this amount. But Obama has announced that he intends on Tuesday to close the barn door by proposing a bipartisan Senate Budget Commission to recommend how to limit future deficits - now that Congress is unwilling to give away any more money to Wall Street. Republican approval would set the stage for Wednesday's State of the Union message promising to press for "fiscal responsibility," as if a lower deficit will help recovery. I suspect that Republicans will have little interest in joining. They see the aim as being to co-opt their criticism of Democratic spending plans. But in view of the rising and well-subsidized efforts of Harold Ford and his fellow Corporate Democrats, the actual "bipartisan" aim seems to be to provide political cover for cutting spending on labor and on social services. Obama already has sent up trial balloons about needing to address the Social Security and Medicare deficits, as if they should not be financed out of the general budget by taxpayers including the higher brackets (presently exempted from FICA paycheck withholding). Traditionally, running deficits is supposed to help pull economies out of recession. But today, spending money on public services is deemed "bad," because it may be "inflationary" - that is, threatening to raise wages. Talk of cutting deficits thus is class-war talk - on behalf of the FIRE sector. The economy needs deficit spending to avoid unemployment and poverty, to increase social spending to deal with the present economic shrinkage, and to maintain their capital infrastructure. The federal government also needs to increase revenue sharing with states forced to slash their budgets in response to falling tax revenue and rising unemployment insurance. But the deficits that the Bush-Obama administration have run are nothing like the familiar old Keynesian-style deficits to help the economy recover. Running up public debt to pay Wall Street in the hope that much of this credit will be lent out to inflate asset prices is deemed good. This belief will form the context for Wednesday's State of the Union speech. So we are brought back to the idea of economic recovery and just what is to be recovered. Financial lobbyists are hoping to get the government to fill the gap in domestic demand below full-employment levels by providing bank credit. When governments spend money to help increase economic activity, this does not help the banks sell more interest bearing debt. Wall Street's golden age occurred under Bill Clinton, whose budget surplus was more than offset by an explosion of commercial bank lending. The pro-financial mass media reiterate that deficits are inflationary and bankrupt economies. The reality is that Keynesian-style deficits raise wage levels relative to the price of property (the cost of obtaining housing, and of buying stocks and bonds to yield a retirement income). The aim of running a "Wall Street deficit" is just the reverse: It is to re-inflate property prices relative to wages. A generation of financial "ideological engineering" has told people to welcome asset-price inflation (the Bubble Economy). People became accustomed to imagine that they were getting richer when the price of their homes rose. The problem is that real estate is worth what banks will lend - and mortgage loans are a form of debt, which needs to be repaid. Michael Hudson is a former Wall Street economist. A Distinguished Research Professor at University of Missouri, Kansas City (UMKC), he is the author of many books, including Super Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire (new ed., Pluto Press, 2002) and Trade, Development and Foreign Debt: A History of Theories of Polarization v. Convergence in the World Economy. He can be reached via his website, mh at michael-hudson.com From dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk Thu Jan 28 02:59:13 2010 From: dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk (robert searle) Date: Thu, 28 Jan 2010 09:59:13 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [GJM] Fw: [toeslist] Howard Zinn dies, another terrible loss Message-ID: <211259.64380.qm@web27408.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> --- On Thu, 28/1/10, Riaz K Tayob wrote: From: Riaz K Tayob Subject: [toeslist] Howard Zinn dies, another terrible loss To: "The Other Economic Summit (TOES)" Date: Thursday, 28 January, 2010, 7:47 NY Times, January 28, 2010 Howard Zinn, Historian and Activist, Dies at 87 By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Howard Zinn, an author, teacher and political activist whose book ?A People?s History of the United States? became a million-selling leftist alternative to mainstream texts, died Wednesday in Santa Monica, Calif. He was 87 and lived in Auburndale, Mass. The cause was a heart attack, his daughter Myla Kabat-Zinn said. Published in 1980 with little promotion and a first printing of 5,000, ?A People?s History? was, fittingly, a people?s best-seller, attracting a wide audience through word of mouth and reaching 1 million sales in 2003. Although Professor Zinn was writing for a general readership, his book was taught in high schools and colleges throughout the country, and numerous companion editions were published, including ?Voices of a People?s History,? a volume for young people and a graphic novel. ?A People?s History? told an openly left-wing story. Professor Zinn accused Christopher Columbus and other explorers of committing genocide, picked apart presidents from Andrew Jackson to Franklin D. Roosevelt and celebrated workers, feminists and war resisters. Even liberal historians were uneasy with Professor Zinn, who taught for many years at Boston University. Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. once said: ?I know he regards me as a dangerous reactionary. And I don?t take him very seriously. He?s a polemicist, not a historian.? In a 1998 interview with The Associated Press, Professor Zinn acknowledged that he was not trying to write an objective history, or a complete one. He called his book a response to traditional works, the first chapter, not the last, of a new kind of history. ?There?s no such thing as a whole story; every story is incomplete,? Professor Zinn said. ?My idea was the orthodox viewpoint has already been done a thousand times.? ?A People?s History? had some famous admirers, including the actors Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. The two grew up near Professor Zinn, were family friends and gave the book a plug in their Academy Award-winning screenplay for ?Good Will Hunting.? Oliver Stone was a fan, as was Bruce Springsteen, whose bleak ?Nebraska? album was inspired in part by ?A People?s History.? The book was the basis of a 2007 documentary, ?Profit Motive and the Whispering Wind,? and even showed up on ?The Sopranos,? in the hand of Tony?s son, A.J. Professor Zinn himself was an impressive-looking man, tall and rugged with wavy hair. An experienced public speaker, he was modest and engaging in person, more interested in persuasion than in confrontation. Born in New York in 1922, Professor Zinn was the son of Jewish immigrants who as a child lived in a rundown area in Brooklyn and responded strongly to the novels of Charles Dickens. At age 17, urged on by some young Communists in his neighborhood, he attended a political rally in Times Square. ?Suddenly, I heard the sirens sound, and I looked around and saw the policemen on horses galloping into the crowd and beating people,? he told The A.P. ?I couldn?t believe that.? ?And then I was hit. I turned around and I was knocked unconscious. I woke up sometime later in a doorway, with Times Square quiet again, eerie, dreamlike, as if nothing had transpired. I was ferociously indignant.? War continued his education. Eager to help wipe out the Nazis, he joined the Army Air Corps in 1943 and even persuaded the local draft board to let him mail his own induction notice. He flew missions throughout Europe, receiving an Air Medal, but he found himself questioning what it all meant. Back home, he gathered his medals and papers, put them in a folder and wrote on top: ?Never again.? He attended New York University and Columbia University, where he received a doctorate in history. In 1956, he was offered the chairmanship of the history and social sciences department at Spelman College, an all-black women?s school in segregated Atlanta. During the civil rights movement, Professor Zinn encouraged his students to request books from the segregated public libraries and helped coordinate sit-ins at downtown cafeterias. He also published several articles, including a rare attack on the Kennedy administration, accusing it of being too slow to protect blacks. He was loved by students ? among them a young Alice Walker, who later wrote ?The Color Purple? ? but not by administrators. In 1963, Spelman fired him for ?insubordination.? (Professor Zinn was a critic of the school?s non-participation in the civil rights movement.) His years at Boston University were marked by opposition to the Vietnam War and by feuds with the school?s president, John Silber. Professor Zinn retired in 1988, spending his last day of class on the picket line with students in support of an on-campus nurses? strike. Over the years, he continued to lecture at schools and to appear at rallies and on picket lines. Besides ?A People?s History,? he wrote several books, including ?The Southern Mystique,? ?LaGuardia in Congress? and the memoir ?You Can?t Be Neutral on a Moving Train,? the title of a 2004 documentary about Professor Zinn that Mr. Damon narrated. He also wrote three plays. His wife and longtime collaborator, Roslyn, died in 2008. They had two children, Myla and Jeff. One of Professor Zinn?s last public writings was a brief essay, published last week in The Nation, about the first year of the Obama administration. ?I?ve been searching hard for a highlight,? he wrote, adding that he wasn?t disappointed because he never expected a lot from President Obama. ?I think people are dazzled by Obama?s rhetoric, and that people ought to begin to understand that Obama is going to be a mediocre president ? which means, in our time, a dangerous president ? unless there is some national movement to push him in a better direction.? A staff obituary by The New York Times will appear later. _______________________________________________ ------------------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: ? ? http://groups.yahoo.com/group/toeslist/ <*> Your email settings: ? ? Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: ? ? http://groups.yahoo.com/group/toeslist/join ? ? 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Home | Interviews SEARCH document.context='YTo1MiNhOjE0fA=='; Green Directory General Charities & Organisations Clothing Education,Courses,Events Finance Food & Drink Health & Beauty Home & Business Home & Garden Parenting Travel More articles about economic growth | biodiversity | deforestation | nature | natural world | politics and economics Related Articles Pierre Mineau: let's get rid of the pesticides that are killing birds Paul Kingsnorth: environmentalists have lost their way Bill Jordan: I don't think organics will feed the world Gathuru Mburu: Kenya has already had a Green Revolution Million Belay: Ethiopia doesn?t need or want Bill Gates Pavan Sukhdev: you can have progress without GDP-led growth Tom Levitt 22nd January, 2010 Deutsche Bank economist Pavan Sukhdev is heading up the groundbreaking TEEB (The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity) report and doing for nature what Sir Nicholas Stern did for climate change - valuing it Tom Levitt: Why are we putting a value on nature, why don't we just close off and protect it? Pavan Sukhdev: The Ecologist may say that but there are a hundred thousand other people who are social NGOs and politicians looking for votes at the next election who will say, ah ha! that is just an ecologist talking who loves nature and does not care for your well-being because guess what I have built a railroad, built a bridge, given you a job and provided you with an electricity connection. That is the person the Ecologist needs to answer, by saying ecology - in other words natural capital - used properly can also give you the jobs that you seek. Forest maintained can also provide the poor with the fresh water that they want and guess what, yes you need to build bridges but you can do that in a way that is more earth-friendly, less carbon intensive in manufacture and creates some local opportunity as opposed to just profits for the builders who built the bridge. You have to have counter arguments that are being made explicitly or implicitly because sometimes this is not even said and people just go-ahead and destroy and there is no question of listening to the ecologist because he is "just a greenie who loves nature". People are not even looking at the economic value of the conservation alternative or the natural capital value of nature. TL: Do you think politicians and economists actually understand the terms 'ecosystem services' and 'biodiversity'? PS: A lot of them do. You can go back to Obama's acceptance speech when he talked about: ?harnessing the power of the wind and the waves, harnessing sunlight, freeing ourselves from the shackles of oil?. He was talking about a better understanding of nature and what it brings to us and how we can leverage it into our economies better instead of the way we do it now, which is to dig it from the ancient sunlight buried millions of years ago. Listen: Pavan Sukdev on the failure of politicians to understand nature and how progress is possible without economic growth TL: Could those same politicians and economists also name their country?s natural assets? PS: Some perhaps could but yes, nature is still seen as a specialist subject. They are not seeing it as natural capital. That is basically what is missing. They are seeing it as a sector, for example the forestry sector, that has profitable opportunities with sustainable management and they know it makes 17 per cent returns. But they just see it as a sector. What I am trying to say out here is that hang on, it is not just a sector: it is like saying that physical capital is just a sector. The fact that it is a capital upon which all other natural capital