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If Oregon allows GM sugar beets to be deregulated, we may not stand a chance against full federal deregulation of all GM crops.
(SALEM, Ore.) - A public hearing is being held in Corvallis, Oregon this Thursday, November 17th to determine if Genetically Modified sugar beets will be deregulated in Oregon.
Meanwhile, the public comment period maybe just a local distraction giving way to full federal deregulation without any representation of organic and conventional crop farmers.
Let us not forget that the U.S House of Representatives, Committee on Agriculture held a formal hearing on Genetically Modified (GM) Alfalfa on Jan 20, 2011.
The hearing corresponded with an open 30-day comment period, designed to provide relevant testimony with regard to deregulation of Genetically Modified Alfalfa.
The democratic process neglected to include a single organic or conventional farming representative. Throughout the two hour hearing various legislators publicly humiliated the Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsak for even suggesting any compromise through talks with the organic and conventional communities. They all but ordered him to stand down his conversations with anyone but pro-GM enthusiasts (1:43:16).
Representatives left no seed unturned in honor of their allegiance to biotech crops and complete penetration into all foreign and domestic markets. In fact, Minnesota's Representative Collin Peterson referred to organic producers and consumers as "our opponents"[1](12:29).
Vilsak, even with his ties to Monsanto, was attempting negotiation with "so called Option 3" containing a minimal stop gap as an alternative to absolute contamination of organic and conventional alfalfa. In essence, planting barriers would have been implemented to maintain protective measures for the integrity of all seed varieties. Legislators blatantly mocked him and even pulled rank, saying that the Secretary of Agriculture does not have the authority to do anything but fully deregulate the crop without further ado. (35:38, 1:25:50, 1:29:15, 2:18:47)
It can be noted that Vilsak testified no less than three times that we were in the midst of the 30 day comment period, and in his opinion, the talks among all sides were providing necessary elements worthy of analysis for all agricultural markets concerned. (29:00, 1:44:00, 1:51:54)
The theme of the hearing centered around the economic burden of GM farmers if full deregulation didn’t go forth immediately (1:44:00). It was insisted by every representative that their loyalties were to the biotech community and that full deregulation was unquestionable without consideration for any form of barrier to protect other crops from cross contamination.
In regard to preservation of non GM crops, Texas Representative Michael Conaway begs the question, "how much of this is a definitional issue"? He questions organic standards and even insists that he "suspects that Genetically Engineered seeds will become the new organic". He blatantly suggests that legislative steps be considered to modify the language and thus re-define organic standards so that Genetically Modified crops can freely contaminate without restriction. He insists that it is merely a marketing issue and not an issue of health and safety. Conaway asks if we are just "hung up on the phrase organic, meaning something we grew ourselves in the backyard with whatever?"(2:33:00).
Concern was expressed by a number of speakers that GM crops are being promoted throughout the world as being no different than conventional crops, and if word got out that we established restrictive planting barriers, then it might be assumed that the GM crops were somehow different. That could put a damper on GM producers and their marketing potential. (30:45, 1:58:17, 2:18:47)
It was apparent, by the end of one sided discussion, that full deregulation and contamination remains unquestionable from the perspective of our democratic leaders. In other words, it is most notably a flagrant case of Contamination without Representation.
If Oregon allows GM sugar beets to be deregulated, we may not stand a chance against full federal deregulation of all GM crops. Public comments are being heard on Thursday from 4 PM – 9 PM at LaSells Stewart Center Construction and Engineering Hall 875 Southwest 26th St., Corvallis, Oregon.
Please see the full length video of the U.S House of Representatives, Committee on Agriculture forum on GM Alfalfa, Jan 20 2011.
http://agriculture.house.gov/hearings/hearingDetails.aspx?NewsID=1269If Oregon allows GM sugar beets to be deregulated, we may not stand a chance against... more
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President Obama broke his campaign promises in backing Bush-era trade pacts that repeat mistakes of NAFTA
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- With President Obama’s backing, Congress yesterday passed trade agreements with South Korea, Colombia and Panama that are based on the flawed model of the North American Free Trade Agreement.
Erich Pica, president of Friends of the Earth, had the following statement in response:
“President Obama broke his campaign promise by championing these unjust trade deals. The pacts with South Korea, Colombia and Panama will empower big multinational corporations and Wall Street investors to pursue quick profits at the expense of environmental protections, human rights and shared economic prosperity.
“The investment chapters of the three trade deals, which open the door to corporate attacks on environmental protections, are especially alarming. If, for instance, a South Korean uranium mining company thought a U.S. environmental law impinged on its ‘right’ to make profits, it could sue our government through a biased international tribunal, bypassing U.S. courts and threatening to override decisions made through our democratic institutions.
“The passage of the Colombia deal is downright shameful. This deal promises to fuel ongoing armed conflict in Colombia, including intimidation and murder of local activists and union leaders. The deal will also encourage foreign investments in destructive palm oil plantations, mines, oil drilling and other projects designed to exploit Colombia’s natural resources and export the profits overseas. Afro-Colombian and indigenous peoples are at particular risk of displacement.
“As polls demonstrate, Americans understand that current U.S. trade policies are not working in the public interest. As protesters on Wall Street and in other cities across the country challenge the deepening poverty, unemployment and inequality in our country, President Obama has led us toward more of the same.
“President Obama must change course as he negotiates the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement. The Trans-Pacific Partnership, and its investment chapter in particular, must not be based on the same failed and unjust model.”
