IEA Oil Dump A Disaster In The Making

by Brandon Smith

It’s amazing. In the wake of the 2008 derivatives and housing bubble collapse, created by the U.S. Treasury and the private Federal Reserve with engineered low interest rates and easy money designed to artificially pump up the economy after the effects of the dot-com bust, the faltering markets of 2000-2001, and the rapidly depreciating dollar, we have now seen these same entities pour Trillions, yes, TRILLIONS in fiat injections into every conceivable corner of the markets. They have spent incredible sums on toxic equities (worthless equities, and don’t let anyone tell you different) to “ease” the debt spiral, they have propped up almost every large international bank, they have propped up the Federal Government and the Dollar itself with sizable purchases of our own Treasury debt, and, they have even thrown money into the pockets of foreign institutions and corporate beggars. Keep in mind, that all the debt that these actions generate is eventually placed squarely in the lap of one group of people; the American Taxpayer!

They have manipulated unemployment figures. They have consistently released completely fraudulent CPI (inflation) figures based on calculations which neglect numerous factors that used to be counted only two decades ago. They have used coordinated naked short selling in precious metals markets to hold back the natural spikes in gold and silver values. They have blamed every negative development in the economy (that they could not hide) on extraneous circumstances and outside culprits rather than themselves. They have done all this, to conjure the illusion of recovery for an increasingly agitated general public.

So much tap dancing and snake oil selling, and all it took, was the pain of $4 a gallon gas to wipe everything away…

That’s right, when the cost of driving to work, driving to shop, or driving for vacation doubles, the naïve notion that everything is perfectly normal goes right out the window. Americans complain a lot, but they rarely accept a bad situation as inexorable and take measures to fix it themselves.There is always the “chance” that things will get better tomorrow, or so we tell ourselves. We just ride the wave, and expect the pack of sharks at our back will never quite catch up to our boogie-board of blind optimism. However, when something takes a Great White sized bite out our very wallets, we take notice, and search the horizon for a bigger boat.

I have commented in the past that after only a few months of high gas prices, the wind would easily be knocked right out of our puffed up bailout driven recovery, and so far, that is exactly what is happening. Retail sales are fumbling, vacation destinations are crippled, the housing market continues to dive, in part due to the relentlessly high price of energy. When people travel less, they spend less, they buy less, and they relocate less.

In response, the IEA (International Energy Agency), an organization of 28 countries, has made a very sudden and startling announcement; each member nation will begin dumping their strategic crude oil reserves onto the global marketplace to flood the supply side of the equation, and, in theory, drive down overall oil prices. The IEA will release over 60 million barrels over at least 30 days into the markets, half of which will come directly out of the strategic reserves of the U.S. This is only the third time in the 37 year history of the IEA that this kind of action has been taken. Surely, governments around the world have finally realized that inflation in energy is going to completely derail what’s left of our financial structure, and they are working to prevent this, right…?

Some economists and many in the public will cheer this decision as a fast and decisive solution to the growing oil crises. These people would be foolish. But, perhaps we should look at the debate points from their side of the field, or even the U.S. government and the IEA’s side of the field. Below, we will look at the arguments made in support of the IEA oil dump so far, and why they are utter nonsense…

Lie #1: Oil Prices Are High Because The War In Libya Has Diminished Supply

Better throw on some boots and grab a shovel! Digging through this crap might take all day…

I’ll tell you a little secret, something mainstream economic analysts would rather you didn’t hear: there is NO lack of supply in crude markets. Sorry, the facts are clear. I realize that there are also proponents of ‘peak oil’ out there that fervently want to believe that there is a current and substantial supply side crisis in crude. Whether they are correct or not about the eventuality of peak oil remains to be seen, however, we are certainly not seeing any semblance of an oil shortage today, despite events in Libya.

Libya’s crude production before the war accounted for only 2% of the world’s entire oil output.Oil prices were climbing back towards the high levels seen in 2008 long before the “Arab Spring” broke out in the region. In February, the IEA itself reported that the world oil supply rose to an all time high of 89 million barrels per day. After the Libyan conflict erupted, this production fell by a marginal 700,000 barrels per day:

http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/04/iea-reports-that-world-oil-supply-rose.html

The establishment’s assertion that Libya is somehow the direct cause of energy inflation is a distraction. Libya has little or nothing to do with anything.

Lie #2: The IEA Oil Dump Will Create A Supply Glut And Drive Down Prices

The position that a “lack of supply” is the culprit behind rising gas prices is an outright falsehood. In fact, markets are already awash in oil, and our government is fully aware of this.The U.S. Energy Department has shown a global trend of falling demand for gasoline, and, the IEA has even admitted that this trend is likely to continue through 2011:

http://www.upi.com/Business_News/Energy-Resources/2011/05/17/IEA-sees-US-gasoline-demand-falling/UPI-99911305637281/

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-23/-head-scratcher-petroleum-release-to-inflate-u-s-crude-glut.html

