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August 13, 2007: Draft Edition |
CORRUPTION UPDATES 102
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China affirms dollar’s global reserve status
By Richard McGregor in Beijing
Financial Times, August 12 2007 17:39
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/7b578958-48e8-11dc-b326-0000779fd2ac.html
Beijing on Sunday sought to repair fallout from reports it could use its $1,330bn foreign exchange holdings to put pressure on Washington and the dollar with a statement affirming the importance of the US dollar as a global reserve currency.
The statement followed an article last week by the London-based Daily Telegraph, asserting Beijing had launched a “concerted campaign” of economic threats against Washington, with hints it could “liquidate” US dollar holdings.
American Economic Security depends on China
Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., August 13, 2007
edited for style and puncuation only, 7-17-08
Our policy of “opening,” and integrating China into modernity has been based on nothing more than the unlimited transfer of industry (our jobs) to a country where extraordinary profits are pocketed because the people have no rights, no environmental laws, and a closed economic and political system. It's a corporate dream, a corporate fascist Disneyland, that the Democrats and Republicans are trying to replicate here.
The consequences of allowing our manufacturing to move to China are profound. Our corporations have avoided the added expenses of American pollution control, labor regulations, and paying the taxes necessary to educate, medicate, and retire our workforce here, or workers in China. We aren't paying the social costs of doing business in China or here in the US. But in China irresponsibility pays greater dividends.
Not that our corporations have ever had to act responsibly here. They have cheated the American people every chance they have gotten. But by using China our corporations have been able to beat domestic down wages here even further, while substantially increasing profits by failing to pay for the schools, hospitals, and prisons their labor force requires.
It is past time to close down every avenue allowing our corporations to escape political, economic, and environmental responsibilities both here in the US, and there, in China and the rest of the 3rd world.
Our government has betrayed their duty to protect the general welfare of our country, and our corporations have betrayed our economic and material security in exchange for massive unethical profits in the China trade.
The stability of our economy is now dependent on China, rather than in the American middle class. The vast amount of manufacturing and production work that has moved to China has made China more important to the US economy than California. This makes us particulary vuneralbe in three areas.
Financially, If China does not reinvest its profits back into the US, we would lose the credit line that has been funding our economic/consumer expansion of the last 15 years. If China stopped buying our treasury notes, either out of anger or because of some type of political or economic crisis, it would crush the dollar and drive interest rates into the stratosphere.
But it is unlikely that either China or the US will stop their crooked game voluntarily. We are engaged in a mutual death grip, and neither side can let go. But it is even less likely that external conditions will allow this strange relationship to continue indefinitely.
Financially and strategically, China is racing to shift sufficient industrial production to domestic use to lessen their dependence on American markets, and allow them to use their economic clout diplomatically.
In terms of our basic national security, we dropped the trade protections that had maintained the basic level of domestic steel, heavy manufacturing, food, and industrial production capability to maintain our domestic economic and military security in case of a domestic or international crisis capable of disrupting global trade. While China's power grows, their industrial base expands, and they seek to create domestic consumption, our industrial base has withered, we have become financially dependent on Chinese investment, and our middle class has been sucked dry.
Free Trade has made us dependent on a variety of countries, and deeply dependent on China. China's future stability, not to mention their contemporary political intentions, are uncertain at best. China's long term goals are clearly aimed at achieving an overwhelming regional presence in Asia, and developing a strong diplomatic, if not military position around the world.
Opening the door to China in the manner we have opened it has made the US a much less secure nation. Much less secure for workers by suppressing wages and reducing domestic manufacturing. We have become dependent on Chinese reinvestment, and addicted to living high on cheap foreign credit. Moving our industrial base and manufacturing to China presents a great unrecognized material threat has the potential to severely comprimise our national security if a global crisis cuts off or cripples the China trade.
Opening the China door has allowed our corporate elite to sell our security and our middle class down the river for a fist full of irresponsible profits, while simultaneously arming China with the wealth she needs to build an industrial state sufficient to challenge our global empire.
Also See:
Corruption Updates 41, 9th article on the Page, "China jails editor for subversion"
Corruption Updates 45, 6th article on the page, "China to U.S.: Halt Taiwan weapon sales"
Corruption Updates 59, 7th article on page, "Chinese Police Arrest 28 in Riots Against Family Planning Laws"
Corruption Updates 61, 3rd article on the page, "China Investing American Profits to Turn World Balance of Power against US"
china links: Deadly Trade
china links: econ links
china links: environment
china Links: Police State
china Links: Military Power
china domestic security-military Links
Search the Corruption Database under
China (51 Abstracts)
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Hamas boycott criticised in UK
By Ben Hall and Daniel Dombey in London
Financial Times,August 12 2007 18:32
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/26dbea2c-48f7-11dc-b326-0000779fd2ac.html
The refusal of Britain and the European Union to engage with Hamas in the Palestinian territories has been strongly criticised by a UK parliamentary inquiry.
In a stinging indictment of the west’s approach to the Middle East peace process, a committee of MPs concluded that the international community was partly responsible for the violent clashes between Fatah and Hamas militants in the Gaza strip in June.
The isolation of Hamas, even after it agreed to form a national unity government with Fatah in February, had been “counterproductive” and the EU’s unwillingness to provide direct aid for the Palestinian Authority “very damaging”, the Commons foreign affairs select committee said in a report published on Sunday.
“We have made it clear that we will respond to significant movement by Hamas,” said the UK foreign office. “We have not said that we will never talk to Hamas but there have to be ground rules. That’s what the Quartet principles aim to provide and are no more than was demanded of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation in the 1990s as the essential basis for progress.”
