Intelligent Bullshit

First-time #Claims for #Unemployment #Benefits Fall 50,000 to Lowest Level Since April 2008

2012-01-19T09:51:00.000-08:00

The Department of Labor reported this morning that the number of people seeking first-time claims for unemployment insurance benefits fell a seasonally adjusted 50,000 for the week ending Jan. 14 from the previous week's revised number of 402,000. The fourth week moving average that analysts prefer because it flattens volatility in the weekly figures fell 3,500 to 379,000. The claims level is the lowest since the second week of April 2008.

A consensus of experts surveyed ahead of time by The Wall Street Journal had estimated a drop of 19,000. High volatility is common in the claims numbers this time of year, and because of the Martin Luther King holiday, the government had to use estimates for seven states. If the number holds up and claims remain in the vicinity of where they are now for another week, it will certainly firm up the cautious optimism that many analysts have been displaying toward a job market that has been stuck at a level that is barely absorbing the growth in the working-age population.

Continuing claims, which are reported with a one-week lag, clocked in 215,000 lower at 3,432,000. When federally extended claims are included, however, the number of Americans collecting unemployment benefits rose to 7,826,665, an increase of 493,566 from the previous week. Those claims are reported with a two-week lag.

While the drop in claims could be an omen of good news, just how far away anything approaching full recovery from the worst recession since the 1930s is was confirmed in a report by IHS Global Insight released to the U.S. Conference of Mayors on Wednesday. Only 26 of 363 U.S. metropolitan areas have seen employment rebound to the pre-recession peak in late 2007, the report stated.

“It’s very clear that there is a great deal of economic malaise throughout the country,” Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, a Democrat who is president of the mayors’ group, told reporters in Washington. “Most of our cities will be struggling with their economies for another five years.” [...]

[Mesa, Arizona, Mayor Scott Smith, a Republican said:] “We are creating jobs, but not nearly as fast as we need to,” he said in an interview. “But I think the good news is that we’re not getting worse. After three years of uncertainty, it seems we have bottomed out.” [...]

“The prospects of doing anything in this Congress are small,” Villaraigosa said. “That doesn’t mean that we can’t keep on knocking on the door and demanding that these people do their jobs.”

Last year, the Democratic president’s proposed $447 billion economic-stimulus plan, including funds to prevent further job cuts by local governments, failed to win enough support in Congress, where officials are focused on curbing the nation’s budget deficit. Congress has also reduced the block grant program by $1 billion, which the mayors’ report estimates may have cost 35,000 possible jobs.

Source: DailyKos

Brazil's Falling Birth Rate: A 'New Way Of Thinking' : NPR

2012-01-16T11:55:00.000-08:00

Brazil's Falling Birth Rate: A 'New Way Of Thinking'

by JUAN FORERO

Listen to the Story

Weekend Edition Sunday

[4 min 34 sec]

EnlargeDouglas Engle/MCT/Landov

Brazil's fertility rate has dropped dramatically over the past half-century and is now below that in the U.S. Here, women lie with their newborns at the Pro Matre maternity hospital in Rio de Janeiro.

text size A A A

January 15, 2012

Brazil has undergone a demographic shift so dramatic that it has astonished social scientists. Over the past 50 years, the fertility rate has tumbled from six children per woman on average to fewer than two — and is now lower than in the United States.

Demographers say the fertility rate is declining because the country is richer and more urban, but they also point to Brazil's hugely popular soap operas and their portrayal of small, glamorous families.

Veronica Marques has a husband, a career she loves and a nice apartment in a trendy district in Rio de Janeiro. In a restaurant near her office, Marques explains that she's 31 and doesn't have children.

"I'm planning to have kids when I have a bigger career, when I raise more money, and maybe when I have my life in another step," she says.

When she does have kids, she says, it'll be two — tops. Smart, educated, ambitious, Marques is typical of a growing number of Brazilian women who are focused more on their careers.

There are a lot of reasons for the drop in [the fertility rate in] Brazil, and most of them have to do with the modernization, this new way of thinking. Women are modern, and they take care of their own lives.

- Suzana Cavenaghi, a demographer in Brazil's census bureau

If she does have two children, it'll be right in line with the average these days for a Brazilian woman.

Barely two generations ago, it was six children per woman. But the fertility rate then began to plunge throughout Latin America, and it was most pronounced in Brazil.

A Modern Approach To Family

The latest figures show that the fertility rate stands at just under 1.9 children per woman, says Suzana Cavenaghi, a demographer in Brazil's census bureau.

"There are a lot of reasons for the drop in Brazil, and most of them have to do with the modernization, this new way of thinking," she says. "Women are modern, and they take care of their own lives."

Brazil's fast urbanization means millions of rural poor migrated to cities where big families are a financial strain.

In a country where abortion is illegal and the Catholic Church frowns on birth control, women have embraced family planning any way they can, says Cavenaghi.

"They have more to say about their reproductive lives than the men. Men interfere less in their lives than [they] would in other countries," she says.

Fake Drama, Real Influence

There's another factor in the trend, one documented in studies by the Inter-American Development Bank and the University of Texas: the role of the telenovela, or soap opera.

In Fina Estampa, the most popular of Brazil's telenovelas these days, the characters are often rich and cosmopolitan and have few children, if any at all. It's been a recurring theme in soaps for decades, says Maria Lopes of the Center for the Study of the Telenovela.

She says there's "no doubt" that the appealing lives presented in the soaps play a role in the falling fertility rate.

EnlargeJuan Forero/NPR

Veronica Marques is 31 and married, but like an increasing number of Brazilian women, she has chosen to put off having kids. She works for a group, Elas, which helps women set up businesses in Brazil.

Other factors also are at play, including the expanding role in the workforce for Brazilian women, whose educational levels have soared.

Still, it's not just the educated and affluent who have seen the fertility rate plunge — demographers say they see it among the poor, too, and in rural as well as urban areas.

An Economic Incentive

At a new restaurant in a working-class district on Rio's outskirts, the five female owners all came from big families.

Priscila da Silva chops tomatoes in preparation for the lunchtime crowd. She says times have changed.

"Before, I wanted four children and had even picked out names. But now I just want one," she says. "It's too hard these days; you have to pay for schooling, for health care — there are all kinds of costs."

Besides, she says, she has a growing business to run.

Brazil's Falling Birth Rate: A 'New Way Of Thinking' : NPR

Your #iPhone Was Built, In Part, By 13 Year-Olds Working 16 Hours A Day For 70 Cents An Hour

2012-01-16T11:54:00.000-08:00

Your iPhone Was Built, In Part, By 13 Year-Olds Working 16 Hours A Day For 70 Cents An Hour

Henry Blodget | Jan. 15, 2012, 10:20 AM | 109,747 | 232

We love our iPhones and iPads.

We love the prices of our iPhones and iPads.

We love the super-high profit margins of Apple, Inc., the maker of our iPhones and iPads.

And that's why it's disconcerting to remember that the low prices of our iPhones and iPads — and the super-high profit margins of Apple — are only possible because our iPhones and iPads are made with labor practices that would be illegal in the United States.

And it's also disconcerting to realize that the folks who make our iPhones and iPads not only don't have iPhones and iPads (because they can't afford them), but, in some cases, have never even seen them.

This is a complex issue. But it's also an important one. And it's only going to get more important as the world's economies continue to become more intertwined.

Last week, NPR's "This American Life" did a special on Apple's manufacturing. The show featured (among others) the reporting of Mike Daisey, the man who does the one-man stage show "The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs," and The NYT's Nicholas Kristof, whose wife is from China.

You can read a transcript of the whole show here. Here are some details:

The Chinese city of Shenzhen is where most of our "crap" is made. 30 years ago, Shenzhen was a little village on a river. Now it's a city of 13 million people — bigger than New York.
Foxconn, one of the companies that builds iPhones and iPads (and products for many other electronics companies), has a factory in Shenzhen that employs 430,000 people.
There are 20 cafeterias at the Foxconn Shenzhen plant. They each serve 10,000 people.
One Foxconn worker Mike Daisey interviewed, outside factory gates manned by guards with guns, was a 13-year old girl. She polished the glass of thousands of new iPhones a day.
The 13-year old said Foxconn doesn't really check ages. There are on-site inspections, from time to time, but Foxconn always knows when they're happening. And before the inspectors arrive, Foxconn just replaces the young-looking workers with older ones.
In the first two hours outside the factory gates, Daisey meets workers who say they are 14, 13, and 12 years old (along with plenty of older ones). Daisey estimates that about 5% of the workers he talked to were underage.
Jordan Pouille
The dormitories.
Daisey assumes that Apple, obsessed as it is with details, must know this. Or, if they don't, it's because they don't want to know.
Daisey visits other Shenzhen factories, posing as a potential customer. He discovers that most of the factory floors are vast rooms filled with 20,000-30,000 workers apiece. The rooms are quiet: There's no machinery, and there's no talking allowed. When labor costs so little, there's no reason to build anything other than by hand.
A Chinese working "hour" is 60 minutes — unlike an American "hour," which generally includes breaks for Facebook, the bathroom, a phone call, and some conversation. The official work day in China is 8 hours long, but the standard shift is 12 hours. Generally, these shifts extend to 14-16 hours, especially when there's a hot new gadget to build. While Daisey is in Shenzhen, a Foxconn worker dies after working a 34-hour shift.
Assembly lines can only move as fast as their slowest worker, so all the workers are watched (with cameras). Most people stand.
The workers stay in dormitories. In a 12-by-12 cement cube of a room, Daisey counts 15 beds, stacked like drawers up to the ceiling. Normal-sized Americans would not fit in them.
Unions are illegal in China. Anyone found trying to unionize is sent to prison.
Daisey interviews dozens of (former) workers who are secretly supporting a union. One group talked about using "hexane," an iPhone screen cleaner. Hexane evaporates faster than other screen cleaners, which allows the production line to go faster. Hexane is also a neuro-toxin. The hands of the workers who tell him about it shake uncontrollably.
Some workers can no longer work because their hands have been destroyed by doing the same thing hundreds of thousands of times over many years (mega-carpal-tunnel). This could have been avoided if the workers had merely shifted jobs. Once the workers' hands no longer work, obviously, they're canned.
One former worker had asked her company to pay her overtime, and when her company refused, she went to the labor board. The labor board put her on a black list that was circulated to every company in the area. The workers on the black list are branded "troublemakers" and companies won't hire them.
One man got his hand crushed in a metal press at Foxconn. Foxconn did not give him medical attention. When the man's hand healed, it no longer worked. So they fired him. (Fortunately, the man was able to get a new job, at a wood-working plant. The hours are much better there, he says — only 70 hours a week).
The man, by the way, made the metal casings of iPads at Foxconn. Daisey showed him his iPad. The man had never seen one before. He held it and played with it. He said it was "magic."

Importantly, Shenzhen's factories, as hellish as they are, have been a boon to the people of China. Liberal economist Paul Krugman says so. NYT columnist Nicholas Kristof says so. Kristof's wife's ancestors are from a village near Shenzhen. So he knows of what he speaks. The "grimness" of the factories, Kristof says, is actually better than the "grimness" of the rice paddies.

So, looked at that way, Apple is helping funnel money from rich American and European consumers to poor workers in China. Without Foxconn and other assembly plants, Chinese workers might still be working in rice paddies, making $50 a month instead of $250 a month (Kristof's estimates. In 2010, Reuters says, Foxconn workers were given a raise to $298 per month, or $10 a day, or less than $1 an hour). With this money, they're doing considerably better than they once were. Especially women, who had few other alternatives.

But, of course, the reason Apple assembles iPhones and iPads in China instead of America, is that assembling them here or Europe would cost much, much more — even with shipping and transportation. And it would cost much, much more because, in the United States and Europe, we have established minimum acceptable standards for the treatment and pay of workers like those who build the iPhones and iPads.

Foxconn, needless to say, doesn't come anywhere near meeting these minimum standards.

If Apple decided to build iPhones and iPads for Americans using American labor rules, two things would likely happen:

The prices of iPhones and iPads would go up
Apple's profit margins would go down

Neither of those things would be good for American consumers or Apple shareholders. But they might not be all that awful, either. Unlike some electronics manufacturers, Apple's profit margins are so high that they could go down a lot and still be high. And some Americans would presumably feel better about loving their iPhones and iPads if they knew that the products had been built using American labor rules.

In other words, Apple could probably afford to use American labor rules when building iPhones and iPads without destroying its business.

So it seems reasonable to ask why Apple is choosing NOT to do that.

(Not that Apple is the only company choosing to avoid American labor rules and costs, of course — almost all manufacturing companies that want to survive, let alone thrive, have to reduce production costs and standards by making their products elsewhere.)

The bottom line is that iPhones and iPads cost what they do because they are built using labor practices that would be illegal in this country — because people in this country consider those practices grossly unfair.

That's not a value judgment. It's a fact.

So, next time you pick up your iPhone or iPad, ask yourself how you feel about that.

Your iPhone Was Built, In Part, By 13 Year-Olds Working 16 Hours A Day For 70 Cents An Hour

#US becomes first country on #Earth to limit catch size for all fish #saywhat

2012-01-09T20:40:00.000-08:00

U.S. becomes first country on Earth to limit catch size for all fish

BY CHRISTOPHER MIMS

9 JAN 2012 1:33 PM

In a rare bipartisan move -- the policy was initiated under George W. Bush and finalized under Obama -- the federal government has enacted catch size limits in order to prevent overfishing of coastal seas,reports the Washington Post.

"It's something that’s arguably first in the world," said Eric Schwaab, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's assistant administrator for fisheries. "It's a huge accomplishment for the country."
Five years ago, Bush signed a reauthorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Act, which dates to the mid-1970s and governs all fishing in U.S. waters. A bipartisan coalition of lawmakers joined environmental groups, some fishing interests and scientists to insert language in the law requiring each fishery to have annual catch limits in place by the end of 2011 to end overfishing.

Up to this point, the nation's regional fish management councils ignored scientists and the other pencil-necks who said the limits they set were unsustainable and would lead to crashing populations, as well as crashing revenue for the fishermen who rely on them. But the regional councils signed off on these laws, so they seem to have finally become convinced that having fish in the future is worthwhile, even if it means you get fewer fish right now -- a lesson the rest of us learned when we were 7 and ate all our Halloween candy at 10 p.m. on Oct. 31.

A lot of Congresspeople never learned it, though, because they always get all the candy they want via either bribing people for it or holding their breath until they get more. So naturally some of them are already fighting to undo these landmark laws.

U.S. becomes first country on Earth to limit catch size for all fish | Grist

Oil is more toxic than previously thought, study finds

2012-01-09T20:34:00.000-08:00

Oil is more toxic than previously thought, study finds

January 9, 2012 By Dean Kuipers

Bad news for the Gulf of Mexico: a study released in late December sheds new light on the toxicity of oil in aquatic environments, and shows that environmental impact studies currently in use may be inadequate. The report was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The study, spearheaded by the UC Davis Bodega Marine Laboratory in collaboration with NOAA, looked into the aftermath of the 2007 Cusco Busan spill, when that tanker hit the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge and spilled 54,000 gallons of bunker fuel into the bay.

The key finding involved the embryos of Pacific herring that spawn in the bay. The fish embryos absorbed the oil and then, when exposed to UV raysin sunlight, physically disintegrated. This is called phototoxicity, and has not previously been taken into account when talking about oil spills.

"This phenomenon had been observed in the laboratory, but had never been observed in the field, and there were even some skeptics out there wondering if this was just a phenomenon that people would see under lab conditions," said Gary Cherr, director of the marine lab and professor of environmental toxicology.

"One of the real take-home messages from our study was: yes, in fact, it definitely happens in the real world."

This is another big jump in understanding the real damages from oil spills. Studies of the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill created an entirely new understanding of oil damage when it was found that oil was toxic in minute quantities measured in parts-per-billion and even parts-per-trillion Â- much lower than previously recognized. This finding of phototoxicity, however, presents a new challenge.

Phototoxicity is a phenomenon that is well known to human users of certain antibiotics, which can cause a rash if the person is exposed to direct sunlight. It has also long been associated with crude oil and creosote, which can cause a nasty redness on human skin when combined with sun exposure.

"It's kind of a new paradigm in thinking about the toxicity of oil," adds Cherr. "Up until now, there has been this awareness of it in the laboratory studies, but it has not been taken into account in the real world, in environmental analyses, and certainly in regulating the amounts of oil that are spilled."

In the wake of BP's 2010 Deepwater Horizon blowout in the Gulf of Mexico, for example, much of the spilled oil stayed at depth, but that which did rise through the water column could have produced phototoxic effects that are still unknown and unstudied.

Oil is more toxic than previously thought, study finds

Over Half of Germany's #Renewable #Energy Owned By Citizens & Farmers #climatechange #occupymovement

2012-01-09T20:20:00.000-08:00

Over Half of Germany's Renewable Energy Owned By Citizens & Farmers, Not Utility Companies

Matthew McDermott
Energy / Renewable Energy
January 6, 2012

Thomas Kohler/CC BY-SA 2.0

Germany's promotion of renewable energy rightly gets singled out for its effectiveness, most often by me as an example of how to do things well versus the fits and starts method of promotion common in the US. Over at Wind-Works, Paul Gipe points out another interesting facet of the German renewable energy saga: 51% of all renewable energy in Germany is owned by individual citizens or farms, totaling $100 billion worth of private investment in clean energy.

Breaking that down into solar power and wind power, 50% of Germany's solar PV is owned by individuals and farms, while 54% of its wind power is held by the same groups.

In total there's roughly 17 GW of solar PV installed in Germany—versus roughly 3.6 GW in the US (based on SEIA's figures for new installations though the third quarter of 2011 plus the 2.6 GW installed going into the year).

Remember, Germany now produces slightly over 20% of all its electricity from renewable sources.

The thing that got me though, other than the huge lead in solar PV installations Germany has over the US, thanks to good policy, and the fact that so much wind power isn't owned by utilities, is what slightly over half of renewable energy being owned not by corporations but by actual biological people means—obviously a democratic shift in control of resources and a break from the way electricity and energy has been produced over the past century.

A good thing: Decentralized power generation, more relocalization and reregionalization of economic activity, the world getting smaller while more connected and therefore in a way bigger at the same time... taking a step backwards, and perhaps sideways, while moving forwards.

Tags: Germany | Renewable Energy | Solar Power | Wind Power

Over Half of Germany's Renewable Energy Owned By Citizens & Farmers, Not Utility Companies : TreeHugger

#Global #CST and 'the #Israelites of #Latin America'

2012-01-06T09:16:00.000-08:00

An Israeli security firm is assisting with dirty work in Columbia previously monopolised by the United States.
Last Modified: 06 Jan 2012 16:45

Much fuss has been made in recent years, in neoconservative circles in the US and among Israeli foreign ministry officials, regarding the danger to global security posed by an alleged Islamist infiltration of Latin America.

