:: 10/19/2002 ::

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Straw threat to bypass UN over attack on Iraq

"We are completely committed to the United Nations route if that is successful. If, for example, we end up being vetoed on statements which are as plain as daylight that Iraq is in flagrant breach of United Nations resolutions, then of course we are in a different situation," Mr Straw told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

We'll bypass U.N. security council to enforce U.N. resolutions! starting with israel- they've blatantly got biggest backlog + illegal nuclear arms project!

"Britaineers aren't haters. They're lovers. Like me. I'm a Lover."

:: phil 02:57 [link] ::

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Agreed, I'm getting annoyed with blogger as I was saying very similar things but posts never got up... farm aid is big problem in the states, most everyone inside the country recognizes it but everyone is also scared to upset the farm interests, for a variety of reasons... like in the Senate, they have a large voice, as they control the political machinery of most of the breadbasket states - with senate's representation system (I'm pretty sure it's publicized enough and you all are into this stuff enough you know there're 2 senators per state, but I put it out there just in case) upsetting farmers is a big big no-no - you can't afford to give away 10, 15 states on this issue... there needs to be large external pressure, personally I think a trade war with Europe might acheive this aim (many politicians actually are looking for an excuse to get rid of farm aid but right now it's just not politically feasible) and many pundits are predicting a slow reversal of current system within the next decade or so - what they base this on, I have no idea...
beefburger problem huge, largely responsible for the loss of south american rainforests. Anyone know where da Silva stands on this? Brazil has recently been stepping up efforts, but I don't know what the regime change will bring...
However, I see food aid and cow grazing as unrelated issues. Can someone show me the connection? I feel it has much more to do with consumerism...

:: ranger 16:29 [link] ::

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this discussion is actually at the heart of the number one environmental issues re: deforestation for agriculture.. and we're not talking indio families growing their potatoes here! this is about beefburgers and coffee!

:: phil 13:00 [link] ::

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"and i'm not talking u.n. emergency food aid to alleviate starvation in africa here.."

WFP nothing to do with food dumping in central/south am.. aforementioned principle tax for agribusiness, which is technically in violation of principle of free trade (tm) nonetheless applies

"WFP is the food aid arm of the UN. Current emergency situations where WFP has a leading role include Kosovo, North Korea, Southern Africa, Southern Sudan, the Great Lakes region of Africa, Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, Somalia, and Iraq, among others. Catherine Bertini, a U.S. citizen, is in her second five-year term as Executive Director of the WFP. WFP is financed through voluntary donor contributions to meet food aid needs and operating costs, with 1999 contributions totaling $1.5 billion."

:: phil 12:52 [link] ::

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restriction of speculative capital flows? a pint says they'll kill him

Luis Inacio da Silva (Lula), the left-leaning candidate of the Workers Party, has taken a commanding lead in the October presidential elections in Brazil. A victory for Lula would have political repercussions throughout the Western Hemisphere. Brazil is the largest country with the biggest economy in Latin America. It borders on three nations—Argentina, which is experiencing an economic implosion, Colombia, the scene of an expanding civil war, and Venezuela, where rightist and traditional political parties backed by the United States recently tried to overthrow President Hugo Chavez. Moreover, Lula’s reservations about the U.S.-backed Free Trade Area of the Americas and his independence on foreign policy issues like Cuba and the civil war in Colombia mark him as an adversary of the Bush administration. [...] Concerned by a possible Workers Party presidential victory, major investment banks, including Morgan Stanley Dean Witter and Merrill Lynch, started downgrading their ratings of Brazil in early May, touching off a financial crisis. The country’s currency, the real, began to drop in value and the stock market plummeted.
The meddling of the investment banks has provoked strong reactions. “These banks have led the neo-liberal sacking of our country and now they are trying to scare people into perpetuating a political order that serves only their narrow interests,” fumed Reinaldo Gon- zalvez of the Economic Institute of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.

:: phil 12:46 [link] ::

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Exactly, said same thing in recent non-posted postings (this is really buggy system methinks) but I don't go as far regarding economic dumping... the aid is generally going to legitimately needy people...
regardless, here are a couple links I found which say useful things, including a nice stat rundown...
This is an even-handed article about aid in general... and
This gives lots of stats... I hope it finally gets thru...

:: ranger 12:31 [link] ::

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need comparison food aid and aid in arms of course, food aid first lie with structural consequence..

realistic quantity of capital for arms very hard to calculate, due to subsidy for arms industry in late capitalistic western countries (incl. germany, b.t.w. industry just carried right on after WWII).. but would be interesting to get "official figure". Amount for South American fascist governments must be staggering! As far as National Security Archive material reveals, CIA actually raises money via mechanisms outside taxation to fund paramilitary groups "loosely associated" with respective government..

