Revision as of 19:27, 1 June 2015

It doesn't take long or a lot of work to find dots and snippets of the past that give us glimpses of what was to come. This page contains links gathered and tweeted by anonymii over four years (crowdsourced as it were) on "things" (told and leaked stories, whistle spit, and working theories) for further investigation into and analysis of "things" to find (counter) moves healthy for self, life, and others, moves aiding survival of the greatest scope of life to a greater degree than any associated destruction.

Merchants of Death

September 4, 1934 "Merchants of Death": On a hot Tuesday morning following Labor Day in 1934, several hundred people crowded into the Caucus Room of the Senate Office Building to witness the opening of an investigation that journalists were already calling "historic." Although World War I had been over for 16 years, the inquiry promised to reopen an intense debate about whether the nation should ever have gotten involved in that costly conflict. To lead the seven-member special committee, the Senate’s Democratic majority chose a Republican—42-year-old North Dakota Senator Gerald P. Nye. Typical of western agrarian progressives, Nye energetically opposed U.S. involvement in foreign wars. He promised, "when the Senate investigation is over, we shall see that war and preparation for war is not a matter of national honor and national defense, but a matter of profit for the few. ^[1]

Who will claim common heritage?

It is 1978 and corporate interests endanger international agreement on deep seabed minerals: Resting undisturbed on the ocean floor, potato-size mineral nodules, "ferro manganese concretions" to the scientists, have become the subject of a unique attempt at international economic cooperation. In 1970, the UN General Assembly passed a resolution declaring all underwater resources, to be the common heritage of mankind. In 1973, the UN Law of the Sea Conference took up the task of establishing an international regime for the exploitation of deep seabed minerals.

But most of the Conference's sessions to date have exhibited a tension common to international negotiations:. the developed countries are protective of their advanced technology and capital resources while the underdeveloped countries are suspicious of the aims and motives of the industrialized states that are alone capable of deep seabed mineral extraction. Watching the proceedings carefully - and not without a hand in the intrigue that has marked the deliberations - are several multinational corporations, members of international consortia ready to begin mining operations beneath the sea.^[2]

It's the oil, stupid!

Oil and the outcome of the iran-iraq war

An article with excerpts from a report by Thomas McNaugher and William Quandt of the Brookings Institution, published on May 14, 1984 by Cambridge Energy Research Associates. These excerpts appeared in Arab Oil and Gas (Paris), June 1, 1984: The Iran-Iraq war is reaching a critical phase. As a result, there is more of a chance today than ever before that a major change in the war is at hand. This could have both major consequences for the flow of oil in the near term, and broader implications for power and influence in the region over the longer term. Although we are not yet convinced that the Iran-Iraq war threatens a major disruption in the flow of oil, the odds are beginning to change in the direction of greater danger for Western interests -- meaning that the threat to the world oil market could become larger in this new phase. But the gravest threat could come not during the war itself but from the outcome of the war.

Mentioned are three scenarios: Scenario One: Balance of Power; Scenario Two: Iranian Hegemony; Scenario Three: Continuing Attrition and Oil Disruption. ^[3]

Occidental petroleum and the U'wa

An ongoing story since 1990: Occidental Petroleum, a U.S. based petroleum company, has had its sights set on the 1.5 billion oil barrels that lie beneath the ground in the Samoré Block (the name for the entire cloudforest region within which the U’wa territory lies) since the early 1990s. The oil company’s history is linked to human rights violations and environmental destruction. Occidental (or “Oxy” as it is commonly referred to) was the parent company of Hooker Chemical, which is the company responsible for the “Love Canal” disaster of the 1940s and 1950s. [...] More recently, Oxy has set up an oil pipeline north of U’wa territory in the Arauca region, which has been responsible for the displacement of many native people and rendered the water in the region too polluted for human consumption. ^[4]

Oil and the gulf war

In a 1991 article in the Middle East Research and Information Project: The arrangements that will follow the US defeat of Iraq will likely produce a kind of joint “oil dominion” between major consumer countries and a core of oil exporters which will override the interests of the poorer oil importers and exporters alike. At the center of this new alignment will no longer be the “seven sisters” -- the major private companies that dominated the industry before the 1970s -- but what South magazine has dubbed the “four stepsisters” -- Saudi Aramco, PDV, and Exxon and Shell, the two largest private firms. But OPEC will have to confront some serious conflicts within its ranks which may well split the organization. Producers like Saudi Arabia, Iran and Venezuela are investing huge amounts of capital to expand their production capacity: Will they be ready to scale back their market share once Iraq and Kuwait resume production? The new world order of oil could bring unprecedented producer-consumer cooperation for the privileged states and companies, and increasingly harder times for the rest. ^[5]

Defending oil supplies

In 1998, in Fueling Global Warming: Federal Subsidies to Oil in the United States: The United States needs oil. Despite some progress on alternatives, oil continues to fuel our transportation fleet and our military. However, much of the nation’s oil is transported through fairly precarious means. Approximately, 25 percent of our domestic crude flows through the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System, and about 45 percent of our total petroleum consumption is transported through a limited number of oil tanker channels.