But the cross-party panel of MPs calls for the government to “urgently consider ways of of engaging politically with moderate elements within Hamas”.
It adds that any attempt by the international community to ignore Gaza, which Hamas has controlled since June, and pursue a “West Bank first policy” would “risk further jeopardising the peace process”.
Referring to the events of June, which led to the break up of the national unity government, the report says that while the actions of both sides in Gaza were “deplorable”, the refusal of the international community to lift its boycott of Hamas “meant that this government [the national unity government established by the Mecca agreement] was highly likely to collapse”.
Nevertheless, EU officials have often betrayed misgivings about the 2003 decision to put Hamas on the EU’s terrorist list. Last September, Finland, then the holder of the EU’s revolving presidency, floated the idea of eventually talking to Hamas, while Javier Solana, its foreign policy chief, told ministers behind closed doors: “We will have to speak to everyone, sooner or later.”
This Article was Suppressed by the American Corporate Media
Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., August 15, 2007
83_10, June 24, 2007
Fatah, encouraged and funded by the US and Israel, refused to recognize Hamas' legitimate political victory. The US armed and trained what amounted to an illegal militia in opposition to the elected Hamas government. This was only one of our many acts of bad faith.
The real loss we sustained by charting this violent course was that we lost the opportunity to have a real negotiation with a legitimate representative of the Palestinian people.
Arafat was neither an honest representative of his people, nor was he only a pliant tool of the west. Arafat believed in independence when he faced his people, and he believed in dependence when he faced the west.
This suited neither side, and Fatah deteriorated into a regime of debased corruption. Now we have funded and trained Fatah to rebel against the legitimate Palestinian government. That Abbas and Fatah would do this demonstrates that Abbas is no more than our little bitch, incapable of retaining legitimacy in the eyes of his own people.
I laughed when The Jews danced in the streets when Arafat died, knowing Arafat was the best friend they had with the Palestinians, that could keep things together in an impossible situation.
If Arafat had lived forever, he would have continued to balance his two faces, one against the other, and neither side would be happy. But Arafat up and died, leaving no one on the scene capable of doing the two-face two-step.
Abbas can suck western cock, but he cannot satisfy his own people's desire for justice. Abbas lacks the duplicity that made Arafat effective, of being able to balance the impossibly contradictory realities and expectations that divide the west from the Palestinians. So Palestinian society split itself into two groups, one that licks the hand that beats it, Fatah, and one that grants no legitimacy to the claims of power and wealth.
This has doomed Abbas, and made Hamas a shining example of the Islamic Independence movement across the whole middle east. The dancing Jews are wishing they had Arafat, and his two faces, back.
The Jews, with our help and fully backed by our stable of middle eastern dictators, were able to bulldoze Abbas, and the post-Arafat Fatah, into subservience to their claims of Israeli legitimacy which could only be confirmed through negotiations with a legitimate representative of Palestine: Hamas.
Kneeling before the Jews and the US was political suicide for Fatah, and ultimately destructive to America's diplomatic position across the whole middle east. We showed everyone in the middle east that democracy is a farce. If any election produces a government unacceptable to the US, we will use overt and covert methods to crush it.
Our latest manipulation of Palestinian politics reaffirmed that American democracy is no more than a thin political veil covering government by naked military power claiming unchecked political authority.
And why are we beating Hamas down? Because they will not accept a pre-digested "settlement" dictated from an Israeli tank, kicked down their throat with a jackboot. Hamas will not grant legitimacy to a "country" established by terror and maintained by terror, without substantial concessions from the jews.
We will not negotiate with Hamas because they would drive a hard bargain to grant Israel legitimacy. This will be a very small price to pay to end Israel's role as the main generator of radical islamic dissent in the middle east.
The cold fact is that we will never have peace in the middle east until we take the first step: recognize the legitimacy of the Palestinians struggle to retake their lands. This means we would have to respect the Arab position, even if we disagree, and promise we will stop financing and arming the kings and dictators that enforce our will on them.
Open, honest negotiation on the status of Israel with legitimate representatives of the Palestinians, coupled with benign non-interference in the domestic affairs of the Muslim states, would move 70% of the Arab world, the whole moderate middle class, out from the under the influences of the radical islamists.
Instead of respecting the Arabs' right to self determination, and insisting on cutting a fair deal confirming Israeli legitimacy that is acceptable to the democratically elected Hamas government, we continue down the doomed path of imposing our will with military, political and economic power.
The election of Hamas is not a crisis, for Hamas represents our best opportunity to negotiation with a legitimate representative of the Palestinians, for the first time in decades.
But we are have responded by trying to bludgeon and starve Hamas into submission. We have undermined their international legitimacy. We have sponsored a rebellion by Fatah. This strategy will fail. The only legitimacy being undermined is our own, and that of our dictators and Kings across the middle east.
Also See:
Corruption Updates 96, 2nd article on the page, "Saudis’ Role in Iraq Frustrates U.S. Officials"
Corruption Updates 37, 1st article on the page, "Poll: Israel, Iran, US most Negative Countries in World"
Corruption Updates 64, 3rd article on the page, "British Academics’ Union Endorses Israel Boycott"
Corruption Updates 84, 7th article on the page, "Israel Boycott: Biggest British Union Backs it"
Search the Corruption Database under
Israel
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Putin increases missile defence rhetoric
By Isabel Gorst in Moscow
Financial Times, August 12 2007 20:31
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/328d9098-4909-11dc-b326-0000779fd2ac.html
The war of words between Moscow and the west over missile defence intensified over the weekend as Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, declared a new radar station near St Petersburg to be “the first step in a large-scale programme”.
Moscow has said it would bolster its air defence capability in response to US plans to site early-warning systems in the Czech Republic and missile interceptors in Poland to protect against attack from Iran or North Korea.
