The politics of greed is what keeps this world wrapped in corruption. If you want to stick around for a while longer, I suggest you educate yourself and try to do something constructive to help save what little good, honesty, and trust we have left.

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Go to 13189
http://wsws.org/articles/2008/apr2008/food-a15.shtml
Amid mounting food crisis, governments fear revolution of the hungry
By Bill Van Auken
15 April 2008
Use this version to print | Send this link by email | Email the author

Last week’s meetings in Washington of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the Group of Seven were convened in the shadow of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s. While Wall Street’s turmoil and the deepening credit crunch dominated discussions, leaders of the global financial institutions were forced to take note of the growing global food emergency, warning of the threat of widespread hunger and already emerging political instability.

The seven major capitalist powers in the G-7—the US, Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Italy and Canada—made virtually no mention of the global food crisis, referring in only one brief reference to the risk of “high oil and commodity prices.” Instead, they focused on the stability of the financial markets, promising measures to shore up investor confidence.

The IMF and World Bank, however, felt compelled to acknowledge the emerging worldwide catastrophe, in part because while these agencies are instruments of the main imperialist powers, they must posture as responsive to the needs of all countries. It would be too revealing for them to focus exclusively on the fate of major finance houses, while ignoring the fact that hundreds of millions across the planet are being threatened with starvation.

More decisive, however, is the realization that this crisis confronting the most impoverished countries and poorest sections of the world’s population is threatening to unleash a revolution of the hungry that could topple governments across large parts of the world.

Even as the IMF and World Bank were meeting, the government of Haiti was forced out in a no-confidence vote passed in response to several days of demonstrations and protests against rising food prices and hunger that swept all the country’s major cities. Clashes between protesters and United Nations occupation troops left at least five people dead and scores wounded and saw crowds attempt to storm the presidential palace.

Food prices in Haiti had risen on average by 40 percent in less than a year, with the cost of staples such as rice doubling.

The same essential story has been repeated in country after country, from Africa to the Middle East, south Asia and Latin America.

* In Bangladesh, on Saturday, some 20,000 textile workers took to the streets to denounce soaring food prices and demand higher wages. The price of rice in the country has doubled over the past year, threatening the workers, who earn a monthly salary of just $25, with hunger. Scores were injured in clashes with police, who used gunfire in an attempt to disperse the crowds.

* In Egypt, protests by workers over food prices rocked the textile center of Mahalla al-Kobra, north of Cairo, for two days last week, with two people shot dead by security forces. Hundreds were arrested, and the government sent plainclothes police into the factories to force workers to work. Food prices in Egypt have risen by 40 percent in the past year.

* Unions and shopkeepers staged a two-day general strike in the West African nation of Burkina Faso last week to protest high prices. The strikers demanded a “significant and effective” cut in the price of rice and other staples.

* Several hundred demonstrators marched on parliament in Phnom Penh, Cambodia April 6 to protest food price hikes. The cost of a kilogram of rice has risen to $1 in a country where the average income is barely 50 cents a day. Police armed with cattle prods broke up the protest.

* Earlier this month, in the Ivory Coast, thousands marched on the home of President Laurent Gbagbo, chanting “we are hungry” and “life is too expensive, you are going to kill us.” The country has seen food prices soar by between 30 percent and 60 percent from one week to the next. Police broke up the protest with tear gas and batons, injuring over a dozen people.

Similar demonstrations, strikes and clashes have taken place in Bolivia, Peru, Mexico, Indonesia, the Philippines, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Thailand, Yemen, Ethiopia, and throughout most of sub-Saharan Africa.

With terrifying rapidity, hundreds of millions of people all over the planet have been confronted with the inability to obtain the basic necessities of life. The global capitalist market is dictating intolerable conditions for masses of people on every continent, provoking a worldwide eruption of class struggle.

It is the concern that this struggle will spin out of control that found expression in the statements of concern issued by the IMF and World Bank leaders together with finance ministers and central bank chiefs gathered in Washington.

“If food prices go on as they are today, then the consequences on the population in a large set of countries, including Africa, but not only Africa, will be terrible. Hundreds of thousands of people will be starving. Children will suffer from malnutrition, with consequences all of their lives,” Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the International Monetary Fund managing director, told an April 12 press conference in Washington.

He warned that governments “will see what they have done totally destroyed and their legitimacy facing the population destroyed also.” Strauss-Kahn added: “So it’s not only a humanitarian question. It is not only an economic question. It is also a democratic question. Those kind of questions sometimes end into war.”

“In just two months,” World Bank President Robert Zoellick said in an opening speech to the meeting of finance ministers, “rice prices have skyrocketed to near historical levels, rising by around 75 percent globally and more in some markets, with more likely to come.

“In Bangladesh, a 2-kilogram bag of rice,” he said, holding up such a bag, “now consumes about half of the daily income of a poor family.”

He added that wheat prices had increased by 120 percent, more than doubling the cost of a loaf of bread.

“If food prices go on as they are today, then the consequences on the population in a large set of countries ... will be terrible,” said Zoellick.

The “international community will also need to take urgent and concerted action in order to avoid the larger political and security implications of this growing crisis,” United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told international finance and trade officials at a UN meeting following the weekend talks in Washington.

The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food Jean Ziegler offered among the bleakest prognoses for the continuing crisis. “We are heading for a very long period of rioting, conflicts (and) waves of uncontrollable regional instability marked by the despair of the most vulnerable populations,” he told the French daily Liberation Monday.

He pointed out that, even before the present crisis, hunger claimed the life of a child under the age of 10 every 5 seconds, and 854 million people in the world were seriously undernourished. What was now posed, Ziegler warned, is “an imminent massacre.”

While finance ministers from the US and Europe indicated agreement that the crisis was severe, there was no indication that the major capitalist powers have any plan to mount the kind of effort needed to stave off a humanitarian catastrophe.

The White House announced Monday that it is releasing $200 million in emergency food aid in response to a World Bank appeal for funding to make up for the shortfall in food assistance caused by soaring prices. The amount—roughly what the US spends in half a day on its war to conquer Iraq—is less than a drop in the bucket in the face of the looming global catastrophe.

In the end, the crisis is a product of the capitalist market itself. It is not a matter of too many mouths to feed or too little food to supply human needs. Food is available, but the market has driven prices to a level out of reach for a growing portion of humanity in the most oppressed countries, and at the same effectively slashing the living standards of workers in the more advanced capitalist world.

This process is driven by a number of factors, including climatic ones, such as the impact of a draught in Australia on wheat production and a flood in Bangladesh on rice. There is also the rise in demand, particularly from growing middle class layers in India and China.

But more fundamental is the effect of speculation in food as a commodity—like oil and precious metals. It has become a haven for financial investors fleeing from paper assets tainted by subprime mortgages and other toxic credit products. The influx of buyers drives prices and makes food unaffordable for the world’s poor.

“Fund money flowing into agriculture has boosted prices,” Standard Chartered Bank food commodities analyst Abah Ofon told the media. “It’s fashionable. This is the year of agricultural commodities.”

Speculation in food as a commodity has been sharply accelerated by the decline in the value of the dollar, soaring oil prices and the promotion of biofuel production in the US and elsewhere. This attempt to generate a new investment “bubble,” based on the fraud that somehow turning corn into ethanol represents a “green” alternative to fossil fuels, has driven up the price not only of corn, but other grains, while diverting a major share of food production into a more profitable venture.

Subsidized by the US government, American farmers have diverted fully 30 percent of corn production into the ethanol scheme, driving up the cost of other, more expensive, grains that are being bought as substitutes for animal feed.

