Charles Sullivan - Ecology And The Pathology Of Capitalism

Contrary to everything we have been taught, there is no actual United States of America. The U.S. is an occupied territory that could more accurately be described as the Corporate States of America. If the geopolitical states are united, the people are not. We are a nation divided by ideology and by social and economic class. The U.S. is not a democracy and it never was. The systems of power do not allow the voice of working people to be heard or their collective will to be acted upon.

Despite the subterfuge of freedom and democracy, the rights of corporations have consistently superseded the sovereign rights of the individual and those of the community. Labor history and a litany of environmental catastrophes bear this out. For instance, everywhere one looks government agencies, ostensibly created to protect the public welfare, are allowing hydraulic fracturing of Marcellus shale, even when it poisons municipal drinking water and causes incalculable harm to the environment.

Read More:

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article30304.htm

Bill Van Auken - Human Rights Groups Charge NATO With War Crimes In Libya

There is strong evidence that NATO carried out war crimes in its eight-month war for regime-change in Libya, according to a report released Thursday by Middle East human rights groups.

The United Nations resolution authorizing “all necessary measures” to protect civilians was utilized as the justification for military actions against civilian targets in which many Libyans were killed and wounded, according to the groups’ investigation.

The report is based upon a fact-finding mission to Libya conducted by the Arab Organization for Human Rights, together with the Palestinian Center for Human Rights and the International Legal Assistance Consortium. The investigators conducted extensive interviews with victims of war crimes as well as witnesses and Libyan officials. The mission carried out on-site field investigations in and around Tripoli, Zawiya, Sibrata, Khoms, Zliten, Misrata, Tawergha and Sirte.

Read More:

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2012/jan2012/liby-j21.shtml

Lester R. Brown - Governments Spend $1.4 Billion Per Day To Destabilize Climate

We distort reality when we omit the health and environmental costs associated with burning fossil fuels from their prices. When governments actually subsidize their use, they take the distortion even further. Worldwide, direct fossil fuel subsidies added up to roughly $500 billion in 2010. Of this, supports on the production side totaled some $100 billion. Supports for consumption exceeded $400 billion, with $193 billion for oil, $91 billion for natural gas, $3 billion for coal, and $122 billion spent subsidizing the use of fossil fuel-generated electricity. All together, governments are shelling out nearly $1.4 billion per day to further destabilize the earth’s climate.

Read More:

http://countercurrents.org/brown210112.htm

Roy Gutman - With U.S. troops hardly gone, Iraq's government is coming apart

BAGHDAD — Faster than anyone expected, barely a month after the last U.S. troops left, Iraq's government appears to be coming apart, prompting fears that the country is headed for another round of sectarian strife.

Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki, a Shiite Muslim, is driving to consolidate control and sideline more secular politicians in a battle that increasingly appears to be a fight to the finish in which there can be no compromise.

Barham Salih, the widely admired prime minister of the autonomous Kurdish region in the north, said the infighting is "tearing the country apart." Preemption is the name of the game.

"The motto is: 'I'll have him for lunch before they have me for dinner'," he said during an interview in his office in Irbil.

The downhill spiral takes a new turn every week, sometimes daily. Responding to a boycott by his Sunni partners in the power-sharing government, Maliki last week locked them out of their jobs, ordering ministries to bar their doors to cabinet officers, even though they still have a mandate from the Iraqi parliament.

Read More:

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/01/22/136579/with-us-troops-hardly-gone-iraqs.html

Bush and Cheney Endorse Obama

Randy Credico channels G W Bush, Dick Cheney and Pat Robertson as they stump for Obama's reelection. Find out how Obama can realize the dreams (nightmares?) of the Republican Party. Impressions by Randy Credico, written and produced by Randy Credico and Barry Crimmins, video by Dave Channon.

Dahr Jamail - Fallujah Babies: Under A New Kind Of Siege

Fallujah, Iraq - While the US military has formally withdrawn from Iraq, doctors and residents of Fallujah are blaming weapons like depleted uranium and white phosphorous used during two devastating US attacks on Fallujah in 2004 for what are being described as "catastrophic" levels of birth defects and abnormalities.

Dr Samira Alani, a paediatric specialist at Fallujah General Hospital, has taken a personal interest in investigating an explosion of congenital abnormalities that have mushroomed in the wake of the US sieges since 2005.

"We have all kinds of defects now, ranging from congenital heart disease to severe physical abnormalities, both in numbers you cannot imagine," Alani told Al Jazeera at her office in the hospital, while showing countless photos of shocking birth defects.

As of December 21, Alani, who has worked at the hospital since 1997, told Al Jazeera she had personally logged 677 cases of birth defects since October 2009. Just eight days later when Al Jazeera visited the city on December 29, that number had already risen to 699.

