Friday, May 21, 2010
What BP's Blocking of CBS Crew Means for Americans
By Kevin Gosztola If in fact BP has instructed crews to specifically regulate and turn away groups with video cameras or even still cameras, this raises many questions about what Americans are able to access and not access, what theyare able to document and not document. Should a person have to be embedded with authorities, corporations or organizations at the center of a disaster in order to document a disaster? Must a person be with a recognized news organization that regularly gets into press conferences in order to film critical events like the BP oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico right now? Journalists were told by "someone aboard the boat" this is BP's rules, not ours. That alone would be enough to seriously question the situation and ask why citizens should have to follow rules and only document what authorities, corporations, or organizations involved grant citizens permission to document. But, the Coast Guard was present and they released a statement on the matter that was published by the Mother Nature Network. Neither BP nor the U.S. Coast Guard, who are responding to the spill, have any rules in place that would prohibit media access to impacted areas and we were disappointed to hear of this incident. In fact, media has been actively embedded and allowed to cover response efforts since this response began, with more than 400 embeds aboard boats and aircraft to date. Just today 16 members of the press observed clean-up operations on a vessel out of Venice, La. The only time anyone would be asked to move from an area would be if there were safety concerns, or they were interfering with response operations. This did occur off South Pass Monday which may have caused the confusion reported by CBS today. The entities involved in the Deepwater Horizon/BP Response have already reiterated these media access guidelines to personnel involved in the response and hope it prevents any future confusion." [emphasis added] That the Coast Guard, a national military organization, is going along with whatever happened between BP and the CBS journalists should lead those involved in the creation and production of media to be even more concerned. The Coast Guard is, with this statement, legitimizing BP's right to limit the privileges of those wishing to document the destruction. When one breaks down the "400 embeds aboard boats and aircraft to date" the Coast Guard claims BP has allowed, it comes out to approximately 13 embeds per day in the month since the oil rig explosion occurred. And, if each embed is one journalist, this means 13 journalists per day have been allowed (on average) to document the disaster and response efforts/failures. Is this satisfactory? Have all those interested in documenting been allowed to embed and see the devastation? Who has been turned away because BP didn't agree with the intentions or motivations of a videographer or how a journalist wanted to frame the story? http://www.opednews.com/articles/What-BP-s-Blocking-of-CBS-by-Kevin-Gosztola-100520-985.html "RJM Acquisitions" mailed Mark a funny notice asking him to pay up $4,448.23. The address they had associated with it was indeed Mark's, 20 years ago, that is. Not only was the debt invalid, but even if it hadn't, the statute of limitations was well expired. Mark got to work and drafted a kickass letter to dispute the debt and tell them not to contact him again unless they wanted to be sued $1,000 each time. Here is his letter, which can serve as a good model for any other readers fighting off invalid debt collection attempts, and his story: http://consumerist.com/2010/05/this-is-how-you-tell-a-zombie-debt-collector-to-buzz-off.html Big news all over the place today about a huge scientific achievement led by Dr. J. Craig Venter, some 15 years and tens of millions of dollars in the making. A live press conference is taking place now, as I type this blog post (screengrab above), and you can watch the video online. "We've briefed the White House..." Venter says, as I click publish... followed by an audience question about bioterrorism concerns. This is big stuff. Snip from Edge.org announcement: This new development is all about operating on a large scale. "Reading the genetic code of a wide range of species," the paper says, "has increased exponentially from these early studies. Our ability to rapidly digitize genomic information has increased by more than eight orders of magnitude over the past 25 years " This is a big scaling up in our technological abilities. Physicist Freeman Dyson, commenting on the paper, notes that "the sequencing and synthesizing DNA give us all the tools we need to create new forms of life". But it remains to be seen how it will serve in practice. One question is whether or not a DNA sequence alone enough to generate a living creature. One way of reading of the paper suggests this doesn't seem to be the case because of the use of old microplasma cells into which the DNA was inserted -- that this is not about "creating" life" because, the new life requires an existing living recipient cell. If this is the case, what is the chance of producing something de novo? The paper might appear to be about a somewhat banal technological feat. The new techniques build on existing capabilities. What else is being