underXposed

Honestly, I was dumbfounded that Barak Obama was allowed to get this far in the American electoral machine process. After all, everyone knows that America is defined by its racism. So why would the rabid racists in power for over 200 years, the same who allowed the devastation of Hurricane Katrina to continue, allow him his say and to become a presumptive candidate for the presidency? Unlike McCain and Clinton who are clearly part of the neocon bushcorp, Obama is intelligent enough to cloak sinister intentions, and frankly, I think we need to seriously question what’s behind the charismatic mask.

I found the following alphabetical, quick and dirty checklist from The Progressive Review (taken from Obama’s actual records) offer a mixed-bag answer, and I think its veracity will leak out as we head toward November.

ANTI-TRUST

Obama said he would pursue a vigorous antitrust policy and singled out the media industry as one area where government regulators would need to be watchful as consolidation increases. . . We’re going to have an antitrust division in the Justice Department that actually believes in antitrust law. We haven’t had that for the last seven, eight years,” Obama said. – Reuters

ARROGANCE

Four years ago, Obama was an obscure state senator representing part of one of America’s most corrupt and machine-run cities. He is now running as God’s gift to America and clean government based on this past, plus what he would like to have been a temp job in the U. S. Senate.

BUSH REGIME

• Has not dealt with the criminality of Bush’s use of torture.
• Aggressively opposed impeachment action against Bush

BUSINESS INTERESTS

• Has offered few good ideas about how to handle the current economic crisis.
• Cass Sunstein, a constitutional advisor to Obama, told Jeffrey Rosen of the NY Times: “I would be stunned to find an anti-business [Supreme Court] appointee from either [Clinton or Obama].
• There’s not a strong interest on the part of Obama or Clinton in demonizing business, and you wouldn’t expect to see that in their Supreme Court nominees.”
• Wrote that conservatives and Bill Clinton were right to destroy social welfare,
• Supported making it harder to file class action suits in state courts
• Voted for a business-friendly “tort reform” bill
• Voted against a 30% interest rate cap on credit cards
• Had the most number of foreign lobbyist contributors in the primaries
• Is even more popular with Pentagon contractors than McCain
• Was most popular of the candidates with K Street lobbyists
• Voted against a 30% interest rate cap on credit cards
• In 2003, rightwing Democratic Leadership Council named Obama as one of its “100 to Watch.”
• After he was criticized in the black media, Obama disassociated himself with the DLC. But his major economic advisor, Austan Goolsbee, is also chief economist of the conservative organization. Writes Doug Henwood, “Goolsbee has written gushingly about Milton Friedman and denounced the idea of a moratorium on mortgage foreclosures.”
• Doug Henwood, Left Business Observer: “Top hedge fund honcho Paul Tudor Jones threw a fundraiser for him at his Greenwich house last spring, ‘The whole of Greenwich is backing Obama,’ one source said of the posh headquarters of the hedge fund industry. They like him because they’re socially liberal, up to a point, and probably eager for a little less war, and think he’s the man to do their work. They’re also confident he wouldn’t undertake any renovations to the distribution of wealth.”

CITIES

Has no meaningful urban policy

CIVIL LIBERTIES

• In first 100 days would review all Bush executive orders
• Supports the war on drugs
• Supports the crack-cocaine sentence disparity
• Supports Real ID
• Voted against immunity for telecoms’ illegal spying on Americans
• Supports the PATRIOT Act
• Supports the death penalty
• Opposes lowering the drinking age to 18
• Helped fight for restoration of habeas corpus at Gitmo.
• Refused to take a position on the anti-constitutional Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act

COMPETITION

• Obama would almost certainly be a better president than either Bush or his preferred heir apparent, John McCain.
• He would also likely be a better president than Bill Clinton. The reasons for this are several. He is vastly more honest. This doesn’t mean he is without guile – far from it – but it is, for him, apparently a fallback position rather than, as with Clinton, the first thing you exercise upon arising. Further, even though he comes from Chicago, the worst anyone has been able to hang on him is Tony Rezko. Obama has not been impeached, the governmental equivalent to a criminal indictment. And he has not proclaimed a deep concern for minorities and working class whites while simultaneously screwing them. Finally, Obama would probably bring to an end the 28 year Reagan – Bush – Clinton – Bush era that has been disastrous to America.