rests is something that is not properly appreciated. The irony is that the poor would list nature as their key asset. The level of awareness in the village is there. They know climate change is happening; that the flowers flowered at a different time last year than 10-20 years ago. They know something is going wrong. They know that water is only available to them only after they have drilled an extra 10 or 20 feet into the ground. They know things about nature that the average city dweller does not and I think that says a lot. TL: So how will understanding the value of nature enable the market to protect rather than just trade it? PS: You can quantify the value of something but you do not necessarily have to imply that it becomes tradable. I value my wife and daughters tremendously, but that doesn't mean that they become marketable commodities: I would not buy or sell them! What you buy and sell is stuff that is able to be identified, privately owned and marketed. A market does not sell a public good. Pigs will fly before markets trade public goods. The only way you can get a public good into the marketplace is to first create a private liability or private asset. Carbon dioxide and greenhouse gas emissions are public bads that have been made into private bads by setting targets at the national and company level so that they become a private bad and therefore a liability and you can start trading them. TL: What needs to happen to make this work? PS: It needs a willingness to pay. It needs a sense of commitment amongst global leadership that we are in this together and we really need a Copenhagen-type deal. I don't think the onus of responsibility should be on the UN. The G20 controls 80-85 per cent of economic production and 75-80 per cent of global emissions. The UN is a vehicle where people can meet but why should they wait when the G20 meets twice a year. The leaders can meet and decide in a smaller group. If a group like the G20 moves in the right direction then it will be so much easier for the remaining 172 countries to follow. TL: How can you mainstream these ideas? PS: Basic poverty needs to be addressed, in other words food and shelter. Otherwise there is no point in discussing the finer qualities and the environment. With a lot of respect to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), we still haven't succeeded in that and I think part of the reason for that failure is that we never bothered to see the connections. You can't deprive families of the basics and promise them a job in a factory and somehow expect that to be alright. Unfortunately, that seems to be the model of development that most countries are going for. They are depriving the poor of something - nature's goods and services - and trying to provide something else. If families have the basics they can save a little bit and put it into a child's education and that is how the next generation become more educated, capable and involved. I've seen this happen on the ground, it is how real development works. It does not work by deprivation first and addition later. It works by simultaneous conservation of what you have and adding later. TL: Can we have progress without economic growth? PS: You can in some circumstances but you can't in others. What I am talking about is lifecycle. It is possible for a pupa to become a butterfly but it is not possible for a caterpillar to become a butterfly without first being a pupa. At a certain stage I believe that almost any society can reach stages where progress does not result in, or correlate with, getting bigger, i.e. GDP, but progress relates to quality of life as in improved environment, relationships, reduced poverty, inequalities, better protected ecosystems. I do believe society can get better, people can get happier and economies can get more robust whilst not actually increasing GDP, production or growing in the classical way. TL: So what's the vision? PS: The 'green economy'. It will come in stages, an evolutionary process. But it needs to be encouraged in that direction. The green economy is the only sustaining economy. It is one that values its natural resources properly and uses them sparingly and for the right intent. It makes use of its natural capital rather than wasting it. To suggest that you can burn capital and think you have done a good job is wrong. If you were cold you wouldn't pull out a window frame or door from your house and burn it. Every time you want a new jersey, you wouldn't rip up your carpets. But we do that within a bigger context in terms of natural assets and that attitude has to stop. Tom Levitt is the Ecologist's news editor Useful links TEEB biography of Pavan Sukhdev ? READ MORE... NEWS Biodiversity 'invisible' in current economic model The steady loss of forests, soils, wetlands, fisheries, species and coral reefs around the world is closely tied to the lack of value we put on nature, says three-year study NEWS Biodiversity crucial to lives of billions, says UNEP Ecosystems are buffering humanity against the worst impacts of global warming and also alleviating poverty, says United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) NEWS Obama sings its praises, but what is the Amazon Fund? Partnership between Brazil and Norway to prevent deforestation in the Amazon praised by US President Barack Obama NEWS ANALYSIS Sticking with GDP could be the best safeguard for nature Although much maligned as a measurement of progress, some believe a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) measurement that includes natural capital could be the way forward ? Previous Articles... | Comment | Permalink | Trackbacks (0) | Email a Friend | Print this Users Comments Re: Pavan Sukhdev: you can have progress without GDP-led growth Posted By EC017608 1 January 25, 2010 12:42:10 PMIs this kind of sloppy analysis part of an Ecologist campaign against understanding growth? Growth is not 'production', it is the changing financial value of economic activity. Economic activity can pursue value in different ways and Sukhdev is right to say that conventional destructive 'development' is not progress. What this article and others in the Ecologist's apparent 'anti-understanding-growth' campaign are ignoring is the ease with which economic activity could be redirected from destructive to positive. We can create financial, social and economic value by expanding natural capital. Do this faster and GDP goes up. It's not rocket-science. An interview with Sukhdev should have asked about the unintended harm that is being done by the trend of valuing and then paying for nature. Valuing nature can avoid commodification of nature only by switching society's concept of 'ownership' from mastery to guardianship. This switch is explored in research for NATO (with reference to Sukhdev) in section 6.2 of http://www.wiserearth.org/resource/view/2f007297ce994215d709c47f4c9230a1 BTW Ecologist, it would be nice to have a commenting forum that vaguely works. Please can you tame the gremlin that automatically log everyone out after a few minutes. Let us choose for ourselves how long to stay logged-in, and while you're at it, get the techies to fix your databasing so people can choose their own usernames rather than be branded with their subscriber number. What does it say about your vision for society if you are prepared to treat us as numbers? Re: Pavan Sukhdev: you can have progress without GDP-led growth Posted By paulross 1 January 28, 2010 01:48:22 PMI agree entirely with Sukhdev's comments. It highlights the core point made many years ago by Dr Albert Bartlett that growth is an exponential function which results in (periodic doubling) - as such growth in the use of any resource will sooner or later become all consuming. Bartlett believes that the lack of understanding of the exponential nature of doubling is at the heart of the farcical decisions made by our politicians. (Me I think the know what they are doing and don't give a dam about the long term_) Bartletts lecture is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-QA2rkpBSY - -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk Thu Jan 28 07:41:21 2010 From: dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk (robert searle) Date: Thu, 28 Jan 2010 14:41:21 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [GJM] Funding Climate Change Project...and the UK Development Aid Budget...? Message-ID: <217791.93549.qm@web27407.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> ? Dear All, ? ??????????? I heard on the radio that the UK government has taken money from out of the existing development aid budget, and given it to the International Monetary Fund. However, campaingners are angry by this. Moreover, it appears that the IMF is going to use most of the UK money as repayable loans to help developing countries with climate change but with only a small amount of it being non-repayable (ie.grants). This has further annoyed campaigners. ? I have not yet found any written confirmation of the above news items via the internet.. Maybe somebody else has? Presumably, these loans are interest-bearing but?is the UK money being kept in reserve to create new money electronically as loans? The latter point would mean that there would be more capital created for use in the developing world. ? ? R.Searle -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From maryrose333 at att.net Wed Jan 27 23:03:29 2010 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Wed, 27 Jan 2010 22:03:29 -0800 Subject: [GJM] It's the Whole System - Democracy, Capitalism and the Citizens United Decision Message-ID: <001201ca9fdf$d5188dc0$7f49a940$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS This is a very important message. It goes beyond what I have been writing as to how women, people of color, and non-land owners were initially disenfranchised from the system by the Constitution. It directly points out how "we-the-people" were left out of the act from the very beginning, and why we now have no representation and have been left to the mercy of monetized political parties. Thanks to Trading Post Paul for this message. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - It's the Whole System Democracy, Capitalism and the Citizens United Decision By JOAN ROELOFS January 26, 2010 http://www.counterpunch.org/roelofs01262010.html The problem at the heart of the Citizens United decision cannot be easily fixed. One difficulty is the absence in the Constitution of provisions for how someone is to become a candidate for elected office, and what means are to be used to garner votes. A new democracy was created, but there was no way designed for ordinary people to get into the act. The usual way around 1789 was the "old boy network." In addition to the exclusion of women, blacks, native Americans, slaves, indentured servants, atheists, and other categories, the political arena was limited to those with the connections, resources, and time to participate. There is nothing in the Constitution about political parties. With their development, there was more opportunity for white male Protestant non-entities to enter politics and have organizational and financial support for election campaigns. Even today, some low-key elected officials (such as the New Hampshire House of Representatives) can depend on party funds for electioneering. 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 Thu Jan 28 19:25:56 2010 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Thu, 28 Jan 2010 18:25:56 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: [SPAM]Website Founder Fred Burks: How I Became a White House Insider Message-ID: <005101caa08a$9afc2fb0$d0f48f10$@net> From: PEERS: WantToKnow.info Email List [mailto:emaillist at peerservice.org] Sent: Thursday, January 28, 2010 9:01 AM To: maryrose333 at att.net Subject: [SPAM]Website Founder Fred Burks: How I Became a White House Insider 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/051119fredburkspresidentialinterpreter Bookmark and Share Dear friends, The story of how I became a White House insider and served as interpreter for Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush is quite unusual and inspiring. I was amazed that it all happened pretty much without my even trying. But before beginning the story, it's important to mention that since age 19, I have been deeply committed to doing what?s best for all and to opening fully to divine guidance in my life. The chain of small miracles that led me to the White House is only one example of the many amazing miracles I've experienced since embracing these empowering life intentions . "You've got to go with me, Fred, or I'll never fulfill my dream of living in Japan," John exclaimed with frustration. In 1980, I was an energetic 22-year-old college student living in a fun dormitory on the beautiful campus of UC Santa Cruz in California. One calm autumn evening, my roommate, John, asked me to go with him to a meeting put on by Volunteers In Asia (VIA). VIA is a non-profit educational exchange organization that sends college undergrads to Asia to experience life in a foreign culture while teaching English there. Besides being very busy with studies that evening, I wasn?t at all interested in leaving college or living overseas. At first, I told John I just didn?t have time. But after several sincere appeals, I had to agree that John was shy and that there was no way he would go alone. Only because I knew it might really change his life, I reluctantly agreed to accompany him. At the meeting, the recently returned volunteers excitedly shared colorful slides and fascinating stories about their transformative cross-cultural experiences in Asia. I was surprised to soon find myself captivated and even infected by their incredible vibrance and passion. Their vivid descriptions were filled with enthusiasm, joy, and powerful awakenings. The lives of these young adventurers had clearly been dramatically enriched by their rich journeys. The end result was that though John never went to Japan, I, having been dragged to this meeting against my will, ended up going to live in Asia as a volunteer English teacher! On applying to VIA for a volunteer position, I requested Japan as my first choice, as I had to pay my own plane fare and Japan was the least