added, what is qualitatively new? While it is correct to say that the individual cell was not created, a new line of cells (dare one say species?) was generated. This is new life that is self-propagating, i.e. "the cells with only the synthetic genome are self replicating and capable of logarithmic growth." Freeman Dyson, commenting on the paper on EDGE, wrote: If normal people can work together to make collective decisions, so could a set of unaffiliated MPs who care about public service Of course it has been terrifically exciting in politics since the election, and I don't want to be a spoilsport, but hasn't it also been a teeny-weeny bit embarrassing? The sight of our two major parties scurrying around Nick Clegg sent shudders of revulsion up my spine. It didn't matter how much they'd ridiculed his policies before and during the election: once he held the key to power, they were cajoling and coaxing him and saying what a thoroughly nice chap he was. You suddenly glimpsed what, I assume all politicians know: that there is no shame in politics. And so we ended up with a hung parliament. But there would be one simple way of avoiding hung parliaments in future, and that would be to abolish political parties. Simply make it illegal for any MP to collude with another MP. At one stroke you would make all MPs more responsible to the people who elected them – their constituents. They would be forced to listen to what their constituents actually want, rather than brow-beating them into going along with the party line. Heavens above! They might even be forced to concentrate more on local issues, and actually represent the constituency which they nowadays merely claim to represent. You would end up with a parliament of individuals, all with individual voices. Wouldn't that be nice? I know, I know. You say, well, how on earth would these independent MPs ever get to form a government? How would 650 independent members ever manage to agree on a coherent set of policies or on anything? Well, I would borrow a little device from our legal system. It's called a "jury". At the start of each parliamentary year, the 650 independent MPs would cast lots for who would be the government for that year. Say you limited the government to around 25 people: these 25 would then have to vote which of them was going to be prime minister, home secretary, foreign secretary, etc. Everyone I've ever talked to who has served on a jury tells me that it is inspiring to see how ordinary people pull together and apply themselves to make sense of the legal arguments. So why should it be any different with politicians? Especially since these are not just ordinary members of the public, but people who have enough interest in politics to actually stand for election in the first place. They would be pre-screened, as it were. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/may/12/ban-political-parties By Kenneth J. Theisen These Mohammed smileys or emoticons are called 'Mocons' or 'Frowneys'. Mocons aka Frowneys are the most efficient way to digitally propagate the maximum amount of Mohammed imagery per byte. Muhammad (((:~{> Muhammad playing Little Orphan Annie (((8~{> Muhammad as a pirate (((P~{> Muhammad as Moshe Dayan (((P~{> Muhammad on a bad turban day ))):~{> Muhammad with sand in his eye(((;~{> Muhammad wearing sunglasses (((B~{> Muhammad giving the raspberry. (((:~{> Giving Muhammad the raspberry. ;-P Mohammad with a lit bomb in his turban *-O)):~{> Mohammad with a lit bomb in his turban *~@:~{> Mohammed, full of booze and pork, pukes up Allah (((:~Oالله Intoxicated Mohammed (((‡o{Þ High Mohammed ((( ¦o) > The devil Mohammed ]:~{> Carmen Miranda Mohammed ڨڭڿۺ((:~{> Muhammed without beard O:-| Muhammad pissed off that his favourite goat ran away (((B-|> Muhammad being shot by Starship Enterprise =-o * * * (((:~{> Mohammed with a lit fuse coming out of his turban *-(((:~{> Mohammed on a *really* bad turban day )8(:~{> Muhammad sees a Danish cartoonist !((((8~{o> Muhammad turns Christian (((+:~{> Muhammad imitates Charles Manson ((((x8~{> Muhammad wears his Johnny Carson "Great Carsoni" turban (((0))):~{> Muhammad after going quail hunting with Dick Cheney (:(:(:((8~>::::::::::::: Saudi Arabian/oil shiek version of Muhammad (($$(((:~{> Muhammad wearing his personalized designer turban (((MOE)));~{> Muhammad wearing his "elevator" turban ((((((((((((((;~{> Osama bin Laden dressed up as Muhammad on Halloween (((:~{> Edited by Laura Berlinsky-Schine http://watchingamerica.com/News/54232/the-border-of-broken-dreams/ In the ongoing effort to address social problems primarily by talking about them rather than doing anything concrete, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is proposing a set of new definitions of homelessness in order to determine who will be eligible for HUD-funded homeless assistance programs. The proposed changes are in a "public comment" period through June 21, 2010, after which time they will take effect in substantially the proposed form. While this will affect access to certain services, the overall impact is more subtle, and the task of ending homelessness is still in need of much more than simple redefinitions. Well, it's not all for naught, actually. As blogger David Henderson observed back in March, "If we are to end homelessness, we have to agree on what homelessness means, and how we