More at the linkPresident Obama broke his campaign promises in backing Bush-era trade pacts that... more
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Already, more than a thousand people have signed up to be arrested over two weeks beginning Aug. 20 — the biggest display of civil disobedience in the environmental movement in decades and one of the largest nonviolent direct actions since the World Trade Organization demonstrations in Seattle back before Sept. 11. (Among the first 500 to sign up, the biggest cohort was born in the Truman administration, followed closely by FDR babies and Eisenhower kids. These seniors contradict the stereotype of greedy geezers who care only about their own future.)Already, more than a thousand people have signed up to be arrested over two weeks... more
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US aircraft manufacturer Boeing received at least $5.3bn (£3.3bn) in unfair aid from Washington, the World Trade Organization (WTO) has concluded.
The subsidies included money for research and development from the Nasa space agency, a panel of international trade judges has ruled.
Last year the WTO said that Boeing's arch rival Airbus had received illegal aid from European governments.
The two companies have been at war over state aid for almost six years.
The case is one of the most complex ever brought before Geneva-based WTO, which has issued 2,000 pages of rulings
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12925024US aircraft manufacturer Boeing received at least $5.3bn (£3.3bn) in unfair aid... more
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The World Trade Organization has a long history of anti-American actions. They’ve just handed us another one, and in the process handed a big freebie to Chinese state capitalism.
Unbeknownst to most Americans, huge sections of our nation’s trade policy aren’t set in this country anymore. They are set by panels of WTO judges in Switzerland, to whom we have signed over the right to rule on the legitimacy of our policies.
At issue in a WTO ruling handed down last Friday is how much scope the U.S. is entitled to in trying to level the playing field for American companies competing against companies subsidized under China’s system of state capitalism.
The specific products at issue in the ruling are steel tubing, off-road tires, and woven sacks. However, as in domestic legal rulings, the implications go far beyond the immediate subject matter.
Since July 2008, the U.S. has imposed tariffs on $200 million worth of steel pipe imports from China, South Korea, and Mexico.
Why? The American position is that we are entitled to apply what are called “countervailing duties” against products that are subsidized by foreign governments. And on top of that, we are also entitled to apply duties designed to counteract the practice of dumping, or selling a product below cost in order to destroy foreign competitors.
Both these responses on our part have long histories of being accepted as legitimate, both under international trade law and in economics. (This is why the WTO had originally accepted our position; the new ruling is actually the result of an appeal by China.)
In terms of international law, one can trace the legitimacy of our policies at least as far back as the founding of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, the WTO’s predecessor, in 1947.
In terms of economics, their justifying logic is very simple.
In the case of subsidies, free trade only makes sense if it really is free, which means that a thumb on the scale at one end of the transaction justifies a tariff, or counter-subsidy, at the other end.
In the case of dumping, free trade is not justified if one side sells below cost in order to wipe out the other and thus eventually grab the market (or most of it) for itself. Even if the attempt fails, the damage done to our industries will be real, and by then it will be too late.
There’s no serious question about whether China engages in subsidies and dumping. That’s why, in this case, we imposed duties of up to 200 percent to offset their subsidies, plus up to 265 percent to counteract their dumping.
Enter state capitalism. The flashpoint of the current dispute centers on the vexed question of what price constitutes dumping in a non-free-market economy.
In a free-market economy like our own, dumping is considered to occur when a product is sold abroad for either less than its production cost, or less than what it is sold for domestically. Unfortunately, in an economy like China’s, which is so tightly controlled by the government that many prices are essentially whatever the government says they are, this logic doesn’t work. There are no normal prices to observe in order to figure out how big the subsidy is. So the U.S. Government has been using various statistical techniques to calculate the relevant prices.
The WTO has ruled that our techniques are not legit. Bottom line? We're supposed to overlook the vast panoply of subsidies—ranging from free land to cheap loans and a million different tax credits—because state capitalism makes them tricky to calculate.
Free traders are celebrating this ruling. Unfortunately, “free” is the last thing trade with subsidized state capitalism is. It’s controlled. Just not in our interests....
Continued at:
http://www.infowars.com/wto-sides-with-chinese-state-capitalism-against-the-u-s/The World Trade Organization has a long history of anti-American actions.... more
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Dagum
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11 months ago
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Now, I never aim to inspire defeatism, but today I aim to inspire disillusionment, which is a very different thing. I think we can all agree it’s a good thing to be without illusion, and right now there are far too many of us who believe in this illusion that the folks at the top got their through legitimate means, and maintain their position through legitimate means, that The Man’s game is a fair one.
The Man? Yeah. Normally, I don’t like abstractions like this, but for the sake of understanding our economic situation, I find it’s easier to understand if we lump the so called “captains of industry” together into one entity. If we lump the Wall Street Banks, the Globalist Chemical Companies, the Globalist Factory Farms, the Military Industrial Complex, everything that isn’t Labor, into one entity. Because it really is, us versus them.
Right now we’ve got a Republican President who is pretending to be a Democrat, and we’ve got a Republican Party who is trying to send our nation back to the time of Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle.” We had a regressive corporate shill in Clinton who totally fucked working people of America over with NAFTA and the WTO. We had regressive corporate shills in GW Bush and Reagan who busted unions and rolled back labor protections, environmental protections, consumer safety protections, all in the name of the fuckers at the top making shit loads of money while you die of cancer because of their pollution in your air, water and soil.
An illusion we need to dispense with is that we all share equally in our nation's prosperity, that a rising tide lifts all boats, as it were.
Truth is, as the rich get richer, we get poorer, which is clearly demonstrated by this chart you can view over at StateOfWorkingAmerica.org
The lower 90% of Americans, by income bracket, have actually seen their mean wages decline since 1977, while the top 1% by income bracket, have seen their income balloon wildly, seeing their already absurdly high income triple, while our income has declined. We’re working more today, for less money.
Another illusion is that most people you know are middle class. This is bullshit, pure and simple.
Most people who think that they are middle class are actually working poor, and hover just above the poverty line.