CONSERVATIVES

• Went to Connecticut to support Joe Lieberman in the primary against Ned Lamont
• Paul Street, Z Mag – Obama has lent his support to the aptly named Hamilton Project, formed by corporate-neoliberal Citigroup chair Robert Rubin and other Wall Street Democrats to counter populist rebellion against corporatist tendencies within the Democratic Party. . . Obama was recently hailed as a Hamiltonian believer in limited government and free trade by Republican New York Times columnist David Brooks, who praises Obama for having “a mentality formed by globalization, not the SDS.” . . .
• Times, UK – Obama is hoping to appoint cross-party figures to his cabinet such as Chuck Hagel, the Republican senator for Nebraska and an opponent of the Iraq war, and Richard Lugar, leader of the Republicans on the Senate foreign relations committee. Senior advisers confirmed that Hagel, a highly decorated Vietnam war veteran and one of McCain’s closest friends in the Senate, was considered an ideal candidate for defence secretary.
• Richard Lugar was rated 0% by SANE. . . rated 0% by AFL-CIO. . . rated 0% BY NARAL. . . . rated 12% by American Public Health Association. . . rated 0% by Alliance for Retired Americans. . . rated 27% by the National Education Association. . . rated 5% by League of Conservation Voters. . . He voted no on implementing the 9/11 Commission report. . . Vote against providing habeas corpus for Gitmo prisoners. . .voted no on comprehensive test ban treaty. . .voted against same sex marriage. . . strongly anti-abortion. . . opposed to more federal funding for healthcare. . .voted for unconstitutional wiretapping. . .voted to increase penalties for drug violations
• Chuck Hagel was rated 0% by NARAL. . . rated 11% by NAACP. . . rated 0% by Human Rights Coalition. . . rated 100% by Christian Coalition. . . rated 12% by American Public Health Association. . . rated 22% by Alliance for Retired Americans. . . rated 36% by the National Education Association. . . rated 0% by League of Conservation Voters. . . rated 8% by AFL-CIO. . . He is strongly anti-abortion. . .voted for anti-flag desecration amendment. . .voted to increase penalties for drug violations. . . favors privatizing Social Security

COURTS

• Obama spoke admiringly of Chief Justice Earl Warren, the former California governor who led the court in the 1950s and ’60s, when it struck down racial segregation and championed the cause of civil rights.
• Obama has also praised current Justices Stephen G. Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David H. Souter. “I want people on the bench who have enough empathy, enough feeling, for what ordinary people are going through,” Obama said.- NYT

CUBA

In 2004 Obama favored ending the Cuban embargo. He now says he won’t end it. He would, however, immediately allow “unlimited family travel and remittances to the island.”

DRUGS

• Supports failed war on drugs
• Would curb federal enforcement on state medical marijuana suppliers.
• Endorsed US involvement in the failed drug war in Colombia: “When I am President, we will continue the Andean Counter-Drug Program, and update it to meet evolving challenges.”

ECOLOGY

• Voted for a nuclear energy bill that included money for bunker buster bombs and full funding for Yucca Mountain.
• Comes in at 48th in the ranking of senators by the League of Conservation Voters
• Won’t oppose nuclear power
• Supports federally funded ethanol

ELECTORAL REFORM

Obama supports instant runoff voting.

FOREIGN POLICY

• Has no clear plan to leave Iraq and Afghanistan.
• His top Iraq advisor wrote that America should keep between 60,000 and 80,000 troops in Iraq as of late 2010. Obama, in his appearances, blurs the difference between combat soldiers and other troops and has given no indication that he would reduce the massive mercenary force in Iraq.
• Has hawkish foreign policy advisors involved in past US misdeeds and failures
• Would probably be good at international negotiations.
• Would improve America’s image abroad, at least until he did something stupid.
• Supports Israeli aggression and apartheid. Obama has deserted previous support for two-state solution to Mid East situation. Refuses to negotiate with Hamas.
• Has voted numerous times to continue funding the war
• Favored cluster bomb ban in civilian areas
• Promises not to sign a trade bill without environmental and labor protections.
• Won’t rule out first strike nuclear attack on Iran
• Called Pakistan “the right battlefield … in the war on terrorism.” Threatened to invade Pakistan
• AP – He would return the country to the more “traditional” foreign policy efforts of past presidents, such as George H.W. Bush, John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan. At a town hall event at a local high school gymnasium, Obama praised George H.W. Bush – father of the president – for the way he handled the Persian Gulf War: with a large coalition and carefully defined objectives. . . “The truth is that my foreign policy is actually a return to the traditional bipartisan realistic policy of George Bush’s father, of John F. Kennedy, of, in some ways, Ronald Reagan, and it is George Bush that’s been naive and it’s people like John McCain and, unfortunately, some Democrats that have facilitated him acting in these naive ways that have caused us so much damage in our reputation around the world,” he said.

HONESTY & CONSISTENCY

• Obama does mislead, and not unintentionally it would seem. For example, Obama repeatedly uses the politician’s trick of providing descriptions of a problem as a substitute for a prescription. This allows him to delude voters into thinking he has sympathy with them without the need to offer solutions.
• Has deceived the voters by not telling them that he would keep American troops in Iraq and he a tendency to shift on a number of issues, such as NAFTA and policy towards Iran, depending on the media tenor of the moment.
• Misled on extent on lobbyist support
• Wrote in his own book, “I am new enough on the national political scene that I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views.”