These delivery systems are vulnerable to disruption. Markets react in three primary ways to vulnerable supplies. First, they demand a higher price to reflect the higher risks. Second, they invest in approaches to make the supply less risky. This includes diversification of suppliers, the development of new supplies, the establishment of stockpiles to cover demand if supply is interrupted, and the attempt to reduce the likelihood of supply disruptions. Third, markets develop substitute materials and ways to use the limited supplies more efficiently.

In the oil industry, corporations have invested in diversifying their supply base across countries. However, it has been the United States government, rather than private firms, that has developed the largest stockpiles (such as the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, described later in this chapter) and spent billions of dollars in defense costs to reduce the likelihood of supply interruptions and price shocks. Because the government has borne these costs of securing supply, they are not reflected in the current price of oil. Thus, producers and consumers lack important price signals that would encourage investment in substitutes. The government’s costs act as a subsidy to oil. We estimate the costs of defending oil shipments and stockpiling reserves for our base year, 1995. This estimate has two elements: defending oil shipments from the Persian Gulf and the costs of building and maintaining the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. We also qualitatively discuss oil-related military activities within Alaska. In order for markets to make well-informed decisions between energy types, these costs should be reflected in the price we pay for oil. ^[6]

It's not just the oil, stupid!

In the mid 1990’s economists Jeffrey Sachs and Andrew Warner noticed a funny thing. One would think that countries that were well endowed with oil, gas and mineral wealth would be correspondingly economically well off – but in fact just the reverse seemed to be true. Some peeps have dubbed it “The Resource Curse” alias “Paradox of Plenty”: countries and regions with an abundance of natural resources, specifically point-source non-renewable resources like minerals and fuels, tend to have less economic growth and worse development outcomes than countries with fewer natural resources. This is hypothesized to happen for many different reasons.

Natural resource abundance and economic growth

In November, 1997, in Natural resource abundance and economic growth: One of the surprising features of modern economic growth is that economies abundant in natural resources have tended to grow slower than economies without substantial natural resources. In this paper we show that economies with a high ratio of natural resource exports to GDP in 1970 (the base year) tended to grow slowly during the subsequent 20-year period 1970-1990. This negative relationship holds true even after controlling for many variables found to be important for economic growth by previous authors. We discuss several theories and present additional evidence to understand the source of this negative association. ^[7]

In an oxfam report from 2001, Extractive sectors and the poor: With this increase in the environmental and social impact of resource extraction, economists and activists in both the North and South are challenging economic models that base development on the extraction of non-renewable natural resources. They point to the fact that many countries in the developing world possess tremendous oil and mineral wealth yet continue to suffer from crushing poverty. For a variety of reasons, these countries simply have not converted their resource wealth into real improvements in the lives of the majority of their citizens.

Despite these failures and the challenges made to the “extractive paradigm,” national governments and international financial institutions such as the World Bank continue to promote these industries for poverty reduction purposes. ^[8]

The bush/cheney energy strategy

The Bush/Cheney energy strategy: Implications for US foreign and military policy: As the NEPDG began its review of U.S. energy policy, it quickly became apparent that the United States faced a critical choice between two widely diverging energy paths: it could continue down the road it had long been traveling, consuming ever-increasing amounts of petroleum and – given the irreversible decline in domestic oil production – becoming ever more dependent on imported supplies; or it could choose an alternative route, entailing vastly increased reliance on renewable sources of energy and a gradual reduction in petroleum use. Clearly, the outcome of this decision would have profound consequences for American society, the economy, and the nation’s security. A decision to continue down the existing path of rising petroleum consumption would bind the United States ever more tightly to the Persian Gulf suppliers and to other oil-producing countries, with a corresponding impact on American security policy; a decision to pursue an alternative strategy would require a huge investment in new energy-generation and transportation technologies, resulting in the rise or fall of entire industries. Either way, Americans would experience the impact of this choice in their everyday life and in the dynamics of the economy as a whole; no one, in the United States or elsewhere, would be left entirely untouched by the decision on which energy path to follow.

By the beginning of 2003, the White House had succeeded in incorporating many of its basic strategic objectives into formal military doctrine. These objectives stress the steady enhancement of America’s capacity to project military power into areas of turmoil – that is, to strengthen precisely those capabilities that would be used to protect or gain access to overseas sources of petroleum. Whether this was the product of a conscious linkage between energy and security policy is not something that can be ascertained at this time; what is undeniable is that President Bush has given top priority to the enhancement of America’s power projection capabilities while at the same time endorsing an energy strategy that entails increased U.S. dependence on oil derived from areas of recurring crisis and conflict.