And to the Union Labor in WI, who is saying publicly that they’re willing to negotiate all their benefits away... This isn’t a time to be negotiating. This is a time to get aggressive. Shit is getting serious, people are losing their homes, the whole fucking economic system is collapsing, and people are suffering. This is the time to go for the whole goddamn cake.
Why? Well, there’s something you should know:
It was never in the plans for you to make any money, to make anything of yourself.
It was never in the plans for anybody but the rich, the REALLY rich, to get ahead in life.
That is an illusion started with the Horatio Algers stories of rags to riches. We love these stories here in America. They show real life examples once and a while as fluff peices on the nightly news. But these cases are extreme statistical outliers, you’re more likely to get rich playing the lotto than by working hard and keeping your head down. It doesn’t matter that it’s never going to fucking happen to you. The Rags to Riches story still a cornerstone of the American Dream. But Horatio Algers wrote fiction, and dreams are fantasies experienced while asleep.
You are poor. How do I know? I don’t. But by pure statistics alone, I’m certain you are. You might be in denial about this, but the truth remains, you’re poor.
You’re just one severe illness away from being homeless, and losing everything, but maybe you don’t know it. There are middle class people, people with insurance, who get cancer, cap out on their claims, lose everything, and die homeless. And with cancer rates rising every passing year, this is lottery game you’re far more likely to win.
Unless things begin to change, and I mean REALLY CHANGE, you're going to be poor FOREVER, too. And your kids are going to be poor. My generation is the first generation that will do worse than their parents. Not because we’re lazy, but because the free-market economic system is collapsing in on us, and we’re being forced to take shittier jobs, without union protection, without benefits, with lower wages. Thanks to NAFTA and the WTO, my generation has to compete with children in China who are literally working for rice. We have to compete with workers in Mexico who get paid 7 cents and hour. Unless we change things, we’re going to keep getting poorer and poorer.
When you get poorer, the rich get even richer.
How? That’s just the rules of the game. The game called “Free Market Capitalism.”
The Super Rich, the parasites down on Wall Street, they own the whole goddamn Monopoly game. They own the playing board, they own the shoe and the thimble and the scottish terrier, they own the dice, and they own the money. They are The Man. We all play by their rules. Don’t beleive me? Have you checked your credit score lately? Oh, it doesn’t look so good does it. Maybe that’s because you have too much credit card debt. Or not enough credit card debt. Or maybe you don’t pay your statements off fast enough. Or maybe you pay your balance off too fast. Or maybe it’s just all just fucking bullshit set up by the bankers on Wall Street to control your spending habits so they can steal even more of your goddamn money by making interest off of your debt.
So, What are the rules?
The rules go like this: you work for them your whole life, give up every waking moment to earn that money that you so desperately need to stay alive, and then when you get it, you pay rent back to your capitalist master for permission to keep living. So that you can keep living to do what? To keep working, until you get too old to work and become either social securities problem, or if social security is gone by then, you become your kids problem. And if your kids can’t support you because they’re competing against workers in Mexico who get 7 cents an hour, then you end up on the street curb with the rest of the trash that nobody wants.
You’re a fool to think that the money you earn is ever really yours. That money is owned by The Man, and he’s only lending it to you temporarily, so that you THINK you’re making progress. They’ll take it back from you soon enough. And no I’m not talking about taxes. The Man gives you just enough of their money so that you stay just happy enough, or just confused enough, that you don’t fully realize you’re being totally fucked every moment of your life.
Every breath you take, they are snatching their money back from you. You want to buy food so you don’t starve to death, you pay The Man. You pay Kraft Foods, Inc and you pay Con Agra and you pay Monsanto. You can’t get to your job by public transport so you have to buy a car. You get your loan to buy your from The Man.
The Man charges you interest on this new debt you just created, and The Man immediately begins to trade your debt with his buddies, as if it were money.
If time is money, it stands to reason that money is time, and when you are in debt, you owe your time on this earth to the Man. When the man is trading your debt like money, what he’s really doing is trading your life away. He is selling derivatives on his ownership of your every breath. He’s trading in futures of YOU, with the implicit guarantee that you’ll keep slaving your sorry ass to the bone so that The Man can turn more profits, because you promised to give The Man back all the money he just gave you and then some.
So now you’re working for The Man for free. How does it feel to be a slave? Shut up, go watch TV. Don’t talk politics. How dare you question America, the greatest best country on earth that god ever gave to man? Gave to man? Or gave to The Man?Now, I never aim to inspire defeatism, but today I aim to inspire disillusionment,... more
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asherp
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12 months ago
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By Sarah Laskow, Media Consortium Blogger
President Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao touched on energy issues in the bilateral summit between the two countries this week.
“I believe that as the two largest energy consumers and emitters of greenhouses gases, the United States and China have a responsibility to combat climate change by building on the progress at Copenhagen and Cancun, and showing the way to a clean energy future. And President Hu indicated that he agrees with me on this issue,” President Obama said during a Wednesday press conference.
But can the United States step up as a leader on clean energy? The proliferation of politicians whom The Nation’s Mark Hertsgaard calls “climate cranks” suggests otherwise.
The biggest consumers
In international climate negotiations, the United State and China are the two key players, and if the world as a whole is to move forward on combating climate change, agreement between Presidents Obama and Hu would be a huge breakthrough. Mother Jones‘ Kate Sheppard notes that Hu also said the United States and China would work together on climate changes, but, she writes, “I can imagine, though, that the conversation on this subject wasn’t entirely as chummy as the remarks would imply, however. The US last month lodged a complaint with the World Trade Organization about China’s subsidies for clean energy, arguing that the country is unfairly stacking the deck in favor of their products.”
At AlterNet, Tina Gerhardt and Lucia Green-Weiskel explain the background to those tensions and to the U.S.’s protectionist bent on clean energy projects. They write, “Energy Secretary Chu recently framed the new relationship between the U.S. and China as a ‘Sputnik Moment.’ Referencing the first satellite launched by the Soviet Union in 1957, which demonstrated its technological advantage and led to the Cold War-era space race, Chu warned that the U.S. risks falling behind China in the clean technology race.”