JUST WORDS

Obama’s use of southern pulpit cadence and inflection gives him an unfounded reputation for eloquence. His actual words are often corny and trite. He relies on cliches such as hope and change that have far more common with ad agencies than with philosopher kings. He also loses his command of metaphor and meaning when he is removed from a teleprompter and asked some questions, a weakness reflected in his antipathy towards news conferences.

LOBBYING

Obama’s top aide, David Axelrod works for a PR firm serving major corporate interests

MINORITIES

• Like Hillary Clinton, Obama has built his campaign around genetic identity rather than on political principles and issues.
• Wouldn’t have photo taken with San Francisco mayor because he was afraid it would seem that he supported gay marriage

NEW IDEAS

Has produced no interesting new ideas nor promised to fight for any important new programs

PROGRESSIVES

• Dissed Nader for daring to run for president again
• Called the late Paul Wellstone “something of a gadfly”
• Progressive Punch ranks Obama 24th in the Senate.

PROSPECTS

At worst, Obama will be one more fox placed in the chicken coop of democracy by the corporations and their outsourced workers in the media and politics. At best, he will rebel against his upbringing and offer America something new and better. Most likely, however, is that he will serve as a deeply frustrating transition between what should never have happened and what needs to be done – stabilizing our national dysfunctions as they continue to await proper and necessary treatment.

PUBLIC EDUCATION

• Supports No Child Left Behind
• Supports charter schools

RELIGION

• Has run his campaign as though leading a cult rather than a political movement.
• Has indicated a willingness to name rightwing Christians to his cabinet.

SOCIAL SECURITY

Said “everything is on the table” with Social Security early in campaign. In May 2008 he indicated opposition to privatizing Social Security, raising the minumum age, or reduce cost of living increases.

DEMOCRACY

Has inspired a lot of young and minority voters to get involved in politics

HEALTH

• Opposes single payer healthcare
• Supported restricting damage awards in medical malpractices suits
• Favors healthcare individual mandates that would help insurance companies and banks but not citizens
• Received $708,000 from medical and insurance interests between 2001 and 2006

Of course, Bobby Kennedy was pro-war in the Viet Nam years, until public outrage brought him to his senses…

Bottom line: My abiding question doesn’t seem to have an answer: When are we ever going to let go of our selfish mean-ness, regardless of our income level, race, gender, or age?

What do “change” and “hope” mean, really? I want to think they’re more than just campaign buzzwords from a presumptive Democratic candidate (note the “candid” in “candidate.”) Of course I’d never pretend to assume what they mean to Senator Barak Obama, who offers them in his speeches to the nation. First, I think everyone can agree that he’s not a liberal or a progressive. But if he were, I doubt if he’d get support from conservative factions such as Matt Drudge, who not long ago frothed for Bush.

Change

Take the word “change.” He would certainly represent change as first generation African American president (on his father’s side), graduated top of his class at Harvard, raised by his grandparents, and has an ease about him that doesn’t require attack, slander, and lying. His campaign appears to be from the bottom up, similar to movements that have risen up from the barrios in South America, people who are disenfranchised seem to be finding a voice with him. He seems to have prevailed so far* despite the insanity of the delegate system. (*So far: there’s always a chance that Clinton could steal the election as a part of her ongoing negative campaign tactics that smell a hell of a lot like Rove.) He grew up with “strong women” and has no qualms with working with them.

On the other hand, how much would his “change” be a matter of style? Is he a demagogue who will take us for a ride, a la Bill Clinton? And I hardly see  nice little corporations like Monsanto and Wal-Mart just deferring to him and receding into the background any more than I see the neocons’ destruction going away any time soon. The vacuum of tyranny created by bushcorp has depleted “democracy” and its underpinnings so intensely that we live on a crumbling cliff that could give way at any time.  In truth, we can agree that America was founded on occupation and genocide as much or more than it was founded on its Constitution. What sort of change does “America” want when so much hatred and disregard for human beings and the earth itself are at its core? And all we need to do is look at his record in the Senate. If he truly represents “change” why did he not stand up against bushcorp against invading Iraq and other atrocities?

Back in 2000 bush proclaimed he was a “uniter.” Vicious empty words. Like millions of other people, I’m so sick of the faces and vitriol and crimes and manipulations of the scumbag bushcorp.  It’s way past time to turn our backs on their poisonous ilk and turn toward positive life.The sense is that Obama brings some substance to the idea of uniting.  And although he is one of the elite, his beginnings were from the people, and that counts for a lot. The tide has turned. We’re so ready for truth and inspiration, to shatter the isolation that’s been dividing us for the past long eight years.

