Don't Ask and Don't Tell

Internesting video going around the Internet of soldiers in a forward operating base in Afghanistan releasing some stress.
As a decorated military war time veteran, Opinione understands first hand how little things like music from home can be a good morale booster. After watching the video however, it appears that the military needs to speed up the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Some of these soldiers look like should be in Key West and San Francisco, instead of a forward operating base in Afghanistan.

Telephone Remake @ Yahoo! Video

Bloggers challenging the elitist news outlets like the NYT and the WSJ

Independent bloggers not employed by a corporate elitist news outlet like the Wall Street Journal are free to publish informative articles. Unlike Wall Street Journal Opinion pieces, independent blogs often site their sources with hyper links so the reader can verify the stories the blogger may post. Often linking back to news wire service reports from the Associated Press or Reuters, independent blogs are now assuming the role of an independent watchdog, that was envisioned by the authors of the US Constitution. Some of the more popular independent media watch dogs on the Internet today are Liberal Viewer on YouTube who has a field day with analyzing Fox News and Media Matters which analyzes and dissects the corporate mass media.

Although not a media analyst but an investigative journalist, Naomi Klein recently posted a wonderful article in her news letter of a recent Wall Street Journal opinion piece on the earthquake in Chile. The article was the equivalent to Naomi Kline bitch slapping Wall Street Journal columnist Bret Stephens with a hard dose of reality. The posting was so great, I am sure Noemi Klein wouldn’t mind it if Opinione posted the article for your enjoyment.

Unlike the WSJ, Opinione and Naomi Klein have included a few hyper linked resources to back up thier statements.

Ever since deregulation caused a worldwide economic meltdown in September ’08 and everyone became a Keynesian again, it hasn’t been easy to be a fanatical fan of the late economist Milton Friedman. So widely discredited is his brand of free-market fundamentalism that his followers have become increasingly desperate to claim ideological victories, however far fetched.

A particularly distasteful case in point. Just two days after Chile was struck by a devastating earthquake, Wall Street Journal columnist Bret Stephens informed his readers that Milton Friedman’s “spirit was surely hovering protectively over Chile” because, “thanks largely to him, the country has endured a tragedy that elsewhere would have been an apocalypse…. It’s not by chance that Chileans were living in houses of brick—and Haitians in houses of straw—when the wolf arrived to try to blow them down.”

According to Stephens, the radical free-market policies prescribed to Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet by Milton Friedman and his infamous “Chicago Boys” are the reason Chile is a prosperous nation with “some of the world’s strictest building codes.”

There is one rather large problem with this theory: Chile’s modern seismic building code, drafted to resist earthquakes, was adopted in 1972. That year is enormously significant because it was one year before Pinochet seized power in a bloody U.S-backed coup. That means that if one person deserves credit for the law, it is not Friedman, or Pinochet, but Salvador Allende, Chile’s democratically elected socialist President. (In truth many Chileans deserve credit, since the laws were a response to a history of quakes, and the first law was adopted in the 1930s).

It does seem significant, however, that the law was enacted even in the midst of a crippling economic embargo (“make the economy scream” Richard Nixon famously growled after Allende won the 1970 elections). The code was later updated in the nineties, well after Pinochet and the Chicago Boys were finally out of power and democracy was restored. Little wonder: As Paul Krugman points out, Friedman was ambivalent about building codes, seeing them as yet another infringement on capitalist freedom.

As for the argument that Friedmanite policies are the reason Chileans live in “houses of brick” instead of “straw,” it’s clear that Stephens knows nothing of pre-coup Chile. The Chile of the 1960s had the best health and education systems on the continent, as well as a vibrant industrial sector and rapidly expanding middle class. Chileans believed in their state, which is why they elected Allende to take the project even further.

After the coup and the death of Allende, Pinochet and his Chicago Boys did their best to dismantle Chile’s public sphere, auctioning off state enterprises and slashing financial and trade regulations. Enormous wealth was created in this period but at a terrible cost: by the early eighties, Pinochet’s Friedman-prescribed policies had caused rapid de-industrialization, a ten-fold increase in unemployment and an explosion of distinctly unstable shantytowns. They also led to a crisis of corruption and debt so severe that, in 1982, Pinochet was forced to fire his key Chicago Boy advisors and nationalize several of the large deregulated financial institutions. (Sound familiar?)

Fortunately, the Chicago Boys did not manage to undo everything Allende accomplished. The National copper company, Codelco, remained in state hands, pumping wealth into public coffers and preventing the Chicago Boys from tanking Chile’s economy completely. They also never got around to trashing Allende’s tough building code, an ideological oversight for which we should all be grateful.

Thanks to CEPR for tracking down the origins of Chile’s building code.

Pirates and Emperors

An interesting video Il Principe came across during a search for some old school house rock videos.

Some places along the super information highway to avoid

Although I am sure, the anti-gun blogger MikeB302000 is all over the recent news of an Ohio man arrested for “going armed in terror of the public”, the immediate reaction by Il Principe was surprise when it was reported that this crime is only a misdemeanor criminal offense in North Carolina. Opinione hopes that the North Carolina legislature will immunize itself from the lobbying pressure of the NRA and reclassify this type of crime as a felony in the near future. People running around impersonating police officers should be considered more of a threat to the public and not be charged as lightly as shoplifters and other misdemeanor crimes.