Anyone who follows the Baltic Dry Index also knows that freight shipping has collapsed back down to levels near those that appeared right before the 2008 debt bubble burst. This means around the world there is less demand for nearly ALL goods, and many commodities necessary for manufacturing, not just oil. Lower demand means greater available supply.Therefore, supply is in no way the issue when it comes to high oil prices. Again, the supply argument is a distraction away from the truth. Yet, this has been Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s primary rationale for supporting the IEA dump:

"We saw a very substantial sustained supply disruption. These reserves exist in part to offset those kind of disruptions," Geithner told CNBC television.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/24/us-usa-economy-geithner-oil-idUSTRE75N5ZK20110624

So, to reiterate, there is ALREADY a glut in oil markets, and there has been since at least 2008.If there was actually a supply side crisis, trust me, you would know it. If you want to study a true crude supply crisis, then you only need glance back at the energy crisis of 1979 when Jimmy Carter ordered a cessation of Iranian oil imports and the Iran/Iraq war began. When you have to wait in long lines at the gas station just for a few gallons of unleaded, then you might be in the middle of a supply crisis.

After we accept the fact that supply is high and demand is low, we are then faced with an important question; why in the world would the IEA report high supply and low demand, and then expect to have any significant effect on oil markets by dumping our strategic reserves?!

Lie #3: The IEA Oil Dump Was Designed To Hit “Speculators”, Who Are The “Real” Cause Of Energy Inflation

Back in 2009 after the first major gasoline spike subsided, I spoke often about the mainstream financial media’s strange obsession with “speculators”, and the consistent use of talking points obviously designed to condition the American public into associating all oil price jumps with scheming investors in the shadows out to corner the market. My theory back then was that once oil began to skyrocket again due to the crumbling value of the dollar, establishment pundits and government officials would come back once again to point a finger at the speculator boogie man, and draw attention away from our inflating currency. Sure enough…

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/04/22/obama-form-task-force-tackle-rising-gas-prices/

As we have seen, supply is not an issue, and so speculation should not be either. However, if speculators have actually been hoarding stocks and supplies in order to artificially drive up the price of crude, then the IEA announcement should have sent them scrambling to phone their brokers to sell-sell-sell! The shock to oil markets should have been extraordinary. But what happened? Not much to write home about…

The Brent crude index saw a relatively moderate price drop from around $113-$115 a barrel down to $105 a barrel, and currently, the price is showing potential to climb back up!

Initiating the release of the strategic oil reserves of nations across the globe caused an overall price drop of a few bucks? I guess speculators weren’t having much of an effect on the market after all.

So, if speculators aren’t the cause, and neither is limited supply or high demand, then what IS the phantom driver of inflation in energy? There is only one other possible answer; devaluing currencies. The IEA can pour all the oil they want into the markets and it won’t change a damn thing, because higher supply does nothing to strengthen the foundation of the dollar, which is being swiftly eroded by the Federal Reserve. Have they accomplished a minor halt to rising prices and visible inflation? Yes. Will prices bounce back even higher in the near future as the Fed continue to inject fiat into the economy? Absolutely.

The Consequences Of Reserve Depletion

The IEA announcement comes directly after the last OPEC meeting ended in a bitter split between member countries over whether to raise crude production levels. The decision by every country except Saudi Arabia to keep production steady was the right one, of course.However, elements of the U.S. and the EU were downright unhappy with OPEC’s unwillingness to help hide the weakness of their respective currencies. An OPEC decision to increase production would have at least influenced market psychology, and allowed prices to soften for a short time. So, without OPEC support, the central banker controlled apparatus turned to the IEA to open the floodgates of petroleum. OPEC nations, as one might imagine, are not happy…

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/23/us-opec-iea-idUSTRE75M6J520110623

There are several threats associated with this development, and there is a distinct possibility that these have been deliberately provoked, if one considers that a weakened America ripe for centralization is the true goal.

First, OPEC countries could easily retaliate against the IEA by dropping their own production levels. Not only will the IEA action be meaningless (as we have shown above), it could also directly trigger a REAL supply crisis if OPEC decides to dam up the river. The U.S. is very unpopular in the Middle East, Africa, and Venezuela already. Now, the IEA has just given these regions a perfect excuse to dish out some economic vengeance.

Second, traditionally, if there is a real supply side crisis caused by OPEC, our most important stop-gap would be to tap into our strategic reserves. Unfortunately, we have just put those reserves on the market without batting an eye. So, in essence, we paid a very high price for a bullet that we will one day shoot ourselves in the foot with. That is to say, we have dumped our strategic reserves and set in motion a possible disaster which those reserves were supposed to save us from! Its mind boggling!

Third, there is very little stopping OPEC at this point from decoupling from the U.S. dollar completely, especially if crude prices continue to rise despite the IEA dump. The fact of currency inflation and dollar implosion will be so exposed that no one, not even “Tiny Tim” Geithner, will be able to deny it. Once the illusions of “limited supply” and “speculation” are cast aside, the global focus will end up squarely on the dollar, and the IEA dump will have sped up the process dramatically.

