Monday, July 27, 2009

Sgt. Crowley: The Cracker-Jack Policeman

DHS Coordinates National Level Exercise to Prevent Terrorist Attacks with Federal, State, Local Tribal, Private Sector, and International Partners

Source: DHS

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will launch on Monday the five-day National Level Exercise 2009 (NLE 09)—the first national level exercise to focus on terrorism prevention—in conjunction with federal, state, local, tribal, private sector and international partners.

"Coordinating with our partners across the United States and around the world is critical to protecting the nation from terrorist attacks," said Secretary Janet Napolitano. "The National Level Exercise allows us to test our capabilities in real-time to refine and strengthen our strategies for preventing terrorist attacks."

The Congressionally mandated exercise—directed by the White House and coordinated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)—promotes intelligence and information sharing between and among federal, state, tribal, local, private sector and international participants. The NLE 09 scenario focuses on preventing a terrorist from entering the United States to carry out additional attacks in the aftermath of a terrorist event outside of the country, prioritizing intelligence and law enforcement activities that detect, disrupt and deter preventable terrorist incidents.

http://waronyou.com/topics/dhs-coordinates-nation/

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Franken's first piece of legislation approved by Senate

Measure provides service dogs to vets

By Dennis Lien

That didn't take long.

U.S. Sen. Al Franken's first piece of legislation — a pilot program pairing wounded veterans with service dogs — passed the Senate late Thursday, a day after the Democratic freshman introduced it.

The measure began as a stand-alone bill that was added by unanimous consent to a much-larger Defense Authorization bill. It, in turn, cleared the Senate on an 87-7 vote and will be reconciled with an earlier House version that doesn't contain Franken's initiative.

Franken's press secretary, Jess McIntosh, said the service-dog proposal has broad, bipartisan support. Three of six senators who signed on as co-sponsors, for example, are Republican, including the other lead co-sponsor, Sen. Johnny Isakson of Georgia.

Franken, who was sworn into office July 7 after an eight-month recount and court challenge, said several times he wanted to "hit the ground running'' once he took office.

A well-known lover of dogs, Franken talked to an injured Iraq war veteran at President Barack Obama's inauguration in January and learned about the man's service dog, provided through a nonprofit organization, and the help the dog provided the man.

After doing his own research and finding a need for such a program, Franken proposed the legislation, according to McIntosh. If the program within the Department of Veterans Affairs survives, service dogs would be trained to help physically and mentally wounded veterans.

http://www.twincities.com/politics/ci_12910430

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Gates-Gate’s Potential Fallout

Injustice Everywhere

National Police Misconduct Statistics and Reporting Project

By Packratt

obama I really didn't want to write about what the media has deigned to call Gates-Gate, I figured there was quite enough already written about what appears to be among the least egregious examples of police misconduct of the 105 others we've tracked in our police misconduct news feed since that story first broke on July 20th.

But, there's something that everyone is overlooking in this whole debacle that is much more frightening than the singular case of alleged racial profiling and subsequent arrest on contempt of cop charges that occurred afterward. So I've decided to throw my hat into the circus ring on this one.

It's also something more upsetting that Obama's poor choice of words in response to the incident and the police unions' melodramatic claims of deeply aggrieved feelings over the matter. It's even a bit past the rapid backpedaling that the president has undertaken in response to pressure from police unions and the pending demands from republicans that the president offer public apologies over his choice of words.

No, what's not been discussed is that it's entirely likely that Gates-Gate will cost the US any hope that any of the civil liberties lost in our paranoiac post-9/11 nation would be restored by the "president of hope and change" will be dashed because of the way the president has and will handle this debacle.

See, once the president apologizes, which it's entirely likely that he will after his beer-date with Sgt. James M. Crowley and "Skip" Gates, the president loses any political argument he may have had hopes of using to press for civil rights reforms. But even without a direct apology, the ammunition has already been hand-delivered to anyone who would stand to gain from opposing any civil liberties agenda Obama may have taken on.

If Obama did try to push for restoration of civil liberties or a civil rights initiative to try and deal with racial profiling he would be met with a republican rebuff that can now cite a specific example of where Obama was wrong about the issue of civil rights instead of grasping at straws to show how their opposition to such an agenda wasn't just them being the "party of no" or worst, just plain racist as usual. No, now they have something to grab onto in their opposition, something tangible to point at and say "Obama is weak on crime because…"

But, that's not the only problem Obama's reaction to Gates-Gate has revealed. The other problem now on the table is that Obama likely feels like he has to restore his image of being a friend to the police now that police unions have feigned hurt feelings over Obama's words.

