Death Blow for the Nuclear Industry

Solar Energy Cheaper than Nuclear for the First Time

In a “historic crossover,” the costs of solar photovoltaic systems have declined to the point where they are lower than the rising projected costs of new nuclear plants...

This crossover occurred at 16 cents per kilowatt hour, they said.

The Green movement, environmentalists, antiwar and anti-nuclear campaigners have been right all along, for the past 30 or 40 years.

Nuclear power is costly, toxic, weaponable, non-renewable and not the answer. Solar not nuclear.

Actually its a stroke of luck that the sheer cost of nuclear power is going to kill it. Otherwise we would have to rely on environmental arguments about pollution or moral arguments about war and militarism. Unfortunately those arguments don't carry as much weight.

The luck is the other way around with coal however. It's cheap to burn to produce electricity, and there is lots of it. We are having to rely on environmental, pollution, and intergenerational moral arguments to defeat it: a tough sell. This is why it is of fundamental importance that a carbon tax (combined with a carbon dividend) on CO2 be introduced as soon as possible. The price incentive is the one thing that can get the system moving.

Solar Energy Cheaper than Nuclear for the First Time

In a “historic crossover,” the costs of solar photovoltaic systems have declined to the point where they are lower than the rising projected costs of new nuclear plants...

This crossover occurred at 16 cents per kilowatt hour, they said.

The Green movement, environmentalists, antiwar and anti-nuclear campaigners have been right all along, for the past 30 or 40 years.

Nuclear power is costly, toxic, weaponable, non-renewable and not the answer. Solar not nuclear.

Actually its a stroke of luck that the sheer cost of nuclear power is going to kill it. Otherwise we would have to rely on environmental arguments about pollution or moral arguments about war and militarism. Unfortunately those arguments don't carry as much weight.

The luck is the other way around with coal however. It's cheap to burn to produce electricity, and there is lots of it. We are having to rely on environmental, pollution, and intergenerational moral arguments to defeat it: a tough sell. This is why it is of fundamental importance that a carbon tax (combined with a carbon dividend) on CO2 be introduced as soon as possible. The price incentive is the one thing that can get the system moving.

Death Blow for the Nuclear Industry

Stiglitz: Carbon tax a no-brainer

Putting a price on carbon is ''a no brainer'' and should be the first priority of any government, Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz says.

''I'm an advocate of carbon tax, because the general principle is that it's better to tax bad things than good things,'' he told a capacity crowd at the Australian National University's Llewellyn Hall yesterday afternoon, drawing a loud burst of enthusiastic applause.

''We don't know exactly what the right price of carbon is some say around $US60 to $80 ($A66 to $A88) a tonne, but what we do know is that zero is the wrong price.''

link

Stiglitz thus joins what appears to be a majority of economists from all schools who advocate the carbon tax over 'carbon trading'.

In theory, 'carbon trading' would work, if the licenses were auctioned on an annual basis, but then if it is so like a carbon tax, why bother?

In my view, 'carbon trading' is designed to fail. It's designed to make money for Wall st traders and to allow corporate-dominated governments to giveaway 'permits to pollute' to the big polluters.

An obvious and inevitable line of attack against the carbon tax is the 'great big new tax' and 'raise the cost of standard of living' arguments. To counter this purely at the political level a carbon dividend should be proposed. Either 50% or even 100% of the revenue raised from a carbon tax should be returned to each citizen on a per capita basis as compensation for increased energy costs.

Or 50% of the revenue could be invested in the building out of the new clean energy infrastructure. This would be a genuine 'nation building' project, not the farcical and murderous wedding-bombing operation in Afghanistan.

Putting a price on carbon is ''a no brainer'' and should be the first priority of any government, Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz says.

''I'm an advocate of carbon tax, because the general principle is that it's better to tax bad things than good things,'' he told a capacity crowd at the Australian National University's Llewellyn Hall yesterday afternoon, drawing a loud burst of enthusiastic applause.

''We don't know exactly what the right price of carbon is some say around $US60 to $80 ($A66 to $A88) a tonne, but what we do know is that zero is the wrong price.''

link

Stiglitz thus joins what appears to be a majority of economists from all schools who advocate the carbon tax over 'carbon trading'.

In theory, 'carbon trading' would work, if the licenses were auctioned on an annual basis, but then if it is so like a carbon tax, why bother?

In my view, 'carbon trading' is designed to fail. It's designed to make money for Wall st traders and to allow corporate-dominated governments to giveaway 'permits to pollute' to the big polluters.

An obvious and inevitable line of attack against the carbon tax is the 'great big new tax' and 'raise the cost of standard of living' arguments. To counter this purely at the political level a carbon dividend should be proposed. Either 50% or even 100% of the revenue raised from a carbon tax should be returned to each citizen on a per capita basis as compensation for increased energy costs.

Or 50% of the revenue could be invested in the building out of the new clean energy infrastructure. This would be a genuine 'nation building' project, not the farcical and murderous wedding-bombing operation in Afghanistan.

Stiglitz: Carbon tax a no-brainer

Ken O'Keefe on the BBC

Ken O'Keefe gives a spirited performance against a BBC 'journalist'.

Ken O'Keefe gives a spirited performance against a BBC 'journalist'.

Ken O'Keefe on the BBC

Emily Henochowicz

21-year old Emily Henochowicz loses her left eye after being shot in the face with a tear gas canister.

Link

21-year old Emily Henochowicz loses her left eye after being shot in the face with a tear gas canister.

Link

Emily Henochowicz

Housing Bubble

http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article18733.html

Way back in 1983 Fred Harrison published his book "The Power in the Land" which relied on Homer Hoyt's 18-yr cycle theory to predict a land boom peaking in 1989 and a recession thereafter.

Back in the day we Georgists were amused to see the prediction come true and thought the bubble was a big one too. Anyone could also predict that the next peak would be 2007 or therabouts.

But look at this latest boom! No wonder the Economist called it the "biggest bubble in world history".

It's been Michael Hudson perhaps more than anyone else who has emphasized that a big land boom means huge amounts of money have been lent with land or property as collateral, which means in a bust all the banks are bust. In a financialised economy all available rents or supluses are pledged to banks as interest.

The financial sector is a giant vampire squid, sucking the life out of the economy and the workforce. Here again Hudson has rightly emphasized that 'debts that can't be paid, won't be paid'; that we need a 'Jubilee'.

However, the financial sector owns and controls the world and won't get it's fangs off it until there is some kind of revolution or popular rebellion.

Neo-liberalism will also have to be destroyed. The core of this dogma is to privatize, de-regulate, de-fund, de-tax and de-stroy.

Privatize: hand over land and resources and everthing in the nature of a natural monopoly to the private sector to allow them to privatize the economic surplus.

De-regulate: remove barriers to the raising of profits.

De-fund: the public sector and in particular the essential government role of infrastructure. Infrastructure will be provided by the miracle of market forces! Just like some sort of latter-day cargo cult. All you need to do is set up on some level ground somewhere wooden carvings of Adam Smith and Hayek, and all the good things anyone could desire will come down!

De-tax: lower or remove altogether taxation on wealth, property and capital.

De-stroy: the obvious outcome of it all, although a small class of the very rich have gotten smaller and even richer, which is their objective.

http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article18733.html

Way back in 1983 Fred Harrison published his book "The Power in the Land" which relied on Homer Hoyt's 18-yr cycle theory to predict a land boom peaking in 1989 and a recession thereafter.