Columbia: leading recipient of arms in latin america. Chomsky instructive on paramilitary-military link.. beating down the evident socialist spirit in the hemisphere! there are some very brave people opposing massive military machinery deployed in the region:

In 1999, Colombia became the leading recipient of U.S. military and police assistance, replacing Turkey (Israel and Egypt are in a separate category). The figure is scheduled to increase sharply with the anticipated passage of Clinton’s Colombia Plan, a $1.6 billion “emergency aid” package for two years. Through the 1990s, Colombia has been the leading recipient of U.S. military aid in Latin America, and has also compiled the worst human rights record, in conformity with a well-established correlation.

[...]

The Colombia Plan is officially justified in terms of the “drug war,” a claim taken seriously by few competent analysts. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) reports that “all branches of government” in Colombia are involved in “drug-related corruption.” In November 1998, U.S. Customs and DEA inspectors found 415 kg of cocaine and 6 kg of heroin in a Colombian Air Force plane that had landed in Florida, leading to the arrest of several Air Force officers and enlisted personnel. Other observers have also reported the heavy involvement of the military in narcotrafficking, and the U.S. military has also been drawn in. The wife of Colonel James Hiett pleaded guilty to conspiracy to smuggle heroin from Colombia to New York, and shortly after it was reported that Colonel Hiett, who is in charge of U.S. troops “that trained Colombian security forces in counternarcotics operations,” is “expected to plead guilty” to charges of complicity.

Cauca connection, "war on drugs" interesting here.. part of same scheme..

The paramilitaries openly proclaim their reliance on the drug business. However, the U.S. and Latin American press report, “the US-financed attack stays clear of the areas controlled by paramilitary forces,” though “the leader of the paramilitaries [Carlos Castano] acknowledged last week in a television interview that the drug trade provided 70 percent of the group’s funding.” The targets of the Colombia Plan are guerrilla forces based on the peasantry and calling for internal social change, which would interfere with integration of Colombia into the global system on the terms that the U.S. demands; that is, dominated by elites linked to U.S. power interests that are accorded free access to Colombia’s valuable resources, including oil.

:: phil 12:08 [link] ::

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u.s. food aid is actually a public subsidy to u.s. agribusiness: u.s. taxpayers' money is used to purchase united foods' domestic produce, which is then dumped in third world markets, thereby destroying self-sustainable rural sphere. the rural populous is thus driven into urbanisation (proletariat for wage labour), whilst concentration of ownership either within local elites willing to cooperate with, or directly into the hands of, the vast coffee-making corporations. a very important scheme..

SJ, coffee second only to oil on int commodity markets is it not?! drinking coffee has been almost politically incorrect for a while, and for good reasons.. hence fair trade coffee etc. food dumping has very little to do with aid, and this is no secret outside of the most cynical organisations.

The lack of success of such short-terminist destruction of substenance with long-term results only to the very initiators of such policies also has very little to do with the fact that third world elites "eat it all" or whatever. this is much more so for injection of cash in one form or the other.. a lot of the commercial loans to third world countries usually go straight back into swiss bank accounts.. eg nigeria (case widely discussed in english papers earlier this year) or rather classical cases such as suhartu clan.. proportional quantity of u.s. given laughable. food aid creates dependence. and i'm not talking u.n. emergency food aid to alleviate starvation in africa here..

"When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist."-- Dom Helda Camara

and that's exactly what it is:

Land is Social Wealth

this isn't about karl marx, communism, inefficient bureaucratic labour unions, or whatever. from a great book, avail full online, called Economic Democracy:

If a person were born with fully developed intelligence, physical ability, and judgment--but without social conditioning--one of the first confusing realities he or she would face is that all land belongs to someone else. Before one could legally stand, sit, lie down, or sleep, he or she would have to pay whoever owned that piece of land. This can be shown to be absurd by reflecting on the obvious: land, air, and water nurture all life and each living thing requires, and is surely entitled to, living space on this earth. No person produced any part of it, it was here when each was born, and its bounty belongs to all.

[...]

