A Democrat's idea of democratic elections

Jeremy Scahill in Rebel Reports reports on election tampering and bribery in the 2004 presidential election.

As chair of the Democratic National Committee during the 2004 election, Terry McAuliffe engaged in actions that reveal exactly how the Democratic Party establishment views the “democratic electoral process.”

According to a new book by Theresa Amato, independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader’s campaign manager in 2000 and 2004, McAuliffe attempted to essentially bribe the Nader campaign to stand down in key states. In Grand Illusion: The Myth of Voter Choice in a Two-Party Tyranny, Amato charges “the DNC and its state party affiliates embarked on an effort, unprecedented in U.S. history, to force Nader out of the 2004 presidential election...”

Read the whole article here, and you'll find the McAuliffe is not denying it, either.

No real accountability in US investigation of Afghan massacre

At the start of May there was a bombing of Afghan civilians by Americans that killed over 100 people. The Independent writes that it was "the single deadliest for Afghan civilians since the campaign to topple the Taliban in 2001." Now, as Jeremy Scahill writes in another great report, 'The US military says errors were made, but insists the “targets” “posed legitimate threats to Afghan or American forces.”'

At the end of Scahill's article: "... there must be accountability for those responsible." Fat chance, for what the US military is saying is neither an apology nor a real admission ("errors") because it still insists the targets were legitimate!

Episcopal Chicanery

An uproar has ensued after the announcement that a House of Bishops secret committee will examine LBGTs and the theology of same-sex relationships. In response, the committee chair, Bp Parsley of Alabama, gives top-down, heterosexist and paternalistic excuses.

A secret (closeted) committee is studying LBGT Episcopalians

Louie Crew, founder of Integrity, has a few choice words:

> The report of the Theology Committee of the House of Bishops (p.51)
> states they have been asked by the HOB to undertake a theological
> study of same-sex relationships in the life of the church. It further
> states that "a diverse and balanced panel of theologians has been
> appointed by the Committee and is presently beginning this work."

Miguel in the Office of the Presiding Bishop explained to me that it is
the decision of the House of Bishops Theology Committee not to reveal the
names of those on the sub-committee at this time.

I find that decision an abomination. LGBT in life commitments face huge
hostility in this church, and yet those who "study" us need to be secret?!

Perhaps we should also appoint a special committee to study heterosexual
marriage but keep the names of the committee a secret.

I grew up in Alabama with such shenanigans about every aspect of my life
as a gay person, and whenever our judges met in secret, no lgbt person was
safe. Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose


[See also The Lead.]

COMMENT Reflecting on the Baptismal service in the BCP: we are called to "seek and serve Christ in all persons" and ". . . strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being” as covenantal behaviours, but, after reading about all this conniving in secret, I'm wondering where the dignity and respect for faithful LBGT people lies in TEC.

GM Bailout: A supersized scam for taxpayers and workers

Robert Weissman in CounterPunch

While there is probably a need to reduce GM's capacity, there is no need to cut worker wages and benefits. Auto worker wages contribute less than 10 percent of the cost of a car, so even the most draconian cuts will do little to increase profits. Yet the Obama administration's auto task force helped push the United Auto Workers into further acceptance of a two-tier wage structure that will make new auto jobs paid just a notch above Home Depot jobs. This will drag down pay across the auto industry, with ripple effects throughout the entire manufacturing sector. Stunningly, the Obama administration brags that "the concessions that the UAW agreed to are more aggressive than what the Bush Administration originally demanded in its loan agreement with GM."

The ultimate evidence of the task force's disconnect from its public mission is its approval of GM plans to increase outsourcing production of cars for sale in the United States. GM has now disclosed its intent to begin production in China for sale in the United States. What is the possible rationale of permitting a company propped up with U.S. taxpayer funds to increase production overseas for sale in the U.S. market? The point of the bailout is not to make GM profitable at any cost, but to protect the communities that rely on the automaker, as well as U.S. manufacturing capacity.

At this rate, GM workers won't even be able to purchase a Tata Nano.

The great carbon credit con: Why are we paying the Third World to poison its environment?

We can't irrigate our land with it - it's the water of death. It kills the crops we put it on.