Back in the day we Georgists were amused to see the prediction come true and thought the bubble was a big one too. Anyone could also predict that the next peak would be 2007 or therabouts.

But look at this latest boom! No wonder the Economist called it the "biggest bubble in world history".

It's been Michael Hudson perhaps more than anyone else who has emphasized that a big land boom means huge amounts of money have been lent with land or property as collateral, which means in a bust all the banks are bust. In a financialised economy all available rents or supluses are pledged to banks as interest.

The financial sector is a giant vampire squid, sucking the life out of the economy and the workforce. Here again Hudson has rightly emphasized that 'debts that can't be paid, won't be paid'; that we need a 'Jubilee'.

However, the financial sector owns and controls the world and won't get it's fangs off it until there is some kind of revolution or popular rebellion.

Neo-liberalism will also have to be destroyed. The core of this dogma is to privatize, de-regulate, de-fund, de-tax and de-stroy.

Privatize: hand over land and resources and everthing in the nature of a natural monopoly to the private sector to allow them to privatize the economic surplus.

De-regulate: remove barriers to the raising of profits.

De-fund: the public sector and in particular the essential government role of infrastructure. Infrastructure will be provided by the miracle of market forces! Just like some sort of latter-day cargo cult. All you need to do is set up on some level ground somewhere wooden carvings of Adam Smith and Hayek, and all the good things anyone could desire will come down!

De-tax: lower or remove altogether taxation on wealth, property and capital.

De-stroy: the obvious outcome of it all, although a small class of the very rich have gotten smaller and even richer, which is their objective.

Housing Bubble

Change the System, Not the Climate

A People's Declaration from Klimaforum 09 -


The Copenhagen conference on Climate change was a flop and a joke. It was, literally, a bunch of Neros fiddling while the world burned.

But it may have the benefit of finally discrediting the approaches tried to date, such as carbon trading etc.

Another benefit of the Conference was the alternative summits, people's summits, such as the Klimaforum. The Klimaforum document is highly admirable and a sound basis for going forward. Change must come from below, and the exploitative Western capitalist system that created the crisis must be radically altered.

A People's Declaration from Klimaforum 09 -


The Copenhagen conference on Climate change was a flop and a joke. It was, literally, a bunch of Neros fiddling while the world burned.

But it may have the benefit of finally discrediting the approaches tried to date, such as carbon trading etc.

Another benefit of the Conference was the alternative summits, people's summits, such as the Klimaforum. The Klimaforum document is highly admirable and a sound basis for going forward. Change must come from below, and the exploitative Western capitalist system that created the crisis must be radically altered.

Change the System, Not the Climate

Michael Hudson vs Paul Krugman

Michael Hudson has (briefly) broken into the public debate via a comment from Paul Krugman of the New York Times.

Here is a taste of the radical view that ever-so-momentarily hits the spotlight:

To answer this question, my book describes the "intellectual engineering" that has turned the economics discipline into a public relations exercise for the rentier classes criticized by the classical economists: landlords, bankers and monopolists. It was largely to counter criticisms of their unearned income and wealth, after all, that the post-classical reaction aimed to limit the conceptual "toolbox" of economists to become so unrealistic, narrow-minded and self-serving to the status quo. It has ended up as an intellectual ploy to distract attention away from the financial and property dynamics that are polarizing our world between debtors and creditors, property owners and renters, while steering politics from democracy to oligarchy.

In this article Hudson goes on to point out one of the oddest and most characteristic aspects of neo-classical economics, that propositions don't have to correspond to reality, they just have to be internally logically consistent.

In the past, Hudson has confidently predicted that neo-liberalism is dead as a result of the GFC, but I prefer to agree with Gaffney that it aint dying anytime soon. The corpse will be patched up and shoved out again for consumption by new generations of students.

Michael Hudson has (briefly) broken into the public debate via a comment from Paul Krugman of the New York Times.

Here is a taste of the radical view that ever-so-momentarily hits the spotlight:

To answer this question, my book describes the "intellectual engineering" that has turned the economics discipline into a public relations exercise for the rentier classes criticized by the classical economists: landlords, bankers and monopolists. It was largely to counter criticisms of their unearned income and wealth, after all, that the post-classical reaction aimed to limit the conceptual "toolbox" of economists to become so unrealistic, narrow-minded and self-serving to the status quo. It has ended up as an intellectual ploy to distract attention away from the financial and property dynamics that are polarizing our world between debtors and creditors, property owners and renters, while steering politics from democracy to oligarchy.

In this article Hudson goes on to point out one of the oddest and most characteristic aspects of neo-classical economics, that propositions don't have to correspond to reality, they just have to be internally logically consistent.

In the past, Hudson has confidently predicted that neo-liberalism is dead as a result of the GFC, but I prefer to agree with Gaffney that it aint dying anytime soon. The corpse will be patched up and shoved out again for consumption by new generations of students.

Michael Hudson vs Paul Krugman

Tolkien on Power

Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy was a visually spectacular and a worthy rendition, however one of the things which irritated me about it was its mishandling (misunderstanding?) of the core concept of the Ring of Power.

It must surely strike even the casual reader that political power or the lust for power is a prime evil in Tolkien's Middle Earth (not to mention our own earth) and there are adequate quotes from the man himself to describe his main ideas:

"You can make the Ring into an allegory of our own time, if you like: and allegory of the inevitable fate that waits for all attempts to defeat evil power by power" (The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, 1995, p. 121.)

"Power is an ominous and sinister word in all these tales" (p. 152.)

"The story is cast in terms of a good side, and a bad side, beauty against ruthless ugliness, tyranny against kingship, moderated freedom with consent against compulsion that has long lost any object save mere power, and so on" (pp. 178-179.)

"In my story Sauron represents as near an approach to the wholly evil will as is possible. He had gone the way of all tyrants: beginning well, at least on the level that while desiring to order all things according to his own wisdom he still at first considered the (economic) well-being of other inhabitants of Earth. But he went further than human tyrants in pride and the lust for domination, being in origin an immortal (angelic) spirit" (p. 243.)

"Of course my story is not an allegory of Atomic power, but of Power (exerted for domination)" (p. 246.)

"My political opinions lean more and more to Anarchy (philosophically understood, meaning abolition of control not whiskered men with bombs)" (p.63)

Can't get much plainer than that.

Now what I'd like to know is the relationship (if any) between Tolkien and his fellow philologist Nietzsche.

Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy was a visually spectacular and a worthy rendition, however one of the things which irritated me about it was its mishandling (misunderstanding?) of the core concept of the Ring of Power.

It must surely strike even the casual reader that political power or the lust for power is a prime evil in Tolkien's Middle Earth (not to mention our own earth) and there are adequate quotes from the man himself to describe his main ideas:

"You can make the Ring into an allegory of our own time, if you like: and allegory of the inevitable fate that waits for all attempts to defeat evil power by power" (The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, 1995, p. 121.)

"Power is an ominous and sinister word in all these tales" (p. 152.)

"The story is cast in terms of a good side, and a bad side, beauty against ruthless ugliness, tyranny against kingship, moderated freedom with consent against compulsion that has long lost any object save mere power, and so on" (pp. 178-179.)