“When a biofuel policy is launched in the United States, thanks to subsidies of $6 billion, of bio-fuels that drains 138 million tons of corn from the market, the foundation is laid for a crime against humanity to satisfy one’s own thirst for fuel,” the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food Jean Ziegler told Liberation.

This assessment was repeated by India’s finance minister, Palaniappan Chidambaram, who declared, “When millions of people are going hungry, it’s a crime against humanity that food should be diverted to biofuels.”

US officials dismissed the charges, insisting that biofuel production was only one factor among many and indicating that there is no plan to change Washington’s policy.

Country after country has been left vulnerable to the global commodity price surge by “free market” policies implemented at the demands of Washington and the international financial agencies such as the IMF and World Bank over the past quarter century.

The closer integration of the economies of the oppressed countries into the world market has been accompanied by their increasing concentration on specialized export crops, while tariff barriers have been demolished, opening the way to subsidized agricultural staples from the more advanced countries capturing local markets.

Now, attempts by individual national governments to remedy the problem within their own borders—often taking the form of commodity producers erecting barriers on exports—have served to exacerbate the crisis internationally, driving food prices even higher, while triggering protests by farmers in countries stretching from India to Argentina. According to a recent World Bank survey, at least 58 countries have implemented at least some form of food-trade protectionism.

What is emerging in the crisis over food prices is a tumultuous manifestation of a breakdown of the global capitalist order. The catastrophe facing billions of people around the globe cannot be resolved within the confines of a system based on private profit and the nation state.

The revolutionary implications of this crisis are beginning to dawn on elements within the ruling establishment itself. In an article published Monday, the influential US magazine Time noted: “The idea of the starving masses driven by their desperation to take to the streets and overthrow the ancien regime has seemed impossibly quaint since capitalism triumphed so decisively in the Cold War... And yet, the headlines of the past month suggest that skyrocketing food prices are threatening the stability of a growing number of governments around the world.”

See Also:
India: Rising food prices threaten social calamity
[12 April 2008]
IMF cuts US growth forecast, warns of global slump
[12 April 2008]
Egypt: Mass protests over price hikes
[11 April 2008]
Anger grows over rising prices in Sri Lanka
[11 April 2008]
Rice shortages heighten political crisis in the Philippines
[8 April 2008]



Go to 13188
http://www.realjewnews.com/?p=185
NO LOBBY IS FEARED MORE or catered to by politicians than the Jewish Lobby. If a politician does not play ball with the Jewish Lobby, he will not get elected, or re-elected, and he will either be smeared or ignored by the Jewish-owned major media.

All Jewish lobbies and organizations are interconnected and there are hundreds upon hundreds of them. The leaders of the numerous Jewish Lobby Groups go to the same synagogues, country clubs, and share the same Jewish investment bankers. And this inter-connectedness extends to the Jews who run the Federal Reserve Bank, US Homeland Security, and the US State Department.

In other words, “Jews stick together.” Americans must know how extremely powerful the Jewish Lobby is and how it operates to undermine America’s interests both at home and abroad. At home - by corrupting America’s political system, and abroad - by dictating American Foreign Policy against America’s best interests.

Here is a list of the major Jewish Lobby Groups & how they work:

American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC): AIPAC has a staff of over 150 employees and an annual budget of over $60 million Here derived from private contributions from wealthy Jews and Jewish-owned businesses. In other words, “money corrupts & Jewish money corrupts the American political system absolutely.”

~ AIPAC has many “PACS” attached to their Lobby. PACS are “Public Action Committees,” sanctioned by Federal Law, that give huge donations to political candidates. PACS are the means by which AIPAC and all Jewish lobbies utilize the immense wealth of Jewry to bribe US politicians. AIPAC is currently lobbying for the US to attack Iran Here & Here. AIPAC’s Executive Director is the powerful Anti-Christian Jew, Howard Kohr.

American Jewish Congress (AJC): Its antecedents began in 1918 when Woodrow Wilson’s “influential friends,” Rabbi Stephen Wise, (founder of AJC in 1930), and Judge Louis Brandeis, (co-founder), participated Here in the drafting of the infamous Versailles Treaty of 1919 which made unreasonable demands on Germany.

~ In the 1930’s, the AJC led a major boycott of German goods in America, which, among other provocations of the Jews, prompted a backlash against the Jews in Germany Here.

~ Currently, the AJC works with pandering Congressman and “bought” Senators like Senator Jeff Bingaman to push through Bills with Zionist agendas Here. The AJC also has many “PACS.” AJC’s Executive Director is the powerful Anti-Christian Jew, Neil B. Goldstein.

Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations: 51 of the largest Jewish organizations come together regularly Here under the umbrella group of the Conference. Their Mission Statement reads, “Forging diverse groups [there is no such as “diverse” in Jewry] into a unified force to foster the special US-Israel relationship” Here. The Conference also has many “PACS.” The Conferences’ Executive Chairman is the powerful Anti-Christian Jew, Malcolm I. Hoenlein.

Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA): Founded in 1976 by Jewish neocons Richard Perle & Eliot Abrams. Its mission is to promote US aid to Israel with military hardware Here & Here. JINSA has its Jewish tentacles everywhere including the US Department of Defense Here.

~ JINSA has a formidable array of Washington power players on its rolls. Prior to Bush’s Presidency, JINSA’s Board of Advisers included Dick Cheney, Elliot Abrams (now the Deputy National Security Advisor for Global Democracy Strategy), John Bolton (now Under Secretary of State for Arms Control) and Douglas Feith, who was Bush’s third-highest-ranking executive in the Pentagon. Cheney, Abrams, and Bolton are still in power having as their well-connected supporters, the Jews of JINSA.

~ Part of JINSA’s annual budget is spent on providing lavish “educational” trips to Israel for key politicians & high ranking US military personnel. Northrop Grumman, (Feith’s Law Firm represents Northrop Grumnan Here), which has sold ships, Hawkeye planes, and radar systems to Israel, are also represented in the JINSA membership. [Good networking for those Jewish-influenced contracts! Here ]

~ JINSA’s President is the powerful Anti-Christ Jew, Norman Hascoe. JINSA’s National Chairman is the powerful Anti-Christ Jew, (he is also McCain’s Fund Raiser Here), Mark Broxmeyer, a NY Real Estate Tycoon.

Middle East Forum (MEF): It’s Mission Statement Here reads, “The Middle East Forum seeks to promote American interests in the Middle East. We define U.S. interests to include fighting radical Islam whether terroristic or lawful [dropping US cluster bombs on Arab children in Gaza Strip & shutting off fuel and water supplies to the Gazans]; working for Palestinian acceptance of Israel; [ethnic cleansing of Palestinians until only 1 Palestinian is left to “accept” Israel]; and countering the Iranian threat [bribing US politicians to declare war on Iran].”

~ MEF’s Director is the powerful Anti-Christian Jew, Daniel Pipes.

Zionist Organization Of America (ZOA): Founded in 1897 to promote political Zionism. Currently the ZOA has over 30,000 members in every major US city Here.

The ZOA boasts on its Web Site:

— “The ZOA has played a key role in Congress [bribes] regarding victims of terrorism [Jews only/Jews are rarely “innocent victims”]; keeping Jerusalem unified under Israeli sovereignty [illegal settlements in the West Bank]; fighting Hamas and Fatah [US-made cluster bombs dropped on Arab children in Gaza Strip]; and working on the imposition of sanctions on Syria and Saudi Arabia [and the illegal invasion of Iraq where not a single Jewish soldier from America has died!].” — ZOA’s National President is the powerful Anti-Christian Jew, Morton A. Klein.



