Month: March 2009

OCEAN PLASTICIFICATION

March 27, 2009: J. Rosencrantz

Plastic pollution is fucking marine life.Charles Moore, who first discovered the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, has a TED talk about the problem:

Moore is also featured in the 12-part vbs.tv documentary, “Garbage Island.” (If you want to cut to the chase, I suggest starting at episode 9. If you want to learn about some of the consequences for human health, see the interview with Dr. Frederick vom Saal.)

One of the many ill consequences of our plastic throwaway culture is this:

On the remote Midway Atoll, according to the L.A. Times, 40% of albatross chicks die, their bellies full of our plastic trash. The BBC covers the story here.

Chris Jordan is an artist who “runs the numbers” on our throwaway culture. Here is an example of his work, “Plastic Bottles, 2007.” It depicts “two million plastic beverage bottles, the number used in the US every five minutes”:

Here is a partial zoom:

And a detail at actual size:

Check out more of his work here.

CONTINUITIES

March 19, 2009: J. Rosencrantz

So far, there are at least 6 legal cases in which Obama’s Department of Justice has embraced Bush’s positions on civil liberties and executive power:

1. I have already posted on Mohamed v. Jeppesen Dataplan, where Obama’s DOJ sought to use the “state secrets privilege” to block (alleged) victims of rendition and torture from suing the transport company used by the CIA.

2. The Obama DOJ again invoked the state secrets privilege in the case of Al-Haramain v. Obama, this time in order to block a judicial ruling on Bush’s illegal surveillance program.

After this argument was rejected by the court Obama appealed again – this time embracing Cheney / Addington theories of executive power and asserting that no court can challenge the President’s decision to withhold classified documents.

Here is Glenn Greenwald’s exegesis:

In the context in which Obama is now invoking this theory, think about what it means:  if, as happened here, the President breaks the law,then he can just label the relevant evidence “classified” and refuse toturn it over to a court which is attempting to rule on the legality of the President’s actions.  Once the President decrees that a court isbarred from reviewing the relevant evidence because the President claims it is “classified,” that’s the end of that.

In both of the above cases, Obama adopted the Bush innovation of using the state secrets privilege to throw out entire lawsuits, rather than just sensitive pieces of evidence.

3. In the case of Al-Marri v. Spagone, Obama’s DOJ successfully blocked a Supreme Court ruling on the legality of Bush’s practice of detaining U.S. residents as “enemy combatants” indefinitely without charges or trial.

They blocked the ruling by finally bringing criminal charges against Al-Marri, and then convincing the Supreme Court that the questions regarding the legality of his 6 year detention were thereby rendered moot.

On the positive side, Al-Marri is finally getting his day in court. Here is a video update from Al-Marri’s lawyer.

4. On top of all of this, last month Obama sided with Bush in asserting that “enemy combatants” held at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan  have no rights to challenge their detention in U.S. courts.

This means that Obama’s promise to close Guantanamo becomes almost irrelevant,since detainees can now just be taken to Bagram for indefinite,extralegal detention. About 600 prisoners are now held at Bagram, and it is about to undergo a $60 million expansion. Bagram threatens to become Obama’s Guantanamo.

5. Then there is the email case,where Obama’s DOJ is siding with the former administration in “trying to kill a lawsuit that seeks to recover what could be millions of missing White House e-mails.”

6. And finally the DNA case,where Obama’s DOJ “turned down a request… to disavow a Bush Administration stance on prisoner’s access to DNA evidence in post-conviction proceedings.”

“SUCCESS” AND “WITHDRAWAL”

March 8, 2009: J. Rosencrantz

Although Candidate Obama recognized that the Iraq War “should never have been authorized and never been waged,” President Obama has learned to speak a language more fitting to the head of the Empire.

Now, Obama praises the war as an honorable fight “against tyranny and disorder” – “a precious opportunity to the people of Iraq.”

And here is Obama’s “withdrawal” plan:  He will remove “combat brigades” over the next 18 months, but leave a “residual force” of 35,000 to 50,000 troops for the purposes of “training, equipping and advising” as well as “targeted counter-terrorism missions.”

And he said nothing about the withdrawal of over 100,000 private contractors and mercenaries now in Iraq.

More: Jeremy Scahill thinks Obama’s Iraq Speech Deserves a Second Look, and Medialens analyzes the new President’s Generic Invader Nonsense.

REASONABLE EXCEPTIONS

March 4, 2009: J. Rosencrantz

The day after his inauguration, Obama set strict rules for people entering his administration:

“If you are a lobbyist entering my administration, you will not be able to work on matters you lobbied on, or in the agencies you lobbied during the previous two years.”

A few days later, Obama issued a “waiver” so that a weapons contractor lobbyist could serve as his Deputy Secretary of Defense, the # 2 man at the Pentagon.

Obama’s Press Secretary explained: “Even the toughest rules require reasonable exceptions.”

The exception in this case went to WIlliam J. Lynn, who had up until his nomination been a lobbyist for Raytheon, the fourth largest weapons contractor in the U.S.  Raytheon received more than $54 billion in Pentagon contracts since Lynn joined the company in the run up to the invasion of Iraq.

Raytheon is a missile supermarket that sells its deadly phalli to countries all over the world.  It produces Sidewinder, Maverick and Patriot missiles, “Bunker Busters” (tainted with Depleted Uranium), and the “Joint Standoff Weapon” (which has been used as a delivery vehicle for civilian killing cluster bombs).

Raytheon is also  associated with toxic waste sites in Boston, Tuscon and St. Petersburg, and has a history of overcharging the government.

Raytheon also made the missile that killed 62 Iraqi civilians in a Baghdad market March 2003.

ANOTHER COCKSUCKER COP: PAUL SCHENE

March 1, 2009: J. Rosencrantz

More details here. An interview with the girl and her father here.