measure it." In a subsequent piece, it was noted how egregiously HUD undercounts the homeless, potentially leaving multitudes quite literally out in the cold. Most significantly, the proposed new definitions appear to omit people without dependent children who are living in unstable situations, and furthermore extend the time of a required stay in an institution providing temporary residence from 30 to 90 days. While these changes leave much to be desired, they will at least bring HUD into closer alignment with other agencies' definitions — including the overarching Federal Definition of Homelessness that codes a "homeless person" as "an individual who lacks a fixed, regular and adequate nighttime residence," or "who has a primary nighttime residence" that is either "a supervised publicly or privately operated shelter;" "an institution that provides a temporary residence;" or "a public or private place not designed for, or ordinarily used as, a regular sleeping accommodation for human beings." Essentially the federal standard encompasses anyone lacking a stable nighttime residence to which they are allowed to retreat without permission or exception. In this light, the critical factor becomes housing, primarily its affordability and its fitness for human habitation. http://homelessness.change.org/blog/view/homelessness_by_any_other_name_ First, we spit out our coffee over President Obama's appointments of former Monsanto goon Michael Taylor as Food Safety [sic] Czar and 'biotech governor of the year' Tom Vilsack as Secretary of Agriculture. Then we choked on our grits when he made Monsanto lobbyist, Islam Siddiqui, the US Ag Trade Representative. Now, the real food movement has completely lost its appetite with Obama's nomination of Monsanto defender, Elena Kagan, to the US Supreme Court. In December 2009, in her capacity as Solicitor General, Kagan intervened in the first case on which SCOTUS will rule involving genetically modified crops, Monsanto v Geertson Seed. She defended Monsanto's fight to contaminate the environment with its GM alfalfa, not the American people's right to safe feed and a protected environment. The lower court ruled that "contamination of organic and conventional alfalfa crops with the genetically engineered gene has occurred and defendants acknowledge as much. Such contamination is irreparable environmental harm." That other fields, not those of Geertson Seed, et al., had been contaminated does not bother Kagan. "The district court failed to find either that respondents had suffered or were likely to suffer irreparable harm…" This flies in the face of reality. The biotech industry has admitted it cannot prevent contamination of natural fields. When Bayer CropScience contaminated nearly a third of the US rice supply with its GM version, its defense lawyers told jurors that "Bayer's containment protocols were equal to or exceeded industry standards when the test rice escaped into the general supplies." If the best containment protocols don't work, then contamination cannot be prevented. That is clearly an indication that natural crop farmers are "likely to suffer irreparable harm." Geertson Seed explains some basic facts about alfalfa and GM contamination: "Alfalfa is not just a prolific field crop, but feral alfalfa and weedy alfalfa is commonly found beyond the fields by roadways, irrigation canals, backyards and beyond…. "Contamination of conventional alfalfa from genetically engineered alfalfa is a major concern. The primary mode of contamination is from the movement of pollen by bees from plant to plant. Alfalfa is pollinated by many different bees and other insects that fly long distances. Sudden wind gusts like those associated with summer thunder storms can carry pollinators over greater distances. When a pollinator visits an alfalfa plant that has the Roundup Ready (RR) gene inserted, it will pick up the pollen that contains the RR gene and carry it to a distant conventional alfalfa plant. If that pollen fertilizes the blossom of the conventional plant, the resulting seed will contain the RR gene." This contamination becomes especially important because contaminated alfalfa will continue to sprout for years: "The seed produced by alfalfa can have 50% or more dormant seed [which] can lay dormant in the soil for many years." Glyphosate is one of the most toxic herbicides in use today. Monsanto's trade name for it is Roundup. Geertson Seed explains that: "Roundup Ready alfalfa will have a selective advantage over non GE alfalfa and will become the dominant weed variety. In turn, the weedy Roundup Ready alfalfa will be difficult to kill and will become a source of pollen and seed that will contaminate other feral plants and conventional alfalfa seed fields in the area. In a few years, it will be extremely difficult to avoid contamination from GE alfalfa." Worse, researchers at the University of Caen found that Monsanto's particular formulations of glyphosate in Roundup "actually amplified glyphosate's toxic effects," which include human cell death. Kagan seems to believe that the biotech industry's inability to prevent contamination is not an issue for farmers, the environment or we the people. Her repugnance toward our human right to reject the deployment of genetically engineered crops comports with corporate views. She earns the M on her forehead, joining