A pet factoid wielded by self-appointed experts on the matter is that it is currently possible to travel by air from Caracas to Tehran with only one stop in Damascus. Lest policymakers and the general public fail to respond with adequate alarm to such news, the severity of the threat is underscored via invented links between Muslims in Latin America and every potentially unfavourable regional trend, resulting in a spectre of Islamo-narcosocialist crime cartels menacing the southern border of the US.

A novel threat

In a WikiLeaks cable from the US embassy in Bogota dated 1 December 2009, a rather unexpected entity joined the usual lineup of Latin America-based threats. The cable discusses the manoeuvres in Colombia of the Israeli firm Global Comprehensive Security Transformation (Global CST), founded by Major General (Res) Israel Ziv - former Head of the Operations Directorate of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) - and contracted to aid in the fight against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and criminal organisations as well as to evaluate potential perils emanating from Ecuador and Venezuela:

"Over a three year period, Ziv worked his way into the confidence of former [Colombian] Defense Minister [Juan Manuel] Santos by promising a cheaper version of USG [US government] assistance without our strings attached. We and the GOC [government of Colombia] learned that Global CST had no Latin American experience and that its proposals seem designed more to support Israeli equipment and services sales than to meet in-country needs".

It is not clear why USG should express surprise at the apparent failure to address "in-country needs" when its own Latin American experience includes the multi-billion dollar Plan Colombia, inaugurated over a decade ago ostensibly as a means of curbing drug production and trafficking. In 2009, I spoke with farmers in the southern department of Putumayo who outlined in-country effects of the Plan such as repeated airborne fumigation of their subsistence crops, livestock, water supplies and children.

A substantial portion of Plan Colombia funds went to US-based private security contractors. Today, 97 per cent of cocaine that reaches the US reportedly hails from said country.

As for the strings that are allegedly attached to USG assistance, Amnesty International has objected to the fact that "the State Department continues to certify military aid to Colombia, even after reviewing the country's human rights record" - which happens to hold the distinction of being the worst in the hemisphere.

Global CST's experience

Israel Ziv's contention regarding the international relevance of his IDF background - "We felt that our experience could contribute tremendously to the world security and the world peace [sic]" - is meanwhile challenged by the following passage from the Bogota cable:

"In February 2008, [Colombian National Police] sources reported that a Global CST interpreter, Argentine-born Israeli national Shai Killman, had made copies of classified Colombian Defense Ministry documents in an unsuccessful attempt to sell them to the [FARC] through contacts in Ecuador and Argentina. The documents allegedly contained high value target (HVT) database information. Ziv denied this attempt and sent Killman back to Israel".

Ziv's denial becomes less compelling in light of the fact that Global CST has lent its services to both the armed forces of the nation of Georgia as well as to Georgia's breakaway republic of Abkhazia. The firm's peaceable aims are furthermore called into question by the arms and training it reportedly provided to the Guinean military junta responsible for massacring pro-democracy protesters in Conakry in 2009.

Present on the board of Global CST is former Israeli Deputy Defence Minister Ephraim Sneh, whose recent efforts on behalf of peace have included defending the mass slaughter of Palestinians during Operation Cast Lead because Hamas had failed to "bring… investors to Gaza". The former minister did not explain how investors were expected to navigate an Israeli military blockade when smaller items such as pasta and pencils were not permitted passage.

'The Israelites of Latin America'

The encroachment of Global CST into the USG's imperial realm was facilitated by Juan Manuel Santos, current President of Colombia, who has explained that the firm was recommended to him during his term as Defence Minister by his friend, ex-Israeli Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami.

In a promotional video for Global CST, Santos characterises the company as follows: "They are people with a lot of experience; they have been helping us to work better. It's like the person who is in the gym, and when you go and you do the exercise he tells you how to do it better".

More effusive praise is offered on behalf of the athletic trainers in a video for an Israeli television programme in which Santos announces: "We've even been accused of being the Israelites [sic] of Latin America, which personally makes me feel really proud".

This pronouncement occurs shortly after the programme's narrator has described Colombia's 2008 raid into Ecuador and assassination of FARC second-in-command Raul Reyes. The narrator's assessment in Hebrew of the operation is transcribed in English subtitles as: "All of a sudden, the methods that proved efficient in Nablus and Hebron begin speaking Spanish".

In addition to a shared pride in illegal extraterritorial targeted killings, there are other reasons Colombia might qualify as the Israel of Latin America. For starters, the late Carlos Castano Gil - father of modern Colombian paramilitarism - acknowledged copying the paramilitary concept from the Israelis during a training excursion to Israel in the 1980s.

In matters requiring the displacement of human beings from land, the Zionist example is undoubtedly invaluable, though the Colombians unfortunately lack the option of citing Biblical endorsement of territorial claims. In both locales, the liberal application of the term "terrorist" provides convenient justification for the elimination of excess sectors of the populace, be they Palestinians in refugee camps or Colombian peasants whose existence infringes on the designs of international corporations vis-a-vis area resources.

That the death and destruction wrought by the Jewish state and the paragon of military-paramilitary collusion that is the state of Colombia quantitatively and qualitatively outweighs that wrought by their respective nemeses has meanwhile not jeopardised their positions as top recipients of US military aid.

Military creativity

The necessity of casting victims in the role of aggressors has resulted in a range of creative military performances in both the original Israel and its Latin American apprentice. In 2008, Colombian soldiers were revealed to have murdered possibly thousands of civilians and then dressed the corpses in FARC attire in order to receive bonus pay and extra holiday time.

Juan Manuel Santos was serving as Defence Minister under President Alvaro Uribe when the "false positives" scandal broke. Despite this and other details - such as that, since Uribe's assumption of office, more trade unionists had been assassinated in Colombia than in the rest of the world combined - Santos managed to comment on the aforementioned Israeli television programme that fear "no longer exists" in Colombia and that "now we feel free".

As for Israeli military creativity, IDF spokeswoman Avital Leibovitch explained in the aftermath of the 2010 massacre on the Mavi Marmara - part of the Freedom Flotilla endeavouring to break the Gaza siege - that the victims of the incident were not the nine slain Turkish humanitarian activists but rather the IDF commandos who had shot them.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry dutifully uploaded a Flickr photo set entitled "Weapons found on Mavi Marmara", which underscored the violent tendencies of the seafarers and consisted of images of water bottles, kitchen knives, screwdrivers, keffiyehs, and a slingshot decorated with pink and purple stars and the word "Hizbollah". That the slingshot was not actually "found on Mavi Marmara" but rather resurrected from an irrelevant archive is suggested by the label accompanying the image, according to which "This photo was taken on February 7, 2006 using a Nikon D2Xs".

Colombians were given the opportunity to defend their position as the Israelites of Latin America when, upon completion of Uribe's presidential term in 2010, he was recycled into the post of Vice-Chairman of the UN panel tasked with investigating the flotilla massacre. The resulting report - which determined that a group of flotilla activists had engaged in an "extreme level of violence", and which upheld the validity of the Israeli siege of Gaza in spite of the UN's own classification of the siege as illegal - presumably benefited from Uribe's professed notion that human rights organisations often serve as fronts for terrorists.

The peace community of San Jose de Apartado

Defending her position as de facto Colombian paramilitary of The Wall Street Journal editorial board, meanwhile, Mary O'Grady reported an alliance between FARC terrorists and "peaceniks" in a 2009 article about the Colombian peace community of San Jose de Apartado, affiliated with various NGOs.

The peace community, which I visited that same year, was founded in 1997 in the Uraba region in northwestern Colombia as a response to decades of armed conflict. Employing a system of collective work groups dedicated to the cultivation of crops ranging from miniature bananas to cacao, the community rejects collaboration with all armed actors: military, paramilitary and FARC guerrillas alike. Nevertheless, as of its twelfth anniversary in 2009, it had suffered 184 assassinations out of a population of approximately 1,500.

Twenty-four assassinations have been attributed to the FARC, while the remainder is attributed to the armed forces and/or paramilitary formations. Such calculations render all the more ludicrous O'Grady's advertisement of the claim that "the peace community helped the FARC in its effort to tag the Colombian military as a violator of human rights".

Community co-founder Maria Brigida Gonzalez - whose 15-year-old daughter Elisena was murdered in her sleep in 2005 by members of the Colombian Army's 17th Brigade, which claimed Elisena was a FARC combatant-speculated to me that the ultimate purpose of such attacks was "to sew terror so that we all flee and the land's resources can be exploited".

Colombia as regional security model

In a WikiLeaks cable from March 2009, the US embassy in Bogota specified that the region of Uraba was one of "17 strategic focus areas" within one of "two key swathes of territory" in Colombia where Global CST was assisting the Uribe government in "achiev[ing] irreversibility" in the battle against the FARC. Nine months later, the same embassy sounded the alarm that the firm had infringed on US territory.

It is doubtful, of course, that the Israelis will usurp the US legacy in Colombia, one ironic manifestation of which was contained in the email update I received last year from the peace community listing recent instances of harassment and killing of area residents: "John Kennedy was assassinated the afternoon of Wednesday, May 11 when he left his house to meet some neighbours for a game of soccer".

Whether or not Colombians start naming their offspring David Ben-Gurion, the fact that the country has been applauded by the US State Department and the Inter-American Development Bank as a regional role model in confronting security threats ensures the fortification of a system in which profits depend on the perpetuation of insecurity.

Belen Fernandez is the author of The Imperial Messenger: Thomas Friedman at Work, released by Verso in Nov. 2011. She is an editor at PULSE Media, and her articles have appeared in the London Review of Books blog, Guernica Magazine, and many other publications.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.

Source: Al Jazeera

#NYC Council Votes Against #CorporatePersonhood, #CitizensUnited

2012-01-05T08:27:00.000-08:00

Wednesday 4 January 2012
by: Yana Kunichoff, Truthout | Report

Missoula, Montana; Boulder, Colorado; and South Miami, Florida, have all done it, but you know it's really catching on when the Big Apple jumps on board. The New York City Council voted Wednesday to get rid of corporate personhood in a growing nationwide backlash against the much-maligned Citizens United ruling.

Passed on January 21, 2010, Citizens United gave corporations the same political rights as people, opening the door for nearly unlimited political spending on elections. Though there are boundaries keeping a candidate from receiving or soliciting money directly from a corporation, the shifting of the rules and the weaknesses of the Federal Election Commission make this increasingly difficult to enforce.

Critics, including those associated with the Occupy movement, see Citizens United as a danger to democratic values.

We "are expecting elected officials to heed the call for constitutional reform that makes clear that democracy is for people, not for corporations," said Jonah Minkoff-Zern, senior organizer of Public Citizen's Democracy is for People Campaign.

New York City would be the second big city after Los Angeles, and New York would be at least the seventh state to take up a similar resolution, but it is likely to take movement in Congress to overturn the Supreme Court's decision on the case.

In 2011, four constitutional amendments to overturn the case were introduced. To pass, two-thirds of lawmakers in both houses must vote for the changes.

"People across the country are standing up to reclaim our democracy," said Minkoff-Zern. "New York City should support this movement by passing this resolution."

Study in #Monkeys Raises Hope for #HIV #Vaccines

2012-01-05T08:23:00.000-08:00

By Julie Steenhuysen
CHICAGO | Wed Jan 4, 2012 2:54pm EST

An experimental vaccine helped protect monkeys from an especially deadly form of the AIDS virus, raising new hope for an effective vaccine in people, U.S. researchers said on Wednesday.

The vaccine reduced the risk of infection by 80 percent among monkeys exposed to a primate version of the virus, while monkeys that became infected had lower amounts of the virus in their blood, the team reported in the journal Nature.

"It is an important advance in knowledge," Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said in a telephone interview.

Scientists are especially excited because the study helped identify a key part of the immune system that is needed to offer protection from the human immunodeficiency virus or HIV that causes AIDS.

"It is nailing down in a more precise way what kind of an immune response a vaccine needs to induce to protect against the acquisition of infection as well as suppression of virus if someone happens to get infected," Fauci said.

The result is promising enough that the researchers are planning to test the vaccine in humans next year.

Efforts so far to make an AIDS vaccine have not been successful but a 2009 study in Thailand involving 16,000 people showed for the first time that a vaccine could safely prevent HIV infection in a small number of volunteers.

The researchers used weakened versions of two viruses commonly used in vaccine development -- a common cold virus called an adenovirus and a smallpox virus -- to deliver the primate version of the HIV antigen into the body and trigger an immune response.

"The vaccines we tested have had very extensive experience in the clinic, which means the transition from the animal work to the human work will be very easy," said Colonel Nelson Michael, director of the U.S. Military HIV Research Program at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, who worked on both the study in Thailand and the latest effort.

After vaccinating the monkeys, the team exposed the animals to an aggressive version of simian immunodeficiency virus, or SIV.

"This was really a high bar to get over," Michael said in a telephone interview. "We were excited to see these vaccine types protected these animals."

After repeated exposure to SIV, eventually most of the animals did become infected but even then, the vaccine appeared to offer added protection.

"We saw two things that were really important. A protection against infection but even in animals that became infected, we saw reduced levels of virus," Michael said.

Next, the team did a series of tests to see what parts of the monkeys' immune system became active. They found that a key portion of a gene called an envelope, which the virus uses to get inside cells, was critical to protecting the animals.

"This is going to be the anchor for a next generation of vaccines that will propel us past Thailand," Michael said.

He cautioned that the studies so far are in monkeys and the real test will be human trials, which he expects to start in January 2013.

The group is working closely with vaccine maker Crucell, a unit of Johnson & Johnson.

There is no cure for AIDS but cocktails of drugs can keep the disease at bay for many years. New research shows they can prevent the virus from spreading to sexual partners.

But because HIV is spread in so many ways -- during sex, on needles shared by drug users, in breast milk and in blood -- there is no single easy way to prevent infection and a vaccine is still considered the best hope for conquering the virus.

Some 34 million people globally are infected with HIV and more than 25 million people have died of AIDS, according to the United Nations agency UNAIDS.

#Iran Prepares Bill to Bar Foreign Warships from Persian Gulf #MiddleEast

2012-01-05T08:22:00.001-08:00

By Thomas Erdbrink, Published: January 4

TEHRAN — Iran’s parliament said Wednesday that it was preparing a bill that would prohibit all foreign warships from entering the Persian Gulf unless they received permission from the Iranian navy.

The bill, disclosed by the semiofficial Fars News Agency, surfaced a day after Iran’s armed forces commander warned a U.S. nuclear-powered aircraft carrier not to return to the gulf, remarks that rattled commodities markets and helped drive up oil prices.

The proposed legislation suggested that at least some Iranian officials are serious about trying to stop the U.S. Navy from entering the oil-rich gulf waters. Iranian analysts said that the bill probably would not have been introduced if it were not supported by higher authorities.

“If the military vessels and warships of any country want to pass via the Strait of Hormuz without coordination and permission of Iran’s navy forces, they should be stopped by the Iranian armed forces,” Fars quoted lawmaker Nader Qazipour as saying in explaining the bill. He noted that Iran regards the strait as part of its territorial waters and said the bill would be presented to leaders in parliament next week.

Iranian Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi restated Iran’s position that “transnational forces” have no place in the region. Vahidi also said that Iran is willing to organize joint military drills with neighboring countries, Fars reported Wednesday.

The news agency, which has ties to Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard Corps, asserted that the carrier USS John C. Stennis, which steamed out of the Persian Gulf last week, had escaped while being “chased by Iranian warships.”

The United States has dismissed as overblown rhetoric Iran’s threats to close the strategic Strait of Hormuz, the narrow entrance to the Persian Gulf, in retaliation for Western sanctions over the country’s uranium-enrichment program.

Iran’s increasingly bellicose tone has coincided with a currency crisis that has forced the government to intervene to prop up the ailing rial. Helping to drive the rial to record lows was U.S. legislation signed Saturday by President Obama that includes a provision for unilateral sanctions against the Central Bank of Iran.

Iran responded by injecting an additional $200 million into the country’s currency markets Wednesday, Fars reported. Although the rial’s rate appeared to stabilize, people involved in trading dollars said they were hanging on to their foreign currency for now.

Many Iranians were trying to buy dollars anyway, but sellers were hard to find.

“Nobody is selling their dollars,” said one exchange office representative who did not want to be identified. “The current rate is artificial.”

The crisis spurred rumors that the job of the governor of the Central Bank of Iran, Mahmoud Bahmani, was in jeopardy. According to Fars, he has asked for more authority to clamp down on “speculation” against the rial.

3.5 Million #Homeless and 18.5 Million Vacant Homes in the #US #occupyamerica #ows

2012-01-01T23:49:00.000-08:00

3.5 Million Homeless and 18.5 Million Vacant Homes in the US

2 comments

By Diane Sweet

The National Economic and Social Rights Initiative along with Amnesty International are asking the U.S. to step up its efforts to address the foreclosure crisis, including by giving serious consideration to the growing call for a foreclosure moratorium and other forms of relief for those at risk, and establishing a housing finance system that fulfills human rights obligations.

New government census reports have revealed disturbing information that details the cold, hard numbers of Americans who have been deeply affected by the state of our economy, and bank foreclosure practices:

In the last few days, the U.S. government census figures have revealed that 1 in 2 Americans have fallen into poverty or are struggling to live on low incomes. And we know that the financial hardships faced by our neighbors, colleagues, and others in our communities will be all the more acutely felt over the holiday season.
Along with poverty and low incomes, the foreclosure rate has created its own crisis situation as the number of families removed from their homes has skyrocketed.
Since 2007, banks have foreclosed around eight million homes. It is estimated that another eight to ten million homes will be foreclosed before the financial crisis is over. This approach to resolving one part of the financial crisis means many, many families are living without adequate and secure housing. In addition, approximately 3.5 million people in the U.S. are homeless, many of them veterans. It is worth noting that, at the same time, there are 18.5 million vacant homes in the country.
The stark realities that persist mean that millions of families will be facing the holidays in temporary homes, or homes under threat, and far too many children will be wishing for an end to the uncertainty and distress their family is facing rather than an Xbox or Barbie doll.
Housing is a basic human need and a fundamental human right. Yet every day in the United States, banks are foreclosing on more than 10,000 mortgages and ordering evictions of individuals and families residing in foreclosed homes. The U.S. government’s steps to address the foreclosure crisis to date have been partial at best.
The depth and severity of the foreclosure crisis is a clear illustration of the urgent need for the U.S. government to put in place a system that respects, protects and fulfills human rights, including the right to housing. This includes implementing real protections to ensure that other actors, such as financial institutions, do not undermine or abuse human rights.

There is a link available at the Amnesty International website for anyone who is interested and would like to join the call on the Obama administration and Congress to urgently step up efforts to address the foreclosure crisis, including by seriously considering the growing call for a foreclosure moratorium and other forms of relief, and establishing a housing finance system that fulfills human rights obligations.