Go to 13187
http://www.rense.com/general81/ondict.htm
From One Dictator
To The Next
Analysis by Ali al-Fadhily and Dahr Jamail*
Inter Press Service
4-16-8

BAGHDAD (IPS) -- Many Iraqis have come to believe that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is just as much a dictator as Saddam Hussein was.

"Al-Maliki is a dictator who must be removed by all means," 35-year-old Abdul-Riza Hussein, a Mehdi Army member from Sadr City in Baghdad told IPS. "He is a worse dictator than Saddam; he has killed in less than two years more than Saddam killed in 10 years."

Following the failed attempt by the U.S.-backed al-Maliki to crack down on the Mehdi Army militia of Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, the situation in Iraq has become much worse. Iraq appears to be splintering more widely under this rule than under Saddam's.

Fierce fighting has broken out between Sadr's Mehdi Army and Maliki's army and police forces in Baghdad, which comprise mostly the Badr Organisation militia, the armed wing of the political group, the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC).

According to statistics compiled by the U.S. military in Baghdad, there has been a sharp increase in attacks against U.S. and Iraqi security forces, from 239 in February to 631 in March. Most of these attacks are believed to have been carried out by the Mehdi Army.

The Mehdi Army is known to have substantial control of the streets of Baghdad, Basra, and many other predominantly Shia areas in southern Iraq.

But there is also considerable Shia support for Maliki's effort to disarm the Mehdi Army. "Those who shout loud against Maliki and his legally elected government are all thieves and murderers and must be executed," says Aziz Mussawi, a resident of Hilla, 100km south of Baghdad, who fled for Baghdad when the clashes started there last month. "These militias will destroy Iraq if left unleashed."

Many Iraqis feel caught in a cross-fire in what they see as a battle for power between the Shia factions. "Over a thousand Iraqis got killed and more than that number wounded just for a game of chess between warlords," Mohammad Alwan, a lawyer in Baghdad told IPS. "All of them call for dissolving militias while they keep militias of their own. Most of those in power in the government are militia leaders."

Sadr and his followers are calling for unity, in an attempt to bring as many Iraqis as they can, Sunni and Shia, to their side. The rival Fadhila Party, that is powerful in many Shia provinces and in cities like Basra where it holds the governorship, has also called for unity.

It is widely believed in Iraq that parties who call for unity are using the issue to get public support against federalism, seen to be supported by the U.S. and Iranian backed parties such as the SIIC and Maliki's Dawa Party. Many in Iraq see federalism as the break-up of the country.

After five years of occupation and suffering, with no end to it in sight, many Iraqis have become skeptical of all political and religious leaders.

"Sadr is another face of the Iranian project, despite their pretending to be a national movement," Jassam Hady, a colonel of the former Iraqi army in Baghdad told IPS. "All those in the Iraqi government in the so-called Green Zone have militias that have killed Iraqis under one flag or another."

Hady, like many Iraqis, believes that the current spasm of violence will worsen as the two main Shia groups, the Sadr Movement and Maliki's affiliations, continue to vie for power ahead of the provincial elections slated for October.

Division has broken out also within tribes; many have now come to back Sadr, not because they like him, but because they hate the Badr militia of Hakeem's SIIC and Maliki's Dawa party.

"Our problem in the southern parts of Iraq and other Shia dominated areas is that all options are bad," the chief of a major tribe in Basra who fled for Baghdad, told IPS on condition of anonymity. "Iranian controlled militias killed so many chiefs of tribes because they refused to support these division projects concealed under the flag of federalism."

Several tribes in the south have formed unions to fight the separation project, but some sheikhs have formed counter unions to support the Badr and Dawa agenda.

Most people seem to oppose any federalism that would separate Shia from Sunni Muslims.

"We will be weak without our Sunni brothers," says Shamil Mahmood from Sadr City, the east district of two million in Baghdad. "The whole of the south will be swallowed by Iran, that will humiliate us and treat us like animals."

(*Ali, our correspondent in Baghdad, works in close collaboration with Dahr Jamail, our U.S.-based specialist writer on Iraq who has reported extensively from Iraq and the Middle East)



Go to 13186
http://www.rense.com/general39/over36.htm
The Overthrow Of The
American Republic
Part 36
by Sherman H. Skolnick

The Judges and the Shadow Government
7-15-3

In law, there is a principle described as customs, practices, and usages. In simple terms, it means certain habits that those who rule us use by way of conducting themselves. BUT, these ingrained ways are generally not written down, yet are clearly understood as the accepted and established way of government.

For example, in the South for a hundred years after the American Civil War, or as southerners call it The War Between The States, the customs, practices, and usages, were that whites would not respect the Equal Protection of the Law guarantees as to blacks. Lynchings were condoned, and whites would eat their picnic lunch while watching blacks hanging from a tree. The Ku Klux Klan, although dominated some fifty per cent by FBI agents and informants, was more or less allowed to run wild and terrorize blacks. Some Federal judges, such as in Mississippi, were known to chase blacks out of their courts while hurling racial slurs against them. It was a customs, practice, and usage, that blacks had separate fountains to drink water from, in public facilities.

In Chicago, we spoke to an Afro-American lawyer, formerly a government official, who told us how the federal courts in Chicago likewise mistreat black attorneys, even now. He decided not to make any public statements about the same. Italian-American lawyers told us similar things from first-hand experience. Namely, that lawyers of color and of certain ethnic groups, are looked down upon by the Chicago federal judges, some of whom are persons of color themselves. That is, the judges prefer "pin-stripe" suit attorneys, WASPs (White Anglo-Saxon Protestants). No, it is not as blatant as having black attorneys drinking from a separate fountain. BUT, their petitions are routinely rejected, so that they cannot hope to make a living in the Chicago federal courts.
Some of the accepted ways of the judiciary, state and federal:

[1] The buying and selling of judgeships in courts at all levels. We discussed this in a website item "Buying a Judgeship". Because of certain circumstances, some of this is even coming out in the monopoly press. Such as "Ex-Judge gets 27 months in bribery case; U.S. still probing whether he paid for seat on bench". Chicago Tribune, 7/26/2002.

A popular website (www.worldnetdaily.com, 6/19/03)referred to a story in a major New York publication:

"In an admission that has New York Supreme Court [actually a lower court] in an uproar, a retired Brooklyn judge said he paid $35,000 to a Democratic leader more than three decades ago to get a seat on the bench, New York Newsday reports. The payment, says Thomas R. Jones, 89, was 'IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CUSTOMS AND PRACTICES OF THE DAY', though he added, 'it was not right then, it's not right now' ".(Emphasis added.)

The article went on to discuss how judges and lawyers knew that certain lawyers were "bagmen", used as go-betweens of lawyers and corrupt jurists.

In our website series on "Coca-Cola, CIA, and the Courts", we mentioned how a known criminal-type bought the bench for Chicago Federal District Judge Blanche M. Manning[(312)435-7608]. An elite federal investigative unit, contacted us.

Government investigators: "Your story, also in the court record, that Judge Manning's judgeship was bought, is not correct."

Citizen's Committee to Clean Up the Courts: "What is wrong with our court statement and our website story?"

Government investigators: "You state that her judgeship was bought for one million dollars by a known power-broker, described as a mobster. It is not a correct amount. Our inquiry has determined that the power-broker paid two million dollars."

Citizen's Committee: "So, is that all you found wrong with our position on the buying of that Judgeship? That we mentioned a lower amount?"

Government investigators: "Yes, you have stated a wrong amount."
He did not inform us what, if anything, would be done against the Judge and her patron/judgeship buyer.

Since the buying of judgeships is a known custom, practice, and usage, what are the obvious conclusions? Such as, the criminal-types, or political power-brokers, that buy the judgeship and install someone of THEIR choice, then are in a position to profit in some way from the judge thus put in place. Some call it, pulling on the chain. (In the New York example, however, the retired Judge claimed it did not effect his rulings. Really?)

