1. Signs of an Emerging Police State
President George W. Bush is remembered largely for his role in curbing civil liberties in the name of his "war on terror." But it's President Obama who signed the 2012 NDAA, including its clause allowing for indefinite detention without trial for terrorism suspects. Obama promised he would "interpret them to avoid the constitutional conflict" — leaving us adrift if and when the next administration chooses to interpret them otherwise. Another law of concern is the National Defense Resources Preparedness Executive Order that Obama issued in March 2012. That order authorizes the President, "in the event of a potential threat to the security of the United States, to take actions necessary to ensure the availability of adequate resources and production capability, including services and critical technology, for national defense requirements."
Sources: Spencer Ackerman and Noah Shachtman, “Read the FBI Memo: Agents Can ‘Suspend the Law,’” Wired, March 28, 2012, James Bamford, “The NSA Is Building the Country’s Biggest Spy Center,” Wired, March 15, 2012, Chris Hedges, “Why I’m Suing Barack Obama,” Truthdig, January 16, 2012, .
2. Oceans in Peril
The collapse of our oceans could compromise life itself. In a haunting article in Mother Jones reporter Julia Whitty paints a tenuous seascape — overfished, acidified, warming — and describes how the destruction of the ocean's complex ecosystems jeopardizes the entire planet, not just the 70 percent that is water. Whitty compares ocean acidification, caused by global warming, to acidification that was one of the causes of the "Great Dying," a mass extinction 252 million years ago. Life on earth took 30 million years to recover. In a more hopeful story, a study of 14 protected and 18 non-protected ecosystems in the Mediterranean Sea showed dangerous levels of biomass depletion. But it also showed that the marine reserves were well-enforced, with five to 10 times larger fish populations than in unprotected areas. This encourages establishment and maintenance of more reserves.
Sources: Julia Whitty, “The End of a Myth,” OnEarth, February 27, 2012, Richard Gray, “Warming Oceans Cause Largest Movement of Marine Species in Two Million Years,” Telegraph (UK), June 26, 2011, David A. Gabel, “Overfishing the Mediterranean,” Environmental News Network, March 8, 2012.
3. US Deaths From Fukushima Not Reported
A plume of toxic fallout floated to the US after Japan's tragic Fukushima nuclear disaster on March 11, 2011. The US Environmental Protection Agency found radiation levels in air, water, and milk that were hundreds of times higher than normal across the United States. One month later, the EPA announced that radiation levels had declined, and they would cease testing. But after making a Freedom of Information Act request, journalist Lucas Hixson published emails revealing that on March 24, 2011, the task of collecting nuclear data had been handed off from the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission to the Nuclear Energy Institute, a nuclear industry lobbying group. And in one study that got little attention, scientists Joseph Mangano and Janette Sherman found that in the period following the Fukushima meltdowns, 14,000 more deaths than average were reported in the US, mostly among infants.
Source: Joseph Mangano and Janette Sherman, “14,000 U.S. Deaths Tied to Fukushima Reactor Disaster Fallout,” International Journal of Health Services, December 19, 2011, Alex Roslin, “What Are Officials Hiding about Fukushima?” Straight.com (Vancouver), October 20, 2011, Danny Schechter, “Beyond Fukushima: A World in Denial about Nuclear Risks,” Common Dreams, March 21, 2011.
4. FBI Informants Carried Out Terrorist Plots Under FBI Direction
We know that FBI agents go into communities such as mosques, both undercover and in the guise of building relationships, quietly gathering information about individuals. This is part of an approach to finding what the FBI now considers the most likely kind of terrorists, "lone wolves." Its strategy: "seeking to identify those disgruntled few who might participate in a plot given the means and the opportunity. And then, in case after case, the government provides the plot, the means, and the opportunity," writes Mother Jones journalist Trevor Aaronson. 508 cases classified as terrorism-related have come before the US Department of Justice since the 9/11 terrorist attacks of 2001. In 243 of these cases, an informant was involved; in 49 cases, an informant actually led the plot. And "with three exceptions, all of the high-profile domestic terror plots of the last decade were actually FBI stings."
Sources: Trevor Aronson, “The Informants,” Mother Jones, September/October 2011, FBI Organizes Almost All Terror Plots in the US,” RT.com, August 23, 2011
5. Federal Reserve Secretly Loaned Over $1 Trillion to Major Banks
The Federal Reserve, the US's quasi-private central bank, was audited for the first time in its history this year. The audit report states, "From late 2007 through mid-2010, Reserve Banks provided more than a trillion dollars ... in emergency loans to the financial sector." These loans had significantly less interest and fewer conditions than the high-profile TARP bailouts, and were rife with conflicts of internet. The audit was restricted to Federal Reserve lending during the financial crisis. On July 25, 2012, a bill to audit the Fed again, with fewer limitations, authored by Rep. Ron Paul, passed the House of Representatives. HR459 was expected to die in the Senate, but the movement behind Paul and his calls to hold the Fed accountable, or abolish it altogether, seem to be growing.