From the perspective of winning trade wars, the United States has an insurmountable advantage in agriculture. However, sales of most U.S. agricultural products are not only unnecessary, they are morally wrong. These exports destroy native agriculture by usurping their local markets and the smaller level of circulating money within the economy (the multiplier factor) due to paying for imported food limits the development of, or even destroys industries in, other sectors of the economy. Overseas markets are developed for U.S. farmers because they must sell, not because others must buy:

A lot of attention is being paid these days to the developing world as a prime growth market for American farmers. . . .The United States has become more dependent on the developing world with more than 58 percent of total agricultural exports going to these countries in 1986-87. . . .Virtually every trade analysis by the USDA stresses the potential sales among developing nations in Latin America, Africa and Asia. . . .Agriculture Secretary Richard E. Lyng said he most wanted freedom for farmers "to produce what they want to produce" and that to accomplish that would involve solving international trade problems. . . .[James R. Donald, chairman of the department's World Agricultural Outlook Board, emphasized] "The developing countries likely will continue to increase global grain imports and could be a source of expansion for U.S. agricultural exports."1

One of the most sacred illusions of America is that its agriculture is above all reproach. Not only is the United States the "breadbasket of the world," but the developing world is somehow incapable of emulating America's productive farming methods. There is one thing Americans are sure about, without their food and generosity, much of the rest of the world would starve.

totally unacceptable to neo-classical econ, but nonetheless massive scheme implemented

:: phil 11:40 [link] ::

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my last post didn't go through, did it...

:: ranger 11:35 [link] ::

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yeah, the US sends a lot of food to the third world. Not sure of the actual stats, but I think it's ludicrously out of line with the rest of the world... something like the US not only is first, but also gives as much as everywhere else combined. I'm pretty sure about this - it's one of the things that US apologists are quick to bring up whenever the bashing is particularly intense...

:: ranger 11:14 [link] ::

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well, if the poverty thing is his gig, then i think he's way off. the biggest problem is not aid, it's aid distribution. the us pumps huge amounts of food into the third world - some people think it could be enough - but rarely does more than a scrap or two make it past the elite. throwing money at that won't change things...

:: ranger 07:58 [link] ::

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Re: eco-issue

"It's all a goddamn fake. Like Lenin said, look for the person who will benefit."

[from big lebowski script]

can't see any minted environmentalists around here.. there's just no material motivation to the self-interest maximising individual ecowarrior.. the language in these ecocaust-deniers is just astonishing, much reminscient of Washington Post on democratically elected central american presidents with a stance on redistribution, who are commonly referred to as "populist". Why, within given framework, would anyone piss off authorities, why would someone with an academic interest in the climate speak out [as opposed to nodding]? "Bullshit, private!" D.C.-elected leaders usually referred to as "pro-business establishment". N.B. positive connotation in this instance. There's just no denying "everything's fucked dude".

:: phil 15:02 [link] ::

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he's the one who argues that the environmentalists are all wack and off-base, pushing their own politics, right? I haven't read the book either, but I've read both scathing attacks and apologists... gotta say he doesn't come off well. Part of that is surely people striking back, but they do a good job of showing how he doctored his own numbers and was quite selective in what he paid attention to (a real no-no when most of your thesis is based on accusing others of the same thing). Regardless of his thoughts, I'm pretty sure we're doin crazy things to the world - headed for mass extinctions, likely some very strange weather... and even if that ain't all it's supposed to be (tho I personally think it's gonna be worse than touted, and while I don't have the expertise to get deep into it, I find it very informative that virtually everyone in the related fields pretty much accepts it as an undebatable thing, or at least that the intelligent debate has ended - now the debate is about severity and what to do) and there's a lot of stuff that is easy to see on the ground. Having travelled a good bit, I'd like to think I'm getting beyond anecdotal and into decent surveys... like when I toured the states a coupla years ago, EVERY SINGLE LAKE (and I visited many of the major ones and numerous smaller ones) and EVERY SINGLE RIVER was running at it's lowest tide ever, with steep declines every year previous. Water tables gettin crazy everywhere, glaciers virtually disappeared (the great irony of Glacier National Park is that there are hardly any glaciers left - they won't be around probably past 2 decades). You read about the same things happening everywhere, you observe the increasing frequency of strange storm events that begin to tell a tale... so the short answer is I don't think Bjorn Lomborg is evil as others do, but I sure don't agree with his assessment. I'd love to be wrong, as his world is gonna be fine, but I think he's got much more of an agenda than the others he accuses.

Art Bell sometimes acts weird, as ya gotta scroll over the toolbar and you get links that pop up in a somewhat strange way - feels more forced, like bad programming - but usually it settles down once the computer figures it out, at least on my mac. Give it another shot...

:: ranger 14:13 [link] ::

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the better question is... do I?

:: ranger 13:28 [link] ::

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mostly links to bbc, enn, msn etc... pretty established news sources, just does a great job of filtering thru to the good stuff (occasionally something you wouldn't expect, like space.com...) check out the site and make up your own mind.

