Here is website with good information on the oil rig disaster in the gulf.
Directed by: Bryan D. Hopkins
On April 20th, 2010, the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded off the Gulf of Mexico, killing eleven BP workers and spewing 200 million barrels of oil into the ocean. DIRTY ENERGY brings to light the personal stories of the Louisiana fishermen and local residents directly impacted by the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history. Filmmaker Bryan D. Hopkins gains intimate access to the lives and homes of these people, as they struggle to rebuild their lives and contend with emerging health crises related to the toxic dispersants used to clean up the spill. DIRTY ENERGY paints a poignant portrait of the human cost of the calamity, and the systematic failure by BP and the U.S. Government to effectively and transparently manage the environmental impact.
Special Features: Three Years After the Spill Featurette, Trailer
Web Link
Monday, May 3, 2010
How profits over common sense impacts us all when it come to oil exploration.
Thank Dick Cheney for Gulf Oil Spill
Blogger connects dots and finds arrow pointing to ex-VP
By M. Morris| 5-3-2010|
Share (Newser) – The scope of the Gulf oil spill is far from clear, but the finger-pointing is already under way, and a lot of fingers ought to be aiming at Dick Cheney, Alex Pareene blogs for Salon. Connecting the dots that begin with a Wall Street Journal exposé, we learn that Cheney's highly classified energy task force was responsible for the fact "that the oil well didn't have a remote-control shut-off switch," Pareene writes, "a thing that it seems every single offshore drilling rig should have."
"The former Dark Lord of the Naval Observatory" is no rookie at covering his tracks, but the follow-up argument is a no-brainer: "Halliburton is involved, too! The Los Angeles Times reports that BP contracted Dick Cheney's old company to cement the deepwater drill hole." In short, Pareene writes, "Thanks, Dick. Nice work."
=================
There is no verbal hyperbole sufficient to express the magnitude of
the environmental catastrophe now known as Deepwater Horizon. It is
nothing short of an Armageddon of Oil. Assuming we even survive this
one, we must immediately mobilize a crash program for truly renewable
alternative energy resources.
Action Page: http://www.peaceteam.net/action/pnum1043.php
Despite the gusher of lies we've heard trying to minimize the
planetary scale disaster now in progress in the Gulf, the terrifying
truth is available for those who will hear it. First they told us the
"leak" was only 1,000 barrels a day, when in fact it is at least 5
times that much. Of course it's hard to pretend an oil slick the size
of New Jersey isn't there. And it could easily blow out to 50,000
barrels a day (2,000,000 gallons) in a heartbeat, according to a "not
for public" NOAA emergency report.
This is not just a leak, it's a monster underwater oil geyser, under
upwards of 100,000 pounds per square inch of pressure, enough force
to lift 50 tons with your thumb. And unless it is somehow stopped, it
may spell the end of all marine life on the planet. We are not
talking about just one Exxon Valdez size tanker spill, we are talking
about one of largest oil fields ever discovered completely venting
its entire contents into the ocean, thousands and thousands of
tankers. It's THAT cataclysmic.
But assuming we miraculously dodge the literal end of the world this
one time, we need to finally do what should have been done 20 years
ago, and throw everything we've got into a crash program for
alternative renewable energy, and stop burning fossil fuels before
they kill us all.
Action Page: http://www.peaceteam.net/action/pnum1043.php
And after you submit the action page, please consider picking up one
of the timely "350 ppm or catastrophe" caps from the return page,
emphasizing the urgency of immediately reducing worldwide carbon
dioxide emissions. It is not as if we have not had every warning
already. Or you can get one directly from this page.
350 PPM Or Catastrophe Caps:
http://www.peaceteam.net/message_items.php
It should have been done twenty years ago. Stop all new oil
exploration. Forget about insanely expensive nuclear plants. End
immediately the lunatic military occupations that have cost us
trillions. And put everything we've got into an all out push to
develop and bring on line truly renewable alternative energy sources.
The burning of fossil fuels was already slowly killing the planet,
causing inexorable rises in greenhouse gas levels that have done
nothing but accelerate, despite the rampant disinformation campaign
waged by oil industry toadies pretending to be real scientists. Now
unless we find some way to stop the venting of the entire contents of
a gigantic oil field in the Gulf, under 100,000 pounds per square
inch of pressure, we may be looking at the end of all marine life on
this planet. We have literally punched a hole into hell.
Please add whatever personal comments of your own you like, and
emphasize it is time for our politicians to stop serving only oil
company and nuclear lobbyists paying the off to continue to pursue
bad energy policy, but to start doing something to save our country
and our world instead.
And here is the Facebook link for the Crash Alternative Energy action
page further above.
[Facebook] Action Page:
http://apps.facebook.com/fb_voices/action.php?qnum=pnum1043
And this is the Twitter reply for this same action
@cxs #p1043
Please take action NOW, so we can win all victories that are supposed
to be ours, and forward this alert as widely as possible.