I don’t know if anyone else has noticed, but this country has been thoroughly gutted over the past few decades. Our industrial base has been dismantled and shipped overseas to the benefit of foreign nations and corporate feudalists. Our grain reserves, once ample, have been depleted to an all time low. Our currency has been systematically debased. And now, our oil reserves, without rational cause, are being sold off only to feed the catastrophe our government is supposedly out to stop. Are the American people being prepped like a glazed ham for the fires of the globalist oven? Is this really all due to coincidence and stupidity as skeptics claim, or is there something else at work here? I find it hard to believe that the IEA and our government are not aware that their proposed strategies conflict with their own source data, or that they are completely oblivious to the destruction they are about to reap upon our economy. The latest IEA decision is just one more piece of evidence of an agenda of deliberate financial destabilization trending towards a disaster that serves the interests of a select few, to the detriment of all the rest.

You can contact Brandon Smith at: brandon@alt-market.com

This column first appeared at:

http://www.activistpost.com/2011/06/iea-oil-dump-disaster-in-making.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ActivistPost+%28Activist+Post%29

Alice Walker: Why I'm joining the Freedom Flotilla to Gaza

Pulitzer prize-winning American writer Alice Walker is on board an international flotilla of boats sailing to Gaza to challenge the Israeli blockade. Here she tells why

by Alice Walker

US writer Alice Walker in Gaza City in 2009. Photograph: AP

Why am I going on the Freedom Flotilla II to Gaza? I ask myself this, even though the answer is: what else would I do? I am in my 67th year, having lived already a long and fruitful life, one with which I am content. It seems to me that during this period of eldering it is good to reap the harvest of one's understanding of what is important, and to share this, especially with the young. How are they to learn, otherwise?

Our boat, The Audacity of Hope, will be carrying letters to the people of Gaza. Letters expressing solidarity and love. That is all its cargo will consist of. If the Israeli military attacks us, it will be as if they attacked the mailman. This should go down hilariously in the annals of history. But if they insist on attacking us, wounding us, even murdering us, as they did some of the activists in the last flotilla, Freedom Flotilla I, what is to be done?

There is a scene in the movie Gandhi that is very moving to me: it is when the unarmed Indian protesters line up to confront the armed forces of the British Empire. The soldiers beat them unmercifully, but the Indians, their broken and dead lifted tenderly out of the fray, keep coming.

Alongside this image of brave followers of Gandhi there is, for me, an awareness of paying off a debt to the Jewish civil rights activists who faced death to come to the side of black people in the American south in our time of need. I am especially indebted to Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman who heard our calls for help – our government then as now glacially slow in providing protection to non-violent protesters – and came to stand with us.

They got as far as the truncheons and bullets of a few "good ol' boys'" of Neshoba County, Mississippi and were beaten and shot to death along with James Chaney, a young black man of formidable courage who died with them. So, even though our boat will be called The Audacity of Hope, it will fly the Goodman, Chaney, Schwerner flag in my own heart.

And what of the children of Palestine, who were ignored in our president's latest speech on Israel and Palestine, and whose impoverished, terrorised, segregated existence was mocked by the standing ovations recently given in the US Congress to the prime minister of Israel?

I see children, all children, as humanity's most precious resource, because it will be to them that the care of the planet will always be left. One child must never be set above another, even in casual conversation, not to mention in speeches that circle the globe.

As adults, we must affirm, constantly, that the Arab child, the Muslim child, the Palestinian child, the African child, the Jewish child, the Christian child, the American child, the Chinese child, the Israeli child, the Native American child, etc, is equal to all others on the planet. We must do everything in our power to cease the behaviour that makes children everywhere feel afraid.

I once asked my best friend and husband during the era of segregation, who was as staunch a defender of black people's human rights as anyone I'd ever met: how did you find your way to us, to black people, who so needed you? What force shaped your response to the great injustice facing people of colour of that time?

I thought he might say it was the speeches, the marches, the example of Martin Luther King Jr, or of others in the movement who exhibited impactful courage and grace. But no. Thinking back, he recounted an episode from his childhood that had led him, inevitably, to our struggle.

He was a little boy on his way home from yeshiva, the Jewish school he attended after regular school let out. His mother, a bookkeeper, was still at work; he was alone. He was frequently harassed by older boys from regular school, and one day two of these boys snatched his yarmulke (skull cap), and, taunting him, ran off with it, eventually throwing it over a fence.

Two black boys appeared, saw his tears, assessed the situation, and took off after the boys who had taken his yarmulke. Chasing the boys down and catching them, they made them climb the fence, retrieve and dust off the yarmulke, and place it respectfully back on his head.

It is justice and respect that I want the world to dust off and put – without delay, and with tenderness – back on the head of the Palestinian child. It will be imperfect justice and respect because the injustice and disrespect have been so severe. But I believe we are right to try.

That is why I sail.