As the story itself was disturbing, while Opinione researched the name of the man arrested, the Grand Prince came across a white supremacist web site, which offered an insight into the extreme world of white supremacy. It gave an interesting perspective into the thinking of members of the extreme right wing political spectrum in America. One of the more notable posts on the discussion thread concerning the arrest of Joseph Sean McVey included the following, which seemed to encourage other people to try to follow in the steps of Mr. McVey.

Originally Posted by EagerWarrior
The reason things like this aren't making major news is that the Administration does not want you or anyone to know just how hated this "President" is.

They do not want People to know that the majority would like to see him gone, out of office, dead whatever, they are still trying to make us believe that everyone loves and worships Him.

If they told the the truth it might embolden more Patriots to take action, knowing that the masses agree with them.

While the Internet is a wonderful tool for the social and political mobilization of the electorate, there are still some very dark side streets along the information superhighway to be avoided.

An Empire of Bases- An Update on the fight to close Marine Corps Air Station Futenma

An aerial view shows the U.S. Marine's Futenma air station between the urban area in Ginowan, southern Japanese island of Okinawa.

Opinione is continuing to monitor developments related to residents of Okinawa trying to have the US Marine Corps Air Station Futenma removed from their island. This story is important to follow because it is a microcosm reflection of how difficult it is to close any of the 500 military bases the United States military has around the world that have no strategic military value and highlights the power of the military industrial complex in the American government. Like most of the military bases around the world, the bases on Okinawa do not contribute to protecting the global flow of oil, which since the Carter Doctrine of 1980, has been the driving force behind American foreign policy and the principal function of the United States military since the end of the Cold War. Far removed from the radar of public opinion and discussion, the refusal of the American government to respect the wishes of a long time ally, is further proof the United States is increasingly viewed around the world as a country with a closed fist, ready to use the power of its military to get its way, as opposed to a country with an open hand willing to work with countries in a diplomatic way. In the long run, like the residents of Okinawa, the out of control power spending and power of the Pentagon will continue to negatively impact the standard of living for the average hard working American.

Manipulated by the mass media into believing that maintaining foreign military bases will somehow continue to help protect America, redundant and obsolete military bases, like the Marine Corp Air Station in Okinawa, should be one of the issues Tea Party activists and other citizens concerned with a bloated federal bureaucracy should be protesting against. While all the news wire services reported the facts of the story, it failed to put the size of the base the residents of Okinawa are protesting against in perspective. To help readers get a better idea of why the residents of Okinawa may be frustrated of the American base, an article by Chalmers Johnson may help to put the size of the base in context for American readers.

For Okinawa, the southernmost island of Japan, which has been an American military colony for the past 58 years, the Pentagon Base Structure Report deceptively lists only one Marine base, Camp Butler, when in fact Okinawa "hosts" ten Marine Corps bases, including Marine Corps Air Station Futenma occupying 1,186 acres in the center of that modest-sized island's second largest city. (Manhattan's Central Park, by contrast, is only 843 acres.)

Just the name and type of the base in dispute is a clear example of the bloated, inefficient and wasteful beast the Department of Defense, also known as the Department of Power Projection, has become since the end of the Second World War. While other liberal democracies such as France, Great Britain, and Germany, have a strong military and an Air Force, none of these countries combined have as many military aircraft as any one of the four American military branches. With an inventory of over 4,000 planes, the Marine Corps Air Force could easily be the strongest in the world. Helping to put the size and scope of the United States Air Force into perspective for any American fed up with big government and out of control military spending; perhaps they should remember the information provided by Chalmers Johnson in the article he penned in 2004.

Our armed missionaries live in a closed-off, self-contained world serviced by its own airline -- the Air Mobility Command, with its fleet of long-range C-17 Globemasters, C-5 Galaxies, C-141 Starlifters, KC-135 Stratotankers, KC-10 Extenders, and C-9 Nightingales that link our far-flung outposts from Greenland to Australia. For generals and admirals, the military provides seventy-one Learjets, thirteen Gulfstream IIIs, and seventeen Cessna Citation luxury jets to fly them to such spots as the armed forces' ski and vacation center at Garmisch in the Bavarian Alps or to any of the 234 military golf courses the Pentagon operates worldwide. Defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld flies around in his own personal Boeing 757, called a C-32A in the Air Force.

In addition to the Bavarian Ski resort and 234 military golf courses in the Pentagon’s inventory, the out of control federal spending in other countries has enabled other economic competitors to take jobs away from American workers. Just like the numerous military bases in Italy, Germany, and South Korea, the redundant and prolific amount of American military bases in Okinawa take away resources from the American economy and hurt the ability of American companies to compete in the international economy. Perhaps the automotive industry is the finest example of this and exemplifies how maintaining foreign military garrisons like the ones in Okinawa, do more to hurt the American economy, than they do to protect and contribute to its prosperity.