Maybe the key is this: “Change” rather than “experience” has to do with steering away from “obliterating” countries (including America) and toward compassion.

A Change is Gonna Come
by Sam Cooke

I was born by the river in a little tent
Oh and just like the river I’ve been running ever since
It’s been a long, a long time coming
But I know a change gonna come, oh yes it will

It’s been too hard living but I’m afraid to die
Cause I don’t know what’s up there beyond the sky
It’s been a long, a long time coming
But I know a change gonna come, oh yes it will

I go to the movie and I go downtown
somebody keep telling me don’t hang around
It’s been a long, a long time coming

But I know a change gonna come, oh yes it will

Then I go to my brother
And I say brother help me please
But he winds up knocking me
Back down on my knees

Ohhhhhhhhh…..

There been times that I thought I couldn’t last for long
But now I think I’m able to carry on
It’s been a long, a long time coming
But I know a change gonna come, oh yes it will

Hope

The idea of “hope” troubles me. I understand that Obama comes from an African American Christian background where hope provides the backbone for existence.

But the word needs to be understood from its wider context. Hope implies a built-in helplessness. “I hope this plane doesn’t crash” or “I hope I have enough money to pay rent this month.” It’s not pro-active. It’s the language of  victimhood and self-defeat; it’s used by the long-oppressed who fear that they have no power to change the outcome of a given situation.

However, Obama’s other slogan is “Yes We Can!” turns defeatism into positive pro-activism. It’s tempting to think that Yes We Can would be more than a campaign slogan. That if he achieves the presidencey (and lord help us if the election is stolen by McSame or Billary), Yes We Can could turn this trainwreck of a nation and planet around into something positive and empowering with a world-wide movement to grow a new world out of the ashes of the old one.

Why are you paying $4 a gallon for gasoline and $5 a gallon for diesel at the pump? Check out last weeks eye-opening article by Geoffrey Lean. It reveals how the Iraq War has tripled world oil prices, three times what they should be. How are our lives going to change with oil heading toward $200 a barrel?

Bonus stuff

What’s Behind the BS about Why the Dollar Has Tanked?

Hint: it has something to do with the real reason Cheney’s got a hardon to invade Iran

The long-awaited Iranian Oil Bourse, a place for trading oil, petrochemicals and gas in various non-dollar currencies, opened in February.

If you’re lost about why the Iranian Oil Bourse matters or what a petrodollar is, then you may want to start by spending some time with this 2006 article by Krassimir Petrov which explains:

• the big picture of how we export inflation
• how the dollar is backed by oil
• why “deficits don’t matter” when you run the world’s reserve currency
• why the petrodollar-based American empire is beginning to fail

Another myth-exploding article by Rob Kirby can be read at Financial Sense

And absolutely related to all this, be sure and read the Jeremy Scahill interview with Amy Goodman posted yesterday on Democracy Now!

What’s become very, very clear over the past year is that without Blackwater, the occupation of Iraq would be untenable. –Jeremy Scahill

Blackwater: From the Nisour Square Massacre to the Future of the Mercenary Industry

The private military firm Blackwater has gone from being a relatively unknown contractor working in Iraq to a household name and the subject of multiple investigations, lawsuits and congressional inquiries. In the meantime, the company continues to reap millions of dollars in profits and was recently awarded a new contract from the State Department. Read the rest>>>

Amidst the deluge of distractions and McNews, sometimes I just have to get things up onto the page in a cathartic spasm.

“It is 1936. America has just elected Berzelius Windrip to the presidency-and his fascist policies turn the U.S. into a totalitarian state.” Sinclair Lewis wrote in his 1935  book It Can’t Happen Here, a cautionary tale about the fragility of democracy is an alarming and timeless look at how easily fascism could take hold in America. The “could take” is now “has taken.”

Just how do fascist dictatorships grow?

1. The Police State Almost Always Follows a False-Flag Terrorist Attack
2. A Climate of Fear is Maintained.
3. The state forces upon its citizens an ‘existential’ choice: “You are either for me or for the terrorists!”.
4. Public Opinion Becomes Irrelevant
5. The government places itself above the law
6. The Government Denies ‘Due Process of Law’
7. Atrocities are justified with lies, myths or propaganda
8. Dissent is crushed with arbitrary power
9. War is begun upon a pack of lies
10. The ’state’ becomes ‘absolute’ and absurdly self-justifying’

Solid evidence surfaces every day that the bush machine has rammed all ten of these indicators down our collective throat…and possibly surpassed them.