Read More:

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2012/01/2012126394859797.html

Robert Fisk - The 'invented people' stand little chance

Thank goodness we don't have to hear Newt Gingrich for a while.

His statement that the Palestinians were an "invented people" marked about the lowest point in the Republican-Christian Right-Likudist/Israel relationship. So deep has this pact now become that you can deny the existence of an entire people if you want to become US president. It's time, surely, to take a look at this extraordinary movement, to remind ourselves – since US "statesmen" cannot – just what its implications really are.

When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the UN General Assembly in New York on 23 September, few noticed a quite remarkable reference in his speech. In refusing Newt's "invented" people's request for statehood, he made an extremely unpleasant remark about "the insatiable crocodile of militant Islam". But far more disturbing was this: "In 1984, when I was appointed Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, I visited the great rabbi of Lubovich. He said to me ... you'll be serving in a house of many lies ... remember that even in the darkest place, the light of a single candle can be seen far and wide."

Read More:

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-the-invented-people-stand-little-chance-6289516.html#

Marjorie Cohn - Close the Guantánamo Gulag

Travelers to Cuba and music lovers are familiar with the song “Guantanamera”— literally, the girl from Guantánamo. With lyrics by José Martí, the father of Cuban independence, Guantanamera is probably the most widely known Cuban song. But Guantánamo is even more famous now for its U.S. military prison. Where “Guantanamera” is a powerful expression of the beauty of Cuba, “Gitmo” has become a powerful symbol of human rights violations—so much so that Amnesty International described it as "the gulag of our times."

That description can be traced to January 2002, when the base received its first 20 prisoners in shackles. General Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned they were "very dangerous people who would gnaw hydraulic lines in the back of a C-17 to bring it down." We now know that a large portion of the 750 plus men and boys held there posed no threat to the United States. In fact, only five percent were captured by the United States; most were picked up by the Northern Alliance, Pakistani intelligence officers, or tribal warlords, and many were sold for cash bounties.

The Guantánamo story starts in 1903, when the U.S. Army occupied Cuba after its war of independence against Spain. The Platt Amendment, which granted the United States the right to intervene in Cuba, was included in the Cuban Constitution as a prerequisite for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the rest of Cuba. That provision provided the basis for the 1903 Agreement on Coaling and Naval Stations, which gave the United States the right to use Guantánamo Bay “exclusively as coaling or naval stations, and for no other purpose.”

Read More:

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=28677

Dominique Moisi - Democracy in Distress

Is democratic time too slow to respond to crises, and too short to plan for the long term?

At a time of deepening economic and social crisis in many of the world’s rich democracies, that question is highly relevant. In Italy, for example, Prime Minister Mario Monti has the necessary and legitimate ambition to carry out comprehensive reform. He is both competent and honest, but faces a quasi-structural impediment: whereas leaders once had three years to convince voters of their policies’ benefits, they now have three hours to convince global financial markets to back their approach.

Caught between Italian legislators who, deep down, do not understand that change and markets in quest of near-immediate certainties, can Monti transcend his natural prudence and act with sufficient clarity and decisiveness?

In the United States, too, the political system is becoming increasingly dysfunctional. The political philosopher Francis Fukuyama goes so far as to say that “vetocracy” could triumph over democracy, regardless of who wins the 2012 presidential election. The separation of powers, a principle established by the US founders under the influence of philosophers such as Montesquieu, is leading today to near-paralysis.

Read More:

http://www.nationofchange.org/democracy-distress-1326636494

Sandhya Jain - The War With Iran Will Not Be One-Sided. Should World War III break out, it would differ from World Wars I and II

A conflict with Iran will not be one-sided. For one, Russia under Mr Vladimir Putin, aligned with China and Iran, with silent approval from nations like India and Germany that seek energy security by peaceful means, may resist US-led Western hegemony more forcefully. Both Moscow and Beijing feel remorse at permitting the shoddy politics in the UN and handing over Libya and Muammar Gaddafi to the oil-hungry Nato powers.

Already amidst escalating uncertainties, China, Russia, Iran, India, Brazil, Venezuela and other countries have moved to do bilateral trade in their own currencies and avoid using the dollar as the reserve currency.

Once he becomes Russia’s President, Mr  Putin is likely to resist the US on Iran and also address the issue of Nato’s encirclement of Russia with ballistic missile installations.

Should a Third World War break out, it would differ from the First and Second World Wars where rival colonial factions fought for hegemony. This time, the winners of the two Wars are on the rampage; they have lost the propaganda war as their naked greed has been exposed in the public arena and their opponents are not colonial raiders.

Read More:

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=28697

David Michael Green - Geriatric Obfuscating Pathology: Is The GOP Self-Destructing?

I took a busload of students to New Hampshire last week to observe the Republican primary campaign process up close and personal. 