Via Fluoride Action Network.

Photo on left: In Gujarat shanty houses stand next to 21st century factories, many of which have been given carbon credits. [Credit Ash Sweeting/Daily Mail article.]

Gujarat Fluorochemicals [JV edit: fluorochemical-manufacturing plant]. The great carbon credit con.

By Nadene Ghouri

(Original article in Daily Mail)

Extracts:

In the fields around this giant chemicals factory in Gujarat, the barren soil smells of paint stripper and the water from the well makes you gag. So why has it been given tens of millions of pounds of taxpayer-funded UN ‘green reward points’, which are traded hungrily on the financial markets at huge profit? [...]

‘We have plenty of water – but water is the problem,’ she says.

As the bucket returns to the top, we can make out a white, almost oily-looking film on the surface of the liquid, which has formed little snowflake shapes.

She scoops up some water and asks us to smell it. It has an odour so acrid it catches in the back of our throats, making us cough.

‘We can’t irrigate our crops with it,’ she says. ‘It’s the water of death. It kills most crops we put it on.’

‘Gone bad,’ says the man who brought up the pail.

Radha makes a derisive gesture across the fields. Her calloused, cracked fingers bear testimony to a lifetime of weeding, planting and hoeing. She is 40 but looks closer to 60. Since her husband died eight years ago, she’s had to feed herself and her six children. Perhaps it’s necessity that’s made her more outspoken than her male counterparts.

‘A few years ago, I grew spinach, potatoes, lots of different crops. Now… look at my plants. Weak, useless.’ [...]

A mustachioed man called Vijay comes forward. He explains that scores of villagers are sick with joint aches, bone pains, unexplained swellings, throat and nerve problems and temporary paralysis. The farmers can’t put any names to their illnesses and, as low-caste dalits (or untouchables), most of them are too poor to access proper medical services. [...]

Pandya was asked by the court to sit on an expert witness panel, which discovered fluoride poisoning in people, land and animals caused by air and water pollution.

It discovered toxic effluent in the water stream and evidence of toxic waste not being properly disposed of by GFL. The documents presented to the court have been seen by Live. They recommended that GFL pay compensation and that villagers be diagnosed and monitored regularly. None of the recommendations have been carried out. The villagers have become so frustrated that they have now made a formal submission to India’s Human Rights Commission requesting an investigation.

For the sake of objectivity, Live took its own samples of water from Radha’s well, Vijay’s village pumps and two other locations, as well as soil samples. We had them tested at an independent government-registered laboratory in India. The results were shocking.

They revealed dangerously high levels of fluoride and chloride – fluoride in the water was more than twice the international acceptable limit. All the water fell well below any safe drinking standards and the soil had worryingly high levels of these chemicals.

As a commenter on the Daily Mail article notes, "The questionable morality of trading the 'right' to pollute - when what's really needed is the re-engineering of industrial processes. Are we short of expertise, or of determination? If this was happening in Europe, rather than some remote location in India, it'd be dealt with pretty quickly." The environment in India also remind me of the same conditions that caused Factory Farm Flu.

LOCAL: Burlington is painting the town yellow & white

This morning I received this notice from Burlington PD (emphasis mine):

Burlington Department of Public works will paint lines on the following streets starting at midnight Thursday June 04, 2009. Vehicles parked in the path of the painters will be towed and left at another location and receive a $100.00 ticket.

Park St - east side, Manhattan to Sherman
N Champlain St - east side, Pearl St to Manhattan Dr
East Ave - East side, Carrigan Dr to Colchester Ave
Mansfield Ave - West side, North St to Colchester Ave
N Willard St - west side, North St to Pearl St
S Willard St - west side, Pearl St to Main St
St Paul St - west side, Howard St to Shelburne Rd
S Willard St - west side, Cliff St to Shelburne Rd
S Winooski Ave - west side, Maple St to Howard St
N Winooski Ave - west side, Decatur St to North St
N Winooski Ave - west side North St to Grant St, meter spaces from Grant to Pearl St

COMMENT: Sarcasm alert - I am glad the city has let us know that the ticket charge has risen from $70 to $100. Although property taxes are due to rise again, DPW has found a way to pay for that paint!