[2] The handling of court records. No accountability. There is a practice moreso in the federal courts in the U.S., of the judges NOT SIGNING THE COURT RULINGS by them, particularly so in civil cases. So, were you, as we have for decades, to have examined decisions by U.S. District Judges and then their supervisors, the reviewing courts, U.S. Courts of Appeal, it is quite evident the Judges DO NOT SIGN THEIR NAME.

What is the rationale, off-the-record, and behind-the-scenes? Namely, that many of the federal court decisions are NOT made by the Judges who are simply a front. The decisions are made by law clerks, also "minute clerks" as they are referred to. In plain lingo, we have long since known that to corrupt the judiciary, you have to lean on their secretaries, their minute clerks, their law clerks, sometimes just the court bailiffs or deputy marshals, or their ghost-writing law professors. Further, in some instances, the decisions are written by former law school students or present or former law professors, particularly so where the judges are former law professors.

We have given as examples of corrupt practices, that three Chicago Federal Appeals Judges, and one judge on the U.S. Supreme Court, are all formerly from Rockefeller's University of Chicago Law School. (7th Circuit Judges Richard A. Posner (312) 435-5806); Frank H. Easterbrook (312) 435-5808, were law professors, and 7th Circuit Judge Diane P. Wood (312) 435-5521, was Dean of the Law School. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, was a professor there.)They commit perjury, in violation of the federal criminal code, in that they have failed to disclose that they, on the bench, represent the Billion Dollar stock and bond portfolio of Rockefeller's University of Chicago. This disclosure, which they have not made, is an annual mandatory judicial financial disclosure, failure to reveal the same by their signed form, being perjury, under federal law.

What is the problem with the judges, as is their custom, practice, and usage, not to sign their name to their rulings? The ghost-written decisions in important cases, not every case, contain judicial perjuries. That is, the established undisputed facts in the court record show it is DAY. To make a corrupt and arbitrary ruling, the judges' rulings say it is NIGHT, and apply NIGHT case law.
The litigant "loser" and/or their attorney is puzzled. Rarely, if ever, do lawyers confront the corrupt judges with their judicial perjury. Funny thing, since the decisions are often ghost-written, the judges, supposely in all candor, could say, but never do, "I did not write that. I know nothing about that decision. You can't hold me responsible and accountible. Why? Because I also did NOT sign it." It is a corrupt and rotten way of carrying out the unwritten customs, practices, and usages, of the Bench and the Bar.


[3] The U.S. Constitution, Seventh Amendment provides:
"In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, AND NO FACT TRIED BY A JURY SHALL BE OTHERWISE RE-EXAMINED in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law." (Emphasis added.)

The state and federal courts in this nation have been set up similar to a church hierarchy, with a lower court (the local church), a reviewing and appellate court (the regional or local Archbishop of the Church), and the higher court (The Vatican, the Pontiff, the Pope).

By the 7th Amendment of the Bill of Rights, the reviewing and appellate court and the highest courts, are forbidden to re-examine, that is, to change, re-determine, the facts submitted to a jury and made into a jury trial court verdict.

The 7th Amendment in important cases, not every case, is again and again violated by feudal lords, sitting as Archbishops on the bench and throne of power as appellate, reviewing, and highest court judges. They commit judicial perjuries, picking so-called new "facts" out of the air, and thus justifying a corrupt and arbitrary ruling in dealing with a jury trial verdict of the lower court. To survive, members of the Bar dare not complain about these judicial perjuries which constitute a fraud upon their own Court by the reviewing, appellate, or high court judges, actually made, as earlier stated, by ghost-writers, and allowed, permitted, condoned, and acquiesced in by the judges.
[4] The U.S. Constitution sets up a system of government into three departments, Legislature, Judiciary, Executive. It is a violation of these provisions, for example, for the Legislature to sit as a Court. In enumerating the powers of Congress, Article I, Section 9, "No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed."

Bill of Attainder is to have the Legislature and/or the Executive branch, designate, without a judicial determination, that a person is an "enemy of the State", a "terrorist", or a "criminal". During periods of public ferment, such as the Civil Rights and Anti-Viet Nam War era, the FBI and the American CIA, secretly designated U.S. citizens as "enemies of the State" and similar labels in the records of those agencies. And, circulating those secret rulings, following up on that, secret government operatives, fingered political activists to have their phones sabotaged, their private residences and offices broken into and records of membership stolen, and other injuries done to them as law-abiding citizens, such as fire-bombing their cars, causing wheels to somehow fall off their car while in motion, and inserting provocateurs into peace parades. These secret records justified the FBI/CIA in assassinating Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., to prevent "the rise of a Black Messiah" and to punish him fatally for having one-year prior to his political murder having made a speech in New York. Dr. King said he intended to go to Viet Nam to urge black GIs not to murder yellow-skin people in someone else's civil war. In other website stories, we mentioned how William Rehnquist headed a secret Justice Department unit doing such things. Later, when he became a Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court, he ruled that there should not be a court remedy for these wrongs, and in so doing, did not disqualify himself in respect to his own prior actions as to the same.

In prior website items, we told how Hillary Rodham Clinton, while First Lady (which is NOT an official government position), nevertheless mis-used government power to put persons such as us, on her "enemies list" to harass and terrorize us. Courts, as we mentioned, refused to consider our plight and to x-out these Bills of Attainder issued against us and others, without judicial determinations.

Furthermore, the Federal Courts have become, more and more, super-Legislatures, passing "case laws", binding on everyone, the same as if done by Congress.
There have been no actual remedies for violation of the Separation of Powers, the three department system of the government. We have in the past mentioned about Chicago-area Congressman Henry Hyde who had two hats. First hat, he was, of course, a Congressman. Secondly, he was also head of the CIA's "black budget", supervising funds for dirty tricks including political assassinations. So he sat in the Legislative and Executive branches at the same time.

Since Judges are not intended to be representatives of the people, and are primarily chosen by the Ultra Rich, the U.S. is becoming more and more a nation ruled by Judges. We have in our website stories about the year 2000 Presidential election, told how the "Gang of Five", like a Military Junta, on the U.S. Supreme Court, installed George W. Bush as the occupant and resident of the White House, in so doing, the high court gang re-examined and re-determined the facts, even plucking supposed "facts" out of the sky.

Thus, more and more we are being ruled by the Judges without our consent as the governed.



Go to 13185
http://www.naturalnews.com/023015.html
Sterilize Fresh Produce and Turn Live Foods into Dead Foods
Monday, April 14, 2008 by: Mike Adams
(NaturalNews) There's a new plot underway to sterilize your food and destroy the nutritional value of fresh produce. The players in this plot are the usual suspects: The USDA (which backed the "raw" almond sterilization rules now in effect in California) and the American Chemical Society -- a pro-chemical group that represents the interests of industrial chemical manufacturers. The latest push comes from USDA researchers who conducted a study to see which method more effectively killed bacteria on leafy green vegetables like spinach.

To conduct the study, they bathed the spinach in a solution contaminated with bacteria. Then, they tried to remove the bacteria using three methods: Washing, chemical spraying and irradiation. Not surprisingly, only the irradiation killed nearly 100 percent of the bacterial colonies. That's because radiation sterilizes both the bacteria and the vegetable leaves, effectively killing the plant and destroying much of its nutritional value while it kills the bacteria.

The USDA claims this is a huge success. By using radiation on all fresh produce, they claim, the number of food-borne illness outbreaks that happen each year could be substantially reduced. It all makes sense until you realize that by destroying the nutritional value of all fresh produce sold in the United States, an irradiation policy would greatly increase the number of people killed by infections and chronic diseases that are prevented by the natural medicines found in fresh produce!