Washington insists the anti-missile system is to deal with “rogue” states, but Mr Putin has said the installations would risk turning Europe into “a powder keg” and has threatened to retarget Russian missiles on Europe if the US goes ahead with the plan, opening the most serious rift in Moscow’s relations with Washington since the cold war.
The US has stated it has no intention of counteracting Russia’s strategic nuclear arsenal, but Moscow sees the Polish and Czech plans as an unjustifiable incursion into a region formerly part of its sphere of influence.
Mr Putin, touring the Voronezh missile interceptor station 30 miles north of St Petersburg at the weekend, said it was “the first step in a large-scale programme ... to be carried out before 2015”.
Russia, the world’s second biggest weapons supplier, exported $6.5bn-worth of arms in 2006, largely in the form of aircraft equipment.
Mr Putin was accompanied by Sergei Ivanov, Russia’s deputy prime minister, whom he praised for efforts to modernise the armed forces.
Mr Putin said he hoped the defence ministry, now led by Anatoly Serdyukov, would “do literally everything to ensure fulfillment of plans to modernise the army and navy.”
Earlier this month the commander of the Russian navy called for the establishment of a naval base in the Mediterranean to defend Russia’s strategic interests in the area.
The Navy also announced that Russia was ready to launch serial production of its new Bulava submarine launched intercontinental nuclear missile which Putin has said can penetrate any defence system.
THE COMMITTEE SAYS:
Bush Gives Russia every Reason to ReArm
Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., August 15, 2007
RUSSIA RESPONDS STRONGLY TO AMERICAN AGGRESSION
Originally written on March 5, 2007
With our victory in the Cold War came an arrogance that has undermined our “victory.” Rather than be cool, we have moved political, military and economic assets right up to Russia's borders. Remember our response when Russia moved missiles to Cuba?
These unwise moves were practical if antagonizing Russian interests was not a concern, combined with our expectation Russia was to remain in a permanently weakened state. This was a stupid assumption. The rebuilding of Russia has taken on a character of hostility to America in response to our aggressions.
Russia has been moving to counter, if not eliminate, our intrusions into the Ukraine, Georgia, the “stans,” and Belarus.
Russia has determined our militarism requires they rebuild their military forces, and counter our aggressive actions. Russia has interpreted our actions as an invitation to join an arms race. A race for global political influence is sure to follow.
Rebuilding their military forces, and developing a new strategic plan, signals that Russia has sufficiently consolidated its internal affairs to respond vigorously to our aggressions. Russia has consolidated sufficient internal stability to take advantage of the chaos we have plunged the world, and especially Arabic Islam, into.
This is our fault. Our middle eastern foreign policy is based on supporting Arabic dictators hated by their own people. Rather than seeing the writing on the wall, and moving to encourage these regimes to reflect the will of their people, we went in the opposite direction.
Hosni of Egypt is an excellent example. Egypt is where Bush should have started his “spread of democracy across the middle east.” Instead, we are encouraging Hosni to move from an unofficial to a formal police state.
When the Egyptian people overthrow their western supported dictator, Hosni, they will be labeled enemies of “freedom,” and we do our best to kidnap, torture, imprison and kill them. If they live quietly under our dictators, they are friends of “freedom,”
These hypocritical contradictions have created a huge maneuvering area for Russian and Chinese foreign policy, as well as offering a big, fat, juicy American enemy to draw the various Arabic independence groups together.
Putting our military in the middle east has been poison to our dictators. Bush's invasion has reduced the weight of our influence to the size of our guns and wallets. We better not run out of bucks and bullets, or we are in real trouble. We have nothing else to rely on in the Middle East.
All Russia needs to do is offer honest support to the Arabs and Persians who seek freedom from our dictators. If Russia befriends those countries who want to control their own affairs, we are in big trouble.
Arabic lands under Arab control is unacceptable to us. Our position will create increasing political and military chaos until the Arabs actually seize control of their governments, and force their colonial ruling elites to flee back to their source of power, the United States. Once here, they can join the refugees from the toppled dictatorships of Somoza, Batista, the Shah, Chiang Kai Schreck, to name just a few.
Soon, American Globalism will fall before a new, multi-lateral, shared balance of world power. Democracy will be victorious, not America. The right of locals to select their own governments will be established, and it will mark the end of American Globalism.
This will signal the end of our control of the world's oil markets, and those that gain control will hate us. Soon, we will live in a world where Russia, China, and India find it advantageous to block our military, political and economic adventures. Soon, the world will stop funding our gluttony, and demand we pay them back.
Soon.
Corruption Updates 14, 1st article on the page, "Political Culture of Lies and War"
Corruption Updates 36, 1st article on the page, "Russia prepares to revise military doctrine in response to USA's missile defense plans"
Corruption Updates 36, 2nd article on the page, "Russia capable of hitting US missile shield"
Corruption Updates 39, 8th article on the page, "Who's to Blame for Russia?"
Corruption Updates 49, 4th article on the page, "Russian Minister Says No ‘Rogue State’ Missile Threat to Europe"
Corruption Updates 52, 2nd article on the page, "Dozens Arrested as Riot Police Beat Anti-Kremlin Protesters in St. Petersburg"
Corruption Updates 53, 10th article on the page, "Russia to Suspend Compliance With Key European Pact"
Corruption Updates 59, 4th article on the page, "Leading Russian Official Dismisses U.S. Treaty and Missile Shield"
Corruption Updates 64, 8th article on the page, "Russia, Putin: US imperialists start new round of arms race"
Corruption Updates 66, 2nd article on the page, "Putin warns Europe in missile row"
Corruption Updates 66, 3rd article on the page, "Gorbachev criticizes US 'empire'"
Corruption Updates 73, 6th article on the page, "Putin Plays Down I.M.F. and W.T.O."