What we have, therefore, is a two-pronged strategy that effectively governs U.S. policy toward much of the world. One arm of this strategy is aimed at securing more oil from the rest of the world; the other is aimed at enhancing America’s capacity to intervene in exactly such locales. And while these two objectives have arisen from different sets of concerns, one energy-driven and the other security-driven, they have merged into a single, integrated design for American world dominance in the 21st Century. And it is this combination of strategies, more than anything else, that will govern America’s international behavior in the decades ahead. ^[9]

What’s behind the killing in central africa?

June 17, 2003, counterpunch: Ignoring the World's Bloodiest War What's Behind the Killing in Central Africa? When the mainstream press pays any attention to the Congo–or African wars in general–they invariably characterize the conflicts as "ethnic" or "tribal" wars, rooted in age-old hatreds. This explanation is not only false, but racist.

It provides cover for the argument that "we"–invariably some mix of Western nations, perhaps with UN cover–must intervene to stop this irrational ethnic murder. This argument is a repackaged version of the same racist excuses given for European powers’ conquest and colonization of Africa in the late 19th century–that is, to "civilize" the continent. Any prospect of resolving the Congo war requires a much different framework–one that doesn’t look to the architects of the crisis to solve it. ^[10]

US military's growing role in africa

The United States is stepping up its military activity in Africa in an effort to combat terrorism and protect vital oil reserves off Africa's west coast.

The U.S. military has been leery of the continent ever since the debacle a decade ago in Somalia, when 18 American peacekeepers were killed in Mogadishu. Officials say they are now trying to train African armies to keep the peace and promote stability on the continent so U.S. troops won't have to. ^[11]

The CIA's Ghost Detainees

October 2004, Human Rights Watch reports on The United States’ "Disappeared", the CIA’s Long-Term "Ghost Detainees": The prisoner was taken away in the middle of the night nineteen months ago. He was hooded and brought to an undisclosed location where he has not been heard of since. Interrogators reportedly used graduated levels of force on the prisoner, including the "water boarding" technique – known in Latin America as the "submarino" – in which the detainee is strapped down, forcibly pushed under water, and made to believe he might drown. His seven- and nine-year-old sons were also picked up, presumably to induce him to talk.

These tactics are all too common to oppressive dictatorships. The interrogators were not from a dictatorship, however, but from the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The U.S.’s prisoner is Khalid Shaikh Muhammad, the alleged principal architect of the September 11 attacks. Muhammad is one of the dozen or so top al-Qaeda operatives who have simply "disappeared" in U.S. custody.

In the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, the Bush administration has violated the most basic legal norms in its treatment of security detainees. Many have been held in offshore prisons, the most well known of which is at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. As we now know, prisoners suspected of terrorism, and many against whom no evidence exists, have been mistreated, humiliated, and tortured. But perhaps no practice so fundamentally challenges the foundations of U.S. and international law as the long-term secret incommunicado detention of al-Qaeda suspects in "undisclosed locations." ^[12]

It's economic warfare!

Drilling into debt

In Drilling into Debt: An Investigation into the Relationship Between Debt and Oil of July 2005: Countries that produce oil tend to be poorer and less productive economically than they should be, given their supposed blessings. This has been well documented over the last decade. Further research has confirmed that oil export-dependent states tend to suffer from unusually high rates of corruption, authoritarian government, government ineffectiveness, military spending, and civil war.

Coupling these previous efforts with our key findings we see a disturbing picture of a global oil economy that primarily serves the interests of Northern consumers, creditors, and governments, while running counter to the interests of poverty alleviation, development, and a stable climate in the rest of the world. ^[13]

Pipeline explosion in nigeria

Democracy Now, December 26, 2006: As Hundreds Die in an Oil Pipeline Explosion in Lagos, A Look At the Fight Over Nigeria’s Natural Resources: In Nigeria up to 500 people have died after an oil pipeline exploded earlier this morning in the country’s commercial capital of Lagos. It is feared the final death toll could be much higher. The explosion comes at a time when tension has been rising - especially in the Niger Delta - over who controls the region’s vast natural resources. Nigeria is Africa’s largest oil producer and the United States' 5th largest oil supplier. ^[14]

Inquiry into CIA torture tapes destruction

December 9, 2007, The Justice Department and the CIA's Office of the Inspector General said Saturday that they had launched a joint inquiry into the CIA's controversial destruction of videotaped interrogations of two Al Qaeda suspects. The preliminary inquiry would be a first step in determining whether a full investigation and potential criminal charges were warranted.

