The Obama Enigma: Imperial Interventionism and Militarism
by Prof. Rodrigue Tremblay

"We do not want a PAX Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war. Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living, the kind that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and to build a better life for their children — not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women — not merely peace in our time but peace for all time." President John F. Kennedy, 1963

"I will not hesitate to use force unilaterally, if necessary, to protect the American people or our vital interests wherever we are attacked or imminently threatened. ...We must also consider using military force in circumstances beyond self-defense, in order to provide for the common security that underpins global stability — to support friends, participate in stability and reconstruction operations, or confront mass atrocities." Sen. Barack Obama, Foreign Affairs (July/August 2007)

"Our interest in Afghanistan is to prevent it from becoming a haven for terrorists bent on attacking us. That does not require the scale of military operations that the incoming administration is contemplating. It does not require wholesale occupation. It does not require the endless funneling of human treasure and countless billions of taxpayer dollars to the Afghan government." Bob Herbert, The New York Times, January 6, 2009

Those who thought that the election of Barack Obama as American President would mean a fundamental shift in U.S. foreign policy should have lost their illusions by now. Faces change but the system remains. When you want change, it's necessary to look beyond a single individual and evaluate the team he is working with ...or for. And the Obama team is what can be called a soft neoconservative team, all devoted to maintaining the military-industrial complex, [http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090610/pl_nm/us_arms_boeing] and all sold out with the ideology of permanent wars rather than permanent human progress.

The New York Times and the Iranian election
by Barry Grey

The response of the US media to the Iranian election says more about the state of democracy and the so-called “free press” in America than it does about the state of democratic rights in Iran.

The coverage by the New York Times typifies a presentation of the victory of the incumbent president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, over his main challenger, former Prime Minister Mirhossein Mousavi, that abandons any pretense of journalistic objectivity. It is sheer propaganda aimed at discrediting the election result.

No sooner had Iranian authorities announced late Friday, US time, that Ahmadinejad had defeated Mousavi by a 30 percent margin than the Times and virtually the entire media proclaimed the election a fraud. The Times did not simply report the allegations by Mousavi that the election had been stolen, it embraced them wholeheartedly and uncritically.

It did so without undertaking any independent investigation. It brought forward no serious facts to substantiate the claim. Rather, it relied on allegations made by Mousavi and his supporters.

Oil and Islam. Will America Shift Away from Its Past Unilateralist Policies?
Obama's Cairo Speech
by Prof. Peter Dale Scott

In his remarkable speech at Cairo University on June 4, President Obama promised “a new beginning.” In the words of the Israeli commentator Uri Avnery, the speech offered “the map of a new world, a different world, whose values and laws he spelled out in simple and clear language -- a mixture of idealism and practical politics, vision and pragmatism.”1

Much of what Obama had to say was new, and warmed the hearts of observers like myself, who had become increasingly concerned about the new president’s fidelity to the financial and military policies of the previous Bush-Cheney administration. But while Obama broke new ground on Israel-Palestine issues, he glossed over troubling issues pertaining to the US presence in Iraq and Afghanistan. He also glossed over one of the fundamental issues alienating the Muslim world: America’s relentless efforts to preserve its threatened financial status by moves to dominate the region’s oil resources. Here his careful ambiguity was ominously reminiscent of the Bush era.

The speech reaffirmed a complete withdrawal of US forces from Iraq by 2012, as the U.S. committed itself to do in a signed agreement last December. In addition Obama asserted that "we do
not want to keep our troops in Afghanistan... We would gladly bring every single one of our troops home if we could be confident that there were not violent extremists in Afghanistan and now Pakistan.”

But Obama’s remarks did not address the statement on May 26, 2009, by Gen. George Casey, Army chief of staff, that, despite the agreement with Iraq, the United States would continue to have fighting forces in Iraq and Afghanistan beyond 2012. The reality, Casey said, is that ““we’re going to have 10 Army and Marine units deployed for a decade in Iraq and Afghanistan.”2

US Supreme Court limits Sixth Amendment right to legal counsel
By Michael Stapleton

On May 26, the US Supreme handed down a ruling weakening a key civil liberties protection laid down in the first ten amendments of the US Constitution, known as the Bill of Rights.

In the case of Montejo v. Louisiana, decided by a five-to-four majority, the court limited the right to legal counsel that is stipulated in the Sixth Amendment. “Swing” Justice Anthony Kennedy joined with the four justices who comprise the right-wing bloc on the court to override one of the court’s prior decisions, a highly unusual occurrence. The decision, authored by the ideological leader of the court’s right wing, Antonin Scalia, and joined by Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Clarence Thomas and Justice Thomas Alito, overruled Michigan v. Jackson, decided in 1986.