(Photo attribution, with thanks to zen [Flickr]. Some rights reserved.)

Harry in New York

Photos of the visiting Prince on HuffPost, no less. Hmmm, why? Americans do like to fawn over British Royalty. Anyway, LOL@some of the comments. Like, erm, most New Yawkers could really give a damn. True. My fave: "And yes, that's Hewitt's son." Haha, poor Harry.

Saturday Musical Offering: Astor Piazzola

Astor Piazzolla - Libertango

Those damned... Holy Homosexuals

Sure, this is a brilliant send-up the conservative Anglican archbishop of Sydney. Not all Anglicans are like him, may God be thanked. Notice in the video how he very conveniently pulls out his bible to find the the Word of God. (At the risk of being rude, that's a lot of baggage to carry around.) But, as Adrian Thatcher so eloquently writes, The Word was made of flesh and blood, not ink.

Hundreds of theologians have convinced themselves that when they read the Bible, it speaks to them. They “listen” and, of course, “obey”. But the Bible does not “say” any­thing. That is a locutionary meta­phor. It is not a person. It lets itself be read. And to discern it, readers need the Spirit, who guides them into all the truth (John 16.13).

Disaster Capitalism (Health Care Privacy Division)

It's spun as improving the efficiency in health care delivery. But this is trouble with a capital 'T.' Lawmakers in Washington have abrogated their responsibility to protect patients' privacy.

The stimulus package contains provisions on health information security that will expand HIPAA regulations to include consultants from outside the health care industry, such as lawyers and accountants. Speaking at a conference in Wisconsin, attorney Mark Garsombke explained that the provisions could force care providers to revise agreements with such professionals to address concerns regarding their exposure to personal health data.

Equally problematic is using the economic incentives to threaten cuts in Medicare services:

The stimulus package also includes Medicare incentive funding aimed at aiding adoption and use of EHRs. Beginning in 2011, health care providers may start to receive incentives for the use of EHR. This use, however, must meet the definition of “meaningful use” to qualify for payment. The final definition of “meaningful use” has yet to be worked out.

“Once a provider gets to 2015, its reimbursement will decline if electronic health records are not implemented and being used,” said Dan Miller, a Whyte Hirschboeck Dudek lawyer who participated the panel.

Disaster Capitalism (Hunger Division)

A 21st Century a scramble for Africa:

Poor countries in Africa (e.g. Ethiopia, Ghana, Madagascar, Mali and Sudan) are leasing their land to Western corporations and semi-governmental agencies to provide food to countries outside that Continent.

Today, there's a news item in nrc/international about a pilot project fighting
the 'hidden hunger' in Africa. What's surprising is the companies involved don't even try to spin it as a solely magnanimous gesture. It's a well-crafted scheme to win hearts and minds - and future markets - in some of the same countries that are leasing their lands.
[Emphasis mine.]

A collaboration between the Dutch ministry of development aid, the agricultural university in Wageningen and a couple of multinationals aims to add vitamins and minerals to the diet of those who need it most. Their aim is not entirely philanthropic, the companies also hope to secure their future markets.

According to the World Health Organisation, 963 million people do not have enough to eat and an estimated 2 billion people are affected by iron deficiency, the most prevalent form of malnutrition worldwide. [...]

DSM, a Delft-based food company; Unilever, the multinational consumer product maker, and paint and chemical producer Akzo Nobel want to combine the knowledge and networks of industry, science and government to improve the nutrition of African children. [...]

Are the multinationals simply trying to polish up their image? "This is not charity," says Unilever's Global Health Partnerships director Paulus Verschuren. "It is about the added value to both society and our company. You need a functioning society if you want to set up a healthy business. By fighting malnutrition now we hope to secure our future markets."

DSM too sees business opportunities in fighting malnutrition. The company is developing so-called NutriRice, nutritionally enriched rice. It uses broken grains of rice - usually residuary - which it then crushes and mixes with vitamins and minerals. The pulp is then manufactured into rice grains again and blended back in with the normal rice.

NutriRice has been tested among high school students in China and was "a great success" according to Adade.

(Cross-posted at Antemedius.)

