January 2011
Vol 11, No 01
A NEW THEORY OF MONEY By Ellen Brown
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y understanding that money is simply credit, we unleash it as a powerful tool for our communities The reason our financial system has routinely gotten into trouble, with periodic waves of depression like the one we’re battling now, maybe due to a flawed perception not just of the roles of banking and credit but of the nature of money itself. In our economic adolescence, we have regarded money as a “thing”—something independent of the relationship it facilitates. But today there is no gold or silver backing our money. Instead, it’s created by banks when they make loans (that includes Federal Reserve Notes or dollar bills, which are created by the Federal Reserve, a privately-owned banking corporation, and lent into the economy). Virtually all money today originates as credit, or debt, which is simply a legal agreement to pay in the future. Money as Relationship In an illuminating dissertation called “Toward a General Theory of Credit and Money” in The Review of Austrian Economics, Mostafa Moini, Professor of
Economics at Oklahoma City University, argues that money has never actually been a “commodity” or “thing.” It has always been merely a “relation,” a legal agreement, a credit/debit arrangement, an acknowledgment of a debt owed and a
promise to repay. The concept of money-as-acommodity can be traced back to the use of precious metal coins. Gold is widely claimed to be the oldest and most stable currency known, but this is not actually true. Money did not begin with gold coins and evolve into a sophisticated accounting system. It began as an accounting system and evolved into the use of precious metal coins. Money as a “unit of account” (a tally of sums paid
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and owed) predated money as a “store of value” (a commodity or thing) by two millennia; the Sumerian and Egyptian civilizations using these accountingentry payment systems lasted not just hundreds of years (as with some civilizations using gold) but thousands of years. Their bank-like ancient payment systems were public systems—operated by the government the way that courts, libraries, and post offices are operated as public services today. In the payment system of ancient Sumeria, goods were given a value in terms of weight and were measured in these units against each other. The unit of weight was the “shekel,” something that was not originally a coin but a standardized measure. She was the word for barley, suggesting the original unit of measure was a weight of grain. This was valued against other commodities by weight: So many shekels of wheat equaled so many cows equaled so many shekels of silver, etc. Prices of major commodities were fixed by the government; Hammurabi, Babylonian king and lawmaker, has detailed tables of
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ARTICLES NEW YEAR ..
Should we be surprised that the first martyr of the year is a Palestinian? ...................................................... Page 3
SHI’ITES: A SECURITY THREAT?
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arrest of 200 Shi’ite followers by the Selangor Islamic Religious Department (JAIS) on 16 December 2010 has raised some disturbing questions ..................... Page 4
. BRADLEY MANNING’S PRISON HELL ........ P 4 . AMERICA’ S TEA PARTY PHENOMENON .... P 5 . THE GAZA MASSACRE
STRUGGLE FOR JUSTICE ....................................... P 7 AND THE
. CHINA’S PIPELINEISTAN “WAR”............ P 9 . THE DEMISE OF COMMON SENSE ............P 11
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continued from page 1 these. Interest was also fixed and invariable, making economic life very predictable. Grain was stored in granaries, which served as a form of “bank.” But grain was perishable, so silver eventually became the standard tally representing sums owed. A farmer could go to market and exchange his perishable goods for a weight of silver, and come back at his leisure to redeem this market credit in other goods as needed. But it was still simply a tally of a debt owed and a right to make good on it later. Eventually, silver tallies became wooden tallies became paper tallies became electronic tallies. The Credit Revolution The problem with gold coins was that they could not expand to meet the needs of trade. The revolutionary advance of medieval bankers was that they succeeded in creating a flexible money supply, one that could keep pace with a vigorously expanding mercantile trade. They did this through the use of credit, something they created by allowing overdrafts in the accounts of their depositors. Under what came to be called “fractional reserve” banking, the bankers would issue paper receipts called banknotes for more gold than they actually had. Their shipping clients would sail away with their wares and return with silver or gold, settling accounts and allowing the bankers’ books to balance. The credit thus created was in high demand in the rapidly expanding economy; but because it was based on the presumption that money was a “thing” (gold), the bankers had to engage in a shell game that periodically got them into trouble. They were gambling that their customers would not all come for their gold at the same time; but when they miscalculated, or when people got suspicious for some reason, there would be a run on the banks, the financial system would collapse, and the economy would sink into depression. Today, paper money is no longer redeemable in gold, but money is still perceived as a “thing” that has to “be there” before credit can be advanced.
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Banks still engage in money creation by advancing bank credit, which becomes a deposit in the borrower’s account, which becomes checkbook money. In order for their outgoing checks to clear, however, the banks have to borrow from a pool of money deposited by their customers. If they don’t have enough deposits, they have to borrow from the money market or other banks. As British author Ann Pettifor observes: “the banking system... has failed in its primary purpose: to act as a machine for lending into the real economy. Instead the banking system has been turned on its head, and become a borrowing machine.” The banks suck up cheap money and return it as more expensive money, if they return it at all. The banks control the money spigots and can deny credit to small players, who wind up defaulting on their loans, allowing the big players with access to cheap credit to buy up the underlying assets very cheaply. That’s one systemic flaw in the current scheme. Another is that the borrowed money backing the bank’s loans usually comes from shorter-term loans. Like Jimmy Stewart’s beleaguered savings and loan in It’s a Wonderful Life, the banks are “borrowing short to lend long,” and if the money market suddenly dries up, the banks will be in trouble. That is what happened in September 2008: According to Rep. Paul Kanjorski, speaking on CSpan in February 2009, there was a $550 billion run on the money markets. Securitization: “Monetizing” Loans Not with Gold But with Homes The money markets are part of the “shadow banking system,” where large institutional investors park their funds. The shadow banking system allows banks to get around the capital and reserve requirements now imposed on depository institutions by moving loans off their books. Large institutional investors use the shadow banking system because the conventional banking system guarantees deposits only up to $250,000, and large institutional investors have much more than that to move around on a daily basis.