Resting comfortably under the security umbrella provided by the American tax payer, these countries have been able to increase the standard of living for their citizens through economic growth, while at the same time helping their domestic car manufactures capture an ever greater share of the American car market. Not weighed down by the ever-increasing cost of health care that American car manufactures have been forced to absorb, the Japanese, German, and South Korean car manufactures do not have to provide health care for their employees. Unlike the American government, which only gives health care to its own employees and dependants, nearly every advanced economy in the world provides universal health care to all its citizens.

For every American tax payer dollar spent on maintaining a redundant and unnecessary foreign military base, there is less money the federal government can give to state governments. The closure of foreign military bases like the one in Okinawa, is even more imperative today, due to the financial constraint state governments around the country are facing in providing assistance to out of work military veterans, displaced workers, and providing other social welfare benefits to citizens in need.

The repudiation and insolent attitude of the Unites States government towards the residents of Okinawa Japan, mirrors the indifference elected leaders in America have towards their constituents.

The tendency of the press to record, rather than critically examine the actions of the government

In a well functioning democracy, a free and independent press is supposed to act as an independent watchdog. The press, and cable news outlets of the modern era, should be a medium, which allows the public to have a vigorous and responsible debate on the actions of government officials. However, as we have seen during the run up to the Iraq war in 2003, the allotment of information by government officials helps the careers of journalists and the popularity of news outlets that are favored by the government, while at the same time allowing the government to limit and control the information it releases. As the American people have now witnessed with over 5,000 Americans killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the economic demise of their economy, the tendency of the press over the last 20 years, to record, rather than critically examine announcements made by government officials in American political, social, and economic institutions, has pushed the country closer to the precipice of economic collapse and seen the influence of America as a world power decline.

Although most Americans have finally been awakened out of their media induced coma by the great recession of 2008, most Americans are still getting their news from the journalistic mainstream print media and cable news outlets owned by entertainment conglomerates. This allows journalists and media personalities who are part of the dominant class of communication professionals to be managed by high-level political leaders and government officials. The employment of Karl Rove with the Wall Street Journal and Sarah Palin with Fox News exemplifies how news outlets have increasingly become mouthpieces for the political establishment and not acting as an independent watchdog as envisioned by the founders of the U.S. Constitution.

The decline of public debate on the democratic responsibilities of the media has been the result of deregulation of media organizations and the rise of huge media entertainment conglomerates. Falling from nearly 50 media outlets in 1983 to less than 12 in 2010, the concentration of communication professionals in fewer media outlets allows the political establishment and the government to control and manage the information it releases. The deregulation of the mass media and news organizations belonging to entertainment conglomerates has also consigned news reporting to the same corporate play it safe mentality offering more authorized content as opposed to more challenging and controversial reports. The lack of public discussion to higher the level of information in the democratic process in the media is evident when news outlets discuss the sex life of Tiger Woods and offer more infotainment features on their networks, rather than report on stories that will have more serious political consequences.

This type of play it safe reporting by the mainstream media is evident in how the press is reporting on the federal budget deficit. An article in Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) reports on how the mainstream media is downplaying the role of the previous Bush administration.

The role of George W. Bush’s tax cuts in the current federal deficit is tremendous. Their role in corporate media’s current round of deficit obsession, however, is tenuous at best. Sometimes acknowledged in editorials or op-eds, the cuts generally only make it into news reports as assertions from the White House or Democrats, rather than established and relevant economic fact.

Elite papers lately issue near daily alarms on the deficit—“gargantuan,” “unprecedented,” “unimaginable a few years ago.” Virtually all accounts speak portentously of the costs of benefit programs like Social Security, often described as “the main causes for expanding federal spending and deficits” (Washington Post, 3/1/10) or “the major factor behind projections of unsustainably high deficits” (New York Times, 1/26/10)—and sometimes, dismayingly, as “goodies” (New York Times, 2/7/10).

But even the most discerning reader might not suspect that, as the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities explains (2/17/10), “just two policies dating from the Bush administration—tax cuts and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan...will account for almost $7 trillion in deficits in 2009 through 2019,” impacts that “easily dwarf the stimulus and financial rescues.”

The fact that FAIR attacks the New York Times will mute any argument from conservative readers that these organizations are part of the liberal mass media. Unlike the elite newspapers like the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, this independent news outlet is an excellent example of the type of watchdog role the press and mass media news outlets in America should be performing.

How the American Press is manipulated by the Pentagon

A recent story by the associated press, Are School Lunches Becoming a Security Threat, was like the pot calling the kettle black. Leave it to the vast military propaganda machine to cook up this latest weapon of mass distraction media story in order to draw attention away from its own role in the declining health of American children and taking federal resources away from the most vulnerable and needy in American society. Instead of discussing how video games the Pentagon has taken a role in developing encourages children into a sedentary lifestyle, the article also failed to discuss how out of control military spending is taking federal resources away from states trying to institute more healthy school lunch programs. This story, along with several others that are published every month in the mass media, are examples of the continuing trend of the government, business, and other powerful social institutions to portray a story to benefit their own needs as opposed to benefiting the public good.

A new book in Il Principe’s library, When the Press Fails- Political Power and the News Media from Iraq to Katrina, is helping the Grand Prince enter a new echelon of understanding between the collusion of political power and the media in America. Although Opinione has discussed this before in the post, Empire and Communication, and is very familiar how Silvio Berlusconi used his media power for political gain in Italy, the new book in Il Principe’s library expands on this base of knowledge. This book, and many articles on the Internet, is further confirmation for the American public to question and be critical of where they get their news.