Stumbling blocks
China’s motivations for growing its clean energy sector may not be leafy green; new energy sources feed the country’s rapidly growing economy. But at least the country is committed to green energy sources, unlike our climate change-denying Congress. As Mark Hertsgaard argues at The Nation, this brand of American has become so pernicious, it’s time to stop adhering to the protocol that dubs them “climate deniers” and start calling them “climate cranks.” He explains:
True skepticism is invaluable to the scientific method, but an honest skeptic can be persuaded by facts, if they are sound. The cranks are impervious to facts, at least facts that contradict their wacky worldview. When virtually every national science academy in the developed world, including our own, and every major scientific organization (e.g., the American Geophysical Union, the American Physics Society) has affirmed that climate change is real and extremely dangerous, only a crank continues to insist that it’s all a left-wing plot.
Climate cranks attack
Unfortunately, climate cranks continue to interfere with both climate scientists and forward-thinking energy policy. At Change.org, Nikki Gloudeman writes about the ongoing saga of climate scientist Michael Mann, one of the climatologists embroiled in the Climategate brouhaha, who is still being attacked by climate-denying groups for his work. Gloudeman reports that although Mann has been investigated and found innocent of any misdeeds several times over, a group with a bias against climate change, the American Tradition Institute, is trying to obtain access to his work.
And in New Mexico, the state’s new conservative governor, Susana Martinez, “has attempted to subvert her own state constitution in order to stop [a] plan to begin reducing her state’s carbon emissions,” reports Dahr Jamail for Truthout. The plan, executed through state rules, would have reduced the state’s greenhouse gas emissions by 3%, from 2010 levels, each year. The rules should have been made public, but Gov. Martinez kept them from being published, according to Truthout’s report. A local group, New Energy Economy, is fighting to implement them.
Bright spots
In some states, however, the clean energy economy is moving forward. As Care2’s Beth Buczynski reports, Clean Edge, a clean-tech advisory group, has identified the top ten states for clean energy leadership. They include California, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, and Illinois.
“Rankings were derived from over 80 metrics including total electricity produced by clean-energy sources, hybrid vehicles on the road, and clean-energy venture and patent activity,” Buczynski reports.
And, as David Roberts writes at Grist, there is important work to be done at the local and regional level to both prepare for and prevent climate change. His preferred term for this challenge is “ruggedizing”—strengthening a community’s ability to respond to challenges brought on by climate change, such as flooding, droughts, or food shortages. The solutions to these problem, Roberts writes, often have the welcome side effect of decreasing carbon emissions, as well:
For instance, the residents of Brisbane are discovering that when disaster strikes, it’s not very handy to have everyone spread out all over the place and utterly dependent on cars to get anywhere. It’s more resilient to have people closer together, more able to walk or take shared transportation. It just so happens that also reduces vehicle emissions.
The advantage of this type of work—building the clean energy economy, ruggedizing communities—is that leaders don’t necessarily have to agree on the reality of climate change to move forward. But these are only partial solutions, and to address climate change on an international scale, the cranks will need to be quieted.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about the environment by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Mulch for a complete list of articles on environmental issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Pulse, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.By Sarah Laskow, Media Consortium Blogger
President Obama and Chinese President Hu... more
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by Sarah Laskow, Media Consortium Blogger
The United Nations-led Climate Conference at Cancun was not a diplomatic disaster, but for climate activists and grassroots groups, it wasn’t a success either. Representatives sent from around the globe to hammer out an agreement on climate change were unresponsive to grassroots concerns about how to lower carbon emissions quickly, and how to ensure fairness in the process.
“Some grassroots groups are losing their faith in the U.N.’s capacity to produce meaningful results,” Madeline Ostrader reported for Yes! Magazine. “After the United Nations expelled Native American leader Tom Goldtooth from the meeting last week, the Indigenous Environmental Network called the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change ‘the WTO of the sky.’”
While gloomy reports before the conference worried that international negotiations could veer entirely off course, the representatives at the conference did come up with an agreement that fleshed out last year’s Copenhagen Accord. It became clearer, though, that the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change process will not ultimately guard the interests of less powerful players.
Climbing over a low bar
Although diplomats congratulated themselves for their accomplishments, not everyone was so pleased, Stephen Leahy reported at Inter Press Service.
“It’s pathetic the world community struggles so much just to climb over such a low bar,” commented [Kumi] Naidoo, [executive director of Greenpeace.] “Our only real hope is to mobilise a broad-based climate movement involving all sectors of the public and civil society before Durban.”
Indeed, this year’s conference saw a greater mobilization of outside forces than Copenhagen did. But by the end of the conference, activists were frustrated with the UN-led process, Democracy Now! reported, and began protesting in the area near the conference, under the close watch of UN guards:
When the demonstrators continued their vigil past the time allotted to them, U.N. guards moved in and dragged them towards a waiting bus. The protesters linked arms, and the scene quickly became chaotic. As they wrestled activists onto buses, U.N. guards also seized press credentials from the necks of journalists, and detained a photographer while seizing his camera.
Running REDD
There was one issue in particular, Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation or REDD, a financial tool that allows countries to offset their emissions, that caused concern among climate activists. As Michelle Chen explained at ColorLines, “From a climate justice standpoint, the deal lost credibility once it was tainted with REDD, a supposed anti-deforestation initiative that indigenous communities have long decried as an assault on native people’s sovereignty and way of life.”
The program would seek to set aside forests, through financial incentives that would make it more profitable to preserve forests than to harvest them. The problem, in essence, is that the program would take away resources in developing countries, particularly in indigenous communities, in order to mitigate negative actions in developed countries.