If you would like to get alerts like these, you can do so at
http://www.usalone.com/in.htm
Or if you want to cease receiving our messages, just use the function
at http://www.usalone.com/out.htm
Blogger connects dots and finds arrow pointing to ex-VP
By M. Morris| 5-3-2010|
Share (Newser) – The scope of the Gulf oil spill is far from clear, but the finger-pointing is already under way, and a lot of fingers ought to be aiming at Dick Cheney, Alex Pareene blogs for Salon. Connecting the dots that begin with a Wall Street Journal exposé, we learn that Cheney's highly classified energy task force was responsible for the fact "that the oil well didn't have a remote-control shut-off switch," Pareene writes, "a thing that it seems every single offshore drilling rig should have."
"The former Dark Lord of the Naval Observatory" is no rookie at covering his tracks, but the follow-up argument is a no-brainer: "Halliburton is involved, too! The Los Angeles Times reports that BP contracted Dick Cheney's old company to cement the deepwater drill hole." In short, Pareene writes, "Thanks, Dick. Nice work."
=================
There is no verbal hyperbole sufficient to express the magnitude of
the environmental catastrophe now known as Deepwater Horizon. It is
nothing short of an Armageddon of Oil. Assuming we even survive this
one, we must immediately mobilize a crash program for truly renewable
alternative energy resources.
Action Page: http://www.peaceteam.net/action/pnum1043.php
Despite the gusher of lies we've heard trying to minimize the
planetary scale disaster now in progress in the Gulf, the terrifying
truth is available for those who will hear it. First they told us the
"leak" was only 1,000 barrels a day, when in fact it is at least 5
times that much. Of course it's hard to pretend an oil slick the size
of New Jersey isn't there. And it could easily blow out to 50,000
barrels a day (2,000,000 gallons) in a heartbeat, according to a "not
for public" NOAA emergency report.
This is not just a leak, it's a monster underwater oil geyser, under
upwards of 100,000 pounds per square inch of pressure, enough force
to lift 50 tons with your thumb. And unless it is somehow stopped, it
may spell the end of all marine life on the planet. We are not
talking about just one Exxon Valdez size tanker spill, we are talking
about one of largest oil fields ever discovered completely venting
its entire contents into the ocean, thousands and thousands of
tankers. It's THAT cataclysmic.
But assuming we miraculously dodge the literal end of the world this
one time, we need to finally do what should have been done 20 years
ago, and throw everything we've got into a crash program for
alternative renewable energy, and stop burning fossil fuels before
they kill us all.
Action Page: http://www.peaceteam.net/action/pnum1043.php
And after you submit the action page, please consider picking up one
of the timely "350 ppm or catastrophe" caps from the return page,
emphasizing the urgency of immediately reducing worldwide carbon
dioxide emissions. It is not as if we have not had every warning
already. Or you can get one directly from this page.
350 PPM Or Catastrophe Caps:
http://www.peaceteam.net/message_items.php
It should have been done twenty years ago. Stop all new oil
exploration. Forget about insanely expensive nuclear plants. End
immediately the lunatic military occupations that have cost us
trillions. And put everything we've got into an all out push to
develop and bring on line truly renewable alternative energy sources.
The burning of fossil fuels was already slowly killing the planet,
causing inexorable rises in greenhouse gas levels that have done
nothing but accelerate, despite the rampant disinformation campaign
waged by oil industry toadies pretending to be real scientists. Now
unless we find some way to stop the venting of the entire contents of
a gigantic oil field in the Gulf, under 100,000 pounds per square
inch of pressure, we may be looking at the end of all marine life on
this planet. We have literally punched a hole into hell.
Please add whatever personal comments of your own you like, and
emphasize it is time for our politicians to stop serving only oil
company and nuclear lobbyists paying the off to continue to pursue
bad energy policy, but to start doing something to save our country
and our world instead.
And here is the Facebook link for the Crash Alternative Energy action
page further above.
[Facebook] Action Page:
http://apps.facebook.com/fb_voices/action.php?qnum=pnum1043
And this is the Twitter reply for this same action
@cxs #p1043
Please take action NOW, so we can win all victories that are supposed
to be ours, and forward this alert as widely as possible.
If you would like to get alerts like these, you can do so at
http://www.usalone.com/in.htm
Or if you want to cease receiving our messages, just use the function
at http://www.usalone.com/out.htm
How the U.S. can start creating jobs, start by eliminating Nuclear weapons
The Cost of Nuclear Weapons
The Costs of nuclear weapons programs is enormous and for every dollar invested in advanced weapon systems a dollar less is invested in health, education, social welfare and development.
It has been argued that nuclear weapons are cost-effective because they provided more explosive power than conventional weapons. Today that is not completely true. We have extremely powerful and advanced conventional weapons today as it was demonstrated in Afghanistan and Iraq. The argument leaves out of consideration whether the extreme explosive power of a nuclear weapon is really needed. It leaves out of consideration the immense destruction of society and the environment and the unjustifiable loss of civilian lives.
The US has spent more than 5.5 trillion $ in developing their nuclear arsenal and France has spent about 1.5 trillion $. And these numbers do not include the costs of testing, fissile material production, storage and disposal. The costs for other nuclear weapon states are probably similar, but those numbers are not publicly available.