Take for example: Next week, U.S. Marines will land by helicopters to create mock battlefields all over Indianapolis. About 2,300 marines from the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit, based at Camp Lejeune, N.C., will conduct urban warfare training from Wednesday through June 19 in and around Indianapolis. The Marines will practice firing weapons, conducting patrols, running vehicle checkpoints, reacting to ambushes and employing nonlethal weapons, according to a statement.

I posted several times last year about similar exercises in Portland and other cities around the nation. The official reason is to “protect America against invasion.” Yeah? Invasion by what? By whom? Who is going to be stupid enough to invade America? Think about it. The truth is, the corporate government and its minions including the press is planning a police state.

When will Americans wake up and see what the rest of the world already knows?

This is all about the euphemism “continuity of government,” which translates into permanent fascist rulership. Have we already forgotten bush’s NSPD-51?

Bush Makes Power Grab

Bush, without so much as issuing a press statement, on May 9 (2007) signed a directive that granted near dictatorial powers to the office of the president in the event of a national emergency declared by the president.

The “National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive,” with the dual designation of NSPD-51, as a National Security Presidential Directive, and HSPD-20, as a Homeland Security Presidential Directive, establishes under the office of president a new National Continuity Coordinator….

When the President determines a catastrophic emergency has occurred, the President can take over all government functions and direct all private sector activities to ensure we will emerge from the emergency with an “enduring constitutional government.”

Define “catastrophic emergency.” It could be economic or political or environmental–whatever der Führer wishes it to be.

The “terror” drills go on continuously under our noses, uncovered in corporate media, and the real bitch is that those who have been hijacking us slither away unscathed every time there is an attempt to bring them to justice. (Oh, I forgot. Justice in America is only for the rich and powerful.)

A certain percentage of German people worshipped Hitler in the 1930s just as a certain percentage of American people continue to worship bush in the 2000s.  The cognitive disconnect brought to you by christianity and pharmaceutical behavioral drugs have surely succeeded in their purpose.

Guantanamo remains on the fringe of the news, on the fringe of people’s consciousness. Can you entertain the thought that Guantanamo is a model for what’s in store for the ordinary American who doesn’t goosestep behind der Führer who says we’re either with him or against him?

Rip down what has been built, terrorize us with lies, then swoop in for absolute lockdown. This is what they have planned. I’ve known this in my guts since September 12, 2001.

and now we have what … uh…some are reading as a suggestion that somebody knock off Osama …uh..um..Obama [after being prompted by the FNC anchor]….well both if we could [laughing]–Sunday on Fox News Channel, Liz Trotta, when asked to comment on the Hillary-RFK statement.

And what why is Bill Clinton talking like a senile old man when he says Hillary’s winning the general election? The first possibility is that he really is going senile; the second is that he doesn’t want Hillary to win the democratic nomination. I have my doubts that a Rhodes Scholar is senile in his 60s. But I don’t doubt that he has his own agenda about not wanting that woman to win. Hillary is a cruel and ruthless woman. She’s gone on about Obama’s “assasination” more than once, more than twice, more than a half dozen times. I doubt her sanity like I doubt George Bush’s sanity.

Are you one of these fanatic people who are apoplectic over the fact that people are against her because she’s a woman? Well, read what Camille Paglia, a devout feminist, has to say about Bill and Hillary in the London Telegraph last week:

When the dust settles over the 2008 election, will Hillary Clinton have helped or hindered women’s advance toward the US presidency?

Right now, Hillary is in Godzilla mode, refusing to accept Barack Obama’s looming nomination and threatening to tie the Democratic party in legal knots until the August convention and beyond.

Those who think she will withdraw gracefully in a few weeks are living in cloud cuckoo land. The Clintons are ruthless scrappers who will lock their bulldog teeth in any bloody towel.

In her raw ambition and stubborn, grinding energy, Hillary will certainly cast a long shadow on young women aspiring to high office. She is both inspiring role model and cringe-making bad example — an overtly feminist careerist who never found a way to succeed without her husband’s connections, advice, and intervention.

Bill Clinton may have masterminded Hillary’s runs for the Senate and for the Democratic nomination, but he has been a gross liability in recent months, as he has co-opted the hustings to maunder on about himself or to inject divisive racial overtones into the debate.

The next major female presidential candidate will be well advised to stuff any errant husband into a rucksack and chuck him down a laundry chute. If they are to be truly equal, women must fight their own fights and not rely on a borrowed spotlight.  Read the rest>>

Now read what Maureen Dowd had to say in her March 26 New York Times column Hillary or Nobody?

Finally, related to the Clinton’s Bilderberg connection (scroll down and see that they top the list of U.S. attendees), if you want to see their secret atrocities aimed at the America they are trying to create, see The Seeds of 9-11. It turns my stomach.