LEAD ARTICLE The money market is very liquid, and what protects it in place of FDIC insurance is that it is “securitized,” or backed by securities of some sort. Often, the collateral consists of mortgagebacked securities (MBS), the securitized units into which American real estate has been sliced and packaged, sausagefashion. Like with the gold that was lent many times over in the 17th century, the same home may be pledged as “security” for several different investor groups at the same time. This is all done behind an electronic curtain called MERS (an acronym for Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc.), which has allowed houses to be shuffled around among multiple, rapidly changing owners while circumventing local recording laws. As in the 17th century, however, the scheme has run into trouble when more than one investor group has tried to foreclose at the same time. And the securitization model has now crashed against the hard rock of hundreds of years of state real estate law, which has certain requirements that the banks have not met—and cannot meet, if they are to comply with the tax laws for mortgagebacked securities. (For more on this, see here.) The bankers have engaged in what amounts to a massive fraud, not necessarily because they started out with criminal intent (although that cannot be ruled out), but because they have been required to in order to come up with the commodities (in this case real estate) to back their loans. It is the way our system is set up: The banks are not really creating credit and advancing it to us, counting on our future productivity to pay it off, the way they once did under the deceptive but functional façade of fractional reserve lending. Instead, they are vacuuming up our money and lending it back to us at higher rates. In the shadow banking system, they are sucking up our real estate and lending it back to our pension funds and mutual funds at compound interest. The result is a mathematically impossible pyramid
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continued from page 2 scheme, which is inherently prone to systemic failure. The Public Credit Solution The flaws in the current scheme are now being exposed in the major media, and it may well be coming down. The question then is what to replace it with. What is the next logical phase in our economic evolution? Credit needs to come first. We as a community can create our own credit, without having to engage in the sort of impossible pyramid scheme in which we’re always borrowing from Peter to pay Paul at compound interest. We can avoid the pitfalls of privately-issued credit with a public credit system, a system banking on the future productivity of its members, guaranteed not by “things” shuffled around furtively in a shell game vulnerable to exposure, but by the community itself. The simplest public credit model is the electronic community currency system. Consider, for example, one called “Friendly Favors.” The participating Internet community does not have to begin with a fund of capital or reserves, as is now required of private banking institutions. Nor do members borrow from a pool of pre-existing money on which they pay interest to the pool’s owners. They create their own credit, simply by debiting their own accounts and crediting someone else’s. If Jane bakes cookies for Sue, Sue credits Jane’s
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account with 5 “favors” and debits her own with 5. They have “created” money in the same way that banks do, but the result is not inflationary. Jane’s plus-5 is balanced against Sue’s minus-5, and when Sue pays her debt by doing something for someone else, it all nets out. It is a zero-sum game. Community currency systems can be very functional on a small scale, but because they do not trade in the national currency, they tend to be too limited for large-scale businesses and projects. If they were to grow substantially larger, they could run up against the sort of exchange rate problems afflicting small countries. They are basically barter systems, not really designed for advancing credit on a major scale. The functional equivalent of a community currency system can be achieved using the national currency, by forming a publicly owned bank. By turning banking into a public utility operated for the benefit of the community, the virtues of the expandable credit system of the medieval bankers can be retained, while avoiding the parasitic exploitation to which private banking schemes are prone. Profits generated by the community can be returned to the community. A public bank that generates credit in the national currency could be established by a community or group of any size, but as long as we have capital and reserve requirements and other
S T A T E M E N T S stringent banking laws, a state is the most feasible option. It can easily meet those requirements without jeopardizing the solvency of its collective owners. For capital, a state bank could use some of the money stashed in a variety of public funds. This money need not be spent. It can just be shifted from the Wall Street investments where it is parked now into the state’s own bank. There is precedent establishing that a stateowned bank can be both a very sound and a very lucrative investment. The Bank of North Dakota, currently the nation’s only state-owned bank, is rated AA and recently returned a 26 percent profit to the state. A decentralized movement has been growing in the United States to explore and implement this option. [For more information, see publicbanking.com.] We have emerged from the financial crisis with new clarity: Money today is simply credit. When the credit is advanced by a bank, when the bank is owned by the community, and when the profits return to the community, the result can be a functional, efficient, and sustainable system of finance. 29 October, 2010 Ellen Brown wrote this article for YES! Magazine, a national, nonprofit media organization that fuses powerful ideas with practical actions. Ellen is an attorney and the author of eleven books. Source: Countercurrents.org
STATEMENTS THE FIRST MARTYR Should we be surprised that the first martyr of the year is a Palestinian? Jawaher Abu Rahma, a 36 year-old activist, was protesting against Israel’s apartheid wall in the village of Bilin — for years the site of weekly peaceful protests — when she was tear-gassed by Israeli troops. She collapsed and was rushed to a hospital in Ramallah, also on the West Bank of Occupied Palestine.
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That was on 31st December 2010. She died on the 1st of January 2011. Jawaher’s brother, Bassem Abu Rahma, was also killed during a Bilin protest on 17 April 2010. He was hit on the head by a tear-gas canister fired at close range. It should be emphasised over and over again that neither Jawaher nor Bassem, nor any of the other protesters at Bilin was armed.
Bilin has become a symbol of the peaceful, non-violent struggle of the Palestinian people for self-determination. International advocates of the Palestinian cause are regular protesters at Bilin. Some of them like the Nobel Peace Laureate , Mairead Maguire, have also suffered injuries at the hands of the Israeli troops.
