Danny Schechter - Is The Past The Future? The News Dissector Reports From and on Iran

Listen to The News Dissector weekly on Friday's at 1pm only on PRN.fm

The TV series House of Lies is about business but it could as easily be about government and foreign policy.

In a recent episode, one of the management consultants pitches a company about the need to launch a new product. She recounts the story of the Polaroid Company known as the Apple of its day, widely admired for the cool design of its instant cameras.

When I lived in Cambridge MA, Polaroid was one of the town’s biggest employers, an economic powerhouse.

But soon it was gone. It failed to see new competitive products on the horizon. It only saw the past as its future.

It went bankrupt.

Read More:

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/02/07

Emily Badger - Are Conservatives More Fearful Than Liberals?

The tone of this year’s Republican presidential primary (which now seems destined to last much longerthan Mitt Romney had been planning) seems sort of, well, fearful. One after the other, these would-be presidents have warned of looming threats — war with Iran, economic collapse, class warfare, social disintegration, illegal immigration — and have sought to position themselves as the best candidate for the job of protecting America.

Their political advisers must understand a psychological phenomenon that researchers have been studying for some time now: conservatives appear to be motivated by fear in a way that liberals are not. An expanding body of research suggests that Republicans and Democrats differ on some fundamental level in how they respond to positive and negative stimuli. A new study, published in the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, adds even more evidence to the theory that these two groups quite literally see the world differently.

Read More:

http://www.miller-mccune.com/

TAKE ACTION: REPRESENTATIVE MALONEY WANTS TO LIMIT YOUR ACCESS TO SCIENCE!

Rep. Carolyn Maloney, who represents much of Manhattan, and Rep. Darrell Issa of California want to limit your access to scientific and medical research.  Currently, all federally funded research publications have to be made available through Pub Med, and accessible online for free, so all of us have the ability to stay informed about research being conducted with our tax dollars.  Bill HR 3699, the Research Works Act, would prevent the National Institutes of Health or any other agency from allowing private-sector work to be disseminated online without prior consent both from the publisher and the authors of the study.  If this bill passes, research information will only be available through subscription to each and every journal that publishes a study.  Subscriptions to scientific and medical journals cost hundreds of dollars annually, and copies of individual articles -- or access for 24 hours -- usually cost $15 to $30 apiece.  This bill would make it impossible for consumer and health organizations to keep their members informed about scientific and medical research that concerns all of us.  If this bill passes, you will only know what mainstream medicine WANTS you to know!

Please click this link to sign on to the Alliance for Natural Health action alert to fight this bill: https://secure3.convio.net/aahf/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=1021.  

If you happen to live in Rep. Maloney’s district, please send her an email and let her know what you think: http://maloney.house.gov/.

For more information, visit the Alliance for Natural Health at http://www.anh-usa.org/no-science-for-you/, or the New York Times at http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/11/opinion/research-bought-then-paid-for.html?_r=1.

Dean Baker - A Competitive Dollar: The Missing Link in President Obama’s Manufacturing Agenda

In his State of the Union Address last week, President Obama announced a renewed commitment to manufacturing in the United States. While the commitment to rebuilding the country’s manufacturing base is welcome – manufacturing has historically been a source of good-paying jobs for workers without college degrees – he unfortunately left the most important item on the list off the agenda.

President Obama failed to commit himself to restoring the competitiveness of dollar as part of his agenda for bringing back manufacturing jobs. The value of the dollar really has to be front and central in any effort to restore U.S. competitiveness since it is by far the most important factor determining the relative cost of U.S. goods compared with goods produced elsewhere.

If the dollar is 20 percent above its proper value then it is equivalent to putting a 20 percent tariff on all of our exports. If the price of U.S. made goods are 20 percent higher for people living in other countries because of an over-valued dollar, we are not going to be able to export very much.

Read More:

http://www.nationofchange.org/competitive-dollar-missing-link-president-obama-s-manufacturing-agenda-1328028595

Richard Brenneman - Steve Chu fulfills Eisenhower's darkest nightmare

The headline of the announcement from Julie Chao of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory [LBNL] says it all: "National Labs Seek Closer Industry Ties."