The probe had been under discussion since shortly after CIA Director Michael V. Hayden disclosed Thursday that CIA officials had made the videotapes in 2002 and destroyed them three years later. The Justice Department has asked for an initial meeting with the CIA's legal staff and inspector general, John L. Helgerson, early this week.

"I welcome this inquiry, and the CIA will cooperate fully," Hayden said Saturday in a statement. "I welcome it as an opportunity to address questions that have arisen over the destruction back in 2005 of videotapes." ^[15]

Glimpses of planned information operations

In 2005 the BBC reports that the US military is planning to win the hearts of young people in the Middle East by publishing a new comic in order to "achieve long-term peace and stability in the Middle East" ^[16] and reveals in 2006 US plans to 'fight the net': A newly declassified document gives a fascinating glimpse into the US military's plans for "information operations" - from psychological operations, to attacks on hostile computer networks ^[17].

The Raw Story reports in 2007 that CENTCOM sent emails to "bloggers who are posting inaccurate or untrue information, as well as bloggers who are posting incomplete information" ^[18].

More alarming seems to be the article from the Register on wargame simulations: Sentient world: war games on the grandest scale informing us that the US DOD is developing a parallel to Planet Earth, with billions of individual "nodes" to reflect every man, woman, and child this side of the dividing line between reality and artificial reality to see how long you can go without food or water, or how you will respond to televised propaganda ^[19].

2009 is the year the US Air Force releases ‘Counter-Blog’ marching orders to its airmen as part of an Air Force push to "counter the people out there in the blogosphere who have negative opinions about the U.S. government and the Air Force" ^[20].

It's also the water!

2008, for Love of Water: ^[21] Salina builds a case against the growing privatization of the world’s dwindling fresh water supply with an unflinching focus on politics, pollution, human rights, and the emergence of a domineering world water cartel. Interviews with scientists and activists reveal the rapidly building crisis, at both the global and human scale, and the film introduces many of the governmental and corporate culprits behind the water grab, while begging the question "Can anyone really own the water?"

Beyond identifying the problem, FLOW also gives viewers a look at the people and institutions providing practical solutions to the water crisis and those developing new technologies, which are fast becoming blueprints for a successful global and economic turnaround.

CIA destroyed 92 torture tapes

March 2009, NY Times: U.S. Says C.I.A. Destroyed 92 Tapes of Interrogations: The U.S. government on Monday revealed for the first time the extent of the destruction of videotapes in 2005 by the Central Intelligence Agency, saying that agency officers destroyed 92 videotapes documenting the harsh interrogations of two Qaeda suspects in C.I.A. detention. ^[22]

Natural resources and conflict in africa

Paul Collier posted November 2009: Why has Africa had so much civil war? In all other regions of the world the incidence of civil war has been on a broadly declining trend over the past thirty years: but in Africa the long term trend has been upwards. Of course, every civil war has its ‘story’ – the personalities, the social cleavages, the triggering events, the inflammatory discourse, the atrocities. But is there anything more? Are there structural conditions – social, political or economic – which make a country prone to civil war? Might it be that the same inflammatory politician, playing on the same social cleavages, and with the same triggering events, might ‘cause’ war under one set of conditions and merely be an ugly irritant in another?

[...] Natural resources generate what economists term ‘rents’ – meaning profits that are much higher than the minimum level needed to keep the activity going. The trouble from natural resources stems from these rents. There are six routes by which natural resource rents increase the risk of violent conflict; four relate to political economy and two are straight economics. Let’s start with the political economy. The most obvious route is that natural resource rents are a ‘honey pot’. Politics comes to be about the contest for control of these revenues. This produces a politics of corruption – aided and abetted by foreign corporate behavior – and sometimes directly a politics of violence. ^[23]

Libya is "freed"

The tension was tangible through linguistic patterns in the IRC channels of the anonymous hives in 2011. An anonymous operation was starting up ^[24]. Photos and messages kept appearing on atrocities commited by Ghadafi. Do-gooders jumped in, farts saw an opportunity for leadership. But all was not what it seemed as we'd learn later. Human rights investigations reported NATO bombing the Great Man-Made River ^[25], RT reported on the plundering of Libya by Goldman Sachs ^[26] and two weeks later again, with the numbers ^[27]. O aye, and many more lies behind the West's war on Libya appeared ^[28]. It is not as if the anonymous operation made any real difference, but still the old adage goes, fool me once shame on you, fool me twice ...

Spin and occupy wallstreet

Also in 2011, Frank Luntz, a Republican strategist and a US expert on crafting the perfect political message, said, "I’m so scared of this anti-Wall Street effort. I’m frightened to death. They’re having an impact on what the American people think of capitalism." Next Luntz offered tips on how Republicans could discuss the grievances of the Occupiers, and help the governors better handle all these new questions from constituents about "income inequality" and "paying your fair share." Yahoo News sat in on the session, and counted 10 do’s and don’ts from Luntz covering how Republicans should fight back by changing the way they discuss the movement ^[29]. And young turks followed up on that ^[30].