Justice Clarence Thomas, a former Monsanto lawyer who corruptly refused to recuse himself from Monsanto v Geertson Seed. http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/TPV3/Voices.php/2010/05/16/obama-s-latest-monsanto-pick-elena-kagan Presumably Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele doesn't need to be told that a document that approved of slavery and counted slaves as three-fifths persons was defective. Nor would the framers have taken offense since they included a mechanism for amending the Constitution and immediately used it to add on the Bill of Rights. But the GOP defense of the Constitution was not about rational, mainstream argument. It was aimed squarely at the hyperpatriotic, kitchen table constitutional scholars who currently reside in the activated portion of the GOP base. This is the Tea Party movement and, more broadly, the conservative outrage coalition that yearns to "take back" our country in a way that often has a distinctly antebellum view of states' rights. Parties and politicians must cater to their base voters. But the urgency with which the GOP is doing it makes it look like a party with a perpetual primary-race mentality. The establishment, haunted by the specter of a Tea Party-driven urge to purge, seems to continually need to demonstrate its worthiness. But even primary candidates eventually have to tack back to the center to win general elections. The problem for Republicans is that Tea Party petulance and ideological certitude could keep the party on the fringe. http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2010/05/20/the-republicans-tea-party-problem.html Fixing A Broken Economy By James Donahue In reading all of the reports of global efforts for heading off fears of a world-wide depression we remember that someone in Washington . . . it may have been President Bush . . . once assured us that the U.S. would not stop imports of goods from overseas. The comment started us thinking about all of the world trade agreements our country has made and how it might be difficult, if not impossible to consider turning off the spigot on imported products. And while on that line of thinking, it struck us that a federal embargo on imports might just be what our nation needs to fix a lot of things that have gone wrong. It appears that we have been set up for everything that has happened to us. Imagine what a difference it would make if America could or would stop ALL goods from other countries, even the things manufactured by U.S. companies that moved to Mexico, China, Indonesia and other places to exploit poverty stricken areas that supply cheap non-union labor. Along with this embargo our government should prohibit all financial dealings that make it possible for big corporations to operate out of obscure places like the Cayman Islands, a British Territory in the Caribbean that has become a popular tax haven. Most of all, there should be a prohibition against the United States borrowing any more money from other countries, or selling government-owned lands, buildings and bridges owners abroad. We also suggest shutting down our wars in other lands and bringing our troops home to reinforce the blockade of our ports, major airports and borders, to make sure nothing sneaks into a black market. Knowing how big business interests control Washington these days, we know that this is all a hypothetical scenario. But if it could be done, here is what we think would happen: American stores would quickly run out of imported items. Since most of the stuff we think we must have to make our lives more enjoyable . . . new televisions, computers, stereos, cell phones, cameras, sewing machines, shoes, clothes and Japanese and European manufactured automobiles . . .would be unavailable. We would be forced to use the old things we already have or go without. You might be amazed at the things that would be missing from our store shelves. Is that a bad thing? Indeed, going without certain food items like coffee, bananas, dates and spices will be a severe sacrifice for many of us, but it won't kill us. American farmers still produce enough food to feed our people. And if people overseas get hungry enough, they will probably allow us to export excess foods. Another critical loss would be oil. We would be forced to scale down our use of oil produced at home, pay extremely high prices for fuel, and get serious in our research to find alternative energy sources to heat our homes and alternative ways to get to work. Placing our troops at the borders and in our ports and airports where overseas flights land would not only help solve the so-called immigration problem but put a quick end to a large part of the nation's drug trafficking . . . at least stop the import of cocaine and heroin. Of course this would also make importing certain medicines like pain-killing drugs like morphine, manufactured from the poppy flowers that produce heroin, a thing of the past. We would have to rely on synthetic chemicals and, we might suggest, marijuana, to replace them.
"CBS Evening News reported they were denied access to oiled shoreline by a civilian vessel that had clean-up workers contracted by BP, as well as Coast Guard personnel on board. CBS News video taped the exchange during which time one of the contractors told them (on tape) that " ... this is BP's rules not ours."