Alright, alright, I know what you must be thinking:  “Damn, Green, you sure must be a dedicated professor to do that!”  As it happens, you’d be partly right and partly wrong.  In fact, the students are great, the trip is fun and a little unpredictable in nice way, and there really still is a wee bit of genuine candidate accountability remaining in the New Hampshire retail politics process. 

That said, however, it’s absolutely true that the field of GOP candidates is stunning in its sheer capacity for selfishness, dishonesty, and plain old meanness, and that listening to them for too long without wearing noise-cancelling headphones could surely burn off both of your ears.  It’s the political equivalent of staring at the sun, and the cult-like gaga-bots one can observe among these audiences seem to have spent quite some time doing just that.  If you know just a bit about history, just a bit about context, or just a bit about the dark arts of rhetorical legerdemain, listening to a speech by Rick Santorum or Newt Gingrich or Mitt Romney will leave you wanting to pop up just about every half-sentence and loudly disclaim “That’s a lie!”, “That’s wrong!”, or “That’s complete bullshit!”  It’s a truly painful experience in that regard. 

Read More:

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/01/17-1

Glen Ford - Haiti, Raped by the US Since 2004, and Still Bleeding

The horrific squandering of Haitian lives and earthquake relief and aid dollars by the occupying powers over the past two years are direct consequences of previous imperial crimes. “Since 2004, Haiti has been methodically stripped of its sovereignty, made into a protectorate of the United Nations,” which is merely a front for the United States. “The earthquake of January 2010 was a natural phenomenon that happened to take place while a rape was in progress."

In the American media, Haiti is most often spoken of as a tragedy – when it is actually the scene of horrific crimes, mainly perpetrated by the United States over the span of two centuries. For the past two years, since the earthquake that shook the life out of hundreds of thousands of already deeply wounded people, the United States has flexed every superpower muscle to prolong Haiti’s agony.

Half a million people are still homeless, two years after the quake, despite the billions in relief and recovery aid pledged by international donors. Sixty percent of the rubble has yet to be removed from the capital and its suburbs, and 6,000 people have died from a cholera epidemic brought into the country by United Nations troops. The UN has still not seen fit to apologize for being the vector of disease, because the UN is not accountable to the people of Haiti – only to the United States. The Americans used a huge chunk of their so-called aid money to reimburse themselves for the cost of their military occupation of the country. Dead, dying, sick, starving, homeless Haitians are made to pay for their own imprisonment in their native land, while Washington gloats that it is Haiti’s last, best hope, and that the catastrophic earthquake might have been a good thing, a chance for a “new beginning” under Washington's firm guidance.

Read More:

http://www.blackagendareport.com/content/haiti-raped-us-2004-and-still-bleeding

Robert Reich - Free Enterprise on Trial

Mitt Romney is casting the 2012 campaign as “free enterprise on trial” – defining free enterprise as achieving success through “hard work and risking-taking.” Tea-Party favorite Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina says he’s supporting Romney because “we really need someone who understands how risk, taking risk … is the way we create jobs, create choices, expand freedom.” Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donahue, defending Romney, explains “this economy is about risk. If you don’t take risk, you can’t have success.”

Wait a minute. Who do they think are bearing the risks? Their blather about free enterprise risk-taking has it upside down. The higher you go in the economy, the easier it is to make money without taking any personal financial risk at all. The lower you go, the bigger the risks.

Wall Street has become the center of riskless free enterprise. Bankers risk other peoples’ money. If deals turn bad, they collect their fees in any event. The entire hedge-fund industry is designed to hedge bets so big investors can make money whether the price of assets they bet on rises or falls. And if the worst happens, the biggest bankers and investors now know they’ll be bailed out by taxpayers because they’re too big to fail.

Read More:

http://robertreich.org/post/15978350528

Kurt Nimmo - Ron Paul Moves to Kill Indefinite Detention Provision of NDAA

Rep. Ron Paul left the campaign trail on Wednesday to speak on the House floor about the National Defense Authorization Act, which was signed into law on the first day of the new year by Obama.

Read More:

http://www.prisonplanet.com/ron-paul-moves-to-kill-indefinite-detention-provision-of-ndaa.html

Kyle Leighton - Polls: Republican Voter Enthusiasm Drops, Dems Not Far Behind

A new national poll from CNN shows two conflicting points of data. First, President Barack Obama remains vulnerable in a match-up with former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney by the numbers, as Romney bests the President by one point in the survey 48 - 47. But Romney’s presence at the top of the ticket, which is becoming more and more likely as he continues to win primary states, raise millions, and pick up endorsements, seems to be having another effect on the party — the CNN poll shows that GOP enthusiasm is going down just as 2012 is starting.