expensive of the countries served. But I told them that I would go anywhere they sent me if the few available Japanese positions filled. They chose Indonesia for me, which at the time I didn't even realize was a country. I had thought it was a small group of islands somewhere in the Pacific. I fully trusted, though, that I was being guided to the right place for me. In Indonesia, I lived for a full year on the west side of the vast island of Borneo with the warmest, most wonderful Muslim family in the world. As my newly adopted father was an MD, he supported his parents and a couple siblings and in-laws and their children, so that in all, we had an extended family of 20 people living under one roof! My adopted mother there was one of the kindest, most saintly women I?ve ever met. I had countless amazingly rich experiences with these gentle, loving people. Even with all of the constant activity of my large, adopted family and home, I found myself studying the Indonesian language like a maniac ? two to three hours almost every day ? for the entire year abroad. I knew that language was crucial to diving into the culture, but I was way overboard in how much I studied. I made over 6,000 flash cards and even memorized every word in a couple small dictionaries. Yet somehow, I sensed there was a greater reason for it all. By the end of my year there, I was quite fluent. In early 1986, five years after my time in Indonesia, I had just come back home from two intense years of teaching English at a college in communist China, again as a VIA volunteer. My time in China was filled with rich, sometimes challenging adventures quite different than Indonesia. Living in Wuhan (a city of six million about which few have ever heard), I had been the first foreigner in the city to be allowed to live together with local Chinese in a teachers dormitory. I managed to become fluent in Chinese, too. Yet now that I was back home, it was time to finally look for some income-producing work to feed my nearly empty bank account. A VIA friend of mine told me about an interesting job as a language interpreter taking influential foreign visitors on study tours of the United States for the Department of State. I had never seriously considered being an interpreter, but this sounded quite interesting. They just happened to be interviewing near my home a month after I heard about the job. So thanks to all those hours studying like a maniac in Indonesia, I ended up with a great job as an Indonesian interpreter where I was paid to travel and study all over the US with my distinguished Indonesian guests! By the end of my first month in this fascinating new job, I realized I was a natural at interpreting. I was soon whispering simultaneously into the ears of my Indonesian visitors as Americans conversed with them. I saw that if I was willing to study more, I could become a really good simultaneous interpreter and possibly even interpret for top government officials some day. After opening to what?s best, however, I became clear that I wanted to focus my time and energy on other, more meaningful matters. I chose not to spend much time on language skills, and was perfectly content to continue as a low-level interpreter. In 1992 (six years later), now working only part time as an interpreter and part time with cancer patients as a registered nurse, I took an assignment as the administrative interpreter supporting two simultaneous interpreters at a government-sponsored seminar in Washington, DC. Because of the intense concentration needed, simultaneous interpreting requires two interpreters who switch off every 20 to 30 minutes. As the logistical support interpreter, I was out running errands for a few of the visitors when the seminar started. When I came back a few hours later, the group was on a break. As soon as he saw me, Dan, one of the interpreters, grabbed me and franticly asked, ?Can you do any simultaneous interpreting?? The other interpreter had gotten sick and had to go home. Dan had been interpreting almost three hours without a break, which is almost unheard of. So even though I wasn?t officially qualified, I stepped in, did great, and finished out the remainder of the week-long seminar as a simultaneous interpreter. On hearing about this, my boss at the State Department called me in to congratulate me. At his suggestion, I took and passed the test to become officially qualified as a simultaneous interpreter. It turns out that Indonesian interpreters are in great demand ? especially simultaneous Indonesian interpreters. Indonesia is the fourth largest country in the world (population 220 million), yet very few Americans ever learn Indonesian (the national language). So in 1995, out of the blue I received a call from the State Department asking me to travel to Copenhagen to interpret for Vice President Al Gore at a UN Conference! Even though I wasn?t officially qualified for high level interpreting, they couldn?t find anyone else. So I went, had a great time, and shortly thereafter qualified at the State Department's highest level. Before my resignation due to excessive secrecy in 2004, I had interpreted for President Bill Clinton, President George W. Bush, Vice Presidents Gore and Cheney, Secretaries of State Albright and Powell, and numerous other presidents and officials from many countries. Whenever present in high-level meetings, I did my best to open to divine guidance, and to send out lots of love, support, and wishes for what?s best to all present. At key summit meetings, I even invited many friends to take a moment in silence and join me in inviting our world leaders to open to what is best for all who share our world. I have no doubt that this is why I was led to this fascinating work. It's pretty amazing that I never even had to try, yet ended up as the State Department?s top Indonesian interpreter. It?s even more amazing when you remember that I did not choose Indonesia and was dragged against my will to that first VIA meeting years ago! There are many more little miracles to this story that, for reasons of space, I didn?t include. For me, all of this shows that the more I open to divine guidance and to what?s best for all, the more filled with miracles my life becomes. I give thanks for these many miracles and for all that I have been given. And thank you, my friends, for reading and sharing in this piece of my life. With very best wishes, Fred Burks Former language interpreter for Presidents Bush and Clinton Note: The same spiritual guidance that brought me to the White House eventually led me to found and develop the network of inspiring PEERS websites , including www.WantToKnow.info, which is filled with reliable, verifiable information on major cover-ups and inspiring ideas on how we can build a brighter future. To read some of the fascinating stories from my high-level interpreting experiences: http://www.WantToKnow.info/050418fredburksinterpretingstories To read the inspiring results of inviting our world leaders to open to what's best: http://www.WantToKnow.info/presidentialsurprises To read about my resignation because of excessive secrecy in November 2004: http://www.WantToKnow.info/fredburksresigns For the story of how speaking truth led to my being a celebrity for a week: http://www.WantToKnow.info/050129fredburkscelebrity To read an empowering essay I wrote on my life intentions titled Simple Keys to a Fuller Life: http://www.weboflove.org/keystolife2 Bookmark and Share See our collection of inspirational resources at 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: 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 dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk Fri Jan 29 03:10:35 2010 From: dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk (Robert Searle) Date: 29 Jan 2010 10:10:35 +0000 Subject: [GJM] House prices jump, confidence rises  - Yahoo! News UK Message-ID: Robert Searle (dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk) has sent you a news article X-Originating-IP: 217.12.6.89 -------------------- Personal message text: -------------------- House prices jump, confidence rises?? http://uk.news.yahoo.com/22/20100129/tuk-uk-britain-nationwide-fa6b408.html ============================================================ From dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk Sat Jan 30 07:40:59 2010 From: dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk (Robert Searle) Date: 30 Jan 2010 06:40:59 -0800 Subject: [GJM] Darling pushes for urgent reform  - Yahoo! News UK Message-ID: Robert Searle (dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk) has sent you a news article X-Originating-IP: 217.12.6.88 -------------------- Personal message text: -------------------- Darling pushes for urgent reform?? http://uk.news.yahoo.com/22/20100130/tts-uk-davos-darling-ca02f96.html ============================================================ From dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk Sat Jan 30 07:48:11 2010 From: dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk (robert searle) Date: Sat, 30 Jan 2010 14:48:11 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [GJM] Fw: [ClimateChangeAction] Climate change denialism condemned Message-ID: <824732.17415.qm@web27408.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> ?? Dear all, ? ? ?????????????? There has been some controversy about the credibility of climate change, and the IPPC notably in connection with the himalayan glaciers, the east anglia group, and so-called amazongate. However, what does seem clear, and largely "proven" is that greenhouses gases warm up the planet, and could become a serioius threat to humanity. ? The following post may be of interest but I have not read every word of it. Yet, it may be of interest. ? ? Robert Searle. --- On Sat, 30/1/10, Gideon Polya wrote: From: Gideon Polya Subject: [ClimateChangeAction] Climate change denialism condemned To: ClimateChangeAction at yahoogroups.com.au Date: Saturday, 30 January, 2010, 14:05 ? I too am indignant over the unsubstantiated, uncredentialled, bald climate change denialism in this list that flies in the face of the overwhelming scientific evidence. This is far, far worse than, for example, an uncredentialled blogger denying the link between smoking and lung cancer, respiratory disease and cardiovascular problems - smoking will kill about 0.5 billion people this century whereas unaddressed man-made climate change will kill an estimated 10 billion people this century (see "Climate Disruption, Climate Emergency, Climate Genocide & Penultimate Bengali Holocaust through Sea Level Rise": http://sites. google.com/ site/yarravalley climateactiongro up/climate- disruptio n-climate-emergency -climate- genocide- penultimate- bengali-holocaus t-through- s ea-level-rise ). I agree with the comments of David Spratt (the eminent author with Phillip Sutton of the very influential book "Climate Code Red. The case for emergency action" , Scribe, Melbourne, 2009: http://www.climatec odered.net/ ) and Hugh Spencer. Current informed debate about climate change is about "climate change action" and NOT about whether anthropogenic change is happening - the greenhouse effect due to CO2 was established experimentally by eminent UK chemist John Tyndall in circa 1870; eminent physical chemist Svente Arrhenius predicted a circa 5C temperature increase from a doubling of atmospheric CO2 back in about 1900, this being in remarkable accord with the latest findings of top climate scientists; and international scientific concerns about man-made global warming led to the formation over 20 years ago of the IPCC in 1988. As a 5-decade research scientist in the area of plant biochemistry (of key importance to atmospheric CO2 balance) I found the evidence of man-made global warming compelling and very disturbing in circa 1990 i.e. 20 years ago. Indeed back in 1995 I sent a detailed submission to MPs, top academics and media about the acute seriousness of the problem and in 1998, over 20 years ago, published a huge book concerned in part with the worsening problem of anthropogenic climate change to Humanity (see "Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History. Colonial rapacity, holocaust denial and the crisis in biological sustainability" : http://janeaustenan d.blogspot. com/2008/ 09/jane-austen- and-black- hole-of-brit ish.html ). Just as we turn to top medical specialists for advice on life-threatening disease, so we turn to the opinions of top scientists and in particular top biological and climate scientists for Climate Change risk assessment and Climate Emergency Facts and requisite Actions as exampled below (for detailed documentation of everything below see the Yarra Valley Climate Action Group website: http://sites. google.com/ site/yarravalley climateactiongro up/Home ). Professor James Hansen (top US climate scientist, head, NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies): "We face a climate emergency". Nobel Laureate Professor Peter Doherty: "We are in real danger." Professor David de Kretser AC (eminent medical scientist and Governor of Victoria, Australia) "There is no doubt in my mind that this is the greatest problem confronting mankind at this time and that it has reached the level of a state of emergency." Dr Andrew Glikson (palaeo-climate scientist, ANU): "The continuing use of the atmosphere as an open sewer for industrial pollution has . raised CO2 levels to 387 ppm CO2 to date, leading toward conditions which existed on Earth about 3 million years (Ma) ago (mid-Pliocene) , when CO2 levels rose to about 400 ppm, temperatures to about 2-3 degrees C and sea levels by about 25 +/- 12 metres." Dr James Hansen (top US climate scientist; Director, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies; member of the prestigious US National Academy of Sciences; 2007 Award for Scientific Freedom and Responsibility of the prestigious American Association for the Advancement of Science; see: http://www.columbia .edu/~jeh1/ ; http://en.wikipedia .org/wiki/ James_Hansen ; for 1880-present NASA GISS Global Temperature graphed data see: http://data. giss.nasa. gov/gistemp/ and http://data. giss.nasa. gov/gistemp/ graphs/ ) with 8 UK, French and US climate change scientist co-authors (2008): "Paleoclimate data show that climate sensitivity is ~3 deg-C for doubled CO2 [carbon dioxide; atmospheric CO2 280 ppm pre-industrial] , including only fast feedback processes. Equilibrium sensitivity, including slower surface albedo feedbacks, is ~6 deg-C for doubled CO2 for the range of climate states between glacial conditions and ice-free Antarctica. Decreasing CO2 was the main cause of a cooling trend that began 50 million years ago, large scale glaciation occurring when CO2 fell to 450 +/- 100 ppm [parts per million], a level that will be exceeded within decades, barring prompt policy changes. If humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, paleoclimate evidence and ongoing climate change suggest that CO2 will need to be reduced from its current 385 ppm to at most 350 ppm. The largest uncertainty in the target arises from possible changes of non-CO2 forcings. An initial 350 ppm CO2 target may be achievable by phasing out coal use except where CO2 is captured and adopting agricultural and forestry practices that sequester carbon. If the present overshoot of this target CO2 is not brief, there is a possibility of seeding irreversible catastrophic effects" (see: http://arxiv. org/abs/0804. 