[Via Amnesty International]

3.5 Million Homeless and 18.5 Million Vacant Homes in the US | Occupy America

#Hackers Said to be Planning to Launch Own Satellites to Combat Censorship #sopa #anonops

2012-01-01T23:45:00.000-08:00

Hackers Said to be Planning to Launch Own Satellites to Combat Censorship

By Christina DesMarais, PCWorld Dec 31, 2011 8:49 AM

Hackers reportedly plan to fight back against Internet censorship by putting their own communications satellites into orbit and developing a grid of ground stations to track and communicate with them.

The news comes as the tech world is up in arms about proposed legislation that many feel would threaten online freedom.

According to BBC News, the satellite plan was recently outlined at the Chaos Communication Congress in Berlin. It's being called the "Hackerspace Global Grid."

If you don't like the idea of hackers being able to communicate better, hacker activist Nick Farr said knowledge is the only motive of the project, which also includes the development of new electronics that can survive in space, and launch vehicles that can get them there.

Farr and his cohorts are working on the project along with Constellation, a German aerospace research initiative that involves interlinked student projects.

You might think it would be hard for just anybody to put a satellite into space, but hobbyists and amateurs have been able in recent years to use balloons to get them up there. However, without the deep pockets of national agencies or large companies they have a hard time tracking the devices.

To better locate their satellites, the German hacker group came up with the idea of a sort of reverse GPS that uses a distributed network of low-cost ground stations that can be bought or built by individuals.

Supposedly, these stations would be able to pinpoint satellites at any given time while improving the transmission of data from the satellites to Earth.

The plan isn't without limitations.

For one thing, low orbit satellites don't stay in a single place. And any country could go to the trouble of disabling them. At the same time, outer space isn’t actually governed by the countries over which it floats.

The scheme discussed by hackers follows the introduction of the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the United States, which many believe to be a threat to online freedom.

As PC World's Tony Bradley put it, the bill is a combination of an overzealous drive to fight Internet piracy, with elected representatives who don't know the difference between DNS, IM, and MP3. In short, SOPA is a "draconian legislation that far exceeds its intended scope, and threatens the Constitutional rights of law abiding citizens," he wrote.

And apparently those who typically don't follow the law -- hackers -- think there's something they can do about it.

Hackers Said to be Planning to Launch Own Satellites to Combat Censorship | PCWorld

#Obama Signs #NDAA aka Say Goodbye to the #Constitution #ows #globaldemocracy

2012-01-01T23:44:00.000-08:00

BREAKING: Obama Signs Defense Authorization Bill

By Judd Legum on Dec 31, 2011 at 3:27 pm

This afternoon, Obama signed the controversial Defense authorization bill, despite his reservations about provisions related to the treatment of terrorism suspects. The National Journal reports:

President Obama signed on Saturday the defense authorization bill, formally ending weeks of heated debate in Congress and intense lobbying by the administration to strip controversial provisions requiring the transfer of some terror suspects to military custody.
“I have signed this bill despite having serious reservations with certain provisions that regulate the detention, interrogation, and prosecution of suspected terrorists,” Obama said in a statement accompanying his signature.

The AP has more from the signing statement: “My administration will not authorize the indefinite military detention without trial of American citizens. Indeed, I believe that doing so would break with our most important traditions and values as a nation.”

Full text of the signing statement below:

Statement by the President on H.R. 1540:

Today I have signed into law H.R. 1540, the “National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012.” I have signed the Act chiefly because it authorizes funding for the defense of the United States and its interests abroad, crucial services for service members and their families, and vital national security programs that must be renewed. In hundreds of separate sections totaling over 500 pages, the Act also contains critical Administration initiatives to control the spiraling health care costs of the Department of Defense (DoD), to develop counterterrorism initiatives abroad, to build the security capacity of key partners, to modernize the force, and to boost the efficiency and effectiveness of military operations worldwide.
The fact that I support this bill as a whole does not mean I agree with everything in it. In particular, I have signed this bill despite having serious reservations with certain provisions that regulate the detention, interrogation, and prosecution of suspected terrorists. Over the last several years, my Administration has developed an effective, sustainable framework for the detention, interrogation and trial of suspected terrorists that allows us to maximize both our ability to collect intelligence and to incapacitate dangerous individuals in rapidly developing situations, and the results we have achieved are undeniable. Our success against al-Qa’ida and its affiliates and adherents has derived in significant measure from providing our counterterrorism professionals with the clarity and flexibility they need to adapt to changing circumstances and to utilize whichever authorities best protect the American people, and our accomplishments have respected the values that make our country an example for the world.
Against that record of success, some in Congress continue to insist upon restricting the options available to our counterterrorism professionals and interfering with the very operations that have kept us safe. My Administration has consistently opposed such measures. Ultimately, I decided to sign this bill not only because of the critically important services it provides for our forces and their families and the national security programs it authorizes, but also because the Congress revised provisions that otherwise would have jeopardized the safety, security, and liberty of the American people. Moving forward, my Administration will interpret and implement the provisions described below in a manner that best preserves the flexibility on which our safety depends and upholds the values on which this country was founded.
Section 1021 affirms the executive branch’s authority to detain persons covered by the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) (Public Law 107-40; 50 U.S.C. 1541 note). This section breaks no new ground and is unnecessary. The authority it describes was included in the 2001 AUMF, as recognized by the Supreme Court and confirmed through lower court decisions since then. Two critical limitations in section 1021 confirm that it solely codifies established authorities. First, under section 1021(d), the bill does not “limit or expand the authority of the President or the scope of the Authorization for Use of Military Force.” Second, under section 1021(e), the bill may not be construed to affect any “existing law or authorities relating to the detention of United States citizens, lawful resident aliens of the United States, or any other persons who are captured or arrested in the United States.” My Administration strongly supported the inclusion of these limitations in order to make clear beyond doubt that the legislation does nothing more than confirm authorities that the Federal courts have recognized as lawful under the 2001 AUMF. Moreover, I want to clarify that my Administration will not authorize the indefinite military detention without trial of American citizens. Indeed, I believe that doing so would break with our most important traditions and values as a Nation. My Administration will interpret section 1021 in a manner that ensures that any detention it authorizes complies with the Constitution, the laws of war, and all other applicable law.
Section 1022 seeks to require military custody for a narrow category of non-citizen detainees who are “captured in the course of hostilities authorized by the Authorization for Use of Military Force.” This section is ill-conceived and will do nothing to improve the security of the United States. The executive branch already has the authority to detain in military custody those members of al-Qa’ida who are captured in the course of hostilities authorized by the AUMF, and as Commander in Chief I have directed the military to do so where appropriate. I reject any approach that would mandate military custody where law enforcement provides the best method of incapacitating a terrorist threat. While section 1022 is unnecessary and has the potential to create uncertainty, I have signed the bill because I believe that this section can be interpreted and applied in a manner that avoids undue harm to our current operations.
I have concluded that section 1022 provides the minimally acceptable amount of flexibility to protect national security. Specifically, I have signed this bill on the understanding that section 1022 provides the executive branch with broad authority to determine how best to implement it, and with the full and unencumbered ability to waive any military custody requirement, including the option of waiving appropriate categories of cases when doing so is in the national security interests of the United States. As my Administration has made clear, the only responsible way to combat the threat al-Qa’ida poses is to remain relentlessly practical, guided by the factual and legal complexities of each case and the relative strengths and weaknesses of each system. Otherwise, investigations could be compromised, our authorities to hold dangerous individuals could be jeopardized, and intelligence could be lost. I will not tolerate that result, and under no circumstances will my Administration accept or adhere to a rigid across-the-board requirement for military detention. I will therefore interpret and implement section 1022 in the manner that best preserves the same flexible approach that has served us so well for the past 3 years and that protects the ability of law enforcement professionals to obtain the evidence and cooperation they need to protect the Nation.
My Administration will design the implementation procedures authorized by section 1022(c) to provide the maximum measure of flexibility and clarity to our counterterrorism professionals permissible under law. And I will exercise all of my constitutional authorities as Chief Executive and Commander in Chief if those procedures fall short, including but not limited to seeking the revision or repeal of provisions should they prove to be unworkable.
Sections 1023-1025 needlessly interfere with the executive branch’s processes for reviewing the status of detainees. Going forward, consistent with congressional intent as detailed in the Conference Report, my Administration will interpret section 1024 as granting the Secretary of Defense broad discretion to determine what detainee status determinations in Afghanistan are subject to the requirements of this section.
Sections 1026-1028 continue unwise funding restrictions that curtail options available to the executive branch. Section 1027 renews the bar against using appropriated funds for fiscal year 2012 to transfer Guantanamo detainees into the United States for any purpose. I continue to oppose this provision, which intrudes upon critical executive branch authority to determine when and where to prosecute Guantanamo detainees, based on the facts and the circumstances of each case and our national security interests. For decades, Republican and Democratic administrations have successfully prosecuted hundreds of terrorists in Federal court. Those prosecutions are a legitimate, effective, and powerful tool in our efforts to protect the Nation. Removing that tool from the executive branch does not serve our national security. Moreover, this intrusion would, under certain circumstances, violate constitutional separation of powers principles.
Section 1028 modifies but fundamentally maintains unwarranted restrictions on the executive branch’s authority to transfer detainees to a foreign country. This hinders the executive’s ability to carry out its military, national security, and foreign relations activities and like section 1027, would, under certain circumstances, violate constitutional separation of powers principles. The executive branch must have the flexibility to act swiftly in conducting negotiations with foreign countries regarding the circumstances of detainee transfers. In the event that the statutory restrictions in sections 1027 and 1028 operate in a manner that violates constitutional separation of powers principles, my Administration will interpret them to avoid the constitutional conflict.
Section 1029 requires that the Attorney General consult with the Director of National Intelligence and Secretary of Defense prior to filing criminal charges against or seeking an indictment of certain individuals. I sign this based on the understanding that apart from detainees held by the military outside of the United States under the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force, the provision applies only to those individuals who have been determined to be covered persons under section 1022 before the Justice Department files charges or seeks an indictment. Notwithstanding that limitation, this provision represents an intrusion into the functions and prerogatives of the Department of Justice and offends the longstanding legal tradition that decisions regarding criminal prosecutions should be vested with the Attorney General free from outside interference. Moreover, section 1029 could impede flexibility and hinder exigent operational judgments in a manner that damages our security. My Administration will interpret and implement section 1029 in a manner that preserves the operational flexibility of our counterterrorism and law enforcement professionals, limits delays in the investigative process, ensures that critical executive branch functions are not inhibited, and preserves the integrity and independence of the Department of Justice.
Other provisions in this bill above could interfere with my constitutional foreign affairs powers. Section 1244 requires the President to submit a report to the Congress 60 days prior to sharing any U.S. classified ballistic missile defense information with Russia. Section 1244 further specifies that this report include a detailed description of the classified information to be provided. While my Administration intends to keep the Congress fully informed of the status of U.S. efforts to cooperate with the Russian Federation on ballistic missile defense, my Administration will also interpret and implement section 1244 in a manner that does not interfere with the President’s constitutional authority to conduct foreign affairs and avoids the undue disclosure of sensitive diplomatic communications. Other sections pose similar problems. Sections 1231, 1240, 1241, and 1242 could be read to require the disclosure of sensitive diplomatic communications and national security secrets; and sections 1235, 1242, and 1245 would interfere with my constitutional authority to conduct foreign relations by directing the Executive to take certain positions in negotiations or discussions with foreign governments. Like section 1244, should any application of these provisions conflict with my constitutional authorities, I will treat the provisions as non-binding.
My Administration has worked tirelessly to reform or remove the provisions described above in order to facilitate the enactment of this vital legislation, but certain provisions remain concerning. My Administration will aggressively seek to mitigate those concerns through the design of implementation procedures and other authorities available to me as Chief Executive and Commander in Chief, will oppose any attempt to extend or expand them in the future, and will seek the repeal of any provisions that undermine the policies and values that have guided my Administration throughout my time in office.
BARACK OBAMA
THE WHITE HOUSE, December 31, 2011.
BREAKING: Obama Signs Defense Authorization Bill | ThinkProgress

Five #US States Now Get 20% Of Their #electricity From #WindPower

2011-12-27T16:31:00.000-08:00

Five US States Now Get 20% Of Their Electricity From Wind Power

Matthew McDermott
Energy / Renewable Energy
December 27, 2011

Penny Higgins/CC BY-SA 2.0

With the calendar year winding down, very nearly everyone, this site included, are putting out their year-in-review content—and the American Wind Energy Association is no different. It's pretty easy to get down on US renewable energy policy if you're just paying attention to the nonsense coming out of legislators bought and paid for by the polluting class, but there were some truly great milestones in US wind power in 2011.

Just the top two milestones AWEA highlights are worth shouting about:

1) Five US States Now Get 20% of Their Electricity From Wind Power, with Iowa and South Dakota the latest members of that club. I don't know if objectively, and in light of the needed goal of all our electricity coming from renewables, you can state that 20% of electricity from wind power is, as AWEA touts, "huge" market penetration, but it is true that its not just Europe where wind power is growing strongly.

2) Xcel Energy Shatters Wind Barrier With 50% At One Time. It's been a while since we've touted such a large one-day utilization of wind power.

Investor-owned utility Xcel Energy set a wind power world record on the morning of October 6, when subsidiary Public Service Co. of Colorado got 55.6% of the electricity on its system at one time from wind power.

Five US States Now Get 20% Of Their Electricity From Wind Power : TreeHugger

Keeping #College Students From the Polls aka This is not what #democracy looks like

2011-12-27T16:13:00.000-08:00

December 26, 2011

Keeping Students From the Polls

Next fall, thousands of students on college campuses will attempt to register to vote and be turned away. Sorry, they will hear, you have an out-of-state driver’s license. Sorry, your college ID is not valid here. Sorry, we found out that you paid out-of-state tuition, so even though you do have a state driver’s license, you still can’t vote.

Political leaders should be encouraging young adults to participate in civic life, but many Republican state lawmakers are doing everything they can instead to prevent students from voting in the 2012 presidential election. Some have openly acknowledged doing so because students tend to be liberal.

Seven states have already passed strict laws requiring a government-issued ID (like a driver’s license or a passport) to vote, which many students don’t have, and 27 others are considering such measures. Many of those laws have been interpreted as prohibiting out-of-state driver’s licenses from being used for voting.

It’s all part of a widespread Republican effort to restrict the voting rights of demographic groups that tend to vote Democratic. Blacks, Hispanics, the poor and the young, who are more likely to support President Obama, are disproportionately represented in the 21 million people without government IDs. On Friday, the Justice Department, finally taking action against these abuses, blocked the new voter ID law in South Carolina.

Republicans usually don’t want to acknowledge that their purpose is to turn away voters, especially when race is involved, so they invented an explanation, claiming that stricter ID laws are necessary to prevent voter fraud. In fact, there is almost no voter fraud in America to prevent.

William O’Brien, the speaker of the New Hampshire State House, told a Tea Party group earlier this year that students are “foolish” and tend to “vote their feelings” because they lack life experience. “Voting as a liberal,” he said, “that’s what kids do.” And that’s why, he said, he supported measures to prohibit students from voting from their college addresses and to end same-day registration. New Hampshire Republicans even tried to pass a bill that would have kept students who previously lived elsewhere from voting in the state; fortunately, the measure failed, as did the others Mr. O’Brien favored.

Many students have taken advantage of Election Day registration laws, which is one reason Maine Republicans passed a law eliminating the practice. Voters restored it last month, but Republican lawmakers there are already trying new ways to restrict voting. The secretary of state said he was investigating students who are registered to vote in the state but pay out-of-state tuition.

Wisconsin once made it easy for students to vote, making it one of the leading states in turnout of younger voters in 2004 and 2008. When Republicans swept into power there last year, they undid all of that, imposing requirements that invalidated the use of virtually all college ID cards in voter registration. Colleges are scrambling to change their cards to add signatures and expiration dates, but it’s not clear whether the state will let them.

Imposing these restrictions to win an election will embitter a generation of students in its first encounter with the machinery of democracy.

Keeping College Students From the Polls - NYTimes.com

#Congress ends corn #ethanol subsidy #awesome #environment #climatechange

2011-12-27T15:51:00.000-08:00

Congress ends corn ethanol subsidy

Trade group expects industry to 'survive'

BY DAVID SHEPARDSON
DETROIT NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU
16 COMMENTS

Ethanol policies have helped shift millions of tons of corn from the dinner table to the gas tank. (Joe Raedle / Getty Images)

Washington —The United States has ended a 30-year tax subsidy for corn-based ethanol that cost taxpayers $6 billion annually, and ended a tariff on imported Brazilian ethanol.

Congress adjourned for the year on Friday, failing to extend the tax break that's drawn a wide variety of critics on Capitol Hill, including Sens. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., and Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. Critics also have included environmentalists, frozen food producers, ranchers and others.

The policies have helped shift millions of tons of corn from feedlots, dinner tables and other products into gas tanks.

Environmental group Friends of the Earth praised the move.

"The end of this giant subsidy for dirty corn ethanol is a win for taxpayers, the environment and people struggling to put food on their tables," biofuels policy campaigner Michal Rosenoer said Friday.

The subsidy has provided the oil and agribusiness industries with 45 cents per gallon of ethanol blended into gasoline. By some estimates, Congress has awarded $45 billion in subsidies to the ethanol industry since 1980.

Tom Buis, CEO of Growth Energy, an ethanol trade group, said earlier this month the industry would survive without the credit.

"The blenders' tax credit initially helped the ethanol industry develop. But today, we don't have a production problem, we have a market access problem," Buis said.

"Without the tax credit, the ethanol industry will survive; it will continue to reduce our dependence on foreign oil, create jobs and strengthen our economy."

Ethanol supporters are worried Congress might roll back a 2007 mandate that dramatically boosts the use of ethanol annually through 2022. The mandate jumps from 15 billion gallons of renewable fuels — including cellulosic ethanol in 2015 — to 36 billion gallons by 2022.

The corn lobby has lost clout this year, losing votes in Congress. The Senate voted 73-27 in June to end the ethanol tax subsidy and tariff.

But Michigan Democrats Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow were among the 27 senators who voted against ending the subsidy.

Michigan is the nation's 11th-largest corn producer, harvesting 315 million bushels in 2010. The state has more than 11,000 corn growers, and they planted corn on 2.45 million acres last year, or about 4 percent of all land in the state.

Earlier in December, a bipartisan group of more than 70 House members urged a congressional block on higher levels of ethanol blended into gasoline.

Automakers and other engine makers have clashed with corn growers since 2010 over whether the United States should allow the use of a new blend of ethanol called E15 because it is 15 percent biofuel. The Environmental Protection Agency has approved the use in all vehicles from 2001 and after.

In August, the EPA approved fuel labels designed to warn drivers of older vehicles not to use the fuel, but it still must be registered before the fuel can go on sale. In February, the House voted 285-136 to block the EPA from moving ahead with E15 regulations.

"E15 is not ready for prime time," said the letter signed by Reps. Gary Peters, D-Bloomfield Township; Mike Rogers, R-Brighton; John Conyers, D-Detroit; Tim Walberg, R-Tipton; Bill Huizenga, R-Zeeland; Darrell Issa, R-Calif.; and Loretta Sanchez, D-Calif., among others.