The CNN numbers were not the first to show this confluence of events — Pew released numbers in the second week of January comparing the level of Republican enthusiasm for their candidates at levels that closely resembled Democrats in 2004, both of which are well below the fire that both parties had for their candidates in 2008. “In the current survey, conservative Republicans and GOP-leaning independents express more positive opinions of the presidential field than do moderates or liberals (56% excellent or good vs. 43%),” Pew wrote. “In January 2008, 70% of conservatives and 64% of moderates and liberals said the GOP candidates as a group were excellent or good.”

Read More:

http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/01/polls-republican-voter-enthusism-drops-dems-not-far-behind.php

Rob Hager and James Marc Leas - The Problem With Citizens United Is Not Corporate Personhood

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and Florida Rep. Ted Deutch introduced a constitutional amendment [4]in December to overturn Citizens United [5], one of five decisions since 2006 by which a closely divided Supreme Court vastly increased the amount of corrupting corporate money in elections.

In an opinion piece critical of the decision in Citizens United, Senator Sanders wrote:

When the Supreme Court says that for purposes of the First Amendment, corporations are people, that writing checks from the company's bank account is constitutionally-protected speech and that attempts by the federal government and states to impose reasonable restrictions on campaign ads are unconstitutional, when that occurs, our democracy is in grave danger.

The joint Sanders-Deutch Resolution proposes an amendment to the constitution "to expressly exclude for-profit corporations from the rights given to natural persons." The first section of the amendment states:

Read More:

http://www.truth-out.org/problem-citizens-united-not-corporate-personhood/1326497162

Paul Craig Roberts - America’s Last Chance

America has one last chance, and it is a very slim one. Americans can elect Ron Paul President, or they can descend into tyranny.

Why is Ron Paul America’s last chance?

Because he is the only candidate who is not owned lock, stock, and barrel by the military-security complex, Wall Street, and the Israel Lobby.

All of the others, including President Obama, are owned by exactly the same interest groups. There are no differences between them. Every candidate except Ron Paul stands for war and a police state, and all have demonstrated their complete and total subservience to Israel. The fact that there is no difference between them is made perfectly clear by the absence of substantive issues in the campaigns of the Republican candidates.

Only Ron Paul deals with real issues, so he is excluded from “debates” in which the other Republican candidates throw mud at one another: “Gingrich voted $60 million to a UN program supporting abortion in China.” “Romney loves to fire people.”

The mindlessness repels.

More importantly, only Ron Paul respects the US Constitution and its protection of civil liberty. Only Ron Paul understands that if the Constitution cannot be resurrected from its public murder by Congress and the executive branch, then Americans are lost to tyranny.

Read More:

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=28669

Rocky Anderson Justice Party Nomination Acceptance Speech for President of the United States

Watch Rocky's Acceptance Speech right here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCssus7VozA

FEMA sends out 83,000 collection notices

IN A SOCIALIST ECONOMY, ALL HUMAN NEEDS WOULD BE MET BY PLANS DEVELOPED BY THE WORKERS THEMSELVES. EVEN NATURAL DISASTERS WOULD BE ACCOUNTED FOR WITH RECOVERY PLANS TO MINIMIZE HUMAN SUFFERING.

IN THE PROFIT SYSTEM, WHERE INSURANCE COMPANIES AND PROFITEERS RULE, THE STATE AND ITS AGENCIES WORK IN THE INTEREST OF MAXIMIZING PROFIT WITH LITTLE OR NO CONCERN FOR HUMAN MISFORTUNE.

THE FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY—THE AGENCY THAT IS DESIGNATED TO ASSIST PEOPLE IN RECOVERING FROM DISASTER—RECENTLY MAILED OUT 83,000 DEBT COLLECTION NOTICES TO VICTIMS OF HURRICANE KATRINA AND OTHER STORMS THAT TOOK PLACE IN 2005. SEVERAL THOUSAND NOTICES ARE FOR COLLECTION FOR ASSISTANCE RECEIVED DUE TO RECENT FLOODS IN OTHER AREAS.

Read More:

HTTP://WWW.PSLWEB.ORG/LIBERATIONNEWS/NEWS/FEMA-SENDS-OUT-83000.HTML

Report: US Preparing for an Israeli Strike on Iran

Iran is looking at "punishing" those behind the assassination of one of its nuclear scientists, a senior military official said, pointing the finger at the United States, Israel and Britain.

"We consider committing a terrorist act of killing a scientist to be a threat to the nation... We are looking at punishing those who were behind the scenes of the martyrdom (assassination) of Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan," the deputy chief of Iran's joint armed forces, Masoud Jazayeri, was quoted as saying by several media.

Iran's response will be "tormenting" for those responsible, he said, adding: "The enemies of the Iranian nation, such as the United States, Britain and the Zionist regime, should be made accountable for their actions."

The Wall Street Journal is reporting today:

Read More:

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/01/14