In his farewell address to the nation, Dwight David Eisenhower sounded the now-familiar alarm of the danger of growing power of the military/industrial complex, a power that might be said to have its foundation in Berkeley, a point we'll take up later.

But less familiar to most is that the military and industry were only two of three components of the force force Eisenhower saw gaining ascendancy over the nation.

Here's the part of that same address which rarely, if ever, gets noted [emphasis added]:

Read More:

http://richardbrenneman.wordpress.com/2012/02/02/steve-chu-fulfills-eisenhowers-darkest-nightmare/ 

Robert Reich - The Republican Myth of Obama’s “Entitlement Society”

One of the few things Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich agree on is that President Obama is turning America into “European-style welfare culture.”

In his standard stump speech Romney charges Obama with creating a nation of dependents. “Over the past three years Barack Obama has been replacing our merit-based society with an entitlement society.”

Gingrich calls Obama “the best food-stamp president in American history.” What’s their evidence? Both rely on federal budget data showing direct payments to individuals shot up by almost $600 billion, a 32 percent increase, since the start of 2009. They also point to Census data showing that 49 percent of Americans now live in homes where at least one person is collecting a federal benefit – Social Security, food stamps, unemployment insurance, worker’s compensation, or subsidized housing. That’s up from 44 percent in 2008.

Read More:

http://www.nationofchange.org/republican-myth-obama-s-entitlement-society-1328199765

Christopher Sabatini - China’s Geostrategic Designs on Latin America

In the last 5 years China’s military activities in Latin America and the Caribbean have grown at an unprecedented rate.   Beijing now regularly hosts officers from Colombia, Chile, Mexico, Peru and Uruguay  in its military academies, has expanded arms sales and technology transfers to countries like Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil and Venezuela, and in October last year even sent  a navy ship to the Caribbean.

Is China—now Brazil and Chile’s number-one trade partner—buttressing its economic interests in the Western Hemisphere with military ties and alliances?  Is this the Middle Kingdom’s equivalent of President Barack Obama’s Pacific pivot to balance China’s saber rattling in Asia? There’s no doubt that China’s torrid economic growth rate and its arrival as an emerging—if not already emerged—global economic superpower has shifted the international system and brought a more muscular Chinese foreign policy.  That policy—part of what the Chinese labeled its “Going Out” strategy—has come with a growing Chinese diplomatic, economic and even military presence in many of its closest trade partners.  Given China’s need for raw materials to feed its manufacturing growth and urbanization—gobbling up everything from iron, to oil, to soybeans and frozen chicken—the country’s rise has been felt most obviously (at times with alarm) in the developing world, including Latin America.

Read More:

http://www.americasquarterly.org/node/3311

Reelection rumblings for Obama

Recent economic reports could have the Obama White House worried. All of the reports suggest the pace of economic growth is still slow, and that unemployment could rise, and not fall, by the end of the year. To make matters worse for Obama, the reports come as his likely Republican opponent, Mitt Romney, gains strength from the drubbing he gave Newt Gingrich in the Florida primary on Tuesday. 

To be sure, things aren’t all bad for the White House. Unemployment dropped all the way to 8.5 percent in December, a trajectory that recalls Ronald Reagan’s presidency. Reagan was the last U.S. president to face double-digit unemployment, but the high jobless rate fell dramatically in the final half of his first term. On Wednesday, stocks soared on a report from ADP that found private companies hired 170,000 people in January. Construction spending also rose, sending the Dow Jones up more than 100 points in the morning. 

2012 has been a good year for markets so far, despite unease over Europe. Every major index reported strong gains in January, and the rally on Wednesday continued a good year. Improving 401(k) plans might put voters in more of a mood to give Obama four more years in November. 

Read More:

http://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-money/801-economy/208171-reelection-rumblings-for-obama

Americans get closer to building weapon of the future

The US Navy may have the world's most powerful electromagnetic gun - the so-called railgun - during the forthcoming 15 years. The "Weapon of the 21^st Century," as Russian specialists described it, was undergoing tests during the recent several years. US defense officials were satisfied with the results. They have already signed the first contract to create the power source for the gun. The railgun needs a lot of energy to accelerate projectiles to supersonic speeds.