The Chicken Chronicles: A Memoir by Alice Walker is published by Weidenfeld and Nicolson. A longer version of this article appears on Alice Walker's blog: alicewalkersgarden.com/blog

This story originally appeared at:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jun/25/alice-walker-gaza-freedom-flotilla

Four Realities About Drones: War of the Killer Robots

by BRIAN TERRELL

June 14, 2011

In an article published on June 7, 2011, in Foreign Policy, “Don’t Fear the Reaper, four misconceptions about how we think about drones,” Charli Carpenter and Lina Shaikhouni warn that “the debate over drones is misleading the public about the nature of the weaponry and the law.” To remedy this confusion they “offer some sensible ways for the anti-drone lobby to reframe the debate.”

Since participating in a ten day vigil in the Nevada desert outside the gates of the headquarters of the Air Force’s drone program at Creech Air Force Base ending with my arrest along with 13 other activists there in April 2009, I have written and spoken about the drones quite extensively. Since then I have also visited with victims of US airstrikes in Afghanistan and have been arrested again last April at a Reaper drone facility operated by the New York National Guard outside Syracuse.

I am evidently among those of the “anti-drone lobby” that Carpenter and Shaikhouni consider are misleading the public by promoting misconceptions about the nature of drones. I do appreciate the effort made to bring clarity to this debate that has hardly begun. The four “misconceptions” that the authors list, however, No. 1: Drones Are “Killer Robots,” No. 2: Drones Make War Easy and Game-Like, and Therefore Likelier, No. 3: Drone Strikes Kill Too Many Civilians and No. 4: Drones Violate the International Law of Armed Conflict, are actually true statements. Far from being misconceptions, these positions that Carpenter and Shaikhouni refute are talking points essential to any intelligent discussion of this issue.

“Misconception” No. 1: Drones Are “Killer Robots.”

“First, drones themselves are not necessarily ‘killers’: They are used for many nonlethal purposes as well,” claim the authors. “Of course, it’s true that drones can be used to kill,” Carpenter and Shaikhouni admit, but if they do not always kill all the time, they are not “killer robots!” The logic of this puts the very use of the word “killer” in question. No person and no system kill all the time and the most prolific serial murderer is only committing homicide for a few hours out of an otherwise full life. Charles Manson for example, has spent more time sleeping and watching television than he ever spent at mayhem. If drones are not killers because they often do not kill, then neither is Charles Manson a killer.

Some gun-rights enthusiasts make similar claims regarding hollow point bullets, Saturday Night Specials and AK47s- It is true that all these “can be used to kill,” the logic goes, but sometimes they are not, and so these weapons should never be labeled killers.

The authors further insist that the drones are not robots at all, killer or otherwise. They attach great import to the fact that the drones “themselves are controlled by a human operator and are not autonomous. With a human-in-the-loop navigating the aircraft and controlling the weapon, the ‘killer’ aspect of these specific drones may be remote-controlled, but it’s not robotic.” To be called robots, Carpenter and Shaikhouni maintain, the drones must be autonomous, without any human control- if they are remote controlled, they are not robots. “This important distinction is easily lost on a concerned public, but the distinction matters.” This distinction clearly matters to Carpenter and Shaikhouni. It is a distinction, though, that is lost not only on a “concerned public” but is lost almost universally on speakers of the English language, scientists and technicians included.

The American Heritage Dictionary defines “Robot” thus:

“1. A mechanical device that sometimes resembles a human and is capable of performing a variety of often complex human tasks on command or by being programmed in advance.

“2. A machine or device that operates automatically or by remote control.”

Wikipedia’s “Robots” entry begins: “A robot is a mechanical contraption which can perform tasks on its own, or with guidance.”

Strangely, the authors refer to the International Committee for Robot Arms Control and to Brookings Institution scholar and author of Wired for War, Peter W. Singer to bolster their argument. The authors’ link to the ICRAC http://www.icrac.co.uk/index.html, leads to their home page that says: “Armed robots currently have a human in the loop to control the application of lethal force. But there is an inexorable drive to create autonomous robots that can choose their targets and kill them.” Singer clearly sees the Predator and Reaper drones as currently used by the US in warfare as robots.

The Predator and Reaper are killers and they are robots. The concept that a drone would need to be autonomous in order to qualify as a robot appears to be the authors’ own and it does not seem to be responsible to allow their novel construction to form the parameters of this debate. Nor is it comprehensible that calling these killer robots for what they are “is preventing public attention from being directed to a more ground-breaking development in military technology: preparations to delegate targeting decisions to truly autonomous weapons platforms” as Carpenter and Shaikhouni maintain.

“Misconception” No. 2: Drones Make War Easy and Game-Like, and Therefore Likelier.

“It’s a variation on an old argument,” say Carpenter and Shaikhouni. “Other revolutions in military technology — the longbow, gunpowder, the airplane — have also progressively removed the weapons-bearer from hand-to-hand combat with his foe. Many of these advances, too, were initially criticized for degrading the professional art of war or taking it away from military elites. For example, European aristocrats originally considered the longbow and firearms unchivalrous for a combination of these reasons.” Are Carpenter and Shaikhouni suggesting that these earlier “advances” in military technology did not make war easier and therefore likelier? Were the initial criticisms of the military use of the longbow, gunpowder and airplanes proven unfounded?

