Monetary Reform 101

“Somewhere in our history we took a wrong turn and today we are reaping the consequences. If we don’t step back to evaluate the root causes of the rolling economic crises, our civilization is in danger of collapse.” – Clive Menzies

As a follow-up to the Pope’s recent condemnation of the global “cult of money,” someone has sent me an astounding video by an extremely forward thinking financial analyst named Clive Menzies, president of British Fund Building and member of the Free Critical Thinking Institute.

Eighteen months ago Menzies entered into an ongoing dialogue with the London Occupy movement. The result is a radical monetary reform proposal to fix the global economic mess. In the film below, he is presenting it to the Chartered Institute for Securities and Investment (translation: a high-powered group of investment bankers and stock brokers).

In his presentation, Menzies attributes the current crisis, as well as capitalism’s recurrent boom and bust cycles, to the alienation of the vast majority of the global population from the commons (i.e. land) and the prohibition of any discussion of this catastrophic event in contemporary economic discourse.

Most of his talk focuses on the urgent need to eliminate interest from our current economic system. He argues that our interest (debt)-based monetary system needs to be abolished because interest

• drives systemic inequality by allowing those with more money than they need to exploit those who need money.
• drives unsustainable, exponential debt growth because the interest cost rises faster than society can create wealth to pay it.
• discounts the future, driving environmental destruction – a forest is worth more as sawed timber than preserved for future generations
• it demands exponential GDP growth, rapidly depleting finite resources – 3% GDP growth means the economy doubles every 24 years which means extracting resources at twice the rate and throwing twice as much away
• it drives inflation

He also demolishes the prevailing myth that a person’s existence on this planet is only justified by paid work. In a way it’s deliberate falsehood more than a myth. There is only enough “productive” work for 50% of the adult population and the vast majority of income in contemporary society is generated via “rent-seeking” (i.e. charging interest or rent or extracting and exploiting publicly owned natural resources).

Menzies lays out a monetary reform proposal that would abolish interest exploitation through the creation of interest-free government currency (which would most likely be land based and funded through rents), which would be supplemented by local currencies, as is currently in happening in countries like Greece and Cyprus.  

Please watch. I certify the following presentation to be totally jargon-free and painless, no economic expertise required.

photo credit: Christus Vincit via photopin cc

The New York Academy of Medicine celebrated the second anniversary of Fukushima’s nuclear disaster with a two day Fukushima Symposium on March 11^th and 12^th. Sponsored by the Helen Caldicott Foundation and Physicians for Social Responsibility, the event consisted of presentations from a broad range of physician and non-physician researchers specialized in the effects of nuclear radiation on the environment and human health. It was videoed and can be viewed free on-line (see links below).

What the symposium makes crystal clear is that there has been a deliberate effort by Japanese government, the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), the Obama administration, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) to minimize the long term health consequences of nuclear fallout, especially to children.  Instead of backtracking on the billions of dollars he approved to subsidize TEPCO to build more US nuclear power plants, Obama is participating in an international cover-up to conceal the serious long term dangers of this technology. See After 50 Years Nuclear Power Still not Viable Without Subsidies

I found the March 11th presentation by Dr Steven Starr of the Clinical Laboratory Science Program at the University of Missouri the most illuminating. The focus of Starr’s talk was the long term effects of Cesium-137, which is the main long term contaminant of soil and food following a nuclear accident.

The research Starr presents directly contradicts a study WHO published two months ago called The Health Risk Assessment From the Nuclear Accident after the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami. The latter supports the Japanese government’s position that the radioactive contamination deposited immediately after meltdown has dissipated and there is no longer any risk of eating food produced there. Buoyed by the WHO study, the Japanese government has already declared Fukushima rice totally safe provided it emits less than 100 Becquerels (Bq) per kilogram (kg). (A Becquerel is one atomic disintegration per second.)

Research conducted after Chernobyl contradicts this directive. According to Starr, children in the Ukraine and Belarus routinely exposed to more than 50 Bq per kg of Cesium-137 (from the Chernobyl meltdown) Chernobyl suffered irreversible heart damage.

According to Starr WHO and IRCP are guilty of four main scientific errors:

1. WHO and IRCP quantify radiation exposure in Sieverts or milliSieverts (mSv). This is extremely controversial because a Sievert isn’t a measure of actual radiation exposure but of presumed radiation “effect” based on mathematical modeling.
2. WHO and IRCP studies are based on an assumption that Cesium-137 is spread uniformly throughout the body, whereas their own research shows it bioaccumulates in specific organs.
3. None of the WHO and IRCP studies incorporate Dr Yuri Bandazhevsky’s detailed research into Belarusian children exposed to Cesium-137 following Chernobyl, which has only recently been translated into English.
4. None of the WHO and IRCP studies distinguish between external exposure and chronic internal exposure due to radionuclides that accumulate in vital organs.