So, it's quite likely that we won't just see an absence of any civil rights platform from Obama during his first term because of this, but it's entirely likely that Obama will overcompensate and try to push a "tough on crime" agenda to show he's down with the police… In other words, it's quite possible that we may see a further reduction of civil liberties in the US, not just a continuation of the already reduced freedoms we already experience.

http://www.injusticeeverywhere.com/?p=432

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HENRY LOUIS GATES, Obama and me.

by Taylor Jones

Yep — this is a cheap shot! I make a living at it, however measly.

But, come to think of it, I have something in common with the esteemed professor Henry Louis Gates: Nineteen years ago, I was held at gunpoint by three policemen right outside my own studio door. And I'm unmistakably white!

The incident started innocently enough, and rather the same way that things unfolded in Cambridge, Massachusetts: There had been a series of break-ins in the neighborhood.

I was living in Augusta, Georgia, at the time. My wife's and my apartment was too small for sufficient studio space, so I rented a large room from an attorney who worked downtown. It was a great space in a big Victorian house. It even had an adjacent bathroom, so I could wash my pens and brushes in peace. At $250-a-month, you couldn't beat the price!

All the houses on the block had been turned into assorted firms and agencies — lawyers, mortgage brokers, government offices. The house next to my landlord's practice served as a parole office. However, some of the private firms were a bit lax about security, and during that hot summer of 1990, a string of burglaries occurred in the neighborhood.

Early during the crime spree, a man entered the law office where I rented my studio, a little after 8:30 in the morning. He grabbed the purse and snatched the necklace from the secretary who came in before the attorney, his legal assistant or I did. After that, the attorney wired the house with an alarm system, but he rarely set it properly. Late one night, some burglar broke a first floor window and crawled inside the house. However, some noise outside the building apparently scared him, so he crawled back out and ran off without stealing anything.

The next morning, the attorney reported the attempted break-in, but only fit a board, unsecured, where the window pane used to be. He planned to repair the window later. At 6:15 p.m. that same afternoon, I got up from my drafting table to get a sip of water from the fountain in the hallway right outside my studio door. Afterward, I looked out the window next to the fountain and saw some cops looking up at me from the parking lot. I didn't think anything of this because, as I mentioned, the law firm was right next to a parole office. Cops often chatted, or cooped in their squad cars, in the lot.

So I returned to my drafting table. Nearly 20 years younger than I am now, I wasn't yet dependent on bifocals, and rarely wore my glasses while drawing. I wasn't wearing them when, ten minutes later, I heard what sounded like someone fiddling with venetian blinds downstairs in the attorney's office. Or maybe it was just the breeze coming through the unsecured window? The noise passed, and I resumed my work.

A few minutes later, I heard some more rustling of the blinds, followed by some shuffling and heavy thuds. Startled by these noises, I got up from my table and stepped into the hallway to see what was going on. My door was only a few feet from the stairway that led down to the parlor and the front entrance to the house.

Suddenly I heard a man shout, "FREEZE!" I glanced down and saw three cops at the bottom of the stairs. However, not wearing my glasses, I wasn't sure whom the cops were shouting at. Fearing there was a burglary in process, I started to duck back into my studio.

"I said, FREEZE." came the voice again. "DON'T MOVE OR WE'LL FIRE!"

Eyeglasses were no longer required. At that instant, I realized the cops were shouting at me! And that their guns were drawn! I froze in my tracks — and although the cops were at the bottom of the stairs, it felt as though the barrels of their firearms were firmly planted in my sternum.

"But…But, I work here!" I blurted, "stupidly" thinking that my rental situation would explain everything.

"SHUT UP!" another officer replied. "Put your hands up, or we'll SHOOT!"

My hands shot up faster than he could finish his sentence. In my right hand I was clutching a Faber-Castell #2B pencil, its point in need of sharpening.

"I've got a pe-pencil in my hand. Should I drop it?"

"QUIT YAMMERING! Keep the hands up, and slowly march down the steps. Don't turn, bend over, or do anything but step."

…I should point out here that I was, and still am, the skinniest person most people have ever seen. At least for someone who isn't either a hostage or terminally ill. And I was "armed" with nothing but a blunt pencil. Were I a violent and deranged criminal, I suppose I could have suddenly run down the steps and tried to gouge one of the officer's eyes with the pencil, being brought down in a hail of gunfire. Instead, I ceased talking and robotically descended the stairway.