As the Pentagon budget continues to grow every year and the military occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan continues with no end in sight, the government has to control and manage potentially damaging stories related to the military and America’s public image. This has been done in a multitude of ways ranging from controlling the press by embedding journalists with American forces to paying civilian military contractors to monitor the media. In yet another example of the ever-growing power of the military industrial complex, the Grand Prince has discovered several job opportunities within the defense industry related to media surveillance. These job postings emphatically prove the length the Pentagon and the military industrial complex is taking to protect its lion share of American taxpayer dollars, while taking away resources for more constructive and progressive government programs.

Not distracted by the weapons of mass distraction or afraid to question the enormous expenditures of the military industrial complex, many anti-imperialist scholars and authors have documented how the Pentagon has used propaganda like tactics to win the war at home. By paying tens of thousands of dollars to the Tribune Company and New York Newsday, hundreds of thousands of dollars to ABC Radio Networks, and more than $ 1.8 million dollars to the international media company Pearson, including tens of thousands for The Economist, the money from the Pentagon has undoubtedly helped to put a better image on the Pentagon and the Bush administration’s handling of the invasion and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan.

One of the more prominent incidents over the last few years includes the defense contractor, The Lincoln Group, which received $897,000 in 2005 and more than $ 697,000 in 2006 to publish stories in Iraqi newspapers written by American soldiers. As Nick Turse recounts in his book, The Complex, Lincoln Group employees and subcontractors sometimes even impersonated reporters, paid the newly freed Iraqi press to publish the false stories and mask any connection with the U.S. military.

With that additional nugget of information, it should be no surprise why Iraq is ranked as one of the most corrupt governments in the world.

More to follow.............

Google discloses demands for censorship and user data

Bloggers, Internet users, and every citizen should read the recent news release issued by Google on where Google is facing the most pressure to censor its services and turn over personal information about its users.

As reported by the Associated Press,

The numbers released Tuesday on Google's Web site provides a country-by-country breakdown on government demands fielded by the Internet search leader during the final six months of last year.

It marks the first time that Google has provided such detailed information about the censorship and data requests that it gets from government in the roughly 100 countries where it operates.

Google limited the breakdown to requests made as part of criminal investigation. It's not saying how often it complies with those requests.

The website posted by Google details the amount of requests Google has received from national governments to remove content from Google services, or provide information about users of Google services and products. In addition to this information, Google has also posted a FAQ page which explains the information in greater detail such as, what is the difference between removal requests and data requests, and how is removal different from blocking services?

Google also includes a link to two independent organizations that release regular reports about government requests for information and content removal. These two organizations are Chilling Effects and the Open Net Initiative. Two web sites that should be book marked and checked on a monthly basis.

The conjuncture of illicit narcotics and covert operations by the CIA over the past 50 years

Alfred W. McCoy is the J.R.W. Smail Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is the author of The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade, which probes the conjuncture of illicit narcotics and covert operations over the past 50 years. His latest book, Policing America’s Empire: The United States, the Philippines, and the Rise of the Surveillance State, explores the influence of overseas counterinsurgency operations on the spread of internal security measures here at home.

In a recent blog posting over at TomDispatch, Prof. McCoy writes about the historical similarities between the Kennedy supported autocratic regime of Ngo Dinh Diem in Saigon (1954-1963), and the Bush administration appointed president of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai. In the article by McCoy, a historian at the University of Wisconsin and an expert on the Vietnam War, the CIA, and the drug trade, makes a powerful case that America is following the same path it did in Vietnam with the support of Karzai.

America and the Dictators From Ngo Dinh Diem to Hamid Karzai by Alfred W. McCoy.

What the Tea Party Movement should really be protesting against

Like most bloggers, it would not be appropriate for Il Principe to let tax day pass without a mention about the taxes in America. While Il Principe was late to the game in posting this article, Opinione has written several articles through the past year that discussed how American tax dollars are wasted oversees on out of control Pentagon spending. While other bloggers have written some great articles on TomDispatch on how out of control military spending now has the largest share of the US federal budget, Opinione thought it would be a good opportunity to discuss the Tea Party movement and how they should be protesting against the out of control military spending instead of domestic social welfare programs like unemployment benefits and the recent health care law. Unlike the uneducated media personalities of corporate America who have helped the Tea Party gain noteriety, Opinione will back up this argument with cited works and scholarly facts.

Perhaps one of the most striking examples of the kind of the waste and the outright legalized embezzlement of American tax payer dollars by politically connected private corporations was the case of KBR in February 2009 and then again in May 2009. Frequent blog readers will remember the story of how a military contractor performing shoddy electrical work resulted in several American service members being electrocuted. As Opinione later followed up in May 2009, if that was not bad enough, the politically connected company received another military contract for 35 million dollars to continue performing electrical work in Iraq. However, just when you think that this story could not get any worse, it was recently reported by the Associated Press that KBR recently received $83 million in bonuses for the electrical work it performed in Iraq.