Why fresh, living produce helps prevent sickness
The USDA, you see, has zero recognition of the difference between living produce and dead produce. To uneducated government bureaucrats, pasteurized or irradiated vegetable juice is identical to fresh, raw, living vegetable juice. They believe this because they've never been taught about the phytonutrients, digestive enzymes and life force properties that are found in fresh foods, but that are destroyed through heat or irradiation. This, the USDA is operating out of extreme ignorance when it comes to food and nutrition.

Even a simple leaf of spinach contains hundreds of natural medicines -- phytonutrients that help prevent cancer, eye diseases, nervous system disorders, heart disease and much more. Every living vegetable is a powerhouse of disease-fighting medicine: Broccoli prevents cancer, beet greens cleanse the liver, cilantro removes heavy metals, celery prevents cancer, berries prevent heart disease and dark leafy greens help prevent over a dozen serious health conditions while boosting immune function and helping prevent other infections. But when you subject these fruits and vegetables to enough radiation to kill 99.9% of the pathogens that may be hitching a ride, you also destroy many of the phytonutrients responsible for these tremendous health benefits!

This means that while irradiating food may decrease outbreaks of food-borne illnesses, it will have the unintended consequence of increasing the number of people who get sick from other infections (and chronic diseases) due to the fact that their source of natural medicine has been destroyed. For many Americans, you see, salad greens are their one remaining source for phytonutrients. Given their diets of processed foods, junk foods and cooked foods, there are very few opportunities for these consumers to get fresh, phytonutrient-rich foods into their diet. And now the USDA wants to take that away, too, by mandating the irradiation of all fresh produce.

Let me make a rather obvious prediction, on the record: If the irradiation of fresh produce goes into effect in the United States, rates of infection among consumers will sharply increase, not decrease, due to the removal of immune-boosting natural medicine from the food supply. Consumers will also experience higher rates of cancer, heart disease, dementia, eye disorders, diabetes and even obesity. By destroying these thousands of healing phytonutrients, irradiation will leave many consumers defenseless against modern society's many health challenges.

It is no exaggeration to say that a policy of mass irradiation of fresh produce is as blatantly stupid as the Romans building their aqueducts with lead-lined waterways. As historians have explained, after the aqueducts were built, the water delivered to the Roman population was contaminated with lead -- a heavy metal that causes numerous health problems, including insanity. Many historians blame the lead-lined aqueducts as one of the primary reasons why the Roman Empire fell: Its leaders went mad, and the rest is history.

I would argue that America's leaders are already mad, but that's beside the point. If we start irradiating our food, thereby destroying its nutritional value, we are going to unleash a cascade of unintended consequences even greater than the Roman's aqueducts. Absent the protections of phytonutrients found in plants, the health of most consumers will rapidly decline, and we'll see the U.S. thrust into a quagmire of chronic disease and medical bankruptcy. (It's already heading there, of course, but killing the food supply will only accelerate the downward spiral of health.)


Let's sterilize all the food!
The USDA has never met a food sterilization plan it didn't like. It backed the recent almond sterilization law that went into effect in California last year, forcing all almond growers to sterilize their almonds by subjecting them to toxic chemicals or cooking them at high enough temperatures to kill anything that might have been alive (such as the almond itself). Now, all the raw almonds consumed in America are purchased from overseas growers, where raw still means raw.

Raw milk has also been under attack in California and elsewhere. The USDA supported laws that essentially banned the sales of raw milk, requiring milk to be sterilized, too. If you now irradiate all the fresh produce, you have a food supply that is predominantly sterilized -- otherwise known as "dead." And dead foods lead to dead people.

That a society's health regulators would want all foods to be dead should be downright shocking to anyone who knows anything about health and nutrition. Live foods keep people alive, but dead foods make people dead. It's really not a complicated concept. The USDA's definition of "food safety," however, is based on the idea that the health of one immune-system-compromised individual who can't handle a little E. Coli is more important than the ongoing health of the entire population. Thus, all foods must be killed for everyone.

I strongly disagree with this approach. Foods should not be expected to be sterilized. In terms of food safety, emphasis should be placed on boosting the health and immune systems of individuals so they can survive occasional contact with E. Coli rather than trying to create a sterile environment in which nothing is alive. As it turns out, the people susceptible to food-borne illnesses are precisely those individuals who have compromised immune systems due to their intake of vaccines and antibiotics. Thus, it is modern medicine that has made these people vulnerable to food-borne illnesses. Blame the drug companies, not the bacteria.

But the USDA would rather blame the food. Blaming conventional medicine for the harm it has caused to the human immune system is not politically correct. It's better to blame the food, then use scare tactics to announce yet more outbreaks and hope for a public outcry for widespread food irradiation. And that brings me to the "final solution" on food irradiation.


How the USDA plans to join the FDA in keeping everyone sick
There is a corporate-sponsored plot underway in the U.S. today to keep people sick and deny them access to information about natural cures (such as medicinal foods) that would prevent disease and keep people out of the hospitals. In more than 1,500 articles on this website, I've documented the FDA's criminality, the USDA's indefensible actions, and the criminal behavior of drug manufacturers who only earn profits if they can find a way to keep the entire population sick and diseased for another generation or two.

Destroying the natural medicine in the food supply sure would be a highly effective way to create more customers for Big Pharma, wouldn't it? I think it's all part of the "keep the population sick and diseased" plot being carried out by an evil partnership between drug companies and the U.S. government. We already know that the FDA and USDA work for the corporations, not the People. We already know that they will do practically anything to boost their profits (including conducting medical experiments on infants, drugging schoolchildren, lying to the public, fabricating clinical trials and more). Is it any surprise that they would now attempt a "final solution" on the food supply that kills the food and thereby results in a huge reduction in the population's intake of the disease-fighting nutrients found in fresh produce?


The social engineering recipe
Pulling this off, of course, requires a bit of social engineering by the USDA in order to force the public into demanding something be done. If you're the USDA, you can't just suddenly announce a national food sterilization plan; you have to prime the pump with a bit of dirty work. Here's the simple plan for accomplishing that, if you're the USDA:

1) Conduct poor inspections of fresh produce on purpose, in order to cause a large increase in food-borne illness outbreaks. (We've seen this increase happen over the last 12 - 24 months.) This can be easily accomplished by reducing the budget of food inspection offices, or removing inspectors from the payroll altogether (which has already happened).

2) Wait for the outbreaks to happen. When consumers get sick, run national press releases announcing how dangerous the food supply is.

3) Watch the consumer reaction as people and lawmakers demand "something be done!"

4) Fudge a study with the American Chemical Society to show that washing doesn't work and that irradiation is the only solution. Time the release of this news to coincide with the public outcry that "something be done!"

5) Once the public is demanding a solution to food-borne illnesses, roll out a national produce irradiation requirement that sterilizes all the food.

Mission accomplished! This, of course, leads to point #6:

6) Watch the population become increasingly sick and diseased (thanks to the lack of phytonutrients that used to be found in the fresh produce), and cash in on your Big Pharma shares as the population is herded into hospitals for lucrative treatments with monopoly-priced pharmaceuticals.