The community of activists that gathered at Creech Air Force Base in April, 2009, produced a leaflet that reads: “The idea that technology can provide a cleaner and safer battlefield is seductive but has been proven a lie. From the catapult and crossbow, through the use of gas and airplanes in World War I, helicopters and napalm in Vietnam to the ‘smart bombs’ of the Gulf War, war has only grown deadlier. Technological advances may reduce the danger of casualties among the military personnel in the short run, but with each advance the number of civilian deaths multiplies and every war of the past century has numbered more children than soldiers among its victims.”

Carpenter and Shaikhouni cite the post-traumatic stress suffered by drone operators as though it were a fact unknown to the “anti-drone lobby” and as proof that the use of drones does not make war easier and therefore likelier. Of course drones make war easier and so likelier, the PTSD of the enlisted personnel notwithstanding. The health and wellbeing of GIs, whether in the trenches or at computer terminals, has never been a determining factor of our nation’s military policies. The grievous harm done to the psyches of soldiers who kill from a distance is easier for a grateful nation to discount and deny than even the traumatic head injuries that so many soldiers who are serving in Afghanistan and Iraq are suffering without medical care or recompense. The “anti-drone lobby” has been ever cognizant of the damage done to soldiers, damage all the more dire because drones have made war seem “easy and game-like.”

The easy, game-like appearance of drone warfare is hell on the soldiers but easy on the politicians and generals who call the shots and so it does make war likelier. Senator Chuck Schumer is pleased and proud to have brought a Reaper (Killer) drone control and maintenance center to his state of New York. He gets credit for “bringing home the bacon,” money and jobs to his constituents. The broken lives of drone victims whether they are in a far away country or members of the New York National Guard, will never count as the political liability against him that a local boy coming home in a body bag surely would.

Drones make war easier and more likely. There is nothing helpful about denying this.

“Misconception” No. 3: Drone Strikes Kill Too Many Civilians.

I must admit that I am horrified by the suggestion that “drone strikes kill too many civilians” is a misperception that we in the “anti-drone lobby” need to disabuse ourselves of. It is reassuring, I suppose that Carpenter and Shaikhouni will grant that “in some ways, even one dead civilian is indeed ‘too many.’” (“In some ways!!??) They continue however, “it’s hard to single out drones when we know so little about whether they kill more or fewer civilians than manned aerial bombing or ground troops would in the same engagements — which also, in some cases, save lives.”

The authors seem to be working on the presumption that there are unavoidable, necessary, even life saving missions that the US military needs to do, so let’s do what we need to do with as few civilian casualties as possible. Carpenter and Shaikhouni see the choice as between using troops and manned bombers or using drones; they do not consider any nonlethal possibility. This shows a tragic poverty of imagination. Can they not consider that maybe US aggressions associated with the “global war on terror” are crimes that can and should be simply left undone? Can they not envision the US not killing anyone at all but paying reparations?

A question is often asked as I speak about resistance to drones: “would you rather the US used saturation bombing?” It is likely that saturation bombing such as the US rained down upon the men, women and children of Dresden, Tokyo and Hanoi would kill more people than the current drone program. It is also likely that ground troops would torture and kill more civilians than the drone strikes do. This is really not relevant. Carpenter and Shaikhouni too readily dismiss the thesis that drones make war easier and more likely, but the fact is that they do. Where there is no will to pay the political cost of sending in bombers and ground troops, US politicians will send in the drones.

The authors further dismiss the claim “drone strikes kill too many civilians” as a misconception because an accurate and consistent method of counting victims is lacking. There is no valid logic to this. It is an admittedly odious comparison, but some would mitigate Germany’s responsibility for its crimes during the Third Reich because the numbers of victims were beyond the possibility of an accurate accounting. The perpetrators of these crimes time and again lie and hide evidence of their killings. Consistently, children killed in US airstrikes are called insurgents until proven otherwise. General David Petraeus, it is reported, even suggested that Afghan parents burned their own children intentionally to put blame on US airstrikes! To deny that drone strikes kill too many civilians because the perpetrators of these killings are able to conceal their actual numbers is almost as reprehensible.

It is well documented and it is even, under pressure, admitted by the US government that many civilians are killed in drone strikes. Carpenter and Shaikhouni insist, however, that it is misleading the public to say that this is too many unless we can offer an accurate account not only of just how many civilians are actually being killed but also of how this number compares to the numbers who might be killed in other hypothetical scenarios. (Peace, apparently, is not a hypothetical scenario that Carpenter and Shaikhouni are willing to take into consideration.) Using the authors’ logic, no amount of carnage can rise to the level of too many civilians killed, so long as the killers can keep the actual body count obscured by the fog of war.

“Misconception” No. 4: Drones Violate the International Law of Armed Conflict.

“No, they don’t — at least, no more so than any other weapons platform when it is used improperly or in the wrong context,” the authors claim. As in their treatment of “misconception No. 1,” Carpenter and Shaikhouni are echoing the gun lobby’s reasoning, “Guns don’t kill people- people kill people.” If I had a drone in my garage and just brought it out to fly around at model airplane conventions, it is possible that I might not be breaking the law. If on the other hand I was using it to peek in the neighbors’ windows or I loaded 500 pound bombs on it and sent it over a sovereign nation’s airspace to blow up an apartment complex, might I expect a knock on my door?