Basic Scientific Facts About Cesium-137 and Fallout from Fukushima

Cesium-137 is released as a gas and has chemical properties similar to potassium. Thus it reaches highest concentrations in potassium-rich foods, like berries and mushrooms and in animal products at the top of the food chain (e.g. milk and meat). In the body it accumulates in the same organs in which potassium accumulates (heart, pancreas and other endocrine organs, intestine and kidneys).

Eight months after the Fukushima meltdown, the Japanese Science Ministry released a map showing that 11,580 square miles, 30,000 square kilometers, or 13% of the Japanese mainland, had been contaminated with Cesium-137. The official government map fails to designate any cesium-137 contamination in the Tokyo metropolitan area, unlike an independent survey done by Professor Yukio Hayakawa of Gunma University. (People may recall the government also tried to deny for two months that there had been any meltdowns.)

Somewhere between 4500 and 7700 square miles (an area approximately the size of Connecticut) was found to have radiation levels that exceeded Japan’s previous allowable exposure limit of 1 mSv per year. Rather than evacuate this area, Japan chose to raise its acceptable radiation exposure from 1mSv to 20 mSv per year.

Studies show that a dose of 20 mSv per year, will produce 1,000 additional cases of cancer in female infants and 500 in male infants (per 100,000 in their age group.). There will be also sn additional 100 per 100,000 cancer cases in 30 year-old-males.

The Effect of Chronic Cesium-137 Exposure

Based on Bandazhevsky’s research, Starr questions whether even 1 mSv (14,000 Bq) per year is safe in children, as WHO and ICRP claim. The figure is based on the assumption that absorbed Cesium-137 is distributed uniformly throughout the body.  

Research done by Dr. Yuri Bandazhevsky and his colleagues in Belarus between 1991 and 1999, found that children exposed to whole body radiation levels above 50 Bq per kg of body weight experienced irreversible damage to their heart and other vital organs.

Bandazhevsky summarized his nine years of research in s paper entitled “Radioactive Cesium and the Heart.” With the help of friends, Starr has just finished editing an English translation of this work. It has never been translated before because shortly after Bandazhevsky presented it to the Parliament and President of Belarus, he was arrested and imprisoned. Just as Soviet physicians were forbidden to diagnose radiation-related illness following Chernobyl, the Belarusian government vigorously suppressed the work of Bandazhevsky, who was protesting government efforts to resettle people back into land badly contaminated with Cesium-137.

Two million people in Belarus live on lands severely contaminated by cesium-137. Fourteen years following Chernobyl, most of the children there were in very poor health. 45 to 47% of high school graduates had physical disorders, including gastrointestinal anomalies, abnormal heart function and cataracts, and 40% were diagnosed with chronic “blood disorders” and malfunctioning thyroids.

Links:

You can watch a video of Stars presentation at Implications of Massive Cesium-137 Contamination and read the transcript at Cesium-137 transcript. You can watch the entire 2-day symposium at Symposium webcast.

The presentations on Day 2 focus more heavily on the distribution of the radioactive plume that reached the US (and not just the West Coast), and the growing Fukushima-related health problems in Americans.

The final event on the March 11 morning webcast is a presentation by two US sailors whose aircraft carrier was anchored off Fukushima. They describe how Navy negligence and disinformation caused both to be exposed to heavy doses of radiation – and the major health problems they’re dealing with. You can watch it at press conference and read all the gory details at More Vets Join Fukushima Lawsuit

photo credit: Abode of Chaos via photopin cc

According to Daniel Hopsicker in MadCow Morning News, it turns out Ruslan Tsarni, the uncle of the two alleged Boston bombers, was married to the daughter of former top CIA official Graham Fuller. Uncle Ruslan, in turn, had a decade-long business relationship with Halliburton, the oil company/defense contractor formerly run by Dick Cheney that awarded billions of dollars in no-bid contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Back in the nineties, Tsarni served for two years as a “consultant” for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), in the former Soviet Republic of Kazakhstan. It’s been well-documented that USAID (which is funded by the US State Department) is often used as a front for CIA and other US intelligence operations.

In the early 1990s Ruslan Tsarni married the daughter of former top CIA Graham Fuller, who spent 20 years as operations officer in Turkey, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Afghanistan, and Hong Kong. In 1982 Fuller was appointed the National Intelligence Officer for Near East and South Asia at the CIA, and in 1986, under Ronald Reagan, he became the Vice-Chairman of the National Intelligence Council, with overall responsibility for national level strategic forecasting.