Raytheon Company, one of the USA's largest defense suppliers, signed an agreement with the Naval Sea Systems Command for the creation of the power system for the railgun. The agreement was evaluated at $10 billion, a message on the website of the company said.

In accordance with the agreement, Raytheon undertakes to design and build the power module, which will become a part of the Pulse Forming Network (PFN). In the future, the system can be used for the production of railguns and combat lasers.

Read More:

http://english.pravda.ru/science/tech/01-02-2012/120391-railgun-0/#

Mahboob Khawaja - Obama's Endless Global Warfare

Politics is a fantasy – more so in the United States mass media dominated culture, a combination of pretension, willful deception, institutionalized manufactured lies and individualistic propaganda and fear mongering suspicion of the disbelief to manipulate the common folks to manage the informed herd and exploit their patriotism to serve the multiple interests of the 1% ruling few elite. Despite its ambiguous claims the liberal democracy seemed at loss to provide any sense of moral or intellectual security to the 99% masses – the political engine of the democratic legitimacy.  The well paid corporate news media networks boost the self-crafted fear of wars - the agenda for continuous struggle as if peace is endangered specie even in utopian configuration. 

The mankind lives in One World on One Planet. War waged by aggressors in one part of the planet, is a war against the whole of the mankind. Since the elected leaders faltered to deliver peace, they must be questioned for their treacherous role-play. There is no shortage of visionary, competent and intelligent people in the Western societies. Why not nominate intelligent, honest, proactive and responsible Americans rather than wasting time and opportunities on Obama, Romney and Gingrich. Perhaps, the 99% forceful voices of the people and changing fortunes of time signaling tangible shifts in thinking and political perceptions of the Western liberal democratic functionaries fearful of the unknown forces of change, time  and history will reinforce the demand to hire competent political leaders rather wasting money and efforts in electing sadistic egomaniacs persons pretending to be leaders. Those with credibility and chosen by the 99% masses could serve the interest of the people for peace, security and economic well being rather than waste money and hopes and disregard institutionalized political cynicism and bigotry - not Obama, not Mitt Romney, not Gingrich or Bush, not Cheney, not Blair – some have been fund guilty of “crimes against humanity” others are candidates in public perceptions for war crimes against humanity.

Read More:

www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=28969

Ed Silverman - Grassley Probes FDA Over Employee Whistleblowers

How does the FDA treat employees who blow the whistle? US Senator Chuck Grassley, a long-standing agency nemesis, wants to know. And so he has written FDA commish Margaret Hamburg to explain the circumstances surrounding a controversial episode in which several current and former agency employees say they were harassed and dismissed after complaining about device reviews to Congress. 

Their charges were contained in a sensational lawsuit filed last month, in which they accused the agency of secretly reading their personal email accounts, while the agency maintained they illegally disclosed confidential business information after writing to Congress to complain they were being coerced to approve devices that posed unacceptable risks (back story).

For instance, the employees, who are all scientists and doctors and worked in the Center for Devices and Radiological Health, charged three devices could have missed signs of detecting breast cancer; one device risked falsely diagnosing osteoporosis, and an ultrasound device could malfunction while monitoring pregnant women in labor.

Read More:

http://www.pharmalot.com/2012/02/grassley-probes-fda-over-employee-whistleblowers/

Andy Borowitz - A Clarification from Mitt Romney About Poor People

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney today released the following letter to the American people:

Dear American People:

Yesterday, comments I made about poor people made me look terrible.  This always seems to happen when I say what I really believe.

The fact is, I do care about poor people.  That’s because I’m poor myself, when you compare me to Mark Zuckerberg.

According to most projections, Facebook’s IPO should net Mr. Zuckerberg a personal fortune of $28 billion.  I couldn’t make a pile of dough-re-mi like that even if I fired people twenty-four hours a day.

Read More:

http://www.borowitzreport.com/2012/02/02/a-clarification-from-mitt-romney/

Ron Jacobs - Attacking Iran for All the "Right" Reasons

Unlike a couple years ago, when the consensus was split, there recently seems to be a growing consensus among pundits and certain politicians that Washington will be launching a military attack on Iran.  While pundits do not have the power to make war, politicians in Congress certainly do.  Furthermore, pundits convinced that this is an advisable route will do their best to bend the ears of those politicians so that there wishes can be filled, especially if those pundits are representing interests that believe they would benefit from such an attack.