1126 ). What should readers of this list believe - the expert findings of the most eminent climate scientists from top research institutions or the bald assertions of uncredentialled climate denialists? [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 Switch to: Text-Only, Daily Digest ? Unsubscribe ? Terms of Use . __,_._,___ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk Sat Jan 30 08:02:17 2010 From: dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk (robert searle) Date: Sat, 30 Jan 2010 15:02:17 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [GJM] Communication with Professor Paul Davidson.......... Message-ID: <79502.61596.qm@web27407.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> ? The following comes from ?the Real World Economics Blog where among other people?I had contact with Professor Paul Davidson who is nearly 80 years of age. ? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Davidson_(economist) ? R. Searle ? ? ? ...........With modern technology it is feasible to have a more accurate ?scientific? understanding of the ?workings? of the real economy. Thus, economic forecasts could become more accurate, and credible. See my p2pfoundation entry on Transfinancial Economics where this is explained. paul davidson January 27, 2010 at 2:36 am | #10 Reply | Quote Robert: If the economic world is subject to onto;logical uncertainty ?as I argue va the rejection of the ergodic axiom? then past and current data provides no reliable information for making a judgment about the objective future outcome of decisions made today? just think of Schumpeter?s creative destruction as a process which destrys the basis for making future reliable statistical predictions ? no matter how much technology you have today!!! Robert Searle January 27, 2010 at 11:34 am | #11 Reply | Quote PD. Yes, but please notice the word If in your sentence. Since present day economics is in doubt what you said is likewise no matter how well-known, and respected academically you are. With full Transfinancial Economics we could get highly accurate raw data en direct from the economy via identified transactions (via special barcodes)instantly sent to the inflation department of a bank. We can then have upto the minute picture of supply,and demand for any number of registered/identified products,and services in any part of the country. This would show very accurately how much uncertainty there is in the economy. If necessary, super-flexible electronic controls could be activated (automatically, or by human command) and be able to instantly ADAPT themselves to any problem including ?unforeseen? ones. Since registered products, and services are electronically tracked, and identified they can be electronically targetted. Thus, instant temporary subsidies, or instant automatic inflation deductions(a sort of ?tax?)could be created. I suspect you do not understand TFE but it does take into account the question of uncertainty, and this is not necessarily a problem. I know all this may sound like science fiction?but technology is moving fast (eg. High Frequency Trading!). paul January 28, 2010 at 7:54 pm | #12 Reply | Quote It is not science fiction that you are talking about ? but I believe, a misunderstanding of theproblem of uncertainty in an inertemporal setting where monetary contracts calling for future events. If I nuderstand you correctly, your bar code solution for the sub prime housing problem would be to assure us as long as everyone buying a home (financed by a sub prime mortgge) was equal to the number of homes being sold to sub prime bmortgaged borrowers ? there is no problem!! yes? But as we now know the problem was not when the sub prime borrower bought his home? or even when the subprime borrower got a mortgage from a mortgage originator ? the problem arises in the future when the sub prime borrower can no longer service his debt obligation!. How is your bar code solution today going to resolve the default problem of tomorrow? Robert Searle January 29, 2010 at 10:54 am | #13 Reply | Quote With respect, I was not discussing the sub-prime market, and over-lending. I said nothing about bar-coding in connection with mortgages. As for the question of over-lending, and sub-prime defaulting in a crisis like the one we have been experiencing?there is an answer, or possible answers. In TFE for example, it is recognized that banks computers could be programmed in such a way as ?to know? how much new money (as repayable loans ofcourse) could be created electronically. The basis of determining this is from the accumalative electronic checks, and data which would come directly from the registered economy (via largely daily transactions/accounting info sent electronically by businesses, and other sources). If banks tried to ?over-lend? this could be stopped by an inbuilt computer overide, or more flexibly the Central Bank could with the appropriate legislation continually track lending by banks, and send an alert which could be electronically enforced to the ?offending? bank. Perhaps more controversially, such lending would not need to be ?constrained? by reserves held as the whole process does not have to be ?backed? by anything as it is wholly electronic, and would be based on far more accurate data than presently exists (ie. Economic Indicators). There is a big subject?. No trackbacks yet. Name (required) E-mail (will not be published) (required) Website Click here to cancel reply. Subscribe to comments feed Notify me of follow-up comments via email. Notify me of new posts via email. 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About About this blog Ignoble and Noble Prizes for Economics The?Prizes Poll Procedures for the Ignoble Prize for?Economics Nominations for the Ignoble Prize for?Economics Nominees and Submission of Evidence for the Ignoble Prize for?Economics Alan?Greenspan Andre?Zylberberg Art?Laffer Assar?Lindbeck Ben?Bernanke Blythe?Masters Domingo?Cavallo Edward?Prescott Eugene?Fama Finn E.?Kydland Fischer?Black George?Stigler Larry?Summers Michael?Jensen Milton?Friedman Myron?Scholes Paul?Samuelson Pierre?Cahuc Richard?Portes Robert?Lucas Thomas?Sargent Timothy?Geithner Subscribe for free to the real-world economics review Go here: http://www.feedblitz.com/f/f.fbz?Sub=332386 Recent Comments Robert Searle on The LSE Debate: Ormerod and?Hodgson Chris on Art?Laffer Chris on Milton?Friedman Chris on Alan?Greenspan paul on The LSE Debate: Ormerod and?Hodgson Robert Searle on The LSE Debate: Ormerod and?Hodgson Peter S?derbaum on Paul?Samuelson Peter S?derbaum on Assar?Lindbeck paul davidson on The LSE Debate: Ormerod and?Hodgson Ben on Financial Transactions Tax ? urgent call for?support Pages 10 Most Popular?Posts About Comments on issue no. 51 ? 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Theme by NeoEase. Valid XHTML 1.1 and CSS 3. ? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ceasig at gmail.com Sun Jan 31 02:33:06 2010 From: ceasig at gmail.com (Centre For Ecological Audit, Social Inclusion & Governance) Date: Sun, 31 Jan 2010 15:03:06 +0530 Subject: [GJM] Fw: [ClimateChangeAction] Climate change denialism condemned In-Reply-To: <824732.17415.qm@web27408.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> References: <824732.17415.qm@web27408.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <31f677a31001310133h334e814eracfeb9eda095a9ee@mail.gmail.com> Dear Robert, I am pleased to share that I poste this post as blog at http://transitionurbanindia.ning.com/profiles/blogs/gideon-polya-condemning Thanks for sharing. You are one of the few persons who are noted to sacrifice time for sharing the learnings. On Sat, Jan 30, 2010 at 8:18 PM, robert searle wrote: > Dear all, > > > There has been some controversy about the credibility of > climate change, and the IPPC notably in connection with the himalayan > glaciers, the east anglia group, and so-called amazongate. However, what > does seem clear, and largely "proven" is that greenhouses gases warm up the > planet, and could become a serioius threat to humanity. > > The following post may be of interest but I have not read every word of it. > Yet, it may be of interest. > > > Robert Searle. > > > --- On *Sat, 30/1/10, Gideon Polya * wrote: > > > From: Gideon Polya > Subject: [ClimateChangeAction] Climate change denialism condemned > To: ClimateChangeAction at yahoogroups.com.au > Date: Saturday, 30 January, 2010, 14:05 > > > I too am indignant over the unsubstantiated, uncredentialled, bald > climate > change denialism in this list that flies in the face of the overwhelming > scientific evidence. > > This is far, far worse than, for example, an uncredentialled blogger > denying > the link between smoking and lung cancer, respiratory disease and > cardiovascular problems - smoking will kill about 0.5 billion people this > century whereas unaddressed man-made climate change will kill an estimated > 10 billion people this century (see "Climate Disruption, Climate Emergency, > Climate Genocide & Penultimate Bengali Holocaust through Sea Level Rise": > http://sites. google.com/ site/yarravalley climateactiongro up/climate- > disruptio > n-climate-emergency -climate- genocide- penultimate- bengali-holocaus > t-through- s > ea-level-rise ). > > I agree with the comments of David Spratt (the eminent author with Phillip > Sutton of the very influential book "Climate Code Red. The case for > emergency action" , Scribe, Melbourne, 2009: http://www.climatec > odered.net/ > ) and Hugh Spencer. > > Current informed debate about climate change is about "climate change > action" and NOT about whether anthropogenic change is happening - the > greenhouse effect due to CO2 was established experimentally by eminent UK > chemist John Tyndall in circa 1870; eminent physical chemist Svente > Arrhenius predicted a circa 5C temperature increase from a doubling of > atmospheric CO2 back in about 1900, this being in remarkable accord with > the > latest findings of top climate scientists; and international scientific > concerns about man-made global warming led to the formation over 20 years > ago of the IPCC in 1988. > > As a 5-decade research scientist in the area of plant biochemistry (of key > importance to atmospheric CO2 balance) I found the evidence of man-made > global warming compelling and very disturbing in circa 1990 i.e. 20 years > ago. Indeed back in 1995 I sent a detailed submission to MPs, top academics > and media about the acute seriousness of the problem and in 1998, over 20 > years ago, published a huge book concerned in part with the worsening > problem of anthropogenic climate change to Humanity (see "Jane Austen and > the Black Hole of British History. Colonial rapacity, holocaust denial and > the crisis in biological sustainability" : > http://janeaustenan d.blogspot. com/2008/ 09/jane-austen- and-black- > hole-of-brit > ish.html ). > > Just as we turn to top medical specialists for advice on life-threatening > disease, so we turn to the opinions of top scientists and in particular top > biological and climate scientists for Climate Change risk assessment and > Climate Emergency Facts and requisite Actions as exampled below (for > detailed documentation of everything below see the Yarra Valley Climate > Action Group website: > http://sites. google.com/ site/yarravalley climateactiongro up/Home). > Professor James Hansen (top US climate scientist, head, NASA's Goddard > Institute for Space Studies): "We face a climate emergency". Nobel Laureate > Professor Peter Doherty: "We are in real danger." Professor David de > Kretser AC (eminent medical scientist and Governor of Victoria, Australia) > "There is no doubt in my mind that this is the greatest problem confronting > mankind at this time and that it has reached the level of a state of > emergency." Dr Andrew Glikson (palaeo-climate scientist, ANU): "The > continuing use of the atmosphere as an open sewer for industrial pollution > has . raised CO2 levels to 387 ppm CO2 to date, leading toward conditions > which existed on Earth about 3 million years (Ma) ago (mid-Pliocene) , when > CO2 levels rose to about 400 ppm, temperatures to about 2-3 degrees C and > sea levels by about 25 +/- 12 metres." > > Dr James Hansen (top US climate scientist; Director, NASA Goddard Institute > for Space Studies; member of the prestigious US National Academy of > Sciences; 2007 Award for Scientific Freedom and Responsibility of the > prestigious American Association for the Advancement of Science; see: > http://www.columbia .edu/~jeh1/ .edu/%7Ejeh1/ > ; > http://en.wikipedia .org/wiki/ James_Hansen; for 1880-present NASA GISS > Global Temperature graphed data see: http://data. giss.nasa. gov/gistemp/and > http://data. giss.nasa. gov/gistemp/ graphs/) with 8 UK, French and US climate > change scientist co-authors (2008): "Paleoclimate data show that climate > sensitivity is ~3 deg-C for doubled CO2 [carbon dioxide; atmospheric CO2 > 280 > ppm pre-industrial] , including only fast feedback processes. Equilibrium > sensitivity, including slower surface albedo feedbacks, is ~6 deg-C for > doubled CO2 for the range of climate states between glacial conditions and > ice-free Antarctica. Decreasing CO2 was the main cause of a cooling trend > that began 50 million years ago, large scale glaciation occurring when CO2 > fell to 450 +/- 100 ppm [parts per million], a level that will be exceeded > within decades, barring prompt policy changes. If humanity wishes to > preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to > which life on Earth is adapted, paleoclimate evidence and ongoing climate > change suggest that CO2 will need to be reduced from its current 385 ppm to > at most 350 ppm. The largest uncertainty in the target arises from possible > changes of non-CO2 forcings. An initial 350 ppm CO2 target may be > achievable > by phasing out coal use except where CO2 is captured and adopting > agricultural and forestry practices that sequester carbon. If the present > overshoot of this target CO2 is not brief, there is a possibility of > seeding > irreversible catastrophic effects" (see: http://arxiv. org/abs/0804. 