While most Tea Party protestors have been influenced by uneducated media personalities to protest against social welfare spending like unemployment benefits and the recent health care reform bill, none of these media personalities have used their power to talk about the graft and corruption the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have inspired. Approaching one trillion dollars for the Iraq catastrophe, and Afghanistan not far behind, the wasteful spending of government resources in these foreign countries pales in comparison to the amount that could have been spent helping average hard working Americans. Perhaps instead of watching and listening to these uneducated media personalities, Tea Party activists should read books on the US Constitution such as The Federalist Papers. If they took the time to put down the remote control and open a book such as The Federalist Papers, they would learn that the framers of the US Constitution were all in agreement that a standing army would be bad for the new republic.

Unlike the uneducated media personalities spreading their lies over the airwaves, most academic scholars agree with Il Principe that many of the founding fathers of the American Republic would not have supported the idea of the modern day All Volunteer Force which constitutes the entire US military and the continuing use of mercenary soldiers to defend the Union. This statement is supported by a paragraph from Federalist Paper No. 26 when Alexander Hamilton writes:

“But it is an evil infinitely less likely to attend us in a united than in a disunited state; nay it may be considered that it is an evil altogether unlikely to attend to us in the latter situation. It is not easy to conceive a possibility that dangers so formidable can assail the whole Union, as to demand a force considerable enough to place our liberties in the least jeopardy, especially if we take into our view the aid to be derived from the militia, which ought always to be counted upon as a valuable and powerful auxiliary. But in a state of disunion (as has been fully shown in another place), the contrary of this supposition would become not only probable, but almost unavoidable.”

American sacrifice in Afghanistan allows for Chinese growth and prosperity

As citizens drive by American flags at half-mast around the country and family members mourn the loss of a loved killed in Afghanistan, more Americans should ask how these losses help America become more secure or help its economy become stronger. While most Americans are repeatedly told the myth that fighting the terrorists in Afghanistan and Iraq will somehow make Americans more secure, the bitter truth is that the lies espoused by a corrupted political establishment are only further perpetuating the decline of America. While the United States is wasting hundreds of billions in Iraq and Afghanistan with little to show for it, China is taking advantage of the security umbrella provided by the U.S. military and American taxpayer by investing billions of dollars into development projects in Afghanistan and Iraq. Instead of the Obama administration hosting a 47 nation nuclear summit, which only further enables the status quo power brokers within Washington DC to profit by broadcasting the continuing sense of fear, American leaders should have hosted a week long national conference discussing ideas and solutions for America to be more energy independent. Rather than continuing to follow the 30-year-old Carter Doctrine of maintaining unhindered access to the world’s principal source of oil and natural gas by military force, the United States should be creating a new doctrine combining national security, economic growth and energy independence, to adjust to living in an era of rising powers and shrinking natural resources. It is a disservice to the brave men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice not to do so.

As most Americans have learned over the last decade, being the most powerful military in the world is not as important as being the strongest and most vibrant economy in the world. Unfortunately due to the inept handling of the national economy by a duopoly political establishment in Washington DC, the most vulnerable and disenfranchised segments of the American public often make the ultimate sacrifice. Driving around the country, this is evident by seeing Marine Corps recruiting posters in the economically depressed areas of the nation compared to the lack of recruiting posters in wealthier areas of the country. It is disgraceful for the political establishment in America, which is increasingly become more and more wealthy, to ask the segments of the population that has so little, to sacrifice so much for the country.

To correct this unequal share of sacrifice, instead of just placing an American flag onto a bridge overpass or placing a yellow ribbon magnet on their SUV, more Americans should support the creation of building more mass rail transit corridors in the country. This combined sacrifice would help move the country away from its addiction to foreign oil and the need to continually supply national blood and treasure to protect that dwindling source of energy. The current acts of patriotism by the American public, mirrors the political establishment in Washington DC, which rails against the Islamic Republic of Iran for its crackdown on opposition protests, while at the same time, is mute on the religious and gender inequalities in Saudi Arabia. While it was easier for Americans to remain ignorant of the double standard of American leaders advocating human rights and democracy for other countries in the past, with the age of the Internet and the information society of the 21st century, there is no longer any excuse for the public to remain in the dark.

One of the most under reported aspects of the American occupation in Afghanistan, is how the hundreds of billions of US tax payer dollars spent on securing the country from lawlessness, is allowing foreign economic competitors such as China to invest in the country. Perhaps an article in the New York Times in January 2010 by Michael Wines highlighted this fact by writing,

the China Metallurgical Group Corporation, a Chinese state-owned conglomerate, bid $3.4 billion — $1 billion more than any of its competitors from Canada, Europe, Russia, the United States and Kazakhstan — for the rights to mine deposits near the village of Aynak. Over the next 25 years, it plans to extract about 11 million tons of copper — an amount equal to one-third of all the known copper reserves in China.

While America is stuck in the past and continuing to follow the Carter Doctrine, China is looking 25 years into the future.