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continued from page 3 The Bilin protesters have vowed to continue with their peaceful struggle. They will not give up. Indeed, it is partly because of their perseverance that they managed to breach the apartheid wall on 31st December. On the whole, the peaceful mobilisation of the people against Israeli occupation is beginning to yield results. Though Palestinian freedom fighters continue to die, the truth about the Israeli
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regime is now more widely known than ever before. The Flotilla episode in the middle of 2010 exposed the brutality of the regime. It happened just 18 months after Israel’s merciless assault on the helpless people of Gaza which revealed to the whole world the magnitude of the asymmetry of power between Israel and the Palestinians. In the course of 2010, both the Goldstone Report and the Report of the UN Special Rapporteur for Occupied Palestine, Richard Falk,
A R T I C L E S admonished the regime for its harsh, inhuman treatment of the Palestinian people. 2010 has shown that truth and justice in the Israel-Palestine conflict cannot be suppressed forever. Chandra Muzaffar, President, International Movement for a Just World (JUST). Malaysia. 3 January, 2011.
SHI’ITES: A SECURITY THREAT? The arrest of 200 Shi’ite followers by the Selangor Islamic Religious Department (JAIS) on 16 December 2010 has raised some disturbing questions. If those arrested are “fanatics and a threat to national security” as stated by the JAIS Director, Datuk Muhammad Khusrin Munawi, shouldn’t he support his allegation with incontrovertible evidence? If they are a threat to national security, why were they arrested by the JAIS and not the police under the relevant security laws? JAIS is in charge of religious affairs, not national security matters. Shouldn’t the JAIS Director also substantiate his claim that members of the group known as Hauzah Ar Ridha Alaihissalam believe that other Muslim groups are “infidels” and it would be lawful to kill them? In the absence of proof, the discerning public may begin to wonder whether the arrests are directed at Shi’ism as such. After all, there are Islamic Religious Departments and Muslim politicians in Malaysia who regard Shi’ite teachings as
“deviationist.” They are obviously wrong. There is no need to emphasise that Shi’ism is a legitimate part of Islam. Shi’ites subscribe to the same fundamental principles of the religion and practise the same basic tenets of the faith, as the majority Sunni Muslims do. Like the Sunnis, they too have contributed immensely to the growth of Islamic civilisation. There are about 180 million Shi’ites today who belong to the larger Muslim family ( ummah) of 1.7 billion people. It is of course true that there are certain Shi’ite concepts and rituals that are not acceptable to the Sunnis, and vice-versa. But that does not justify labelling either party as “deviant” or “infidel.” Besides, variations in rituals and conceptual differences among the four main doctrinal schools within the Sunni community are generally accepted by Islamic scholars. To promote greater unity and solidarity within the ummah, the same consideration should be
extended to the Shi’ites. What this suggests is that historically rooted and politically generated antagonisms should not be allowed to distort and destroy ties between the two communities. Sunni-Shi’ite animosities, often manipulated and exploited by vested groups within and without the Muslim ummah, have already led to the killing and maiming of thousands in recent years, especially in Pakistan and Iraq. It is undoubtedly the most divisive ideological split within the ummah today. Fortunately, some modest attempts are being made by both Sunni and Shi’ite theologians and thinkers in various parts of the world to improve relations between the two groups. This is a positive development that we in Malaysia should support. JAIS officials and other illinformed individuals in Malaysia should help, rather than hinder, the process.
Chandra Muzaffar, 19 December, 2010.
ARTICLES BRADLEY MANNING’S PRISON HELL By Denver Nicks Bradley Manning, who allegedly leaked hundreds of thousands of secret government documents to Julian Assange’s WikiLeaks, turns 23 in jail Friday. The Daily Beast’s Denver Nicks, in an exclusive interview with Manning’s attorney, reports on his solitary
confinement, what he’s reading (from George W. Bush to Howard Zinn), and his legal strategy. The last time Bradley Manning saw the world outside of a jail, most Americans had never heard of WikiLeaks. On Friday, Manning, the man whose
alleged unauthorized release of hundreds of thousands of classified documents put the website and its controversial leader, Julian Assange, on the map, turns 23 behind bars. Since his arrest in May, Manning has spent most of his 200-plus
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continued from page 4 days in solitary confinement. Other than receiving a card and some books from his family, his birthday will be no different. In an exclusive interview with The Daily Beast, his attorney, David Coombs, revealed key details about Manning’s imprisonment and kind gestures from his family that provided a bit of comfort in the inmate’s otherwise extremely harsh incarceration. “They’re thinking about him on his birthday, that they love and support him,” Coombs said of Manning’s family and the card his mother, father, sister and aunt passed along via the lawyer on Wednesday. “They wish they could be with him on his day, but they are not allowed because visitation is only on Saturday and Sunday, and a family member would be going down to see him on Saturday.” Coombs passed a message to Manning from his aunt on behalf of the family; Manning, the lawyer says, asked Coombs to tell his aunt he loved her and wishes he could be with her as well. Manning asked for a list of books, which his family bought for him and will be delivered over the next few weeks to coincide with his birthday and Christmas. On the list? • Decision Points by George W. Bush • Critique of Practical Reason by Immanuel Kant • Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant • Propaganda by Edward Bernays • The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins • A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn • The Art of War by Sun Tzu • The Good Soldiers by David Finkel • On War by Gen. Carl von Clausewitz Manning is being held at Marine Corps Base Quantico, in Virginia. He spends 23 hours a day alone in a standard-sized cell, with a sink, a toilet, and a bed. He isn’t allowed sheets or a pillow, though First Lieutenant Brian Villiard, an officer at Quantico, said he is allowed bedding of “non-shreddable” material. “I’ve held it, I’ve felt it, it’s soft, I’d sleep under it,” he told The Daily