"In my story Sauron represents as near an approach to the wholly evil will as is possible. He had gone the way of all tyrants: beginning well, at least on the level that while desiring to order all things according to his own wisdom he still at first considered the (economic) well-being of other inhabitants of Earth. But he went further than human tyrants in pride and the lust for domination, being in origin an immortal (angelic) spirit" (p. 243.)

"Of course my story is not an allegory of Atomic power, but of Power (exerted for domination)" (p. 246.)

"My political opinions lean more and more to Anarchy (philosophically understood, meaning abolition of control not whiskered men with bombs)" (p.63)

Can't get much plainer than that.

Now what I'd like to know is the relationship (if any) between Tolkien and his fellow philologist Nietzsche.

Tolkien on Power

Blair Planned Iraq Invasion Nine Months Before War

link

Further evidence to the Chilcot report adds to that already existing that the decision to attack Iraq was made first and the pretext prepared afterwards.

This means that the war was a crime and the corporate media is a propaganda network. Hardly anyone would refute that these days, but it is not reported very much, not discussed, and no action is planned or taken.

Western culture has a blind spot on the reality: we have told big lies and committed major war crimes. One day civilization may advance to the point where this is no longer tolerated.

link

Further evidence to the Chilcot report adds to that already existing that the decision to attack Iraq was made first and the pretext prepared afterwards.

This means that the war was a crime and the corporate media is a propaganda network. Hardly anyone would refute that these days, but it is not reported very much, not discussed, and no action is planned or taken.

Western culture has a blind spot on the reality: we have told big lies and committed major war crimes. One day civilization may advance to the point where this is no longer tolerated.

Blair Planned Iraq Invasion Nine Months Before War

The Anti-Empire Report November 4th, 2009 by William Blum

The Anti-Empire Report

November 4th, 2009
by William Blum
www.killinghope.org
"It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets." — Voltaire

Question: How many countries do you have to be at war with to be disqualified from receiving the Nobel Peace Prize?

Answer: Five. Barack Obama has waged war against only Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia. He's holding off on Iran until he actually gets the prize.

Somalian civil society and court system are so devastated from decades of war that one wouldn't expect its citizens to have the means to raise serious legal challenges to Washington's apparent belief that it can drop bombs on that sad land whenever it appears to serve the empire's needs. But a group of Pakistanis, calling themselves "Lawyers Front for Defense of the Constitution", and remembering just enough of their country's more civilized past, has filed suit before the nation's High Court to make the federal government stop American drone attacks on countless innocent civilians. The group declared that a Pakistan Army spokesman claimed to have the capability to shoot down the drones, but the government had made a policy decision not to. 1

The Obama administration, like the Bush administration, behaves like the world is one big lawless Somalia and the United States is the chief warlord. On October 20 the president again displayed his deep love of peace by honoring some 80 veterans of Vietnam at the White House, after earlier awarding their regiment a Presidential Unit Citation for its "extraordinary heroism and conspicuous gallantry". 2 War correspondent Michael Herr has honored Vietnam soldiers in his own way: “We took space back quickly, expensively, with total panic and close to maximum brutality. Our machine was devastating. And versatile. It could do everything but stop.” 3

What would it take for the Obamaniacs to lose any of the stars in their eyes for their dear Nobel Laureate? Perhaps if the president announced that he was donating his prize money to build a monument to the First — "Oh What a Lovely" — World War? The memorial could bear the inscription: "Let us remember that Rudyard Kipling coaxed his young son John into enlisting in this war. John died his first day in combat. Kipling later penned these words:

"If any question why we died,
Tell them, because our fathers lied."



“The Constitution supposes what the history of all governments demonstrates, that the executive is the branch of power most interested in war, and most prone to it. It has accordingly with studied care vested the question of war in the legislature.” — James Madison, in a letter to Thomas Jefferson, April 2, 1798.

A wise measure, indeed, but one American president after another has dragged the nation into bloody war without the approval of Congress, the American people, international law, or world opinion. Millions marched against the war in Iraq before it began. Millions more voted for Barack Obama in the belief that he shared their repugnance for America's Wars Without End. They had no good reason to believe this — Obama's campaign was filled with repeated warlike threats against Iran and Afghanistan — but they wanted to believe it.



If machismo explains war, if men love war and fighting so much, why do we have to compel them with conscription on pain of imprisonment? Why do the powers-that-be have to wage advertising campaigns to seduce young people to enlist in the military? Why do young men go to extreme lengths to be declared exempt for physical or medical reasons? Why do they flee into exile to avoid the draft? Why do they desert the military in large numbers in the midst of war? Why don't Sweden or Switzerland or Costa Rica have wars? Surely there are many macho men in those countries.

"Join the Army, visit far away places, meet interesting people, and kill them.”

War licenses men to take part in what would otherwise be described as psychopathic behavior.

"Sometimes I think it should be a rule of war that you have to see somebody up close and get to know him before you can shoot him." — Colonel Potter, M*A*S*H

"In the struggle of Good against Evil, it's always the people who get killed." — Eduardo Galeano



After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, a Taliban leader declared that “God is on our side, and if the world’s people try to set fire to Afghanistan, God will protect us and help us.” 4

"I trust God speaks through me. Without that, I couldn't do my job." — George W. Bush, 2004, during the war in Iraq. 5

"I believe that Christ died for my sins and I am redeemed through him. That is a source of strength and sustenance on a daily basis." — Barack Obama. 6

Why don't church leaders forbid Catholics from joining the military with the same fervor they tell Catholics to stay away from abortion clinics?

God, war, the World Bank, the IMF, free trade agreements, NATO, the war on terrorism, the war on drugs, "anti-war" candidates, and Nobel Peace Prizes can be seen as simply different instruments for the advancement of US imperialism.

Tom Lehrer, the marvelous political songwriter of the 1950s and 60s, once observed: "Political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize." Perhaps each generation has to learn anew what a farce that prize has become, or always was. Its recipients include quite a few individuals who had as much commitment to a peaceful world as the Bush administration had to truth. One example currently in the news: Bernard Kouchner, co-founder of Medecins Sans Frontieres which won the prize in 1998. Kouchner, now France's foreign secretary, has long been urging military action against Iran. Last week he called upon Iran to make a nuclear deal acceptable to the Western powers or else there's no telling what horror Israel might inflict upon the Iranians. Israel "will not tolerate an Iranian bomb," he said. "We know that, all of us." 7 There is a word for such a veiled threat — "extortion", something normally associated with the likes of a Chicago mobster of the 1930s ... "Do like I say and no one gets hurt." Or as Al Capone once said: "Kind words and a machine gun will get you more than kind words alone."

The continuing desperate quest to find something good to say about US foreign policy

Not the crazy, hateful right wing, not racist or disrupting public meetings, not demanding birth certificates ... but the respectable right, holding high positions in academia and in every administration, Republican or Democrat, members of the highly esteemed Council on Foreign Relations. Here's Joshua Kurlantzick, a "Fellow for Southeast Asia" at CFR, writing in the equally esteemed and respectable Washington Post about how — despite all the scare talk — it wouldn't be so bad if Afghanistan actually turned into another Vietnam because "Vietnam and the United States have become close partners in Southeast Asia, exchanging official visits, building an important trading and strategic relationship and fostering goodwill between governments, businesses and people on both sides. ... America did not win the war there, but over time it has won the peace. ... American war veterans publicly made peace with their old adversaries ... A program [to exchange graduate students and professors] could ensure that the next generation of Afghan leaders sees an image of the United States beyond that of the war." 8 And so on.