It's the same old social engineering trick that's been used to hoodwink the American people hundreds of times. How do you get the public to support a war in the Middle East? Stage an attack on U.S. soil first, and wait for the public outcry. How do you get the People to support the mass sterilization of their own food supply? Lower your inspection standards, let the sickness spread, and then wait for the public outcry. It's the way governments get things done these days: They manipulate the public into demanding the things they wanted to accomplish in the first place. These are sometimes called "false flag operations" in a military context, and they've been conducted by the U.S. government on numerous occasions, just like they were conducted by Hitler in Nazi Germany to justify his invasions of neighboring countries. You can read about False Flag operations on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_flag


What "they" really want: A dead food supply
Let's be blunt about this: The corporations running this country (which also run the U.S. government) want the U.S. food supply to be dead. They don't want foods to be used as medicines, and they sure don't want the natural medicines found in foods competing with their own patented pharmaceutical medicines (that just happen to earn them a whole lot more money than any food ever did).

Don't you find it curious that this attack on the food supply is coming out now, right after all this incredible news about the healing power of foods has been hitting the science journals? Every week, it seems, we find out about another amazing health property in a food. Black raspberries reverse oral cancer. Pomegranates halt prostate cancer. Green tea halts breast cancer. The list goes on. Just on this website alone, we've probably published 1,000 stories over the last two years on the disease-fighting properties of foods.

The thing to realize here is that many of the healing properties of these foods are destroyed through pasteurization or irradiation. If you're a government that wants to "take away the People's medicine," the fastest way to accomplish that is to mandate the sterilization of the food supply. Kill the foods and you take away the People's medicine, and that forces the population to use pharmaceuticals instead.

The FDA, for its part, has for many decades conducted its natural medicine censorship campaign, whose only purpose is to deny the People access to accurate information about the healing properties of natural medicines found in foods and herbs. But apparently that wasn't enough: The Internet came along and people found a way to educate themselves. So since the FDA couldn't keep the truth about natural medicine bottled up and censored, the government has now apparently decided to just sterilize all the foods, thereby destroying the natural medicine and transforming Mother Nature's gifts into dead calories.

The USDA's decisions here are not based on public safety, folks. They're based on corporate greed. Just look at how they handled the raw almond controversy in these related articles: http://www.naturalnews.com/almonds.html

The USDA as operated today is a front group for wealthy corporations. It is not interested in helping the People. It's interested in protecting the profits of corporations... even if that means destroying the food supply and turning the population into "dead eaters" who die from other diseases caused by the lack of phytonutrient protection.


How you can help stop this latest atrocity against our food supply
What can you do to stop this? Be prepared to fight irradiation plans with a massive outcry that demands our food supply be protected from radiation. There are two things that need to be accomplished, and of course the USDA and FDA oppose them both:

1) Require the labeling of all irradiated foods with a large "Irradiated" label or sticker.

2) Block any attempts to mandate the irradiation of fresh produce.

Stay tuned to NaturalNews.com for more on this story. We'll be joining with other pro-consumer groups (like the Organic Consumers Association) to rally our readers in opposition to this food irradiation effort.

I believe we must keep our food supply fresh and alive. (Sounds kinda obvious, huh?) And if there's a little extra bacteria on the spinach, it's nothing that a healthy body can't handle anyway. Take some probiotics and avoid antibiotics, and you'll be just fine. E. Coli is really only a threat to the health of individuals who have had their immune systems (or intestinal flora) destroyed by pharmaceuticals in the first place. There's nothing wrong with some living organisms in your milk, on your almonds or on your spinach. Wash your food, get plenty of sunlight and avoid using antibiotics.

The human body is NOT a sterile environment. To try to make our food supply sterile is insane, and anyone who supports the irradiation of the food supply is, in my opinion, supporting a policy of genocide against the American people. To destroy the vitality of the food supply is a criminal act of such immense evil that it stands alongside the worst crimes ever committed against humanity.

You see, it's not enough for them to poison our water (fluoride), poison our children (vaccines) and lie to us about the sun (skin cancer scare stories). Now they want to destroy our foods... and thereby take away any natural medicine options that might actually keep people healthy and free. Remember: A diseased population is an enslaved population.

Now go eat your Big Mac, drink your Pepsi and don't ask too many questions.

###

About the author: Mike Adams is a natural health researcher and author with a passion for sharing empowering information to help improve personal and planetary health He has authored and published thousands of articles, interviews, consumers guides, and books on topics like health and the environment, impacting the lives of millions of readers around the world who are experiencing phenomenal health benefits from reading his articles. Adams is an honest, independent journalist and accepts no money or commissions on the third-party products he writes about or the companies he promotes. In 2007, Adams launched EcoLEDs, a maker of super bright LED light bulbs that are 1000% more energy efficient than incandescent lights. He also founded an environmentally-friendly online retailer called BetterLifeGoods.com that uses retail profits to help support consumer advocacy programs. He's also a veteran of the software technology industry, having founded a personalized mass email software product used to deliver email newsletters to subscribers. Adams also serves as the executive director of the Consumer Wellness Center, a non-profit consumer protection group, and practices nature photography, Capoeira, Pilates and organic gardening.



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Popular Impotence Drugs May Cause Sudden Deafness
Sunday, April 13, 2008 by: David Gutierrez
(NaturalNews) The FDA has announced an immediate change to the labeling of drugs in a family that includes popular impotence drugs, warning that they may lead to sudden, severe and potentially permanent hearing loss.

The erectile dysfunction drugs in the phosphodiesterase type 5 (PDE5) class include Pfizer's Viagra, Eli Lilly's Cialis and GlaxoSmithKline's Levitra. Also receiving a label change will be blood pressure drug Revatio.

The FDA reviewed side effect reports on the drugs after a case study was published in the Journal of Laryngology & Otology in 2007, reporting that a 44-year-old man had suffered sudden hearing loss after only 15 days on Viagra. Upon review, the FDA uncovered 29 post-approval reports of patients undergoing sudden hearing loss from PDE5 drugs. In two-thirds of cases, the hearing loss appeared to be permanent. Hearing loss was sometimes, but not always, accompanied by dizziness or ringing in the ears. The majority of cases involved only one ear.

"Because some level of hearing loss is usually associated with the aging process, patients on these drugs may not think to talk to their doctor about it," said Janet Woodcock, the FDA's chief medical officer.

The FDA advises all patients on PDE5 erectile dysfunction drugs to stop taking the medication immediately upon the first sign of sudden hearing loss, and to seek immediate medical care.

"Because Revatio is used to treat a potentially life-threatening condition, the FDA does not recommend [that] patients abruptly stop taking this medication," the agency said. Such patients "should consult their physician if they experience sudden problems with their hearing."

"The fact that the FDA is just now finding out about the risk of sudden hearing loss from impotence drugs demonstrates the failure of its drug approval process to identify serious health risks before drugs are approved," said consumer health advocate Mike Adams. "The truth is that most newly-approved prescription drugs are unleashed upon the population as large-scale experiments, and neither the drug's manufacturer nor the FDA really has any idea of the true dangers of the drug."



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Military Releases High Casualty Figures
Department Of Defense's Latest Numbers: 31,590 Troops Wounded On Battle Field

April 14, 2008
E-Mail Story

Profiles of U.S. soldiers who've died in Iraq, a look at the war's toll and pictures of mourning.

Stories
There Is A Tunnel, But Is There A Light?
Bush Orders Halt In Iraq Withdrawals

(CBS) CBS News investigative producer Pia Malbran wrote this story for CBSNews.com.

The Department of Defense has released its latest American military casualty numbers for those who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the figures reveal non-fatal casualties that go well beyond the more than 4,000 U.S. troops who have died so far.

As of April 5, a total of 36,082 members of the U.S. military have been wounded in action and killed in Iraq, since the beginning of the war in March 2003, and in Afghanistan, where the war there began in October 2001. The 36,082 number breaks down to 4,492 deaths and 31,590 wounded. According to the same DoD "casualty" counts, an additional 38,631 U.S. military personnel have also been removed from the battlefields in Iraq and Afghanistan for "non-hostile-related medical air transports."