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Beast. He isn’t allowed to exercise (Quantico officials dispute this), but he has started stretching and practicing yoga. For an hour every day, a television is wheeled in front of his cell and he’s allowed to watch TV, including news, though usually local news, Coombs told The Daily Beast. He is allowed to read the news as well. Courtesy of Coombs, Manning now has a subscription to his favorite magazine, Scientific American. The November “Hidden Worlds of Dark Matter” issue was his first. The conditions under which Bradley Manning is being held would traumatize anyone (see Salon’s Glenn Greenwald for a rundown of the legal and psychological issues associated with extended solitary confinement). He lives alone in a small cell, denied human contact. He is forced to wear shackles when outside of his cell, and when he meets with the few people allowed to visit him, they sit with a glass partition between them. The only person other than prison officials and a psychologist who has spoken to Manning face to face is his attorney, who says the extended isolation—now more than seven months of solitary confinement—is weighing on his client’s psyche. When he was first arrested, Manning was put on suicide watch, but his status was quickly changed to “Prevention of Injury” watch (POI), and under this lesser pretense he has been forced into his life of mind-numbing tedium. His treatment is harsh, punitive and taking its toll, says Coombs. There is no evidence he’s a threat to himself, and shouldn’t be held in such severe conditions under the artifice of his own protection. “The command is basing this treatment of him solely on the nature of the pending charges, and on an unrelated incident where a service member in the facility took his own life,” Coombs said, referencing the February suicide of a marine captain in the Quantico brig. Coombs says he believes Quantico officials are keeping Manning under close watch with strict limitations on his
A R T I C L E S activity out of an overabundance of caution. Both Coombs and Manning’s psychologist, Coombs says, are sure Manning is mentally healthy, that there is no evidence he’s a threat to himself, and shouldn’t be held in such severe conditions under the artifice of his own protection. Manning faces a military court-martial on charges of providing WikiLeaks with classified information in violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. His future remains uncertain. Rep John Conyers (D-MI), in Thursday’s congressional hearing on WikiLeaks, called for calm and a measured response to the new challenges the whistleblower’s site presents to the future of governance. “When everyone in this town is joined together calling for someone’s head, it’s a pretty sure sign that we need to slow down and take a look.” Rep. Ted Poe (R-TX) followed with a call for punishment. “I have no sympathy for the alleged thief in this situation,” Poe said, insisting the source of the leak, whoever it is, be held responsible. “He’s no better than a Texas pawn shop dealer that deals in stolen merchandise and sells it to the highest bidder.” Manning’s fate will be determined over the following months. What is clear today is that he’s being held in extraordinarily harsh conditions— notably harsher than Bryan Minkyu Martin, the naval intelligence specialist who allegedly tried to sell military secrets to an undercover FBI agent, and is currently being held awaiting trial, though not in solitary confinement. Manning, who has been convicted of nothing, has spent the better part of a year incommunicado, living the life of a man convicted of a heinous crime. Coombs challenges the legality of what he says is “unlawful pretrial punishment.” He is working to lift the POI restrictions placed on his client. 19 December, 2010 Denver Nicks is an editorial assistant at The Daily Beast. Source: The Daily Beast
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AMERICA’S TEA PARTY PHENOMENON By Stephen Lendman TeaParty.org calls itself “a grassroots movement (for making Americans aware of) any issue that challenges the security, sovereignty, or domestic tranquility of our beloved nation, the United States of America. From our founding, the Tea Party is the voice of the true owners of the United States, WE THE PEOPLE.” More below about these PEOPLE, and their deep-pocketed ability to manipulate minds effectively with considerable right wing media support. Another web site headlines “Tea Party Patriots, Official Home of the American Tea Party Movement, A community committed to standing together, shoulder to shoulder, to protect our country and the Constitution upon which we were founded!” Its mission statement aims at “excessive government spending and taxation,” stressing “three core values of Fiscal Responsibility, Constitutionally Limited Government and Free Markets,” largely veiled terms to mean whatever its backers endorse, including incorrectly connecting tea to America’s revolution. Blaming taxation without representation and Britain’s 1773 Tea Act as the cause is a red herring. It granted the East India Company monopoly rights on colony tea imports at a lower than smuggled in price, but retained an unpopular tax. Determined to prevent cargo deliveries, Samuel Adams and others boarded three docked ships, dumping 342 chests of tea into Boston Harbor. In fact, it was symbolism only, nothing else, unrelated to revolutionary furor over control of the nation’s money. In 1691, three years before the Bank of England’s creation, Massachusetts created its own paper money. Other colonies followed, called scrip, backed by the full faith and credit of each state, enabling inflation-free growth for 25 years without taxes - what could happen today if freed from banker-controlled money. It worked then by using money to
achieve growth, not issuing too much, and recycling it back to the states in the form of principal and interest on government-issued loans. However, colony-based British merchants and financiers objected to Parliament. Enough so that in 1751, King George II banned new paper money issuance to force colonists to borrow it from UK bankers. In addition, the Bank of England got Parliament to pass a Currency Act, making it illegal for colonies henceforth to issue their own. As a result, prosperity became poverty because the money supply halved, leaving too little to pay for goods and services.