Blurt: The Nation on USAID, Plan Colombia and Burlington-based ARD

Here's Ken Picard's latest on the SevenDays staff blog, Blurt, about a "local" connection to a "global" war.

About six months ago, I got a phone call from a reporter who claimed he was calling from Colombia. I automatically assumed he meant the institution of higher learning in upper Manhattan.

"Columbia University?" I asked.

"No, Colombia the country," he replied, without a hint of condescension.

The man was looking for some background info on ARD, an international development firm headquartered on Bank Street in downtown Burlington. (Former Mayor Peter Clavelle took a job there after his unsuccessful bid for governor.) Why call Seven Days? In 2007, I'd written a short piece about ARD after it was bought out by a much larger firm, Tetra Tech, of Pasadena, California, which has close ties to the U.S. military.

The reporter, whom I can only assume now was Teo Ballvé, said he was working on an investigative piece for the Nation about Plan Colombia and ARD's work in that country. He asked me about a half-dozen questions about ARD and its Burlington offices — none of which seemed particularly relevant to international narco-trafficking — then thanked me for my time and said he'd email me the story when it came out.

I never heard back from him and assumed he'd lost my email address, the story had been killed or he'd been. (Hey,drug traffickers don't waste their time sending nasty emails to your editors when you piss them off.)

This morning, Ballvé forwarded me a link to this week's story in the Nation, "The Dark Side of Plan Colombia". In it, he alleges that USAID grant money, channeled through firms such as ARD, "appears to have put drug war dollars in the hands of a confessed narco-paramilitary and two accused paramilitary-linked drug traffickers," a possible violation of federal law.

Clearly, a lot of time and research went into this story. Give it a read, and let us know what you think.

(Cross-posted at Antemedius.)

Trafalgar Square's reinvigorated fountain

Now, if they could only get rid of the dirty pigeons! When I lived in London, I'd pass through the square en route to Embankment tube station to catch a Circle Line train for the ride home, stopping occasionally to watch one of the many demonstrations taking place.

Guardian

... As Joel Schobs, the engineer in a chlorine-scented lair deep beneath the square's flagstones, cranked up the pressure and eased open valves that had been closed for a lifetime, the plume in the western fountain gradually and almost imperceptibly rose.

Within a minute it was visibly taller than its twin. Within two it was high enough to splash the bronze cloak of General Charles Napier. Within five it was a spurting glory, 35 feet high – higher than anyone has seen it in at least 30 years and probably twice as long as that. The ducks that arrive every summer from nearby St James's Park quacked ecstatically.

"Not bad, is it?" said Richard Genn, who is in charge of the square for the Greater London Authority and has supervised a year-long £190,000 project to restore the fountains to their intended glory. ...

The original Victorian fountains had nothing to do with beauty and everything to do with reducing the amount of open space and the risk of riotous assembly. The police post concealed inside a granite column in the corner, often wrongly called the smallest police station in London, was added in the great depression of the 1930s: it was linked directly to Scotland Yard and has slots through which the solitary occupant could fire on any rioters.

[Photograph: Zak Hussein/PA]

Marrow program steps up efforts to gain more minority donors

This is good news! The National Marrow Donor Program has changed the name of its bone-marrow donor registry to Be the Match and is using such social-media Web sites as Facebook and MySpace to reach younger potential donors and encourage them to sign up. The agency also has developed an online search tool to make it easier to identify possible matches in the registry.

When I worked for a blood donor center at a hospital in the Texas Medical Center, we'd co-sponsor bone marrow registry drives, targeting African-American groups to assist patients with Sickle Cell Disease. (Sickle cell disease results from an abnormality in hemoglobin, the protein in red blood cells that carries oxygen. Because the disorder involves cells produced in the bone marrow, replacement of the defective bone marrow with normal marrow will cure it.)

The Real News Network: Everything is on the table except what's not

From The Real News Network: 'Sen. Max Baucus, Chair of the Finance Committee announced last week: "single-payer option is not on the table because it cannot pass". A week earlier, a rally, co-sponsored by one of the main advocates of single-payer system, CNA/NNOC took place on Capitol Hill. Hundreds of nurses, doctors and health care reform advocates gathered to express their opinion on the health care issues.'