Fishermen Report Illness From BP Chemicals
Toxicologist Says Chemicals Harmful, Can Lead To Death
More and more stories about sick fishermen are beginning to surface after the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The fishermen are working out in the Gulf -- many of them all day, every day -- to clean up the spill. They said they blame their ailments on the chemicals that BP is using. One fisherman said he felt like he was going to die over the weekend. "I've been coughing up stuff," Gary Burris said. "Your lungs fill up." Burris, a longtime fisherman who has worked across the Gulf Coast, said he woke up Sunday night feeling drugged and disoriented. "It was like sniffing gasoline or something, and my ears are still popping," Burris said. "I'm coughing up stuff. I feel real weak, tingling feelings." Marine toxicologist Riki Ott said the chemicals used by BP can wreak havoc on a person's body and even lead to death. "The volatile, organic carbons, they act like a narcotic on the brain," Ott said. "At high concentrations, what we learned in Exxon Valdez from carcasses of harbor seals and sea otters, it actually fried the brain, (and there were) brain lesions." Rep. Charlie Melancon said he wants something done. He sent a letter to President Barack Obama's administration calling for temporary health care clinics to be set up in the area.
Now This Is How You Tell A Zombie Debt Collector To Buzz Off!
The Empire Strikes Back: The film that introduced a generation to tragedy
Thirty years ago, George Lucas sprung his Star Wars sequel upon a young moviegoing public that was simply unprepared for what they'd see: An unrelenting operatic downer, filled with pain, sacrifice, revelation, and loss. Good times. Friday is the 30th anniversary of the release of Star Wars: Episode V — The Empire Strikes Back. There have been, and will be, a ton of pieces commemorating that fact, looking back at the best of the Star Wars saga with dewy-eyed reverence — or recalling how good Star Wars can be when George Lucas isn't directing it. But it's worth remembering that there's a whole generation of people for whom Star Wars was a formative influence — people who were young enough when it was first released in 1977 that A New Hope calibrated both their moral and storytelling compass. Star Wars was a children's fable, a story of good versus evil in which evil gets its ass kicked and good gets an awesome medal and the thanks of a grateful rebellion. And so, 30 years hence, it's easy to forget what a world-shaking shot to the gut The Empire Strikes Back was: Han Solo is frozen solid, Luke gets his hand chopped off, and Darth Vader reveals himself to be his father. Movies, as far as we knew, weren't supposed to end like that. The Hero is supposed to win.
Craig Venter creates synthetic life form
On May 20th, J. Craig Venter and his team at J.C Venter Institute announced the creation of a cell controlled by a synthetic genome in a paper published in SCIENCE. As science historian George Dyson points out, "from the point of view of technology, a code generated within a digital computer is now self-replicating as the genome of a line of living cells. From the point of view of biology, a code generated by a living organism has been translated into a digital representation for replication, editing, and transmission to other cells."
On "Creation Of A Bacterial Cell Controlled By A Chemically Synthesized Genome" By Venter Et Al" (Edge.org)
I feel sure of only one conclusion. The ability to design and create new forms of life marks a turning-point in the history of our species and our planet.
How to avoid another hung parliament: ban all political parties
Elvis Costello, in Principled Stand, Cancels Tel Aviv Performances
Musician/composer Elvis Costello was scheduled to perform twice in Tel Aviv, Israel in June and July of this year. In a courageous stand, Costello has announced on his website that he has cancelled his appearances at the shows citing Israel's treatment of Palestinians. Costello has joined other artists such as Gil Scott-Heron and Santana who have also cancelled scheduled Israeli performances. Costello is to be commended for his action and words. We must also defend his actions from the political attacks to which he will now be subjected. In his website he refers to his action as "a matter of instinct and conscience." He writes, "There are occasions when merely having your name added to a concert schedule may be interpreted as a political act ... and it may be assumed that one has no mind for the suffering of the innocent…I must believe that the audience for the coming concerts would have contained many people who question the policies of their government on settlement and deplore conditions that visit intimidation, humiliation or much worse on Palestinian civilians in the name of national security...I hope it is possible to understand that I am not taking this decision lightly." I commend Costello for his decision. I am sure he is aware of the controversy it will cause and also that he will be attacked by Israeli apologists. He will be accused of anti-Semitism and other calumnies. I have experiences this many times as I have written many articles critical of Israel and it policies. But it is my hope that in stirring debate people will examine what is actually going on in Palestine and review the 60 year occupation of Palestine by the Zionists. Any unbiased examination will reveal 60 years of crimes by the Israeli Zionist state and the complicity of the U.S. imperialists in these crimes.
