| |
 |
Friday, January 31, 2003 |
QUOTE OF THE DAY
"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State."
- - Joseph Goebbels, German Minister of Propaganda, 1933-1945
RHINO HERE:
A classified government document obtained by the N.Y. Daily News says Iraq sent spies into the U.S. to organize & fund the anti-war protests. This reminds me of a comment I heard over my shoulder at a recent protest: "In the 60's people took acid to make the world weird. Now the world is weird and people take Prozac to make it normal."
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/wn_report/story/55766p-52218c.html
I was forwarded an article Wednesday that I believe is so important to the understanding of the looming war on Iraq that I've shelved my intended blog for today in favor of urging you to read every word of the following article.
"The Real but Unspoken Reasons for the Upcoming Iraq War;
A Macroeconomic and Geostrategic Analysis of the Unspoken Truth"
W. Clark, Sun Jan 26 '03, Independent Media Center
http://www.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=231238&group=webcast
For those not convinced enough yet to have simply surfed to the above link, I'll offer a few excerpts. Granted the article is long & in depth, but if we as citizens in what hopefully will remain a democracy, don't educate ourselves past the lies we're fed by our governments, then I fear what will befall the nation & the world.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, it expects what never was and never will be ... The People cannot be safe without information. When the press is free, and every man is able to read, all is safe."
- - Thomas Jefferson
Please read the entire article. It'll be time well spent.
8:52:02 AM 
|
|
A few excerpts from:
"The Real but Unspoken Reasons for the Upcoming Iraq War;
A Macroeconomic and Geostrategic Analysis of the Unspoken Truth"
http://www.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=231238&group=webcast
Excerpt #1 "...Although completely suppressed in the U.S. media, the answer to the Iraq enigma is simple yet shocking. The upcoming war in Iraq war is mostly about how the ruling class at Langley and the Bush oligarchy view hydrocarbons at the geo-strategic level, and the overarching macroeconomic threats to the U.S. dollar from the euro. The Real Reason for this upcoming war is this administration's goal of preventing further OPEC momentum towards the euro as an oil transaction currency standard. However, in order to pre-empt OPEC, they need to gain geo-strategic control of Iraq along with its 2nd largest proven oil reserves.
This lengthy essay will discuss the macroeconomics of the"petro-dollar" and the unpublicized but real threat to U.S. economic hegemony from the euro as an alternative oil transaction currency..."
Excerpt #2 "...World trade is now a game in which the US produces dollars and the rest of the world produces things that dollars can buy. The world's interlinked economies no longer trade to capture a comparative advantage; they compete in exports to capture needed dollars to service dollar-denominated foreign debts and to accumulate dollar reserves to sustain the exchange value of their domestic currencies.To prevent speculative and manipulative attacks on their currencies, the world's central banks must acquire and hold dollar reserves in corresponding amounts to their currencies in circulation. The higher the market pressure to devalue a particular currency, the more dollar reserves its central bank must hold. This creates a built-in support for a strong dollar that in turn forces the world's central banks to acquire and hold more dollar reserves, making it stronger.
This phenomenon is known as dollar hegemony, which is created by the geopolitically constructed peculiarity that critical commodities, most notably oil, are denominated in dollars. Everyone accepts dollars because dollars can buy oil. The recycling of petro-dollars is the price the US has extracted from oil-producing countries for US tolerance of the oil-exporting cartel since 1973.
By definition, dollar reserves must be invested in US assets, creating a capital-accounts surplus for the US economy. Even after a year of sharp correction, US stock valuation is still at a 25-year high and trading at a 56 percent premium compared with emerging markets. The US capital-account surplus in turn finances the US trade deficit. Moreover, any asset, regardless of location, that is denominated in dollars is a US asset in essence. When oil is denominated in dollars through US state action and the dollar is a fiat currency, the US essentially owns the world's oil for free. And the more the US prints greenbacks, the higher the price of US assets will rise. Thus a strong-dollar policy gives the US a double win."