As a person on the clip below says,

"Politicians have to stop taking money from the insurance companies and right now they're saying it's not politically feasible because they're still taking money from that big industrial medical complex, from pharmaceuticals..."

Related: People from Toronto respond to a US advertising campaign about the Canadian health-care system



More at SinglePayerAction.org

The occupiers are women battering rapists (UPDATED)

UPDATE: From Jeremy Scahill/Rebel Reports:

In a major story today, London’s Daily Telegraph quoted Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba describing photos (that the Obama administration is fighting to keep secret), which allegedly depict US personnel raping prisoners, other sexual assaults on prisoners with objects including a truncheon, wire and a phosphorescent tube. “These pictures show torture, abuse, rape and every indecency,” Taguba said. Put that statement against this one from the president: In defending his decision to fight the ACLU in its efforts to have the photos publicly released, Obama said on May 13, “I want to emphasize that these photos that were requested in this case are not particularly sensational.”

Scahill goes on to report that the White House is attempting to diss the messenger: Maj Gen Taguba.

________________________


Recently, you've been reading about the guilty verdict - and life sentence - of Steven Green for rape and murder. He's just one of many - not just the proverbial 'bad apple.' Rape, murder and pillage are endemic in Iraq and part of the US military culture; from Ten Percent:

We know they murdered, we know they pillaged, we know they raped, we know they took pictures. We know the Whitehouse under any administration protects the criminals, not least because they ordered it. Does Obama look so noble when he is covering this up. They have studiously avoided the pictures of the women who were raped, much harder to maintain the heroic troop myth necessary for continual imperial aggression when they are women battering rapists.

Photos: Abu Ghraib prison, 2004 (AFP)

A crazy idea, you say?

Yes, it is crazy.

"Whew! And, it’s a really good thing Bush is no longer in power or else the US would come up with some crazy idea like building a colonial fortress in Pakistan to defend “US interests” in the region."

Yes, indeed, it's already happening, an accessory to Obama's AfPak central Asia strategy.

Pieter van Vollenhoven visits parents of attacker (30 April)

The parents of Karst T., the man who attempted to attack the RF on April 30 and died as a result, still have emotional stress ever since it happened. (The general public have shown empathy to the family.) According to Volksrant [Dutch] on May 21, Ascension Day, Pieter van Vollenhoven, the spouse of Princess Margriet - on behalf of the RF - visited the parents of Karst T. Not only a thoughtful gesture, but a way for the family to come to terms with their tragedy.

Photo: Pieter van Vollenhoven (ANP)

State Rep. Paul Poirer (I)

From Broadsides

A Central Vermont state representative, Paul Poirier, announced yesterday that he was leaving the Democratic Party to become an independent. Why? Because he felt that the Democratic Party wasn’t taking the issues affecting working people seriously enough.
Bravo to Poirier.

But his very thoughtful and open decision sent the local Democratic Party faithful – you know, the ones who hate war unless it’s a Democratic war, or injustice unless it’s Democratic injustice (read: Obama and gay marriage), etc. – into an all-too-familiar political tantrum.

One particular Dem blogger who is known for having a near-constant brain wedgie from his ill-fitting corporate-issued Dem cheerleader outfit wondered what Poirier could possibly mean by middleclass people being disillusioned by the Democratic Party. Hmm, let’s see, how about these three issues: The war(s), health care, and economic injustice (as in: bailouts for billionaires, flagger-jobs for the rest of us).

The power of the Obama haze never ceases to amaze me. Worse, the continued – and even worsening – manner in which worshipers of the two parties defend their churches – err, I mean, parties – to the detriment of the issues they claim to “fight for” remains simply bizarre.

Remember, for example, that Obama was an “anti-war” candidate. But once his “team” won, out went the issues of the day and in came a most disingenuous form of reasoning that goes something like: Just wait. And wait. And wait.

Do these folks envision little smiley faces on the bombs of Obama? Oh look, honey, he makes them happy before they die from his tyranny and our inaction….

Again, congrats to Poirier. The parties don’t matter – unless you’re looking for easy friends and a job – but the issues do.