On second thought, this is not so much right-wing jingoism as it is ... uh ... y'know ... What's the word? ... Ah yes, "pointless". Just what is the point? Germany and Israel are on excellent terms ... therefore, what point can we make about the Holocaust?

As to America not winning the war in Vietnam, that's worse than pointless. It's wrong. Most people believe that the United States lost the war. But by destroying Vietnam to its core, by poisoning the earth, the water, the air, and the gene pool for generations, the US in fact achieved its primary purpose: it left Vietnam a basket case, preventing the rise of what might have been a good development option for Asia, an alternative to the capitalist model; for the same reason the United States has been at war with Cuba for 50 years, making sure that the Cuban alternative model doesn't look as good as it would if left in peace.

And in all the years since the Vietnam War ended, the millions of Vietnamese suffering from diseases and deformities caused by US sprayings of the deadly chemical "Agent Orange" have received from the United States no medical care, no environmental remediation, no compensation, and no official apology. That's exactly what the Afghans — their land and/or their bodies permeated with depleted uranium, unexploded cluster bombs, and a witch's brew of other charming chemicals — have to look forward to in Kurlantzick's Brave New World. "If the U.S. relationship with Afghanistan eventually resembles the one we now have with Vietnam, we should be overjoyed," he writes. God Bless America.

One further thought about Afghanistan: The suggestion that the United States could, and should, solve its (self-created) dilemma by simply getting out of that god-forsaken place is dismissed out of hand by the American government and media; even some leftist critics of US policy are reluctant to embrace so bold a step — Who knows what horror may result? But when the Soviet Union was in the process of quitting Afghanistan (during the period of May 1988-February 1989) who in the West insisted that they remain? For any reason. No matter what the consequences of their withdrawal. The reason the Russians could easier leave than the Americans can now is that the Russians were not there for imperialist reasons, such as oil and gas pipelines. Similar to why the US can't leave Iraq.
Washington's eternal "Cuba problem" — the one they can't admit to.

"Here we go again. I suppose old habits die hard," said US Ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, on October 28 before the General Assembly voted on the annual resolution to end the US embargo against Cuba. "The hostile language we have just heard from the Foreign Minister of Cuba," she continued, "seems straight out of the Cold War era and is not conducive to constructive progress." Her 949-word statement contained not a word about the embargo; not very conducive to a constructive solution to the unstated "Cuba problem", the one about Cuba inspiring the Third World, the fear that the socialist virus would spread.

Since the early days of the Cuban Revolution assorted anti-communists and capitalist true-believers around the world have been relentless in publicizing the failures, real and alleged, of life in Cuba; each perceived shortcoming is attributed to the perceived shortcomings of socialism — It's simply a system that can't work, we are told, given the nature of human beings, particularly in this modern, competitive, globalized, consumer-oriented world.

In response to such criticisms, defenders of Cuban society have regularly pointed out how the numerous draconian sanctions imposed by the United States since 1960 have produced many and varied scarcities and sufferings and are largely responsible for most of the problems pointed out by the critics. The critics, in turn, say that this is just an excuse, one given by Cuban apologists for every failure of their socialist system. However, it would be very difficult for the critics to prove their point. The United States would have to drop all sanctions and then we'd have to wait long enough for Cuban society to make up for lost time and recover what it was deprived of, and demonstrate what its system can do when not under constant assault by the most powerful force on earth.

In 1999, Cuba filed a suit against the United States for $181.1 billion in compensation for economic losses and loss of life during the first 39 years of this aggression. The suit held Washington responsible for the death of 3,478 Cubans and the wounding and disabling of 2,099 others. In the ten years since, these figures have of course all increased. The sanctions, in numerous ways large and small, make acquiring many kinds of products and services from around the world much more difficult and expensive, often impossible; frequently, they are things indispensable to Cuban medicine, transportation or industry; simply transferring money internationally has become a major problem for the Cubans, with banks being heavily punished by the United States for dealing with Havana; or the sanctions mean that Americans and Cubans can't attend professional conferences in each other's country.

These examples are but a small sample of the excruciating pain inflicted by Washington upon the body, soul and economy of the Cuban people.

For years American political leaders and media were fond of labeling Cuba an "international pariah". We don't hear much of that any more. Perhaps one reason is the annual vote in the General Assembly on the resolution, which reads: "Necessity of ending the economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed by the United States of America against Cuba". This is how the vote has gone:
Year Votes (Yes-No) No Votes
1992 59-2 US, Israel
1993 88-4 US, Israel, Albania, Paraguay
1994 101-2 US, Israel, Uzbekistan
1995 117-3 US, Israel, Uzbekistan
1996 138-3 US, Israel, Uzbekistan
1997 143-3 US, Israel
1998 157-2 US, Israel
1999 155-2 US, Israel, Marshall Islands
2000 167-3 US, Israel, Marshall Islands
2001 167-3 US, Israel, Marshall Islands
2002 167-3 US, Israel, Marshall Islands
2003 173-3 US, Israel, Marshall Islands, Palau
2004 179-3 US, Israel, Marshall Islands, Palau
2005 182-4 US, Israel, Marshall Islands, Palau
2006 183-4 US, Israel, Marshall Islands, Palau
2007 184-4 US, Israel, Marshall Islands, Palau
2008 185-3 US, Israel, Palau
2009 187-3 US, Israel, Palau

How it began, from State Department documents: Within a few months of the Cuban revolution of January 1959, the Eisenhower administration decided "to adjust all our actions in such a way as to accelerate the development of an opposition in Cuba which would bring about a change in the Cuban Government, resulting in a new government favorable to U.S. interests." 9

On April 6, 1960, Lester D. Mallory, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, wrote in an internal memorandum: "The majority of Cubans support Castro ... The only foreseeable means of alienating internal support is through disenchantment and disaffection based on economic dissatisfaction and hardship. ... every possible means should be undertaken promptly to weaken the economic life of Cuba." Mallory proposed "a line of action which ... makes the greatest inroads in denying money and supplies to Cuba, to decrease monetary and real wages, to bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government." 10 Later that year, the Eisenhower administration instituted the suffocating embargo.
Notes

1. The Nation (Pakistan English-language daily newspaper), October 10, 2009 ↩
2. Washington Post, October 20, 2009 ↩
3. Michael Herr, "Dispatches" (1991), p.71 ↩
4. New York Daily News, September 19, 2001 ↩
5. Washington Post, July 20, 2004, p.15, citing the New Era (Lancaster, PA), from a private meeting of Bush with Amish families on July 9. The White House denied that Bush had said it. (Those Amish folks do lie a lot you know.) ↩
6. Washington Post, August 17, 2008 ↩
7. Daily Telegraph (UK), October 26, 2009 ↩
8. Washington Post, October 25, 2009 ↩
9. Department of State, "Foreign Relations of the United States, 1958-1960, Volume VI, Cuba" (1991), p.742 ↩
10. Ibid., p.885 ↩

The Anti-Empire Report

November 4th, 2009
by William Blum
www.killinghope.org
"It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets." — Voltaire

Question: How many countries do you have to be at war with to be disqualified from receiving the Nobel Peace Prize?

Answer: Five. Barack Obama has waged war against only Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia. He's holding off on Iran until he actually gets the prize.