Other nefarious skanks:

House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers has subpoenaed another bottom feeder, Karl Rove. While Rove will no doubt claim “Executive Privilege” even though he resigned from the White House, it’s interesting to note that Rove is a “seven-level wiper.”

The head of the federal agency investigating Karl Rove’s White House political operation is facing allegations that he improperly deleted computer files during another probe, using a private computer-help company, Geeks on Call.

Scott Bloch runs the Office of Special Counsel, an agency charged with protecting government whistleblowers and enforcing a ban on federal employees engaging in partisan political activity. Mr. Bloch’s agency is looking into whether Mr. Rove and other White House officials used government agencies to help re-elect Republicans in 2006.

At the same time, Mr. Bloch has himself been under investigation since 2005. At the direction of the White House, the federal Office of Personnel Management’s inspector general is looking into claims that Mr. Bloch improperly retaliated against employees and dismissed whistleblower cases without adequate examination. Read the rest>>

Published on Saturday, May 24, 2008 by The Guardian/UK
by Alison Benjamin

Germany has banned a family of pesticides that are blamed for the deaths of millions of honeybees. The German Federal Office of Consumer Protection and Food Safety (BVL) has suspended the registration for eight pesticide seed treatment products used in rapeseed oil and sweetcorn.

The move follows reports from German beekeepers in the Baden-Württemberg region that two thirds of their bees died earlier this month following the application of a pesticide called clothianidin.

“It’s a real bee emergency,” said Manfred Hederer, president of the German Professional Beekeepers’ Association. “50-60% of the bees have died on average and some beekeepers have lost all their hives.”

Tests on dead bees showed that 99% of those examined had a build-up of clothianidin. The chemical, produced by Bayer CropScience, a subsidiary of the German chemical giant Bayer, is sold in Europe under the trade name Poncho. It was applied to the seeds of sweetcorn planted along the Rhine this spring. The seeds are treated in advance of being planted or are sprayed while in the field.

The company says an application error by the seed company which failed to use the glue-like substance that sticks the pesticide to the seed, led to the chemical getting into the air.

Bayer spokesman Dr Julian Little told the BBC’s Farming Today that misapplication is highly unusual. “It is an extremely rare event and has not been seen anywhere else in Europe,” he said.

Clothianidin, like the other neonicotinoid pesticides that have been temporarily suspended in Germany, is a systemic chemical that works its way through a plant and attacks the nervous system of any insect it comes into contact with. According to the US Environmental Protection Agency it is “highly toxic” to honeybees.

This is not the first time that Bayer, one of the world’s leading pesticide manufacturers with sales of €5.8bn (£4.6bn) in 2007, has been blamed for killing honeybees.

In the United States, a group of beekeepers from North Dakota is taking the company to court after losing thousands of honeybee colonies in 1995, during a period when oilseed rape in the area was treated with imidacloprid. A third of honeybees were killed by what has since been dubbed colony collapse disorder.

Bayer’s best selling pesticide, imidacloprid, sold under the name Gaucho in France, has been banned as a seed dressing for sunflowers in that country since 1999, after a third of French honeybees died following its widespread use. Five years later it was also banned as a sweetcorn treatment in France. A few months ago, the company’s application for clothianidin was rejected by French authorities.

Bayer has always maintained that imidacloprid is safe for bees if correctly applied. “Extensive internal and international scientific studies have confirmed that Gaucho does not present a hazard to bees,” said Utz Klages, a spokesman for Bayer CropScience.

Last year, Germany’s Green MEP, Hiltrud Breyer, tabled an emergency motion calling for this family of pesticides to be banned across Europe while their role in killing honeybees were thoroughly investigated. Her action follows calls for a ban from beekeeping associations and environmental organisations across Europe.

Philipp Mimkes, spokesman for the German-based Coalition Against Bayer Dangers, said: “We have been pointing out the risks of neonicotinoids for almost 10 years now. This proves without a doubt that the chemicals can come into contact with bees and kill them. These pesticides shouldn’t be on the market.”

Here’s a thought: Clinton’s remarks about RFK’s assasination today (see video below) are more than just a strategy to stay in the race. Her words “assassination” and “obliterate” are, in my opinion (I’ll just come out and say it) code that communicates to the neocons that she’s one of them. After all, she’s already in bed with Richard Mellon Scaif, Rupert Murdoch, Bill O’Reilly and Karl Rove. And she and her husband top the list of the Bilderberger membership. If these people want to get rid of someone or an entire country, they do it. Nothing else explains her remarks better than this.

These comments of hers are no misstatements. She’s not that stupid. She’s pandering to those who mean to bring the world to its knees. They are, as I see it, carefully calculated to draw in rabid white racists and hawks and poorly educated people.