The “anti-drone lobby,” in so far as I am aware, is not protesting so much the existence of some pieces of high-tech hardware but how these things are used to kill. This claim that drones do not violate international law of armed conflict can only be made by taking them out of context, by divorcing the drones from their intended use. This is not really possible to do and in any case, the effort renders the debate an absurd waste of time. The drones are the weapon of choice of a nation engaged in several wars of aggression. They are used in violation of international law.

Brian Terrell with youth in Afghanistan earlier this year.

The “real issue” in the authors’ view is not the drones but extrajudicial executions. “Whether this is happening with or without the consent of the Pakistani or Yemeni government is irrelevant. Whether it is being conducted by the CIA or by the U.S. military is irrelevant.” What legal basis is there for Carpenter and Shaikhouni to declare these questions irrelevant? This seems to echo the G.W. Bush administration’s insistence that the Geneva Conventions are quaint and outdated. It takes just such maneuvering to declare the current use of drones legal.

Drones are “killer robots,” they do make war easy and game-like, and therefore likelier, drone strikes do kill too many civilians and they do violate the International Law of Armed Conflict. I am puzzled and disturbed that some feel that the debate over the use of drones in warfare can be enhanced by denying these facts. What Carpenter and Shaikhouni set out to do with their article is to “offer some sensible ways for the anti-drone lobby to reframe the debate.” The reframing that they suggest is for the anti-drone lobby to shut up about the urgent, real and tangible human costs of the use of killer robotic drones and to ignore as irrelevant the obvious and fundamental legal issues raised by remote control killing. The debate will be more “sensible,” less apt to “mislead the public” when we avoid speaking of the drones in the concrete. Let us rather keep the debate focused on drones and law in the abstract, they propose, undistracted by the smoke of burning flesh.

Brian Terrell is a co-coordinator of Voices for Creative Nonviolence and lives on a Catholic Worker Farm in Maloy, Iowa.

History Is Knocking: Stop the Machine! Create a New World!

by Kevin Zeese, Margaret Flowers, Tarak Kauff, Elaine Brower

There comes a time when efforts to avoid the truth begin to fail, when one can no longer go about daily life and pretend that all is okay. If you are like most of us, you are experiencing this.

There comes a time when one can no longer shut out the atrocities of U.S. foreign and military policy: trade agreements that destroy farming; mass unemployment; especially among communities of color; illegal detention and torture; increasing drone attacks resulting in mass civilian deaths; and once again a President who lies the United States into another war for oil and bankers.

A time comes when one can no longer close one’s eyes to the atrocities of a U.S. domestic policy that steals from the people to add to the already hideously bursting pockets of the wealthy, that kicks people out of their homes, denies needed medical treatment and drives families into bankruptcy so that CEOs can dine on gold-lined plates in their personal jets as they travel from gated mansions to leather seats in penthouse offices.

A time comes when one cannot help but realize that the path is unsustainable and one must make a choice. History is knocking, and each of us must choose how we will answer. What do you want to say you did when history was at your door?

History is not a fairy tale you read to your children at night. It is not something someone else did in another place. History is right here and right now, in front of you. It happens before you realize what is going on. There are events that give hints, but nobody knows when the dam will burst and the flood that gushes forth will wipe clean what has gone before and create a new reality.

When the tipping point is reached, it seems at once both unexpected and completely obvious. We are nearing that tipping point in the United States. We have witnessed the Arab Spring and the blossoming of the European Summer. We ask ourselves if now we will experience the American Autumn.

People in America see that corporate power controls the political process and the media. The Forces of Greed steal our treasure and squander it on militarism and needless wars for empire. Forces of Greed render our White House, Congress and Supreme Court dysfunctional so that the denizens of these bodies regurgitate what their corporate paymasters feed them.

Our country faces crises on every front: the economy, education, jobs, the environment, health care, housing, the wealth divide, an empire stretched too thin and ready to shred. None of these crises has to exist. Just and sustainable solutions are available and known. What stands in the way of all these solutions is concentrated corporate power.

Corporatism is behind the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Pakistan in which thousands, including our own soldiers, but mostly innocent civilians—men, women and children—are maimed and killed.

Corporatism ignores majority support for improved Medicare for all and instead hands billions to the medical-industrial complex while tens of thousands suffer and die from preventable causes each year.

Corporatism prevents effective regulation of the finance industry, stands in the way of a more sustainable energy economy, resists real job creation and is at the root of the foreclosure crisis, while more families find themselves on the street with nothing.

Corporatism blocks effective action to decrease the known causes of climate chaos while the Arctic Cap melts and tornadoes rampage; some face record droughts while others face high-level flooding.

Corporatism exploits human beings and the planet for profit.

Somehow we need to realize that the situation has gone beyond critical and there is no alternative but to act and resist with resolve. Every day the runaway corporate machine moves closer to the precipice; every day, thousands more children needlessly starve or die from wars or disease. Every day, the earth itself is being raped, and all this death and destruction, for what? Bloody offerings at the altar of the god of profit! It has to stop and people of conscience and courage are the ones with the collective power to stop it.