Automakers and other groups have opposed approval of E15, warning it could damage engines in some models. Automakers "unanimously expressed concerns that E15 is likely to harm engines, void warranties and reduce fuel efficiency," said the congressional letter.

Congress ends corn ethanol subsidy | The Detroit News | detroitnews.com

The New Dealers #weed #poverty #california #newreality

2011-12-27T15:48:00.000-08:00

The New Dealers

Family, kids, minivan—and drug dealing. How the recession has driven average Americans into the game.

By Tony D'Souza | November/December 2011 Issue

For some time, I'd been hearing stories from my sources in the interstate marijuana racket about law-abiding "civilians" turning to the game because of the recession, and so, armed with introductions, I hit the road to meet some of these unlikely criminals face to face. That's how, on a hot evening in June, I found myself in Dan's Northern California kitchen.

Dan isn't his real name. Nor are any of the names in this story, for obvious reasons. But his situation is a familiar, harsh reality for many Americans, as I learned while doing research for my recent novel [1] on this subject. Dan is in his early 40s, a slim, soft-spoken former short-haul trucker who once owned all the toys: a used Mercedes, snowmobiles, Jet Skis. When they were both employed, he and his wife—a retail manager—easily cleared $100,000 a year. "We ate out breakfast, lunch, and dinner," Dan, now a minimum-wage laborer, tells me with folded arms. "That's the way life was for 17 years."

Today, Dan's toys are gone, sold to support an underwater mortgage. His wife, who kept her job, left him three years ago, driving away in the Mercedes. "She didn't like the fact that I sat at home and she was going to work," he tells me. "There were no jobs. I filled out a thing for the city, and 400 people were there for one opening—a garbage truck driver."

"There were no jobs. I filled out a thing for the city, and 400 people were there for one opening—a garbage truck driver."

Keeping the house has been Dan's only real goal since 2008, when he was laid off. It's a simple three-bedroom, two-bath in a prefab, working-class subdivision off the I-5 corridor. "I wanted my kid to grow up in a safe community," he explains. "I have alwaysmade my house payment, and I've always made it on time." But he fretted over things like gas prices. "My daughter would say, 'Can I take your truck to the store?' That's 1.2 miles, which makes it 2.4 miles round-trip. If she went there once, I would not make it to work the next day. That's how my money was. I've fought for it the past three years working two and three jobs. I've even changed my morals."

From his window, I can see the jagged outline of the Klamath range far off to the northwest. Surrounding those mountains is the Emerald Triangle: Mendocino, Humboldt, and Trinity counties—the heart of large-scale pot cultivation in California. In 2010, state voters rejected a proposal [2] to legalize marijuana for recreational use. Nevertheless, in the 15 years since they passed Proposition 215 [3]—the state's vague and permissive medical-marijuana law [4]—growing the drug has become more socially acceptable, local dispensaries have proliferated, and associated businesses have flourished like pilot fish on a shark. Mom-and-pop shops sell high-tech gardening gear and starter plants called clones. Pot "colleges" like Oakland's Oaksterdam University [5] offer "quality training for the cannabis industry." An inexhaustible array of websites [6] tout everything from fertilizer to legal advice and grow-room insurance.

Pot prices have plummeted in California [7], in part because so many of the state's estimated 1.2 million medical-pot users [8] now grow their own. But with a bargain-basement $1,500 pound of "Cali outdoor" fetching $5,000 or more in Eastern states, there are fortunes to be made in interstate commerce. "Between the recession and the large amount of money you can make, there is just too much money involved not to do it," Sgt. Barry Powell, head of the Shasta County Sheriff's Marijuana Eradication Team, tells me. "In Shasta County, medical-marijuana growers have tripled over the last three years. Just off our aerial flights, what we're seeing in people's backyards is unreal."

About a year and a half ago at a wedding, an acquaintance approached Dan with a solution to his financial woes. "They wanted to do some indoor stuff, and no one had a place for it to go," he explains. "I had a place for it to go." The acquaintance was a veteran grower, part of a loosely knit criminal network supplying major distributors as far away as Indiana.

"I've never smoked," Dan swears, raising his right hand. "I don't even drink. Even now, I will work wherever, whenever. It was a decision I made to try and catch up."

"Do you know how many people try to 'black mask' it and get as many buds as they can? It's a fucking war zone."

He agonized for six months. Within days of his assent, a grow room was under construction in his garage. "The first time I got nervous was when they brought the lumber to my house," Dan tells me. "They broke out tape measures, started cutting two-by-fours, throwing up drywall, insulation, plastic." There were 10 lights, two AC units, fans, a carbon dioxide generator, and more than 130 plants. "It was way bigger than I wanted," he says. "That I felt pressured into a little bit. I felt bullied."

One of the builders, a rural wiseguy I'll call Rocky, told me it cost $12,000 to outfit Dan's garage. "Everybody getting 'scrips thinks you can just plant and you'll get money," he says when I visit his surprisingly spare apartment in Redding. "That's not how it works. There's feeding schedules. The whole room is wrapped in plastic—you don't want bugs." With outdoor grows, Rocky adds, they're "picking and shoveling May to October. Then you gotta sleep out there with shotguns. Do you know how many people try to 'black mask' it and get as many buds as they can? You steal the tops off 10 plants, that's six, eight pounds, and they didn't do shit but swing a machete. It's a fucking war zone."

The growers disabled Dan's garage door opener and reversed the lock on the garage's interior door to keep him out. The monthly electric bill, which they covered, shot from $45 to more than $1,000. Dan fretted that this might tip off the cops. The growers insisted that, with all the legal grows, the authorities no longer pay much attention to such things. "The way the prisons are packed, they're not going to throw someone in for growing halfway-legal weed," Rocky says.

The first harvest arrived about three months later, and Dan was handed $10,000 in cash. "I caught up on all my house stuff, my property taxes," he says flatly, with no hint of a victory grin. "I paid off a family member who helped with an attorney about the divorce."

The work crew is now preparing for a third planting. Dan is no longer in a money ditch, but the stress of hosting a criminal enterprise is wearing him down. "I'm standing here with a sick stomach," he says. "It's nice to be able to give your kids what they want, to be able to spend the time with them that they need, but the partners I have are greedy. They don't want to work. I don't not want to work. All of us have agreed not to tell anybody, but I've found out that there have been people here trimming, people in and out. I've never been in trouble. I hope they'd be lenient, give me probation."

He's right to be worried. Growing or possessing small amounts of pot has been decriminalized or protected by 25 states and the District of Columbia [9], but the scale of cultivation in Dan's garage remains a felony punishable by up to three years in state prison. And while California police agencies have been hammered by budget cuts, generous federal anti-drug grants have helped fill that gap. Last year, Powell's boss, Shasta County Sheriff Tom Bosenko, told the Wall Street Journal [10] that marijuana eradication (for which his department received almost $720,000 in federal support [11] this past year) is "where the money is."

Two days after leaving Dan's place, I'm riding shotgun in a small car bound south for Sacramento, as the Central Valley blurs past outside my window. The commercial rice fields here are so vast they're fertilized by crop dusters, which buzz alongside the interstate like gigantic, low-flying bees. My driver, Colin, is a well-groomed white guy who lives with his wife and kid near the capital city. He keeps his hands at 10 and 2 on the wheel, stays with the flow of traffic, and glances in the rearview from time to time. I've warned him, just in case we get pulled over, not to tell me whether he's hauling a shipment. In turn, he's asked me not to publish too many details about him or his car.

As we cruise down I-5 doing the speed limit, he fills me in on his livelihood. "One of the hardest things is getting the stuff from point A to point B," he says. "Everyone has the impression that if you're doing this, you're high or have a drug addiction. But if you're driving a trunk full of somebody's product, even have your own money in it, why would you want to be high?"

"When my wife lost her job, it just felt bleak. I would only have ever done this because of the recession."

Colin's no slouch. He has a master's degree and used to teach part-time at local colleges. Two years ago, after his wife was laid off from her job, he was approached by a friend, the husband of one of his former students. "They were always going on trips," Colin recalls. "I was always like, 'What do you do for a living?' He was always vague: 'Real estate, blah, blah, blah.' I'm not a dumb guy. He's like: 'We've known each other a long time. Want to make some money?' I was like, 'Yeah, what is it?'"

The gig was transporting high-grade weed from California to far-flung Eastern states. Colin has since driven "thousands and thousands of miles," he says, and gotten to know everyone from big-time dealers who "roll with guns" down to working-class guys with families trying to make ends meet. "Cobbling together a full load between a bunch of different schools, plus teaching summers, I'd pull in about $20,000 a year," he says in edgy, rapid speech that hints of excessive caffeine, or nerves. "I made double that in a month driving East twice. When my wife lost her job, it just felt bleak. I would only have ever done this because of the recession."

The friend, it turned out, was a major grower and distributor. He taught Colin how to launder his earnings and promised no repercussions if he wanted to quit. "This came my way, and honest to God, at the time it felt like manna from heaven," Colin says. Now he's made enough money to have a stake in the product. "I can make $2,000 a pound taking it across the country."

He points to a shuttered auto dealership. "You see that?" he asks. "These are the times we live in. You could say I had a fallback career, but there are so many people with degrees. I'm past 30. If I start another career now, what am I going to start? A couple of years have gone by, and my résumé in my own field is not what it used to be."

Througout our drive, Colin engages in a conflicted self-dialogue. "I'm not a bad person," he says. "I wouldn't get into other kinds of crimes. It's pot. It's practically legal out here now. This fit my morals: We needed money; I did something. I feel proud of that. I really do."

"There's a whole lot of people with lives and families depending on what I do."

To avoid arrest, he does his homework, scouring police profiling manuals and keeping current with the Office of National Drug Control Policy's High Intensity Drug Trafïcking Areas [12] program, which helps local authorities target stretches of highway where they think growers are moving weight. The feds are focused on the Mexican cartels, Colin figures, not people who look like him. If he were arrested, he could face up to 5 years in federal prison—or up to 30 in some states, like Louisiana. So far, though, he's never been stopped. "You have to figure out how you're going to do your plates and not stick out," he says. "I don't like Texas; Texas always has a ton of cops. I don't like it, but—all right, here's the truth: It's scary. You've got to build a pretty good veneer around yourself."

As if to prove it, he won't specify how much money he's made ("a lot") or what he does to his license plates. ("I gotta keep that to me.") He's also selective about which jobs he'll accept. ("Sometimes I get a feeling, 'I'm not going to do it this time.'") And yet he finds it hard to say no. "I definitely think about taking time off, but make everybody mad?" he says. "There's a whole lot of people with lives and families depending on what I do."

Late the following night, my plane touches down in Austin, Texas. The rental-car desks are closed, so I call Charlie. "Not a problem, bro," he says. "I'm on my way." Soon, I'm riding with him in a minivan full of car seats and baby toys.

Like my other sources, Charlie doesn't mention the names of funky pot strains, doesn't romanticize the drug. Unlike them, he's a bit of a stoner, but he's in this game solely for the money. A Frisbee-golf fanatic, he's the friendliest of the traffickers I've met so far. He's married, with two kids, and he repeats like a mantra the notion that everything he does, he does for them.

"I felt like I was going to throw up," he tells me the next morning, as we sit watching Parks and Recreation. He's talking about his latest layoff, in May, from an IT job. The family's unremarkable suburban two-bedroom house is packed with stuffed animals and picture books. As we talk, his toddler wrestles on the living-room carpet with the family dog—an Akita. "My wife had just quit her job to focus on going to school."

Charlie's recession story begins in Louisiana, where he ran a business producing records and promoting bands, taking home $80,000 to $90,000 a year. "When the recession came, people couldn't afford to pay us," he says. He lost the business, went into debt, and decided to move. "I thought we could have a good shot here in the music capital of the world, but we just became another small fish in a large pond."

"The first pound took less than five or six hours to sell. After that, it started getting bigger and bigger."

In 2005, he gave up and looked for other work, figuring there would be a market for a guy with two bachelor's degrees in the sciences. "All I could find were minimum-wage jobs," Charlie says. He sold retail electronics for almost three years. After the store folded, the family resorted to food stamps on and off. Things changed in early 2009, when a California friend offered to front him a pound of weed. "If other people were presented with the same gift of opportunity, a good percentage would do it," he tells me later. "We couldn't turn to our parents or anybody. If that wouldn't have happened, I think we would be homeless."

A gregarious type, Charlie had a large circle of stoner friends. "My wife and I thought about it for a good month," he says. "There were heavy cons, but once it got here, it exceeded everyone's expectations. The first pound took less than five or six hours to sell. After that, it started getting bigger and bigger."

Charlie buys wholesale for about $3,000 a pound. Selling by the quarter-pound, he more than doubles his stake, clearing $8,000 in a good month. "Austin has lots of weed festivals," he explains. "Then I can't get it fast enough." He spends the proceeds on "diapers, clothes, gas, rent, lights, food," and college fees. He and his wife, Kim, both still owe on student loans—in Kim's case a $600 monthly payment for a "useless" culinary-arts degree that a promoter convinced her would lead to a high-paying career as a chef. Charlie's drug dealing freed her up to quit waitressing and pursue a bachelor's degree online. Plus, she explains, "To give our kids the life I feel they deserve, you have to have money."

Charlie recoils when I ask him about expensive toys. "God, no," he says. In fact, he hasn't given up searching for legitimate work, recently "shuffling around spas for $7 an hour." He worries about the prospect of a two-year Texas felony sentence: "That's always on my mind. If you don't watch everything you do, you're going to go away, lose your kids to Child Protective Services." But robbery is Charlie's most immediate concern. After all, he delivers. "I'm having to transport it all the time," he says. "When people catch on to that, you're done. That's what I fear. Luckily, I've never had a gun in my face."

"There are lots of people with the same experience competing for the same jobs," he adds as we say goodbye. "If I could find the way to get out of this, I would. But it's gotten me by so far, and I'm not going to stop."

Back home in Florida, I drive to a low-income, mixed-race neighborhood near Tampa to meet Tegan, a single mother and part-time restaurant hostess in her mid-20s. Like Charlie, she's been selling California weed to survive the recession. "I only deal with marijuana," she says. "I don't feel like a drug dealer."

Tegan's side job has allowed her to get off food stamps, spend more time with her daughter, and attend college full time. But recently, she had a major scare. Hard up for a driver, her suppliers said they would FedEx the next shipment. They'd been doing this for months, they reassured her, and the package would bear false names. "So it came to my address," she recalls, laughing nervously. "And yeah, the cops came."

"The recession came, and I started looking for other options. Everyone's an amateur in the beginning. And then you're not an amateur anymore."

She'd taken her daughter to the supermarket that day. When she pulled back into her driveway, an unmarked SUV sped down the street, and two burly undercover agents leaped out. "They were screaming, 'Do you speak English?'" Tegan says. (She's white but has a dark complexion.) The men asked if she was expecting a package, and she said no. "I was really surprised by how cool I was, because I was scared shitless," she recalls. Spotting her toddler in the back seat, the men lightened up and told her they'd detained a Latino man who ran when they approached. "They said he was saying, 'I just do the lawns!'" Tegan says. "They assumed because he was an immigrant, the package was for him." She let her suppliers know the delivery was a bust. Between hers and another abandoned shipment, Tegan estimates they lost $35,000 worth of product. "But nobody went to prison."

Later, the agents returned to say they'd released the man for lack of evidence. Criminals regularly send drug shipments to the homes of innocent people, they warned. But courier services flag suspicious packages, and agents stake out the deliveries. "We don't tolerate the illegal use of our network, and [we] work closely with law enforcement," explains FedEx spokesman Jim McCluskey. When I ask how the company detects weed in its packages, he snorts incredulously. "We don't disclose that!"

On the way home from Tegan's, I'm struck by how, despite such a close call, she doesn't seem at all eager to get out of the business. It reminds me of something Colin told me as we barreled down the interstate in his car. "Maybe I'll go back to school," he said when I asked how long he planned on doing this. "I don't know. These are scary times. The recession came, and I started looking for other options. Everyone's an amateur in the beginning. And then you're not an amateur anymore."

Source URL: http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/12/tony-dsouza-marijuana-growers

Links:
[1] http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-9780547576718-0
[2] http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20101102/ARTICLES/101109879
[3] http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/1996/11/06/MN35136.DTL
[4] http://vote96.sos.ca.gov/bp/215text.htm
[5] http://www.oaksterdamuniversity.com/
[6] http://medicalmarijuanamallusa.com/
[7] http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126806429
[8] http://www.canorml.org/news/cbcsurvey2011.html
[9] http://norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=4516
[10] http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703648304575212382612331758.html
[11] https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/256921-shasta-county-2011-12-budget.html
[12] http://www.whitehouse.gov/ondcp/high-intensity-drug-trafficking-areas-program

The New Dealers

#Congress gets richer, #People get Poorer #firecongress #inequality #ows

2011-12-27T15:47:00.000-08:00

Growing wealth widens distance between lawmakers and constituents

By Peter Whoriskey, Published: December 26

BUTLER, Pa. — One day after his shift at the steel mill, Gary Myers drove home in his 10-year-old Pontiac and told his wife he was going to run for Congress.

The odds were long. At 34, Myers was the shift foreman at the “hot mill” of the Armco plant here. He had no political experience and little or no money, and he was a Republican in a district that tilted Democratic.

But standing in the dining room, still in his work clothes, he said he felt voters deserved a better choice.

Three years later, he won.

When Myers entered Congress, in 1975, it wasn’t nearly so unusual for a person with few assets besides a home to win and serve in Congress. Though lawmakers on Capitol Hill have long been more prosperous than other Americans, others of that time included a barber, a pipe fitter and a house painter. A handful had even organized into what was called the “Blue Collar Caucus.”

But the financial gap between Americans and their representatives in Congress has widened considerably since then, according to an analysis of financial disclosures by The Washington Post.

Between 1984 and 2009, the median net worth of a member of the House more than doubled, according to the analysis of financial disclosures, from $280,000 to $725,000 in inflation-adjusted 2009 dollars, excluding home equity.

Over the same period, the wealth of an American family has declined slightly, with the comparable median figure sliding from $20,600 to $20,500, according to the Panel Study of Income Dynamics from the University of Michigan.

The comparisons exclude home equity because it is not included in congressional reporting, and 1984 was chosen because it is the earliest year for which consistent wealth statistics are available.

The growing disparity between the representatives and the represented means that there is a greater distance between the economic experience of Americans and those of lawmakers.

“My mother and I used to joke we were like the Beverly Hillbillies when we rolled into McLean, and we really were,” said Michele Myers, the congressman’s daughter, now 46. “My dad was driving this awful lime-green Ford Maverick, and I bought my clothes at Kmart.”