Once at the bottom, one of the officers grabbed the dangerous pencil away from me, pulled my right arm around my back and forced me, face-down, to the floor.

"You said you work here, huh?" another office asked? "Where are the keys? NO, don't try to reach for them. Just tell me which pocket?" I told them, right-front, and that the key was used to unlock the door from both inside and out. The officer fished the key case out of my pocket, they stood me on my feet — and, with my right arm still yanked behind me, directed me to the door and said, "Okay — open it!"

I might also point out, here, that one of the three officers was black. They marched me to the front door, which I opened for them. At that point, two more officers came running up the walkway, guns drawn, and surrounded me.

"Ah, forget it — false alarm. Guy works here." One officer turned to me and said, "Tell your boss to fix the window." With that, they turned, laughing amongst themselves, got into their squad cars and drove off. No one offered an apology. Not even a friendly goodbye. I'd been a waste of time and tax-payers' dollars.

I look back on it now like an episode of "Reno 911," only none of the officers was wearing micro-shorts. Nevertheless, I was mightily shaken, and the next day informed the attorney that I would be leaving the studio at the end of the month. I suggested he waive any requirements of the lease agreement and that my security deposit not be forfeited. He immediately agreed.

Still, all these years later, I can't help but wonder: Had I been Aaron McGruder, the great African-American cartoonist and creator of "The Boondocks," would I have been shot when I tried to duck back into my studio?

http://blog.cagle.com/jones/2009/07/26/wazzup-with-henry-louis-gates/

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Child's Depiction of Henry Gates Wins National Award at "Current Events Coloring Contest!"

Freehold, Iowa - Christian children across America were asked to depict the most important issue in America today, as reported on television. They were put in a room with several TV sets, tuned to every major news network. Armed with a box of crayons, a piece of paper, and their own Christian perspective, the kids were given 2-hours to come up with a drawing to be entered into the "Current Events Coloring Contest."

Contest Winner

Grand Prize:

Landover Baptist congratulates William Evans Crenshaw (Billy) from Freehold, Iowa as this year's winner, selected from over 2,000 entries. His Godly portrayal of Liberal Harvard Professor, Henry Gates standing on his porch, terrorizing local Christian police officers is posted above.

Contest winner, Billy Crenshaw receives the Grand Prize - a Mel Gibson signed copy of "The Passion of the Christ" on High Definition Blu-Ray.

http://www.landoverbaptist.org/2009/august/coloringcontest.html

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Report Card on Obama From a New Frontiersman

The List of Negatives Keeps Growing

By WILLIAM POLK

Probably like most of you, I am engaged in a daily attempt to make up my mind about President Obama. I was an early supporter.

And as a former Washington "player," I am aware how difficult is his position. I began to worry when he failed to grasp what I have seen to be the early window of opportunity for a new administration -- the first three months -- when the government is relatively fluid. As the months have flown by, I have seen that there are many positive things, mainly in his eloquent addresses on world problems, notably his speech at the University of Cairo on world pluralism, but also quite a few negative things. With sadness and alarm I find that my list of the negatives keeps on growing.

Among them are the following:

(1) The commitment to the war in "Af-Pak" which (I believe) will cost America upwards of $6 trillion but perhaps only a few hundred casualties since we are relying increasingly on drone bombing. Just the money costs could derail almost everything Obama's supporters hoped and thought his administration would do. That amount of money is roughly half the total yearly income (the GNP) of America. Of course, it will cost Afghanistan far more.

Less dramatic perhaps but more crucial will be the further breakdown of Afghan society, leaving behind when we ultimately get out, an even more demoralized, fractured society and will probably lead to a coup d'etat in Pakistan, further enhancing the danger of war between the South Asian countries. The nominal leaders of Afghanistan (Hamid Karzai) and Pakistan (Asif Ali Zardari), whom we practically appointed and with whom we have chosen to work, are hated by their people and are human monuments to the potential of government corruption. (Drugs, traffic in American arms even to insurgents, shakedowns of citizens, sale of public offices, outright stealing, kidnap for ransom...the list is long and as an old hand, it certainly reminds me of South Vietnam.) We now have a window of opportunity to get out of this looming disaster, but it seems that the President is determined to "stay the course." Fundamental to my worry is that I do not hear anyone around the President or he himself saying things that indicate that they know anything about Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kashmir or India, much less "Pashtunistan", aka The Northwest Frontier. Ignorance is rarely a very rewarding guide.