None of us can do this alone. Even the organizations that advocate just and sustainable solutions cannot do it alone. Corporate power is tremendous. It misinforms, frightens and divides us. Our strength is in unity, in the connection that we share: our desire for a world in which humans can trust each other, can work together to create real solutions instead of hating and killing each other.

We are seeing the beauty of this unity in other parts of the world and at home. Across the country there is evidence of citizen revolt.  Most only see the big demonstrations—Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, the immigrant marches—but in fact, people in America are consistently in protest against austerity budgets, big business tax avoidance, rising tuition, cuts to education, foreclosures, insurance-based health care and the ongoing wars.  On issue after issue there is evidence of people in revolt.

Now is the time to join together and unite our struggles in sustained acts of nonviolent resistance. Democracy literally means people power. Concentrated corporate capital and influence has changed the United States into a faux democracy where Americans only get to choose from two corporate-approved candidates, funded by millions in corporate donations.

The normal tools of democracy no longer work.

October 6 is the 10th anniversary of the Afghanistan invasion, and the beginning of the new federal budget year—an austerity budget for everything except for war and the corporate security state. On this day, we are calling for sustained and nonviolent mass resistance in Washington, D.C. The action, Stop the Machine! Create a New World!, portends an American Tahrir Square at Freedom Plaza between the White House and Congress, a block away from the National Press Club and a few blocks from the Chamber of Commerce and K Street, the stomping ground of corporate lobbyists.

An impressive array of people have already signed on. Among them: Ann Wright, Baldemar Velasquez, Ben Manski, Brian Becker, Bhikkhu Bodhi, Chris Hedges, Cornel West, David Swanson, Debra Sweet, Diane Wilson, Glen Ford, Jane Hamsher, Jodie Evans, Leah Bolger, Medea Benjamin, Mike Ferner, Larry Pinkney, Rabbi Michael Lerner, Rosa Clemente, Steffie Woolhandler, Ted Rall, The YES Men. (Google them, if you don't know them, each is an impressive leader.) 

We know however, that it is not leaders who make change, but people united who insist on change that will succeed! 

We are at a turning point. History is knocking. It is time for each of us to decide whether we can remain silent and thus allow the destruction of our planet or join in solidarity to create the future we envision of peace, justice and equality.

Here are three steps you can take right now to create the momentum that leads to a historical breakthrough:

1.      Sign the pledge at www.October2011.org and say why you’re coming.

2.      Spread the word by forwarding this newsletter to everyone you know, posting www.October2011.org on your Facebook page and sending it out on Twitter.

3.      Reach out to organizations that should be involved and tell them to join the campaign.

It is time to turn the Arab Spring into the American Autumn and begin a movement to remove corporate power and militarism from control of our government. 

Ending corporatism and militarism is the transformative issue of our era.

You can be part of a great moment in history—don’t miss the opportunity, answer the call.

Questions? Info@October2011.org.

Elaine Brower is a military mom and a leader of World Can't Wait.

Margaret Flowers is a pediatrician who advocates single-payer health care with Physicians for National Health Program and Health Care Now; 

Tarak Kauff leads the Veterans For Peace direct action program; 

Kevin Zeese is an attorney with ItsOurEconomy.US and ComeHomeAmerica.US; 

Republican and Democratic Plans for Healthcare Are Both Misguided

Privatization Will Accelerate Costs and Deaths

by Margaret Flowers

April 28th, 2011

Leadership in Washington recognizes the damage our soaring health care spending is doing to our entire economy. Although their rhetoric differs, recent budget proposals from both Republicans and Democrats mistakenly place the blame on Medicare and Medicaid. Cuts to and privatization of these important public insurances will place us on a dangerous path that will leave health care costs soaring and more patients unable to afford necessary care.

Medicare and Medicaid must be left out of the discussion entirely until leadership has the courage to address the real reasons why our health care costs are rising, the toxic environment created by investor owned insurances and the profit-driven health care industry.

Health care spending in the United States is the highest in the world and in some cases is two times higher than spending in other industrialized nations, which achieve nearly universal coverage with better health outcomes than the U.S. Our soaring health care costs outpace our growth in GDP, inflation and wages. By any measure it is an unsustainable situation.

If we look at the various health care models in the United States, we find that the rise in spending is lower for traditional (non-privatized) Medicare and Medicaid than it is for the private sector. Our public insurances are our most efficient insurances with administrative costs of around 3%, despite the fact that they cover our most vulnerable and least healthy populations. Administrative and marketing costs for private plans are 15% or more, and the plethora of private plans further increase cost and complexity as patients and health professionals try to navigate their arbitrary and ever-changing rules.

Medicare and Medicaid are the victims of our current fragmented and profit-driven model of paying for health care which has resulted in high prices for health services and medications.

