Tag: Economics

GOLPISTAS EN HONDURAS, PART II

November 5, 2009: J. Rosencrantz

Since they ousted President Zelaya in a military coup four months ago, the now de facto government in Honduras has suppressed their opponents with arrests and sonic warfare and brutal beatings and assassinations.

They have also officially suspended the rights of free speech and free assembly, and have shut down media that they don’t themselves control. Pro-Coup media have of course continued to operate, with one newspaper literally photoshopping the blood from images of wounded protesters and another delivering images of protesters to the police.

The coup government’s strategy has been to run out the clock until after the elections scheduled for November 29, which they would of course “win” and therefore achieve “legitimacy”.

Meanwhile the Obama administration has largely dithered as the coup government moved to consolidate its power, but under international pressure has managed to negotiate an agreement with the oup government to “restore democracy”, which, according to The Nation’s Greg Grandin, the golpistas explicitly seek to ignore:

Hardliners in the coup government… see a loophole in the accords, which gives the Honduran National Congress the power toapprove or reject Zelaya’s return. And no sooner was the ink dry on the accord than a top Micheletti adviser, Marcia Facusse de Villeda, told Bloomberg News that “Zelaya won’t be restored.” In a barefaced admission that the coup government was trying to buy time, Facusse said that“just by signing this agreement we already have the recognition of the international community for the elections.” Another Micheletti aide,Arturo Corrales, said that since the congress is not in session, no vote on the agreement could be scheduled until “after the elections.”
Grandin goes on to enumerate what rides on even a symbolic restoration of Zalaya to power before the November 29 elections.

Other good resources on this story:

The Real News Network, which has been producing short videos about the conflict since it started; The Guardian UK, which often has compelling slide shows; and Al Jazeera, which has produced a great investigative film about the Honduran crisis for its Fault Lines series, hosted by Avi Lewis.

Lewis questions many of the major local players as well as those people in the street who have lost loved ones in the violence. I highly recommend it: Part 1 and Part 2.

YOUR DIRTY ASS

October 12, 2009: J. Rosencrantz

According to Allen Hershkowitz, a senior scientist at the Natural Resources Defence Council (NRDC), more than 98% of the toilet roll sold in America comes from virgin wood.

“But fluffiness comes at a price,” according to the New York Times:

…millions of trees harvested in North America and in Latin American countries, including some percentage of trees from rare old-growth forests in Canada. Although toilet tissue can be made at similar cost from recycled material, it is the fiber taken from standing trees that help give it that plush feel, and most large manufacturers rely on them.

This is a largely consumer driven problem, especially in the United States. From the Guardian:

Dave Dixon, a [Kimberly-Clark] spokesman, said toilet paper and tissue from recycled fibre had been on the market for years. If Americans wanted to buy them, they could.

“For bath tissue Americans in particular like the softness and strength that virgin fibres provides,” Dixon said. “It’s the quality and softness the consumers in America have come to expect.”

The L.A. times covers the story here, Alternet here.

To see a slide show of the destruction of the North American Boreal forest by the paper industry, click here.

To see an interactive map of the Earth’s last remaining virgin forests, go here.

You can see the NDRC’s ranking of toilet paper companies here, and Greenpeace’s ranking here.

Or to clean your ass in another way, consider this or this.

BREAKFAST

October 9, 2009: J. Rosencrantz

More information here.

G20 PITTSBURG

September 30, 2009: J. Rosencrantz

As the global oligarchs met in Pittsburg to discuss how best to preserve their failed system, local and imported police used aerosol tear-gas hand-grenades, pepper spray, batons and rubber bullets against citizens exercising their by now merely theoretical (and in any case carefully portioned out) right to peaceful assembly.

The porcine mercenaries did not limit themselves to such traditional weapons of authoritarian order, however. In addition, they broke the domestic cherry of a new weapon in the fight against democracy, a weapon previously reserved for Iraqi insurgents or Somali pirates: the Long Range Acoustic Device, or LRAD.

(This device had previously been on standby, but not used, in New York during the 2004 Republican National Convention and at town hall meetings in San Diego earlier this month.)

Manufactured by the American Technology Corporation, the LRAD projects sound waves in such a way that they become amplified and directional.

Here is an informative clip from a “Future Weapons” episode on Discovery, where LRAD inventor Woody Norris describes the device:

“It is like putting on handcuffs,” he says. “You drop what you’ve got and you cover your ears.”

If that doesn’t work and people keep peacefully marching toward you, you can “flip it into high gear, and the output increases by about 5,000 times per setting of the volume control.”

Which can, you know, blow your eardrums.

“It is like having bullets where you have a volume control,” says the proud inventor.

Video here and here…

And here is a list of some other “crowd control” weapons to watch out for…

And here is another thoughtful take on the Pittsburg G20.

BUT ONE BRAND AMONG MANY…

September 10, 2009: J. Rosencrantz

The cover story of the current issue of Mother Jones has thrown increased attention on the FIJI water corporation’s environmental impact, as well as its political impact on its island nation host.