(Parenthetically, I have recently read the British "how to do it" manual on "Tribal fighting on the Northwest Frontier" by General Sir Andrew Skeen. Skeen spent his life fighting the Pathans. He warned British soldiers back in the 1920s that the Pathans were "the finest individual fighters in the east, really formidable enemies, to despise whom means sure trouble." My copy is the only one I could find on the internet. It survived in a British officers' mess library. I doubt that Messrs Petraeus, McChrystal et al have ever heard of it. It makes more sense than Petraeus's Counterinsurgency Field Manual.)

http://www.counterpunch.org/polk07242009.html

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Casualties of War, Part I: The hell of war comes home

by DAVE PHILIPPS

Before the murders started, Anthony Marquez's mom dialed his sergeant at Fort Carson to warn that her son was poised to kill.

It was February 2006, and the 21-year-old soldier had not been the same since being wounded and coming home from Iraq eight months before. He had violent outbursts and thrashing nightmares. He was devouring pain pills and drinking too much. He always packed a gun.

"It was a dangerous combination. I told them he was a walking time bomb," said his mother, Teresa Hernandez.

His sergeant told her there was nothing he could do. Then, she said, he started taunting her son, saying things like, "Your mommy called. She says you are going crazy."

Eight months later, the time bomb exploded when her son used a stun gun to repeatedly shock a small-time drug dealer in Widefield over an ounce of marijuana, then shot him through the heart.

Marquez was the first infantry soldier in his brigade to murder someone after returning from Iraq. But he wasn't the last.

Hear the prison interviews with Kenneth Eastridge.

Marquez's 3,500-soldier unit — now called the 4th Infantry Division's 4th Brigade Combat Team — fought in some of the bloodiest places in Iraq, taking the most casualties of any Fort Carson unit by far.

Back home, 10 of its infantrymen have been arrested and accused of murder, attempted murder or manslaughter since 2006. Others have committed suicide, or tried to.

Almost all those soldiers were kids, too young to buy a beer, when they volunteered for one of the most dangerous jobs in the world. Almost none had serious criminal backgrounds. Many were awarded medals for good conduct.

But in the vicious confusion of battle in Iraq and with no clear enemy, many said training went out the window. Slaughter became a part of life. Soldiers in body armor went back for round after round of battle that would have killed warriors a generation ago. Discipline deteriorated. Soldiers say the torture and killing of Iraqi civilians lurked in the ranks. And when these soldiers came home to Colorado Springs suffering the emotional wounds of combat, soldiers say, some were ignored, some were neglected, some were thrown away and some were punished.

Some kept killing — this time in Colorado Springs.

http://www.gazette.com/articles/iframe-59065-eastridge-audio.html

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Human Rights Activists Demand Parole For Peltier

By Fran Korotzer

(Photo: Bud Korotzer / NLN)

NEW YORK — On Friday, July 17, 75 people gathered at the Judson Memorial Church in N.Y.C. for a concert and discussion about Leonard Peltier, a man who has spent the past 33 years in prison despite the fact that very many people believe him to be innocent. Peltier will have a parole hearing on July 28.

The evening began with an opening prayer in the Lakota language from Tiokasin Ghosthorse and with music he played on his flute. There were musical performances from David Lippman, Grupo Raices, and David Amran. Rolando Victorio Mousaa read a letter that Pete Seeger wrote to the parole board on Peltier's behalf — and then sang a song that Seeger had asked him to sing. Lady Penumbra and Ty Conscious recited poetry that Peltier wrote. There was an audiotape played of an interview with Eric Seitz, a parole attorney, and several videos were viewed: Leonard Crowdog on Peltier, No Boundaries by Peter Matthiesen, and Wounded Knee by Dennis Banks. Attorney Lynne Stewart spoke very favorably of the kind of person Peltier is. She said that Mumia and Leonard are held in prison to scare the rest of us out of fighting injustice. Peltier's current attorney, Mike Kuzma, said that efforts to get files on the case from the FBI using the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) were being stonewalled either by the FBI or the courts. There are 1143 pages of FBI documents on the case that remain undisclosed.