Today, this area of Pennsylvania just north of Pittsburgh is represented in Congress by another Republican, Mike Kelly, a wealthy car dealer elected for the first time in 2010. Kelly, as it happens, grew up just a few houses down the street from the Myers family, in a larger brick home.

Kelly’s dad owned the local Chevrolet-Cadillac dealership in Butler, and Kelly, an affable former football recruit to Notre Dame, had worked there since he was a kid. Three years after graduating from college, he married Victoria Phillips, an heir to the Phillips oil fortune. He eventually bought and took control of the family car business, and today, the net worth of Kelly and his wife runs in the millions of dollars, according to financial disclosure forms.

Both men refer to their personal life experiences in explaining their political outlook.

Myers, the son of a bricklayer, had worked his way through college to a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering, and he looked at issues of work and security at least partly through the lens of his own experience. For example, he bucked other Republicans to vote to raise the minimum wage and favored expanding a program to aid workers affected by foreign imports. He said he understood the need for what was then called “the safety net.”

“It would be hard to argue that the work in the steel mill didn’t give me a different perspective,” said Myers, now 74 and retired in Florida. “I think everybody’s history has an impact on them.”

Kelly, on the other hand, focuses on the hard work he and his family have done to build the dealership. He thinks that the government should be run more like a business, and that laws must be fair to people who strive and succeed. He opposes the estate tax, the inheritance tax levied on the wealthy, because, among other things, he feels he has been overtaxed already. He says unemployment checks make some less willing to go back to work. And asked about tax breaks for oil companies, he notes that when corporations profit, people with pensions and portfolios do, too.

Moreover, he favors the budget plan advanced by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), which seeks to eliminate tax loopholes and lowers the income tax on the highest earners from 35 percent to 25 percent.

In explaining his outlook, Kelly often refers to his father. One of nine kids who started the car business almost from scratch, his father was skeptical of the ideas for social programs and education that his son brought home from college in the late 1960s.

“He’d say, ‘Oh, I love your ideas, I love your ideas,’ ” Kelly recalled. “But he’d say, ‘You know why it’s a great country, don’t you? We worked our a---- off. That’s why it’s a great country.’ ”

High cost of campaigning

The growing financial comfort of Congress relative to most Americans is consistent with the general trends in the United States toward inequality of wealth: Members of Congress have long been wealthier than average Americans, and in recent decades the wealth of the wealthiest Americans has outpaced that of the average.

In 1984, the 90th percentile of U.S. families had holdings worth six times the median family’s; by 2009, the 90th percentile was worth 12 times the median family, according to the University of Michigan study, a longitudinal panel survey. These figures include home equity.

This growing inequality, not surprisingly, is seen in Congress. Not only has the median wealth increased, but the proportion of representatives who have little besides a home has shrunk. In 1984, one in five House members had zero or negative net worth excluding home equity, according to the disclosures; by 2009, that number had dropped to one in 12.

Another possible reason for the growing wealth of Congress is that running a campaign has become much, much more expensive, making it more likely that wealthy people, who can donate substantially to their own campaigns, gain office.

Since 1976, the average amount spent by winning House candidates quadrupled in inflation-adjusted dollars, to $1.4 million, according to the Federal Election Commission.

For example, Myers’s first winning campaign, in 1974, cost $33,000, according to federal election records. That’s about $146,000 in current dollars, or one-tenth the current average. To make do, his wife held coffee klatches and improvised brochures with markers and index cards.

“Each one had different colors and designs my mom made — and they’d hand them out at stores,” recalled Myers’s son, Mark. “I don’t want to disparage my parents, but it was kind of like they were running for student council.”

By contrast, when Kelly ran for the first time in 2010, he spent $1.2 million on his election, financing $380,000 of it himself, according to campaign records.

Finally, while congressional pay is a frequent object of controversy, it is unlikely to have been one of the reasons for the growing disparity between representatives and their constituents. In inflation-adjusted dollars, Myers earned $215,000 in 1977; today, a member of Congress earns $174,000.

Political polarization

About a decade ago, academics studying the effect of income inequality on politics noticed a striking fact: The growth of income inequality has tracked very closely with measures of political polarization, which has been gauged using the average difference between the liberal/conservative scores for Republican and Democratic members of the House. The scores come from a database widely used by academics.

“The proximity of these trends is uncanny,” researchers Nolan McCarty, Keith T. Poole and Howard Rosenthal wrote in a a 2003 paper. “Remarkably, the trends of economic inequality and elite political polarization have moved almost in tandem for the past half-century.”

Exactly why this should be is a matter of ongoing research. Likewise, it is probably impossible to pinpoint the effects that the growing wealth gap may have on members of Congress — too many different factors, including party affiliation and district leanings, come to bear when a member of Congress casts a vote.

But a person’s financial circumstances certainly affect a person’s political outlook. For example, people identified as lower or middle class have been more likely to see income inequality as a problem and to favor redistribution of income, according to figures from the General Social Survey.

Moreover, there is at least some research that shows that members of Congress bring their life experiences to bear when they vote. Members of Congress with a higher proportion of daughters, for example, are more likely to take liberal positions on women’s issues, according to a 2006 working paper for the National Bureau of Economic Research by Ebonya Washington.

A representative’s occupation before being elected influences how liberal or conservative he or she is in voting, according to an analysis of more than 50 years of congressional votes by Duke University professor Nick Carnes.

In order from most conservative to most liberal: farm owners; businesspeople such as bankers or insurance executives; private-sector professionals such as doctors, engineers and architects; lawyers; service-based professionals such as teachers and social workers; politicians; and blue-collar workers, according to the analysis, which is being published in Legislative Studies Quarterly.

Carnes said that while party affiliation is the strongest determinant of voting records, “the differences between legislators of different occupational backgrounds are pretty striking. People tend to bring the worldview that comes with their occupation with them into office,” he said.

‘Kill more than you eat’

Kelly begins the story of the car dealership with his father, who started out in the auto business as a “parts picker” in a warehouse. Getting paid by the part, he donned roller skates to bump up his productivity.

Eventually his father saved enough to buy a dealership here and soon the family was building a new showroom themselves on a farm just outside town. Mike Kelly, as the oldest, was in charge of feeding the animals.

“Each of the boys was in charge of some area of the dealership,” recalled Pat Collins, who worked for a year at the dealership in the ’70s. She is now the director of the Butler County Historical Society. “That was Mike’s life — the cars. The Kellys had the dealership, but those kids were not put above anybody else. They worked.”

“He used to sweep up the garage, wash cars for his dad,” said Art Bernardi, Kelly’s old football coach at Butler High School, where Kelly excelled. “I’m sure he had a lot more than the average guy. But he doesn’t live a fancy life. He acts like someone who works at the mill or whatever.”

In 1973, Kelly married Victoria Phillips, an heir to the oil fortune. Kelly’s financial disclosure forms show that among her holdings is stock in Phillips Resources Inc., which is valued at between $5 million and $25 million and which generated more than $100,000 annually in dividends.

Four years out of college in 1974, Mike and Victoria were able to buy a home for $50,000, roughly twice the median value of homes in Pennsylvania at the time, a large, stately house close to downtown.

In 1997, Kelly bought his dad’s business from him, taking out a $1.6 million mortgage to pay for it.

When discussing his wealth and how it came to him, Kelly, who was called “Millionaire Mike” during the 2010 campaign, grows animated.

“The way my dad taught me was pretty basic: You have to kill more than you eat. You gotta wake up every day before anyone else, you better get to work, and you better stay later than everybody else,” he said. “I’m a rich guy because I’ve worked hard. I gotta work every fricking day. Listen, nobody gives it to you. I compete. I’m not the only guy selling hot dogs at the ballpark, okay?”

His life at the car dealership influences much of his political outlook:

●On unemployment. Asked how long the government should pay jobless benefits, Kelly suggests that checks from the government keep some of the unemployed from returning to work. He interviews some of the jobless for openings at the dealership.

“They say, ‘When are you looking to hire somebody?’ I say, ‘Right now — that’s why we have an ad in the paper.’ They say, ‘Well, I still have about six weeks left on my unemployment. Will you still be looking for somebody then?’ ”

Kelly shrugs.

“I think that in a way we have made it harder for people to make a decision to move forward,” he said.

●On the estate tax, which he would like to repeal. “The death tax doesn’t make sense to me. I would like to think that after I’ve worked all my life I could pass something on and not have to worry about a government that already overtaxed me my whole life taking it one day.”

●On Washington, the wealthy, and the private sector: “Let’s stop railing against the really wealthy because I got to tell you something, as a guy who has had to pay his own way his whole life, I am greatly offended by the idea that somehow someone in Washington knows how to spend my money better than I do,” Kelly said during emotional remarks during a committee markup in June that attracted lots of attention through YouTube.

Kelly has been critical of the bank bailouts, too. But he declined to say whether he favored the government’s $50 billion bailout of General Motors, which benefited his auto dealership. Had GM gone out of business, it would have deprived Kelly of cars to sell at his Chevrolet-Cadillac dealership, reducing his inventory to Hyundais, Kias and used cars. The government’s “Cash for Clunkers” program, which offered financial incentives for consumers to trade in old cars, also helped Kelly sell $2.9 million worth of cars.

As the automaker neared the brink of collapse in December 2008, didn’t he hope the government would offer a lifeline?

“I thought about making my payroll every two weeks,” he said.

From poverty to Congress

In the “hot mill” at the Armco steel plant, Myers supervised about 25 steelworkers, the members of an independent union. The operation transformed slabs of steel in ovens heated to about 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit into coils, for later processing. He considered himself neither a worker nor a part of executive management. He was a shift foreman with engineering responsibilities, and each day he wore a work shirt, jeans and work boots.

He had grown up poor. His father, a bricklayer, had a drinking problem, he said, and his mother, a schoolteacher, largely raised Myers and his three siblings. At 9, Myers recalls working at his grandfather’s nine-table restaurant, washing dishes for 10 cents an hour. As a teenager, he started a business mowing lawns and eventually set his eyes on getting one of the co-op jobs at the steel mill, which allowed him to earn a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering at the University of Cincinnati.

That day in the dining room, he had explained to his wife that voters deserved better representation because neither “the Democrats or Republicans are putting up good options for us.”

Besides, he had tried to talk his brother into running, and he wouldn’t do it.He recognized that his run for Congress might seem presumptuous.

“When it started getting around and the fellas down at work heard about it, I thought people might say stuff — you know, down there you stub your toe and they ridicule you,” Myers said. “I suppose some people probably thought, ‘What’s that Myers think he’s doing?’ But no one said anything. I was very grateful.”

He didn’t know much about running a campaign, and it was largely improvised by his wife, Elaine. She organized small gatherings and offered him tips on public speaking — when she noticed people’s feet started shuffling, she flashed him a sign to move on to another subject.

For fundraising, he turned to the president of a local plant who had connections to some of the money in the area.

“I said, ‘Why don’t we have a fundraiser at Elwood Country Club?’ ” recalled Robert Barensfeld, then president of the Elwood City Forge, a local plant, who became his finance chairman. “He thought it was the greatest idea since free beer.”

But while Myers accepted individual contributions, he shunned money from businesses and lobbying groups. Barensfeld said “it was against his principle.” Some of his volunteers thought he should take it, but Myers told them he didn’t want to get elected simply because he had more money.

He lost his first election but was encouraged by the narrow margin of defeat. He ran again in 1974 and won. On the day after his election, a Pittsburgh television station asked him to come be a guest on a news show. Myers told them he couldn’t come because he had worn out both of the family cars during the campaign. The station agreed to send a car for him.

In Washington, Myers in most ways hewed to the Republican line: He voted at times to hold down the government’s debt, for example, and voted against raising Social Security taxes.

But like Kelly, he brought to bear his life experiences.

As might be expected of an engineer, Myers had a scientific cast of mind, according to his staffers at the time, demanding research and numbers to inform his views. But with the steel mills in his district struggling, he was also keenly aware of the problems facing thousands of workers. On issues relating directly to workers, Myers sometimes broke with the party majority.

He supported, for example, a hike in the minimum wage, then $2.30 an hour. He supported an amendment expanding a program that extends unemployment and other benefits to workers adversely affected by trade. He voted for a $4 billion boost to a public works jobs program pushed by President Jimmy Carter.

“I think he realized that good people sometimes fall on hard times,” said James Kunder, who as a young Harvard graduate just out of the Marines worked as an aide to Myers in the ’70s. “He wouldn’t have been elected from that district at that time if he didn’t exude some of that spirit.”

Today, amid the debates on tax rates on the wealthy, he suggests raising the marginal income tax rate on the very highest incomes to 45 percent.

Myers also broke with Republicans on issues relating to business influence in politics, voting to require lobbying groups to disclose mass mailings and proposing an amendment that would force businesses to disclose when former members of the House lobbied on the House floor.

“He clearly saw that money could adversely affect politics,” said Jim Turner, another former aide, then recently out of Yale Divinity School.

Near the beginning of his second term, Myers stunned his staff and many in his district by announcing that he would not run for a third term, which it appeared he could have easily earned. He said he wanted to spend more time with his kids. He returned to the mill, taking a pay cut from the $57,500 that members of Congress then earned. Back in Butler, he coached his son’s baseball team and helped start a soccer program at the high school.

Today, when asked about the effect of wealth on members of Congress, Myers is characteristically detached.

“I guess I could see where someone who made a lot from personal risk-taking and business initiative could have a different outlook. Even if people come with biases, I’m not sure they’re evil biases. I don’t have any problem with someone who has a lot of money. But I don’t have any doubt that my perspective was different from someone who had more money.”

Growing wealth widens distance between lawmakers and constituents - The Washington Post

#Americans Shoplifted $1.8 Billion Worth of #Stuff This #Christmas #whatpovertylookslike

2011-12-26T19:05:00.000-08:00

Americans Shoplifted $1.8 Billion Worth of Stuff This Christmas

Reuters

DINO GRANDONI14,437 ViewsDEC 23, 2011

Hope you have a Merry Christmas, America, because you've been extremely naughty at the mall this year. After surveying retailers in the U.S., the Global Retail Theft Barometer says that shoppers pinched $1.8 billion worth of merchandise during the four weeks leading up to Christmas, reports the AP. $1.8 billion! For context, $1.8 billion is a 6 percent increase from 2010 -- a total of approximately 62 million Tickle Me Elmos at retail. And this is a year when there aren't even any good toys to buy. When stores are offering big markdowns because people aren't spending as much. But that's exactly the point: while there will always be some built-in kleptomania to society, the sour economy drives some people to buy less and steal more. Or at least gives them a good excuse for doing so.

Americans Shoplifted $1.8 Billion Worth of Stuff This Christmas - National - The Atlantic Wire

#Mexico City shuts last landfill, envisions #composting #recycling #environment

2011-12-26T18:13:00.000-08:00

Mexico City shuts last landfill, envisions composting, recycling

By Lauren Villagran | December 21, 2011, 5:00 AM PST

MEXICO CITY—Mornings, trash collectors here sweep with handmade brooms, brushing away debris with the singular swooshing sound of sticks on pavement.

Garbage collection in the metropolitan area features all sorts of other peculiarities, too: a rickety fleet of exhaust-spewing garbage trucks that don’t fit with the city’s otherwise stringent air quality regulations; cart-pushing trash collectors who ring the doorbells of residences and pick up bulging bags for a tip; horse-drawn carts in the outskirts that haul dirty chariots full of refuse to station where it is all loaded onto trucks and hauled to a landfill. Public waste bins are strategically located in tourist and business centers but are not ubiquitous.

Trash was the talk of the town this week, with the closing of the city’s last major landfill and the announcement of plans to install 700 public garbage containers throughout the city, embark on a comprehensive recycling and composting effort and open a call for offers to build a biogas-fueled electricity plant.

Mayor Marcelo Ebrard symbolically shuttered the landfill, known as the Bordo Poniente, on Monday, and the dump is scheduled to stop accepting on Friday the 12,600 tons of trash that arrive there daily. The 927-acre landfill holds about 72 million tons of trash accumulated over the past 17 years; it releases about 2 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere annually.

City officials are betting that biogas (made up largely of methane and carbon dioxide) produced naturally in the landfill can be captured and converted into electricity – which in turn could power the new Metro line under construction here. The city is expected to open an international call for proposals to take advantage of the biogas in the coming days.

What city officials aren’t saying is exactly where the trash is going to go in the meantime. A city spokesman said the information “wasn’t public” yet.

The official plan to divert trash calls for organic matter – separated in households, by trash collectors themselves or by pepenadores, people who work as trash separators at dumping sites – to be composted while recyclable materials will be reconstituted or burned as fuel at cement factories. But Mexico City’s Reforma newspaper reported that tons of trash this week were being hauled out of town to landfills in surrounding Mexico state.

The 700 trash containers, meanwhile, will be installed in areas near clandestine dumps in the city in hopes that people will decide to toss their trash in the bin for city pick-up.

Ebrard said in a speech at the edge of the Bordo Poniente on Monday: “We need to adjust several processes, logistics, in the city. That’s what we’re going to do this week.”

Photo: Lauren Villagran

Mexico City shuts last landfill, envisions composting, recycling | SmartPlanet

The Real Housewives of #WallStreet #politics #ows #thatshitcray

2011-12-26T17:45:00.001-08:00

The Real Housewives of Wall Street

Why is the Federal Reserve forking over $220 million in bailout money to the wives of two Morgan Stanley bigwigs?

by: Matt Taibbi

America has two national budgets, one official, one unofficial. The official budget is public record and hotly debated: Money comes in as taxes and goes out as jet fighters, DEA agents, wheat subsidies and Medicare, plus pensions and bennies for that great untamed socialist menace called a unionized public-sector workforce that Republicans are always complaining about. According to popular legend, we're broke and in so much debt that 40 years from now our granddaughters will still be hooking on weekends to pay the medical bills of this year's retirees from the IRS, the SEC and the Department of Energy.

Why Isn't Wall Street in Jail?

Most Americans know about that budget. What they don't know is that there is another budget of roughly equal heft, traditionally maintained in complete secrecy. After the financial crash of 2008, it grew to monstrous dimensions, as the government attempted to unfreeze the credit markets by handing out trillions to banks and hedge funds. And thanks to a whole galaxy of obscure, acronym-laden bailout programs, it eventually rivaled the "official" budget in size — a huge roaring river of cash flowing out of the Federal Reserve to destinations neither chosen by the president nor reviewed by Congress, but instead handed out by fiat by unelected Fed officials using a seemingly nonsensical and apparently unknowable methodology.

This article appears in the April 28, 2011 issue of Rolling Stone. The issue will be available on newsstands and in the online archive April 15.