A critical examination of America’s close relationship between the repressive and authoritarian regime in Saudi Arabia exposes the willingness of the political leaders in America to forget the moral and democratic principals this country was founded on such as sacrifice, equality and the rule of the law, in favor of quick business profits and access to easy oil. Although the size of our country, the love affair with the automobile, and an era of cheap oil have contributed to this double standard support of democracy by American leaders, with China recently becoming Saudi Arabia’s primary customer for its light sweet crude oil, the time has come for America to develop another doctrine for national security and economic growth. With the new era of more oil reserves in the world being controlled by National Oil Companies such as Aramco of Saudi Arabia and National Iranian Oil Company, the political power of International Oil Companies such as British Petroleum and Chevron only makes the case to diversify away from imported oil more imperative.

As the centerpiece of every American administration since the end of World War II, the United States has always wanted to ensure the flow of oil from the Persian Gulf area is never interrupted or threatened to be controlled by another country that could threaten or cripple the US economy. To ensure this, the United States entered into an agreement with the Saudi Royal family to provide military protection for the Royal Family, in return, United States oil companies beginning with the Standard Oil Company of California (SOCAL) would gain favorably access to the country’s oil deposits. Later SOCAL joined forces with Standard Oil of New Jersey (later Exxon) and Standard Oil of New York (later Mobile) to establish the Arabian-American Oil Company (Aramco).

While America secured a relationship with Saudi Arabia to help fuel its economic growth ,the previous world power, Great Britain and the Anglo-American Oil Company (currently BP), were encountering setbacks with a resurgence of nationalism in Iran. It can be argued quite authoritatively that much of the current political instability in the Persian Gulf is due to the MI-5 and CIA over throw of the democratically elected Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddeq in 1953. With the installment of the Shah of Iran in 1953, the subsequent Nixon administration decision to pursue a “surrogate strategy” after 1970 with the British withdrawal from the area, led to more direct military involvement of the United States in the region. Nixon’s foreign policy decision in the Persian Gulf region collectively with its decision to take the dollar off the gold standard in 1973, has now contributed to the close relationship between the price of oil and the value of the US dollar. With the informal agreement of the Saudi monarchy to price and buy its oil in dollars, this agreement proved to have dangerous consequences in 2008 when oil speculators ran up the price of oil, while at the same time, the value of the US dollar declined. For country with the largest military force the world has ever seen, it appears powerless to fight the aggressive actions of oil traders and currency markets.

Like the correlation between the US dollar and the price of oil, as developing nations such as China, India look for more sources of energy to fuel their national economies, America is slowing learning that it does not have the same influence it once had on the Saudi Monarchy. This was plain to any international observer when the new Saudi King on his first foreign trip to another country, paid a state visit to China in January 2006. In the past, this honor would undoubtedly have been bestowed upon the United States, but due to the increasing economic power of the Chinese economy, the new Saudi King gave an indication as to what country he believes will be the most important for his country in the future. Not only was the state visit by the new Saudi King a diplomatic victory for the Chinese, the state visit was also an economic victory when the two countries signed a “protocol on cooperation in the areas of petroleum, natural gas, and mineral resources”. Three months after the state visit by the Saudi King, the Chinese President traveled to Saudi Arabia and before leaving, the Chinese leader was assured by the Saudi’s that Aramco’s crude oil exports to China would jump from 445,000 barrels per day to one million barrels by 2010.

Using the same diplomatic practices as other previous world powers in the region, China has used military sales to countries in the Persian Gulf to gain favor. Beginning in 1987 with the sale of thirty- six CSS-2 intermediate-range ballistic missiles to Saudi Arabia, (to balance the Israeli ballistic arsenal), China has also supplied anti-ship missiles to Iran. A Chinese version of the Soviet Union “Styx” missile, the HY-2 “Silkworm” played a role in getting the United States to protect Kuwaiti oil tankers during the Iran-Iraq War in 1987. Later in the 1990s, during a report to the U.S. Congress, the commander of the U.S. Central Command told Congressional leaders that China sold Iran twenty patrol boats armed with an updated version of the “Silkworm” the C-802 anti-ship cruise missile. In any military attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, Iran will undoubtedly use these weapons to close down the Straights of Hormuz, and the daily oil flow of 16.5 million barrels of oil, which is roughly 40 percent of all seaborne traded oil (or 20 percent of oil traded worldwide).

Although news reports from the nuclear summit give the impression that China may back stiffer economic sanctions on Iran, recent involvement by the Chinese National Petroleum Corporation in Iran do not suggest that China will actually follow through with these pledges during a future United Nations Security Council vote. While the United States has been investing billions of dollars of national treasure into sprawling military bases in a half dozen countries around the Persian Gulf, China has been quietly investing billions of dollars in energy cooperation deals with energy producing countries in the gulf and building a state of the art high speed rail network running on electricity.

Going back to the October 2004 agreement between the Chinese energy firm Sinopec and the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), China and Iran have established closer economic ties over the last decade. In that historic agreement, Sinopec agreed to acquire a controlling stake in the huge Yadavaran oil field in return for a pledge to buy 10 million tons of liquefied natural gas for the next twenty-five years. A deal thought to be worth over 100 billion dollars.

Flush with money from an export-fueled economy, the Chinese Communist Party has combined the power of major industries and the power of the government into a seamless juggernaut that is posing much more of a security and economic threat to the United States than a group of lightly armed religious fanatics.

Rather than falling victim to another bait and switch tactic used by the American political establishment, like the one used by American leaders to downplay that 15 of the 19 terrorists on September 11th came from Saudi Arabia, the American public should see the latest political stunt by the Obama administration as another variation of the Carter Doctrine of 1980.