Corruption Updates 90, 4th article on the page, "U.S. Diplomat Hints at Delay for Kosovo Independence"
Corruption Updates 92, 1st article on the page, "Russia sends warning to the West: American Military Empire Draws Russian Response"
Corruption Updates 92, 2nd article on the page, "British to Expel 4 Russian Diplomats"
Corruption Updates 96, 7th article on the page, "Putin rebukes 'colonial' Britain
Corruption Updates 102, 3rd article on the page, Putin increases Missile Defense
More Russia Links
Search the Corruption Database under
Russia
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The Almighty Ruble
By ANDREW E. KRAMER
NY Times, August 8, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/08/business/worldbusiness/08ruble.html?pagewanted=print
MOSCOW, Aug. 6 — The ruble got no respect.
No more. Lifted by high oil prices and a wave of foreign investment, the once humble ruble is showing its muscle, and fueling a consumer boom.
After gaining 20 percent in value against the dollar in the last few years, the ruble is even starting to displace the greenback as Russians’ currency of choice for both saving and spending.
As the ruble increases in value — not just against the dollar, but against brawnier currencies, too, like the euro — imported goods are becoming cheaper for Russian consumers.
Of course, the party could be short-lived. Russia takes in roughly $530 million a day from oil, its most lucrative export. If the price of oil declines, so will the ruble.
To deal with such downsides of the ruble’s rise, Russia is salting away oil money in a rainy day fund, called the Stabilization Fund, which holds more than $120 billion.
“Excluding a couple of oil countries where the money belongs to the local ruling family, which is something different, Russia has surpassed all the newly industrializing Asian countries,” in foreign currency reserves, Kenneth S. Rogoff, an economics professor at Harvard, said in a telephone interview.
Analysts say Russia’s underlying fundamentals are good, too.
First, oil exports are not the sole source of the ruble’s rise. That was the case before 2007, but now foreign investment has become a significant factor. Private capital flows into Russia increased roughly 360 percent in the first six months of this year, compared with the same period last year. Only about 30 percent is attributable to oil and other extractive industries, according to the State Statistics Committee.
Analysts also point to what they call Russia’s sound macroeconomics. President Vladimir V. Putin’s government has managed inflation, though certainly not eliminated it. And through its tight control over politics and society, the regime has kept demands for social spending in check — a leadership approach reminiscent of the authoritarian “Asian model” of economic development.
Last summer, authorities eliminated all restrictions on ruble trading, making the currency fully convertible and easing the way for the capital inflow needed to meet the demand. In the first six months of this year, net private capital inflow into Russia was $67.1 billion — more than during the entire first decade after the collapse of the Soviet Union. In the same period last year, capital inflow was $14.5 billion.
While threats of nationalization persist in the oil sector, investors have largely decided that they are acceptable considering the money to be made.Russia has the Money to ReArm
See the Links following #3, Above.
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Baboon hunting season open
Pravda, 7-27-07
http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/95355-baboon_hunting_season-0
Running out defenseless children around the world to slake their monster vampire lust on - thanks to the masterful diplomacy face blows delivered by Mr Putin arming the free world against the US tyranny - Bush and cabal's evil eye turns to the US.
This is not a bad news per se as some may easily say that the yank deserves the full wrath of its crazed child-killing leadership by now having allowed the mass murder, maiming, and tortures of the innocent, lies, and false flag terror to go unabated for this long.
Insofar, the yank has been no more than a news sideline watcher of the oil genocide, and the deliberate nuclear destruction of now four nations by the evil extremist and fundamentally terrorist criminal US/UK axis. (For those unable to count this high, that's Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, and Lebanon and every single reason Bush has given for the slaughter has been a proven lie.)
But now, the picture that stems from Bush's own "executive" scribblings bears out that the yank is soon to leave his sideline couch position and taste the US foreign policy in the role of its prey.
Bush's executive orders read like the most diabolical sci-fi novel and outline such a drastic surgery to the US that it should be enough to start an exodus. But, of course, the yank doesn't read, apart from thick-font tabloid headlines, and it's unlikely any of the Bush media whores are going to cover this, as the pro-US vacuous tit-bouncing lip-inflated bimbos have lied for the last at least 7 years 24/7. So don't expect any serious awakening of the sleeping giant genitally-mutilated baboon here.
OK, enough of these fine intro words. Let's delve into Bush's psyche lain bare in his "executive order" to-do list.
A. SEIZURE OF EVERYTHING
Exec orders 10990, 10997 through 10999, 11001, 11003, and 11005 outline Bush's takeover of everything including yanks' cars in the US. Under these orders, Bush will seize all roads, highways, ports, airports, railroads, all planes, buses, trains, sidewalks, and yes, yank's private trucks and SUVs.
Further, under these exec orders, the entire food supply chain from production to sales will fall into his hands and his hands only, which means the yank's daily calorie intake will be dictated by Bush. That roughly means that starvation will become one of his choice methods to control population if not ubiquitous.
Under these orders, Bush also grabs electric, gas, and water utilities from local, municipal, cities, and state to boot taking over all aspects of life as the yank knows it.
B. US GOV'T OUT, BUSH GOV'T IN
Exec orders 11051, 11310, 11049, 11921 outline the bypass of the current leftovers of the US three branch gov't (technically, four branch since Cheney has swung himself onto a new vine last week) and install his own in its place.
In these exec orders, Bush consolidates the entire US gov't into a few dept's of his own which will oversee without any recourse the carrying out of his other exec orders that take over the US and thin the herd.