(Photo: Bud Korotzer / NLN)

The events that led to Peltier's conviction began in the early 1970s when tensions broke out on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota — between the then tribal chairman Dick Wilson, who was pro-assimilation, and the traditionalists. Wilson was accused of giving economic benefits to the assimilationists and leaving the others in poverty. The growing conflict prompted the traditionalists to band together with the American Indian Movement (AIM), a civil rights group committed to uniting all Native Peoples.

In 1973 local traditionalists and AIM occupied the Pine Ridge hamlet of Wounded Knee to protest the alleged abuses. The government responded by firing 250,000 rounds of ammunition into the area and killing two occupants. The occupation lasted 71 days and only ended after the government agreed to look into their complaints. This never happened and conditions on the reservation worsened. Wilson outlawed AIM and hired vigilantes who called themselves Guardians of the Oglala Nation (GOONs) to enforce his rules.

Singer/songwriter Dave Lippman
(Photo: Bud Korotzer / NLN)

Between 1973 and 1976 anyone associated with AIM was apparently targeted for violence - the net result: over 60 traditionalists were murdered. Rather than stopping the violence, the FBI supplied the GOONs with weaponry and intelligence on AIM.

As the situation worsened the traditionalists asked AIM to return to the reservation. Leonard Peltier was one that answered the call. He and 12 others set up a camp on the Jumping Bull ranch at Pine Ridge.

Civil rights attorney Lynne Stewart
(Photo: Bud Korotzer / NLN)

On June 26, 1975 two FBI agents in unmarked cars pursued a red pick-up truck onto the ranch supposedly looking for someone who had gotten into a fight and stolen a pair of boots. Gunshots rang out. 150 FBI swat team members responded along with Bureau of Indian Affairs police and GOONs. When it was over 1 AIM member and 2 FBI agents lay dead.

Four people were indicted for the deaths of the FBI agents. The charges against one were dropped and 2 were found innocent on the grounds of self-defense. Peltier escaped to Canada where he was apprehended in February, 1976. The FBI presented a Canadian court with an affidavit from a woman named Myrtle Poor Bear who claimed she was Peltier's girl friend and that she had witnessed him shooting the agents. But Poor Bear had never met Peltier, nor had she been present at the time of the shooting - a fact later confirmed by the US Prosecutor and by her subsequent declaration that she had given false testimony.

(Photo: Bud Korotzer / NLN)

There is considerable evidence that Leonard Peltier did not get a fair trial — and the prosecutor failed to produce a single witness that could identify him as the shooter. Still he was sentenced to 60 years in prison - two life sentences.

The history of this case was capsulated from information printed by the Leonard Peltier Defense and Offense Committee (LPDOC): www.whoisleonardpeltier.info

www.nextleftnotes.net
video.nextleftnotes.net

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Documentary sparks uproar at Jewish film fest

by Matthai Kuruvila

The San Francisco Jewish Film Festival has come under siege after deciding to show a documentary about Rachel Corrie, a Washington state 23-year-old killed in 2003 while trying to prevent an Israeli military bulldozer from demolishing a Palestinian's home.

Whether Corrie naively put herself in harm's way in support of terrorists or was intentionally killed by the Israeli military is the nexus of the controversy.

Compounding the issue, festival organizers invited Corrie's mother, Cindy, to speak after today's showing at the Castro Theatre of the film "Rachel." It is one of 71 films at this year's festival, which includes two films profiling kidnapped Israeli soldiers.

The reaction has been outrage. The festival board's president stepped down from her role, opening-night ceremonies were boycotted by some, and Israel Consul General Akiva Tor said it was a "big mistake to invite Mrs. Corrie."

At the core of the debate are questions about how broadly Jews can discuss Israel within their own community - and how Jews represent Israel to the broader world. It is also overlaid with accusations of the "new anti-Semitism," prejudice that is disguised as particular criticisms of Israel, the only Jewish state.

"The furor is much larger than this one film or this one speaker," said Peter L. Stein, the festival's executive director. "It reveals a rift in our community that we all need to help understand and hopefully heal."

Family feud

The 29-year-old festival is the oldest and largest Jewish film festival in the nation, yet it's also like a small family. The film festival's board includes members with close links to both the accusers and those accused of the new anti-Semitism.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/07/25/BAHE18UIR6.DTL

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New Rule: Not Everything in America Has to Make a Profit

by Bill Maher

How about this for a New Rule: Not everything in America has to make a profit. It used to be that there were some services and institutions so vital to our nation that they were exempt from market pressures. Some things we just didn't do for money. The United States always defined capitalism, but it didn't used to define us. But now it's becoming all that we are.