At the time of their marriage, Ruslan Tsarni was known as Ruslan Tsarnaev, the same last name as his nephews Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the alleged bombers.

It is unknown when he changed his last name to Tsarni.

Coincidentally Graham Fuller is listed as one of the American Deep State rogues on FBI translator whistleblower Sibel Edmonds’ State Secrets Privilege Gallery. According to Edmonds, the gallery features subjects of FBI investigations she became aware of during her time as an FBI translator.

She asserts that these individuals engaged in criminal activities subsequently protected under the doctrine of State Secrets. After Attorney General John Ashcroft went all the way to the Supreme Court to silence her, she posted the twenty-one photos to the Internet with no names.

One photo has been subsequently identified as Graham Fuller.

All this is just the tip of the iceberg. Read full post here: MadCow Morning News

photo credit: ford via photopin cc

Crossposted at Daily Censored

Ethos

Peter McGrain 2011

Film Review

The hour-long documentary Ethos, narrated by actor/activist Woody Harrelson, is now available free online.

In my opinion, it has powerful take home lessons for Americans across the political spectrum. Largely because it addresses what I view as the two main obstacles to political change in the US 1) the immense power private banks enjoy via their control over the money supply and 2) the enormous power the corporate media exerts over public information. Much of this is elucidated through excellent cameo interviews with prominent dissidents such as Noam Chomsky, Michael Moore, Howard Zinn, Edward Said, Cynthia McKinney, Norman Solomon, Benjamin Barber and Chalmers Johnson.

The main goal of the film is to clearly articulate the current political crisis Americans face in the 21^st century, which it does by exploring the historical context in which the crisis has developed. The documentary describes a number of significant historical events that are usually omitted from history textbooks.

It starts out with a general overview of the ways in which corporations have steadily increased their control over our supposedly democratic government.

There is special emphasis on the power private banks wield by controlling the money supply. Harrelson starts back in 1910 with the secret “conspiracy” by J.P. Morgan and other major bankers to create the Federal Reserve. Contrary to popular belief, the Fed isn’t a branch of the federal government. What it is, in essence, is a cartel of private banks.

Harrelson also devotes a long section to the use of the corporate media to manipulate public opinion and instigate Americans’ overwhelming drive to consume. He begins by describing the work, in the early 20^th century, of Edward Bernays. Bernays, considered the father of the public relations industry, held the view common to many corporate elites that the wider public must be controlled because they’re incapable of meaningful participation in democratic government. Bernays perfected the technique of manipulating unconscious fears and desires, not only to help corporations sell people stuff they don’t need, but to assist government in social control.

In the final part of the film, Harrelson reveals how the Bush administration used the science of public relations to 1) convince the American people of the need for the US to invade and occupy Iraq and Afghanistan and 2) generate sufficient fear in the population to pass legislation stripping Americans of most civil liberties guaranteed in the Bill of Rights.

photo credit: rick via photopin cc

Crossposted at Daily Censored

Guest post by Joan Mootry

Below is a comment Joan Mootry had censored when she attempted to post it at the “alternative” news site OpEdNews.  As she notes below, only Part 1 was printed. Part 2 was deleted. Be sure to check out her articles and links at the end.

 

 Comment submitted by Joan Mootry on March 17, 2013 on this article:

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Opednews-Policies-On-Banni-by-OpEdNews-admin-130314-312.html#comment424753

 

  Reply to laurie steele: OEN’s History of Censorship and Banishment…Part 1/2

As a new member of OEN, which then touted itself, as it still does, as publishing “liberal, progressive, socialist and revolutionary content”, I was shocked to be flagged twice as a “truther”, one of [editor]  Rob Kall’s many dismissive labels. I had simply pointed out evidence about 9/11 that contradicted the government’s story.

 

Since then I’ve repeatedly seen that OEN’s stated objectives have nothing to do with its actual practice of censoring and banishing, keeping its focus well within corporate-media’s parameters. Most of what Rob ridicules and suppresses are not “theories” or “conspiracies”, as he would have you believe, but are provable coverups. For just one example, HAARP is real and is linked to weather-radar NexRad-type installations functioning all over the world. But we are forbidden to discuss this on OEN, just as it is verboten on mainstream news (MSN). That would be anathema to the corporate state and many of Rob’s advertisers.