Creeping Terror: The New American Way of War
By Chris Floyd The American way of war is a marvelously ingenious thing. And thoroughly modern too. No more of that "don't shoot until you see the whites of their eyes" jazz; your modern "warfighter" (they aren't called "soldiers" anymore, you know) prefers to view his targets through, say, a computer screen safely ensconced back in the Homeland or thousands of feet in the sky, or else through the unearthly greenish glow of night-vision scopes. And open combat? Forget it. The new American way is the sneak attack on civilian homes in the dead of night. You creep up, you break in, you cap a few ragheads, then you run away. What glory! What magnificent valor! The Washington Post reports on yet another glorious page in the annals of the exceptional nation "intended by God to be a light set on a hill to serve as a beacon of hope and Christian charity to a lost and dying world." It's the usual story. Secret "warfighters" suddenly attack a civilian compound in the middle of the night. This, not surprisingly, provokes a few shots from some of the inhabitants, who have no idea who is attacking their home. The superior firepower of the beacons of hope and Christian charity quickly overcome the piddling arms of the demonic heathens, however, and in a trice, there are dead gook - sorry, raghead - bodies all around. Including children - you've got to have children in your body count these days, if you want to be a thoroughly modern Christian beacon warfighter. Then you and your brave band of secret warriors run away and prepare for the next bold raid. Naturally, the local losers come out and boo-hoo-hoo over their dead relatives, as if no one had ever seen their son shot to death in front of their eyes before. They trot out all their evidence that the victims had nothing to do with the "insurgents" (which is what your modern warfighter calls anyone who objects to the presence of armed foreigners prowling all over their land), they keen and wail and do all the other animalistic stuff that primitives do when one of the pack snuffs it. "Oh, I lost my son, oh my son, my precious son," etc., etc. - as if there's not a dozen more when he came from; you know how those people breed. But anyway, here's the beauty part: if the local dorky darkies start to complain, you just say, "Hey man, we came under fire! Those monkeys shot at us when we came sneaking up on their house in the middle of the night with our guns drawn. That proves they were bad guys. We had to take them out." That's it. That's the drill. It happens virtually every week now in Afghanistan - just as it happened time and again in Iraq, back when some guy named Stanley McChrystal was in charge of covert ops for that evil, reactionary throwback, George W. Bush. Whatever happened to old Stan anyway? Oh yeah; the nice, progressive, thoroughly modern Barack Obama put him in charge of the whole shooting match in Afghanistan, as well as the not-so-secret war of assassination in Pakistan. And oddly enough, the slaughter of civilians in both of these target countries has been rising ever since.
Thursday, May 20, 2010
MAY 20: Draw Muhammed Day
The Free Press offers these ASCII and Emoticon versions of Muhammad to cut and paste into your communications on this important day. ▂▃▅▅▅▃▂ ▲◢◤▀◥◣▃ ▍◢◤
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Sombrero Mohommed ⊂∫≡(:~{>>
Mohammed with a bomb in his turban. *@(((:~{>>
Mohammed with a nuclear bomb in his turban. @=(((:~{>
Muhammed without beard; or Jesus O:-)
Muhammed having a vision) O8-)
Muhammed with goatee) O:-)*
By Pablo Ordaz
They were chasing me all night, until my feet gave out on me.
Spain - El Pais - Original Article (Spanish)
Efrain is 27 years old, with lacerated feet and empty pockets. He was born in Puebla in central Mexico, and ever since he was a boy, he has been bending down to harvest tomatoes, onions, or whatever else the boss was growing. His dream was to save the $1,200 he needed to immigrate illegally to the United States. Last Friday, he finally managed to walk on American soil, but only for a few hours. The border patrol spotted him in the desert across from El Sasabe, when he had almost managed to make the crossing from Sonora into Arizona. "They were chasing me all night, until my feet gave out on me," he said. Efrain was detained, put on a bus, and sent back to Mexico via the Nogales border.
Now he is back in Altar, a small Sonoran town converted into a kind of emigration theme park. Every day waves of youngsters arrive from Mexico and Central America looking for "coyotes," who in exchange for a sum of money, will bring them across the El Sasabe desert into the United States. "Back in Puebla," Efrain explains: "everybody talked about Altar, but when I arrived I couldn't believe how out in the open everything was …" It is certainly striking how the life of the town revolves around the lucrative business known as emigration … illegal immigration.