The entire planet is for sale!?!

Food crisis and the global land grab: planet for sale

In 2011 the documentary Food crisis and the global land grab: Planet for Sale appears: In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, investors, leaders from around the world, and globalist bankers are buying up farmland at an alarming rate. In recent years, more than 80 million hectares of land have changed hands to investors with support from their respective governments that wish to guarantee the food security of their countries, or financial players in search of profitable investments, resulting in a "land rush" to snap up the best land in poor countries. Countries that have experienced food riots or resorted to foreign aid to feed their people … ^[31]

Deep sea mining

2011, Catalyst, on possibly destroying of what could be the roots of life: Most volcanic activity happens not on land, but kilometres down in the deep ocean. Geological research has revealed that underwater volcanoes, or hydrothermal vents, are rich in metals like copper, zinc, silver and gold at concentrations that make them commercially attractive to miners. But, they are also colonised by exotic life-forms and scientists believe the vents may have been the location where life originated. Mark Horstman takes a look at a mining project that is set to commence operations in the deep waters off Papua New Guinea. ^[32]

The price of steel

The International Network for Economic, Social & Cultural Rights reports in June of 2013: The Price of Steel: Human Rights and Forced Evictions in the POSCO-India Project documents the human rights abuses being carried out to facilitate the establishment of the POSCO-India project, and the associated illegal seizures of land which threaten to forcibly displace as many as 22,000 people in India’s eastern state of Odisha. The report, produced by ESCR-Net and the International Human Rights Clinic (IHRC) at NYU School of Law, calls for a suspension of the POSCO-India project and a halt to the human rights abuses. ^[33]

Canada to claim north pole as its own

UN submission will seek to redefine Canada's continental shelf to capture more Arctic oil and gas resources: Countries including the US and Russia are increasingly looking to the Arctic as a source of natural resources and shipping lanes. The US Geological Survey says the region contains 30% of the world's undiscovered natural gas and 15% of oil. If Canada's claim is accepted by the UN commission it would dramatically grow its share. Countries must submit proposals to the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf to request an extension of their nautical borders.

Currently, under international law, Canada, Denmark, Norway, Russia and the US – the five countries with territories near the Arctic Circle – are allotted 200 nautical miles from their northern coasts. Under the UN convention on the law of the sea, exclusive claims can be vastly expanded for Arctic nations that prove that their part of the continental shelf extends beyond that zone. ^[34]

Who Owns the Arctic? An interactive map online showing Territorial claims of countries in the Arctic. ^[35]

Several countries, along with corporations like ExxonMobil and Royal Dutch Shell, are preparing to exploit the region’s enormous oil and natural gas reserves. New shipping routes will compete with the Panama and Suez Canals. Vast fisheries are being opened to commercial harvesting, without regulation. Coastal areas that are home to indigenous communities are eroding into the sea. China and the European Union are among non-Arctic governments rushing to assert their interests in the region. Some states have increased military personnel and equipment there. ^[36]

Foreclosing the future?

Examining 20 years of the world bank's environmental performance

Bruce Rich examines 20 years of the World Bank's environmental performance in 2013: The World Bank Group has a unique wealth of experience that could help build governance at the local, national, and international levels, if only the Bank would learn from its experience rather than flee from it. In the late 1990s an internal review of the Bank’s operations described the Bank’s underlying problem, which continues to this day, as unfounded 'institutional optimism' based on pervasive 'institutional amnesia.' "The lessons from past experience are well known," the Bank’s (now defunct) Quality Assurance Group concluded, "yet they are generally ignored in the design of new operations." ^[37]

Earlier, in 2011, he wrote Foreclosing the Future: The World Bank and the Politics of Environmental Destruction. ^[38]

Scarcity creates a mindset that perpetuates scarcity

The poor stay poor, the lonely stay lonely, the busy stay busy, and diets fail. Scarcity creates a mindset that perpetuates scarcity. If all this seems bleak, consider the alternative viewpoint: The poor are poor because they lack skills. The lonely are lonely because they are unlikable; dieters lack will power; and the busy are busy because they lack the capacity to organize their lives. In this alternative view, scarcity is the consequence of deep personal problems, very difficult to change. The scarcity mindset, in contrast, is a contextual outcome, more open to remedies. Rather than a personal trait, it is the outcome of environmental conditions brought on by scarcity itself, conditions that can often be managed. The more we understand the dynamics of how scarcity works upon the human mind, the more likely we can find ways to avoid or at least alleviate the scarcity trap. ^[39]