At IPS, Stephen Leahy reported, “REDD remains very controversial. It is widely touted as a way to mobilise $10 to $30 billion annually to protect forests by selling carbon credits to industries in lieu of reductions in emissions. … Many indigenous and civil society groups reject REDD outright if it allows developed countries to avoid real emission reductions by offsetting their emissions. “
Developed vs. Developing
Balancing the interests of developing and developed countries has always been the thorny tangle at the center of climate negotiations, and the Cancun Agreement, critics say, favors developed countries.
As Tom Athanasiou writes at Earth Island Journal, “There’s an even deeper concern, that, in the words of the South Centre’s Martin Khor, ‘Cancun may be remembered in future as the place where the UNFCCC’s climate regime was changed significantly, with developed countries being treated more and more leniently, reaching a level like that of developing countries, while the developing countries are asked to increase their obligations to be more and more like developed countries.’”
REDD is an example of that sort of bargain: Developing countries have to sacrifice, too. But developed countries have, in this conference and at its predecessors, refused to make any real sacrifices. This round, it became clear that, in addition to the United States, other key countries, like Japan, would not be willing to commit to binding legal targets for carbon emissions.
Who benefits?
What’s worse, developed countries benefit, indirectly, from the financial mechanism proposed to regulate carbon, Madeline Ostrader writes.
“Many of the proposals for financing and regulating climate are designed to earn profits for the same banks that brought the global economy to its knees,” she explains. “Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase have been vying for a stake in the global carbon offset trade—a proposed economic model for cutting emissions around the world.”
The movement of non-governmental groups and activists fighting to hold rich countries accountable has gained momentum in the past year. If international leaders are ever to move away from these imbalanced agreements, that movement will have to grow and convince a vocal majority of people around the world to support its calls to action. Only then will leaders feel pressure to write stronger, fairer agreements.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about the environment by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Mulch for a complete list of articles on environmental issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Pulse, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.by Sarah Laskow, Media Consortium Blogger
The United Nations-led Climate Conference... more
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Being honest, I must confess some slight personal agitation at the thought of writing another article on yet another “food safety” bill making its way through congress with the words “tyranny” and “Codex” written all over it. It seems that every legislative session, we are faced with the prospect of the same food bill cloaked in a different name. Invariably, this bill seeks to corral all food production into the hands of a few major corporations and essentially destroy the ability of the population to feed themselves. Here in late 2010, we have the new version of food imperialism known as S.510, the Food Safety Modernization Act.
While it is true that S.510 contains new and improved tyrannical sections that are unique specifically to it, the truth is that it is merely a repackaging of past bills (See here and here ) and attempts to control people through food. It is also yet another attempt to implement Codex Alimentarius guidelines under the guise of domestic legislation.
One example of hidden Codex guidelines in the Food Safety Modernization Act are the overly broad provisions regarding “traceability.” The desire for enhanced traceability of food products is sold to the public as a desire to better respond to food-borne illnesses and follow them back to their source. However, as with almost anything that comes out of the mouth of government, there is a more sinister role that traceability programs have to play.
Essentially, traceability has little to do with food safety in this context. While no one could argue being able to trace food contamination back to the source is a bad thing, the fact is that these mechanisms already exist. Unfortunately, they are generally ignored and unused when it comes to adverse health effects related to food produced by multinational food corporations. While there is always an exception to the rule, it is a fact that international corporations are by far the source of food adulteration more often than small independent farms.
The real reason behind traceability programs lies in the desire to monitor where food is coming from to ensure that, in the future, it only comes from large agribusiness. Hence, the new traceability procedures involve massive financial, management, and bureaucratic burdens placed on the shoulders of mainly small “food producers.”
It should be pointed out that, while it is true that major corporations will also be burdened with these regulations (unless the Secretary exempts them), it is also true that a company that makes billions in profits can afford to deal with them. Your neighborhood farm down the road simply can’t.
For all the claims that small independent producers will be exempted, the fact is that the “exemption” is merely semantics. Small independent producers will be held to essentially the same guidelines as Big Agro. This is because, in order to be exempted from the regulations as S.510, they have to submit to similar regulations as the S.510 regulations themselves dictate. As Eric Blair points out in his article Why the Tester Amendment Does NOT Help Small Food Producers Under S.510:
Those [S.510 Tester Amendment Exemption Requirements] bear a striking resemblance to the ‘expensive’ food safety plans outlined in subsection (h) of S.510 that small producers are supposedly exempt from. In other words, they must submit similarly comprehensive plans just to qualify to be exempt from creating them. But it gets worse.
If Grandma wants to sell her famous raspberry jam at the county fair (within 275 miles of her canning kitchen) she will indeed be a small producer exemptions, but not before she forks over 3 years of financials, documentation of hazard control plans, and local licenses, permits, and inspection reports. She must submit this documentation to the satisfactory approval of the Secretary; and if she fails to do so, the entirety of S.510 can be enforced on her. That’s hardly what I call an exemption.
He goes on to point out that the bill does not explicitly make it illegal to sell food independently produced, but it does make it so cumbersome that small producers will be unable to maintain compliance with the law.
While one could successfully argue that by forcing independent producers to file information and obtain permits and licenses is in fact making the production of food illegal, there is no doubt that small producers will be forced out of business by the overbearing regulation.
Nevertheless, cumbersome traceability provisions have surfaced before in other areas. In reading the traceability-related sections of S.510, there is a striking similarity between the language of the bill and that of Codex Alimentarius in its own proposed guidelines.
The HACCP (Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point), a “food safety” methodology used by Codex Alimentarius (and addressed in S.510), plays an important role in the tracking, tracing, and monitoring of food production. Under this system, food business operators (defined so broadly so as to include both big agribusiness and recreational gardeners) are required to “identify any steps in their operations which are critical to the safety of the food; implement effective control procedures at those steps; monitor control procedures to ensure their continuing effectiveness; review control procedures periodically and whenever the operations change.”