Somalian civil society and court system are so devastated from decades of war that one wouldn't expect its citizens to have the means to raise serious legal challenges to Washington's apparent belief that it can drop bombs on that sad land whenever it appears to serve the empire's needs. But a group of Pakistanis, calling themselves "Lawyers Front for Defense of the Constitution", and remembering just enough of their country's more civilized past, has filed suit before the nation's High Court to make the federal government stop American drone attacks on countless innocent civilians. The group declared that a Pakistan Army spokesman claimed to have the capability to shoot down the drones, but the government had made a policy decision not to. 1

The Obama administration, like the Bush administration, behaves like the world is one big lawless Somalia and the United States is the chief warlord. On October 20 the president again displayed his deep love of peace by honoring some 80 veterans of Vietnam at the White House, after earlier awarding their regiment a Presidential Unit Citation for its "extraordinary heroism and conspicuous gallantry". 2 War correspondent Michael Herr has honored Vietnam soldiers in his own way: “We took space back quickly, expensively, with total panic and close to maximum brutality. Our machine was devastating. And versatile. It could do everything but stop.” 3

What would it take for the Obamaniacs to lose any of the stars in their eyes for their dear Nobel Laureate? Perhaps if the president announced that he was donating his prize money to build a monument to the First — "Oh What a Lovely" — World War? The memorial could bear the inscription: "Let us remember that Rudyard Kipling coaxed his young son John into enlisting in this war. John died his first day in combat. Kipling later penned these words:

"If any question why we died,
Tell them, because our fathers lied."



“The Constitution supposes what the history of all governments demonstrates, that the executive is the branch of power most interested in war, and most prone to it. It has accordingly with studied care vested the question of war in the legislature.” — James Madison, in a letter to Thomas Jefferson, April 2, 1798.

A wise measure, indeed, but one American president after another has dragged the nation into bloody war without the approval of Congress, the American people, international law, or world opinion. Millions marched against the war in Iraq before it began. Millions more voted for Barack Obama in the belief that he shared their repugnance for America's Wars Without End. They had no good reason to believe this — Obama's campaign was filled with repeated warlike threats against Iran and Afghanistan — but they wanted to believe it.



If machismo explains war, if men love war and fighting so much, why do we have to compel them with conscription on pain of imprisonment? Why do the powers-that-be have to wage advertising campaigns to seduce young people to enlist in the military? Why do young men go to extreme lengths to be declared exempt for physical or medical reasons? Why do they flee into exile to avoid the draft? Why do they desert the military in large numbers in the midst of war? Why don't Sweden or Switzerland or Costa Rica have wars? Surely there are many macho men in those countries.

"Join the Army, visit far away places, meet interesting people, and kill them.”

War licenses men to take part in what would otherwise be described as psychopathic behavior.

"Sometimes I think it should be a rule of war that you have to see somebody up close and get to know him before you can shoot him." — Colonel Potter, M*A*S*H

"In the struggle of Good against Evil, it's always the people who get killed." — Eduardo Galeano



After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, a Taliban leader declared that “God is on our side, and if the world’s people try to set fire to Afghanistan, God will protect us and help us.” 4

"I trust God speaks through me. Without that, I couldn't do my job." — George W. Bush, 2004, during the war in Iraq. 5

"I believe that Christ died for my sins and I am redeemed through him. That is a source of strength and sustenance on a daily basis." — Barack Obama. 6

Why don't church leaders forbid Catholics from joining the military with the same fervor they tell Catholics to stay away from abortion clinics?

God, war, the World Bank, the IMF, free trade agreements, NATO, the war on terrorism, the war on drugs, "anti-war" candidates, and Nobel Peace Prizes can be seen as simply different instruments for the advancement of US imperialism.

Tom Lehrer, the marvelous political songwriter of the 1950s and 60s, once observed: "Political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize." Perhaps each generation has to learn anew what a farce that prize has become, or always was. Its recipients include quite a few individuals who had as much commitment to a peaceful world as the Bush administration had to truth. One example currently in the news: Bernard Kouchner, co-founder of Medecins Sans Frontieres which won the prize in 1998. Kouchner, now France's foreign secretary, has long been urging military action against Iran. Last week he called upon Iran to make a nuclear deal acceptable to the Western powers or else there's no telling what horror Israel might inflict upon the Iranians. Israel "will not tolerate an Iranian bomb," he said. "We know that, all of us." 7 There is a word for such a veiled threat — "extortion", something normally associated with the likes of a Chicago mobster of the 1930s ... "Do like I say and no one gets hurt." Or as Al Capone once said: "Kind words and a machine gun will get you more than kind words alone."

The continuing desperate quest to find something good to say about US foreign policy

Not the crazy, hateful right wing, not racist or disrupting public meetings, not demanding birth certificates ... but the respectable right, holding high positions in academia and in every administration, Republican or Democrat, members of the highly esteemed Council on Foreign Relations. Here's Joshua Kurlantzick, a "Fellow for Southeast Asia" at CFR, writing in the equally esteemed and respectable Washington Post about how — despite all the scare talk — it wouldn't be so bad if Afghanistan actually turned into another Vietnam because "Vietnam and the United States have become close partners in Southeast Asia, exchanging official visits, building an important trading and strategic relationship and fostering goodwill between governments, businesses and people on both sides. ... America did not win the war there, but over time it has won the peace. ... American war veterans publicly made peace with their old adversaries ... A program [to exchange graduate students and professors] could ensure that the next generation of Afghan leaders sees an image of the United States beyond that of the war." 8 And so on.

On second thought, this is not so much right-wing jingoism as it is ... uh ... y'know ... What's the word? ... Ah yes, "pointless". Just what is the point? Germany and Israel are on excellent terms ... therefore, what point can we make about the Holocaust?

As to America not winning the war in Vietnam, that's worse than pointless. It's wrong. Most people believe that the United States lost the war. But by destroying Vietnam to its core, by poisoning the earth, the water, the air, and the gene pool for generations, the US in fact achieved its primary purpose: it left Vietnam a basket case, preventing the rise of what might have been a good development option for Asia, an alternative to the capitalist model; for the same reason the United States has been at war with Cuba for 50 years, making sure that the Cuban alternative model doesn't look as good as it would if left in peace.

And in all the years since the Vietnam War ended, the millions of Vietnamese suffering from diseases and deformities caused by US sprayings of the deadly chemical "Agent Orange" have received from the United States no medical care, no environmental remediation, no compensation, and no official apology. That's exactly what the Afghans — their land and/or their bodies permeated with depleted uranium, unexploded cluster bombs, and a witch's brew of other charming chemicals — have to look forward to in Kurlantzick's Brave New World. "If the U.S. relationship with Afghanistan eventually resembles the one we now have with Vietnam, we should be overjoyed," he writes. God Bless America.

One further thought about Afghanistan: The suggestion that the United States could, and should, solve its (self-created) dilemma by simply getting out of that god-forsaken place is dismissed out of hand by the American government and media; even some leftist critics of US policy are reluctant to embrace so bold a step — Who knows what horror may result? But when the Soviet Union was in the process of quitting Afghanistan (during the period of May 1988-February 1989) who in the West insisted that they remain? For any reason. No matter what the consequences of their withdrawal. The reason the Russians could easier leave than the Americans can now is that the Russians were not there for imperialist reasons, such as oil and gas pipelines. Similar to why the US can't leave Iraq.
Washington's eternal "Cuba problem" — the one they can't admit to.