And the story isn't over yet

With the challenges that humans now face in climate change, resource depletion, soil degradation, water scarcity and myriad other issues impinging on human survival--all of which have their origins in excessive energy use--we may find that the cooperative and abstemious strains within us may be called to the fore. Or we may find that these problems simply lead to a Hobbesian war of all against all. ^[40]

David Western of the Wildlife Conservation Society Nairobi, Kenya writes:

Despite predictions of a mass extinction, the outcome is not inevitable. Human-induced extinctions are qualitatively different from previous mass extinctions. The threat is intrinsic, arising from a single species rather than an asteroid, volcanic activity, or other extrinsic agents. And, even though we can assume that human activity will affect future evolution by default or design, there is a world of difference between the two. Predictions based on past trends paint a bleak picture for our own species, let alone biodiversity. Yet even modest changes in fertility over the coming decades could see population growth level off. Ironically, scientists can change the course of evolution by persuading society to disprove their dire predictions! If my two cents worth helps, then I'm prepared to speculate in the interests of self-negation.

In reviewing human-dominated ecosystems I look at a number of interrelated topics. Each is vast and the subject of many reviews. These include ecosystem consequences of human impact , the consequences for humanity itself, science applied to conservation, and science and conservation in society. My interest is not so much in the details as it is in showing the links and feedbacks among science, conservation, and society needed to avoid a dull homogenous planet fine for weeds and pathogens but not for the diversity of life or humankind. ^[41]

The destroyed torture tapes again. Plus that promotion.

March 26, 2013 the Washington Post reports that the as yet unnamed woman who "signed off on the 2005 decision to destroy video tapes of prisoners being subjected to treatment critics have called torture" has become acting chief of the CIA’s Clandestine Service, responsible for launching drone strikes and running spies overseas. ^[42]

Banning golden dawn

In September of 2013 there was talk of banning Golden Dawn ^[43]. This target could not have been chosen better if authorities wanted to introduce people to banning and proactive arrests becoming "normal" in Greece and Europe.

The french african connection

It is 2014, and Al Jazeera publishes a three-part series telling the story of 'France Afrique': a brutal and nefarious tale of corruption, massacres, dictators supported and progressive leaders murdered, weapon-smuggling, cloak-and-dagger secret services, and spectacular military operations: The first story reveals the lengths the former colonial power has gone to – from coups and assassinations to rigged elections and embezzlement – in order to satisfy its thirst for energy; The second episode reveals France's ongoing mission to secure access to oil and maintain a firm grip over its former colonies; and the third story outlines France's gradual loss of power in its former colonies - some called it reverse colonisation; others called it independence. ^[44]

Call for a moratorium on seabed mining

In 2014, NGOs from Australia, Canada and India call for an international moratorium on deep seabed mining in light of the International Seabed Authority’s (ISA) issuing of 7 exploration licences for deep seabed mining in international waters. ^[45]

Police above the law in the united states

May 2015, Baltimore police rarely charged in deaths: While officials acknowledge that there is no comprehensive historical data on police-involved deaths, the period since 2006 provides a telling sample. Sixty-seven people died in encounters with officers over that period, according to the Baltimore Police Department, and two officers faced criminal charges in those incidents. One, who was on duty when a fatal shooting took place, was acquitted. Another, who was off duty at a nightclub, was convicted and sentenced to 15 years in a separate shooting. ^[46]

6 times Unarmed Black Men Were Killed By White Officers And What It Means For Social Justice: The harrowing act of law enforcement killing black males is something that dates back centuries in the U.S., but in the last year, and culminating with Saturday’s shooting death of Walter Scott in South Carolina, it is being exposed more than ever thanks in large part to video capabilities of smartphones, which ordinary citizens seem more than eager to employ to record, in some cases, damning evidence against law enforcement. ^[47]

Blaming the victims

The huffington post reports in What We Lose When Police Blame Victims For Their Own Deaths: In cases in which charges are not brought against an officer in a police killing, authorities have successfully shifted some blame onto the victim in order to support the assertion that an officer acted legally in using lethal force. The implication is that it isn't the officers' job to stop themselves from killing people -- rather, it is the people's job to not get themselves killed by the officers. ^[48]

The poor get prison

The Department of Justice's investigation of the Ferguson Police Department has scandalized the nation, and justly so. But the department's institutional racism, while shocking, isn't the report's most striking revelation.

More damning is this: in a major American city, the criminal justice system perceives a large part of that city's population not as citizens to be protected, but as potential targets for what can only be described as a shake-down operation designed to wring money out of the poorest and most vulnerable by any means they could, and that as a result, the overwhelming majority of Ferguson's citizens had outstanding warrants.