Private health insurers are financial institutions designed to create profit by obstructing, denying and restricting access to health care. They add no value to our health and in fact their business practices have polluted health care financing causing all insurances to adopt their practices in order to ‘compete’. They have also fragmented the health care market and thus the ability to negotiate for fair prices for goods and services leading to the highest prices for pharmaceuticals and procedures.

The commonsense solution is to eliminate wasteful and costly private health insurance and adopt a universal health care system modeled on the strengths of Medicare and given the power to negotiate for reasonable prices.  It is counterproductive to even discuss cuts to Medicare and Medicaid before addressing the fundamental reasons for rising costs. Yet, both Democrats and Republicans have focused on cuts to Medicare and Medicaid in their budget proposals.

Cartoon courtesy of Other Words: http://www.otherwords.org/ 

The Ryan budget proposal, the Path to Prosperity, would fully privatize Medicare by moving to a voucher system in 2022 forcing all seniors to purchase private insurance. The vouchers are not designed to keep up with the rate at which health care costs are increasing so that over time seniors will either have to pay more out of pocket for health insurance premiums or will choose skimpier insurance plans that leave them unprotected should they have a serious illness or accident. Nearly half of Medicare enrollees have an income that is less than twice the federal poverty level and so have little room to absorb an increased share of health care costs.

Medicaid is significantly limited under the Ryan budget proposal which plans to cut overall Medicaid spending by $800 billion over ten years and change to block grants for each state. Block grants will mean that individual states will continue to be under economic pressure to limit who and what services are covered. As fewer are covered by Medicaid, they will have to either purchase private insurance through the exchanges or either seek a waiver from or be penalized for not purchasing insurance.

The Obama administration supports cuts to Medicare through the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) which is tasked with keeping per capita Medicare spending below a target level which is set to be lower than the current rate of health care cost inflation. Rather than blatantly privatizing Medicare as called for in the Ryan proposal, the President’s plan will slowly strangle Medicare leaving seniors struggling to find physicians able to care for them.

The IPAB was actually created in the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The President’s budget proposal would increase the power of the IPAB to cut Medicare costs. Medicaid spending is also capped under the President’s budget.

Sadly, the Peoples Budget put forth by the Congressional Progressive Caucus rubberstamps the President’s approach to cutting Medicare and Medicaid spending.

Underneath cuts to Medicare and Medicaid is a dangerous trend of increasing privatization of health care in the U.S.

There is a growing trend to put more of our population into private insurances and a growing privatization of our public health insurances. Over the past few years as the number of people able to afford employer sponsored health insurance has fallen, private health insurance profits have continued to grow as they move into providing insurance to or administering plans for the Medicare and Medicaid populations.

The ACA puts more people into the private insurance market by mandating that all uninsured who do not qualify for public health insurance purchase private insurance through the exchanges starting in 2014 and subsidizes the purchase of private insurance using public dollars.

Half of the newly insured under the ACA are eventually supposed to come from an expansion of Medicaid eligibility. However, the Department of Health and Human Services has already allowed state expansions in Medicaid coverage to lapse. A recent White House Fact Sheet also supported allowing states to place their Medicaid population into private insurance through the health insurance exchanges.

Privatization of health care is a failed experiment in the United States.

The United States differs from other nations in allowing investor-owned corporations to profit at the expense of human suffering and lives. After decades of experience with this unique privatized model of financing health care, the results are clear and startling.

The United States has the highest per capita health care costs, the highest prices for medical goods and services (and lower overall usage rates) and no control over health care spending. Despite attempts to patch the current health care situation, the number of uninsured and those with skimpy health insurance that leaves them unable to afford health care or at risk of medical bankruptcy continues to grow. Suffering and preventable deaths are higher in the U.S. than in other industrialized nations.

In addition, there have been no significant gains in important measures of health such as life expectancy and infant and maternal mortality rates. Our health disparities continue to grow, especially for those who have chronic conditions. And our health care workforce continues to be inadequate as health professionals quickly burn out from trying to practice in our complex and irrational health care environment.

It is time to recognize the failure of the market model of paying for health care and embrace comprehensive and effective health reform. The model for our ‘uniquely American’ solution lies in traditional Medicare, a single payer health system for those who are 65 years of age and over. Since its inception 45 years ago, Medicare has lifted seniors out of poverty and improved their health status.

Physicians for a National Health Program advocates for an improved Medicare for all health system, one that builds on the strengths of Medicare such as its universality, administrative efficiency and the patient’s freedom to choose a health provider, and also corrects the weaknesses of Medicare such as the lack of comprehensive benefits, out of pocket costs and low reimbursement rates.

Both Democrats and Republicans are missing the point by putting the emphasis on controlling Medicare and Medicaid costs without effectively addressing the reasons for our rising health care costs. Rather than embracing the Republican rhetoric which blames our public insurances, Democrats would do well to call out the real reason for our health care spending crisis, our current fragmented and profit-driven model, and advocate for a national improved Medicare for all.

Margaret Flowers, MD is a pediatrician who serves as the Congressional Fellow for Physicians for National Health Program. Read other articles by Margaret.

This column appeared at:

http://dissidentvoice.org/2011/04/republican-and-democratic-plans-for-healthcare-misguided/