"Here we go again. I suppose old habits die hard," said US Ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, on October 28 before the General Assembly voted on the annual resolution to end the US embargo against Cuba. "The hostile language we have just heard from the Foreign Minister of Cuba," she continued, "seems straight out of the Cold War era and is not conducive to constructive progress." Her 949-word statement contained not a word about the embargo; not very conducive to a constructive solution to the unstated "Cuba problem", the one about Cuba inspiring the Third World, the fear that the socialist virus would spread.

Since the early days of the Cuban Revolution assorted anti-communists and capitalist true-believers around the world have been relentless in publicizing the failures, real and alleged, of life in Cuba; each perceived shortcoming is attributed to the perceived shortcomings of socialism — It's simply a system that can't work, we are told, given the nature of human beings, particularly in this modern, competitive, globalized, consumer-oriented world.

In response to such criticisms, defenders of Cuban society have regularly pointed out how the numerous draconian sanctions imposed by the United States since 1960 have produced many and varied scarcities and sufferings and are largely responsible for most of the problems pointed out by the critics. The critics, in turn, say that this is just an excuse, one given by Cuban apologists for every failure of their socialist system. However, it would be very difficult for the critics to prove their point. The United States would have to drop all sanctions and then we'd have to wait long enough for Cuban society to make up for lost time and recover what it was deprived of, and demonstrate what its system can do when not under constant assault by the most powerful force on earth.

In 1999, Cuba filed a suit against the United States for $181.1 billion in compensation for economic losses and loss of life during the first 39 years of this aggression. The suit held Washington responsible for the death of 3,478 Cubans and the wounding and disabling of 2,099 others. In the ten years since, these figures have of course all increased. The sanctions, in numerous ways large and small, make acquiring many kinds of products and services from around the world much more difficult and expensive, often impossible; frequently, they are things indispensable to Cuban medicine, transportation or industry; simply transferring money internationally has become a major problem for the Cubans, with banks being heavily punished by the United States for dealing with Havana; or the sanctions mean that Americans and Cubans can't attend professional conferences in each other's country.

These examples are but a small sample of the excruciating pain inflicted by Washington upon the body, soul and economy of the Cuban people.

For years American political leaders and media were fond of labeling Cuba an "international pariah". We don't hear much of that any more. Perhaps one reason is the annual vote in the General Assembly on the resolution, which reads: "Necessity of ending the economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed by the United States of America against Cuba". This is how the vote has gone:
Year Votes (Yes-No) No Votes
1992 59-2 US, Israel
1993 88-4 US, Israel, Albania, Paraguay
1994 101-2 US, Israel, Uzbekistan
1995 117-3 US, Israel, Uzbekistan
1996 138-3 US, Israel, Uzbekistan
1997 143-3 US, Israel
1998 157-2 US, Israel
1999 155-2 US, Israel, Marshall Islands
2000 167-3 US, Israel, Marshall Islands
2001 167-3 US, Israel, Marshall Islands
2002 167-3 US, Israel, Marshall Islands
2003 173-3 US, Israel, Marshall Islands, Palau
2004 179-3 US, Israel, Marshall Islands, Palau
2005 182-4 US, Israel, Marshall Islands, Palau
2006 183-4 US, Israel, Marshall Islands, Palau
2007 184-4 US, Israel, Marshall Islands, Palau
2008 185-3 US, Israel, Palau
2009 187-3 US, Israel, Palau

How it began, from State Department documents: Within a few months of the Cuban revolution of January 1959, the Eisenhower administration decided "to adjust all our actions in such a way as to accelerate the development of an opposition in Cuba which would bring about a change in the Cuban Government, resulting in a new government favorable to U.S. interests." 9

On April 6, 1960, Lester D. Mallory, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, wrote in an internal memorandum: "The majority of Cubans support Castro ... The only foreseeable means of alienating internal support is through disenchantment and disaffection based on economic dissatisfaction and hardship. ... every possible means should be undertaken promptly to weaken the economic life of Cuba." Mallory proposed "a line of action which ... makes the greatest inroads in denying money and supplies to Cuba, to decrease monetary and real wages, to bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government." 10 Later that year, the Eisenhower administration instituted the suffocating embargo.
Notes

1. The Nation (Pakistan English-language daily newspaper), October 10, 2009 ↩
2. Washington Post, October 20, 2009 ↩
3. Michael Herr, "Dispatches" (1991), p.71 ↩
4. New York Daily News, September 19, 2001 ↩
5. Washington Post, July 20, 2004, p.15, citing the New Era (Lancaster, PA), from a private meeting of Bush with Amish families on July 9. The White House denied that Bush had said it. (Those Amish folks do lie a lot you know.) ↩
6. Washington Post, August 17, 2008 ↩
7. Daily Telegraph (UK), October 26, 2009 ↩
8. Washington Post, October 25, 2009 ↩
9. Department of State, "Foreign Relations of the United States, 1958-1960, Volume VI, Cuba" (1991), p.742 ↩
10. Ibid., p.885 ↩

The Anti-Empire Report November 4th, 2009 by William Blum

Chomsky compares US to Weimar Republic

Anyone who has watched Fox 'News' for five minutes, or read or heard anything from Rush Limbaugh or Anne Coulter and the like, or watched the bizarre 'tea party' movement, could be forgiven for being alarmed at the degenerate state of political discourse in the United States.

Chomsky:

I'm not really thinking about the entertainment aspect of the media, though, yes, it's significant. I'm thinking about the part that has substantive content, crazy content. But it is substantive. It does give answers. I mean, the people who for the last 30 years have seen their wages, income stagnate or decline, their benefits decline, services decline, there's nothing for the children. World's out of control. These are the people who on polls maybe 80 percent of them say the country's going in the wrong direction. The government's run by the few and the special interests not the people and so on.

You know, they're not wrong. This is all happening to them, and the answers that they're getting from say Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, the rest of them, are, "Well, we have an answer. The rich liberals own everything. They own the corporations. They run the government. They run the media. And they don't care about people like you. They don't care about the flyover people between the east coast and the west coast. They only care about giving everything you work for away, to, you know, to illegal immigrants or gays or something. So we gotta protect ourselves from them. And furthermore, they run the government. When they put up a health program, it isn't to give you health. It's to kill your granny, you know." And that's an answer to something. It's a terrible answer, but it is an answer. And if you do suspend this belief, you forget about what's happening in the world really, it's a coherent answer.

Now they're not hearing anything else. And the memory that comes to my mind - again, I don't want to press the analogy too hard - but I think it's worth thinking about - is late Weimar Germany. There were people with real grievances. The Nazis gave them an answer: "It's the fault of the Jews and the Bolsheviks and we've got to protect ourselves from them, and that'll take care of your grievances." And we know what happened. Germany in the 1920s was you know the most civilized, at the peak of Western civilization, in the arts, in the sciences, highly democratic, functioning democratic institutions. A decade later, it was, you know, the pits of human history.

Again, the analogy is not, it's not close, but it's frightening. And unless an answer can be given to these people, unless they can be led to understand what's really happening to them, we could be in for trouble.