Now, following an act of Congress that has forced the Fed to open its books from the bailout era, this unofficial budget is for the first time becoming at least partially a matter of public record. Staffers in the Senate and the House, whose queries about Fed spending have been rebuffed for nearly a century, are now poring over 21,000 transactions and discovering a host of outrages and lunacies in the "other" budget. It is as though someone sat down and made a list of every individual on earth who actually did not need emergency financial assistance from the United States government, and then handed them the keys to the public treasure. The Fed sent billions in bailout aid to banks in places like Mexico, Bahrain and Bavaria, billions more to a spate of Japanese car companies, more than $2 trillion in loans each to Citigroup and Morgan Stanley, and billions more to a string of lesser millionaires and billionaires with Cayman Islands addresses. "Our jaws are literally dropping as we're reading this," says Warren Gunnels, an aide to Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. "Every one of these transactions is outrageous."

Wall Street's Big Win

But if you want to get a true sense of what the "shadow budget" is all about, all you have to do is look closely at the taxpayer money handed over to a single company that goes by a seemingly innocuous name: Waterfall TALF Opportunity. At first glance, Waterfall's haul doesn't seem all that huge — just nine loans totaling some $220 million, made through a Fed bailout program. That doesn't seem like a whole lot, considering that Goldman Sachs alone received roughly $800 billion in loans from the Fed. But upon closer inspection, Waterfall TALF Opportunity boasts a couple of interesting names among its chief investors: Christy Mack and Susan Karches.

Christy is the wife of John Mack, the chairman of Morgan Stanley. Susan is the widow of Peter Karches, a close friend of the Macks who served as president of Morgan Stanley's investment-banking division. Neither woman appears to have any serious history in business, apart from a few philanthropic experiences. Yet the Federal Reserve handed them both low-interest loans of nearly a quarter of a billion dollars through a complicated bailout program that virtually guaranteed them millions in risk-free income.

RS Politics Daily: Political news and commentary from Rolling Stone writers and editors

The technical name of the program that Mack and Karches took advantage of is TALF, short for Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility. But the federal aid they received actually falls under a broader category of bailout initiatives, designed and perfected by Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, called "giving already stinking rich people gobs of money for no fucking reason at all." If you want to learn how the shadow budget works, follow along. This is what welfare for the rich looks like.

In August 2009, John Mack, at the time still the CEO of Morgan Stanley, made an interesting life decision. Despite the fact that he was earning the comparatively low salary of just $800,000, and had refused to give himself a bonus in the midst of the financial crisis, Mack decided to buy himself a gorgeous piece of property — a 107-year-old limestone carriage house on the Upper East Side of New York, complete with an indoor 12-car garage, that had just been sold by the prestigious Mellon family for $13.5 million. Either Mack had plenty of cash on hand to close the deal, or he got some help from his wife, Christy, who apparently bought the house with him.

The Macks make for an interesting couple. John, a Lebanese-American nicknamed "Mack the Knife" for his legendary passion for firing people, has one of the most recognizable faces on Wall Street, physically resembling a crumpled, half-burned baked potato with a pair of overturned furry horseshoes for eyebrows. Christy is thin, blond and rich — a sort of still-awake Sunny von Bulow with hobbies. Her major philanthropic passion is endowments for alternative medicine, and she has attained the level of master at Reiki, the Japanese practice of "palm healing." The only other notable fact on her public résumé is that her sister was married to Charlie Rose.

It's hard to imagine a pair of people you would less want to hand a giant welfare check to — yet that's exactly what the Fed did. Just two months before the Macks bought their fancy carriage house in Manhattan, Christy and her pal Susan launched their investment initiative called Waterfall TALF. Neither seems to have any experience whatsoever in finance, beyond Susan's penchant for dabbling in thoroughbred racehorses. But with an upfront investment of $15 million, they quickly received $220 million in cash from the Fed, most of which they used to purchase student loans and commercial mortgages. The loans were set up so that Christy and Susan would keep 100 percent of any gains on the deals, while the Fed and the Treasury (read: the taxpayer) would eat 90 percent of the losses. Given out as part of a bailout program ostensibly designed to help ordinary people by kick-starting consumer lending, the deals were a classic heads-I-win, tails-you-lose investment.

So how did the government come to address a financial crisis caused by the collapse of a residential-mortgage bubble by giving the wives of a couple of Morgan Stanley bigwigs free money to make essentially risk-free investments in student loans and commercial real estate? The answer is: by degrees. The history of the bailout era reads like one of those awful stories about what happens when a long-dormant criminal compulsion goes unchecked. The Peeping Tom next door stares through a few bathroom windows, doesn't get caught, and decides to break in and steal a pair of panties. Next thing you know, he's upgraded to homemade dungeons, tri-state serial rampages and throwing cheerleaders into a panel truck.

It was the same with the bailouts. They started out small, with the government throwing a few hundred billion in public money to prop up genuinely insolvent firms like Bear Stearns and AIG. Then came TARP and a few other programs that were designed to stave off bank failures and dispose of the toxic mortgage-backed securities that were a root cause of the financial crisis. But before long, the Fed began buying up every distressed investment on Wall Street, even those that were in no danger of widespread defaults: commercial real estate loans, credit- card loans, auto loans, student loans, even loans backed by the Small Business Administration. What started off as a targeted effort to stop the bleeding in a few specific trouble spots became a gigantic feeding frenzy. It was "free money for shit," says Barry Ritholtz, author of Bailout Nation. "It turned into 'Give us your crap that you can't get rid of otherwise.' "

The impetus for this sudden manic expansion of the bailouts was a masterful bluff by Wall Street executives. Once the money started flowing from the Federal Reserve, the executives began moaning to their buddies at the Fed, claiming that they were suddenly afraid of investing in anything — student loans, car notes, you name it — unless their profits were guaranteed by the state. "You ever watch soccer, where the guy rolls six times to get a yellow card?" says William Black, a former federal bank regulator who teaches economics and law at the University of Missouri. "That's what this is. If you have power and connections, they will give you a freebie deal — if you're good at whining."

This is where TALF fits into the bailout picture. Created just after Barack Obama's election in November 2008, the program's ostensible justification was to spur more consumer lending, which had dried up in the midst of the financial crisis. But instead of lending directly to car buyers and credit-card holders and students — that would have been socialism! — the Fed handed out a trillion dollars to banks and hedge funds, almost interest-free. In other words, the government lent taxpayer money to the same assholes who caused the crisis, so that they could then lend that money back out on the market virtually risk-free, at an enormous profit.

Cue your Billy Mays voice, because wait, there's more! A key aspect of TALF is that the Fed doles out the money through what are known as non-recourse loans. Essentially, this means that if you don't pay the Fed back, it's no big deal. The mechanism works like this: Hedge Fund Goon borrows, say, $100 million from the Fed to buy crappy loans, which are then transferred to the Fed as collateral. If Hedge Fund Goon decides not to repay that $100 million, the Fed simply keeps its pile of crappy securities and calls everything even.

This is the deal of a lifetime. Think about it: You borrow millions, buy a bunch of crap securities and stash them on the Fed's books. If the securities lose money, you leave them on the Fed's lap and the public eats the loss. But if they make money, you take them back, cash them in and repay the funds you borrowed from the Fed. "Remember that crazy guy in the commercials who ran around covered in dollar bills shouting, 'The government is giving out free money!' " says Black. "As crazy as he was, this is making it real."

This whole setup — in which millionaires and billionaires gambled on mountains of dangerous securities, with taxpayers providing the stake and assuming almost all of the risk — is the reason that it's insanely premature for Wall Street to claim that the bailouts have actually made money for the government. We simply can't make that determination until the final bill comes in on all the dicey securities we financed during the bailout feeding frenzy.

In the case of Waterfall TALF Opportunity, here's what we know: The company was founded in June 2009 with $14.87 million of investment capital, money that likely came from Christy Mack and Susan Karches. The two Wall Street wives then used the $220 million they got from the Fed to buy up a bunch of securities, including a large pool of commercial mortgages managed by Credit Suisse, a company John Mack once headed. Those securities were valued at $253.6 million, though the Fed refuses to explain how it arrived at that estimate. And here's the kicker: Of the $220 million the two wives got from the Fed, roughly $150 million had not been paid back as of last fall — meaning that you and I are still on the hook for most of whatever the Wall Street spouses bought on their government-funded shopping spree.

The public has no way of knowing how much Christy Mack and Susan Karches earned on these transactions, because the Fed has repeatedly declined to provide any information about how it priced the individual securities bought as part of programs like TALF. In the Waterfall deal, for instance, we know the Fed pledged some $14 million against a block of securities called "Credit Suisse Commercial Mortgage Trust Series 2007-C2" — but that data is meaningless without knowing how many units were bought. It's like saying the Fed gave Waterfall $14 million to buy cars. Did Waterfall pay $5,000 per car, or $500,000? We have no idea. "There's no way of validating or invalidating the Fed's process in TALF without this pricing information," says Gary Aguirre, a former SEC official who was fired years ago after he tried to interview John Mack in an insider-trading case.

In early April, in an attempt to learn exactly how much Mack and Karches made on the TALF deals, Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa wrote a letter to Waterfall asking 21 detailed questions about the transactions. In addition, Sen. Sanders has personally asked Fed chief Bernanke to provide more complete information on the TALF loans given not only to Christy Mack but to gazillionaires like former Miami Dolphins owner H. Wayne Huizenga and hedge-fund shark John Paulson. But Bernanke bluntly refused to provide the information — and the Fed has similarly stonewalled other oversight agencies, including the General Accounting Office and TARP's special inspector general.

Christy Mack and Susan Karches did not respond to requests for comments for this story. But even without more information about the loans they got from the Fed, we know that TALF wasn't the only risk-free money being handed over to Wall Street. During the financial crisis, the Fed routinely made billions of dollars in "emergency" loans to big banks at near-zero interest. Many of the banks then turned around and used the money to buy Treasury bonds at higher interest rates — essentially loaning the money back to the government at an inflated rate. "People talk about how these were loans that were paid back," says a congressional aide who has studied the transactions. "But when the state is lending money at zero percent and the banks are turning around and lending that money back to the state at three percent, how is that different from just handing rich people money?"

Those kinds of deals were the essence of the bailout — and the vast mountains of near-zero government cash turned companies facing bankruptcy into monstrous profit machines. In 2008 and 2009, while Christy Mack was busy getting her little TALF loans for $220 million, her husband's bank hauled in $2 trillion in emergency Fed loans. During the same period, Goldman borrowed nearly $800 billion. Shortly afterward, the two banks reported a combined annual profit of $14.5 billion.

As crazy as it is to lend to banks at near zero percent and borrow back from them at three percent, one could at least argue that the policy may have aided American companies by providing banks more cash to lend. But how do you explain the host of other bailout transactions now being examined by Congress? Like the Fed's massive purchases of securities in foreign automakers, including BMW, Volkswagen, Honda, Mitsubishi and Nissan? Or the nearly $5 billion in cheap credit the Fed extended to Toyota and Mitsubishi? Sure, those companies have factories and dealerships in the U.S. — but does it really make sense to give them free cash at the same time taxpayers were being asked to bail out Chrysler and GM? Seems a little crazy to fund the competition of the very automakers you're trying to rescue.

And then there are the bailout deals that make no sense at all. Republicans go mad over spending on health care and school for Mexican illegals. So why aren't they flipping out over the $9.6 billion in loans the Fed made to the Central Bank of Mexico? How do we explain the $2.2 billion in loans that went to the Korea Development Bank, the biggest state bank of South Korea, whose sole purpose is to promote development in South Korea? And at a time when America is borrowing from the Middle East at interest rates of three percent, why did the Fed extend $35 billion in loans to the Arab Banking Corporation of Bahrain at interest rates as low as one quarter of one point?

Even more disturbing, the major stakeholder in the Bahrain bank is none other than the Central Bank of Libya, which owns 59 percent of the operation. In fact, the Bahrain bank just received a special exemption from the U.S. Treasury to prevent its assets from being frozen in accord with economic sanctions. That's right: Muammar Qaddafi received more than 70 loans from the Federal Reserve, along with the Real Housewives of Wall Street.

Perhaps the most irritating facet of all of these transactions is the fact that hundreds of millions of Fed dollars were given out to hedge funds and other investors with addresses in the Cayman Islands. Many of those addresses belong to companies with American affiliations — including prominent Wall Street names like Pimco, Blackstone and . . . Christy Mack. Yes, even Waterfall TALF Opportunity is an offshore company. It's one thing for the federal government to look the other way when Wall Street hotshots evade U.S. taxes by registering their investment companies in the Cayman Islands. But subsidizing tax evasion? Giving it a federal bailout? What the fuck?

As America girds itself for another round of lunatic political infighting over which barely-respirating social program or urgently necessary federal agency must have their budgets permanently sacrificed to the cause of billionaires being able to keep their third boats in the water, it's important to point out just how scarce money isn't in certain corners of the public-spending universe. In the coming months, when you watch Republican congressional stooges play out the desperate comedy of solving America's deficit problems by making fewer photocopies of proposed bills, or by taking an ax to budgetary shrubberies like NPR or the SEC, remember Christy Mack and her fancy new carriage house. There is no belt-tightening on the other side of the tracks. Just a free lunch that never ends.

The Real Housewives of Wall Street | Politics News | Rolling Stone

Sunlight-powered 'bulbs' made from plastic bottles light up homes #Environment #climatechange #coolideas

2011-12-26T17:45:00.000-08:00

Sunlight-powered 'bulbs' made from plastic bottles light up homes
The Liter of Light project, launched to combat the rising cost of electricity in the Philippines, aims to provide 1 million homes with light
Sunshine Lichauco de Leon
guardian.co.uk, Friday 23 December 2011 01.30 EST
Article history

Plastic bottles are put in shanty home roofs to provide light. Photograph: Sunshine Deleon

Around 25,000 low-income homes in the Philippines have been lit up after the launch of a scheme to fit sunlight-powered "bulbs" made from old plastic bottles.

In a country where 40% of the population lives off less than $2 a day, the rising cost of power leaves many unable to afford electricity. Some use candles as a light source, but when generations of family members share a small, dark space in shanty towns, accidental and destructive fires are often the result.

The Liter of Light project was launched six months ago by the My Shelter Foundation, a Philippines-based NGO which aims to provide light to 1 million of the roughly 12 million homes who are either still without light or live on the threshold of having their electricity shut down.

The scheme uses plastic bottles filled with a solution of bleached water, installed into holes made in shanty towns' corrugated iron roofs, which then refracts the equivalent of 55W of sunlight into the room – during the day, at least. It takes five minutes to make, and using a hammer, rivet, metal sheets, sandpaper and epoxy, it costs $1 to produce.

Eduardo Carillo, a resident in one of Metro Manila's many impoverished areas, said: "Before we had the bottle light, the walkways to our house were so dark and going inside made it even darker. The children are no longer scared – they are happy now and they laugh because they can play inside during the day instead of playing in the streets."

The idea of using plastic bottles as a light source is not a new one - it was developed in Brazil by Alfredo Moser in 2002. But with the help of a group of MIT students, the solar bulb used in the Philippines has been modified to meet local needs.

My Shelter Foundation Founder and social entrepreneur Ilac Diaz explains: "We basically did a cheap kind of one-way lock using the metal sheet. Once you put in the bottle, it will not slip down anymore. That way even if the roof expanded or contracted with the heat, it would not affect the waterproofing and would keep the bottle intact for many years to com."

Diaz believes in the importance of using "appropriate" green technologies for poorer countries:

"The challenge is how can the developing world come up with its own model to limit emissions of carbon- we cant afford to buy imported, patented or manufactured solutions from the developed world and can't afford to wait until they become affordable."

The programme is also creating jobs. What began with teaching and contracting one unemployed man to make the first 1000 bottles has evolved into an ongoing program that has creating more than 20 jobs in installing the bottles. "We wanted to prove one man could change his village," said Diaz..

Sunlight-powered 'bulbs' made from plastic bottles light up homes | Environment | guardian.co.uk

Mystery predators may have contributed to fiscal #collapse in 2007 #economiccrisis #bailouts #ows

2011-12-26T17:42:00.000-08:00

Their new study shows that banks themselves were under attack by other players on Wall Street. The study authors at the New England Complex Systems Institute (NECSI) retraced events to show that at a critical point in the financial crisis, the stock of Citigroup was attacked by traders by selling borrowed stock (short-selling) which may have caused others to sell in panic. The subsequent price drop enabled the attackers to buy the stock back at a much lower price.

This kind of illegal market manipulation is called a bear raid and the new study supports earlier suspicions that the raids played a role in the market crash.

The study has direct evidence. Through its analysis of stock market data not generally available to the public, namely the borrowing of shares, NECSI reconstructs the chain of events.

On November 1, 2007, the number of borrowed Citigroup shares jumped by 100 million shares, a value of almost $6 billion. Six days later, a similar number of shares was returned on a single day.

Shares are generally borrowed to sell on the market. The trading on November 1 was almost four times the usual volume. The newly borrowed shares represented over three-quarters of the volume on that day. When a large volume of shares is sold it can drive prices down. The price of shares that day dropped by almost 7 percent. By the time the shares were returned, it had dropped nearly 20 percent.

Professor Yaneer Bar-Yam, President of NECSI, maintains this was no "freak" or coincidental event. "When 100 million shares are borrowed on a single day and then returned on a single day, the evidence that this is a concerted action is hard to refute. The likelihood of such an event happening by coincidence is one in a trillion."

The NECSI scholars are also voicing concern about how the incident was allowed to happen. Selling shares to deliberately cause a price drop to induce others to buy or sell is illegal, but enforcing the law after it is violated is much less effective than preventing it from happening in the first place, they maintain.

"There used to be a rule that prevented it from happening by forbidding borrowed shares from being sold in large blocks that drive the price down," said Bar-Yam. "The Securities and Exchange Commission repealed that rule, known as the price test or uptick rule, on July 6, 2007."

Last year, the authors of the report sent preliminary results of their study to the financial services committee of Congress, and Congressmen Barney Frank and Ed Perlmutter sent it to the SEC.

Unfortunately, Professor Bar-Yam says that he hasn’t seen any action by the SEC to identify or prosecute those responsible or to prevent its occurring in the future.

After the market crash, the SEC received thousands of requests from the public to reinstate the price test rule. Hedge funds that invest the money of wealthy individuals opposed its reinstatement. Eventually, the SEC put into place an "alternative" rule that only applies a price test when the price of ashare drops more than 10 percent.

Professor Bar-Yam points out, "This watered-down rule would not have stopped the bear raid on Citigroup on November 1, 2007. This is only one example of the deleterious effects of the weakened rule. The overall effect of unregulated selling of borrowed shares is surely much larger and continues today."