Why now?  Part of the reason is because the majority of US troops are out of Iraq, thereby leaving a minimal number of American soldiers available for Iranian retaliation.  A related  reason could be the loss of prestige to Washington with the withdrawal of those troops.  It’s not like Washington won its war in Iraq; it’s more like it was a stalemate with Tehran still holding on to a couple key cards.  Israel, with an element of its ruling elites always ready to attack any perceived enemy, is of course a constant element in the drive to destroy Iran, as are the ruling families of certain Arab Gulf states that compete with Tehran in the oil market.  Iran’s alleged support for various resistance movements in the Middle East and Asia provides Israel with but one more reason to call for war, especially since those resistance movements are primarily opposed to Israel’s expansionist anti-Palestinian policies.

Read More:

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/01/31/rationalizing-idiocy/

Warning of unrest, new study shows millions risk losing lands in Africa

New studies released in London today suggest that the frenzied sell-off of forests and other prime lands to buyers hungry for the developing world's natural resources risk sparking widespread civil unrest—unless national leaders and investors recognize the customary rights of millions of poor people who have lived on and worked these lands for centuries. "Controversial land acquisitions were a key factor triggering the civil wars in Sudan, Liberia and Sierra Leone, and there is every reason to be concerned that conditions are ripe for new conflicts to occur in many other places," said Jeffrey Hatcher, director of global programs for the Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI), which sponsored an expert panel today at the Royal Society on the trends shaping rural lands and rights worldwide.

In presenting the results of an analysis of tenure rights in 35 African countries, by international land rights specialist Liz Alden Wily, Hatcher noted that despite the clear potential for bloodshed, "local land rights are being repeatedly and tragically ignored during an astonishing buying spree across Africa." Alden Wily's review found that the majority of 1.4 billion hectares of rural land, including forests, rangelands or marshlands, are claimed by states, but held in common by communities, affecting "a minimum" of 428 million of the rural poor in sub-Saharan Africa. "Every corner of every state has a customary owner," Alden Wily concluded.¹

Read More:

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-02/bc-nss013012.php

FDA STOMPS ON THE FIRST AMENDMENT: TAKE ACTION

As reported in the Washington Post on January 30, 2012, six current and former FDA employeesare suing to stop the agency from illegally spying on private communications to Congress and otheroversight agencies. The problem began in 2007 when nine scientists and doctors in the Office ofDevice Evaluation complained internally that the FDA was in the process of approving at least twelveradiological devices which were potentially harmful and posed risks to millions of patients. Insteadof investigating the devices, the FDA set up a secret surveillance system to monitor those who hadcomplained. Information illegally gathered from personal email accounts was used to harass thewhistleblowers. The FDA twice asked Health and Human Services to launch an investigation, accusingthe scientists of releasing confidential business information about devices they believed to be unsafe.Of the six scientists who have filed suit against the FDA, two were fired, two did not have their contractsrenewed, and two continue to suffer harassment and have been passed over for promotion.

Stephen Kohn, host of PRN’s Honesty Without Fear: The Whistleblower’s Radio Hour, is one of thelawyers representing the six FDA whistleblowers. Please take action by clicking on the following linkto let the FDA, the President, and your legislators know that the FDA must stop harassing doctors andscientists who are trying to protect Americans from defective and unsafe medical devices: http://www.whistleblowers.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1333.

John Cherian - New Military Doctrine: America is "Looking for Enemies": Threatening China

The new United States military doctrine “Sustaining U.S. Global Leadership: Priorities for 21st Century Defence”, officially unveiled in January, is a clear indication that Washington's focus has once again shifted to China and the Asia Pacific region. The U.S. had not really shifted its gaze away from the region as it fought wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Nearly half of U.S. Air Force F-22 jet fighters have been based in the Asia Pacific region. Two U.S. aircraft carriers have always been around in the region. As many as 22,000 U.S. troops are permanently based in South Korea. In the 2006 Quadrennial Review, the Pentagon had allocated six aircraft carriers and 60 per cent of the U.S.' submarines to the Pacific. Washington had approved a $-6 billion arms deal with Taiwan despite strenuous objections from China. Before the new Pentagon strategy was announced, President Barack Obama announced the permanent stationing of U.S. troops in Australia.