I would never vote for Clinton. Not because she’s a woman but because of her poor judgement and her association with everything that’s destroying this country. Maybe Monica Lewinsky was Bill’s only refuge in a marriage with a viscious, horrible woman.

Invading countries for oil while consuming billions of gallons of it is not only criminally wasteful and polluting, but it’s downright arrogant and insane. True, the oil companies are gouging us like there’s no tomorrow. At the rate prices are rising, we could be paying close to $10 per gallon for gasoline by the end of the summer! (Earlier this month, Goldman Sachs forecast oil prices to jump to $141 a barrel from $107 and said prices could spike as high as $200 a barrel.) But military fuel consumption is out of control. It’s obscene how the Pentagon fuels up as it increasing quantities of fuel to carry on its wars.

In April The Defense Energy Support Center, which acts as the military’s primary broker for fuel, released these statistics about military fuel consumption. DESC currently has contracts with the International Oil Trading Company based in Boca Raton, Fla.; Kuwait Petroleum Corporation and Petrol Ofisi, Golteks and Tefirom, each of Turkey.

• Contracts with these companies range from $1.99 a gallon to $5.30 a gallon.
• DESC sets fuel rates paid by military units. Currently, prices are $3.51 a gallon for diesel, $3.15 for gasoline and $3.04 for jet fuel. Avgas, a high-octane fuel used mostly in unmanned aerial vehicles, is sold for $13.61 a gallon.
• The military consumes about 1.2 million barrels of fuel each month in Iraq at $127.68 a barrel, a price that reflects crude oil refined into usable fuel.
• The U.S. consumes about 21 million of the 86 million barrels of oil per day demanded on the global market. While the Defense Department is as the nation’s single largest user of energy, its 1.6 million gallons a day in Iraq is small relative to the total market.
• In World War II, the average fuel consumption per service member was about 1.67 gallons a day. In Iraq, it’s 27.3 gallons.
• If the average price of gasoline, diesel and jet fuel is about $3.23, each service member in Iraq is burning about $88 a day.
• While the majority of fuel consumption is by the military’s fleet of planes and helicopters, ground vehicles, too, are notoriously reliant. In general, the Abrams tank, the largest and heaviest of the Army’s vehicles, consumes 2 gallons for every mile, while the Bradley fighting vehicle gets a little more than one mile per gallon. The new Mine-Resistant Armored Protective vehicles get less than six miles per gallon. Heavily armoring Humvees has reduced their fuel mileage from about 10 mpg to four. (Manufacturers caution that estimates can vary substantially depending on how the vehicle is used.)

Update July 11: The DOD has released an Amended list of fuel prices “to adjust for market fluctuations” as of July 1 (.pdf)

The “New American Century” has only lasted eight years, but as we all know, its foundations were laid long before 2000. Many of us already knew about the Bush-Nazi ties back in 2003, but this information has been shoved into the black shadows of the neocon closet and the media has been complicit in keeping it there. It’s always a promising sign when this sort of information leaks out on national corporate media.

Yesterday the co-hosts of ABC’s The View talked about remarks President George W. Bush made during a speech in Israel. Bush had suggested that Democrats including Barack Obama wanted to “appease” terrorists in the way that some politicians appeased Hitler.

Co-host Joy Behar mentioned the fact that it was George W. Bush’s grandfather, Prescott Bush, who was known to have ties to Nazi Germany.

Behar said, “It’s very interesting and ironic that George Bush Sr., [George W. Bush’s] grandfather, this one, the late — I don’t like to speak ill of the dead but in this case it’s fun. He was a united states senator, Prescott Bush. He was a director and shareholder of companies that profited from their involvement with the financial backers of Nazi Germany. This is his grandfather. He has no business talking to Jewish people when he’s got this right in his backyard, this guy.”

And this exposure alludes to only one of the truckload of disgraces and crimes heaped on us by the neocons in power that spread their toxins around the world. The glaring hypocrisy that characterizes the neoliberal plague affects everyone on the planet. The hypocrisy that is christianity bleeds into everything it touches, and has especially metastasized its vicious death gene into corporations, and this with this plague we find ourselves beneath the heel of fascism.

By hypocrisy I mean that fascist corporations outsource jobs to other countries, pay slave wages, abuse and neglect workers, avoid taxes, decimate the environment, and manufacture inferior products. Through programs like NAFTA, they force people in their own countries to seek other means to survive for themselves and their families when their ability to provide has been stripped from them and their ancient ways destroyed. Their only recourse is often to find their way to the U.S. to work jobs that are beneath the average American-born, the back-breaking sweaty jobs that if left undone would bring America to its knees.