More information: Evidence of market manipulation in the financial crisis, arXiv:1112.3095v1 [q-fin.GN] http://arxiv.org/abs/1112.3095

Abstract
We provide direct evidence of market manipulation at the beginning of the financial crisis in November 2007. The type of manipulation, a "bear raid," would have been prevented by a regulation that was repealed by the Securities and Exchange Commission in July 2007. The regulation, the uptick rule, was designed to prevent manipulation and promote stability and was in force from 1938 as a key part of the government response to the 1928 market crash and its aftermath. On November 1, 2007, Citigroup experienced an unusual increase in trading volume and decrease in price. Our analysis of financial industry data shows that this decline coincided with an anomalous increase in borrowed shares, the selling of which would be a large fraction of the total trading volume. The selling of borrowed shares cannot be explained by news events as there is no corresponding increase in selling by share owners. A similar number of shares were returned on a single day six days later. The magnitude and coincidence of borrowing and returning of shares is evidence of a concerted effort to drive down Citigroup's stock price and achieve a profit, i.e., a bear raid. Interpretations and analyses of financial markets should consider the possibility that the intentional actions of individual actors or coordinated groups can impact market behavior. Markets are not sufficiently transparent to reveal even major market manipulation events. Our results point to the need for regulations that prevent intentional actions that cause markets to deviate from equilibrium and contribute to crashes. Enforcement actions cannot reverse severe damage to the economic system. The current "alternative" uptick rule which is only in effect for stocks dropping by over 10% in a single day is insufficient. Prevention may be achieved through improved availability of market data and the original uptick rule or other transaction limitations.

Provided by New England Complex Systems Institute

Mystery predators may have contributed to fiscal collapse in 2007: research

#Drones : A deeply unsettling #future #iran #iraq #war #news

2011-12-23T14:30:00.000-08:00

Drones: A deeply unsettling future

The rapid expansion of a drone arms race has emerged both domestically and abroad, leaving everyone vulnerable.

Trevor Timm Last Modified: 07 Dec 2011 11:54

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At least 50 countries already have unmanned aerial fleets - and that number is rising every month [EPA]

San Francisco, California - On Sunday, Iran claimed to have taken down a US drone in Iranian airspace - not by shooting it out the sky, but with its cyber warfare team.

Reports confirm that the US believes Iran is now in possession of "one of the more sensitive surveillance platforms in the CIA's fleet", but deny Iran's involvement. Of course, Iran’s claim of overtaking the drone with its cyber warfare team should be tempered with a serious dose of scepticism, as cyber security experts say the factsmay not add up. But this is just the latest story in a series of incidents that raises worrying questions about security problems caused by drones. And given the coming proliferation of drone technology both domestically and abroad, this should be a concern to citizens all over the world.

Pakistan angry with US over deadly NATO air strike

Two years ago the Wall Street Journal reported Iran-funded militants in Iraq were able to hack into drones' live-video feeds with "$26 off-the-shelf software". In another unnerving incident, Wired reported in October that a fleet of the Air Force's drones was infected with a computer virus that captured all of drones' key strokes. Technicians continually deleted the virus to no avail. How did the drones get infected? The military is "not quite sure". Worse, the Air Force's cyber security team didn't even know about the virus until they read about it in Wired.
Wired reported in a separate story that an upcoming Congressional report will detail how hackers broke into the US satellite system. With one satellite, hackers "achieved all steps required to command" it, "but never actually exercised control".
Last summer, a drone caused a scene in the nation's capital, when, as New York Times wrote, "fighter jets were almost scrambled after a rogue Fire Scout drone, the size of a small helicopter, wandered into Washington's restricted airspace". A similar incident took place in Afghanistan where military planes had to shoot down a "runaway drone" when pilots lost control.
The US, of course, leads the world in drone use for both surveillance and combat missions. Attacks are carried out in Pakistan every four days on average. Many times, the US isn't even sure exactly who they are killing. Despite the fact that the location of vast majority of drone bases are classified, journalist Nick Turse pieced together a startling picture of the massive US fleet. He determined that the US has at least 60 drone bases operated by either the US military or the CIA around the world, and "most of these facilities have remained unnoted, uncounted, and remarkably anonymous - until now".
But drone use is not just relegated to US military. Drone manufacturers already command a $94bn market,according to some estimates, and the drone arms race is in full swing. As the Washington Post reported, the constant buzz of drones and threats of attack now dominates the lives of civilians in Gaza. And Turkey plans to have Predator drones in operation by June 2012.
Meanwhile, Chinese contractors unveiled 25 types of unmanned aircraft last year. In all, at least 50 countries now have some sort of unmanned aerial vehicles, and the New York Times reports that "the number is rising every month". That number also includes Iran, which is seeking to upgrade its fleet. Even the Libyan rebels had their own surveillance drone - provided to them by Canadian defence contractors - before they were in full control of their own country.
The technology itself is also developing at an alarmingly rapid pace. The New York Times reports that researchers in the US are working on "shrinking unmanned drones, the kind that fire missiles into Pakistan and spy on insurgents in Afghanistan, to the size of insects", along with oversized drones that can capture video of an entire city. There are birdlike drones, underwater drones, drones within drones, facial recognition drones, and perhaps most terrifying, completely autonomous drones - currently being tested in Georgia - which will require no human control at all.
As Micah Zenko, Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, told me last month, "It's a very impressive and responsive tool that should be used sparingly. Even if we’re responsible now, we might not be forever."
But in the US, drones will become yet another way authorities can compromise the privacy of ordinary citizens, as the FAA plans to propose new rules for their domestic flight. As Newsweek reported, police forces and border patrols in the US are buying the technology from defence contractors, and one has already been spotted flyingover Houston. Police departments are already using GPS and cell phone tracking without warrants, this will another powerful surveillance weapon in their arsenal. As privacy advocates warn, "drones can easily be equipped with facial recognition cameras, infrared cameras, or open Wi-Fi sniffers". And while these drones will be used for many surveillance purposes (a scary thought in and of itself), contractors admit they are equipped to carry weapons, such as Tasers.
Whether they are being used for surveillance or all-out combat, drones will soon pose serious risks for all of the world's citizens. They can offer governments, police departments, or private citizens unprecedented capabilities for spying, and given their security vulnerabilities, the potential consequences could be endless.
Trevor Timm is an activist and blogger at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. He specialises in free speech issues and government transparency.
Follow Trevor Timm on Twitter: @WLLegal
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.

Drones: A deeply unsettling future - Opinion - Al Jazeera English

Don’t Tax the #Rich. #Tax #Inequality Itself. #occupy #economy #ows

2011-12-23T14:29:00.000-08:00

Don’t Tax the Rich. Tax Inequality Itself.

By IAN AYRES and AARON S. EDLIN

Published: December 18, 2011

THE progressive reformer and eminent jurist Louis D. Brandeis once said, “We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we cannot have both.” Brandeis lived at a time when enormous disparities between the rich and the poor led to violent labor unrest and ultimately to a reform movement.

Over the last three decades, income inequality has again soared to the sort of levels that alarmed Brandeis. In 1980, the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans made 9.1 percent of our nation’s pre-tax income; by 2006 that share had risen to 18.8 percent — slightly higher than when Brandeis joined the Supreme Court in 1916.

Congress might have countered this increased concentration but, instead, tax changes have exacerbated the trend: in after-tax dollars, our wealthiest 1 percent over this same period went from receiving 7.7 percent to 16.3 percent of our nation’s income.

What we call the Brandeis Ratio — the ratio of the average income of the nation’s richest 1 percent to the median household income — has skyrocketed since Ronald Reagan took office. In 1980 the average 1-percenter made 12.5 times the median income, but in 2006 (the latest year for which data is available) the average income of our richest 1 percent was a whopping 36 times greater than that of the median household.

Brandeis understood that at some point the concentration of economic power could undermine the democratic requisite of dispersed political power. This concern looms large in today’s America, where billionaires are allowed to spend unlimited amounts of money on their own campaigns or expressly advocating the election of others.

We believe that we have reached the Brandeis tipping point. It would be bad for our democracy if 1-percenters started making 40 or 50 times as much as the median American.

Enough is enough. Congress should reform our tax law to put the brakes on further inequality. Specifically, we propose an automatic extra tax on the income of the top 1 percent of earners — a tax that would limit the after-tax incomes of this club to 36 times the median household income.

Importantly, our Brandeis tax does not target excessive income per se; it only caps inequality. Billionaires could double their current income without the tax kicking in — as long as the median income also doubles. The sky is the limit for the rich as long as the “rising tide lifts all boats.” Indeed, the tax gives job creators an extra reason to make sure that corporate wealth does in fact trickle down.

Here’s how the tax would work. Once a year, the Internal Revenue Service would calculate the Brandeis ratio of the previous year. If the average 1-percenter made more than 36 times the income of the median American household, then the I.R.S. would create a new tax bracket for the highest 1 percent of income and calculate a marginal income tax rate for that bracket sufficient to reduce the after-tax Brandeis ratio to 36.

This new tax, if triggered, would apply only to income in excess of the poorest 1-percenter — currently about $330,000 per year. Our Brandeis tax is conservative in that it doesn’t attempt to reverse the gains of the wealthy in the last 30 years. It is not a “claw back” tax. It merely assures that things don’t get worse.

A key aspect of our proposal is the tax’s automatic nature. Congress need only act once to protect our future. Just as our tax brackets automatically adjust with the inflation rate, Congress could specify nondiscretionary conditions under which the Brandeis tax would automatically go into effect.

Part of our goal is to change the way politicians speak about income equality. Framing the income of the wealthy in relation to the median income will help us all keep in mind the relative success of the middle class. Our grandparents would be shocked to learn that the average income of the 1-percent club has skyrocketed to more than 30 times the median income — just as we will be shocked if 20 years from now 1-percenters make 80 times the median, which is where we will be if inequality continues to grow at the current rate unabated.

The Occupy Wall Street movement is right to decry the increasing power of the 1 percent as a threat to democracy. President Obama is right to characterize the present as a “make-or-break moment” for the middle class. As 1-percenters ourselves, we call on Congress, for the sake of democracy, to end the continued erosion of economic equality in our nation.

Ian Ayres, a professor of law at Yale, is the author of “Carrots and Sticks: Unlock the Power of Incentives to Get Things Done.” Aaron S. Edlin, a professor of law and of economics at the University of California, Berkeley, is co-editor of “The Economists’ Voice: Top Economists Take On Today’s Problems.”

Don’t Tax the Rich. Tax Inequality Itself. - NYTimes.com

History Will Remember #BradleyManning better #Wikileaks

2011-12-22T10:35:00.000-08:00

Amy Goodman
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 21 December 2011 11.22 EST

Accused whistle-blower Bradley Manning turned 24 on Saturday. He spent his birthday in a pre-trial military hearing that could ultimately lead to a sentence of life ... or death. Manning stands accused of causing the largest leak of government secrets in United States history.

More on Manning shortly. First, a reminder of what he is accused of leaking. In April 2010, the whistle-blower website WikiLeaks released a video called Collateral Murder. It was a classified US military video from July 2007, from an Apache attack helicopter over Baghdad. The video shows a group of men walking, then the systematic killing of them in a barrage of high-powered automatic fire from the helicopter. Soldiers' radio transmissions narrate the carnage, varying from cold and methodical to cruel and enthusiastic. Two of those killed were employees of the international news agency Reuters: Namir Noor-Eldeen, a photojournalist, and Saeed Chmagh, his driver.

Renowned whistle-blower Daniel Ellsberg, who released the Pentagon Papers that helped end the war in Vietnam and who himself is a marine veteran who trained soldiers on the laws of war, told me: "Helicopter gunners hunting down and shooting an unarmed man in civilian clothes, clearly wounded ... that shooting was murder. It was a war crime. Not all killing in war is murder, but a lot of it is. And this was."

The WikiLeaks release of the Afghan war logs followed months later, with tens of thousands of military field reports. Then came the Iraq War Diaries, with close to 400,000 military records of the US war in Iraq. Next was Cablegate, WikiLeaks' rolling release (with prominent print-media partners, from the New York Times to the Guardian) of classified US State Department cables, more than 250,000 of them, dating from as far back as 1966 up to early 2010. The contents of these cables proved highly embarrassing to the US government and sent shock waves around the world.

Among the diplomatic cables released were those detailing US support for the corrupt Tunisian regime, which helped fuel the uprising there. Noting that Time magazine named "The Protester," generically, as Person of the Year, Ellsberg said Manning should be the face of that protester, since the leaks for which he is accused, following their impact in Tunisia, "in turn sparked the uprising in Egypt ... which stimulated Occupy Wall Street and the other occupations in the Middle East and elsewhere. So, one of those 'persons of the year' is now sitting in a courthouse."

Another recently revealed Cablegate release exposed details of an alleged 2006 massacre by US troops in the Iraqi town of Ishaqi, north of Baghdad. Eleven people were killed, and the cable described eyewitness accounts in which the group, including five children and four women, was handcuffed, then executed with bullets to the head. The US military then bombed the house, allegedly to cover up the incident. Citing attacks like these, the Iraqi government said it would no longer grant immunity to US soldiers in Iraq. President Barack Obama responded by announcing he would pull the troops out of Iraq. Like a modern-day Ellsberg, if Manning is guilty of what the Pentagon claims, he helped end the war in Iraq.

Back in the hearding room at Fort Meade, Maryland, defense attorneys painted a picture of a chaotic forward operating base with little to no supervision, no controls whatsoever on soldiers' access to classified data, and a young man in uniform struggling with his sexual identity in the era of "don't ask, don't tell". Manning repeatedly flew into rages, throwing furniture and once even punching a superior in the face, without punishment. His peers at the base said he should not be in a war zone. Yet he stayed, until his arrest 18 months ago.

Since his arrest, Manning has been in solitary confinement, for much of the time in Quantico, Virginia, under conditions so harsh that the UN special rapporteur on torture is investigating. Many believe the US government is trying to break Manning in order to use him in its expected case of espionage against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. It also sends a dramatic message to any potential whistle-blower: "We will destroy you."

For now, Manning sits attentively, reports say, facing life in prison for "aiding the enemy." The prosecution offered words Manning allegedly wrote to Assange as evidence of his guilt. In the email, Manning described the leak as "one of the more significant documents of our time, removing the fog of war and revealing the true nature of 21st century asymmetrical warfare." History will no doubt use the same words as irrefutable proof of Manning's courage.

• Denis Moynihan contributed research to this column.

© 2011 Amy Goodman; distributed by King Features Syndicate

Canadian-developed #HIV #Vaccine Approved for Human Studies

2011-12-22T08:39:00.000-08:00

By Megan Ogilvie
Tue Dec 20 2011

After two decades of research, a group of Canadian scientists has won approval to start testing an experimental HIV vaccine on humans.

The vaccine, developed by researchers at the University of Western Ontario, has received a green light from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for clinical human trials.

Beginning in January, the vaccine will be given to 40 healthy people with HIV to test its safety.

Dr. Chil-Yong Kang, professor of virology at the Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry at the University of Western Ontario, called the FDA approval a “milestone.”

“We started the basic science research two decades ago,” Kang said. “The vaccine development, we started 10 years ago. This is incredible for us to get to this stage of development.”

Kang said the vaccine, called SAV001, is the first preventative HIV vaccine approved for clinical trials to use a killed whole HIV-1 virus to activate the immune response in humans.

The strategy has been used before to develop successful vaccines for influenza, polio, rabies and hepatitis A. Kang said these past successes for other viral diseases provide hope the Canadian-developed vaccine will work against HIV.

The human immunodeficiency virus used in the vaccine has been genetically altered to render it non-pathogenic, or unable to cause disease. Kang and his research team then further inactivated the virus using chemicals and radiation.

“In the past, people did not use this strategy (using a killed whole HIV virus) because people did not know how to make a safer virus and people did not know how to make large quantities of it,” Kang said. “Now we have solved those problems by the genetic engineering of the virus.”

According to the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative, there are 30 HIV vaccines currently being tested in phase 1 clinical trials around the world.

Many of these vaccines have largely focused on using one specific component of the human immunodeficiency virus to trigger an immune response. Other vaccines have used other viral vectors to create a vaccine. Right now, there is no effective HIV vaccine.

Dr. Jonathan Angel, president of the Canadian Association for HIV Research, whose research is funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, said it is exciting that a Canadian scientist’s work has progressed from the basic research level to a vaccine approved for human clinical trials, meeting the rigorous criteria of the FDA.

But he also cautioned that developing an effective HIV vaccine remains a daunting task because HIV is a complex virus that scientists do not yet completely understand.

Should the SAV001 be proven safe, the vaccine will enter the second phase of clinical trials, in which it will be tested on 600 HIV-negative volunteers at high risk for HIV infection. Researchers will measure the volunteers’ immune response to the vaccine.

The third and final phase would enroll 6,000 HIV-negative volunteers at high risk for the disease. The participants, half of whom would be vaccinated and half un-vaccinated, would be tracked for three years to see how many in each group became infected with HIV.

Kang and his team received funding from Sumagen Canada, a company created in 2008 to support the development of the vaccine and a subsidiary of a Korean-based pharmaceutical venture company.

Source: The Star

Is a #Cure for the Common #Cold on the Way?

2011-12-22T08:36:00.001-08:00

By Stephanie Hegarty BBC World Service
20 December 2011 Last updated at 07:25 ET

In the northern hemisphere, cold and flu season is upon us. But the coughing, wheezing and spluttering masses that hit the streets each winter could, some scientists hope, soon be a thing of the past.

The reason for this optimistic thought is the progress being made towards the creation of a drug known as an antiviral.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

Just as antibiotics kill many different types of bacteria, antivirals could kill multiple viruses, from the ubiquitous cold and flu to the life-threatening hepatitis virus and HIV. They could even prove crucial in the case of viral epidemics like Sars and bird flu.

Existing antiviral drugs are tailored to specific diseases - HIV, hepatitis and certain types of flu for example. Vaccinations are also very virus-specific and have to be redeveloped at great cost as a virus evolves.

But Todd Rider, a research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is developing an antiviral drug called Draco, which has proven successful against all 15 viruses to which it has been applied in lab trials with human tissue and mice.

These include the common cold, H1N1 or swine flu, a polio virus, dengue fever and the notorious and fatal Ebola virus.

To produce it, Mr Rider took an unusual approach, "wiring together" two natural proteins - one that detects virus entry, and another that acts as a suicide switch that kills the infected cell.

"I studied both biology and engineering back in the dark ages and really wanted to combine those studies," he says.

"Everyone in both departments thought I was crazy."

The dream of a broad-based antiviral drug has for years been a holy grail for microbiologists.

Recent developments in biotechnology - especially the ability of computers to analyse reams of information on DNA and the genetic make-up of viruses - has allowed for great leaps in scientific understanding of how these micro-organisms work.

This has brought a few researchers closer to the goal of a broad-based antiviral, targeting the problem in several different ways.

Last year, a breakthrough study at Cambridge University showed that cells have an internal system which fights and kills viruses. It was previously thought that once a virus succeeded in entering a cell, infection was inevitable.

Dr Leo James, the author of this study, is now working on creating antiviral drugs that can latch on to a virus and destroy it inside the cell.

At Mount Sinai Medical School in New York, Professor Peter Palese has developed an antiviral drug that has so far proven very successful against influenza, though less so against other viruses.

And in a laboratory at the other side of the US, Dr Benhur Lee stumbled across a drug that seemed to be effective against several viruses including various pox viruses and Ebola. He soon realised it only worked against viruses that shared a distinct characteristic, a greasy outer membrane or lipid envelope.