Justice John Paul Stevens, who authored the Jackson opinion, wrote a dissent which was joined by Justices David Souter and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and, except for a footnote, by Justice Stephen Breyer. Stevens also read his dissent aloud in court, something rarely done.

De-Dollarization: Dismantling America’s Financial-Military Empire
The Yekaterinburg Turning Point
by Prof. Michael Hudson

The city of Yakaterinburg, Russia’s largest east of the Urals, may become known not only as the death place of the tsars but of American hegemony too – and not only where US U-2 pilot Gary Powers was shot down in 1960, but where the US-centered international financial order was brought to ground.

Challenging America will be the prime focus of extended meetings in Yekaterinburg, Russia (formerly Sverdlovsk) today and tomorrow (June 15-16) for Chinese President Hu Jintao, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and other top officials of the six-nation Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). The alliance is comprised of Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrghyzstan and Uzbekistan, with observer status for Iran, India, Pakistan and Mongolia. It will be joined on Tuesday by Brazil for trade discussions among the BRIC nations (Brazil, Russia, India and China).

The attendees have assured American diplomats that dismantling the US financial and military empire is not their aim. They simply want to discuss mutual aid – but in a way that has no role for the United States, NATO or the US dollar as a vehicle for trade. US diplomats may well ask what this really means, if not a move to make US hegemony obsolete. That is what a multipolar world means, after all. For starters, in 2005 the SCO asked Washington to set a timeline to withdraw from its military bases in Central Asia. Two years later the SCO countries formally aligned themselves with the former CIS republics belonging to the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), established in 2002 as a counterweight to NATO.

Yet the meeting has elicited only a collective yawn from the US and even European press despite its agenda is to replace the global dollar standard with a new financial and military defense system.

Sharp conflicts at G8 finance ministers meeting
By Peter Schwarz

The meeting of finance ministers of leading industrial countries (G8) held last Friday and Saturday was characterised by sharp conflicts over economic policy, with especially pronounced and growing differences between Germany and the US. The meeting ended—as is the norm on such occasions—with a resolution designed to disguise the conflicts, while offering no means to resolve them. The meeting, held in the Italian town of Lecce, was part of the preparations for the summit of G8 heads of state and government due to take place next month in the Italian city of L'Aquila.

Superficially, the conflicts in Lecce centered on the issue of an “exit strategy”, an end to the state programs of financial support and stimuli granted to banks and big businesses, which have led to an explosion of state debt.

In particular, Germany's Finance Minister Peer Steinbrück urged a rapid end to spiraling debt, stressing the danger that it will trigger inflation. He called for a speedy reduction of debt and declared that further stimulus programs were “neither necessary nor advisable”. He was supported by the delegates from France and Italy, which currently chairs the G8.

How long can the Dollar Last as the World’s Reserve Currency?
by Bob Chapman

The big question is how long can the dollar last as the world’s reserve currency? Needless to say, that is not an easy question to answer. We recently called the top on the dollar at 89.50 on the USDX. The USDX is six currencies versus the dollar on a weighted basis. More than a year ago the dollar hit a low on the USDX at 71.18. A phenomenal rally ensued from that level expedited by de-leveraging and the closing out positions within the carry trade. A good example of the carry trade was when a bank in NYC borrowed yen. At ½% interest, sold the yen for dollars and bought dollar denominated securities.

All of that is now history as the dollar comes under increasing pressure. We believe the dollar could test 71.18 this year. We also believe the dollar could break down to 40 to 55 over the next few years. The collapse of the dollar is certain. The Treasury and the Fed have committed the American taxpayer to $13.8 trillion of debt and before the dollar goes where it is ultimately going that figure could reach $30 trillion.

In modern times such fiscal and monetary irresponsibility is unparalleled. This abdication of moral responsibility has already begun the process of dollar deterioration and rising interest rates. The result will soon be hyperinflation.

Manipulation: How Markets Really Work
by Stephen Lendman

Wall Street's mantra is that markets move randomly and reflect the collective wisdom of investors. The truth is quite opposite. The government's visible hand and insiders control markets and manipulate them up or down for profit - all of them, including stocks, bonds, commodities and currencies.

It's financial fraud or what former high-level Wall Street insider and former Assistant HUD Secretary Catherine Austin Fitts calls "pump and dump," defined as "artificially inflating the price of a stock or other security through promotion, in order to sell at the inflated price," then profit more on the downside by short-selling. "This practice is illegal under securities law, yet it is particularly common," and in today's volatile markets likely ongoing daily.