:: ranger 13:15 [link] ::

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agree, far-fetched. got it here, a spot which specializes in far-fetched and conspiracy-type shtuff. I mostly use it for the environmental news (it has really good links in that regard), but the other topics are sometimes interesting, if strange...

:: ranger 12:51 [link] ::

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below is regarding Bali. Author really likes the term "Zionist" and is pretty bent on an agenda, but the SADM ref is intriguing, if impossible to verify (or even really research much, seems like we're seeing the conspiracy theories surface...)

:: ranger 16:32 [link] ::

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This is rather interesting alterna-take starting up...

:: ranger 16:28 [link] ::

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This is an email I sent to a few people, would like to get feedback so's I can perfect and win this thing...

Below is a draft of my less-than-500 word
go-to-this-city piece for bakpak (the one with the
$2000 prize and the trip around Australia for a
month). I must submit it soon, but I have time to get
feedback from you all. Specific questions: have I
gone too literary? Should I take focus off culture
and more to events/sights? I favor culture feel
because everyone is gonna be writing about
events/sights, and kyoto is already famous enough.
This might get noticed more easily.
Also, does the second person work?
Thx for the feedback.

-r

The Beginning

"3rd wish? Take me to 60’s San Fran."
"No can do. How ‘bout 00’s Kyoto?"
"Even better."

You’re walking along the Kamogawa River downtown, in
Kawaramachi. On every side of you are day-glo souls
blowing flames from lips lighting fireworks juggling
and playing drums – a circus of fun. Sitting watching
the water flow below are couples loving
inconspicuously, philosophers searching for the
eternal gist, guitarists tuning up for the night, and
everyone is mystic.
Suddenly you find yourself not merely amongst them,
but one of them – one with them. An inner drive
containing power beyond the horizon of the single ego
finds you, it bounces you around the bars and clubs
spawning along the adjacent Takasegawa river (which is
really a canal, a hyper-neon pinball Amsterdam). You
walk around temple grounds lit by candles in dangling
paper lanterns, follow them to the festival of the
moment – it seems there’s always at least one – and
feel yourself connected to a higher state of being
because you are in Kyoto, and Kyoto is blessed like
that. The lightning is striking now and who knows how
long it’ll last but at least you can say you were
there and felt it.
Japan is changing again, and the pace is quickening.
The current generation is rejecting the material
security of salaryman ways – they’ve had comfortable
monied lives and distant families, didn’t like it.
That isn’t IT. (Although don’t be fooled – amongst
those not in the juice, this is about as material as a
society can get. A wonderful dissonance – the extreme
is what Japan does best.)
The kids putt around part-time jobs to feed
themselves, then at night come alive with creativity
that is just now starting to find direction. Go on –
walk the river for 30 minutes and see if you don’t
have a mind-bending gut-rending earth-shattering
experience. No? You’re doing something wrong. Look
up this time.
When the sheer spiritual awareness of the city has
exhausted you and a break is needed worry not. Pop 30
minutes south to contemplate life listening to the
street bands of Osaka, or join the flashy lithe ladies
and lads, life clubbers. Go just 20 minutes outside
Kyoto to find some of the only untouched nature in
Japan. Meditate within the most perfect touched
nature of the world – the gardens, the sacred famous
gardens.
This former capital, this cultural epicenter of the
past and this moment – this place is the reason you
travel. You never knew that until you arrived.

:: ranger 11:43 [link] ::

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i would like to disagree on that front. when one is consciously dedicating one's intellect to something, contextualisation will inevitably take place.. sub-conscious messages, as in advertising, as in advanced modes of propaganda, are much more powerful in that the animalesque side to the human being is being manipulated.. cf Pawlow.. just watch TV adverts when you're stoned.. corporate media enjoy a thorough monopoly on information even in societies where the internet has become pervasive.. there's no link to z-mag on CNN.com

:: phil 13:48 [link] ::

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not objectivity, but mere background... there is influence in the background, but not as much as when one is concentrated

:: ranger 13:20 [link] ::

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well, as far as i know, the headline blurbs are generated by the corporate media, too, and "the news that makes the headlines" is an obvious filtering mechanism. there's no objectivity in conciseness.. selection criteria! we are talking institutional bias, it's not like there's some readily available truth and the media are hiding it.. it's a systemic mechanism albeit an important one.. printed news, e.g. London anti-war demonstrations, independent: "biggest anti-war demo in a generation", [chronically conservative] police estimate 150K, organisers' estimate: 400K, got two mentions in Washington Post / NYT in an unrelated article (fair.org v useful on this sort of thing)

:: phil 13:08 [link] ::

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how influenced are we tho, by the media? Let's recall that your average american doesn't read the paper (something like a quarter of the population or lower) and not even all that many watch the news. Mostly, people are informed by unavoidable headline blurbs durin their favorite sitcom... I don't know if that's better or worse, but I don't wanna give the media too much say in people's opinions when it still doesn't reach the majority of people regularly...