1126). > > What should readers of this list believe - the expert findings of the most > eminent climate scientists from top research institutions or the bald > assertions of uncredentialled climate denialists? > > [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 > [image: Yahoo! Groups] > Switch to: Text-Only, > Daily Digest? > Unsubscribe? Terms > of Use > . > > __,_._,___ > > > > _______________________________________________ > 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 Jan 29 10:35:20 2010 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Fri, 29 Jan 2010 09:35:20 -0800 Subject: [GJM] The Secret of Jesus Message-ID: <002c01caa109$a3dcbad0$eb963070$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS This is a very important video in which researchers talk about Zecharia Sitchen's transcriptions of the Sumerian Tablets and the probability of extra-terrestrial life on Earth. The Secret of Jesus http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYHjQ7Cqk-Y 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 Fri Jan 29 11:06:42 2010 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Fri, 29 Jan 2010 10:06:42 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: [globalnetnews-summary] 11 Clear Signs That The U.S. Economy Is Headed Into The Toilet Message-ID: <003801caa10e$0cbd3120$26379360$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS It is clear that the only way communities are going to survive this economic crisis is to get community currencies in place so as to act as a means of exchange within the community while not getting involved with the national currency as it gyrates out of control. This also means that local communities need to be "re-localized." And what I mean by this is that they need to be "self-sufficient" in such a way that the needs of the community can be met within the community itself. Again, I urge everyone to get a copy of Thomas Greco's "The End of Currency and the Future of Civilization" as well as his book "Money." At some time in the distant future, a national or even international form of currency may evolve that is stable. But we must get these local currencies in place immediately -- they are the lifeboats that will see us through this crisis. -----Original Message----- From: globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net [mailto:globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net] On Behalf Of TradingPostPaul Sent: Friday, January 29, 2010 8:41 AM To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] 11 Clear Signs That The U.S. Economy Is Headed Into The Toilet 11 Clear Signs That The U.S. Economy Is Headed Into The Toilet http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/11-clear-signs-that-the-u-s-econ omy-is-headed-into-the-toilet The vast majority of the talking heads on television are still speaking of the current economic collapse as if it is a temporary "recession" that will soon be over. So far, the vast majority of the American people seem to believe this as well, although for many Americans there is a very deep gnawing in the pit of their stomachs that is telling them that there is something very, very wrong this time around. The truth is that the foundations of the U.S. economy have been destroyed by an orgy of government, corporate and individual debt that has gone on for decades. It was the greatest party in the history of the world, but now the party is over. The following are 11 signs from just this past month that show that the U.S. economy is headed into the toilet and will not be recovering.... #1) When even Wal-Mart is closing stores you know things are bad. Wal-Mart announced on Monday that it will close 10 money-losing Sam's Club stores and will cut 1,500 jobs in order to reduce costs. So if even Wal-Mart has to shut down stores, what chance do other retailers have? #2) Americans are going broke at a staggering pace. 1.41 million Americans filed for personal bankruptcy in 2009 - a 32 percent increase over 2008. #3) American workers are working harder than ever and yet making less. After adjusting for inflation, pay for production and non-supervisory workers (80 percent of the private workforce) is 9% lower than it was in 1973. But those Americans who do still have jobs are the fortunate ones. #4) Unemployment is absolutely exploding all over the United States. Minority groups have been hit particularly hard. For example, unemployment on many U.S. Indian reservations is over 80 percent. #5) Unfortunately the employment situation is showing no signs of turning around. December was actually the worst month for U.S. unemployment since the so-called "Great Recession" began. #6) So just how bad are things when compared to past recessions? During the 2001 recession, the U.S. economy lost 2% of its jobs and it took four years to get them back. This time the U.S. economy has lost more than 5% of its jobs and there is no sign that the bleeding of jobs will stop any time soon. #7) Can you imagine trying to get your first job in this economic climate? Our young men and women either can't get work or have given up on work altogether. The percentage of Americans 16 to 24 who have jobs is 13 percent lower than ten years ago. #8) So where did all the jobs go? Over the past few decades we have allowed the corporate giants to ship mountains of American jobs overseas, and there are signs that this trend is only going to get worse. In fact, Princeton University economist Alan S. Blinder estimates that 22% to 29% of all current U.S. jobs will be offshorable within two decades. So get ready for even more of our jobs to be shipped off to Mexico, China and India. #9) All of these job losses are leading to defaults on mortgages. Over the past couple of years we have seen the American Dream in reverse. According to a report that was just released, delinquent home loans at government-controlled mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac surged 20 percent from July through September. #10) But that is nothing compared to what is coming. A massive "second wave" of mortgage defaults is getting ready to hit the U.S. economy starting in 2010. In fact, this "second wave" is so frightening that even 60 Minutes is reporting on it. #11) Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve has announced that it made a record profit of $46.1 billion in 2009. Apparently during this economic crisis it is a very good time to be a bankster. From maryrose333 at att.net Fri Jan 29 14:22:44 2010 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Fri, 29 Jan 2010 13:22:44 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: [globalnetnews-summary] NetNews January 29 2010 #2 Message-ID: <006d01caa129$5fdb0240$1f9106c0$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS Thanks to Trading Post Paul for forwarding these articles to us. I have deleted several from the original post sent to me as it makes it difficult for the FixGov and Global Justice Movement list to receive long messages. And I have left a comment on a couple of them. How do you feel about these things? -----Original Message----- From: globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net [mailto:globalnetnews-summary-owner at lists.riseup.net] On Behalf Of TradingPostPaul Sent: Friday, January 29, 2010 9:24 AM To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] NetNews January 29 2010 #2 GDP Report: Economy Grew By 5.7 Percent During Fourth Quarter 01/29/10 10:21 AM http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/29/gdp-report-economy-grew-b_n_441692. html NEW YORK - Stocks rose moderately Friday after the government's gross domestic product report showed that the economy grew at its fastest pace in six years. The Commerce Department said GDP grew at an annual rate of 5.7 percent during the fourth quarter, easily topping economists' forecast of 4.5 percent. The strong GDP report could get the market back on track after a 10-month rally stalled earlier this month. Shares have been falling since hitting a 15-month high last week. Concerns have been mounting that potential new regulations coming out of Washington could upend a fragile economic recovery. President Barack Obama's calls last week to restrict trading by big financial institutions helped spark the sell-off. He has provided scant details about the bank overhaul plan to help alleviate any concerns. The president is planning to announce further details about a plan to provide small businesses with tax credits that boost hiring. A high unemployment rate - it remains at 10 percent - is one of the biggest obstacles the country faces as it tries to recover from the worst recession since the Great Depression. Comment from M.R.: The fact that the economy can be growing with the unemployment lists being so high and rising ever higher, speaks to the fact that human labor has become delinked from the markets. This is due to advances in technology that are fast replacing human labor as more money is made from passive investments than from work. So, while the economy improves it does so while leaving many of those who have now become "unemployable" do to obsolescence in job skills as "left behinds" as technology now is changing so rapidly as to almost make it impossible for anyone to retrain for job placement as new technology advances so quickly. This is not going to go away as we move more and more into advanced technology, e.g., nanotechnology and bio-mimicry in order to conserve on ever-growing scarce resources. Coming soon: Chemotherapy drugs in your food Jan 26 2010, 12:23 AM http://www.informationliberation.com/?id=28594 If there is any single neurotoxic additive out there that is worse than all others, it would have to be Monosodium Glutamate (MSG). It is used as a flavor enhancer, and due to the damage it causes, it is no longer allowed to be added to food intended for babies or young children. It used to be added to infant formula, but congressional hearing in which researchers spoke out against the dangers of MSG caused the companies to stop adding MSG to infant formula. Instead, they now add other ingredients, with a similar effect, these ingredients are: Free Glutamic Acid, and Free Aspartic Acid. Why are these ingredients so dangerous? The reason is, that our body uses Glutamic Acid and Aspartic Acid as neurotransmitters. Free Glutamic Acid is naturally found in low quantities in food high in protein. It is involved in the "reward system" of the brain. The human body needs protein, and the presence of free glutamic acid reveals (at least in nature) that food is high in protein. When the glutamic acid reaches the brain, it triggers a response from the neurons, which is meant to reward the person for the food he eats. Of course, such a system is easily abused, by adding free glutamic acid to a person's food. Food manufacturers would stand to gain by adding glutamic acid to food low in protein, because it would make the food more attractive, and they could get away with adding less real protein. Of course, in a free market system in which the competition is murderous, this is exactly what happened. The problem here is however, that when the neurons are exposed to too much glutamic acid, this causes them to die. This process is called excitotoxicity. Sciencedaily.com explains: "Excitotoxicity is the pathological process by which neurons are damaged and killed by the overactivations of receptors for the excitatory neurotransmitter glutamate, such as the NMDA receptor and AMPA receptor." Republicans Use Military as a Stage Prop (Yet Again)... And This Time May Break the Law January 28, 2010 12:22 PM http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rob-diamond/republicans-use-military_b_440393. html You did not have to be paying much attention during last night's Republican response to President Obama's State of the Union address to notice a young Army Staff Sergeant in full dress uniform seated prominently right behind Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell and enthusiastically applauding and cheering at the Governor's attacks on Democrats. Slight problem, you see. That is probably against the law. Look it up for yourself right here in the Department of Defense (DoD) Directive entitled "Political Activities by Members of the Armed Forces." The purpose of this DoD Directive is to mirror the Hatch Act, which prohibits government employees from engaging in partisan political activity in an official capacity. Since a DoD Directive is considered to be in the same category as an order or regulation, and military personnel violating its provisions can be considered in violation of Article 92 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, our Republican friends may have just caused this brave young soldier to break the law. Thank you for that, Governor McDonnell. Ron Paul and a Timeline of CIA Crimes and Atrocities Kurt Nimmo Jan 26 2010, 12:20 AM http://www.informationliberation.com/?id=28589 A video of Ron Paul calling out the CIA at the Campaign for Liberty Regional Conference in Atlanta, Georgia, earlier this week has gone viral on the internet. In the video, Paul declared the CIA "runs everything" and is the dark force behind illegal invasions and occupations around the world. He said we need to get rid of the agency. The CIA has committed thousands