There are dozens of boarding houses, and dozens of foreign exchange houses. There are dozens of stores around the plaza with merchandise dedicated exclusively to the needs of the migrants: back-packs, blankets for the cold desert nights, thick socks, flashlights, bandages, canteens, toilet paper. Everyone knows that the trucks with the signs "Specialized public passage transport service" are dedicated to carrying migrants to the desert, in groups of 30 or 40, lying on top of one another. There are more than 200 vans and they are numbered by the municipal government.
Efrain had to pay 1,000 pesos, about $70, to be carried to the desert. That included the payment to the local mafia that controls the road, but not the payment for the "coyote" or "pollero." This according to one of the van owners, who makes no attempt to be discrete, and is parked next to the church. The reporter asks him how much it would cost to cross over to the El Sasabe desert.
"I would charge you 1,000 pesos, but most of it is not for me, it's so that the mafia will let me pass," he says. "But you're not Mexican, are you?"
"No, I'm Spanish" the reporter tells him. "But I want to go with my El Salvadorian friends who are crossing."
"El Salvadorian? We charge them more. 1,500 pesos."
"Why is that?"
"Those are the rules. The mafia makes them, not me."
"Does that include the coyote's cut?"
"No, man, no. [The driver has a good laugh, which seems to mean, "This guy is an imbecile."] The coyote is separate. You'll have to pay him a lot more. A good coyote will charge you 1,000 pesos to bring you into the United States."
"And where do I get a coyote?"
"Dude, why are you asking me? Look around you. This town is full of coyotes and polleros …"
Nothing is secret in Altar. If you pay, you go. If you don't pay, you don't. Six young men from Chiapas tell me their experience. "We tried to cross three days ago. We only had enough to pay for the taxi. They left us in the desert. We waited two days for a chance to cross. Finally two guys showed up with pistols, and made us go back. Obviously things are very well organized there in the gorge. But we didn't have money for coyotes. So we're going back to Chiapas."
Massacre In Thailand: Obama’s Bloody Hands
By Shamus Cooke When the White House is quiet as protestors are butchered in the streets of Bangkok Thailand, suspicions are raised. Silence often equals complicacy. One can only imagine what the U.S. response would be to a Venezuelan government slaughter: the U.S. media and Obama would loudly condemn such an act, in contrast to the muted response to Thailand's blood bath. The history of U.S.-Thailand relations explains why. During the Vietnam War, the U.S. used Thailand as one of the main anti-communist bulwarks in an area that included China, Vietnam, Burma, and other countries that were challenging capitalism. Thailand was thus transformed into a U.S. client state and given money, guns, and U.S. government intelligence to battle Thailand's communists. This relationship has equaled numerous Thai dictatorships that have a very bloody history, including the shooting of untold numbers of protestors that the Thai government named communists, or their modern equivalent, terrorists. The U.S.-Thailand relationship began to sour when the recently deposed President Thaksin Shinawatra formed a closer relationship with China that included economic and military deals. The Asian Times summarizes the consequences: Thaksin's willingness to promote defense ties with China came at the US's direct strategic expense and many observers believe that's one reason Washington's reaction to the September 2006 military coup that ousted a democratically elected government was so muted. (November 7, 2008). The U.S. government often overthrows unfriendly governments by bribing sections of their military, a fact discussed at length in Tim Weiners history of the CIA, Legacy of Ashes. When a U.S.-backed coup happens, the U.S. government and corporate media give tacit approval; whereas a howl of fury erupts when a coup happens against a U.S. puppet government. The Asian Times confirms: Many of the [2006] coup-makers were known U.S. allies, including alleged masterminds and former CIA-trained spy chief Prasong Soonsiri and Privy Council president Prem Tinsulanonda. Prasong has openly acknowledged his role in the coup The U.S. coup against Thai President Thaksin is at the root of the current crisis in Thailand. Large sections of the Thai working class and peasantry still identify Thaksin as their President and are demanding his return. They have resorted to extremely militant tactics to achieve their demands, which, if won, would amount to the restoration of democracy in Thailand. The New York Times adds: Thailand is convulsed by a bitter struggle between the nations elite and its disenfranchised poor, played out in protests that have paralyzed Bangkok for weeks and now threaten to expand. (May 15, 2010). President Obama has not said one word of support for Thailands poor, while his silence enables Thailands elite to murder protestors in the streets free of foreign pressure.
Homelessness By Any Other Name ...
Mark of the Beast: Obama’s latest Monsanto pick, Elena Kagan
By Rady Ananda
The Republicans' Tea Party Problem
Consider An Embargo On World Imports
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