While investigating the story, their reporter Anna Lenzer was detained by the FIJI police and claims she was threatened with imprisonment and rape. (She is interviewed here.)

The upshot of the story is this: Despite the company’s absurd claim that consuming their product is actually good for the environment, the FIJI Water Corporation runs diesel powered factories that use twice the plastic as most other brands, legitimizes the military dictator ship that gained power in FIJI by coup in 2006, and hides its profits in tax havens while the local Fijian people drink dirty water and suffer from typhoid outbreaks.

While there is no reasonable way to argue that drinking imported water from plastic bottles is environmentally sound, the political issues, to be fair, are more complex.

The Fiji water company itself tries to defend itself here, allowing comments, and Mother Jones is hosting an online debate addressing whether Fiji Water really does legitimize the military dictatorship.

And the context of the 2006 coup and its dictatorship is also complex. Fiji has experienced several coups in the past decade, pitting the Native Methodist majority against the Indian Hindu minority, and the current dictator “Frank” Bainimarama seeks to end what he sees as institutional racism against the minorities as he takes draconian control of the local media. See Bainimarama interviewed here.

Of course, FIJI water is but one brand among many.  All of the bottled water companies are environmentally unsound and they each have their own particular wet regrets as well.

But on the other hand, not all tap water is trustworthy. You don’t even want to bathe in the tap water near the coal companies of West Virginia. Lack of regulation of polluters was a hallmark of the Bush years, and it doesn’t look like Mr. Change is going to do much better.

DEALING WITH BIG PHARMA

August 11, 2009: J. Rosencrantz

(PhRMA = Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America)

The NYT reported that the White House struck a deal with PhRMA where the government would give up its power to negotiate for lower drug prices in exchange for PhRMA’s support for a “healthcare reform” bill.

Then PhRMA authorized its lobbyists to launch a $150 million ad campain in support of “healtcare reform” while Obama’s campaign promises to break PhRMA’s control of drug prices have been erased from the health care page at mybarackobama.com.

William Greider called the deal an outrageous concession and Robert Reich argued that such deals threaten democracy.

Now, in the face of such criticism, anonymous White House officials are denying that a such a deal was made, and as everybody knows there is nothing more trustworthy than an anonymous White House official, so there is probably nothing to see here. Move along.

UPDATE 08/13/09: No, wait, it turns out that they are liars after all. I’m so surprised.

FOR PROFIT HEALTH “CARE”

July 27, 2009: J. Rosencrantz


The basic problem with the U.S. healthcare system is as clear as can be: Private insurance companies are corporations motivated exclusively by profits for their shareholders, not by concern for the well being of their “customers”.

And while the basic facts of this broken U.S. system are impossible to hide – 43.6 million citizens are uninsured, those with insurance are routinely denied care, when insurers deign to pay for treatment, they interfere with doctor expertise – mainstream corporate media and insurance company bitches in Congress have done what they can to silence advocates of the most appropriate solution to these problems: A Universal, Single Payer system.

ABC, for example, went as far as to dis-invite Obama’s longtime former doctor David Scheiner from it’s prime-time forum. (You can hear Dr. Scheiner rail against his former patient in this spirited interview.)

Obama’s former doctor may not get to ask him questions anymore, but executives from private insurance companies get to have long private discussions with him. In another instance of CONTINUITY, the Obama White House has refused to release a FOIA request for a list of health industry executives who have been visiting the President to advise him on health reform. As a candidate, Obama promised transparency and said that he would invite C-SPAN cameras in to document the healthcare reform process. Now, he invokes Bush arguments and practices opacity.

Candidate Obama was a proponent of Single Payer, but now Mr. Yes We Can thinks it is politically impossible – despite the fact that polls suggest a majority of U.S. Americans are open to the idea.

Last Tuesday, Obama admitted that Single Payer would be the only way to cover everybody, but healthcare reform is now in the hands of Congress, where they work out the details of a “public option” that is toothless enough to protect private insurers from their overdue demise…

Here is a discussion about healthcare reform on Bill Moyers’ most recent Journal.

And here is the actor Ronald Reagan on the subject:

GOLPISTAS EN HONDURAS

July 1, 2009: J. Rosencrantz

On Sunday, in another instance of the conflict between neo-liberals and Bolivarians in South and Central Ameica, democratically elected Honduran President Manuel Zelaya (above right, in white shirt) was arrested and sent into exile in a military coup.

The Obama Administration has joined the European Union and the Organization of American States in condemning the coup, but, as the NYT points out:

The United States has a history of backing rival political factions and instigating coups in the region, and administration officials have found themselves on the defensive in recent days, dismissing repeated allegations by President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela that the C.I.A. may have had a hand in the president’s removal.
…
The United States has long had strong ties to the Honduras military and helps train Honduran military forces. Those close ties have put the Obama administration in a difficult position, opening it up to accusations that it may have turned a blind eye to the pending coup. Administration officials strongly deny the charges, and Mr. Obama’s quick response to the Honduran president’s removal has differed sharply from the actions of the Bush administration, which in 2002 offered a rapid, tacit endorsement of a short-lived coup against Mr. Chávez.