Dr James maintains some scepticism about Mr Rider's study.

"It is potentially very exciting but because the results are so unusual and because it was published in an unusual journal it needs to be proven by others," he says.

PLoS One, the online journal which published the paper encourages ideas that challenge established thinking.

Draco appears to have a greater range than its rivals, but it will be several years before Draco can be tested on humans. First the drug will have to go through several rounds of testing on larger mammals.

"Translating from the lab to people is really quite hard," says immunologist Hugh Pennington, Professor Emeritus at Aberdeen University.

Viruses and human cells become closely linked on infection, as a result there are many possible side-effects of a drug like this.

In the 1950s, scientists thought they had come up with a similar broad-spectrum antiviral wonder drug, interferon.

The drug causes an infected cell to secrete a warning signal to other cells, allowing them to build up their natural defences. However, it also triggers the immune system to send white blood cells to the infection, which can cause inflammation of the area, fever, aches and pains.

"Interferons are fantastic drugs," says Wendy Barclay, chair of influenza virology at Imperial College London.

"They are still used today, to treat hepatitis C virus. But if you had a mild virus infection like a common cold you would not want to take interferon to deal with it because it would make you feel horrible, even worse than the cold was making you feel.

"The problem with using that same approach today to develop a broad-spectrum antiviral is always the worry that something in your strategy is going to trigger that same response."

Like interferon, Draco is a protein and has the potential to provoke an immune response. This could be especially problematic when the drug is administered a second time. But no immune response has been observed in mice so far.

For the average human, who suffers through a cold up to four times a year, antivirals could be the answer to days of misery - and businesses could save weeks of lost work hours.

But for those on the front line of healthcare, it could mean much more.

A broad-based antiviral could obliterate the threat of a global pandemic and mitigate health scares such as that caused by the Sars virus in 2002 or bird flu in 2009.

"No-one can say when the next pandemic will occur, it may be next year or it may be in 100 years' time," says Hugh Pennington.

"We're still in the niggling worry scenario even when we are very optimistic… If we had a wonder drug like Draco might be, we could sleep much easier at night."

#US #Afghan Headache: $400-a-Gallon #Gasoline #2011was #endwar

2011-12-21T12:49:00.000-08:00

U.S.'s Afghan Headache: $400-a-Gallon Gasoline
Military Air Drops Fuel Barrels to Avoid Dangerous Convoys

By NATHAN HODGE

With more American troops on the ground, and to avoid the perils of ground transportation, the military is more frequently using cargo planes to deliver supplies. But as WSJ's Nathan Hodge reports, the cost is putting a strain on military budgets.

OVER EASTERN AFGHANISTAN—Parachuting a barrel of fuel to a remote Afghan base takes sharp flying skills, steady nerves and flawless timing.

It also costs a lot of money—up to $400 a gallon, by military estimates.

But the Pentagon is stuck with the expense for the foreseeable future, especially given the recent deterioration in U.S.-Pakistani relations.

Enlarge Image

Nathan Hodge/The Wall Street Journal
The U.S. Air Force's 774th Expeditionary Airlift Squadron flew an airdrop mission over eastern Afghanistan in October. Pictured, a C-130 cargo aircraft seen from another C-130.

"We're going to burn a lot of gas to drop a lot of gas," said Capt. Zack Albaugh, a California Air National Guard pilot deployed with the 774th Expeditionary Airlift Squadron. He spoke just before a recent mission to supply a remote base near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, scene of cross-border rocket attacks that have heightened regional tensions this fall.

Such security issues were addressed Monday at an international meeting over Afghanistan in Bonn, Germany, where President Hamid Karzai appealed for continuing international funding well after most coalition forces withdraw in 2014.

But for now, nearly 100,000 U.S. troops are on the ground in Afghanistan, often stationed in difficult-to-reach outposts that depend on pallets of food, water, ammunition and fuel that are dropped by parachute out of cargo planes.

Capt. Albaugh's recent supply flight over the country's Paktika province underscored a simple fact of the U.S. military presence: War is inherently costly, and that is keenly felt when the military's budget is under growing strain and vital supply lines come under pressure.

That happened last month when Pakistan closed key border crossings to North Atlantic Treaty Organization supply convoys following a deadly coalition airstrike that claimed the lives of 24 Pakistani troops. The crossings remain closed.

Nathan Hodge/The Wall Street Journal
Air Force Capt. Zack Albaugh in the cockpit.

Since 2005, the Air Force has increased by nearly 50 times the amount of supplies it air-drops to remote bases, partly as a way to avoid dangerous land-based fuel convoys.

The astronomical expense represents the "fully burdened" costs of fuel, including transportation and security.

The cost and difficulty of fuel deliveries in places like Afghanistan is one major reason the Pentagon is working to overhaul the way the armed forces use energy, from developing aircraft that can run on biofuels to powering remote bases with solar panels or wind turbines.

But those efforts are in the early stages, meaning troops still require expensive—and hair-raising—cargo flights to keep them flush with gas.

On Capt. Albaugh's run, two C-130 cargo planes flew in close formation, hugging the Pakistani border as they circled toward their target. The drop zone—the general area where the troops will pick up their cargo—was about the length of three football fields. Within that zone, the crew of the C-130 aimed to hit a smaller target: 60-feet-by-150 feet.

As the planes approached, a voice crackled over the radio network warning everyone else to stand by: "Everyone stay off the net for the next 10 mikes [minutes] until the bird drops."

The planes dipped over the landscape, laden with pallets of fuel. A small parachute deployed from each C-130's cargo door, sending 34,000 pounds of fuel clattering across the loading ramp, like the Coney Island Cyclone.

Parachute drops of supplies to American forces in Afghanistan are increasingly common thanks to rough terrain and roads seeded with booby traps by the Taliban. WSJ's Michael M. Phillips reports from Waza Khwa.

In the sky, parachutes blossomed, and the crates floated to the ground below. Aircrews based in Afghanistan fly missions around the clock to keep troops on the ground supplied. "We've been pretty busy," said Capt. Jose Ariza, Capt. Albaugh's crewmate.

Enlarge Image

Nathan Hodge/The Wall Street Journal
A C-130 cargo aircraft seen from another C-130

The sheer volume of air-dropped cargo is swiftly rising. In 2005, Air Force planes dropped around two million pounds of supplies to troops in Afghanistan. Last year, they delivered around 60 million pounds by airdrop. By the end of this year, officials say, they expect to drop around 90 million pounds of food, water, ammunition and fuel to bases in the country.

Air Force Gen. Raymond Johns, who heads the service's Air Mobility Command, said the December 2009 surge in U.S. troops has made resupply more challenging, particularly because of the threat of roadside bombs.

"They [troops] are in places where getting them their supplies is very risky to go by land conveyance," he said. "So they've become more and more dependent on our airdrop."

This particular launch was successful: a total of 36 bundles reached the drop zone.

But two parachutes did not fully open, and pallets stacked with barrels of fuel slammed into the ground, lost or badly damaged—"burned in," as crews say.

"That's the cost of doing business," said Lt. Col. Bill Willson, the squadron's commander.

A single airdrop represents the tail end of a complex supply chain. The U.S. military has multiple routes to keep supplies delivered to landlocked Afghanistan, and had been working to reduce dependence on supply routes that go through Pakistan before last month border closing.

Besides air drops and Pakistani delivery routes, the U.S. military can transport cargo overland through a road and rail network called the Northern Distribution Network, which brings non-lethal supplies in through Central Asia.

But some supplies—certain kinds of weaponry or other sensitive cargo—must be moved by air.

And that means Air Force planes will keep burning more fuel, and their crews will keep flying long hours.

"If you want us to drop something on a postage stamp, by God we'll do it," said Maj. Richard Carter, a C-17 pilot, on a recent cargo flight to Afghanistan. "But there's only so many crews."

U.S.'s Afghan Headache: $400-a-Gallon Gasoline - WSJ.com

Fighting Privatization, #Occupy Activists at #CUNY and #UC Kick Into High Gear #2011was

2011-12-21T12:00:00.000-08:00

Fighting Privatization, Occupy Activists at CUNY and UC Kick Into High Gear
Josh Eidelson December 16, 2011
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Every afternoon last week, students, teachers, and neighbors gathered to hold classes on UC Berkeley’s Sproul Plaza. Everyone was welcome. They sat on the ground, or on what are now called the Mario Savio Steps. Topics included the economics of debt, the poetry of persecution, and Chilean student movement. There has also been a massage train and a gospel chorus. “There are no walls,” said graduate student Michelle Ty, “And it’s free.” You could call it a public university. The irony, not lost on these students or their East Coast counterparts, is that they’re supposed to already have one.

About the Author

Josh Eidelson
Josh Eidelson is a Nation intern and a contributor to The American Prospect, Dissent and Alternet. After...
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Workers at a port in Washington State are reviving strike tactics that have become nearly extinct in American labor struggles—and they may just win.

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The Land of Goodbyes: Emigration Through the Eyes of Those Who Stay Behind
A new project documents how residents in Zapotitlan Palmas, in Oaxaca, Mexico, are trying to create meaningful oportunities to keep their young people from emigrating.

Josh Eidelson
The University of California (UC) and the City University of New York (CUNY) are both massive public university systems, long points of pride for their respective states. Together they claim over two million graduates. And now, as administrators declare there’s no alternative to austerity, they’re both occupied. Though these occupations draw tactics and momentum from the Occupy movement, their lineage is as mixed as Zuccotti Park’s: international anti-austerity activism, struggles for graduate student unionization and union democratization, student occupations of decades past. As winter—and police raids—set in, universities are becoming an increasingly important face of occupied America. How is occupying a public university different from occupying Wall Street? For one, few of the occupiers want their schools abolished.

UC

UC Davis graduate student Nickolas Perrone recently joined fellow activists on a trip to the Bay Area to visit the private companies, like Bank of America, where the regents of the UC system work. Though the regents (and leading California Democrats) have blamed the current tuition hikes on the Great Recession, students say the regents have been pushing privatization on their public university for a long time.

In the decade leading up to 2007, the UC system's management positions grew four times as quickly as its faculty. In 2004, the chancellors signed an agreement with then-Governor Schwarzenegger to seek private donations to the system's budget. Berkeley's chancellor paid Mitt Romney's old consulting firm, Bain & Company, $7.5 million to help the university "achieve [greater] efficiency." Berkeley Law School Dean Christopher Edley has called for Berkeley to build more virtual campuses, rather than "bricks and mortar" ones.

Nowhere is the close relationship between California's public universities and private corporations more apparent than in the UC Board of Regents. UC Regent Richard C. Blum is both the husband of Democratic California Senator Dianne Feinstein and the Chairman of the San Francisco-based investment firm Blum Capital Partners. Though he has served on the board since 2002, his firm is also the largest shareholder in Career Education Corporation and ITT Education Services Inc., two for-profit higher education companies that have both been under federal investigation. In a 2010 expose, the Sacramento News & Review reported that the UC investment managers invested $53 million in public funds in both companies. Despite these connections, UC officials claim that no conflicts of interest occurred.

“What’s at the heart of the privatization,” says Berkeley graduate student Megan Wachpress, “is a bringing in of the market logic, and the kind of exploitations and the inequalities associated with the market…into parts of life and relationships that we used to see as parts of our responsibility as co-citizens.”

The UC system’s last wave of anti-privatization activism was two years ago, when regents announced a round of tuition hikes. Though unsuccessful in the short term, those efforts built the groundwork for a reform slate to oust the leadership of UAW Local 2865, the graduate student employees union. The transformed Local 2865 has been at the forefront of the new occupation movement.

General assemblies began at Berkeley in October, and the un-walled classrooms (the “open university”) soon followed. Berkeley administrators responded with a November 9 police crackdown, and a prohibition against camping, sleeping, or over two hours a day of amplified noise. Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau further inflamed students with his declaration that linking arms “is not non-violent.” Faculty condemned the administration’s actions in a near-unanimous vote November 28th. Opposition to police violence at Berkeley helped galvanize UC Davis students for what would become the most famous confrontation of the student movement to date.

Sophomore Shannon Giamichele checked out Occupy UC Davis for the first time out of concern over planned tuition hikes. She took part in a November 20 general assembly, after which students complied with a university order to remove their tents. After seeing some friends arrested for refusing to clear their bodies from the quad as well, Giamichele joined a seated human chain occupying the space. “At some point we just heard people in the crowd saying, ‘Cover, cover, cover! They’re gonna shoot!’” Police in riot gear sprayed Giamichele and others with pepper spray. “It felt like a lot of fires burning.” Because of her asthma, Giamichele’s doctor has told her she can’t go back to the quad until her lungs have healed.

That night, hundreds of students waited hours for their chancellor to emerge from a building, and then stared in silent judgment as she walked to her car. The next day they held an unprecedented rally. Two weeks later was a statewide Regents meeting. Students say such meetings are often held at Davis because it’s been a relatively placid campus. This time the regents met by teleconference, as students rallied throughout the UC system and Davis held a student strike. Saturday night, activists from Berkeley, Davis, and other campuses met and formed a proposal to occupy the California state capital in March.

Facing police violence has been a transformative experience for students. “They didn’t make us feel safe at all,” says Giamichele, “they hurt us.” But it hasn’t made them give up on government. Asked whether being pepper-sprayed by UC Davis police changed her view of the state, Giamichele responds, “It affected my view of the police officers who did it…It honestly really made me feel that we don’t have a need for police on our campus.” Reflecting on the Berkeley beatings, Ty says there were “just so many absurdities…we knew we would be beaten if we were to try to give expression to the idea that it is not OK to privatize the university.” Perrone sees police violence less as an indictment of government than as a sign of the private sector’s encroachment. “For administrators who are intent [on] privatization, they want to create safe spaces for corporate investment.”

Among the country’s occupations, Berkeley’s has produced perhaps the most comprehensive set of demands, local (replacement of administrators through campus-wide election), statewide (affirmative action), and national (bailout public services and schools). Those demands passed Occupy Cal’s General Assembly by an 83 percent vote, though there were vocal dissenters. Wachpress says the lineage of university-focused fights helps explain Occupy Cal’s comfort with directing demands at the government, though she credits anarchism with inspiring some of Occupy Cal’s signature tactics, like the open university. At a public university, says Perrone, “there’s a level of accountability that’s not there with privatizing everything. There’s also a sense of ownership.”

Ty sees engaging the state as more of a pragmatic necessity. But she adds that authorities’ responses—insisting to speak to spokespeople, barring tents, unleashing violence—have shown the limits of representative democracy alone.

CUNY

For CUNY Baruch junior Denise Romero, Occupy CUNY is the newest front in a history of activism in defense of public services. Like many Occupy Wall Street organizers, she had helped organize Bloombergville, a pre-OWS summer encampment meant to dramatize the impact of the mayor’s proposed budget cuts. Citing her public transportation, public libraries, and public health insurance as well as public education, Romero says “those services have been how I have lived my entire life.” Now she sees them under attack – CUNY included.

Last year, CUNY touted the creation of a waiting list for applicants as a way not only to “manage the surge of students,” but also to “make CUNY more selective in the process.” After last year’s defeat of a “Public Higher Education Empowerment and Innovation Act” that would have allowed trustees to raise tuition without legislative approval and to institute differential pricing by type of degree, newly-elected Governor Andrew Cuomo shepherded and signed legislation freeing the trustees to raise tuition by $300 for each of the next five years.

Like UC Davis, CUNY Baruch has traditionally been a less political campus than its peers. Baruch activists–many of them from Students for a Free CUNY–held their first general assembly in a lobby there in November, with twenty people and a goal of raising awareness about the proposed tuition hikes. By that point, CUNY students had become a frequent presence at Occupy Wall Street actions, and there were regular CUNY-wide general assemblies underway. Like Davis, Baruch was thrust into the spotlight by police violence.

Students showed up November 21 to what was advertised as a public hearing with administrators, only to be turned away by police claiming–despite video evidence–that the meeting was full. Some students sat down with the intention of holding their own public meeting in the lobby. “That’s when the NYPD just kind of formed a wall of batons and started pushing students out,” says Romero. She watched a friend who had recently had throat surgery hit with a baton in the throat. Students above started throwing books and newspapers down at the police.

“I was completely surprised when they would rush the students like that,” says Baruch junior Mona Khalil. Before she got involved with OWS and Students for a Free CUNY, Khalil’s main project was a Baruch organization aiming to “find anyone who is remotely politically interested” and get them active–about anything.

A week after the lobby showdown, as UC students were demonstrating on their campuses during their regents’ teleconference, their CUNY counterparts were marching through downtown Manhattan to the Baruch campus, where CUNY’s Board of Trustees was voting to approve the five-year schedule of tuition hikes authorized by Cuomo. To Romero, the trustees’ vote was confirmation that the public institution’s stewards aren’t acting in the public interest. “They come from the private sector. They believe that’s the way that public administration should be run.”

Romero’s observation is damning. But it also speaks to the depth of the challenge facing the public university occupations: saving the public—public space, public interest, public institutions—from publicly-appointed privatizers. The conversation may be simpler in some ways at private universities like New York University, where graduate student Dacia Mitchell hopes Occupy Wall Street will help expose the university as a greedy corporation busting her union rather than a public citizen.

It’s easy to debunk the idea that a governor’s election itself justifies whatever his appointees want to do. But it’s harder to build a governance system that will protect public resources from being sold off to the private sector or marshaled against the public in defense of the 1 percent. Some classmates would charge that fighting the privatization of public goods misses the point – that capture of government by private interests is inevitable, and whatever you entrust to a bureaucrat will show up in the hands of a businessman. And yet true anarchists set on abolishing the state seem an even smaller minority among public university occupiers than among their Occupy Wall Street counterparts. Why?

Part of the answer lies in students’ relationship to the university. Even as they break down the ways in which its public nature has eroded, they don’t speak as though it’s something alien. “For a lot of us,” says Romero, “CUNY is kind of our home.” They talk less like they’re outsiders than like their administrators are. Asked whether CUNY could serve the role of a public university without government, Khalil says it couldn’t.

The ease with which public appointees let the public be brutalized or bought hasn’t led many students to give up on government. But it is spurring a sense that representative democracy is insufficient. “While we’re pushing for the preservation of public services and public goods,” says Romero, “we want it to be controlled by the public and not necessarily governments and cities.” That doesn’t mean abolishing government, but it means more “grassroots direct democracy…that balances out the government role.”

As shared, flawed, local institutions that pride themselves on free exchange of ideas, universities may be particularly fertile ground for the fusion of large and small goals: giving students a vote on who governs them; running public services through participatory economics. Many of the students involved see fixing the governance problem at the federal level as a thornier challenge than tackling it locally and within the university, where a General Assembly or an Open University offers a hopeful model. “There need to be more [public] spaces created,” says Romero, “but we do have them. We need to protect them.”

Josh Eidelson December 16, 2011

Fighting Privatization, Occupy Activists at CUNY and UC Kick Into High Gear | The Nation

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