Likewise, in the document entitled, “Recommended International Code of Practice General Principles of Food Hygeine,” Codex states that “Where necessary, appropriate records of processing, production and distribution should be kept and retained for a period that exceeds the shelf-life of the product. Documentation can enhance the credibility and effectiveness of the food safety control mechanism.” Although the language of the bill and the Codex document are not identical in every section, they are similar. Unfortunately, this is all that is needed to initiate the implementation of Codex Alimentarius guidelines in the United States.
However, there is yet another danger posed by S.510 in regards to Codex Alimentarius. The fact that this bill provides the FDA, HHS, and even DHS with even more authority over food production, transportation, and consumption should be alarming enough. But because these agencies often respond to policy as much as they do law, the chances of Codex Alimentarius guidelines being implemented domestically rises sharply. This is due to the fact that no congressional approval would be needed to implement them. Simply an executive order or change in policy from the executive branch or even the FDA, HHS, or DHS acting independently would be enough to enact Codex guidelines in the United States.
Because Codex Alimentarius guidelines are enforced by the WTO, any dispute brought before the WTO and its dispute settlement board could essentially force the United States to buckle under and implement Codex guidelines. With the passage of S.510, the need to gain congressional approval for such a change would be effectively erased.
Read More: http://globalpoliticalawakening.blogspot.com/2010/12/s-510-and-codex-alimentarius-link.htmlBeing honest, I must confess some slight personal agitation at the thought of writing... more
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" Of all forms of tyranny the least attractive and the most vulgar is the tyranny of mere wealth, the tyranny of plutocracy " - John Pierpont Morgan
Our sick sad fuck of an used, abused & oh so confused obscurantist circus was just voted in. It promises to give America what it deserves !
Now what will that be ?
More racism, more religious bigotry sanctioned laws, more anti-gay shit, more wall street shananigans, more war profiters & child chewing monsters to keep the economy chuging along or just more of the efin' SAME since CHANGE is on the up&up ;)
EXECUTIVE RESUME
White House,Pentagon, State Department, FBI, CIA, etc. may have differences of style, but all of them have the same and well defined and known objective: the defense of the economic and geopolitical interests of its Global Elite. It is not a matter of a president: fat, skinny, dumb or bright, black or white. It is a matter of a system. The capitalist system in its higher level: Imperialism.
END RESULT
" The U.S. Treasury is empty, we are losing that stupid, fraudulent chickencrap war in Iraq, and every country in the world except a handful of corrupt Brits despises us. We are losers, and that is the one unforgivable sin in America.
"Beyond that, we have lost the respect of the world and lost two disastrous wars in three years. Afghanistan is lost, Iraq is a permanent war zone, our national economy is crashing all around us, the Pentagon's ‘war strategy’ has failed miserably, nobody has any money to spend, and our once-mighty U.S. America is paralyzed by mutinies in Iraq and even Fort Bragg.
"The American nation is in the worst condition I can remember in my lifetime, and our prospects for the immediate future are even worse. I am surprised and embarrassed to be a part of the first American generation to leave the country in far worse shape than it was when we first came into it. Our highway system is crumbling, our police are dishonest, our children are poor, our vaunted Social Security, once the envy of the world, has been looted and neglected and destroyed by the same gang of ignorant greed-crazed bastards who brought us Vietnam, Afghanistan, the disastrous Gaza Strip and ignominious defeat all over the world. The stock market will never come back, our armies will never again be No. 1.
We have become a monster in the eyes of the whole world – a nation of bullies and bastards who would rather kill than live peacefully. We are not just whores for power and oil, but killer whores with hate and fear in our hearts. We are human scum, and that is how history will judge us… No redeeming social value. Just whores. Get out of our way, or we’ll kill you." – Hunter S. Thompson
"We are watching a poorly staged rendition of Wag the Dog , interpreted for the morbidly stupid and performed by the criminally insane." - Jules Carlysle
Backstory
http://current.com/news/91661478_corporations-with-more-rights-than-people.htm
What was lost
http://current.com/news/92760426_the-phantom-left-sanity-what-was-also-lost-yesterday.
Conclusion
See ya all on DEAD END STREET ;)
http://current.com/entertainment/music/92759198_dead-end-street.htm
"How to get people to vote against their interests and to really think against their interests is very clever. It's the cleverest ruling class that I have ever come across in history. It's been 200 years at it. It's superb." - Gore Vidal
Its here that the American dream decided it liked the taste of the vomit it was chocking on. Just rolled over on its back and screamed for more drugs. it didn't die. - Warren Ellis
Note : Black humor is the politeness of despair" Of all forms of tyranny the least attractive and the most vulgar is the tyranny... more
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BUT FIRST A WORD FROM OUR SPONSOR...
DIS VID JUKE
http://whitenoiserants.webnode.com/songsofchange/
DIS for disfranchiseddis•fran•chise (ds-frnchz)tr.v. dis•fran•chised, dis•fran•chis•ing, dis•fran•chis•es
1. To deprive of a privilege, an immunity, or a right of citizenship, especially the right to vote; disenfranchise.
2. To deprive (a corporation, for example) of a privilege or franchise.
VID
vid is a Sanskrit root meaning "know". It formed the basis for video in Ancient Greek and later Latin. To the East it formed the basis for avidya. In all cases the personal vid meant "knowledge". Knowledge obtained by the senses. Primal in origin, but applicable in any hood.
proVIDe eVIDent diVIDe there are thousands of others in languages around the world.
JUKE
a term used commonly in the Chicago area referring to Juke Music, or the type of dancing done to Juke Music, which is usually fast-passed azz movin.
"we was juke'n all night!"