 

“Speculation” (ie. contemplation or consideration of a subject) is encouraged by OEN, but only within the media-manufactured faux right/left-left/right paradigm. God help those inquisitive minds that speculate beyond MSN’s and OEN’s boundaries on topics such as 9/11, Sandy Hook, Aurora, aerial spraying (chemtrails), Chris Dorner’s murder, and other real issues. Rob maligns us with ugly names like “flaming anti-semites, right wingers, racists, crazies, sock puppets, dupes” and even “murderers”. Another nasty OEN ploy is that of accusing people of “promoting their own agenda”, a phrase used to condemn opinions outside of OEN’s own rigid “agenda”.

 

Part 2/2

 

OEN’s History of Censorship and Banishment

The best sources for truth and substantive questions that I’ve found on OEN are those intelligent writers that are invariably banned. The banned include, but are not limited to: Ruth Hull, Tracy Turner, Janet Phelan, Robert Singer, Malany Blaise, Steven Erickson, Michael Rose, Sandra Valley, Brett Redmayne-Titley who resigned to protest censorship, Ned Lud, Georgianne Nienaber, Andrew Winkler, Sibel Edmonds, Rady Ananda, Timothy Gatto, John Doerami…perhaps 20 more and counting.

 

Ruth Hull, one of my favorite writers, simply attempted to support the notion of Chris Dorner’s right-to-trial. You know, that inconvenient 6th Amendment issue that the LAPD ignored, with full approval of MSN and apparently OEN, too, because it got Ruth banned. Meryl Ann Butler, whom we see here repeatedly cheerleading OEN’s narrow positions, was in on the outing. Thankfully, many of these valuable “OEN banned” are publishing elsewhere, such as at Activist Post, Veterans Today and other well-known sites.

 

Will I be banned for speaking up? I would be in good company:

 

Google “America’s So-Called Liberal Alternative Media – Some Are MSM Mini-Me’s” by Tracy Turner (OEN won’t allow a direct link to it). http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/TPV3/Voices.php/2013/03/13/mcdonaldization-news-media-hollywood-tel

 

“OpEdnews: Faking the News for an Agenda”

 

Georgianne Nienaber banned…

 

“…OEN…not fair to refuse your readers…”

 

OEN bans…Andrew Winkler…

 

OEN Self-Proclaimed Arbiter

 

Google “OpEdNews Ranked Among Top 100 Blogs, Why?” by Mark Powell (OEN won’t allow a direct link to it.) http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/TPV3/Voices.php/2011/01/03/opednews-ranked-among-top-100-blogs-why

 

Rady Ananda “Is OEN Dying?”

 

“The OEN “Word Ban Drama…”

 

John Bessa “What about OpEd News???”

 

See “Stay Away from Anything Written by Robert Singer”

photo credit: j / f / photos via photopin cc

This is Part II of a two part guest post by Dr Danny Weil. It’s a repost of an article Cornell University to Offer the “Hypodermic Needle Theory” of Education in an Attempt to Colonize Consciousness and Groom Future Elites originally published  at Daily Censored

Cornell to use the hypodermic needle theory of propaganda

By Dr Danny Weil

As I wrote at Truthout.com in September of last year, the use of Hollywood to propagandize right wing, reactionary causes has a long history (http://truth-out.org/news/item/11225-film-wont-back-down-models-hollywood-propaganda-in-age-of-school-reform).  The core assumption underlying the use of Hollywood and propaganda films during the 1940s and 1950s was known as the hypodermic needle theory and the theory can be seen in its shocking and marked nakedness today.

This theory suggested that corporate media could influence large groups of people directly and homogeneously by “shooting” or “injecting” them with appropriate messages designed to trigger a desired response. During the 1940s, several factors arose which contributed to this theory of propaganda, including:

• The fast rise and popularization of radio and television.
• The emergence of the persuasion industries, such as advertising and propaganda.
• The Payne Fund studies of the 1930s, which focused on the impact of motion pictures on children.
• Hitler’s monopolization of the mass media during World War II to unify the German public behind the Nazi party.
• The assumption that people are passive and are seen as having a lot media material “shot” at them, and therefore end up thinking what they are told is true due to the fact that there is no other source of information (ibid).

The reactionary elites, like Gates and Walton and slew of others are one of the most class conscious reactionaries since the putrid monarchies under feudalism.  To ‘inject’ propaganda into the minds of the population they are not limited to simply Hollywood, which they use to modify consciousness, but they are also busy building a core of elite cadre whom will carry out their rancid plans to corporatize and privatize all education.  These elites must be trained and they must have pedigrees from elite colleges.

Cornell’s propaganda course, “Waiting for Superman”

Below is the course syllabus for the Cornell propaganda course.  As you will see upon perusal, the course attempts to masquerade as a critical analysis of the “crisis” in education.  However, don’t be fooled.  The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation funded the construction of the William H. Gates Hall at Cornell to the tune of $25 million back in 2006.  According to Cornell’s own website:

“The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has awarded $25 million to Cornell University to support the construction of the signature building for a planned information campus that will bring together the several units of the university’s Faculty of Computing and Information Science (CIS)”.