of illegal and immoral acts around the world, including almost unfathomable mass murder and countless acts of terrorism and torture. "The CIA and the big corporations were, in my experience, in step with each other," writes former CIA agent John Stockwell. "the CIA had been running thousands of operations over the years. there have been about 3,000 major covert operations and over 10,000 minor operations. all designed to disrupt, destabilize, or modify the activities of other countries. But they are all illegal and they all disrupt the normal functioning, often the democratic functioning, of other societies." The CIA recruited Nazi war criminals. It is not known as the "Cocaine Import Agency" for nothing (see video below). It has engaged in assassination and covert chemical and biological warfare. The late Steve Kangas (who allegedly committed suicide in a 39th floor bathroom at One Oxford Center, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, immediately outside the offices of foundations run by known CIA operative Richard Mellon Scaife) compiled in the 1990s the following disturbing list of CIA crimes around the world: 1929 The culture we lost -- Secretary of State Henry Stimson refuses to endorse a code-breaking operation, saying, "Gentlemen do not read each other's mail." 1941 COI created -- In preparation for World War II, President Roosevelt creates the Office of Coordinator of Information (COI). General William "Wild Bill" Donovan heads the new intelligence service. WATCH Fish oil slows burn of genetic fuse in ageing, say scientists Omega-3 fatty acids from fish oils have a direct effect on biological ageing, US research suggests Tuesday 19 January 2010 21.00 GMT http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/jan/19/fish-oil-omega3-ageing Fish oil may be the true elixir of youth, according to new evidence of its effect on biological ageing. Omega-3 fatty acids from fish oil preserve the genetic "fuse" that determines the lifespan of cells, say scientists. The discovery, made in heart disease patients, may explain many of the claimed health benefits of omega-3. Taking fish oil supplements is said to protect against heart disease, improve survival rates after a heart attack, reduce mental decline in old age and help to prevent age-related changes in the eye that can lead to blindness. Research has also shown that rodents live one-third longer when given a diet enriched with fish-derived omega-3. Although omega-3 fatty acids have powerful anti-inflammatory properties and lower levels of some blood fats, the mechanisms behind these effects are poorly understood. The new research suggests that omega-3 has a direct effect on biological ageing by slowing down the rate at which protective caps on the ends of chromosomes shorten. M.R. Of concern with this, is the fact that the ocean's fisheries are 80% Overfished today, and then there is the high mercury factor found in fish that must also be taken into consideration. Check out Dr. Mercola's site for his warnings with regard to limiting the amount of fish one eats. This warning is particularly important for pregnant women. A Farming Model to Sustain the World January, 27 2010 By Sharma, Devinder http://www.zmag.org/zspace/commentaries/4122 Ten years from now, in 2020, when we try to look back, Indian agriculture can be transformed into a healthy and vibrant system where farmer suicides have been relegated to history, where distress and despondency has been replaced by the lost pride in farming, where agriculture becomes sustainable in the long run, and does not add on to global warming. As we enter 2010, the script for a futuristic agriculture, which brings back the smile on the face of farmers, without leaving any scar on the environment, is being rewritten. What began as a small initiative some six years back in a non-descript village in Khamam district, has now spread to over 2 million acres in 21 districts of Andhra Pradesh. I remember when I first talked about the miracle brought about in village Pannukula in Andhra Pradesh, many thought I was simply trying to romanticise agriculture. How farming can be done without the use of chemical pesticides, I was repeatedly asked. Pannukula dug out a lonely furrow, but eventually blazed a trail. In the next four years, more than 318,000 farmers in 21 out of the 23 districts of Andhra Pradesh have discarded the intensive chemical farming systems, and shifted to a more sustainable, economically viable and ecologically friendly agriculture. A silent revolution is in the offing. In Kharif 2009 (the monsoon season), some 1.4 million acres was covered with what is now known as Community Managed Sustainable Agriculture (CMSA). As I write this in the first week of January 2010, the area had expanded to 2 million acres of 21 districts. More than 0.6 million acres increase in a farming system that does not use chemical pesticides, and is also phasing out chemical fertiliser, that too in matter of few months, is a record of sorts. And all this has happened without any push from the government agencies and the private sector. I see no reason why this environmentally safe, and a farmer-friendly system of sustainable agriculture, cannot cover 200 million acres across the country in another ten years or so if the government gets serious. 60,000 acres increase in a farming system that does not use chemical pesticides, and is also phasing out chemical fertiliser, that too in matter of few months, is a record of sorts. Ten years from now, in 2020, when we try to look back, Indian agriculture can be transformed into a healthy and vibrant system where farmer suicides have been relegated to history, where distress and despondency has been replaced by the lost pride in farming, and where agriculture becomes sustainable in the long run and does not result in climate change. This is a roadmap for the future of Indian agriculture, and for that global agriculture. It not only provides a sustainable path, with a very low carbon footprint, and has tremendous potential to remove poverty and hunger. It has been conclusively demonstrated that household food security has improved with a 40 per cent drop in the purchase of food from the market. The crop yields have gone up, and farmers are now able to cultivate two crops in a year. This is the Zero Hunger model that I normally talk about which needs to be adopted under the proposed National Food Security Act. From rodney.shakespeare1 at btopenworld.com Fri Jan 29 17:36:57 2010 From: rodney.shakespeare1 at btopenworld.com (Rodney Shakespeare) Date: Sat, 30 Jan 2010 00:36:57 -0000 Subject: [GJM] Concept note for an international conference on Alternativesto Usurious and Ecologically Hostile Finance System References: <31f677a31001260241g54438b90y8e4ec038bc595285@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <007001caa144$54e0b0e0$4001a8c0@your447023ae6b> Dear Mukhtar, Thanks for the information. I am sorry to be blunt but Islam overall has a clear view on certain matters. Thus it is rightly opposed to riba,. for example, (and you splendidly uphold that opposition) but such opposition does not logically lead on to support for 'printed' money which is antipathetic to Islam. . Only interest-free loans are acceptable in Islam. You may not be aware but, in the UK, I do not attend, let alone speak at, any form of Islamic conferences in which there is an obvious element of the promotion of 'printed' money'. Interest-free loans for the development and spreading of productive (and associated consuming) capacity to everybody in the society is what is acceptable to Islam (and that includes interest-free loans for public capital, environmental capital, micro-credit etc ). Rodney Shakespeare. ----- Original Message ----- From: Centre For Ecological Audit,Social Inclusion & Governance To: Discussion Forum for Global Justice ; Norman G. Kurland ; David Pidcock ; abdassamad at muslimsofnorwich.org.uk ; AMI ; Dr.BD Sharma ; Masud Choudhury ; S Purkayastha Cc: M J Khan Sent: Tuesday, January 26, 2010 10:41 AM Subject: [GJM] Concept note for an international conference on Alternativesto Usurious and Ecologically Hostile Finance System Dear Rodney and all distinguished members of Global Justice Movement, I am pleased to share that an international conference for disuccing the alternative to the dominant atheistic and ecologically hostile economic paradigm is being organised in New Delhi with the key facilitation by Centre for Agriculture and Rural Development on 21 and 22 April, 2010. I have included names of potential speakers. The list could have more .Please advice.I would like to share the concept note for the conference for your comments. Your support and advice would enable us to realise the objectives. Yours sincerely Dr.Muhammad Mukhtar Alam On Sun, Jan 24, 2010 at 2:26 PM, Rodney Shakespeare wrote: Mukhtar, Exactly Rodney S. ----- Original Message ----- From: Centre For Ecological Audit,Social Inclusion & Governance To: Discussion Forum for Global Justice Sent: Friday, January 22, 2010 3:14 PM Subject: Re: [GJM] Total Lack of Imagination,and Creativity!! The LSE Encounter. Dear Rodney, You are right, do these economist taught on the theory of interest would ever delearn the lesson. In the post usury economy, I think we will have to ensure that the new paradigm is made a mandatory part of curriculum before this is instituted across the world. Dr.Muhammad Mukhtar Alam On Fri, Jan 22, 2010 at 7:34 PM, Rodney Shakespeare wrote: Robert, Good try These conventional academic economists are hopeless. At a time when President Obama is supposedly launching an attack at least on parts of the banking system for the disaster it has caused, these nerks having nothing to say. Rodney Shakespear.e ----- Original Message ----- From: robert searle To: discussion at globaljusticemovement.net Sent: Friday, January 22, 2010 10:37 AM Subject: [GJM] Total Lack of Imagination, and Creativity!! The LSE Encounter. I went on Wednesday to the LSE meeting in regards to the status quo of economics. It had some distinguished guests including Professor Ormerod, and Professor Hodgson. They gave some insignts into the parlous, and highly questionable nature of mainstream economics. But inevitably they did not offer anything new, or anything of real importance. After the presentations there was a session in which the mainly student audience asked some questions. However, they had the tendency of rambling on, and on...until my time came... I made the point in no uncertain terms that economics lack imagination, and creativity! This caused a stir, and the audience laughed, or in part "glared" at me. I went further by suggesting the need for a new global paradigm, and referred to my developing project of TRANSFINANCIAL ECONOMICS which I believe could be the system of the future. I also made the point that money itself was created electronically by banks out of thin air by means of credit creation. I got the distinct impression that in spite of their education the audience did not really fully understand the full import of what was said..though I may be wrong. Anyway, Professor Hodgson seemed to indicate that no paradigm could be ruled out, and another academic hinted at the possibility of misuse of anything new. This is just the gist of what they seemed to have said. http://www.p2pfoundation.net/Transfinancial_Economics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_Hodgson http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Ormerod ---------------------------------------------------------------------- _______________________________________________ Discussion mailing list Discussion at globaljusticemovement.net http://globaljusticemovement.net/mailman/listinfo/discussion_globaljusticemovement.net _______________________________________________ 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 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- _______________________________________________ Discussion mailing list Discussion at globaljusticemovement.net http://globaljusticemovement.net/mailman/listinfo/discussion_globaljusticemovement.net _______________________________________________ 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 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ Discussion mailing list Discussion at globaljusticemovement.net http://globaljusticemovement.net/mailman/listinfo/discussion_globaljusticemovement.net -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From maryrose333 at att.net Sat Jan 30 15:42:19 2010 From: maryrose333 at att.net (mary rose) Date: Sat, 30 Jan 2010 14:42:19 -0800 Subject: [GJM] FW: [globalnetnews-summary] NetNews January 30 2010 #1 Message-ID: <003301caa1fd$b22fb7f0$168f27d0$@net> Moving Into: TOTAL WELLNESS For your information and consideration, news reports compiled by Trading Post Paul. I may not be making comments on reports from now on as FUTURE DAWNING ENTERPRISES, as we will be known as a company, is going into a major expansion phase, thanks to some expert volunteer help coming on board. I must therefore temporarily take my focus off of the Co-Learner's list in order to guide this vision into another level of conscious evolution. With love and in gratitude to all that aided in the rise to this level. I am holding the field for the fullest potential to unfold now in the best interests of all concerned in this endeavor. What lies before us is a world of unlimited potential -- all we need do is to unfold it. 