According to Benjamin Franklin: “the poverty caused by the bad influence of the English bankers on the Parliament” got colonists angry enough to spark war. “The colonies would gladly have borne the little tax on tea and other matters (if) England (hadn’t taken their money), which created unemployment and dissatisfaction.” Tea Party adherents need a name change, instead of tea, a theme around controlling our own money, as mandated by the Constitution’s Article 1, Section 8, saying only “Congress shall have Power to coin Money, (and) regulate the Value thereof,” not bankers and complicit Fed officials they manipulate and control. Origins Promoted as grassroots activism, the party gained national recognition in media-hyped mid-2009 congressional town hall protests against Obamacare,
banker and other bailouts, fiscal excess, and bogus claims about Obama’s socialist agenda. Then last February, its Nashville, TN national convention increased its prominence, highlighting an agenda to shift America further to the right on the pretext of popular opposition to big government and fiscal irresponsibility. As a result, hardline extremists mostly attracted middle income Americans facing lost jobs, homes, and economic uncertainty at a time they should have shifted left, not right. Instead of blaming big government, a groundswell for addressing popular needs should be demanded. It didn’t. Demagogues took advantage and aroused millions, aided by daily Fox News support and its lunatic fringe hosts. Among them, Glenn Beck, Bill O’Reilly, and others rage against big government, hyping an extremist agenda, spreading fear, and growing ranks of adherents, largely mindless that their best interests are compromised, not helped. Deep Pocket Tea Party Backers Sourcewatch.org tracked its funders, quoting an August 30, 2010 Jane Mayer New Yorker article citing David and Charles Koch, billionaire owners of Koch Industries, a privately owned energy conglomerate with interests in manufacturing, ranching, finance, and numerous other ventures. In 2008, Forbes called it America’s second largest private company after Cargill with annual revenues approaching $100 billion. According to Mayer: “The anti-government fervor infusing the 2010 elections represents a political triumph for the Kochs. By giving money to ‘educate,’ fund, and organize Tea Party protesters, they have helped turn their private agenda into a mass movement.” Conservative economist/historian Bruce Bartlett said earlier libertarians were “all chiefs and no Indians.” As a
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continued from page 6 result, they attracted few adherents. Tea Party furor changed things, letting “everyone suddenly see that for the first time there are Indians out there - people who can provide real ideological power,” and with right-wing media-hyped support, it resonates and grows. The Kochs took advantage, “shap(ing) and control(ling) and channel(ling) the populist uprising into their own policies.” According to Sourcewatch, Party strength also comes “from millions of dollars from conservative foundations,” funded by “wealthy US families and their business interests.” Most prominent are Americans for Prosperity (AP) and FreedomWorks (FW - chaired by former Republican House majority leader Dick Armey), promoting the same hard right agenda as Koch, other backers, and Tea Party leaders. In April 2009, ThinkProgress.org said AP and FW were the principal Tea Party organizers, describing them as “well-funded lobbyist-run think tanks,” providing the logistics and major efforts nationally. Media Matters said David Koch co-founded Citizens for a Sound Economy (CSE), FreedomWorks’ predecessor. For its part, Koch Industries denies FW and Tea Party ties, saying only that it “value(s) free speech and believe(s) it is good to have more Americans engaged in key policy issues.” Koch admitted it funds AFP. The Fox Effect Media power means everything, the best efforts falling flat without it. Fox provides plenty, sustained from the outset by its extremist faithful, featuring “frequently aired segments imploring its audience to get involved with tea-party protests across the country,” according to Media Matters’ Karl Frisch. Worse still, Fox hosts Glenn Beck,
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Neil Cavuto, Greta Van Susteren, Sean Hannity, and perhaps others participated live at various protests. Fox literally serves as the movement’s official mouthpiece, including at “FNC Tax Day Tea Parties,” promoting tax cuts for the rich, masquerading as universal benefits. Moreover, involved groups claim spontaneous activism for success, but according to The Atlantic’s Chris Good: Its “organizational landscape (includes) three national-level conservative groups (running things), all with slightly different agendas.” They stress a “bottom-up affair and that its grassroots cred is real....Conservative bloggers, talk show hosts, and other media figures have attached themselves to the movement in peripheral capacities.” Major publications also through coverage. For example, The New York Times called it “a diffuse American grassroots group that taps into antigovernment sentiments,” saying it “burst onto the streets a year ago,” belying its top-down control. Covering its corporate-controlled February national convention, the Washington Post said “millions of Americans (are) just like” attendees, suggesting spontaneity about a well planned and organized movement. On October 10, Washington Post writers Jon Cohen and Dan Balz headlined, “Beyond the tea party: What Americans really think of government,” saying: The 2010 election’s “overarching theme (is over) how big the government should be and how far it should reach into people’s lives....a nationwide report card (barely gives Washington) passing grades....Today, more than four in 10 people give the government a D or F.” “I think the less the government governs us, the better we do,” suggested mass numbers feel like the “stay-at-home
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A R T I C L E S mother” quoted. She believes America is going “socialist,” when, in fact, it’s swung sharpley to the right, Obama going Bush one better, yet disguising it as populism, or a variant thereof. However, credit perceptions, economic hard times, public angst, its gullibility, big money support, and media hype for growing Tea Party success. In a photo essay titled, “Signs of the Tea-Party Protests,” Time magazine highlighted it, showing mass, signwaving, Tea Party Express gatherings, saying: “Some of the demonstrators came on their own, but many were affiliated with or inspired by the Tea Party Express, a cross-country tour that stopped in more than 30 cities, organizing rallies in protest of ‘out-of-control spending, bailouts and the growth in the size and power of government’.” Unexplained was a deep-pocketed, well-planned PR blitz, complete with mass media coverage, especially by Fox News. Also, other events, including Americans for Prosperity’s Hot Air Balloon Tour, its Patients First Bus Tour, and the American Energy Alliance’s American Energy Express, as well as nationwide momentum-building rallies ahead of the November election. Party backers hope key victories will solidify a powerful political force, run top-down by and for elitists, not deluded grassroots supporters, fooled again like so many previous times. As a result, once again, expect November 2 voters to throw out the bums for new ones. The cycle keeps repeating, “the bewildered herd” mindless that they only have themselves to blame, getting the best democracy big money can buy. 21 October, 2010 Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Source: Countercurrents.org
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By Ali Abunimah The Gaza massacre, which Israel launched two years ago today, did not end on 18 January 2009, but continues. It was not
only a massacre of human bodies, but of the truth and of justice. Only our actions can help bring it to an end.