Source: Matthew Cardinale, “First Federal Reserve Audit Reveals Trillions in Secret Bailout,” Inter Press Service, Common Dreams, August 28, 2011.
6. Small Network of Corporations Run the Global Economy
A landmark study by researchers from the Swiss Federal Institute in Zurich hardly registered a blip on the media radar screen. The Swiss researchers found that, of 43,060 transnational companies, 147 control 40 percent of total global wealth. The researchers also built a model visually demonstrating how the connections between companies — what it calls the "super entity" — works. Some have criticized the study, saying control of assets doesn't equate to ownership. True, but as we clearly saw in the 2008 financial collapse, corporations are capable of mismanaging assets in their control to the detriment of their actual owners. And a largely unregulated super entity like this is vulnerable to global collapse.
Sources: Rob Waugh, “Does One ‘Super Corporation’ Run the Global Economy? Study Claims it Could be Terrifyingly Unstable,” Daily Mail, October 20, 2011, Stefania Vitali, James B. Glattfelder, and Stefano Battiston, “The Network of Global Corporate Control,” Public Library of Science, October 26, 2011.
7. The International Year of the Cooperative
The corporate media barely mentioned the UN declaring 2012 to be the International Year of the Cooperative, based on the coop business model's stunning growth. The UN found that, in 2012, one billion people worldwide are coop member-owners, or one in five adults over the age of 15. The largest is Spain's Mondragon Corporation, with over 80,000 member-owners. The UN predicts that by 2025, worker-owned coops will be the world's fastest growing business model. Worker-owned cooperatives provide for equitable distribution of wealth and, just maybe, a brighter future for our planet.
Sources: Jessica Reeder, “The Year of the Cooperative,” Yes! Magazine, Feb. 1, 2012, Monique Hairston, “American Dream 2.0: Can Worker-Owned Coops End Poverty?”Rebuild the Dream, March 9, 2012.
8. NATO War Crimes in Libya
In January 2012, the BBC "revealed" how British Special Forces agents joined and "blended in" with rebels in Libya to help topple dictator Muammar Gadaffi, a story that alternative media sources had reported a year earlier. NATO admits to bombing a pipe factory in the Libyan city of Brega that was key to the water supply system that brought tap water to 70 percent of Libyans, saying that Gadaffi was storing weapons in the factory. Background knowledge and historical context confirming Al-Qaeda and Western involvement in the destabilization of the Gadaffi regime are essential for making sense of corporate news narratives depicting the Libyan operation as a popular "uprising."
Sources: Michael Collins, “NATO War Crimes: The Wanton Destruction of Sirte,” Global Research, October 15, 2011, Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey, “NATO War Crime: Libya Water Supply,” Pravda, July 23, 2011, Franklin Lamb, “Where Have Libya’s Children Gone?” Counterpunch, August 8, 2011.
9. Prison Slavery in the US
On its website, the UNICOR manufacturing corporation proudly proclaims that its products are "made in America." That's true, but they're made in places in the US where labor laws don't apply, with workers often paid just 23 cents an hour to be exposed to toxic materials with no legal recourse. These places are US prisons. The majority of products manufactured by inmates are contracted to the Department of Defense. Inmates make complex parts for missile systems, battleship anti-aircraft guns, and landmine sweepers, as well as night-vision goggles, body army, and camouflage uniforms. Of course, this is happening in the context of record high imprisonment in the US, where grossly disproportionate numbers of African Americans and Latinos are imprisoned, and can't vote even after they're freed. This system of slavery, like that which existed in this country before the Civil War, is also racist, as more than 60 percent of US prisoners are people of color.
Sources: Sara Flounders, “The Pentagon and Slave Labor in U.S. Prisons,” Workers World, June 6, 2011, James Ridgeway and Jean Casella, “Cruel and Usual: US Solitary Confinement,” Al Jazeera, Mar. 19, 2011.
10. HR 347 Would Make Many Forms of Nonviolent Protest Illegal
In March 2012, President Obama signed into law HR 347, the Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act. The law specifies as criminal offenses the acts of entering or remaining in areas defined as “restricted.” Although pundits have debated to what extent the new law restricts First Amendment rights or criminalizes Occupy protests, it does make it easier for the Secret Service to overuse or misuse existing laws to arrest lawful protesters by lowering the requirement of intent in the prosecution of criminal activity.
Sources: Danny Weil, “Many Forms of Occupy Protests Subjected to New Bill Making Protests Illegal,” TheDaily Censored (blog), March 5, 2012, Oskar Mosquito, “NDAA: Limiting Protesters’ Rights,” Media Roots, March 5, 2012, Brian Doherty, “Bill Passes House,” Reason (blog), March 1, 2012.
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