Obama promised reform and more healthful sustainable practices in agriculture policy. He also promised more transparency and greather ethics in the White House, but he has since adandoned this, saying "make me". Obviously, Monsanto, Dow and DuPont have his ear now.
Peace or Economic Catastrophe
http://www.lewrockwell.com/north/north573.html
Two percent growth per annum, compounded over two and a half centuries, has produced the modern world. In contrast, the lifestyle of the rich and famous rests on capital consumption. Eventually the heirs run out of money.
Violence is a corrosive influence on middle-class morality and lifestyle, as we can see in the West's inner cities and, for that matter, in the cities in Iraq.
There is no doubt in my mind that the American economy is facing a series of severe challenges that will cost most Americans the fulfillment of some of their most cherished dreams. One of these dreams is comfortable retirement at the expense of the U.S. government.
We live in a society that is rich because of the division of labor. The problem we will be facing for many years is simple to describe: blowback. The decentralized systems that keep us alive rely on such factors as a fractional reserve banking that is licensed by the government, a public health system run by various governments, a government-operated road system that has concentrated populations, and government-funded public utilities.
In those end-of-the-world movies about a planet or meteor heading for the earth, the entire economic system functions normally until the handful of chosen ones board the escape rocket (When Worlds Collide), or get on the rocket that will blow up the meteorite (Armageddon), or go to work on the coasts, despite the inevitable tidal wave (Deep Impact). It is all nonsense. The division of labor would collapse within weeks of the announcement. That is why there will be no announcement.
Peace is indispensable to the maintenance of social order, which is in turn indispensable to the division of labor. Our government's senior officials for over a century have failed to understand this. Our foreign policy has reflected this: "Over There."
Today, the price competition of the free market, when coupled with advancements in biological science, is moving toward blowback: "Over Here." The politicians have not counted the costs of their actions. Neither have the voters. They have underestimated the cost of worldwide intervention.
One more time: "When the price of anything drops, more is demanded." This includes high-risk foreign policy that is perceived as low risk.
chelseaGREEN
A Wake Up Call on Jobs
http://chelseagreen.com/blogs/robertkuttner/2009/11/16/a-wake-up-call-on-jobs
Full recovery will not resume spontaneously based on household or business demand, and the only source of increased demand to break the cycle is the government.
One of the most widespread and mistaken assumptions is that this bleak future is just baked into the cake. Because of the legacy of the financial collapse, and the limits of deficit spending, supposedly, we are just stuck with it. You hear that in testimony from Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke, and it is repeated mindlessly by the media.
This fatalism is just plain wrong, and history's great counter-example is World War II. In 1939, unemployment was stuck around 16 percent. GDP growth after 1933 was solid — 6 to 10 percent a year with the exception of 1937 — but the wounded economy was just not generating net jobs. Many expert commentators of that era concluded that there was something about the maturity of capitalism, or the replacement of human workers by machines, that consigned the economy to a chronic structurally high, rate of unemployment.
Then World War II broke out. The US government borrowed huge sums to recapitalize US industry and re-employ and retrain US worker in war production, to employ 12 million men and women in the armed forces, and to invest massively in science and technology to develop advanced weapons and substitutes for materials in short supply. The unemployment rate dropped to 2 percent by 1943. Deficits were enormous, as high as 29 percent of GDP in 1942 (this year they will be about 10 percent) but the economy grew at 12 percent a year for the four years of the war, and the high unemployment of the 1930s never returned.
The deficit hawks of that era worried that the very large national debt would be a millstone around the economy. At the end of 1945, the debt was 122 percent of GDP, compared to about 55 percent today, but of course the end of 1945 was the beginning of the 25 year postwar boom — the longest sustained boom in US history. GDP grew at 3.8 percent a year. The average deficit was about 1.1 percent, and with the economy growing much faster than the debt, the debt to GDP ratio declined to about 30 percent by the 1970s. So, we can grow our way out of debt — but we need to get a real recovery going first.
The Audacity to Change
http://chelseagreen.com/blogs/robertkuttner/2009/11/09/the-audacity-to-change
What a long, strange year it's been since Election Night 2008. Whatever this administration has represented so far, it has not yet delivered change we can believe in.
We need a radical break with Wall Street, and we got the politics of prop up and bail out — with the result that most Americans don't think the program is benefiting them.