The UN-commissioned Goldstone Report documented evidence of war
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continued from page 7 crimes and crimes against humanity committed in an attack aimed at the very “foundations of civilian life in Gaza” — schools, industrial infrastructure, water, sanitation, flour mills, mosques, universities, police stations, government ministries, agriculture and thousands of homes. Yet like so many other inquiries documenting Israeli crimes, the Goldstone Report sits gathering dust as the United States, the European Union, the Palestinian Authority and certain Arab governments colluded to ensure it would not translate into action. Israel launched the attack, after breaking the ceasefire it had negotiated with Hamas the previous June, under the bogus pretext of stopping rocket firing from Gaza. During those horrifying weeks from 27 December 2008 to 18 January 2009, Israel’s merciless bombardment killed 1,417 people according to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights in Gaza. They were infants like Farah Ammar al-Helu, one-year-old, killed in alZaytoun. They were schoolgirls or schoolboys, like Islam Khalil Abu Amsha, 12, of Shajaiyeh and Mahmoud Khaled al-Mashharawi, 13, of al-Daraj. They were elders like Kamla Ali al-Attar, 82 of Beit Lahiya and Madallah Ahmed Abu Rukba, 81, of Jabaliya; They were fathers and husbands like Dr. Ehab Jasir al-Shaer. They were police officers like Younis Muhammad al-Ghandour, aged 24. They were ambulance drivers and civil defense workers. They were homemakers, school teachers, farmers, sanitation workers and builders. And yes, some of them were fighters, battling as any other people would to defend their communities with light and primitive weapons against Israel’s onslaught using the most advanced weaponry the United States and European Union could provide. The names of the dead fill 100 pages, but nothing can fill the void they left in their families and communities (“The Dead in the course of the Israeli recent military offensive on the Gaza strip between 27 December 2008 and 18 January
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2009,” [PDF] Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, 18 March 2009). These were not the first to die in Israeli massacres and they have not been the last. Dozens of people have been killed since the end of Israel’s “Operation Cast Lead,” the latest Salameh Abu Hashish last week, a 20-year old shepherd shot by Israeli occupation forces as he tended his animals in northern Gaza. But the tragedy does not end with those who were killed. Along with thousands permanently injured, there is the incalculable psychological cost of children growing up without parents, of parents burying their children, and the mental trauma that Israel’s offensive and the ongoing siege has done to almost everyone in Gaza. There are the as yet unknown consequences of subjecting Gaza’s 700,000 children to a toxic water supply for years on end. The siege robs 1.5 million people not just of basic goods, reconstruction supplies (virtually nothing has been rebuilt in Gaza), and access to medical care but of their basic rights and freedoms to travel, to study, to be part of the world. It robs promising young people of their ambitions and futures. It deprives the planet of all that they would have been able to create and offer. By cutting Gaza off from the outside world, Israel hopes to make us forget that the those inside are human. Two years after the crime, Gaza remains a giant prison for a population whose unforgivable sin in the eyes of Israel and its allies is to be refugees from lands that Israel took by ethnic cleansing. Israel’s violence against Gaza, like its violence against Palestinians everywhere, is the logical outcome of the racism that forms the inseparable core of Zionist ideology and practice: Palestinians are merely a nuisance, like brush or rocks to be cleared away in Zionism’s relentless conquest of the land. This is what all Palestinians are struggling against, as an open letter today from dozens of civil society organizations in Gaza reminds us: “We Palestinians of Gaza want to live at liberty to meet Palestinian friends or
A R T I C L E S family from Tulkarem, Jerusalem or Nazareth; we want to have the right to travel and move freely. We want to live without fear of another bombing campaign that leaves hundreds of our children dead and many more injured or with cancers from the contamination of Israel’s white phosphorous and chemical warfare. We want to live without the humiliations at Israeli checkpoints or the indignity of not providing for our families because of the unemployment brought about by the economic control and the illegal siege. We are calling for an end to the racism that underpins all this oppression.” Those of us who live outside Gaza can look to the people there for inspiration and strength; even after all this deliberate cruelty, they have not surrendered. But we cannot expect them to bear this burden alone or ignore the appalling cost Israel’s unrelenting persecution has on the minds and bodies of people in Gaza or on society itself. We must also heed their calls to action. One year ago, I joined more than a thousand people from dozens of countries on the Gaza Freedom March in an attempt to reach Gaza to commemorate the first anniversary of the massacre. We found our way blocked by the Egyptian government which remains complicit, with US backing, in the Israeli siege. And although we did not reach Gaza, other convoys before, and after, such as Viva Palestina did, only after severe obstruction and limitations by Egypt. Yesterday, the Mavi Marmara returned to Istanbul where it was met dockside by thousands of people. In May the ship was part of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla which set out to break the siege by sea, only to be attacked and hijacked in international waters by Israeli commandos who killed nine people and injured dozens. Even that massacre has not deterred more people from seeking to break the siege; the Asian Convoy to Gaza is on its way, and several other efforts are being planned. We may look at all these initiatives and say that despite their enormous cost —