Coup leaders General Romeo Vasquez and General Luis Javier Prince Suazo (above left) have both studied at the infamous U.S. based School of the Americas, now re-branded Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation.

Moreover, the U.S. has a significant military presence in Honduras. Rebel Reports points out that Joint Task Force Bravo is stationed at Soto Cano Air Force Base, Honduras (pictured above left). The U.S. is also a top trading partner for Honduras.

Despite condemning the coup, according to DN, the Obama Administration “is refusing to apply any tangible pressure on Honduras. After Obama spoke, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the US isn’t ready to formally declare the ouster a military coup, which would force a cut off of millions of dollars in aid. Clinton also refused to explicitly commit to seeking the democratically elected Zelaya’s return, saying only the US wants to restore what she called “full democratic and constitutional order.”

Ostensibly, the coup was a reaction by the military, the legislative and the judicial branches of the Honduran government against Zelaya’s attempt to carry out a non-binding referendum to extend his term of office.

Here is an essay that gets into the legalese and argues that things are not so simple. Counterpunch has an excellent essay by Nikolas Kozloff placing the coup in the larger context of Zelaya’s move to the left as well as his criticisms of U.S. foriegn policy. Today’s broadcast of Democracy Now focuses on the coup in Honduras, and includes an interview with Kozloff.

Golpistas en Honduras have until this weekend to restore deposed president Zelaya to power, or face suspension from the Organization of American States, and Chavez has threatened military action if his envoy to Honduras is kidnapped or killed.

Look at raw photos of the clashes here and here and here.

U.S. PERU FREE TRADE AGREEMENT

June 17, 2009: J. Rosencrantz


While world attention has been focused on the shit going down in Iran, another dynamic of protest and state oppression has been taking place in the Peruvian Amazon.

Some background from Democracy Now:

Since April, indigenous groups have opposed new laws that would allow an unprecedented wave of logging, oil drilling, mining and agriculture in the Amazon Rainforest by blocking roads, waterways and oil pipelines. President [Alan] Garcia’s government passed these laws… to facilitate implementation of the U.S.-Peru Free Trade Agreement.

On June 5 Peruvian National Police attacked one of these roadblocks, firing upon the spear-wielding natives and killing at least 31, including 3 children.

President Garcia [pictured above, on the right] showed concern for those who were slaughtered by state police for protecting their ancestral homeland in the Amazon:

“These people are not first class citizens. Forty thousand natives think they can tell 28 million Peruvians they don’t have the right to come around here? There is no way. That is a serious mistake. And whoever thinks that way will lead us into irrationality and a backward primitive state.”

Nine police were killed in the clashes that followed, and President Garcia lamented the deaths of these “humble policemen” who had “a will for dialogue” and “no desire to fire their weapons.”

Meanwhile, Amazon Watch has relayed eyewitness accounts of humble policemen disappearing bodies to hide the death toll among those with whom they have a will for dialogue.

Following the deadly clashes, Peruvian indigenous leader Alberto Pizango [pictured above, bottom left] has been granted asylum in Nicaragua and the Peruvian Congress has suspended the land laws, and then protesters in towns and cities across Peru took to the streets in support of native Amazonians, and even the Prime Minister of Peru has announced his plans to resign.

The NYT reports that the indigenous protesters are girding for a long fight.

Real News Network has video here, Al-Jazeera has video here. AmazonWatch has more photos here.

UPDATE JUNE 19th: In a rare victory for indigenous groups, the Peruvian Congress voted to revoke the offending land laws.

COAL, MOUNTAINTOP REMOVAL AND YOU

May 31, 2009: J. Rosencrantz

In mid-May, Obama’s EPA cleared 42 of 48 new mountaintop removal mining permits.

The practice of mountaintop removal is attractive to the coal industry because it doesn’t require as much labor as traditional mining does, so they don’t have to pay as many workers. They simply blow the mountain up to get to the seams of coal inside.
But these corporate profits translate into public misery. One million acres of the central and southern Appalachian Mountains have been destroyed, including about one thousand miles of streams.

In the process, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council, “Mining companies are clear cutting thousands of acres of some of the world’s most biologically diverse forests. They’re filling local rivers and streams with blasted debris, polluting drinking water with toxic waste and sacrificing the safety and sanctity of countless communities.”

Here is a satellite collage of Boone and Logan Counties, West Virginia, in the Reagan years compared with the same area as the tanks rolled into Baghdad two decades later:

The intrepid Morgan Spurlock, by the way, spends 30 Days as a coal miner, and you can watch a clip addressing mountain top removal here.

And if you want to find your own electric connection to mountain top removal, here is a useful tool.

(I typed in my own downtown L.A. zip code and found that yes, indeed, I am complicit in the mountaintop removal process as a customer of the Los Angeles DWP, which is the the biggest customer of Intermountain Power Agency, which purchases coal from companies engaged in mountaintop removal mining.)