Ironically, the person who posted this piece appears to be one of these very right wing loons, as he comments: "Actually, Noam, we're already in trouble because people like you get paid to voice such invective. Be afraid, America. Be very afraid."

Sometimes it's hard to believe or understand how people can be so out of touch. First of all, unlike Rush Limbaugh, he's not getting paid to say stuff. Need we go further?

Anyone who has watched Fox 'News' for five minutes, or read or heard anything from Rush Limbaugh or Anne Coulter and the like, or watched the bizarre 'tea party' movement, could be forgiven for being alarmed at the degenerate state of political discourse in the United States.

Chomsky:

I'm not really thinking about the entertainment aspect of the media, though, yes, it's significant. I'm thinking about the part that has substantive content, crazy content. But it is substantive. It does give answers. I mean, the people who for the last 30 years have seen their wages, income stagnate or decline, their benefits decline, services decline, there's nothing for the children. World's out of control. These are the people who on polls maybe 80 percent of them say the country's going in the wrong direction. The government's run by the few and the special interests not the people and so on.

You know, they're not wrong. This is all happening to them, and the answers that they're getting from say Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, the rest of them, are, "Well, we have an answer. The rich liberals own everything. They own the corporations. They run the government. They run the media. And they don't care about people like you. They don't care about the flyover people between the east coast and the west coast. They only care about giving everything you work for away, to, you know, to illegal immigrants or gays or something. So we gotta protect ourselves from them. And furthermore, they run the government. When they put up a health program, it isn't to give you health. It's to kill your granny, you know." And that's an answer to something. It's a terrible answer, but it is an answer. And if you do suspend this belief, you forget about what's happening in the world really, it's a coherent answer.

Now they're not hearing anything else. And the memory that comes to my mind - again, I don't want to press the analogy too hard - but I think it's worth thinking about - is late Weimar Germany. There were people with real grievances. The Nazis gave them an answer: "It's the fault of the Jews and the Bolsheviks and we've got to protect ourselves from them, and that'll take care of your grievances." And we know what happened. Germany in the 1920s was you know the most civilized, at the peak of Western civilization, in the arts, in the sciences, highly democratic, functioning democratic institutions. A decade later, it was, you know, the pits of human history.

Again, the analogy is not, it's not close, but it's frightening. And unless an answer can be given to these people, unless they can be led to understand what's really happening to them, we could be in for trouble.

Ironically, the person who posted this piece appears to be one of these very right wing loons, as he comments: "Actually, Noam, we're already in trouble because people like you get paid to voice such invective. Be afraid, America. Be very afraid."

Sometimes it's hard to believe or understand how people can be so out of touch. First of all, unlike Rush Limbaugh, he's not getting paid to say stuff. Need we go further?

Chomsky compares US to Weimar Republic

Public Broadcasters Threat to News Ltd

"There is a land grab going on - and it should be sternly resisted. The land grab is spearheaded by the BBC. The scope of its activities and ambitions is chilling." (James Murdoch, 'Put an end to this dumping of free news', Guardian, August 29, 2009)

Murdoch made a noble plea for press freedom:

"Above all, we must have genuine independence in news media. Independence is characterised by the absence of the apparatus of supervision and dependency. Independence of faction, industrial or political. Independence of subsidy, gift or patronage. [...] people value honest, fearless, and independent news coverage that challenges the consensus."

Murdoch wrapped up his speech with "an inescapable conclusion":

"The only reliable, durable, and perpetual guarantor of independence is profit."

link

No, this isn't The Chaser or Onion News Network, apparently it's real.

I don't think public broadcasters have had it in mind to cause the ruin of News Ltd. On the contrary, that surely would have been the last thing on the mind of John Howard, Janet Albrechtson or Keith Windschuttle.

But an unexpected opportunity presents itself here. If in coordination with Murdoch's carefully planned suicide public broadcasters like the ABC were to suddenly increase their online content by 50 or 100% over the next year or so, perhaps News Ltd would indeed pass from the earth. Something greatly to be wished for.

"There is a land grab going on - and it should be sternly resisted. The land grab is spearheaded by the BBC. The scope of its activities and ambitions is chilling." (James Murdoch, 'Put an end to this dumping of free news', Guardian, August 29, 2009)

Murdoch made a noble plea for press freedom:

"Above all, we must have genuine independence in news media. Independence is characterised by the absence of the apparatus of supervision and dependency. Independence of faction, industrial or political. Independence of subsidy, gift or patronage. [...] people value honest, fearless, and independent news coverage that challenges the consensus."

Murdoch wrapped up his speech with "an inescapable conclusion":

"The only reliable, durable, and perpetual guarantor of independence is profit."

link

No, this isn't The Chaser or Onion News Network, apparently it's real.

I don't think public broadcasters have had it in mind to cause the ruin of News Ltd. On the contrary, that surely would have been the last thing on the mind of John Howard, Janet Albrechtson or Keith Windschuttle.

But an unexpected opportunity presents itself here. If in coordination with Murdoch's carefully planned suicide public broadcasters like the ABC were to suddenly increase their online content by 50 or 100% over the next year or so, perhaps News Ltd would indeed pass from the earth. Something greatly to be wished for.

Public Broadcasters Threat to News Ltd

Canberra Alcohol Deaths Up

Canberra was the only jurisdiction to record an increase in alcohol-caused deaths over the past decade, a recent study into alcohol harm has found.

The National Drug Research Institute at Curtin University of Technology found alcohol-caused deaths in the ACT jumped 12 per cent and the number of people admitted to hospital had almost doubled.

The number of deaths in the capital jumped from 39 to 54.

At the same time, alcohol-attributable hospital admission rates rose in all age groups a 64 per cent increase.

This should be compared to the number of deaths attributable to other drugs and substances:

* tobacco
* heroin
* cocaine
* petrol-sniffing
* cannabis
* amphetamines
* ecstasy
* prescription drugs
* etc

Apart from tobacco, which no doubt heads the list by a long way, there would be no comparison to alcohol.

Associate Professor Tanya Chikritzhs said there was a clear link between the deregulation of the liquor industry and rates of alcohol-induced hospitalizations.

I consider the policy of prohibition to be a very counter-productive failure. The right approach to the problem of drug and substance abuse is a combination of taxation, regulation and education, focussing on the most provenly harmful substances. Seen in this light the government response to the problem of alcohol is a scandalous concession to the grog lobby.

Canberra was the only jurisdiction to record an increase in alcohol-caused deaths over the past decade, a recent study into alcohol harm has found.

The National Drug Research Institute at Curtin University of Technology found alcohol-caused deaths in the ACT jumped 12 per cent and the number of people admitted to hospital had almost doubled.

The number of deaths in the capital jumped from 39 to 54.

At the same time, alcohol-attributable hospital admission rates rose in all age groups a 64 per cent increase.

This should be compared to the number of deaths attributable to other drugs and substances:

* tobacco
* heroin
* cocaine
* petrol-sniffing
* cannabis
* amphetamines
* ecstasy
* prescription drugs
* etc

Apart from tobacco, which no doubt heads the list by a long way, there would be no comparison to alcohol.

Associate Professor Tanya Chikritzhs said there was a clear link between the deregulation of the liquor industry and rates of alcohol-induced hospitalizations.

I consider the policy of prohibition to be a very counter-productive failure. The right approach to the problem of drug and substance abuse is a combination of taxation, regulation and education, focussing on the most provenly harmful substances. Seen in this light the government response to the problem of alcohol is a scandalous concession to the grog lobby.