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continued from page 8 including in human lives — the siege remains unbroken, as world governments — the so-called “international community” — continue to ensure Israeli impunity. Two years later, Gaza remains in rubble, and Israel keeps the population always on the edge of a deliberatelyinduced humanitarian catastrophe while allowing just enough supplies to appease international opinion. It would be easy to be discouraged. However, we must remember that the Palestinian people in Gaza are not objects of an isolated humanitarian cause, but partners in the struggle for justice and freedom throughout Palestine. Breaking the siege of Gaza would be a milestone on that march. Haneen Zoabi, a Palestinian member of the Israeli parliament and a passenger on the Mavi Marmara explained last October in an interview with The Electronic Intifada that Israeli society and government do not view their conflict with the Palestinians as one that must be resolved by providing justice and equality to victims, but merely as a “security” problem. Zoabi observed that the vast majority of Israelis believe Israel
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has largely “solved” the security problem: in the West Bank with the apartheid wall and “security coordination” between Israeli occupation forces and the collaborationist Palestinian Authority in Ramallah, and in Gaza with the siege. Israeli society, Zoabi concluded, “doesn’t feel the need for peace. They don’t perceive occupation as a problem. They don’t perceive the siege as a problem. They don’t perceive oppressing the Palestinians as a problem, and they don’t pay the price of occupation or the price of [the] siege [of Gaza].” Thus the convoys and flotillas are an essential part of a larger effort to make Israel understand that it does have a problem and it can never be treated as a normal state until it ends its oppression and occupation of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and fully respects the rights of Palestinian citizens of Israel and Palestinian refugees. And even if governments continue to stand by and do nothing, global civil society is showing the way with these efforts to break the siege, and with the broader Palestinian-led campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS).
A R T I C L E S Amid all the suffering, Palestinians have not celebrated many victories in the two years since the Gaza massacre. But there are signs that things are moving in the right direction. Israel begs for USendorsed “peace negotiations” precisely because it knows that while the “peace process” provides cover for its ongoing crimes, it will never be required to give up anything or grant any rights to Palestinians in such a “process.” Yet Israel is mobilizing all its resources to fight the global movement for justice, especially BDS, that has gained so much momentum since the Gaza massacre. There can be no greater confirmation that this movement brings justice within our grasp. Our memorial to all the victims must not be just an annual commemoration, but the work we do every day to make the ranks of this movement grow. 27 December, 2010 Ali Abunimah is the co-founder of The Electronic Intifada. Electronic Intifada publishes news, commentary and reference materials about Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
Source: Electronic Intifada
CHINA’S PIPELINEISTAN “WAR” By Pepe Escobar
Future historians may well agree that the twenty-first century Silk Road first opened for business on December 14, 2009. That was the day a crucial stretch of pipeline officially went into operation linking the fabulously energy-rich state of Turkmenistan (via Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan) to Xinjiang Province in China’s far west. Hyperbole did not deter the spectacularly named Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, Turkmenistan’s president, from bragging, “This project has not only commercial or economic value. It is also political. China, through its wise and farsighted policy, has become one of the key guarantors of global security.” The bottom line is that, by 2013, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Hong Kong will be cruising to ever more dizzying
economic heights courtesy of natural gas supplied by the 1,833-kilometer-long Central Asia Pipeline, then projected to be operating at full capacity. And to think that, in a few more years, China’s big cities will undoubtedly also be getting a taste of Iraq’s fabulous, barely tapped oil reserves, conservatively estimated at 115 billion barrels, but possibly closer to 143 billion barrels, which would put it ahead of Iran. When the Bush administration’s armchair generals launched their Global War on Terror, this was not exactly what they had in mind. China’s economy is thirsty, and so it’s drinking deeper and planning deeper yet. It craves Iraq’s oil and Turkmenistan’s natural gas, as well as oil from Kazakhstan. Yet instead of spending more than a trillion dollars on
an illegal war in Iraq or setting up military bases all over the Greater Middle East and Central Asia, China used its state oil companies to get some of the energy it needed simply by bidding for it in a perfectly legal Iraqi oil auction. Meanwhile, in the New Great Game in Eurasia, China had the good sense not to send a soldier anywhere or get bogged down in an infinite quagmire in Afghanistan. Instead, the Chinese simply made a direct commercial deal with Turkmenistan and, profiting from that country’s disagreements with Moscow, built itself a pipeline which will provide much of the natural gas it needs. No wonder the Obama administration’s Eurasian energy czar
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continued from page 9 Richard Morningstar was forced to admit at a congressional hearing that the U.S. simply cannot compete with China when it comes to Central Asia’s energy wealth. If only he had delivered the same message to the Pentagon. That Iranian Equation In Beijing, they take the matter of diversifying oil supplies very, very seriously. When oil reached $150 a barrel in 2008 — before the U.S.-unleashed global financial meltdown hit — Chinese state media had taken to calling foreign Big Oil “international petroleum crocodiles,” with the implication that the West’s hidden agenda was ultimately to stop China’s relentless development dead in its tracks. Twenty-eight percent of what’s left of the world’s proven oil reserves are in the Arab world. China could easily gobble it all up. Few may know that China itself is actually the world’s fifth largest oil producer, at 3.7 million barrels per day (bpd), just below Iran and slightly above Mexico. In 1980, China consumed only 3% of the world’s oil. Now, its take is around 10%, making it the planet’s second largest consumer. It has already surpassed Japan in that category, even if it’s still way behind the U.S., which eats up 27% of global oil each year. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), China will account for over 40% of the increase in global oil demand until 2030. And that’s assuming China will grow at “only” a 6% annual rate which, based on present growth, seems unlikely. Saudi Arabia controls 13% of world oil production. At the moment, it is the only swing producer — one, that is, that can move the amount of oil being pumped up or down at will — capable of substantially increasing output. It’s no accident, then, that, pumping 500,000 bpd, it has become one of Beijing’s major oil suppliers. The top three, according to China’s Ministry of Commerce, are Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Angola. By 2013-2014, if all goes well, the Chinese expect to add Iraq to that list in a big way, but first that troubled country’s oil production needs to start cranking up. In the meantime, it’s