"That's a tremendous number," said Paul Sullivan, the executive director of the advocate group Veterans for Common Sense, who believes these latest figures paint a more realistic picture of the true cost of the Iraq and Afghan wars. He is concerned troop casualties, including those who have been wounded, killed and medically transported, is now nearing 75,000.

Defense Department spokesperson Cynthia Smith, however, told CBS News the numbers must be carefully interpreted. Smith said the 38,631 "non-hostile-related medical air transports" are not casualties of war even though they are listed in the DoD's "casualty" documents because, she says, they were for "injuries not related to service, they were unrelated to combat."

Smith described the "non-hostile-related" injuries as the types that "could happen to any civilian on the street."

"Our main focus is severe trauma care in the theater," she said. For example, "if a woman needs her annual check up, we don't have the capability of doing that [on the ground in Iraq] so we would air transport her out." According to Smith, the 36,082 tally is a more "accurate" reflection how many military service men and women have been fatal and non-fatal casualties in connection to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, as of April 5.

Sullivan points out that the military's casualty reports also exclude the "enormous number [of new veterans] flooding the VA," often with medical problems developed due to the war. A January report by the Department of Veterans Affairs showed 299,585 veterans who recently served in the Middle East had been treated by the VA since 2002. Forty percent (120,049) of the Iraq and Afghanistan veterans who sought care from the VA did so for mental health disorders.



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Food vs fuel debate shakes Canadian breadbasket
By Clarisse Douaud
14-Apr-2008 - Rising food prices are exacerbating the food versus fuel debate in Canada's breadbasket region, where critics say ethanol is diverting valuable commodities away from food markets and proponents say market economics will prevail.

For food manufacturers and processors, the issue flags yet another direction in which crops are being tugged, and yet another factor on which to keep an eye as prices continue to rise owing to global demand and climactic effects on agricultural production.

The province of Saskatchewan is Canada's major wheat-producing region. It holds nearly 50 percent of the country's arable land and approximately 12 percent of its wheat crop has been earmarked for future ethanol production.

According to the Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan, around 900,000 tonnes of wheat is set to be used every year in the province to make ethanol.

"That has to be replaced from somewhere," Saskatchewan public affairs consultant Ted Boyle told FoodNavigator-USA. "Fewer exporters would be the most likely scenario."

Boyle recently investigated the province's ethanol production in a report for the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, Biofuels: Bonanza or Boondoggle for Saskatchewan?

The Canadian government has been pushing the use of grains for fuel in large part as a means to compensate for a struggling grain sector in which producers suffered due to low prices and drought in recent years.

Last year, the federal government launched a biofuel capital initiative that set aside C$200mn to lend to farmers engaging in such projects.

However, according to Boyle, with rising food prices, farmers have less and less interest in producing for biofuels and as such provincial and federal initiatives are not actually seeing the anticipated growth.

"None of that has worked," said Boyle. "I just don't think they're willing to take the risk. They're used to selling food and so when prices go up, they go back to that."

This, say biofuel defenders, means market economics is naturally determining whether grain is needed for food primarily or not. This, they say, should quell alarmist fears that biofuels will provoke higher prices globally and more hunger in developing countries.


"The price of food has gone up, and producers will produce if the prices go up," Judie Dyck, president of the Saskatchewan Biofuels Development Council, told FoodNavigator-USA.

Dyck argued that technology for the production of biofuels is also improving and this will solve the issue of food versus fuel. For instance, the so-called next generation of ethanol will likely be derived from agricultural by-products or food waste.

In addition, she said, biofuel production will instead help the food industry in the long run by potentially lowering energy prices.

"Somehow almost missed in this latest debate is the cost of energy as the driving factor to most consumer food price escalations," Dyck recently wrote.

But those advocating sustainable food production say ethanol brings with it a host of new environmental problems, including those caused by the meat production with which it is so often associated. A by-product of ethanol production is used as feed for animals.

"If we have expanded ethanol production, we're likely to have more feedlots," Cathy Holtslander, the community organizer for the Canada-wide coalition Beyond Factory Farming, told FoodNavigator-USA.

According to the coalition's calculations, in an extreme situation in which 85 percent of Canada's gasoline usage would be replaced by ethanol, 94 percent of current farmland would be required, as well as three times current wheat production.

Though such predictions have a long way to go before materializing, they may already be having an effect south of the border.

"We have a good sense that the rise in the production of biofuels has had an impact on food prices," John Hoddinott, a researcher with the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington DC, told FoodNavigator-USA.

Meanwhile, Boyle reports that two of the major ethanol plants set up in Saskatchewan have had to resort to burning corn imported from the US, because those farmers who are not obliged under contract to supply the plants have been opting for food crops in light of more attractive returns.



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US Financial Collapse Will
End Bush/Cheney Iraq War
And it won't be 'a time of our choosing'
By Mike Whitney
4-15-8

"Come and see our overflowing morgues and find our little ones for us...

You may find them in this corner or the other, a little hand poking out, pointing out at you...

Come and search for them in the rubble of your "surgical" air raids, you may find a little leg or a little head...pleading for your attention.

Come and see them amassed in the garbage dumps, scavenging morsels of food...

Come and see, come..." "Flying Kites" Layla Anwar


The US Military has won every battle it has fought in Iraq, but it has lost the war. Wars are won politically, not militarily. Bush doesn't understand this. He still clings to the belief that a political settlement can be imposed through force. But he is mistaken. The use of overwhelming force has only spread the violence and added to the political instability. Now Iraq is ungovernable. Was that the objective? Miles of concrete blast-walls snake through Baghdad to separate the warring parties; the country is fragmented into a hundred smaller pieces each ruled by local militia commanders. These are the signs of failure not success. That's why the American people no longer support the occupation. They're just being practical; they know Bush's plan won't work. As Nir Rosen says, "Iraq has become Somalia".

The administration still supports Iraqi President Nouri al Maliki, but al-Maliki is a meaningless figurehead who will have no effect on the country's future. He has no popular base of support and controls nothing beyond the walls of the Green Zone. The al-Maliki government is merely an Arab facade designed to convince the American people that political progress is being made, but there is no progress. Its a sham. The future is in the hands of the men with guns; they're the ones who have divided Iraq into locally-controlled fiefdoms and they are the one's who will ultimately decide who will rule the state. At present, the fighting between the factions is being described as "sectarian warfare", but the term is intentionally misleading. The fighting is political in nature; the various militias are competing with each other to see who will fill the vacuum left by the removal of Saddam. It's a power struggle. The media likes to portray the conflict as a clash between half-crazed Arabs--"dead-enders and terrorists"---who relish the idea killing their countrymen, but that's just a way of demonizing the enemy. In truth, the violence is entirely rational; it is the inevitable reaction to the dissolution of the state and the occupation by foreign troops. Many military experts predicted that there would be outbreaks of fighting after the initial invasion, but their warnings were shrugged off by clueless politicians and the cheerleading media. Now the violence has flared up again in Basra and Baghdad, and there is no end in sight. Only one thing seems certain, Iraq's future will not be decided at the ballot box. Bush has made sure of that.

The US military does not rule Iraq nor does it have the power to control events on the ground. It's just one of many militias vieing for power in a state that is ruled by warlords. After the army conducts combat operations, it is forced to retreat to its camps and bases. This point needs to be emphasized in order to understand that there is no real future for the occupation. The US simply does not have the manpower to hold territory or to establish security. In fact, the presence of American troops incites violence because they are seen as forces of occupation, not liberators. Survey's show that the vast majority of the Iraqi people want US troops to leave. The military has destroyed too much of the country and slaughtered too many people to expect that these attitudes will change anytime soon. Iraqi poet and blogger Layla Anwar sums up the feelings of many of the war's victims in a recent post on her web site "An Arab Women's Blues":

"At the gates of Babylon the Great, you are still struggling, fighting away, chasing this or the other, detaining, bombing from above, filling up morgues, hospitals, graveyards and embassies and borders with quesesfor exit-visas.