Excerpt #3 "...This unique geo-political agreement with Saudi Arabia has worked to our favor for the past 30 years, as this arrangement has raised the entire asset value of all dollar denominated assets/properties, and allowed the Federal Reserve to create a truly massive debt and credit expansion (or "credit bubble" in the view of some economists). These current structural imbalances in the U.S. economy are sustainable as long as:
1)Nations continue to demand and purchase oil for their energy/survival needs
2)The fiat reserve currency for global oil transactions remain the U.S. dollar (and dollar only)
Excerpt #4 "...around 2005, from an economic and monetary perspective, it will be logical for OPEC to switch to the euro for oil pricing. Of course that will devalue the dollar, and hurt the US economy unless it begins making some structural changes - or use its massive military power to force events upon the OPEC states.
Facing these potentialities, I hypothesize that President Bush intends to topple Saddam in 2003 in a pre-emptive attempt to initiate massive Iraqi oil production in far excess of OPEC quotas, to reduce global oil prices, and thereby dismantle OPEC's price controls. The end-goal of the neo-conservatives is incredibly bold yet simple in purpose, to use the "war on terror" as the premise to finally dissolve OPEC's decision-making process, thus ultimately preventing the cartels inevitable switch to pricing oil in euros.
How would the Bush administration break-up the OPEC cartel's price controls in a post-Saddam Iraq? First, the newly installed regime (apparently a U.S. General for the first several months) will convert Iraq back to the dollar standard. Next, with the U.S. military protecting the oil fields, the Bush junta will undertake the necessary steps to rapidly increase production of Iraq oil, quintupling Iraq's current output and well beyond OPEC's 2 million barrel per day quota..."
Final Excerpt "... It would appear that any attempt by OPEC member states in the Middle East or Latin America to transition to the euro as their oil transaction currency standard shall be met with either overt U.S. military actions or covert U.S. intelligence agency interventions. Under the guise of the perpetual "war on terror" the Bush administration is manipulating the American people about the unspoken but very real macroeconomic reasons for this upcoming war with Iraq. This war in Iraq will have nothing to with any threat from Saddam's old WMD program. This war will be over the global currency of oil.
Sadly, the U.S. has become largely ignorant and complacent. Too many of us are willing to be ruled by fear and lies, rather than by persuasion and truth. Will we allow our government to initiate the dangerous "pre-emptive doctrine" by waging an unpopular war in Iraq, while we refuse to acknowledge that Saddam does not pose an imminent threat to the United States? We seem unable to address the structural weakness of our economy due to massive debt manipulation, unaffordable 2001 tax cuts, massive current account deficits, trade deficits, corporate accounting abuses, unsustainable credit expansion, near zero personal savings, record personal indebtedness, and our dependence and over consumption of cheap Middle Eastern oil. How much longer can we reliably import our oil from middle eastern states that dislike or despise us because of our biased foreign policy towards Israel?
Lastly, we must bear in mind Jefferson's insistence that a free press is our best, and perhaps only mechanism to protect democracy, and part of today's dilemma lies within the U.S. media conglomerates that have failed to inform the People..."
RHINO HERE AGAIN:
Again I urge you to click the link below and read the entire article as it contains a wealth of important information in understanding what's going on and what we a citizens need to do to counter the threat to our children's future.
http://www.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=231238&group=webcast
"RHINO'S BLOG" is the responsibility of Gary Rhine. (rhino@kifaru.com)
Feedback, and requests to be added or deleted from the list are encouraged.
SEARCH BLOG ARCHIVES / SURF RHINO'S LINKS, AT:
http://www.rhinosblog.info
RHINO'S OTHER WEB SITES:
http://www.dreamcatchers.org (INDIGENOUS ASSISTANCE & INTERCULTURAL DIALOG)
http://www.kifaru.com (NATIVE AMERICAN RELATIONS VIDEO DOCUMENTARIES)
Articles are reprinted under Fair Use Doctrine of international copyright law.
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html
All copyrights belong to original publisher.
8:34:30 AM
|
|
© Copyright 2005 Gary Rhine.
|
|