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the Iranian part of the Eurasian energy equation that’s really nerve-racking for China’s leaders. Chinese companies have invested a staggering $120 billion in Iran’s energy sector over the past five years. Already Iran is China’s number two oil supplier, accounting for up to 14% of its imports; and the Chinese energy giant Sinopec has committed an additional $6.5 billion to building oil refineries there. Due to harsh U.N.-imposed and American sanctions and years of economic mismanagement, however, the country lacks the high-tech know-how to provide for itself, and its industrial structure is in a shambles. The head of the National Iranian Oil Company, Ahmad Ghalebani, has publicly admitted that machinery and parts used in Iran’s oil production still have to be imported from China. Sanctions can be a killer, slowing investment, increasing the cost of trade by over 20%, and severely constricting Tehran’s ability to borrow in global markets. Nonetheless, trade between China and Iran grew by 35% in 2009 to $27 billion. So while the West has been
slamming Iran with sanctions, embargos, and blockades, Iran has been slowly evolving as a crucial trade corridor for China — as well as Russia and energypoor India. Unlike the West, they are all investing like crazy there because it’s easy to get concessions from the government; it’s easy and relatively cheap to build infrastructure; and being on the inside when it comes to Iranian energy reserves is a necessity for any country that wants to be a crucial player in Pipelineistan, that contested chessboard of crucial energy pipelines over which much of the New Great Game
A R T I C L E S in Eurasia takes place. Undoubtedly, the leaders of all three countries are offering thanks to whatever gods they care to worship that Washington continues to make it so easy (and lucrative) for them. Few in the U.S. may know that last year Saudi Arabia — now (re)arming to the teeth, courtesy of Washington, and little short of paranoid about the Iranian nuclear program — offered to supply the Chinese with the same amount of oil the country currently imports from Iran at a much cheaper price. But Beijing, for whom Iran is a key long-term strategic ally, scotched the deal. As if Iran’s structural problems weren’t enough, the country has done little to diversify its economy beyond oil and natural gas exports in the past 30 years; inflation’s running at more than 20%; unemployment at more than 20%; and young, well educated people are fleeing abroad, a major brain drain for that embattled land. And don’t think that’s the end of its litany of problems. It would like to be a full member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) — the multi-layered economic/military cooperation union that is a sort of Asian response to NATO — but is only an official SCO observer because the group does not admit any country under U.N. sanctions. Tehran, in other words, would like some great power protection against the possibility of an attack from the U.S. or Israel. As much as Iran may be on the verge of becoming a far more influential player in the Central Asian energy game thanks to Russian and Chinese investment, it’s extremely unlikely that either of those countries would actually risk war against the U.S. to “save” the Iranian regime. 12 October, 2010 End of Part 1 Part 2 of this article will be published in the February 2011 issue of the Commentary. Pepe Escobar is the roving correspondent for the Asia Times. He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com.
Source: TomDispatch.com
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An Obituary Printed in the London Times Today we mourn the passing of a beloved
disciplining their unruly children.
old friend, Common Sense, who has been with us for many years. No one knows for sure how old he was, since his birth records were long lost in bureaucratic red tape.
It declined even further when schools were required to get parental consent to administer sun lotion or an aspirin to a student, but could not inform parents
He will be remembered as having cultivated such valuable lessons as:
He is survived by his 4 stepbrothers: 1. I Know My Rights 2. I Want It Now 3. Someone Else Is To Blame 4. I’m A Victim
1. Knowing when to come in out of the rain 2. Why the early bird gets the worm 3. Life isn’t always fair, and 4. Maybe it was my fault Common Sense lived by simple, sound financial policies: don’t spend more than you can earn and reliable strategiesadults, not children, are in charge. His health began to deteriorate rapidly when well-intentioned but overbearing regulations were set in place. Reports of a 6-year-old boy charged with sexual harassment for kissing a classmate, teens suspended from school for using mouthwash after lunch, and a teacher fired for reprimanding an unruly student, only worsened his condition. Common Sense lost ground when parents attacked teachers for doing the job that they themselves had failed to do in
awarded a huge settlement. Common Sense was preceded in death by: 1. his parents, Truth and Trust, 2. his wife, Discretion, 3. his daughter, Responsibility, and 4. his son, Reason.
when a student became pregnant and wanted to have an abortion. Common Sense lost the will to live as the churches became businesses and criminals received better treatment than their victims. Common Sense took a beating when you couldn’t defend yourself from a burglar in your own home and the burglar could sue you for assault. Common Sense finally gave up the will to live, after a woman failed to realize that a steaming cup of coffee was hot. She spilled a little in her lap and was promptly
Not many attended his funeral because so few realized he was gone. If you still remember him, pass this on. If not, join the majority and do nothing. The above piece was first published on 15 March, 1998 in the ‘Indianapolis Star’.
Editor’s note: We would like to apologize for inadvertently missing out information about The Myth of Tiananmen and the Price of a Passive Press that was published in the December 2010 issue of the Commentary. The article was originally published in the September/ October 1998 issue of the Columbia Journalism Review.
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