Read More:

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=28943

Robert Parry - The Ugly Words of Newt Gingrich

Most people probably think that scientists working on embryonic stem-cell research are committed to finding new treatments to help fellow human beings suffering from Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, paraplegia and other terrible ailments – but not former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

To the Republican presidential hopeful, these researchers are engaged in what amounts to “the use of science to desensitive society over the killing of babies.” Just stop there for a minute. In Gingrich’s world, these researchers are using “science to desensitive society over the killing of babies.”

That comment on Saturday at a Baptist church in Winter Park, Florida, got the applause that he apparently was hoping for and maybe some votes from Christian fundamentalists who object to the experimental use of embryos, even ones destined for destruction at fertility clinics. However, in doing so, Gingrich put on display, again, his casual use of ugly language to demean fellow Americans.

Read More:

http://consortiumnews.com/2012/01/30/the-ugly-words-of-newt-gingrich/

Paul Craig Roberts - Drowning In Hypocrisy: War Abroad, Austerity at Home

The US government is so full of self-righteousness that it has become a caricature of hypocrisy.  Leon Panetta, a former congressman who Obama appointed CIA director and now head of the Pentagon, just told the sailors on the USS Enterprise, an aircraft carrier, that the US is maintaining a fleet of 11 aircraft carriers in order to project sea power against Iran and to convince Iran that “it’s better for them to try to deal with us through diplomacy.” 

If it requires 11 aircraft carriers to deal with Iran, how many will Panetta need to project power against Russia and China?  But to get on with the main point, Iran has been trying “to deal with us through diplomacy.”  The response from Washington has been belligerent threats of military attack, unfounded and irresponsible accusations that Iran is making a nuclear weapon, sanctions and an oil embargo. Washington’s accusations echo Israel’s and are contradicted by Washington’s own intelligence agencies and the International Atomic Energy Agency.  Why doesn’t Washington respond to Iran in a civilized manner with diplomacy?  Really, which of the two countries is the greatest threat to peace?

Read More:

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=28863

Bill Mullen - Eyewitness To Israel's Ethnic Cleansing

AT 4:45 a.m. on the morning of August 2, 2009, the family of Miraym Al-Ghawi was awakened by pounding on the door of their home in Sheikh Jarrah, East Jerusalem. A small bomb was detonated, throwing open the door. Through it walked masked and armed Israeli commandoes, who dragged the Al-Ghawis, including the six Al-Ghawi children, into the night.

They collected the family's belongings in trucks and dumped them outside the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, where they were ransacked. The Al-Ghawi's youngest child, age 4, stood and watched as commandoes set fire to her bed and her playthings. The daughter still cannot sleep without her mother. Medical experts have diagnosed her ailment as "settler trauma."

Miraym Al-Ghawi told us this story as we visited Palestine as part of a delegation sponsored by the U.S. Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI). Five U.S. professors from the delegation, myself included, talked with the Al-Ghawis in Sheikh Jarrah, once one of the liveliest Palestinian neighborhoods in East Jerusalem.

Read More:

http://socialistworker.org/2012/01/24/israels-ethnic-cleansing

Simon Johnson - The Libertarian and the Lobbyists

WASHINGTON, DC – In the three years since the global financial crisis erupted, two dominant views of what went wrong have emerged. It is crucial that we understand each, because their implications for policymakers – and thus for the future health and stability of the global economy – could not be greater.

The first view is that governments simply lost control of the situation, either through incompetence or because politicians were pursuing their own agendas. This is the view heard most frequently from the political right – for example, from people who think that the main problem in the run-up to the financial meltdown of 2008 was government housing policies.

In the United States, among the candidates still competing for the Republican Party’s nomination to challenge Barack Obama in November’s presidential election, Ron Paul stands out for arguing consistently that government is the problem, not the answer, with regard to banking. If the government were removed more fully from the financial sector (including abolishing the Federal Reserve), he argues, the economy would function better.

Read More:

http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/johnson28/English