We needed President Obama to focus like a laser on economic recovery, and instead we got the distraction of a barely-worth-it health insurance patch. We needed the president to go to the country and win support for fundamental health reform, and instead we got Rahm Emanuel's deal with the drug and insurance industries that won House support by the barest of majorities and managed to frighten senior citizens — the most satisfied customers of our one public option — Medicare.
We needed a recovery program that held down unemployment, and instead we got a stimulus that even the Obama team considered too small at the time of its enactment, according to the reporting of The New Yorker's Ryan Lizza.
And now we are on the verge of Barack Obama's very own Vietnam, in an escalating Afghanistan entanglement.
Finally Some Great News: 23 Americans (Mostly CIA agents) Convicted in Italian Court for Renditions.
http://chelseagreen.com/blogs/michaelratner/2009/11/05/finally-some-great-news-23-americans-mostly-cia-agents-convicted-in-italian-court-for-renditions
You may recall the case. The CIA was accused of a 2003 kidnapping of an Egyptian cleric, Abu Omar, from the streets of Milan, Italy. He was rendered to Egypt where he was tortured. A courageous Italian prosecutor, Armando Spataro, had been pursuing the case since that time over the objections of the Italian government. Luckily in Italy the prosecutors are independent of the political branches and Spataro, despite many attempted roadblocks, went ahead. Now the court has come down with convictions and jail sentences. Robert Seldon Lady, former CIA station chief in Milan got 8 years and 22 other Americans got 5 years. Utterly remarkable! The only problem is none of the defendants showed up for trial and the Italy was unwilling to ask for their extradition.
Despite this, the convictions are really earth shattering news although the New York Times asserts they will have “little practical effect.” Just ask the 23 convicted operatives if they agree with that sentiment. They are considered fugitives in 25 countries of the European Schengen area and subject to arrest. Upon arrest they will be sent to Italy to serve out their jail sentences. Already one of those convicted is suing the United States claiming she should have had received diplomatic immunity.(See list of 24 below.) And I wonder what those agents think about Stephen R. Kappes, who at the time of the kidnapping was the assistant director of the CIA’s clandestine branch and is said to have planned the rendition? He was not a defendant, having not been in Italy, but is currently Obama’s second ranking CIA official. So he is off the hook, at least for the moment, and can still enjoy Rome and Paris. So no wonder a U.S. spokesmen said the administration was “disappointed” in the verdicts.
.....The lesson the Obama administration should learn is that unless and until it holds U.S. officials accountable, other countries will.
Cuba’s Energy Crisis: The Canary in the Coal Mine?
http://www.chelseagreen.com/content/cubas-energy-crisis-the-canary-in-the-coal-mine
Cuba is the dead canary in the coalmine, says Michael Ruppert, the longtime peak-oil activist who is the subject of the documentary Collapse and the author of the forthcoming Confronting Collapse (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2010).
He points us to this Reuters AlertNet story. Cuba is currently experiencing an energy crisis, which internal government documents deem “critical.” Factories are shutting down and government spending has been cut, all in an effort to prevent blackouts similar to the ones suffered after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. To look at how Cuba handles the crisis, and their success or failure, is to take a peek into a post-peak oil future for all of us.
Article
The Government’s Marijuana and Alcohol Game
http://www.chelseagreen.com/content/marijuana-politics-playing-games-with-public-health
Steve Fox explains “the game” in this article for Alternet:
Professor David Nutt didn’t play the game. As the chief drug policy advisor in the British Government, an unspoken part of his job description was to help maintain a public fiction about marijuana – or cannabis, as it is known in the U.K. and other parts of the world. Specifically, he was expected to further the misperception of cannabis as a substance worthy of being classified and prohibited in a manner similar to more dangerous drugs like heroin and cocaine.
He made a big mistake at the end of last month. In a lecture at King’s College in London, he spoke honestly – and truthfully – about the fact that cannabis is less harmful than alcohol and urged the government to factor the relative harms of substances into their policy-making. Moreover, he accused the British government of ignoring the evidence about the true harms of cannabis in order to reclassify the drug and increase penalties for possession.
Reacting with the logic and reason of pub patron after last call, Home Secretary Alan Johnson immediately demanded that Prof. Nutt resign as the head of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs. He said Prof Nutt had “crossed the line between offering advice and … campaigning against the government on political decisions.”
More accurately, Prof. Nutt crossed the line between deceiving citizens and being honest with them.
Article
In Britain, Penalties for Marijuana Set to Increase
http://www.chelseagreen.com/content/in-britain-penalties-for-marijuana-set-to-increase
Article
( Guess the professor's timing really sucked ! ) :)
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