Many will try to write off this pattern of economic exploitation as some kind of strange anomaly. In fact, it's anything but. What the racism of Ferguson's criminal justice system produced is simply a nightmarish caricature of something that is beginning to happen on every level of American life; something which is beginning to transform our most basic sense of who we are, and how we—or most of us, anyway—relate to the central institutions of our society, in ways that are genuinely disastrous. ^[49]

March 18, 2015, The Poor Get Prison: The Alarming Spread of the Criminalization of Poverty: Poor people, especially people of color, face a far greater risk of being fined, arrested, and even incarcerated for minor offenses than other Americans. A broken taillight, an unpaid parking ticket, a minor drug offense, sitting on a sidewalk, or sleeping in a park can all result in jail time. In this report, we seek to understand the multi-faceted, growing phenomenon of the "criminalization of poverty."

In many ways, this phenomenon is not new: The introduction of public assistance programs gave rise to prejudices against beneficiaries and to systemic efforts to obstruct access to the assistance. ^[50]

Abrupt climate change, already?

Beckwith in Dissident Voice in 2015: "The Arctic is absorbing a lot more solar energy, and by itself at a much greater rate, than anywhere else on the planet. In fact, on average, in the last number of decades, the Arctic temperature has risen 1.0 ^oC per decade whereas the global average temperature rise has been about 0.15 ^oC per decade. So that ratio is 6 or 7 times more."

Therefore, the most immediate risk of further abrupt climate change hinges on how well the Arctic withstands global warming. As the Arctic loses ice mass, it releases more, and more, methane (CH4), which is much more powerful at entrapping heat than is carbon dioxide (CO2), and because massive quantities of CH4 are embedded within the ice, only a small fraction may cause the planet to heat up rapidly, going into deadly overdrive, resulting in numerous outgrowths negatively impacting life. As, for example, rapid increase in sea levels, flooding coastal cities, embedded droughts, diminishing agricultural production, severe storm activity, and horrific heat throughout the mid latitudes, resulting in panic, illness, and sudden death. It is likely the world turns chaotic. Scientists are radically divided on the issue of abrupt climate change and few predict an upsurge any time soon. Nevertheless, it’s the scientists who base their opinion on first hand knowledge, “boots on the ground,” who are screaming the loudest. They do not let the "computer models" override what they personally experience. ^[51]