“The Gates Foundation’s grant will have a transformative effect on our academic and research programs by bringing together faculty members who are now scattered across the campus, enhancing opportunities for creative interaction, and serving as a focus for computing education and research within the university,” said Cornell President Hunter Rawlings. “It will make Cornell a model for education in the age of digital information by allowing every student, studying any subject, to understand the impact of computers on the development of that subject, and it will distinguish our graduates in every field” (http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Jan06/GatesCIS.ws.html).

Power and money, the Powell memo and the hypodermic needle theory of propaganda have all come together in a perfect storm for purposes of inhabiting consciousness and creating the conditions for ideological control.  Capitalizing on the financial economic “crisis”, the New Gilded Age philanthropic-pirates have indeed employed the reactionary methodologies laid out in the Powell memo that are needed to colonize college campuses and ‘breed’ needed administrative personnel (this, when they are not working to actually destroy working people’s campuses in the interest of privatization, corporatization and consolidated corporate power).

Does one really think that within the gated community of the William H. Gates Hall that critical thinking will be employed by teachers and students to study the so-called “education crisis”?  One would have to be naïve to even entertain this in thought.  No, teachers, their assistants and administrative personnel are all being employed as eager supplicants for the colonization of consciousness.

Below, readers can see the “advertisement” for the course:

PAM 2550: Waiting for Superman? Perspectives on the “Crisis” in American K12 Education Spring 2013T Th 2:55-4:10pm MVR G73

Professor: Teaching Assistants

Jordan Matsudaira

Michael Hutson

 jdm296@cornell.edu

Kristin Office: 133 MVR Hall OH: TBA

Office Hours: Tuesday 10–11:30am (& by appt.)

Course Description

This course examines the widespread perception and the varied responses to the notion that the American K12 education system is failing to adequately prepare its students.

In this course we will examine the structure of the U.S. K12 education  system, the role of and rationale for different levels in government in school finance  and oversight, and its recent performance in producing student achievement overall, and for subgroups of the population in historical and international  context. With this as background, we will discuss the large array of school reforms currently being pursued to improve student outcomes, including increases in funding, teacher training and recruitment, school autonomy (charter schools), student and teacher accountability, and improving incentives for teacher and student performance.

Prerequisites

None. Courses in intermediate micro-economics and statistics are recommended. The latter part of the course will involve some reading of original research articles, requiring a modicum of literacy in statistical reasoning.

Grading

Your grade for the course will be based on your performance on 3 exams, and a short policy memo, with the following weights. Please note the dates below are tentative, and may be changed to accommodate guest speakers, etc.

 Prelim 1: 20% February 21

Prelim 2: 20% April 4

Policy Memo: 20% due in class on May 3

Quizzes, Discussion posts 10% see below

Final Exam: 30% May 9, 2 4:30pm

Exams will emphasize material covered since the last exam, but will be cumulative in the core concepts of the class. The policy memo, due on the last day of class, will  be capped at 1,000 words in length and will involve reacting to a current policy issue using knowledge from the course. Exams must be taken on schedule makeups will only be granted in exceptional circumstances in accordance with Cornell policies.

Our cumulative final exam is scheduled for Thursday, May 9, 2:00 4:30pm.

In addition to the exams and memos, there will be 4-5 pop quizzes and required participation in discussion forums on Blackboard following guest speakers. The pop quizzes will be straight forward multiple choice questions focused primarily on assigned readings. Throughout the semester we will have guest speakers from people involved in various aspects of education reform. After each speaker (expect between 5 and 10)

I will post a discussion forum for students to post reactions to the speaker and discuss issues arising in the conversation. Student posts will be graded as satisfactory/unsatisfactory or not participating

Grades for pop quizzes and discussion posts will be averaged to comprise 10% of the final grade. I will drop the two lowest grades. No makeups for quizzes or discussion posts will be allowed.

Students agree that by taking this course all required papers might be subject to submission for textual similarity review to Turnitin.com for the detection of plagiarism. All submitted papers will be included as source documents in the Turnitin.com reference database solely for the purpose of detecting plagiarism of such papers. Use of Turnitin.com service is subject to the Usage Policy posted on the Turnitin.com site.

Readings

There are no required books or texts for this course. All materials will be provided in pdf format via the Blackboard website. Readings will be available approximately  1 week before they are due.