Why? Because the profits are enormous, in good and bad times, and when carried to extremes like now, Fitts calls it "pump(ing) and dump(ing) of the entire American economy," duping the public, fleecing trillions from them, and it's more than just "a process designed to wipe out the middle class. This is genocide (by other means) - a much more subtle and lethal version than ever before perpetrated by the scoundrels of our history texts."

NPR Watch
Why NPR Refuses to Report on the Single Payer Movement ... And What Should be Done About It
By FELICE PACE

On June 10th the House of Representatives held the first congressional hearing on proposals for Single Payer Health Insurance. Amy Goodman highlighted the hearing on Democracy Now. But neither National Public Radio’s flagship news program (All Things Considered) nor its morning news program (Morning Edition) reported on the hearing. Instead, on June 11th, Morning Edition reported that President Obama is planning to conduct a town hall meeting on health care. With respect to the health insurance debate, what the President is planning to do (news via press release!) is apparently more news worthy than what the House of Representative had already done the day before.

I did a search on NPR’s web site. Results were slightly different for single payer and “single payer”. Here are the results:

The Old Switcheroo
Bernanke's Next Parlor Trick
By MIKE WHITNEY

Federal Reserve boss Ben Bernanke is getting ready to pull another rabbit out of his hat and he's hoping no one figures out what he's up to. Here's the scoop; the Fed chief needs to "borrow up to $3.25 trillion in the fiscal year ending Sept. 30" (Bloomberg) without triggering a run on the dollar.

But, how? If the stock market keeps surging, investors will turn their backs on low-yielding US Treasuries and move into riskier securities hoping for better returns. The only way to attract more buyers to US debt is by raising interest rates which will kill the "green shoots" of recovery and make it harder for people to buy homes and cars. It's a conundrum.

In the next year, China will buy roughly $200 billion T-Bills while the oil-producing states and the rest of the world will add about $300 billion to their cache. That leaves more than $2 trillion for the domestic market where cash-strapped investors are likely to avoid government debt like the plague. So, who's going buy that mountain of low-yield government paper?

The banks.

Obama administration spearheads assault on workers in California
by Joe Kishore

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, and the Democratic-controlled state legislature are using the economic crisis gripping the state as an opportunity to gut basic social programs upon which millions of people depend.

This offensive against the working class in the state is being carried out with the backing of the Obama administration.

On Wednesday, Schwarzenegger declared that he would let the state government come to a “grinding halt” if state lawmakers did not agree to budget cuts sufficient to cover a $24 billion deficit. The governor said he would not “under any circumstances” seek emergency loans. California will run out of cash by the end of July, according to the state’s comptroller, who warned of a financial “meltdown.”

California’s budget deficit is bound up with the financial crash and recession that have overtaken the American and world economy. The state was a center of the US housing boom, and is at the center of its collapse. It has also been deeply impacted by the decline in international trade. The state’s economy is contracting and unemployment and foreclosures are soaring. The result is a sharp decline in tax revenues.

The response of the state to the crisis is part of a broader process. The American ruling class is utilizing the deepest slump since the Great Depression to push through long-planned cuts in social programs and carry through a permanent reduction in working-class living standards. It is seeking to eliminate the very idea that government should provide basic social services and at least the modicum of a social safety net.

A Roof Over Our Heads and Other Inalienable Rights
By Bonnie Weinstein

In an April 22, 2009, article in The New York Times by David Streitfeld, entitled, “An Effort to Save Flint, Mich., by Shrinking It,” the first two paragraphs read:

"Dozens of proposals have been floated over the years to slow this city’s endless decline. Now another idea is gaining support: speed it up.

"Instead of waiting for houses to become abandoned and then pulling them down, local leaders are talking about demolishing entire blocks and even whole neighborhoods."

In other words, instead of allowing families to remain in their homes during this severe economic crisis, the city of Flint intends to demolish the homes outright, leaving homeless families to fend for themselves.

New US commander in Afghanistan assembles team of assassins
By Bill Van Auken

Confirmed Wednesday as President Barack Obama’s new commander for the widening war in Afghanistan and Pakistan, General Stanley McChrystal has been given extraordinary powers to assemble his own staff.

According to press reports published Thursday, in forming a permanent war council-dubbed the Afghanistan-Pakistan Coordination Cell-McChrystal is drawing heavily from a super-secret assassination squad that he commanded under the Bush administration.

