Chris Hedges - Corporations Have No Use for Borders

What happened to Canada? It used to be the country we would flee to if life in the United States became unpalatable. No nuclear weapons. No huge military-industrial complex. Universal health care. Funding for the arts. A good record on the environment.

But that was the old Canada. I was in Montreal on Friday and Saturday and saw the familiar and disturbing tentacles of the security and surveillance state. Canada has withdrawn from the Kyoto Accords so it can dig up the Alberta tar sands in an orgy of environmental degradation. It carried out the largest mass arrests of demonstrators in Canadian history at 2010’s G-8 and G-20 meetings, rounding up more than 1,000 people. It sends undercover police into indigenous communities and activist groups and is handing out stiff prison terms to dissenters. And Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper is a diminished version of George W. Bush. He champions the rabid right wing in Israel, bows to the whims of global financiers and is a Christian fundamentalist.

Read More:

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/corporations_have_no_use_for_borders_20120130/

Lynn Parramore - How Male Global Elites Work Hard to Fix the Economy – In Their Favor

The pomp and the platitudes. The champagne and the canapés. In the tony ski resort of Davos, Switzerland, the gemütlich gathering of global leaders for the World Economic Forum seemed like business as usual…five days of hobnobbing and male-dominated, Euro-centric jaw-flapping on the economic state of the planet. A rich and rewarding experience for the rich and rewarded.

But what about this year’s theme? Billed as “The Great Transformation,” the WEF promised sessions on rethinking capitalism, reducing inequality and solving Europe's financial crisis. Founder Klaus Schwab opened the forum with a wise observation that capitalism needs to be fixed "to serve society." Was it possible that these leaders wanted change? Had they opened their ears to the 99 percent?

Guess it depends on which society and what you mean by fixed. Because in reality, the brochure should have read: "The Great Retrenchment: with sessions on denying capitalism's failures, staying rich despite inequality, and dumping Europe's financial crisis onto the backs of ordinary people."

Read More:

http://www.alternet.org/story/153941/how_male_global_elites_work_hard_to_fix_the_economy_%E2%80%93_in_their_favor

Casey Research - Tehran Pushes to Ditch the US Dollar

Rumors are swirling that India and Iran are at the negotiating table right now, hammering out a deal to trade oil for gold. Why does that matter, you ask? Only because it strikes at the heart of both the value of the US dollar and today's high-tension standoff with Iran.

Marin Katusa

Chief Energy Investment Strategist

Casey Research

The official line from the United States and the European Union is that Tehran must be punished for continuing its efforts to develop a nuclear weapon. The punishment: sanctions on Iran's oil exports, which are meant to isolate Iran and depress the value of its currency to such a point that the country crumbles.

But that line doesn't make sense, and the sanctions will not achieve their goals. Iran is far from isolated and its friends – like India – will stand by the oil-producing nation until the US either backs down or acknowledges the real matter at hand. That matter is the American dollar and its role as the global reserve currency.

The short version of the story is that a 1970s deal cemented the US dollar as the only currency to buy and sell crude oil, and from that monopoly on the all-important oil trade the US dollar slowly but surely became the reserve currency for global trades in most commodities and goods. Massive demand for US dollars ensued, pushing the dollar's value up, up, and away. In addition, countries stored their excess US dollars savings in US Treasuries, giving the US government a vast pool of credit from which to draw.

Read More:

http://www.caseyresearch.com/cdd/demise-petrodollar

Danny Schechter - Remember Rousseau: Property Rights and Human Rights Are Still At War

Listen to Danny's show (The News Dissector) every Friday at 1pm(ET) only on PRN.fm.

The conflict between property rights and human rights has entered a new chapter. It is a debate that goes back to the challenge by landowners and merchants behind the American Revolution’s war on British control over the colonial economy.

Only today, as those speaking in the name of the 99% challenge the super wealthy of the 1% (actually the .001 %) there is a new battleground in what’s known as the housing market with as many as 14 million Americans in or facing foreclosure.

The defense of property rights is the holy of the holies for the propertied classes with a whole industry set up to enforce their claims of ownership.

Read More:

http://www.disinfo.com/2012/01/remember-rousseau-property-rights-and-human-rights-are-still-at-war/

Can the Economy Bear What Oil Prices Have in Store?

Stop wrangling over global warming and instead reduce fossil-fuel use for the sake of the global economy.

That's the message from two scientists, one from the University of Washington and one from the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom, who say in the current issue of the journal Nature (Jan. 26) that the economic pain of a flattening oil supply will trump the environment as a reason to curb the use of fossil fuels.

"Given our fossil-fuel dependent economies, this is more urgent and has a shorter time frame than global climate change," says James W. Murray, UW professor of oceanography, who wrote the Nature commentary with David King, director of Oxford's Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment.

Read More:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/01/120126223609.htm