:: ranger 12:55 [link] ::

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well i'm sure most operators are aware it's nonsense, but if you're subjected to pure murdoch-style media culture, you would be scared. it mustn't necessarily work at all levels or impress everybody but fear sure does it's bit in seperating what is actually one.. u.s. media culture (sorry, the u.s. is on the cutting-edge on all of these) is utterly bonkers! I remember reading about a 70s study concluding that 30% of the Soviet intellectual/political classes looked into foreign media. in the contemporary u.s., the percentage is miniscule.. just think no. of passports..

:: phil 12:47 [link] ::

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Yes, good quote, do you guys know Nitin Sawhney? Indian DJ who uses that quote in one of his songs (the album is all about India gettin nukes)

Agree that fear is what's being played to - but then, why are we not scared? Have we escaped the system? Or are we playing a role in it, at a deeper level? Indeed, is the fear even a real thing on the ground level? I have this funny feeling that the politicians work themselves into a lather, the media does the same, but the average person - mostly - couldn't care less. It sucks when it hits you - and there is legitimate fear when violence occurs nearby - but the built-up fear, how real is this off-screen do you think?

:: ranger 12:41 [link] ::

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I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.
J. Robert Oppenheimer

like so?

its all down to security culture, it's the next big thing following the cold war in ideological terms. a new culture of fear is being established. this enables repressive practices. just like bed-time tales for little kids ("big bad something or the other, out there, etc") are useful to discipline their curiosity and playfulness, people get scared of the anti-systemic. just as much as criminal activity, a particular form of anti-systemic activity, has always quite successfully been portrayed as being evil no matter what the outcomes may be in terms of distributive justice. the no. 1 killer is u.s.-sponsored state terrorism, turkey, columbia, israel, you name it. our media culture exhibits this issue in a more or less inverted manner: the consumer learns to be scared of palestinians, columbian narco-trafficking taoist-marxist rebels, muslims of all varieties, blacks, etc. the most aggressive culture is no-one but the protestant capitalist [us]..

:: phil 12:33 [link] ::

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I am now shiva the destroyer.

Australia is already pretty right-wing... what can be done to deaden knee-jerk reactions? How can we cause people to take a longer view on issues? Ideas?

:: ranger 12:23 [link] ::

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anonymise your surname if you're worried..

there you go:

The Australian prime minister, John Howard, said he would launch an urgent review of national security. Australia, a staunch Washington ally, has been on a heightened state of alert since the attacks on September 11 2001.

"People should get out of their minds that it can't happen here; it can, and it has happened to our own on our doorstep," Mr Howard said.

:: phil 12:14 [link] ::

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I agree we want know holds barred, but such admissions sometimes have a way of bitin ya - and sometimes it's the system. Always hear about guys who get little misdemeanor thangs pinned on em... then they find some drug stuff on the net and next thing you know, they've got massive power over the poor bloke, proof of intent and all that... this is more a concern for me I suppose, as a citizen of big brother land... what if we simply post sensitive things here, instead of post and publish?

:: ranger 12:14 [link] ::

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i think this is the discussion board.. possible to create alternative blogs i suppose.. trying to acquire some sort of webchat

arousing fear of the anti-systemic.. clear definition of "the other" due on this.. just wait for 24 hours.. right-wing turn in australia should be imminent

The explosions highlighted fears by the US and others that Indonesia is being targeted by al-Qaida operatives. In September, the US embassy in Jakarta closed for six days because of terror threats linked to al-Qaida. Last month, a hand grenade exploded in a car near a house belonging to the US embassy in Jakarta, killing the man suspected of handling it.
[guardian]

:: phil 12:07 [link] ::

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what about creating a discussion board?

Bali kinda eerie as I was almost there... still plan to go but now I'll hafta relax my mother to the idea. Not too surprised tho - a buncha terrorists gettin squeezed who have said they wanna get all foreigners outta the country - well, where are the foreigners?

:: ranger 12:03 [link] ::

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187 dead in Bali.. Blair not impressed:

A spokesman for 10 Downing Street said that the prime minister, Tony Blair. "completely and utterly condemns this appalling terrorist act", while the foreign secretary, Jack Straw, described the bombers as "evil and perverted people who think that some political aim of theirs can be achieved by attacking mainly young people who are enjoying themselves and also in turn contributing a great deal to the Indonesian economy".
[guardian]

:: phil 11:57 [link] ::

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