At the same time, these vicious neoliberal psychopaths work tirelessly to destroy opportunities for working people here in the U.S., including those forced to flee their own countries because of intolerable conditions caused by neoliberal policies. In this way the neoliberals (and neocons) deny others what they proclaim as their entitlement. The rabid hypocrisy of biblical corporatism must be driven from our hearts, minds, and memories. Its icy hand drives death into everything it touches.

I thought I’d include a wonderful poem by Gary Soto that illustrates the power of life and humanity in the midst of greed and hypocrisy. For me, the poem contains one of “the obdurate truths before which fear and horror are powerless.” (John Cheever)

Mexicans Begin Jogging (1981)

At the factory I worked
In the fleck of rubber, under the press
Of an oven yellow with flame,
Until the border patrol opened
Their vans and my boss waved for us to run.
“Over the fence, Soto,” he shouted,
And I shouted that I was an American.
“No time for lies,” he said, and pressed
A dollar in my palm, hurrying me
Through the back door.
Since I was on his time, I ran
And became the wag to a short tail of Mexicans–
Ran past the amazed crowds that lined
The street and blurred like photographs, in rain.
I ran from that industrial road to the soft
Houses where people paled at the turn of an autumn sky.
What could I do but yell vivas
To baseball, milkshakes, and those sociologists
Who would clock me
As I jog into the next century
On the power of a great, silly grin.

Corporations around the world have been gleefully rubbing their hands as they display their police state wares at a Chinese trade show that precedes the Olympics. Such wares include technology for secretly copying hard drives, crowd control, and surveillance on public streets, all in the name of “security.” And China, recently criticized around the world for its brutal crackdown on protests in Tibet, is rabidly in the market for “security” and “crime control” equipment. It’s a perfect match between Western multinationals and Chinese police agencies.

From the New York Times, April 26:

At the recent China International Exhibition on Police Equipment here, sponsored by the Ministry of Public Security, DuPont had a large exhibit promoting Kevlar bulletproof fabric for riot police use. Motorola was selling police radio systems as well as wireless systems for transmitting vast quantities of video surveillance data.

And with the slogan “dress to kill” on their black T-shirts, top executives from Magnum of Britain showed off their latest police boots. “Chinese police deserve the best — Magnum protects the protectors,” said Paul Brooks, the company’s president, in a speech to police officials.

The most intriguing device offered at the show to senior Chinese security agency officials was the Image Masster RoadMasster, a powerful computer system that swiftly copies computer hard drives without leaving any trace and comes concealed in its own color-coordinated briefcase.

Gonen Ravid, the chief executive of the device’s manufacturer, Intelligent Computer Solutions in Chatsworth, Calif., said that the company sells exactly the same equipment in the same briefcases to the Pentagon for use in Iraq, and to the Central Intelligence Agency and other Western intelligence agencies for use around the world.

No company in China makes similar equipment, he said. “The U.S.,” he said, “is still leading with this.”

The trade show coincided with increasing controversy in the United States over American exports of crime-control equipment to China. After the Tiananmen Square killings in 1989, Congress passed a law that remains in effect today: it bans “the export to the People’s Republic of China of any crime control or detection instruments or equipment.”

The Commerce Department drafted regulations in the early 1990s to put that ban into effect. But those initial regulations — which officials have said clearly apply to products aimed exclusively at law enforcement agencies, like fingerprint kits — paid little attention to the rising computer industry and have not been updated.

The department did an internal review last winter of the rules. It is now seeking public comment on how and whether it should update its regulations on exports of crime control and detection equipment to any country subject to restrictions.

Asked about the abundant American gear shown at the police equipment trade show, Mario Mancuso, the under secretary of commerce for industry and security, replied with a one-sentence written statement: “Enforcing U.S. regulations on crime control equipment, including the Tiananmen Square Sanctions, is a top priority, and we continually review our regulations to ensure that they effectively support our national security and foreign policy.”

Another Commerce Department official said that questions from The New York Times about American equipment exhibited at the trade show had prompted the department to begin a review of whether American laws might have been broken. The official insisted on anonymity, in keeping with a department policy of not commenting on work that might lead to law enforcement actions.

The department has officials in Beijing and Hong Kong who look for violations of export control laws, but did not try to send anyone into the police equipment trade show. A reporter for The New York Times was able to enter the show by filling out a routine questionnaire at the entrance about his interest in the security industry, identifying himself in English on the form as a correspondent for the newspaper and providing a copy of his business card.

The trade show was held from April 16 to 19 at a small compound near the center of Beijing; the compound is reserved for commercial events with top-level government backing.

At least two Hong Kong companies at the show set up booths to market fingerprint identification kits that were prominently marked as having been made in the United States by American companies.

Many other products at the trade show were also from the United States, but their manufacturers said that they were complying with American laws. Read the rest>>