Specifically, Bush gives his new gov't complete control over all aspects of energy and - pay attention now, yanks - wages, salaries, credit, and in general the entire money flow.
Those yanks still frightened by the ghost of McCarthy, don't freak, this is not communism. You won't get free medical, free education, or won't even be guaranteed a job. This is quite a new economy model so far unnamed. Perhaps, something like Satanism or Diabolicalism may be more suitable.
These exec orders also cancel out the current US congress, as if the assembly of lackeys and paid off war criminals was in any way impeding Bush's madness.
...exec order 11921, if you can't believe what you're reading, could only mean the end of US enterprise market system and the installment of some new gov't run economy where the gov't has monopoly on everything.
Orders 10995, 11000, 11002, 11004, and the recent new one penned over the last weekend, outline the actual physical, military attack on the US dweller. In these Bush gives himself the full and total control over the lives of the US citizen.
Well, first of all, like all good dictators, Bush is planning a full TV, radio, and the Internet(s) shut down, as if the US media wasn't the forked tongue of the Bush beast already. This is no doubt to prevent a potential uprising by containing all information.
Why you ask?
. There exists no evidence that supports any of Bush's lies about 911. Boeings don't vapourise or squeeze themselves through 12 foot holes. It's that simple! The war against the US citizen was launched years ago and the US has been occupied territory ever since.
The grand slam of it all is exec order 11004, which gives Bush depts the right to simply erase, relocate, blockade, move, and close down any township, community, city, area, etc.
Now, anyone who watched Katrina knows what's this all about and where will be US communities moved. No doubt, to this end, Bush commands 800 concentration camps strewn around the US today waiting to be filled up. For those not believing their eyes again, Bush gave Chertoff 500M in just the 2007 budget for the general upkeep of what they call more fetchingly "Forced Labour Public Detention Centres".
Pravda Predicts Bush Takeover of Government
Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., August 15, 2007
The official anti-western, anti-imperial rhetoric coming out of the Russian government is amplified and complimented by the Russian press. The Russian press is using their domestic, and their expanding global media presence, to define the United States in the same bleak terms we used to use to criticize the human rights abuses of totalitarian states such as China and Russia.
We're supplying them with enough ammunition to mount credible attacks on the motive and methods of both our foreign and domestic policies. In the case of a Bush takeover, Pravda correctly identifies the credible threat that Bush will try to delay the next presidential election by staging a terror attack in the US, or by trumping up a pretext incident with Iran to justify an emergency expansion of the war to Iran.
I put the chances of a Bush coup at 30%
The most notable aspect of the above Pravda article is that it reveals the depth of hostility towards the US within Russia. Recent statements by Gorby, Putin, Lavrov, and the Russian press on issues ranging from missiles, Serbia and Kosovo, and Georgia indicate that a Russia is deploying its resources to counter our attempts to expand our influence in Russia's post-Soviet border states.
We are extremely lucky that Russia has a Muslim problem of its own, or they would be actively supplying the Iraqi and Afghan insurgencies. If we continue to provoke them, the danger of supplying Arabs with weapons that end up in Checyna will be offset by the damage the weapons do to Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan. Luckily, we have not yet reached that point.
But we have passed the point where our strategic actions in the Middle east, the "stans," and Eastern Europe have stimulated the Russians to re deploy their military, diplomatic, and economic resources to check the expansion of our influence. This dangerous development's triggering event is Bush's plan to deploy antimissile missiles in Eastern Europe.
There are two big problems with this dumb ass action. The first is that the friggin' antimissile missiles don't work. The sad fact is that they never will work. The second problem is that Bush unilaterally dropped out of our historic antimissile missile treaty with Russia to pursue this misguided weapons program.
Russia is responding by upgrading its missiles to defeat a system that doesn't work. Russia, citing Bush's precedent established by dropping out of the Antimissile missile treaty, is threatening to unilaterally drop out of the Conventional Arms Treaty limiting the deployment of weapons in Europe. And for good measure, Russia said it was going to re target Euro cities with its strategic missiles.
All that to deploy a system that doesn't work? No. Our actions indicate that we are trying to get a military lock on monopolizing the major resource centers of the world. That's what Russia is responding to.
See the Links following #3, Above.
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U.S. Life Span Shorter
AP, August 11, 2007
(08-11) 17:08 PDT WASHINGTON, (AP)
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/08/11/national/w115051D59.DTL
Americans are living longer than ever, but not as long as people in 41 other countries.
Countries that surpass the U.S. include Japan and most of Europe, as well as Jordan, Guam and the Cayman Islands.
A baby born in the United States in 2004 will live an average of 77.9 years. That life expectancy ranks 42nd, down from 11th two decades earlier, according to international numbers provided by the Census Bureau and domestic numbers from the National Center for Health Statistics.
Swaziland has the shortest, at 34.1 years, followed by Zambia, Angola, Liberia and Zimbabwe.
Researchers said several factors have contributed to the United States falling behind other industrialized nations. A major one is that 45 million Americans lack health insurance, while Canada and many European countries have universal health care, they say.
Among the other factors:
_ Adults in the United States have one of the highest obesity rates in the world. Nearly a third of U.S. adults 20 years and older are obese, while about two-thirds are overweight, according to the National Center for Health Statistics.
Black American males have a life expectancy of 69.8 years, slightly longer than the averages for Iran and Syria and slightly shorter than in Nicaragua and Morocco.
_ A relatively high percentage of babies born in the U.S. die before their first birthday, compared with other industrialized nations.
Forty countries, including Cuba, Taiwan and most of Europe had lower infant mortality rates than the U.S. in 2004. The U.S. rate was 6.8 deaths for every 1,000 live births. It was 13.7 for Black Americans, the same as Saudi Arabia.