Current Events

 The policy landscape in K12 education is changing rapidly. I highly recommend staying abreast of current developments through the news, and introducing such topics for discussion during the course. The ‘Education’ section of the New York Times, or websites such as ‘Education Week’ are popular sources.

 Surveys and I will from time to time ask you to respond to brief web surveys about your educational experiences to gain information to provide more context for the course.

Your participation is mandatory, but I will never divulge your private information.

Please contact with me with any concerns you may have. Similarly, I may decide to require you to have an “i>clicker” to facilitate quizzes and in class polling to make the class more interactive. I will announce such a decision at least a week in advance.

Academic Integrity

Absolute integrity is expected of every Cornell student. A Cornell student’s submission of work for academic credit indicates that the work is the students’ own.  Any and all outside assistance must be acknowledged. For the specifics of this code of conduct, see

http://www.theuniversityfaculty.cornell.edu/AcadInteg/code.html

 Ignorance of its contents is not an acceptable excuse for any infractions.

 Special Accommodations

 Students with documented physical or learning disabilities or who anticipate needing accommodation should notify me at the beginning of the semester and 1 week before each exam.

 Course Overview (note this schedule is approximate and will be changed)

Topics by week of the course

 Part I: background

1.Introduction to the Course and Overview of U.S. Education System.  What are Returns to/Goals of Education?

2.Why Should Government be Involved in Education?  Education finance.

3.Government’s Oversight Role in Education and Introduction to the “Crisis”

4.U.S. Education in International Comparative Context

5. Inequality in student outcomes

6. History of School Reform Efforts

 Part II: topics in reform

7. Quick primer on Casual Inference.  Does Money Matter?

8. School and Student Level Accountability Policies

9. School Choice and Competition (vouchers and school choice etc.)

10. Break

11. Charter schools and Teacher Unions

12. Teacher Quality: Importance and Measurement

13. Teacher Performance Evaluation and Workforce Development

14. Student and Teacher Incentive Programs

15. Technology in (and out of) the Classroom

((http://www.human.cornell.edu/pam/academics/courses/upload/PAM-2550-Matsudaira-Sp13.pdf).

Dr Danny Weil is an investigative journalist, author and public interest attorney who practiced public interest law for more than twenty years and has been published in a case of first impression in California. He now lives in Ecuador.

photo credit: hitthatswitch via photopin cc

This is Part I of a two part guest post by Dr Danny Weil. It’s a repost of an article Cornell University to Offer the “Hypodermic Needle Theory” of Education in an Attempt to Colonize Consciousness and Groom Future Elites originally published at Daily Censored

Understanding history: The Powell Memo and the Growth of the Reactionary Right 

By Dr Danny Weil

In order to understand how America’s ruling elites are bivouacking at elite universities with the aim of taking them over and assuring ideology replaces education, it is necessary to understand the historical development of the current colonization of consciousness.

As I wrote at Truthout.org back in August of 2012:

The strategy and tactics to create a sustained and united countervailing political force was laid out in a memo written by Virginia corporate attorney and soon-to-be Supreme Court Justice, Lewis Powell. Many see this memo as the chief catalyst for the paradigm shift in corporate strategy from bipartisanship to far-right acrimony. Written in 1971 at the request of his client at the time, the powerful US Chamber of Commerce, the Powell memo advised the Chamber that corporations needed to organize to stop what he referred to as an “attack on the American free enterprise system” (Powell Manifesto: Attack of American Free Enterprise System).

The Powell memo went even further, urging corporations to jointly cough up substantial funds to pool for a sustained and coordinated political offensive. More significantly, Powell identified working through the judicial system and an “activist-minded Supreme Court” as essential to shaping “social, economic and political change” for corporate benefit and the assurance of a white, patriarchal hierarchy.

The Chamber of Commerce has always been a leading voice of the right, but since the ’60s and ’70s upheavals, the US Chamber of Commerce has become an increasingly well-funded and powerful voice on behalf of corporate interests in Washington and a deep-pocketed friend to reactionaries on the campaign trail. In fact, since 1997, the Chamber of Commerce has been deeply involved in political activism and is currently a member of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

In 1972, Powell was appointed to the Supreme Court by Richard Nixon (many say as a result of his memo). A close reading of Powell’s rulings on the high court finds he overwhelmingly favored corporate power. Justice William Rehnquist, a well-known conservative, was also a Nixon Supreme Court appointee in 1972 and sat on the bench with Powell.

This is the same Rehnquist that, according to Al Jazeera, guarded a largely African-American polling site in South Phoenix, Arizona, in his youth for the Republican Party:

He even made those who spoke accented English interpret parts of the constitution to prove that they understood it. The lines were long, people fought, got tired or had to go to work and many of them left without voting. It was a notorious episode long remembered in Phoenix political circles.