References

1. ↑ US Senate website: Merchants of Death http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/merchants_of_death.htm
2. ↑ Who Will Claim Common Heritage? Corporate interests endanger international agreement on deep seabed minerals http://www.multinationalmonitor.org/hyper/issues/1978/01/deepseamining.html
3. ↑ Oil and the Outcome of the Iran-Iraq War http://www.merip.org/mer/mer125-126/oil-outcome-iran-iraq-war
4. ↑ The U’wa struggle against Occidental Petroleum http://www.umich.edu/~snre492/Jones/uwa.htm
5. ↑ Middle East Research and Information Project: Oil and the Gulf War http://www.merip.org/mer/mer171/oil-gulf-war
6. ↑ Fueling Global Warming: Federal Subsidies to Oil in the United States http://www.earthtrack.net/files/legacy_library/GP%20Ch4_Defending%20Oil.pdf
7. ↑ Natural resource abundance and economic growth http://www.cid.harvard.edu/ciddata/warner_files/natresf5.pdf
8. ↑ Oxfam: Extractive sectors and the poor http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/polisci/faculty/ross/oxfam.pdf
9. ↑ The Bush/Cheney energy strategy: Implications for US foreign and military policy http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4458.htm
10. ↑ What’s Behind the Killing in Central Africa? Ignoring the World's Bloodiest War What's Behind the Killing in Central Africa? http://www.counterpunch.org/2003/06/17/what-s-behind-the-killing-in-central-africa/
11. ↑ The U.S. Military's Growing Role in Africa http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4079474
12. ↑ The United States’ “Disappeared” - The CIA’s Long-Term “Ghost Detainees”, A Human Rights Watch Briefing Paper, October 2004 http://www.hrw.org/legacy/backgrounder/usa/us1004/us1004.pdf
13. ↑ Drilling into Debt: An Investigation into the Relationship Between Debt and Oil http://priceofoil.org/2005/07/01/drilling-into-debt-an-investigation-into-the-relationship-between-debt-and-oil/
14. ↑ As Hundreds Die in an Oil Pipeline Explosion in Lagos, A Look At the Fight Over Nigeria’s Natural Resources http://www.democracynow.org/2006/12/26/as_hundreds_die_in_an_oil
15. ↑ Los Angeles Times: Inquiry begins into CIA tape destruction http://articles.latimes.com/2007/dec/09/nation/na-interrogate9
16. ↑ US army to produce Mid-East comic http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4396351.stm
17. ↑ US plans to 'fight the net' revealed http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4655196.stm
18. ↑ Raw obtains CENTCOM email to bloggers http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Raw_obtains_CENTCOM_email_to_bloggers_1016.html
19. ↑ Sentient world: war games on the grandest scale http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/06/23/sentient_worlds/
20. ↑ Air Force Releases ‘Counter-Blog’ Marching Orders http://www.wired.com/2009/01/usaf-blog-respo/
21. ↑ For Love of Water (documentary) https://archive.org/details/ForTheLoveOfWaterflow-2008
22. ↑ The New York Times: U.S. Says C.I.A. Destroyed 92 Tapes of Interrogations http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/03/washington/03web-intel.html
23. ↑ Natural Resources and Conflict in Africa http://the-beacon.info/countries/africa/natural-resources-and-conflict-in-africa/
24. ↑ International Lulz: Anonymous Aids Rebellions in Tunisia, Algeria and Libya https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110520/15384614363/international-lulz-anonymous-aids-rebellions-tunisia-algeria-libya.shtml
25. ↑ NATO bombs the Great Man-Made River http://humanrightsinvestigations.org/2011/07/27/great-man-made-river-nato-bombs/
26. ↑ Goldman Sachs Rips Off Libya, Donald Trump Admits Screwing Gaddafi https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvIPUHVI3Cg#t=21
27. ↑ Bankers raping and pillaging Libya. Goldman Sachs and Colonel Gaddafi https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sfY-OR_olQ
28. ↑ The lies behind the West's war on Libya http://www.pambazuka.net/en/category.php/features/72575
29. ↑ How Republicans are being taught to talk about Occupy Wall Street http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/republicans-being-taught-talk-occupy-wall-street-133707949.html
30. ↑ Leaked: Republicans Scared of Occupy Wall Street https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7B3Fw5TPJK8
31. ↑ Food crisis and the global land grab: Planet for Sale https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IU1-PpxqeZc
32. ↑ Deep Sea Mining: Interview with Dr Chris Yeats and Professor Cindy Lee Van Dover http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/3240156.htm
33. ↑ The Price of Steel: Human Rights and Forced Evictions in the POSCO-India Project http://www.escr-net.org/node/365209
34. ↑ Canada to claim north pole as its own http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/10/canada-north-pole-claim
35. ↑ Who owns the arctic? http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/12/07/sunday-review/who-owns-the-arctic.html?_r=0
36. ↑ Preventing an Arctic Cold War http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/13/opinion/preventing-an-arctic-cold-war.html?_r=0
37. ↑ Foreclosing the future: Examining 20 years of the World Bank's environmental performance http://www.brettonwoodsproject.org/2013/10/foreclosing-future/
38. ↑ Foreclosing the Future: The World Bank and the Politics of Environmental Destruction http://triplecrisis.com/foreclosing-the-future-the-world-bank-and-the-politics-of-environmental-destruction/
39. ↑ Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much http://thepsychreport.com/essays-discussion/scarcity-excerpt-mullainathan-shafir/
40. ↑ Greed explained: J. Paul Getty, Aristotle and the Maximum Power Principle http://resourceinsights.blogspot.nl/2014/12/greed-explained-j-paul-getty-aristotle.html
41. ↑ Human-modified ecosystems and future evolution http://www.pnas.org/content/98/10/5458.full
42. ↑ CIA director faces a quandary over clandestine service appointment http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/cia-director-faces-a-quandary-over-clandestine-service-appointment/2013/03/26/5d93cb10-9645-11e2-9e23-09dce87f75a1_story.html
43. ↑ Calls to ban Greek far-right party after murder of anti-fascist rapper http://rt.com/news/greek-rapper-funeral-tension-074/
44. ↑ Al Jazeera: The French African Connection: http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/specialseries/2013/08/201387113131914906.html
45. ↑ The newest assault on the worlds oceans, deep seabed mining http://www.deepseaminingoutofourdepth.org/media-release-the-newest-assault-on-the-worlds-oceans-deep-seabed-mining/
46. ↑ Baltimore police rarely charged in deaths http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/baltimore-city/bs-md-gray-police-rare-charges-20150516-story.html
47. ↑ 6 Times Unarmed Black Men Were Killed By White Officers And What It Means For Social Justice http://www.ibtimes.com/police-shooting-videos-6-times-unarmed-black-men-were-killed-white-officers-what-it-1876156
48. ↑ What We Lose When Police Blame Victims For Their Own Deaths http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/15/police-shootings-victim-blaming_n_7284792.html
49. ↑ Gawker: Ferguson and the Criminalization of American Life http://gawker.com/ferguson-and-the-criminalization-of-american-life-1692392051
50. ↑ Institute for policy studies: The Poor Get Prison: The Alarming Spread of the Criminalization of Poverty http://www.ips-dc.org/the-poor-get-prison-the-alarming-spread-of-the-criminalization-of-poverty/
51. ↑ Abrupt Climate Change, Already? http://dissidentvoice.org/2015/01/abrupt-climate-change-already/