"It really reflects the social conditions in which African American women grow up and have children," said Dr. Marie C. McCormick, professor of maternal and child health at the Harvard School of Public Health. "We haven't done anything to eliminate those disparities."
Murray, from the University of Washington, said improved access to health insurance could increase life expectancy. But, he predicted, the U.S. won't move up in the world rankings as long as the health care debate is limited to insurance.
On The Net:
Census Bureau:
National Center for Health Statistics:
www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/lifexpec.htm
American Corporate Greed brings Poverty, ignorance, and Death
Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., August 16, 2007
American life expectancy reflects the same grim reality that guides what we charitably call our health care 'system." It reflects the same grim reality that conditions the failure of our educational system. The hidden fact of American society, the 800 pound gorilla in the room that nobody talks about, is that we have traded our principals, our sense of a shared responsibility for our social and political institutions, for the profits of irresponsible growth.
The result is that our democracy has been shattered by special interest bribery, our political policies tailored to use up our lives to subsidize special interest profits, and our social and political institutions now resemble a pathetic 3rd world dictatorship more than American democracy.
There is only one solution to such widespread corruption: Revolution.
We must revert to a bottom up democracy, break the corporate control of our politicians and parties, and force our politicians back into economic dependence on their local voters to fund their elections.
Until we get our politicians back under the control of the voters, and re impose our Constitutional limits upon them, our peoples lives, potential, and health will continue to be sacrificed to serve the greed of our corporations and their wholly-owned politicians.
Also See:
Corruption Updates 32 , 2nd article on the page, "BUSH TRIES TO KILL CHEMICAL RULES, SCIENCE, AND INTEGRITY IN ONE FELL SWOOP"
Corruption Updates 41, 2nd article on the page, "Scientist accuses White House of 'Nazi' tactics"
Corruption Updates 49, 8th article on the page, "California proposal: Get health insurance or pay fine"
Corruption Updates 85, 4th article on the page, "Uninsured in U.S.: 43.6 Million, Bush Assures Health Executives Continued Massive Profits"
Corruption Updates 91, 6th article on the page, "Ex-Surgeon General Says White House Hushed Him"
Search the Corruption Database under
Public Health (8 Abstracts)
Killing Safety Regulations
Censoring Science
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Chavez's petro-diplomacy tour
The Venezuelan president unveils an aid package in Argentina, with similar stops planned in other South American countries.
By Patrick J. McDonnell
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
August 8, 2007
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-chavez8aug08,0,5810085.story?
From the Los Angeles Times
BUENOS AIRES — Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez heralded new economic and energy ties to Argentina on Tuesday as part of a renewed petro-diplomacy initiative highlighting his bid for regional leadership.
Opening a four-nation South American swing, Chavez signaled his oil-rich nation's willingness to purchase up to $1 billion in Argentine bonds and help fund a $400-million gas plant designed to meet this country's growing energy needs.
Venezuela's oil-funded largess is expected to be on display during planned stops in Uruguay, Ecuador and Bolivia, all of which are expected to forge new energy deals with the government in Caracas.
Kirchner, a moderate leftist, has welcomed Chavez's aid as a key to Argentina's continuing recovery from its 2001-02 financial crisis. Much to the chagrin of the Bush administration, Kirchner has remained a steadfast Chavez ally. "Venezuelan [natural] gas is going to have a direct importance in the Argentine economy," said Kirchner, referring to a deal for a new liquefied natural gas plant here.
Venezuela's latest aid package comes at an important time, analysts said, because Argentina has been suffering energy shortages during a cold Southern Hemisphere winter and has been hard hit by volatile financial markets.
Though Chavez's visit to Argentina was generally low-key amid the presidential campaign here, Chavez stressed one of his favorite themes: Latin American unity.
"We need to unite, and the North American empire doesn't want us to unite," he told reporters. "It is a battle of interests, but we will win this battle."
The Bush administration has labeled Chavez the biggest impediment to Latin American economic integration.
Chavez threatens Corporate Control of South America
Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., August 16, 2007
The ability of the United States Corporate Interests to control the resources of South America has been broken, and will never be restored. "Latin American economic integration" is dead, as is our nation's claim to authority to be able to impose the latest evolution of colonial domination, "Globalism" on South America, or any other region of the world.
We are learning the same hard lesson in the Middle East, while in the East we are financing the country, China, that is going to break our regional dominance in South Asia. Russia is demonstrating that it is still a formidable presence between Europe and Asia.
American sponsored dictators and authoritarian states are holding on for dear life. If we continue to abuse and torture the de colonizing countries, which sit on the majority of the world's resources, we are ultimately going to lose access to these resources.
We may be able to force our way in with military force, bribery and dictators, but we will not be able to maintain control, or even access to the 3rd world's resources on those terms.
Rather than fighting to maintain corporate control of South America's formidable resources, under the guise of "globalism," we would be better served if our diplomatic and economic policies focused on supporting the development of stable social and political infrastructures that reflected local values, sentiments, and histories of South America, and the rest of the de colonizing world.
That will only happen if we change how, and who runs our government. A government for and by the people here will help bring governments for and by the people everywhere. A democratic revolution here, to reestablish our Constitutional principals of a government of limited powers elected by people with clearly named rights will be the greatest blow to tyrants around the world. But it must start here, in America, at the center of support for dictators and authoritarian regimes around the world.
As our government is presently corrupted and captured by the corporate interests, it should surprise no one that our immediate response to threats of local control are swift and violent. We fund an elite coup, death squads, or back a cruel dictator whenever the locals threaten our control of their resources. Or we just pay their neighbors to invade.