If Americans wanted to show their patriotism, instead of merely placing a yellow magnet on their car or placing a flag on an over pass, more Americans should be willing to come together and demand that their leaders devise a new national security policy that focuses on energy independence, instead of military supremacy.

The Sarah Palin Network

She's back and dressed in leather!

Here is a video clip of Sarah Palin introducing her new television network. Some of the programs on the network that are sure to be a hit include; Tea Party Wheel of Fortune, Are you Smarter than a Half Term Governor, and Painting for Patriots with Ned Redstone.

How the web is challenging the propaganda of the Pentagon

Depending on the information cocoon or echo chamber you rely on you get your news from, you may not have heard about the latest act of government propaganda and press censorship related to America’s perpetual war and the military occupation of Iraq. Although the latest story regarding government censorship and propaganda is not new, the latest story is perhaps one of the most vivid examples of how militarism and secrecy can harm a democracy and hamper the ability of the press to act as a check on the abuse of power by government officials. Fortunately, though, a whistle blower from within the government recently used the Internet to post information that exposed the dishonesty of the government while at the same time, demonstrating the growing power of independent Web journalism.

The latest Pentagon cover up repeats a disturbing trend since the start of the invasion of Afghanistan and the subsequent military invasion and occupation of Iraq, where the press has been used to facilitate a lie and protect the military from bad publicity. For anyone remotely paying attention, some examples of Pentagon propaganda include the cover up of a friendly fire incident in Afghanistan that killed recruiting pin up Pat Tillman, the manufactured story of “saving Private Jessica Lynch”, and the management of information by the Bush administration following the release of the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse photos.

Although it may be difficult for some readers to watch the video of unarmed men being gunned down by a high powered machine gun operated from a helicopter, the disturbing video is even more reason for people to view the ugliness of war. Instead of allowing the government to manipulate people's attitude toward a war or war in general with sanitized media coverage, the American public should be reminded how ugly and brutal war is for innocent civilians. Making the military cover up of the Reuters staff more alarming for Americans is the important role the media has on politics and public opinion.

Another part of the problem is the desensitized attitude soldiers and pilots like the helicopter crew in the video have towards enemy combatants due to video games based on warfare and combat. As Nick Turse writes extensively about in his book, The Complex, soldiers serving in the military today have grown up on Play Station and Xbox games, which make killing all but a game. This was not lost on one of the leaders of the web advocacy group that released the video, which said,

"I believe that if those killings were lawful under the rules of engagement, then the rules of engagement are wrong, deeply wrong," he said. The fliers in the video act "like they are playing a computer game and their desire is they want to get high scores" by killing opponents.

As the American electorate continues to disengage from the political debate and shirk from their responsibilities of providing for the common defense of the country, the military and the political establishment in Washington will continue to use propaganda and other tactics to hide the brutality of war from the American people. While other liberal democracies that belong to NATO are cutting defense spending and recalling their troop’s home, the United States is continuing to increase its military budgets and further occupy more countries around the planet.

Why major league baseball should lose its anti-trust protection

Although baseball fans and free market capitalism proponents like George Will of the Wall Street Journal will never publicly acknowledge it, major league baseball owners in America, like their politically connected friends on Wall Street, are further proof that there is indeed socialism in America. Unfortunately, the form of socialism in America benefits the rich and powerful with public money, while the needy and deserving in American society are forgotten and held with contempt by the political establishment.

The start of a new baseball season where the private baseball franchises have moved into new ballparks partially funded through public funds, is further proof how the rich in America get richer, while the middle class in America continues to get poorer and poorer. Using a combination of tactics ranging from extortion to the violation of U.S. laws designed to protect consumers from the uncompetitive dangers of monopolies, major league baseball and the three other professional sport industries, show how the owners of professional sport teams, like other businesses in Corporate America, show little respect for the people living where their organizations are located.

Although many other countries have only one soccer league or one baseball league in their country, the owners of these professional sports would never think of moving their teams out of their respective communities. The owners in other free market economies with professional sport franchises, recognize that there is a ethically component to their business and that their business would not survive without the support of the public. The willingness and habitual tactic of American owners relocating teams out of cities where they had been located for decades, is another example of the dangers associated with the flight of capital to different geographic locations. The lack of public protest by the American people has emboldened owners of professional sport teams to continually use extortion and other unscrupulous tactics to get public money and other concessions from the communities where they were first established with the support of the public.

Using the mass media to broadcast their propaganda, like the leaders of the financial institutions who warned that a quick passage of the bailout money was needed to avoid an economic catastrophe, owners of professional sports have used the same type of propaganda to gain the public support needed to get tax payer resources. Instead of having an ethical and moral commitment to the people where the franchise is located, wealthy professional sports team owners like George Steinbrenner’s New York Yankees , have exploited their power within their community, drawing more public resources for their own private profit, while taking away limited resources from the public domain.