It turned out that it was part of a Republican Party strategy known as “Operation Eagle Eye” and “Bill” was future Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist. He was confronted with his intimidation tactics in his confirmation hearings years later and characterized his behavior as simple arbitration of polling place disputes. In doing so, he set a standard for GOP dishonesty and obfuscation surrounding voting rights that continues to this day.

Rehnquist also had a hand in the impeachment of Bill Clinton and then went on to decide the 2000 presidential election in favor of George W. Bush. Bush turned right around and appointed John Roberts, now chief justice of the Supreme Court (Chief Justice Roberts, who clerked for Rehnquist and considers Rehnquist his mentor), and Roberts went on to deliver the Citizens United decision, setting the stage for the corporate takeover of the government (http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/10936-paul-ryan-and-the-long-war-on-democracy).

The Powell memo of course has been put into play now for many decade. But recently Harrison Wills has discovered a new application. Wills is the former student body president of Santa Monica College, once named a “community college”, before the devastation of communities (they have now dropped the word “community” from their lexicon owed to its ‘collectivist’ connotation and instead have spent taxpayer dollars on a corporate logo – over $150,000 for a more individualistic and corporatized connotation). Wills is an excellent researcher (http://www.dailycensored.com/investigative-reporting-research-tips-from-harrison-wills-former-student-body-president-at-santa-monica-college/) and he has uncovered that Cornell University, home of the elites, is now offering a course entitled, “Waiting for Superman” (http://www.human.cornell.edu/pam/academics/courses/upload/PAM-2550-Matsudaira-Sp13.pdf).

The title, of the course, is modeled after the Hollywood propaganda film of the same name, funded by Bill Gates and his ‘philanthro-pirate’ cronies who have for years have been devoted to dismantling public education using the “shock doctrine” of “educational crisis” and the money gained from exploitation of workers — all of this under the auspices of “advocacy philanthropy”, or the new ALEC, of which I will be writing about soon for readers.

(To be continued)

Dr Danny Weil is an investigative journalist, author and public interest attorney who practiced public interest law for more than twenty years and has been published in a case of first impression in California. He now lives in Ecuador.

photo credit: Thomas Hawk via photopin cc

Two very different bin Laden clones (Veterans Today)

Paul Craig Roberts isn’t your garden variety conspiracy nut. We’re talking about a former US Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration, a former editor and columnist for the Wall Street Journal, Business Week and Scripps Howard News Service. In a November 29^th article at Information Clearinghouse Roberts, who has been highly critical of both the Bush and Obama administration for destroying US Constitutional protections, the senseless and exorbitantly expensive War on Terror and US policy on Palestine, republishes a November 2001 interview with bin Laden in which the late Saudi financier specifically denies responsibility for 9-11. It was originally published in Urdu in Pakistan’s daily newspaper Unmat on September 28, 2001. It was translated by the BBC’s World Monitoring Service and made public on September 29, 2001. In the interview, bin Laden asserts attacks on innocent civilians are inconsistent with his religious beliefs, as well as expressing the opinion that the attacks originated with people “who are part of the US system but dissenting against it.” I first learned about the interview from David Ray Griffin’s 2009 book, Osama Dead Or Alive? As both Griffin and Roberts carefully document, all the post-2001 videos and audiotapes supposedly claiming responsibility for the Twin Tower attacks have been discredited as fakes by bin Laden lookalikes.

As Roberts points out, Osama bin Laden’s sensational denial was never reported by the US print or TV media, except for a one minute CNN segment that quotes from an al Jazeera report regarding bin Laden’s Unmat interview and concludes “we can all weigh that in the scale of credibility and come to our own conclusions.” There was no effort to investigate bin Laden’s September 2001 claims by either the White House or Congress.

Ironically, as Roberts notes, the corporate media did widely report on bin Laden’s death from kidney and lung failure in December 2001. Several post-2001 videos, in which a person alleging to be bin Ladin takes credit for the attacks, have also be widely promoted in the corporate media. Careful analysis by a range of international experts (which Griffin details in his book) have discredit all of them as fakes.

Roberts is scathingly critical of the insipid hoax the Obama administration is perpetuating that Navy Seals assassinated someone in Abbottabad Pakistan last year who already died in 2001. In addition to testimony from neighbors who report that the helicopter allegedly transporting the Seals couldn’t have evacuated anyone because it crashed and burned, there are a lot of strange coincidences: for example, the unfortunate death of 30 members of the SEAL unit in a mysterious helicopter crash in Afghanistan and the failure of any of the thousands of sailors on the USS Carl to witness bin Laden’s alleged burial at sea.