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: Friday, January 29, 2010 7:05 PM To: globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] NetNews January 30 2010 #1 Obama Goes To GOP Lions' Den -- And Mauls The Lions (VIDEO and text) Updated: 01-29-10 05:39 PM http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/29/obama-goes-to-the-gop-lio_n_442331. html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/29/transcript-of-president-o_n_442423. html President Obama traveled to a House Republican retreat in Baltimore on Friday and delivered a performance that was at once defiant, substantive and engaging. For roughly an hour and a half, Obama lectured GOP leaders and, in a protracted, nationally-televised question-and-answer session, deflected their policy critiques, corrected their misstatements and scolded them for playing petty politics. (Full video and transcript available HERE http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/29/transcript-of-president-o_n_442423. html White House officials told the Huffington Post they were absolutely ecstatic. MSNBC's Luke Russert, who was on the scene in Baltimore, relayed that a Republican official and other GOP aides had confided to him that allowing the "cameras to roll like that" was a "mistake." So effective was the president that Fox News cut away from the broadcast 20 minutes before it ended. It was the type of performance that Obama's supporters have long demanded and that his own aides have been eager to deliver. The question-and-answer session at the end wasn't initially supposed to be broadcast, but the White House pressured GOP leadership to bring the cameras in. They knew the optics it would generate, a source with knowledge of the planning relayed. Hours before the event began, Republican leaders finally relented. What resulted was what one Democratic strategist described as "amazing theater" -- certainly for cable news. Standing on a stage, looking down at his Republican questioners, Obama assumed the role of responsible adult to the GOP children, or, at the very least, of a college professor teaching and lecturing a room full of students. He chastised Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.) for calling his economic agenda radical and poked fun at the GOP's own platform. "I am not an ideologue, I'm not," he said. "It doesn't make sense if somebody could tell me, 'You could do this cheaper and get increased results,' then I would say, 'Great.' The problem is, I couldn't find credible economists who could back up the claims that you just made." He rebuked a questioner who insisted that the monthly deficit is higher now than Bush's annual deficit. "That's factually just not true," he said. "And you know it's not true." He lampooned Republican lawmakers seated in front of him for portraying his health care legislation as "some Bolshevik plot." He mocked Republicans for railing against the stimulus package and then showing up at "the ribbon-cuttings for some of these important projects in your communities." And he did it all while calling for "a tone of civility instead of slash and burn will be helpful." This Corruption in Washington is Smothering America's Future How do you regulate banks effectively, if the Senate is owned by Wall Street? Published on Friday, January 29, 2010 by The Independent/UK by Johann Hari http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-th is-corruption-in-washington-is-smothering-americas-future-1882349.html This week, a disaster hit the United States, and the after-shocks will be shaking and breaking global politics for years. It did not grab the same press attention as the fall of liberal Kennedy-licking Massachusetts to a pick-up truck Republican, or President Obama's first State of the Union address, or the possible break-up of Brangelina and their United Nations of adopted infants. But it took the single biggest problem dragging American politics towards brutality and dysfunction - and made it much, much worse. Yet it also showed the only path that Obama can now take to salvage his Presidency. For more than a century, the US has slowly put some limits - too few, too feeble - on how much corporations can bribe, bully or intimidate politicians. On Tuesday, they were burned away in one whoosh. The Supreme Court ruled that corporations can suddenly run political adverts during an election campaign - and there is absolutely no limit on how many, or how much they can spend. So if you anger the investment bankers by supporting legislation to break up the too-big-to-fail banks, you will smack into a wall of 24/7 ads exposing your every flaw. If you displease oil companies by supporting legislation to deal with global warming, you will now be hit by a tsunami of advertising saying you are opposed to jobs and the American Way. If you rile the defence contractors by opposing the gargantuan war budget, you will face a smear-campaign calling you Soft on Terror. Representative Alan Grayson says: "It basically institutionalises and legalises bribery on the largest scale imaginable. Corporations will now be able to reward the politicians that play ball with them - and beat to death the politicians that don't... You won't even hear any more about the Senator from Kansas. It'll be the Senator from General Electric or the Senator from Microsoft." The World Food Crisis: What's Behind it and What We Can Do About it http://americas.irc-online.org/am/5611 Eric Holt-Gim?nez | October 21, 2008 Americas Program, Center for International Policy (CIP) The World Food Program's description of the global food crisis raises the specter of a natural disaster surging over an unaware populace that is helpless in the face of massive destruction. With billions of people at risk of hunger, the current food crisis is certainly massive and destructive. But the reasons so many people have limited access to food are anything but "natural." On the contrary, decades of skewed agricultural policies, inequitable trade, and unsustainable development have thrown the world's food systems into a volatile, boom and bust cycle and widened the gap between affluence and poverty. Though hunger is coming in waves, not everyone will "drown" in famine. In fact, the world's recurrent food crises are making a handful of investors and multinational corporations very rich?even as they devastate the poor and put the rest of the planet at severe environmental and economic risk. The surge of so-called food "riots" not only in poor countries like Haiti, but in resource-rich countries like Brazil?and even in the industrialized nations of Europe and the United States?reflects the fact that people are not just hungry, they are rebelling against a dangerous and unjust global food system. The food crisis is anything but silent, and?as long as we are aware of its true causes?we are not helpless. The World Bank, the World Trade Organization, the World Food Program, the Millennium Challenge, The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and industrial giants like Yara Fertilizer, Cargill, Archer Daniels Midland, Syngenta, DuPont, and Monsanto, carefully avoid addressing the root causes of the food crisis. The "solutions" they prescribe are rooted in the same policies and technologies that created the problem in the first place: increased food aid, de-regulated global trade in agricultural commodities, and more technological and genetic fixes. These measures only strengthen the corporate status quo controlling the world's food. For this reason, thus far, there has been little official leadership in the face of the crisis. Nor has there been any informed public debate about the real reasons the numbers of hungry people are growing, or what we can do about it. The future of our food?and fuel?systems are being decided de facto by unregulated global markets, financial speculators, and global monopolies. The Obama Administration's Cover-up of the Flight 253 Affair "New Smoking Gun" Disclosures by Tom Burghardt January 29, 2010 http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=17184 Relevant questions begging for answers include: Who made the decision not to "connect the dots"? Are right-wing elements and holdovers from the previous administration actively conspiring to destabilize the Obama government? Was the attempted bombing a planned provocation meant to incite new conflicts in the Middle East and restrict democratic rights at home? As with the 9/11 attacks, these questions go unasked by corporate media. Indeed, such lines of inquiry are entirely off the table and are further signs that a cover-up is in full-swing, not a hard-hitting investigation. Nearly one month after passengers foiled an attempted suicide bomb attack aboard Northwest Airlines Flight 253 as it approached Detroit on Christmas Day, new information reveals that the White House and U.S. security agencies had specific intelligence on accused terrorist, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, far earlier than previously acknowledged. Along with new reports, evidence suggests that the administration's cover-up of the affair has very little to do with a failure by the intelligence apparatus to "connect the dots" and may have far more serious political implications for the Obama administration, and what little remains of a functioning democracy in the United States, than a botched bombing. What the White House and security officials have previously described only as "vague" intercepts regarding "a Nigerian" has now morphed into a clear picture of the suspect--and the plot. However, the real bombshell came last Wednesday during hearings before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee when Bushist embed, and current Director of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), Michael E. Leiter, made a startling admission. CongressDaily reported on January 22 that intelligence officials "have acknowledged the government knowingly allows foreigners whose names are on terrorist watch lists to enter the country in order to track their movement and activities." Leiter told the Committee: "I will tell you, that when people come to the country and they are on the watch list, it is because we have generally made the choice that we want them here in the country for some reason or another." CongressDaily reporter Chris Strohm, citing an unnamed "intelligence official" confirmed that Leiter's statement reflected government policy and told the publication, "in certain situations it's to our advantage to be able to track individuals who might be on a terrorist watch list because you can learn something from their activities and their contacts." An alternative explanation fully in line with well-documented inaction, or worse, by U.S. security agencies prior to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and now, Christmas Day's aborted airline bombing, offer clear evidence that a ruthless "choice" which facilitates the murder of American citizens are cynical pretexts in a wider game: advancing imperialism's geostrategic goals abroad and attacks on democratic rights at home. One subject barely explored by corporate media throughout the Flight 253 affair, is the unsettling notion that the aborted Christmas day bombing may have been a move by rightist elements within the security apparatus to destabilize the Obama administration, a course of action facilitated by the Obama government itself as we will explore below. This is not as implausible as it might appear at first blush. When one takes into account the meteoric rise to power by the 40-year-old former Navy pilot and federal prosecutor, Michael Leiter's ascent tracks closely with his previous service as a cover-up specialist for the Bush-Cheney regime. "In 2004, while working as a federal prosecutor," a New York Times puff piece informs us, "Mr. Leiter joined the staff of a commission, appointed by President George W. Bush, to examine intelligence failures leading up to the war in Iraq. That led to a series of jobs in the intelligence world, and in 2008, Mr. Bush appointed him director of the counterterrorism center." Zinn Called War on Terror "Largest Lie" By Sherwood Ross 1/29/10: http://www.opednews.com/articles/Zinn-Called-War-on-Terror-by-Sherwood-Ross- 100128-205.html The "largest lie," wrote hisorian Howard Zinn who died Wednesday at age 87, is that "everything the United States does is to be pardoned because we are engaged in a "war on terrorism.'" "This ignores the fact that war is itself terrorism, that the barging into people's homes and taking away family members and subjecting them to torture, that is terrorism, that invading and bombing other countries does not give us more security but less security." In an article published previously in "The Long Term View" magazine of the Massachusetts School of Law, Zinn said that in the Fallujah area of Iraq Knight Ridder reporters found there was no Ba'athist or Sunni conspiracy against the U.S., "only people ready to fight because their relatives had been hurt or killed, or they themselves had been humiliated by home searches and road stops." Zinn, popularly known as the people's historian, pointed out that the U.S. may have liberated Iraq from the tyranny of Saddam Hussein but afterwards it became Iraq's occupier. He noted this is the same fate that befell Cuba after the U.S. liberated it from Spain in 1898. In both nations, the U.S. established military bases and U.S. corporations moved in to profit from the upheaval. Writing of his personal feelings, Zinn said, "I wake up in the morning, read the newspaper, and feel that we are an occupied country, that some alien group has taken over" I wake up thinking this country is in the grip of a President (George W. Bush) who was not elected, who has surrounded himself with thugs in suits who care nothing about human life abroad or here, who care nothing about freedom abroad or here, who care nothing about what happens to the earth, the water, the air. And I wonder what kind of world our children and grandchildren will inherit." Zinn called on his readers "to engage in whatever nonviolent actions appeal to us. There is no act too small, no act too bold. The history of social change is the history of millions of actions, small and large, coming together at critical points to create a power that governments cannot suppress. We find ourselves today at one of those critical points." Cheap oil is gone, and that's good news 1/19/2010 12:10:31 AM | Marin Katusa, Casey Research http://www.stockhouse.com/Columnists/2010/Jan/19/Cheap-oil-is-gone,-and-that -s-good-news Over the next year or two, you will likely find yourself paying a LOT more at the gas pump. Big changes are taking place in the oil industry. With increased global demand and declining supply, easy oil is not so easy anymore. Everything is about to get more expensive. From gasoline to anti-freeze, life jackets to golf balls, and eye glasses to fertilizer. There are very few things in the modern world that aren't made from oil, made by machines dependant on oil, or shipped by vehicles powered by oil. The implications, at first glance, appear to be the opposite