For critics of organized labor like George Will, major league baseball and all the anti-trust protected professional sport industries in America put him and other supporters of free market capitalism in a difficult ideological position. While the professional sport industries in America such as the National Hockey League, National Football League, and the National Basketball Association, are composed of wealthy players and arrogant owners, it also represents the conflict between labor and management. But like its exceptional status as not having any competitor in their respected industries, all of the professional sports in America are also exceptional in how they represent a minority in America with the existence of a union protecting the rights of all the players in each of the respective sports industries. For anti-union and free market protagonists like George Will, all the professional sport industries demonstrate the benefits of labor organizing to protect the interests of its workforce.

For a country that prides itself in not being a free and equal society, there appears that there is a class of pigs in the American version of the George Orwell’s Animal Farm where a class of American pigs is more equal than other American pigs.

Wall Street's role in the latest rise in gasoline prices

U.S. Sec of Treasury Timothy Geithner speaking in Saudi Arabia in 2009.

In a recent article by McClatchy, it appears the speculators on Wall Street are back to their old tricks in the crude oil commodity market. This renewed interest in the crude oil market by hedge fund managers and oil traders dealing in enormous oil contracts will soon cause gasoline prices to rise in the United States. Of coarse the government watchdog, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which is supposed to oversee the commodity markets will do nothing, and the little guy at the pump will ultimately pay the price. But like most things related to the American standard of living in the 21st century, the real reason that more Americans will soon be paying more for their daily drive to Starbucks and their local big box retailer is not related to the free market principals of supply and demand as championed by supporters of capitalism, but due to market speculation, a weak U.S. dollar, and future geo-political conflict.

For the supporters of free market capitalism, the actions of crude oil speculators expose the dangers a lack of government oversight and regulation of a financial market can have on a national economy when over valued assets are quickly devalued. Beginning with the dot.com burst of the late 1990s, followed by the housing market in 2006, and then finally the stock market in 2008, the case cannot be stronger for a more assertive government oversight of the crude oil commodity market. Considering that crude oil supplies have gained bigger than expected inventories in the last month in the United States and U.S. refineries are operating at 81 percent capacity, a new speculative finance bubble appears to be forming in the crude oil commodity market.

Most financial analysts agree there is no broad based economic recovery occurring at the macro level in The United States and the rise in crude oil prices, although slightly contributed to China’s continued economic vitality, is due more to speculation and market manipulation by investors. This claim is supported by a Hedge Fund manager, Michael Masters who said in the McClatchy article that Wall is gaming the price of oil and that an oil contract's price today has little to do with the supply of and demand for oil. Further evidence that market speculation and currency manipulation is driving the factors behind the rise in crude oil price as opposed to supply and demand, is the prediction that U.S. motorists and businesses will consume only slightly more than the 18.69 million barrels per day (bpd) of petroleum than they did in 2009. This figure will remain far below peak consumption of 20.80 million bpd in 2005, which brings the question into play of what is driving up the price of oil.

Analyzing the price of crude oil in relation to the value of the U.S. dollar, data tends to support the scheme that oil exporting countries which are paid for their oil in US dollars are contributing to the rising price of crude, due to a weak US dollar. Perhaps a brief review of the role the US dollar has as the global reserve currency will help clarify how a weak dollar contributes to higher gasoline prices at the pump.

Due to domestic political pressure, the Fed will not raise interest rates until the job market improves, which results in a weaker US dollar on the international currency market. A weaker greenback makes crude oil cheaper for holders of other currencies but also makes the value of oil for oil exporting countries less valuable. Countries such as Saudi Arabia who price their oil in greenbacks and are paid in U.S. dollars, will want the same value of their commodity in order to avoid sparking inflation in their own economies. This leads to other geo-political factors which could be a factor as to why hedge fund managers and oil traders have a renewed interest in the crude oil commodity market.

In addition to the aforementioned issues just discussed, it would be an oversight not to include the variable of future geo-political conflict with Iran, which might be leading to the recent increase in the price of crude oil and investor speculation. Due to the association between members of high finance and national governments, i.e. former Goldman Sachs President Henry Paulson becoming Secretary of Treasury, perhaps the rise in crude oil prices indicates that oil traders may know of some kind of future military action against Iran. As the world nuclear powers begin to ratchet up the rhetoric of imposing sanctions on oil exporting Iran, there is growing evidence which could support this notion.

Although there is no possibility of the United States directly attacking Iran and attempting to over throw the Iranian regime through military force, the more likely scenario of merely only attacking Iranian nuclear facilities, would still have the effect of driving up oil prices. Any military attack would benefit all the major regional powers in the Middle East such as Israel maintaining its position as the sole nuclear power in the Middle East and Saudi Arabia benefiting from the undoubtedly higher price of crude oil as a result of any interruption in commodity that fuels the global economy.

It would be interesting to know what Adam Smith, who is considered as the alpha and the omega of economic science by modern proponents of capitalism, would have to say about speculator manipulation of the crude oil market. Reviewing some of Smith’s earliest lectures while at the University of Glasgow and his beliefs on ethics and charity, it is safe to say he would undoubtedly frown upon the individualist actions of modern day hedge fund managers and market speculators.

The Wealth of Nations in the 21st century , especially the United States, tends to rely more on the principals of Realpolitik set forth by Henry Kissinger and Dick Cheney to maintain its economic and military strength than relying on the economic principals set forth by Adam Smith and Milton Friedman.