The obvious question is why. Why would the Bush administration fabricate such a monstrous lie and more importantly, why on earth would Obama perpetuate it?

In my mind answer is simple: because they can. It’s a measure of the absolute power and corruption of a despotic political system when political leaders can invent their own truth at will for political expediency. It forces all of us to confront the painful reality that the US government is no less corporate-controlled or corrupt (it’s probably a little more so) under Obama than under Bush. To believe otherwise is wishful thinking.

Read the entire interview and Roberts’ commentary here.

On November 6^th, California voters will have the opportunity to pass into law a “right-to-know” initiative that would make it mandatory for all genetically modified (GMO) foods to be so labeled. Proposition 37 would also ban the fraudulent, but highly lucrative practice, of many food manufacturers of labeling foods tainted with GMO ingredients as “natural.”

Recent polls show Proposition 37 leading by a 3 to 1 ratio. This is despite $22 million Monsanto and major food manufacturers have spent on publicity opposing the citizen’s initiative. The Organic Consumers Cooperative is calling for a boycott against all the food companies (see below) that oppose consumers’ right to know what is in their food. In contrast, the “Yes on 37” campaign has only raised $3 million.

Despite mounting scientific evidence linking GMO foods with cancer, birth defects and serious food allergies, nearly 80% of non-organic processed foods, including so-called “natural” foods, contain genetically engineered bacteria, viruses, antibiotic-resistant genes, and foreign DNA. Yet none of these foods are labeled.

Mislabeling GMO Foods as Natural

Health-minded and environmentally conscious consumers buy more products marketed or labeled as “natural” ($50 billion a year) than they do “organic foods” ($32 billion), in large part because they don’t understand the major difference between “organic” and “natural” foods. Two-thirds of the foods sold in Whole Foods Market or Trader Joe’s aren’t “organic,” but rather “natural.” Polls indicate that consumers are confused about the qualitative difference between organic and natural products, with a near majority believing that “natural” means “GMO-free” and “almost organic.” As a result 70% of Americans are totally unaware that they’re regularly consuming GMO-containing processed foods.

Prop 37 organizers call for an end to the massive fraud of mislabeled, so-called “natural” foods. They believe mandatory labeling laws in California, the eight largest economy in the world, would result in GMO labeling across the US and Canada. Food manufacturers are highly unlikely to use separate packaging in other jurisdictions. In fact many companies are expected to follow the example of food processors in Europe, where GMO labeling has been mandatory for ten years, and where consumers consistently choose non-GMO or organic foods. Many European manufacturers simply removed GMO ingredients from their foods, rather than risk tarnishing their brand image with a GMO label on their packaging.

How California Law Affects the Other States and Canada

From the massive amounts they are spending to defeat Prop 37, Monsanto and Food Inc would appear to share this view – that mandatory GMO labeling will greatly decrease consumption of GMO foods.

Monsanto, which holds the patent on most GMO crops, has donated $4 million to the “No on 37” campaign.

Ironically all the major food manufacturers trying to defeat Prop 37 have organic/natural food lines, as health-conscious consumers place a high premium on “organic” and “natural” foods. This is why the Organic Consumers Cooperative is so keen to expose their hypocrisy in trying to defeat an initiative that would force them to disclose the GMO ingredients in their processed foods. They urge health-minded consumers to boycott all the brands listed below, as well as commenting on their Facebook pages about their rank hypocrisy.

In the past few weeks Kashi/Kellogg and Muir Glen/General Mills have been deluged with complaints on their Facebook pages. Most of these companies also have consumer lines. People who aren’t on Facebook need to call them to complain.

What the digital pill monitors

According to Sayer Ji, who writes at GreenMedInfo.com, Proteus Digital Health recently gained FDA approval for its 1 square millimeter device (the size of a grain of sand), which it believes will “shift the care paradigm” into an era of digital medicine.

The aim of the “ingestible sensor” is to electronically verify patient compliance in taking the medication.  Proteus Digital Health estimates that over 50% of patients do not get the full benefit from the pharmaceuticals they take because of taking the wrong dose or taking the medication inconsistently.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which has recently come under criticism for their financial support of GMO agriculture, ‘edible‘ and “flying” vaccines, pesticide-laden traditional scarves, and other questionable technological interventions ostensibly to reduce suffering, are also prominently figured partners on the Proteus Digital Health website.

The European Union was the first to approve Proteus’ digital pill in 2010

Read more here.

Editorial comment: Forget the constitutional right to privacy. Now the government and their favorite corporations (the drug companies) can digitally monitor us without the pain and expense of surgically inserting microchips.