Did you know, for example, that there was a time when being called a "war profiteer" was a bad thing? But now our war zones are dominated by private contractors and mercenaries who work for corporations. There are more private contractors in Iraq than American troops, and we pay them generous salaries to do jobs the troops used to do for themselves -- like laundry. War is not supposed to turn a profit, but our wars have become boondoggles for weapons manufacturers and connected civilian contractors.

Prisons used to be a non-profit business, too. And for good reason -- who the hell wants to own a prison? By definition you're going to have trouble with the tenants. But now prisons are big business. A company called the Corrections Corporation of America is on the New York Stock Exchange, which is convenient since that's where all the real crime is happening anyway. The CCA and similar corporations actually lobby Congress for stiffer sentencing laws so they can lock more people up and make more money. That's why America has the world;s largest prison population -- because actually rehabilitating people would have a negative impact on the bottom line.

Television news is another area that used to be roped off from the profit motive. When Walter Cronkite died last week, it was odd to see news anchor after news anchor talking about how much better the news coverage was back in Cronkite's day. I thought, "Gee, if only you were in a position to do something about it."

But maybe they aren't. Because unlike in Cronkite's day, today's news has to make a profit like all the other divisions in a media conglomerate. That's why it wasn't surprising to see the CBS Evening News broadcast live from the Staples Center for two nights this month, just in case Michael Jackson came back to life and sold Iran nuclear weapons. In Uncle Walter's time, the news division was a loss leader. Making money was the job of The Beverly Hillbillies. And now that we have reporters moving to Alaska to hang out with the Palin family, the news is The Beverly Hillbillies.

And finally, there's health care. It wasn't that long ago that when a kid broke his leg playing stickball, his parents took him to the local Catholic hospital, the nun put a thermometer in his mouth, the doctor slapped some plaster on his ankle and you were done. The bill was $1.50, plus you got to keep the thermometer.

But like everything else that's good and noble in life, some Wall Street wizard decided that hospitals could be big business, so now they're run by some bean counters in a corporate plaza in Charlotte. In the U.S. today, three giant for-profit conglomerates own close to 600 hospitals and other health care facilities. They're not hospitals anymore; they're Jiffy Lubes with bedpans. America's largest hospital chain, HCA, was founded by the family of Bill Frist, who perfectly represents the Republican attitude toward health care: it's not a right, it's a racket. The more people who get sick and need medicine, the higher their profit margins. Which is why they're always pushing the Jell-O.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-maher/new-rule-not-everything-i_b_244050.html

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The End of the Dollar?

by Craig Harrington

The U.S. dollar has been under considerable scrutiny and pressure in the past several months. Treasury Secretary Geithner was laughed at during a June university tour in China when he proclaimed that the American government and dollar were sound and financially stable.

More than one month ago NYU economist Nouriel Roubini discussed the very real prospect that the dollar would soon be replaced as the global reserve currency. At the April 2, 2009 meeting of the G20 in London, People's Bank of China governor Zhou Xiaochuan derided American spending habits and called for an end to the dollar's hegemony.

Governor Xiaochuan called for the International Monetary Fund to use its own basket currency – the Special Drawing Rights (SDR) – as a replacement. He stopped short of declaring that the Chinese yuan should replace the dollar as the dominant global currency – likely because it would instigate a dispute between China and the European Union.

He did clearly state that America's instability, and the risks posed to Chinese-American investments, must be diversified. The suggestion to accomplish this was to expand the SDR to include more currencies – from China, Brazil, and India in particular.

It seems that governor Xiaochuan's call will be heeded by the IMF, at least in part. The IMF will vote August 7th on a measure which, if passed, would increase the volume of SDRs eightfold. In order for the SDR to replace the dollar it would need to dramatically increase its circulation. The first step would be to increase the volume of SDRs, the next step would be allowing organizations other than central banks and government organizations to hold, trade, and exchange them.

Right now the dollar's primary competitor is the euro. The currency of Europe is valued 40 percent higher than that of the United States, and the British pound sterling is typically valued more than 60 percent higher. As the U.S budget inflated and its economy deteriorated, its currency began to fall apart.