This has gone on in South America for a little over 500 years. The indians, mestizos, and Spanish elite have gone through the same dance under the Spanish, the English, and now are escaping The Yoke of Western domination on the Watch of George Bush the Second.
While everyone has been distracted by Bush losing the American's control of the world's oil supplies, South America has slipped out of our Sphere of Domination. The world is in a post-colonial phase, and doing anything but expressing the highest ideals of American Constitutional freedom under the rule of law is going to prove to be very costly to the United States and the world.
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Political Clashes Shake Venezuela’s Strained Oil Industry
By SIMON ROMERO
NYT, July 23, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/23/world/americas/23venez.html?pagewanted=print
CARACAS, Venezuela, July 22 — Venezuela’s national oil company is being shaken by claims of corruption and by internal dissent, indicating fissures within the institution largely responsible for financing President Hugo Chávez’s widening array of social welfare programs and foreign aid projects.
The problems at the company, Petróleos de Venezuela, have been compounded by a rare acknowledgment by Rafael Ramírez, the energy minister and president of the company, that it cannot hire enough drilling rigs, raising concern over its ability to halt declines in oil production.
“Our sovereignty is at risk if we allow Petróleos de Venezuela to remain in this situation,” Luís Tascón, a pro-Chávez lawmaker, said in a telephone interview. “We cannot allow this company to remain an indecipherable black box.” Mr. Tascón has summoned Mr. Ramírez to the National Assembly to respond to accusations of corruption against senior executives.
Mr. Ramírez has emerged as a focus of criticism amid claims of illegal deals with oil-services companies on his watch.
The tension within Petróleos de Venezuela follows other feuds within political institutions under Mr. Chávez’s control that began earlier this year when several political parties in his coalition resisted his move to gather supporters into a single Socialist party.
Venezuela, with some of the largest oil reserves outside the Middle East, officially claims to produce almost 3.1 million barrels of oil a day, but institutions like the International Energy Agency in Paris put output at 2.37 million barrels a day, down about 230,000 from a year ago.
Other energy analysts say output problems are potentially even more broadly troubling. The country’s oil exports fell 15 percent while overall production dropped 7 percent in the first quarter of this year...
Part of the strain on Petróleos de Venezuela relates to Mr. Chávez’s efforts to assert greater control over the oil industry this year, following decrees by the president enabling the takeover of oil projects from companies including Exxon Mobil, ConocoPhillips and Chevron.
Venezuela remains one of the leading suppliers of oil to the United States, and the volume of oil bound for the United States has remained steady. Petroleum exports to the United States in April were 1.4 million barrels a day, the most recent figures available from the Department of Energy.
Mr. Chávez is betting that new ventures with national oil companies from China, Iran, Vietnam and Belarus will allow Venezuela to lift production.So far, Mr. Chávez has not publicly intervened in Petróleos de Venezuela. Instead, he seems to be placing his faith in a recent increase in oil prices, which hit an 11-month high of $78.40 a barrel in London trading last week.
“Oil is going straight to $100; no one can stop it,” Mr. Chávez said last week during a visit to Nicaragua.
Chavez Predicts $100 a barrel Oil
Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., August 16, 2007
Here's how this is going to work: As long as we don't pull down the world economy with our 3rd world level of indebtedness , Chavez is rich. If we pull down the whole show, Chavez, and every nation in the international economy, will go down with us.
Chavez will still have lots of oil, and that will still provide a national income. The US, on the other hand, will still have a boatload of debt, and imports that dwarf exports.
As things stand now, if Americans have to pay our bills instead of borrowing and spending, our massive consumption will cease, and will we be paying our debt for years, like a 3rd world country under an IMF regime of "austerity." Suppressing American consumption will cause the whole world economy to experience a startling slow down.
Although this will be painful at first, it will cause us to find sustainable economic and social balance points between profits and social responsibility. It will teach us not to grow irresponsibly beyond our means, and it will teach us to respect and preserve our resources for future generations of Americans, rather than trying to consume them all now.
For Chavez and Venezuela, it will accelerate their ability to get out from under America's domination of global resources and markets.
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Government Set for a Crackdown on Illegal Hiring
NY Times, August 8, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/08/washington/08immig.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&ref=
todayspaper&adxnnlx=1186557562-ourCbvmHcu8JzP40gyg31w&pagewanted=print
In a new effort to crack down on illegal immigrants, federal authorities are expected to announce tough rules this week that would require employers to fire workers who use false Social Security numbers.
Officials said the rules would be backed up by stepped-up raids on workplaces across the country that employ illegal immigrants.
After first proposing the rules last year, Department of Homeland Security
officials said they held off finishing them to await the outcome of the debate in Congress over a sweeping immigration bill.
Now administration officials are signaling that they intend to clamp down on employers of illegal immigrants even without a new immigration law to offer legal status to millions of illegal immigrants already in the workforce.
Now administration officials are signaling that they intend to clamp down on employers of illegal immigrants even without a new immigration law to offer legal status to millions of illegal immigrants already in the workforce.
. If workers’ documents cannot be verified, employers would be required to fire them or risk up to $10,000 in fines for knowingly hiring illegal immigrants.
. “If they shut off the jobs magnet in the workplace in a way that shows they are serious about restoring the rule of law, then I’m encouraged,” said Representative Steve King of Iowa.
The new rules codify an uneasy partnership between the Department of Homeland Security, which enforces the immigration laws, and the Social Security Administration, which collects identity information from W-2 tax forms of about 250 million workers each year, so it can credit the earnings in its system.
Mark Hinkle, a spokesman for Social Security, said the agency expected to send out about 140,000 no-match letters to employers this year, covering more than eight million workers.