Not one Iraqi wishes your presence. Not one Iraqi accepts your occupation.

Got news for you Motherfuckers, you will never control Iraq, not in six years, not in ten years, not in 20 years....You have brought upon yourself the hate and the curse of all Iraqis, Arabs and the rest of the world...now face your agony." (Layla Anwar; "An Arab Women's Blues: Reflections in a sealed bottle")


Is Bush hoping to change the mind of Layla or the millions of other Iraqis who have lost loved ones or been forced into exile or seen their country and culture crushed beneath the bootheel of foreign occupation? The hearts and minds campaign is lost. The US will never be welcome in Iraq.

According to a survey in the British Medical Journal "Lancet" more than a million Iraqis have been killed in the war. Another four million have been either internally-displaced or have fled the country. But the figures tell us nothing about the magnitude of the disaster that Bush has caused by attacking Iraq. The invasion is the greatest human catastrophe in the Middle East since the Nakba in 1948. Living standards have declined precipitously in every area---infant mortality, clean water, food-security, medical supplies, education, electrical power, employment etc. Even oil production is still below pre-war levels. The invasion is the most comprehensive policy failure since Vietnam; everything has gone wrong. The heart of the Arab world has descended into chaos. The suffering is incalculable.

The main problem is the occupation; it is the primary catalyst for violence and an obstacle to political settlement. As long as the occupation persists, so will the fighting. The claims that the so-called surge has changed the political landscape are greatly exaggerated. Retired Lt. General William Odom commented on this point in an interview on the Jim Lerher News Hour:

"The surge has sustained military instability and achieved nothing in political consolidation....Things are much worse now. And I don't see them getting any better. This was foreseeable a year and a half ago. And to continue to put the cozy veneer of comfortable half-truths on this is to deceive the American public and to make them think it is not the charade it is.....When you say that the Lebanization of Iraq is taking place, yes, but not because of Iran, but because the U.S. went in and made this kind of fragmentation possible. And it has occurred over the last five years....The al-Maliki government is worse off now...The notion that there;'s some kind of progress is absurd. The al-Maliki government uses its Ministry of Interior like a death squad militia. So to call Sadr an extremist and Maliki a good guy just overlooks the reality that there are no good guys." (Jim Lerher News Hour)


The war in Iraq was lost before the first shot was fired. The conflict never had the support of the American people and Iraq never posed a threat to US national security. The whole pretext for the war was based on lies; it was a coup orchestrated by elites and the media to carry out a far-right agenda. Now the mission has failed, but no one wants to admit their mistakes by withdrawing; so the butchery continues without pause.

How Will It End?

The Bush administration has decided to pursue a strategy that is unprecedented in US history. It has decided to continue to prosecute a war that has already been lost morally, strategically, and militarily. But fighting a losing war has its costs. America is much weaker now than it was when Bush first took office in 2000; politically, economically and militarily. US power and prestige around the world will continue to deteriorate until the troops are withdrawn from Iraq. But that's unlikely to happen until all other options have been exhausted. Deteriorating economic conditions in the financial markets are putting enormous downward pressure on the dollar. The corporate bond and equities markets are in disarray; the banking system is collapsing, consumer spending is down, tax revenues are falling, and the country is headed into a painful and protracted recession. The US will leave Iraq sooner than many pundits believe, but it will not be at a time of our choosing. Rather, the conflict will end when the United States no longer has the capacity to wage war. That time is not far off.

The Iraq War signals the end of US interventionism for at least a generation; maybe longer. The ideological foundation for the war (preemption/regime change) has been exposed as a baseless justification for unprovoked aggression. Someone will have to be held accountable. There will have to be international tribunals to determine who is responsible in the deaths of over one million Iraqis.



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Stop calling me a Jew! Barack Obama and the politics of Xenophobia

Posted: 05-03-2008 , 14:22 GMT


By Remi Kanazi*



Barack Obama is not a Jew. He was not raised a Jew, has never been a Jew, and is a committed Christian. Nor has Obama ever prayed in a temple. According to a CNN reporter that is referenced on Obama’s website, Indonesian yeshivas (including the one Obama attended) are not radical yeshivas—unlike the ones in Israel and Brooklyn. Obama is so not Jewish, that even his Jewish stepfather, wasn’t really a Jew. Obama has stated that his stepfather had a “skeptical bent, a man who saw religion as not particularly useful in the practical business of making one’s way in the world.” Obama’s stepfather grew up in Indonesia, a country with the largest Jewish population in the world. To be exactly clear, visit Obama’s page: www.barackobama.com/factcheck/2007/11/12/obama_has_never_been_a_Jew_1.php

Sadly, if you were to take out each reference to being Jewish in the above paragraph and replace it with being Muslim, you would essentially be looking at the “know the facts” section of the Obama ’08 webpage. Obama and his campaign deemed it not only necessary to defend his angelic image against the scurrilous, absurd claim that he is a Muslim, but found it imperative to address this alarming allegation specifically by adding a separate tab near the top of Obama ’08 webpage, labeled, “on Obama’s religion.”



It’s Barack Obama’s choice to liken being Muslim to getting chlamydia from an underage congressional page, but this man of hope and courier of positive politics has taken the high road often enough, so why not this time? Let me guess, this race (like every race of the last 219 years) is “too important?” If cowering to racism and xenophobia is the remedy, well by all means ladies and gentlemen, let Barack Obama step up to the plate and deliver. But keep in mind, Obama hasn’t been accused of murder; his detractors, which include right-wing evangelicals and pro-Israel paranoids, are accusing him of belonging to a religion that encompasses twenty percent of the world and millions of Americans. The tone in which he and his campaign have responded is particularly disturbing. Obama is becoming the antithesis of his media description; he is protecting his image, instead of his message.



Obama’s raging defensiveness is an unfortunate reality, more so knowing that many Muslim-Americans are campaigning for him and faithfully supporting his candidacy today. Over the last few months, Obama skeptics have been lambasted by individuals championing “the lesser of two evils” rhetoric, but even a self-proclaimed pragmatist’s threshold should have been breached by this point. Obama is going to go as far as his supporters let him. First, he sold out Palestine without conscience because “everyone in politics does it.” Then he sold out Iraq—while Moveon.org crumbled and endorsed him—so he could grab the centrist vote. Then, in an effort to appeal to independents and John McCain supporters, he pledged to add more troops to Afghanistan and vowed to bomb Pakistan if “actionable intelligence” necessitated it. Next to go will be his shoddy healthcare plan, along with his flimsy stance on undocumented workers, and before we know it, he’ll be campaigning for his 2012 reelection.



I recognize that it’s easy to sell out Muslim-Americans. Who actually wants to appeal for their vote, never mind get on an airplane with them, right? But it’s time that Americans grow up and get over their post and pre-9/11 bigotry, and it’s high time that our political candidates take the lead.



As Obama’s hope is swallowed by the raging waters of mainstream politics, Muslim-Americans can dutifully forget about change and accede to the politics of xenophobia. Because what reasonable person would want to be a Muslim today, when that person can be a good Christian like Barack Hussein Obama.



* Remi Kanazi is a Palestinian-American poet and writer based in New York City. He is the co-founder of www.PoeticInjustice.net and the editor of the forthcoming anthology of poetry, Poets for Palestine. He can be contacted at remroum@gmail.com.



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