That unit, the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), was formed in December 1980 in the wake of the military’s abortive operation to free US hostages in Iran. Comprised of the Army’s Delta Force and Navy SEALs, the command directs Special Mission Units that carry out classified operations, often in collaboration with CIA squads.

Commanded by McChrystal between 2003 and 2008, JSOC has been linked to assassinations in over a dozen countries as well as abduction and torture. Under the Bush administration, it was reportedly used to carry out covert operations inside Iran, which included the abduction and assassination of officials suspected of aiding Iraqi militia groups.

Earlier this year, veteran investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, who is writing a book on the subject, termed the command “an executive assassination wing.” He said that it was tasked with “going into countries...finding people on a list and executing them and leaving.” Hersh added that, under the Bush administration, the unit reported to Vice President Dick Cheney’s office.

A Tale of Two Diverging Economic Worlds
by F. William Engdahl

Increasingly a deep divide within the world of globalization is emerging which will have the most profound significance for the future of G7 nations’ economic and political stability. The divide is between those nations which are still embedded within the dollar system, including countries in the Eurozone, versus those emerging economies—especially the BRIC—Brazil, Russia, India, China—where new economic markets and regions are rapidly replacing their over-dependence on the United States as prime export market and prime source for investment finance. The long-term consequences will be an aggravation of the trend of the United States as a political and economic superpower in terminal decline, while dynamic new economic zones, initially mainly of regional importance, will arise.

The one great asset which nations like China, Indonesia, India and Brazil bring to the emerging divide is the one greatest long-term economic deficit or liability of the older industrialized world, USA, UK, Germany and the EU generally. That is their demographic advantage.

With the exception of Russia, all the growth economies possess young, dynamic and growing populations. Interesting to recall is that the hidden story of the pre-1914 German ‘economic miracle’ was based on a similar ‘secret’—rapid and dynamic young and growing population, while that of Great Britain and France was stagnant or in decline after the British Great Depression of 1873 which led to huge emigration of population to the USA.

Why are Powerful People Afraid to Give Us the Right to Choose a Public Plan?
We Need a Holistic, Cradle-to-the-Grave National Health Care System
By CAROL MILLER

In the 15 years since Congress gave up on universal health care, about 300,000 Americans have died from the lack of health coverage alone, using the government’s own data.

Added to the tragic death toll is the economic toll. More than a half-million individuals and families declare medical bankruptcy every year; most of them have health insurance. Actually, they thought they had health insurance because they pay for insurance. People learn the hard way that when help is really needed for a catastrophic health crisis, private insurance does not protect them from financial ruin.

We stand again as a nation at the same fork in the road on the path to improve access to health care for all of our neighbors and family members.

One choice is the fork that brings us together to weave a safety net. This fork is the Medicare-for-all approach; everybody in, nobody out. Imagine a cradle-to-grave, holistic system based on public health, prevention, wellness, a medical home for everyone and — according to the Congressional Budget Office — doing all of this while saving money. This is the single-payer choice.

Who Spent All That Money For What?
Fear Rules
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

The power of irrational fear in the US is extraordinary. It ranks up there with the Israel Lobby, the military/security complex, and the financial gangsters. Indeed, fear might be the most powerful force in America.

Americans are at ease with their country’s aggression against Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan, which has resulted in a million dead Muslim civilians and several million refugees, because the US government has filled Americans with fear of terrorists. “We have to kill them over there before they come over here.”

Fearful of American citizens, the US government is building concentration camps, apparently all over the country. According to news reports, a $385 million US government contract was given by the Bush/Cheney Regime to Cheney’s company, Halliburton, to build “detention centers” in the US. The corporate media never explained for whom the detention centers are intended.

Most Americans dismiss such reports. “It can’t happen here.” However, In northeastern Florida not far from Tallahassee, I have seen what might be one of these camps. There is a building inside a huge open area fenced with razor wire. There is no one there and no signs. The facility appears new and unused and does not look like an abandoned prisoner work camp.

What is it for?

Who spent all that money for what?

Getting Healthy: A Tax-the-Rich Prescription
To achieve anything that resembles meaningful health care reform, activists are realizing, we need to focus on the grand concentrations of wealth inside the health care industry — and beyond.
By Sam Pizzigati

Later this month, in both the House and the Senate, lawmakers will likely begin “marking up” legislation that might finally give all Americans what the citizens of every other developed nation in the world already have: access to affordable health insurance.

How will lawmakers foot the bill?

“We'll pay for it,” Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus, a Democrat from Montana, promised last week, “in a balanced way.”

