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Saturday, February 17, 2007 |
CommonDreams: "There is a 'mystery' we must explain: How is it that as corporate investments and foreign aid and international loans to poor countries have increased dramatically throughout the world over the last half century, so has poverty? The number of people living in poverty is growing at a faster rate than the world's population. What do we make of this?
"The IMF operates in secrecy with a select group of bankers and finance ministry staffs drawn mostly from the rich nations.
The World Bank and IMF are supposed to assist nations in their development. What actually happens is another story. A poor country borrows from the World Bank to build up some aspect of its economy. Should it be unable to pay back the heavy interest because of declining export sales or some other reason, it must borrow again, this time from the IMF.
But the IMF imposes a 'structural adjustment program' (SAP), requiring debtor countries to grant tax breaks to the transnational corporations, reduce wages, and make no attempt to protect local enterprises from foreign imports and foreign takeovers. The debtor nations are pressured to privatize their economies, selling at scandalously low prices their state-owned mines, railroads, and utilities to private corporations.
They are forced to open their forests to clear-cutting and their lands to strip mining, without regard to the ecological damage done. The debtor nations also must cut back on subsidies for health, education, transportation and food, spending less on their people in order to have more money to meet debt payments. Required to grow cash crops for export earnings, they become even less able to feed their own populations.
So it is that throughout the Third World, real wages have declined, and national debts have soared to the point where debt payments absorb almost all of the poorer countries' export earnings - which creates further impoverishment as it leaves the debtor country even less able to provide the things its population needs."
11:59:31 AM 
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BringItOn: "What a day for Alaskan politicians. First was news of Senator Ted Stevens and his online predator bill that is really just a disguised attack against the free exchange of information and ideas through the 'internets'.
Then, the state's lone Congressman, Don Young, used his five minutes of floor time during the Iraq Surge Resolution debate to slander the good name of President Abraham Lincoln by attributing the following quote to him (video available at the link):
'Congressmen who willfully take action during wartime that damage morale and undermine the military are saboteurs, and should be arrested, exiled or hanged.'
Problem is Lincoln never said that. Or anything even close to it. The misquote was actually penned by historian J. Michael Waller in a press release pushing a book he wrote in 2003. When asked to clarify, Waller said,'The supposed quote in question is not a quote at all, and I never intended it to be construed as one. It was my lead sentence in the article that a copy editor mistakenly turned into a quote by incorrectly inserting quotation marks.'
So what here is most disturbing? An elected official misquoting a great president to push an odious course of action? An elected official too stupid to do some basic fact checking? An elected official basically calling for his colleagues to be arrested, exiled, or hanged? Or a neo-conservative ruled, desperate Republican party that will stoop to the lowest levels possible to make sure that more and more American soldiers will die in Iraq?"
USNews: "With President Bush unable to get much traction so far in moving his agenda through Congress or in improving his job-approval ratings with the public, White House advisers are casting about for ways to jump-start his final two years, including issuing executive orders to get things done without having to ask for support from the Democratic-controlled Congress.
'He should get a list of the executive orders for the last 200 years, as a guide, and choose what he wants to do,' says an informal Bush adviser. One proposal that fiscal conservatives are pushing is to halve all capital-gains taxes, as a way to encourage investment and job creation.
Some conservatives argue that even if Bush somehow regains his political footing, whatever he might work out with the Democratic majority in Congress wouldn't be very good legislation, so he should go the executive-order route and bypass Congress altogether."
Bush is already acting as a de facto dictator. These are not conservatives any longer, they are fascists in the proper sense of the word, right-wing authoritarian politicians.
LATimes: "After four days of contentious debate, the House on Friday repudiated President Bush's decision to send more U.S. troops to Iraq - the first official challenge by the Democratic majority on Capitol Hill to his management of the war.
The nonbinding resolution expressing disapproval of the troop buildup passed 246 to 182, largely along party lines, with 17 Republicans joining 229 Democrats to back what amounts to a rare wartime rebuke of a commander in chief. Voting against it were 180 Republicans and two Democrats."
Even though Nancy Pelosi will only back war funds with certain conditions and has said that Bush lacks the authority to attack Iran, I don't trust the madman in the White House at all. It will take the Joint Chiefs of Staff to prevent him from endangering America altogether.
NebraskansForPeace: "StratCom could be ready to launch a 'massive' aerial attack against the hundreds of nuclear facilities in Iran as soon as the end of this month (February). The possibility of using tactical nuclear weapons to penetrate the reinforced bunkers protecting the Iranian nuclear research facilities is also apparently real.
Today, U.S. Strategic Command in suburban Omaha, Nebraska is the most dangerous place on the face of the earth. Thwarting this wrong-headed and potentially catastrophic assault on Iran by StratCom will require nothing less than a mobilization by the world community. The Bush/Cheney Administration must be publicly challenged in the court of world opinion, and international media coverage of StratCom's leading role is integral to rallying opposition."
The recent secretive (dis)information session by unknown entities showing the 'Iranian' mortar rounds, is based on very suspicious sources.
One of the problems with the American army is that - as in the Roman Empire - the top brass have a financial interest in war.
Playboy: "If you think the Iraq war hasn't worked out very well for anyone, thinkg again. Defense contractors such as Lockheed are thriving, and no wonder: here's the story of how Lockheed's interests - as opposed to those of the American citizenry - set the course of US policy after 9/11.
That's how D.C. works. Many of the people making decisions have been in and out of the same set of revolving doors connecting government, conservative think tanks, lobbying firms, law firms and the defense industry. So strong is the bond between lobbyists, defense contractors and the Pentagon that it is known in Washington as 'the iron triangle'. And this triangle inevitably gets what it wants. Why? Because in the revolving door system, a defense contractor executive can surface as an official in the Department of Defense, from which position he can give lucrative contracts to his former employer, and his prospects for an even better paying job in the private sector brighten. Former aides to members of congress become handsomely paid lobbyists for the companies they were able to help in their position on Capitol Hill. Such lobbyists can spread their corporate-funded largesse to the friendliest members and their aides on the Hill. And so on."
11:49:34 AM
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© Copyright 2008.
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