DISFRANCHISED VIDEO JUKE-BOXBUT FIRST A WORD FROM OUR SPONSOR...
DIS VID JUKE... more
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Banks with more than $100bn of assets will be overseen by the US Federal Reserve in a regulatory reform plan that represents a partial victory for the central bank after months of attacks in Congress.
Chris Dodd, the Senate banking committee chairman, had proposed hiving off all bank supervision to a single regulator but is set to propose this week that the 23 largest institutions stay under the Fed’s oversight, according to people familiar with the plans.
At issue over the weekend was the regulation of several hundred state chartered institutions that also want to remain under the Fed’s supervision.
more at link...
Banks want to be under the Fed's supervision b/c the Fed is a private, banking mafia cartel that controls the issuance of currency. This institution is the shadow government that runs the country. Why? That's simple: Money and power. Every nation with a central bank has been conned by the NWO.
Look how they're trying to loot Iceland and Greece and that's just the tip of the iceberg. The people are rioting against the banks in both countries. Its mainstream news that Goldman Sachs fixed their books to get them into the EU, and now they want some of Greece's islands as payback for fraudulent loans. Pure financial terrorism.
Unfortunately here we Wall Street propaganda and useless idiot pathetic race-baiters like Unimatrix calling Ron Paul a white supremacist, when all he does is support the Constitution and rights for ALL people. He's been railing against the Fed for longer than your life. His story doesn't change; he's real. Watch clips of him 20 years ago predicting every financial bubble burst. Shameful.
"A private central bank issuing the public currency is a greater menace to the liberties of the people than a standing army." Thomas JeffersonBanks with more than $100bn of assets will be overseen by the US Federal Reserve in a... more
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We plant but we can't produce or market. We plant but we have no food to eat. We want agriculture to improve so our country can live and so we peasants can live, too. - Rilo Petit-homme, peasant organizer from St. Marc, Haiti
What would it take to transform Haiti's economy such that its role in the global economy is no longer that of providing cheap labor for sweatshops? What would it take for hunger to no longer be the norm, for the country no longer to depend on imports and hand-outs, and for Port-au-Prince's slums no longer to contain 85% of the city's residents? What would it take for the hundreds of thousands left homeless by the earthquake to have a secure life, with income?
According to Haitian peasant organizations, at the core of the solutions is a commitment on the part of the government to support family agriculture, with policies to make the commitment a reality.
Haiti is the only country in the hemisphere which is still majority rural. Estimates of the percentage of Haiti's citizens who remain farmers span from 60.5% (UN, 2006) to 80% (the figure used by peasant groups).
Despite that, food imports currently constitute 57% of what Haitians consume (World Bank, 2008). It didn't used to be that way; policy choices made it so. In the 1980s, the U.S. and international financial institutions pressured Haiti to lower tariffs on food imports, leading to a flood of cheap food with which Haitian farmers could not compete. At the same time, U.S.A.I.D. and others pressured Haiti to orient its production toward export, leaving farmers vulnerable to shifting costs of sugar and coffee on the world market.
Because of the poor state of their production and marketing and the lack of basic services, 88% of the rural population lives in poverty, 67% in extreme poverty (UNDP, 2004). Things have grown worse for them since the 2008 hurricane season, when four storms battered Haiti in three weeks, destroying more than 70% of agriculture and most rural roads, bridges, and other infrastructure needed for production and marketing. At least during the earthquake, only one farming area, around Jacmel, was badly damaged.
There is a direct relationship between the state of agriculture and the earthquake's high toll in deaths, injuries, and homelessness. The quake was so destructive because more than three million people were jammed into a city meant for a 200,000 to 250,000, with most living in extremely precarious and overcrowded housing. This is partly due to the demise of peasant agriculture over the past three decades, which has forced small producers to move to the capitol to enter the ranks of the sweatshop and informal sectors. It is also due, in part, to the fact that government services effectively do not exist for those in the countryside. ID cards, universities, specialized health care, and much else is available exclusively, or almost exclusively, in what Haitians call the Republic of Port-au-Prince, forcing many to visit or live there to meet their needs.
cont.We plant but we can't produce or market. We plant but we have no food to eat. We... more
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The police chief in charge of security at the World Economic Forum in Davos has been found dead in what is believed to be a suicide.
Swiss police said the body of their commander, Dr Markus Reinhardt, had been found in his hotel room.
The shock announcement came as political and business leaders began arriving in the Swiss mountain resort amid fortress-like security for the start of the annual blue-chip meeting.
A police statement said: "Dr Markus Reinhardt, commander of the Graubuenden cantonal police... was found dead in his hotel room (in Davos) in the morning. All indications point to a suicide."
Suicide, my a$$.The police chief in charge of security at the World Economic Forum in Davos has been... more
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Blackwater before drinking water
1. Bless the President for having rescue teams in the air almost immediately. That was President Olafur Grimsson of Iceland. On Wednesday, the AP reported that the President of the United States promised, "The initial contingent of 2,000 Marines could be deployed to the quake-ravaged country within the next few days." "In a few days," Mr. Obama?
2. There's no such thing as a 'natural' disaster. 200,000 Haitians have been slaughtered by slum housing and IMF "austerity" plans.
3. A friend of mine called. Do I know a journalist who could get medicine to her father? And she added, trying to hold her voice together, "My sister, she's under the rubble. Is anyone going who can help, anyone?" Should I tell her, "Obama will have Marines there in 'a few days'"?
4. China deployed rescuers with sniffer dogs within 48 hours. China, Mr. President. China: 8,000 miles distant. Miami: 700 miles close. US bases in Puerto Rico: right there.
5. Obama's Defense Secretary Robert Gates said, "I don't know how this government could have responded faster or more comprehensively than it has." We know Gates doesn't know.