What does that mean? Baucus, a key figure in the congressional health care deliberations, appears willing to “balance” the burden of financing health care on the backs of average Americans who already have health insurance.

Health insurance benefits don’t currently count as taxable income. Baucus two weeks ago included taxing health benefits on a list of “policy options” for financing reform he released with his Republican colleague, Chuck Grassley.

Also included in the Baucus funding option list: an assortment of other proposals that aim directly at the pockets of ordinary people. His committee is even considering expanding federal payroll taxes to college students in work-study programs.

Curiously missing from this “balanced” approach to bankrolling health care reform: any move to tax the individuals and corporations that have profited so lavishly from our dysfunctional health care status quo.

New Rhetoric, Same Translation
Obama's Doublespeak on Iran
By ISMAEL HOSSEIN-ZADEH

On the US-Iran relationship, President Obama seems to be talking from both sides of his mouth. From one side we hear promising messages of dialogue and a “new beginning” with Iran; from the other side provocative words that seems to be coming right out of the mouth of his predecessor, George W. Bush.

For example, on the occasion of the Iranian New Year in March, while the President expressed willingness for “engagement that is honest and grounded in mutual respect" he also warned Iran that it cannot "take its rightful place in the community of nations … through terror or arms.”

Claims that Iran supports international terrorism or seeks to manufacture nuclear weapons were used by the Bush administration as excuses for not negotiating with Iran. President Obama’s occasional mimicking of those claims (which completely disregards the expert views of both the International Atomic Energy Agency and the National Intelligence Estimate) is likewise bound to serve as a major obstacle in the way of a meaningful conversation with Iran.

In terms of actual policy measures, President Obama and his foreign policy team have not taken any steps to reverse or mitigate the hostile policies their predecessors put into effect against Iran.

The American Academy Of Environmental Medicine Calls For Immediate Moratorium On Genetically Modified Foods

[Editor's Note: Click here to read the AAEM's Position Paper on Genetically Modified Foods.]

Contact Information
Dr. Amy L. Dean, D.O. Public Relations Chair Member, Board of Directors American Academy of Environmental Medicine
734-213-4901

Wichita, KS - The American Academy of Environmental Medicine (AAEM) today released its position paper on Genetically Modified foods stating that "GM foods pose a serious health risk" and calling for a moratorium on GM foods. Citing several animal studies, the AAEM concludes "there is more than a casual association between GM foods and adverse health effects" and that "GM foods pose a serious health risk in the areas of toxicology, allergy and immune function, reproductive health, and metabolic, physiologic and genetic health." The AAEM calls for:

* A moratorium on GM food, implementation of immediate long term safety testing and labeling of GM food.
* Physicians to educate their patients, the medical community and the public to avoid GM foods.
* Physicians to consider the role of GM foods in their patients' disease processes.
* More independent long term scientific studies to begin gathering data to investigate the role of GM foods on human health.

[Ed. note: A ranty but informative history which offers many insights into modern-day colonialism.]

When Pigs Fly–and Scold: Brits Lecturing Sri Lanka!
By Gary Brecher

Kandy Man with long name who fought the Brits.

Key fact: in Sri Lanka heroes were allowed to get fat, another reason to like the place.

You see some pretty sick stuff when you do my job, but I just read something sicker than any Congo cannibal buffet. It’s an article by a posh little limey named Jeremey Brown condemning the Sri Lankan government for being too messy in putting down the LTTE, and demanding that we stop buying the cheap textiles the poor Sinhalese make their living churning out.

What’s sick about this is that the British establishment destroyed the Sinhalese people completely. Completely and purposely, sadistically. Stole their land, humiliated and massacred their government, made it Imperial policy to erase every shred of self-respect the Sinhalese had left. You can talk about the Nazis all day long, but for my money nothing they did was as gross as what you find out when you actually look into the history of British-Sinhalese relations. If you can even call them “relations”; I guess a murder-rape is a relation, sort of.

But nobody knows about it. Weird, huh? Nothing weirds me out more than the total news blackout the Brits have managed to put on all the sick shit they did to brown and black people all over the world. They had a system, and it worked. They’d grab some paradise island in the tropics, use the Royal Navy to wall it off from the rest of the world, and crush the local tribe. If the locals resisted, the Brits would starve them to death, shoot them down, infect them with smallpox or get them addicted to opium–whatever they had to do to gang-rape the locals so bad that they’d lose the will to resist.

And to this day, they don’t catch even a little bit of Hell for it. Everybody thinks the Brits are all cute and harmless. You’re all a bunch of suckers for those suave accents, you suckers!