Canberra Alcohol Deaths Up

End Internet Censorship

End Internet Censorship

The Lost Tradition of Biblical Debt Cancellations, by Michael Hudson, PhD.

The Lost Tradition of Biblical Debt Cancellations, by Michael Hudson, PhD.

Obama Has Totally Failed

David Michael Green launches a brutal attack on Obama and his administration. This is no Roosevelt, he's an elite's man through and through.

Chris Floyd uses the example of the Jeremiah Wright affair to illustrate how Obama distances himself from people to suck up to power.

"Hope" should never be placed in politicians, but we might feel somewhat aggrieved that someone who was such an excellent campaigner and speaker should be so utterly weak when confronted with power.

If Obama can do nothing, what hope is there for the United States?

David Michael Green launches a brutal attack on Obama and his administration. This is no Roosevelt, he's an elite's man through and through.

Chris Floyd uses the example of the Jeremiah Wright affair to illustrate how Obama distances himself from people to suck up to power.

"Hope" should never be placed in politicians, but we might feel somewhat aggrieved that someone who was such an excellent campaigner and speaker should be so utterly weak when confronted with power.

If Obama can do nothing, what hope is there for the United States?

Obama Has Totally Failed

Back to School: 14 must-read books for the college rebel

Amusing short reviews of some good selections for wannabe rebels to read.

Let's hope the kids of today are reading stuff like this instead of that psychopathic bitch Ayn Rand, only recently described by Chomsky as "one of the most evil figures of modern intellectual history."

That godawful witch Rand has destroyed virtually singlehanded political discourse in the United States, and done substantial damage around the rest of the world too. People who have read or been influenced by Rand are thereafter rendered incapable of thought or compassion, even after they have distanced themselves from her ridiculous cult. Is she dead (and buried) yet?

Amusing short reviews of some good selections for wannabe rebels to read.

Let's hope the kids of today are reading stuff like this instead of that psychopathic bitch Ayn Rand, only recently described by Chomsky as "one of the most evil figures of modern intellectual history."

That godawful witch Rand has destroyed virtually singlehanded political discourse in the United States, and done substantial damage around the rest of the world too. People who have read or been influenced by Rand are thereafter rendered incapable of thought or compassion, even after they have distanced themselves from her ridiculous cult. Is she dead (and buried) yet?

Back to School: 14 must-read books for the college rebel

Rising Sea Level Projections

Real Climate:

The scientific sea level discussion has moved a long way since the last IPCC report was published in 2007.... The Copenhagen Synthesis Report recently concluded that “The updated estimates of the future global mean sea level rise are about double the IPCC projections from 2007″....

In our view, when presenting numbers to the public scientists need to be equally cautious about erring on the low as they are on the high side. For society, after all, under-estimating global warming is likely the greater danger.

This information is typical of the ongoing development of climate change science. That is, not only is it happenening, but it is happening at a faster rate than at first predicted.

The denialists, therefore, are not only wrong about the science, but also wrong about the speed of change. As Ross Garnaut has said, at bottom the issue is a moral one, and the denialists have no morals.

Real Climate:

The scientific sea level discussion has moved a long way since the last IPCC report was published in 2007.... The Copenhagen Synthesis Report recently concluded that “The updated estimates of the future global mean sea level rise are about double the IPCC projections from 2007″....

In our view, when presenting numbers to the public scientists need to be equally cautious about erring on the low as they are on the high side. For society, after all, under-estimating global warming is likely the greater danger.

This information is typical of the ongoing development of climate change science. That is, not only is it happenening, but it is happening at a faster rate than at first predicted.

The denialists, therefore, are not only wrong about the science, but also wrong about the speed of change. As Ross Garnaut has said, at bottom the issue is a moral one, and the denialists have no morals.

Rising Sea Level Projections

Letting out your Inner Nazi

Govt urges Turnbull to reject torture

A political row has erupted after a federal Liberal backbencher said there was a place for torture so long as it was done "in an appropriate way".

Mr Johnson gained some support from former opposition leader Brendan Nelson, who said it depended on how torture was defined.

Nelson is, by the way, described as a moderate and a "nice guy" in the Liberal party. One wonders what the mean people think.

Nazism could be boiled down to about 4 main elements: Dictatorship, militarism, racism and torture (ie, reversing the gains of the Enlightenment and re-introducing torture as a piece of the regular Government machinery.)

If senior members of the 'Liberal' party are prepared volunteer their support of torture, one wonders how many believe in it but are too cautious to publicly say?

Govt urges Turnbull to reject torture

A political row has erupted after a federal Liberal backbencher said there was a place for torture so long as it was done "in an appropriate way".

Mr Johnson gained some support from former opposition leader Brendan Nelson, who said it depended on how torture was defined.

Nelson is, by the way, described as a moderate and a "nice guy" in the Liberal party. One wonders what the mean people think.

Nazism could be boiled down to about 4 main elements: Dictatorship, militarism, racism and torture (ie, reversing the gains of the Enlightenment and re-introducing torture as a piece of the regular Government machinery.)

If senior members of the 'Liberal' party are prepared volunteer their support of torture, one wonders how many believe in it but are too cautious to publicly say?

Letting out your Inner Nazi

Michael Hudson answers questions from Icelanders

Icelandic blog opens comments for questions and answers from Dr Hudson.

I think there are three or four elements which make Dr. Hudson the best commentator on the Global Financial Crisis, and as he has been described on amazon.com by one reviewer, the best economist in the world right now:

* He was a balance of payments economist for a major Wall St bank. This gives a key insight into how international payments and finance work, particularly from the point of view of the hegemonic power (see his book Super Imperialism).

* A healthy Marxist background, so that he understands that exploitation is inherent in the system, and that the disposal of the economic surplus is the key.

* A classical researcher, with an interest in debt and jubilee. This is a core problem just as relevant today as in the time of Babylon and Sumeria.

* A Georgist input, an appreciation that site rent is by far the greater part of the economic surplus, and that the alternative to taxing the rent is the pledging of it as interest to banks as they go about constructing their global financial ponzi schemes.

This last element is I believe Dr Hudson's secret weapon, which puts the last piece in the puzzle, as there is a total of about 3 of us worldwide who at all take the ideas of Henry George seriously.

Icelandic blog opens comments for questions and answers from Dr Hudson.

I think there are three or four elements which make Dr. Hudson the best commentator on the Global Financial Crisis, and as he has been described on amazon.com by one reviewer, the best economist in the world right now:

* He was a balance of payments economist for a major Wall St bank. This gives a key insight into how international payments and finance work, particularly from the point of view of the hegemonic power (see his book Super Imperialism).

* A healthy Marxist background, so that he understands that exploitation is inherent in the system, and that the disposal of the economic surplus is the key.

* A classical researcher, with an interest in debt and jubilee. This is a core problem just as relevant today as in the time of Babylon and Sumeria.

* A Georgist input, an appreciation that site rent is by far the greater part of the economic surplus, and that the alternative to taxing the rent is the pledging of it as interest to banks as they go about constructing their global financial ponzi schemes.

This last element is I believe Dr Hudson's secret weapon, which puts the last piece in the puzzle, as there is a total of about 3 of us worldwide who at all take the ideas of Henry George seriously.

Michael Hudson answers questions from Icelanders