Mexicans Out-Wages Up:
Much better than a raise in the min wage
Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., August 16, 2007
The Dems are choking at their corporate collars to counter Bush with an Amnesty, and flood the country with yet more corporate cannon fodder, while crowing about a paltry wage increase that would be dwarfed by the wage increase ending illegal immigration would cause.
But the Democraps have no intention of forcing their Bosses, the corporations, to pay American, rather than Mexican wages to our workers. The Democraps fully intend to trade amnesty for millions of illegals for the votes of the last generation of Mexicans that the Dems gave Amnesty to. And they will rake in the bribes of corporate agriculture, hotels, and service industries for keeping wages at Mexican levels.
The Dems have a perfect formula: Sell your country and its sovereignty down the river once every generation, receive a significant block of votes and bribes in return, while maintaining corporate access to a permanent low cost laboring force.
Also See:
Corruption Updates 36, 7th article on the page, "CORPORATE-DEMOCRAT IMMIGRATION POLICY SUCCESSFUL:Poverty"
Corruption Updates 36, 9th article on the page, "HONEST STATISTICAL ANALYSIS ONLY SHOWS MONETARY COST OF IMMIGRATION"
Corruption Updates 45, 8th article on the page, "Income Gap Is Widening, Data Shows: US Main Products Poverty and Luxury"
Corruption Updates 53, 1st article on the page, "White House Floats New Immigration Plan"
Corruption Updates 57, 6th article on the page, "Flawed: Chronology of Immigration Laws"
Corruption Updates 59, 5th article on the page, "Graft Mars the Recruitment of Mexican Guest Workers"
Corruption Updates 62, 5th article on the page, "Immigration judges lack apt backgrounds"
Corruption Updates 63, 8th article on the page, "Hispanic Groups Reconsider Their Support for Gonzales"
Corruption Updates 65, 5th article on the page, "U.S. Data Show Rapid Minority Growth in School Rolls"
Corruption Updates 41 , 1st article on the page, "Study: Schools need billions, CALIFORNIA SCHOOLS IN A DEATH SPRIAL"
Corruption Updates 83, 3rd article on the page, "Schools: Illegals drain Public Services while Enriching Private Interests"
Corruption Updates 83, 4th article on the page, "Republicans use Illegal labor in the fields, and in their own office"
Corruption Updates 85, 8th article on the page, "Immigrant licenses off table; Let's fight Global Warming with Autos for Every Crimigrant"
Corruption Updates 87, 9th article on the page, "Arizona Governor Signs Tough Bill on Hiring Illegal Immigrants: 'bout Time"
Corruption Updates 89, 1st article on the page, "Tancredo rides high on illegal immigration"
Corruption Updates 102, 9th article on the page, Government Set for a Crackdown on illegal Hiring
Corruption Updates 112, 7th article on the page, Rascism in SF Schools
Corruption Updates 112, 8ath article on the page, Mexican leader criticized for comment on blacks
Corruption Updates 112, 9th article on the page, Criminal alien' cases provoke national debate
Search the Corruption Database under
Crimigrants (38 Abstracts)
Our readers would love to hear what you think about political Corruption:
Please limit comments or essay to 400 words, unless you write really well! Remember to include the Corruption Updates page number, and the article number that you are referring to. Example: (82_1.)
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Bonds slugs way past Aaron for home run record
August 8, 2007
Bonds is a Piece of Shit:
He deserves a WWF Belt, not the Home Run Record
Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., August 17, 2007
Barry Bonds is a symbol of our times. Barry approached this hallowed position, the Home Run Title and becoming a symbol of our times, because Barry has always been an exceptional athlete. But being a symbol of any time has its hazards. Unfortunately, the hazards of this era collapsed Matuzak, drove Romo crazy, cost Lance his nuts, and recently drove a WWF wrestler to murder-suicide. Oh yes, and produced a series of record Home-Run years that pushed Barry across Aaron's honest record. Barry is a fraud, and as such perfectly represents our times.
Like Bush, Barry represents the triumph of ego over humility. Like our Congress, Baseball's Guardians stood silent as Barry artificially manipulated his body in much the same manner bush manipulated intelligence, congress and the press.
And just like congress and the press, Baseball's Guardians stood silent while hucksters like Bush and Barry made a mockery of their game and the principals they were charged to defend and uphold.
Barry represents the victory at any cost mentality that makes victory hollow when briefly held in his cheating hands, much like Bush' "Mission Accomplished" farce. And like Bush's farce, Barry still has to face the repercussions of his cheating, lying ways.
Barry's Buddy Anderson is going to jail for 18 month stints (maybe six?) being charged with contempt each time he refuses to answer the Grand Jury's questions about Barry's steroid use. Each time the Grand Jury expires, the Federal Prosecutor empanels another, they ask Anderson The Question, he refuses to answer, and the cycle of lies renews itself like a force of nature.
Anderson, arguably barry's best friend, if a swollen ego like barry's actually can lower itself to really have"friends,"slipped barry a witch's brew of steroids without barry's knowledge. That's barry's story. Really. See, barry admitted to doing steroids, but not knowing he did steroids. The man is brilliant, and judging by the quality of his lies, certainly has a career in law waiting for him after baseball. After he gets out of prison for lying and tax evasion.
In the meantime, Barry is being investigated for tax evasion. Some deal where he laundered autograph money through one of his girlfriends to avoid paying taxes. This just boggles the mind. Barry makes millions, and tries to avoid taxes on his spare change? What an asshole.
I am hopeful that the pissed-off girlfriend tax evasion scheme will blow up at the same time Anderson finally snitches barry off. Drag his cheating ass through the mud until the asterisk is etched into his fucking forehead.
Search the Corruption Database under
Fraud
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