of good news. In fact, it's enough to strike panic in the hearts and wallets of the average consumer. And that's exactly why the International Energy Agency just released its annual World Energy Outlook, clearly rejecting the possibility that crude output is now in terminal decline. Their attitude seems to be, what you don't know won't hurt you. For now that is. The truth however, is beginning to surface, and from an investor's perspective, the truth can mean money in the bank. Right now, the IEA's claim that oil production will be ramped up from its current level of 85 million barrels per day to 105 million barrel per day by 2030 is receiving harsh criticism. The Guardian reports, "The world is much closer to running out of oil than official estimates admit." This comes from a whistleblower inside the International Energy Agency who states the fear of triggering panic buying has caused them to intentionally underplay the inevitable shortage. Kjell Aleklett, professor of physics at the Uppsala University in Sweden, and co-author of a new report 'The Peak of the Oil Age', states "oil production is more likely to be 75m barrels a day by 2030 than the 'unrealistic' 105m used by the IEA." According to Professor Aleklett's research, they are making a dangerous and unjustified assumption ? one that is dependent upon the oil industry's ability to ramp up production to levels never before achieved. Are you beginning to see the opportunity here? Whistleblowers and scientists are not the only ones disputing the IEA's report. The folks who pump oil aren't buying its rosy scenario either. Total SA, the French oil giant, which is making its move into the Alberta oil sands, doesn't accept the IEA's optimistic claims. The company runs on the belief that oil production won't surpass 95 million barrels. Former chief executive officer of Canada's Talisman Energy, Jim Buckee, agrees the IEA prediction is nonsense. Sadad al Husseini, energy consultant and the former exploration and production chief of the world's largest oil company, Saudi Aramco, recently said, "Oil supplies have reached a capacity plateau and will not meet a growth in demand over the next decade." The New Feudalism January 29, 2010 at 15:29:59 http://www.opednews.com/articles/The-New-Feudalism-by-Jerry-West-100126-217. html The social system in most of Europe during the Middle Ages is known as feudalism. A similar system existed in Japan. A defining characteristic of this system is that a ruler holds all title to land and dispenses use of the land to retainers in return for their loyalty and service in support of the ruler. These retainers in turn have there own retainers on down the line until we reach the serf at the bottom of the pyramid. A person who works for and is dependent upon those above for their survival. Eventually, this system gave way to one based on class, and theoretically now to one based on democracy for all citizens of legal age regardless of class or gender, giving them a say in how society operates. Recently in the United States the Supreme Court issue a ruling that overturned the McCain - Feingold campaign finance reform law that limited the ability of corporations to spend money on political advertising. The ruling was based on the issue of free speech, which the court ruled applies to corporations which for over a century have been considered a person under the law. The idea that corporate groups have rights equal to those of real persons in a society is a threat to any form of democracy based on the equality of the individual, and is a step in social evolution backward towards the structures of the Middle Ages. Recognizing the rights of corporations as equal to those of actual persons increases the power of accumulated wealth to decide what the rules are that govern how we can live our lives. When corporations exercise their influence there is little doubt that when the question is between corporate interest and the well being of society, which way they will influence the decision. The power of corporations is a direct threat to personal freedom. The more this power increases the more people are made dependent upon them and the less ability people have to deviate from what the corporations want them to do. As corporate power grows corporations absorb more and more of our infrastructure, buying up businesses and property and taking over government services. The end result could be a return to a feudal system where most of the population are serfs in the service of one corporation or another. Unlike the older feudal structures, however, instead of the ruler being at the top of the pile, in today's developing feudal society the corporations own the rulers who are being reduced to corporate functionaries. The real power lies in the board rooms. Southern California Town to Ban Merriam Webster Dictionary? by Jayne Lyn Stahl 28 Jan 2010 http://atlanticfreepress.com/news/1/12686-southern-california-town-to-ban-me rriam-webster-dictionary.html In a small town less than a hundred miles south of Los Angeles, a school district will soon meet to decide whether or not to ban Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary as being "age in-appropriate." According to an article in the Associated Press, the whole bruhaha started with a parent's complaint that his child came across the words "oral sex." The dictionaries were removed from classrooms last week, and a committee is being formed to determine whether a permanent ban on Merriam Webster dictionary is in order. Menifee, which is in Riverside County, is a small town with under 100,000 residents. Their school district serves students from kindergarten through eight grade. The decision to remove the dictionaries from the shelves of all classrooms in the school district, according to an assistant superintendant, wasn't only because the dictionary mentions "oral sex," but "a number of referenced words" school administrators found offensive. Clearly, Menifee elders are more concerned about insulating children than educating them. ODAC Oil Depletion Analysis Centre Newsletter - Jan 29 Published Jan 29 2010 http://www.energybulletin.net/node/51357 Welcome to the ODAC Newsletter, a weekly roundup from the Oil Depletion Analysis Centre, the UK registered charity dedicated to raising awareness of peak oil. This week saw the Chairman of one of the world?s major oil companies publicly acknowledge the approaching peak in oil production. During a panel discussion at the annual World Economic Forum at Davos in Switzerland on Thursday, Thierry Desmarest, Chairman of Total said: ?The problem of peak oil remains. We have always been relatively prudent in our assessment of a peak oil date in Total between, I would say, the International Energy Agency, which was extremely optimistic a few years ago - a bit less today - and some so called experts who were announcing that the peak oil has already taken place. In our opinion it will be very difficult to raise the oil production above 95 million barrels/day, which is something like 10% above today's level - so its not enormous...So I think we must keep in mind that in a few years from now the market may be in a relatively difficult position in, the energy security concerning oil (because I think for gas we have certainly more time), will be a big problem.? You might think that such an explosive point would provoke a lively debate, but you would be wrong. Panel moderator Daniel Yergin, the founder of CERA and a long-term antagonist of peak oil, moved quickly onto Iraq and the prospects for expanding production. Only Khalid al-Falih, Chief Executive of Saudi Aramco contradicted Desmarest, saying that although ?long-term it [oil] is a depletable resource?, it would be possible with the use of technology to exceed 95 or even 100 million barrels/day. Beyond rhetoric Tim Jackson, RSA Journal http://www.thersa.org/fellowship/journal/features/features/beyond-rhetoric Where on earth is the next economy? What is the basis of tomorrow?s enterprise? How do we set about building a shared and lasting prosperity? These questions haunt the fragile truce of a still-faltering economy. It?s time we came up with some answers. It?s time we demanded them from our politicians. The banking crisis of 2008 led the world to the brink of financial disaster and shook the dominant economic model to its foundations. It redefined the boundaries between market and state. It forced us to confront our inability to manage the financial ? let alone the social or environmental ? sustainability of the global economy. Consumer confidence was shattered. Investment stalled. Unemployment may still be rising. Trust in financial markets is likely to suffer for a long time to come. Public sector finances will be stretched for a decade or more. Not to stand back now and question what happened is to compound failure with failure: failure of vision with failure of responsibility. If nothing else, the economic crisis has presented a unique opportunity to address financial and ecological sustainability together. For the most part, that opportunity has gone unheeded. For a while, politicians paid lip service to the interesting idea of a ?green stimulus? ? government spending to address simultaneously the demands of economic recovery and the investment needs of a sustainable, low-carbon society. ?The contours of a resilient, low-carbon recovery are becoming clear,? claimed Gordon Brown at the World Economic Forum in Davos, barely a year ago. ?Underlying all these measures is a common principle: the need to lay down now the infrastructure and the hardware to support a low-carbon recovery and the green economy of the future.? ...It?s even possible to identify a primitive blueprint for this kind of activity. Community-based enterprises engaged in delivering local services ? food, health, public transport, community education, maintenance and repair, recreation ? contribute to flourishing, are embedded in community, have the potential for low-carbon footprints and provide people with meaningful work. Let?s call these ?ecological enterprises?. At the moment they constitute a kind of ?Cinderella economy?, operating at best at the margins of the formal economy. This Cinderella economy is problematic in conventional terms, however, because its potential for productivity growth is almost negligible. There are very good reasons for this. Human interaction lies at the heart of the value proposition. Reducing the labour content makes no sense at all here. In a conventional growth-based economy, this is potentially disastrous. In an economy geared towards providing capabilities for flourishing (including decent work) within ecological limits, it is a considerable bonus... (Winter 2009-2010) Tim Jackson's book Prosperity Without Growth: Economics for a Finite Planet is published by Earthscan. Vision for Sustainability, Resiliency by Post Carbon Institute by Warren Karlenzig http://www.postcarbon.org/blog-post/62976-vision-for-sustainability-resilien cy-by-post Published Jan 29 2010 by Post Carbon Institute, Archived Jan 29 2010 What will we do post growth, post cheap energy, post resource abundance and post climate change? The Post Carbon Institute (PCI) convened its first meeting of Fellows this weekend in Berkeley to address these concerns. Many there and elsewhere have argued that these transformational changes are already becoming evident. PCI Fellow Bill Rees, the co-originator of the Ecological Footprint, captured the mood of the group best when he said, "We have to adapt to the change rather then repress the change." The Institute's Fellows were culled by PCI from a wide variety of fields: energy, transportation, population, food/ agriculture, building and development, economics, social justice, education, urban issues, health, climate, biodiversity and water. The event marked a maiden face-to-face (and virtual) voyage to examine the brave new waters of the 21st century. About 25 of PCI's total 29 total Fellows participated. We contributed concepts around "bioregionally grounded human communities" based on non-automotive transportation options, human-scaled neighborhoods and regionally produced sustainable food and energy. Groups also prepared proposals for collaboration and post-event project action, including a Resiliency Preparedness Kit; a communications strategy and roll-out plan; a regional sustainable agriculture investment model for production, processing and urban distribution; and a PCI-informed community development prototype approach for both domestic (Oberlin, Ohio) and international (most likely India or China) communities. Pentagon Confronts Russia In The Baltic Sea January 29, 2010 http://www.inteldaily.com/2010/01/pentagon-confronts-russia-in-the-baltic-se a/ The proximity of Russia?s two largest cities, St. Petersburg and Moscow, especially the first, to the Baltic coast makes the basing of American warships with interceptor missiles in that sea the equivalent of Russia stationing comparable vessels with the same capability in the Atlantic Ocean near Delaware Bay, within easy striking distance of New York City and Washington, D.C. Although Washington canceled the earlier interceptor missile plans for Poland, on January 20 the defense ministry of that country announced that not only would the Pentagon go ahead with the deployment of a Patriot Advanced Capability-3 anti-ballistic missile battery in the country, but that it would be based on the Baltic Sea coast 35 miles from Russia?s Kaliningrad district. [5] The previous month Viktor Zavarzin, the head of the Defense Committee of the Russian State Duma (the lower house of parliament), said ?Russia is concerned with how rapidly new NATO members are upgrading their military infrastructure? and ?that Russia was especially concerned with the reconstruction of air bases in the Baltic countries for NATO?s purposes which include signal and air intelligence radio of Russian territory.? [6] The annual BALTOPS (Baltic Operations), the largest international military exercise conducted in the Baltic Sea, run by the U.S. Navy, NATO and the latter?s Partnership for Peace program which included naval forces from twelve nations ? Britain, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland, Sweden and the United States ? led by U.S. Carrier Strike Group 12.