It is unclear what the effects of a shift away from the dollar would be. It would likely mean less purchasing power for Americans and relatively more purchasing power for other currencies. However, if the dollar does become weaker it could potentially make foreign buyers more apt to purchase goods produced in the U.S.

http://www.economyincrisis.org/articles/show/3177

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In 1933, the American Press Was Proud that Hitler Adopted Its Propaganda Methods. Nothing Has Changed.

Washington's Blog

In 1933, the American advertising industry proudly and publicly boasted that Hitler was copying their American propaganda techniques.

After Hitler and Goebbels gave a bad name to propaganda, Freud's nephew - psychologist Edward Bernays - simply re-branded propaganda as "public relations" and "professional journalism".

As veteran reporter John Pilger writes:

Bernays, described as the father of the media age, was the nephew of Sigmund Freud. "Propaganda," he wrote, "got to be a bad word because of the Germans . . . so what I did was to try and find other words [such as] Public Relations." Bernays used Freud's theories about control of the subconscious to promote a "mass culture" designed to promote fear of official enemies and servility to consumerism. It was Bernays who, on behalf of the tobacco industry, campaigned for American women to take up smoking as an act of feminist liberation, calling cigarettes "torches of freedom"; and it was his notion of disinformation that was deployed in overthrowing governments, such as Guatemala's democracy in 1954.

Pilger previously addressed "Professional Journalism":

Edward Bernays, the so-called father of public relations, wrote about an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. He was referring to journalism, the media. That was almost 80 years ago, not long after corporate journalism was invented. It is a history few journalist talk about or know about, and it began with the arrival of corporate advertising. As the new corporations began taking over the press, something called "professional journalism" was invented. To attract big advertisers, the new corporate press had to appear respectable, pillars of the establishment-objective, impartial, balanced. The first schools of journalism were set up, and a mythology of liberal neutrality was spun around the professional journalist. The right to freedom of expression was associated with the new media and with the great corporations, and the whole thing was, as Robert McChesney put it so well, "entirely bogus".
For what the public did not know was that in order to be professional, journalists had to ensure that news and opinion were dominated by official sources, and that has not changed. Go through the New York Times on any day, and check the sources of the main political stories-domestic and foreign-you'll find they're dominated by government and other established interests. That is the essence of professional journalism. I am not suggesting that independent journalism was or is excluded, but it is more likely to be an honorable exception. Think of the role Judith Miller played in the New York Times in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. Yes, her work became a scandal, but only after it played a powerful role in promoting an invasion based on lies. Yet, Miller's parroting of official sources and vested interests was not all that different from the work of many famous Times reporters, such as the celebrated W.H. Lawrence, who helped cover up the true effects of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in August, 1945. "No Radioactivity in Hiroshima Ruin," was the headline on his report, and it was false.

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2009/07/in-1933-american-press-was-proud-that.html

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Researchers follow the sewage to test for drugs

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) - Researchers in Washington and Oregon are working on a novel type of community-wide drug testing. They're studying sewage.

The researchers, from the University of Washington and Oregon State University, are doing testing at 10 sites in Oregon and 10 in Washington to measure the concentration of byproducts of cocaine, Ecstasy and methamphetamine use. They can then estimate the daily drug load per person for each community.

Health officials say it could give social scientists, treatment workers and police a more precise look at drug use trends.

"We could combine it with what we already analyze to give us a better picture of illicit drug abuse," said Karen Wheeler, addictions policy and program administrator for Oregon's Department of Human Services. "It's very promising."

Last year, researchers from the UW, OSU and McGill University conducted a one-day sampling at 96 Oregon sewage treatment plants. Ecstasy showed up in 40 percent of the communities tested, cocaine in 80 percent and meth in all of them, from Oregon's smallest towns to its biggest cities, according to results released earlier this month.

The researchers say that because the sampling was just a snapshot of a single day - March 4, 2008 - it's not statistically valuable to compare the communities' average drug use per person. But their current project will take samples from the 20 Oregon and Washington sites over a yearlong period and should provide more valuable data.

Still, the results of the one-day study are a reminder of the popularity of the three destructive stimulants, said Caleb Banta-Green, a drug epidemiologist at the University of Washington's Alcohol and Drug Abuse Institute and the study's lead author.

"Let's stop trying to pretend it's somebody else's problem or a problem somewhere else," Banta-Green said. "There is drug use in every community."

Detailed results from the one-day study, published in the journal Addiction, showed Portland to be among five communities whose estimated daily use hit the top third for all three drugs. So was Rockaway Beach.

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