6. From my own work in the field, I know that FEMA has access to ready-to-go potable water, generators, mobile medical equipment and more for hurricane relief on the Gulf Coast. It's all still there. Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré, who served as the task force commander for emergency response after Hurricane Katrina, told the Christian Science Monitor, "I thought we had learned that from Katrina, take food and water and start evacuating people." Maybe we learned but, apparently, Gates and the Defense Department missed school that day.
7. Send in the Marines. That's America's response. That's what we're good at. The aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson finally showed up after three days. With what? It was dramatically deployed -- without any emergency relief supplies. It has sidewinder missiles and 19 helicopters.
8. But don't worry, the International Search and Rescue Team, fully equipped and self-sufficient for up to seven days in the field, deployed immediately with ten metric tons of tools and equipment, three tons of water, tents, advanced communication equipment and water purifying capability. They're from Iceland.
9. Gates wouldn't send in food and water because, he said, there was no "structure ... to provide security." For Gates, appointed by Bush and allowed to hang around by Obama, it's security first. That was his lesson from Hurricane Katrina. Blackwater before drinking water.
10. Previous US presidents have acted far more swiftly in getting troops on the ground on that island. Haiti is the right half of the island of Hispaniola. It's treated like the right testicle of Hell. The Dominican Republic the left. In 1965, when Dominicans demanded the return of Juan Bosch, their elected President, deposed by a junta, Lyndon Johnson reacted to this crisis rapidly, landing 45,000 US Marines on the beaches to prevent the return of the elected president.
11. How did Haiti end up so economically weakened, with infrastructure, from hospitals to water systems, busted or non-existent - there are two fire stations in the entire nation - and infrastructure so frail that the nation was simply waiting for "nature" to finish it off?
Don't blame Mother Nature for all this death and destruction. That dishonor goes to Papa Doc and Baby Doc, the Duvalier dictatorship, which looted the nation for 28 years. Papa and his Baby put an estimated 80% of world aid into their own pockets - with the complicity of the US government happy to have the Duvaliers and their voodoo militia, Tonton Macoutes, as allies in the Cold War. (The war was easily won: the Duvaliers' death squads murdered as many as 60,000 opponents of the regime.)
12. What Papa and Baby didn't run off with, the IMF finished off through its "austerity" plans. An austerity plan is a form of voodoo orchestrated by economists zomby-fied by an irrational belief that cutting government services will somehow help a nation prosper.
By Greg Palast
More at the linkBlackwater before drinking water
1. Bless the President for having rescue teams in... more
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http://above-thefold.com/blog/2009/12/18/the-race-for-global-trade-reform/
“'The year 2009 will go down in history as a moment of great global insecurity. Millions of citizens lost their jobs. Many more lost their savings. Many of the development gains of the last decade vanished'–so began the 7th World Trade Organization Ministerial Conference in Geneva, Switzerland on November 30th. Days earlier, CNN reported dozens of arrests, as the Black Bloc in Geneva allegedly burned 4 cars and..."http://above-thefold.com/blog/2009/12/18/the-race-for-global-trade-reform/... more
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Calling in from Copenhagen! Tune in week day mornings during the United National Climate Change Conference (also known as COP 15) to get the daily low down from people attending the Conference. Each morning we will host live skype calls with people at their various locations. November 8th's raw and uncut live interview was with Joshua Kahn Russel, lead activist with the Rain Forest Action Network.Calling in from Copenhagen! Tune in week day mornings during the United National... more
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Investigative journalist Greg Palast travels to Geneva to ask some hard questions about the WTO's latest attempts to win a losing gameInvestigative journalist Greg Palast travels to Geneva to ask some hard questions... more
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http://itpoliticsnews.blogspot.com/2009/12/odd-d5-world-trade-protest.html
From It! Politics:
"This week marks the 10th anniversary of the famous Seattle protests, which succeeded in temporarily shutting down World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations. The implications of its success were considerable, but I mention it now primarily for irony's sake. For on December 5th there will be nation-wide protests against the policies of the WTO in remembrance of the Battle of Seattle. One of the larger gatherings has been put together in Portland by an organization called D5. Okay...so far, so good.
Now let's take a look at the itinerary:
12pm- Meet under the Hawthorne Bridge
1pm- March to the World Trade Center
2pm- Indoor Rally and Concert at Portland State Univers-
--wait, what!? An indoor concert at PSU? Why would we want to cut our own protest short by having a concert inside a building 10 blocks away from the World Trade Center? What a half-ass attempt at activism. I wonder if we think listening to certain music will directly change the world, or if we've simply given up..."http://itpoliticsnews.blogspot.com/2009/12/odd-d5-world-trade-protest.html
From It!... more
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This is an interview with Morrison Bonpasse, President of the Single Global Currency Association. He calmly talks about the decline of the dollar and destruction of the United States in favor of a Global Currency and Global Government. Here's some highlights:
"di Stefano: What should replace the U.S. dollar?
Bonpasse: Very simply, a single global currency, managed by a Global Central Bank within a Global Monetary Union, should succeed the dollar.
di Stefano: How long might this process take?
Bonpasse: The goal of the Single Global Currency Association is a single global currency, managed by a Global Central Bank within a Global Monetary Union by 2024, which is now 15 years away.
However, the process needn't take that long. If the decision makers in the U.S. and EMU decided to merge the dollar and the euro into a monetary union, that could be accomplished in less than five years, and that merged currency, whatever its name, would become the single global currency."
The Global corporate elite are systematically destroying our country in order to establish a 1 World Government. They openly state it and laugh in our faces.
Meanwhile, Americans watch the big game, play RPGs and watch American Idol. Then they line up to get their kids injected with a Swine Flu shot only to watch them become autistic drones. Can't you see that they are bankrupting our country on purpose?This is an interview with Morrison Bonpasse, President of the Single Global Currency... more
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