To put this into perspective the price of global elimination of starvation, provision of health care, provision of shelter and clean water, elimination of illiteracy, provision of sustainable energy, debt relief for developing countries, clearance of landmines and more has been estimated to be about 260 billion $ annually for 10 years.
The costs of disarmament can be very high as well and some nuclear weapon states, like Russia, find it hard to meet the costs to disarm, dismantle and dispose of nuclear weapons. However there is no doubt that in the long run it will be more cost-efficient to disarm globally than to maintain current nuclear arsenals. It costs a lot of money to simply store, transport and maintain nuclear weapons. It costs much more to develop new weapons and as long as nuclear weapons exist, history has showed that new weapons will be developed.
The Costs of nuclear weapons programs is enormous and for every dollar invested in advanced weapon systems a dollar less is invested in health, education, social welfare and development.
It has been argued that nuclear weapons are cost-effective because they provided more explosive power than conventional weapons. Today that is not completely true. We have extremely powerful and advanced conventional weapons today as it was demonstrated in Afghanistan and Iraq. The argument leaves out of consideration whether the extreme explosive power of a nuclear weapon is really needed. It leaves out of consideration the immense destruction of society and the environment and the unjustifiable loss of civilian lives.
The US has spent more than 5.5 trillion $ in developing their nuclear arsenal and France has spent about 1.5 trillion $. And these numbers do not include the costs of testing, fissile material production, storage and disposal. The costs for other nuclear weapon states are probably similar, but those numbers are not publicly available.
To put this into perspective the price of global elimination of starvation, provision of health care, provision of shelter and clean water, elimination of illiteracy, provision of sustainable energy, debt relief for developing countries, clearance of landmines and more has been estimated to be about 260 billion $ annually for 10 years.
The costs of disarmament can be very high as well and some nuclear weapon states, like Russia, find it hard to meet the costs to disarm, dismantle and dispose of nuclear weapons. However there is no doubt that in the long run it will be more cost-efficient to disarm globally than to maintain current nuclear arsenals. It costs a lot of money to simply store, transport and maintain nuclear weapons. It costs much more to develop new weapons and as long as nuclear weapons exist, history has showed that new weapons will be developed.
Give up the nukes?
Give up the nukes?
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu made a mistake in not attending the International Nuclear Summit in Washington earlier this month. Not only should he have attended, but he should have also dropped this (pardon the pun) bombshell: “Israel is now prepared to sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.” That, of course, would lead to a reverse in the decades’ long policy of obfuscation about our nuclear program, admitting publicly for the first time what everyone already knows.
Netanyahu should not have stopped there. He should also have seized the opportunity – and the world’s stage – to declare Israel’s willingness to not only open up its nuclear facilities for inspection, but also a desire to reduce, and eventually completely decommission, our entire nuclear arsenal.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu made a mistake in not attending the International Nuclear Summit in Washington earlier this month. Not only should he have attended, but he should have also dropped this (pardon the pun) bombshell: “Israel is now prepared to sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.” That, of course, would lead to a reverse in the decades’ long policy of obfuscation about our nuclear program, admitting publicly for the first time what everyone already knows.
Netanyahu should not have stopped there. He should also have seized the opportunity – and the world’s stage – to declare Israel’s willingness to not only open up its nuclear facilities for inspection, but also a desire to reduce, and eventually completely decommission, our entire nuclear arsenal.
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Quality of life in U.S. versus other developed countries
America - The Grim Truth
By Lance Freeman
Information Clearing House
5-2-10
Americans, I have some bad news for you:
You have the worst quality of life in the developed world by a wide margin.
If you had any idea of how people really lived in Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and many parts of Asia, you'd be rioting in the streets calling for a better life. In fact, the average Australian or Singaporean taxi driver has a much better standard of living than the typical American white-collar worker.
I know this because I am an American, and I escaped from the prison you call home.
I have lived all around the world, in wealthy countries and poor ones, and there is only one country I would never consider living in again: The United States of America. The mere thought of it fills me with dread.
Consider this: you are the only people in the developed world without a single-payer health system. Everyone in Western Europe, Japan, Canada, Australia, Singapore and New Zealand has a single-payer system. If they get sick, they can devote all their energies to getting well. If you get sick, you have to battle two things at once: your illness and the fear of financial ruin. Millions of Americans go bankrupt every year due to medical bills, and tens of thousands die each year because they have no insurance or insufficient insurance. And don't believe for a second that rot about America having the world's best medical care or the shortest waiting lists: I've been to hospitals in Australia, New Zealand, Europe, Singapore, and Thailand, and every one was better than the "good" hospital I used to go to back home. The waits were shorter, the facilities more comfortable, and the doctors just as good.
This is ironic, because you need a good health system more than anyone else in the world. Why? Because your lifestyle is almost designed to make you sick.
Let's start with your diet: Much of the beef you eat has been exposed to fecal matter in processing. Your chicken is contaminated with salmonella. Your stock animals and poultry are pumped full of growth hormones and antibiotics. In most other countries, the government would act to protect consumers from this sort of thing; in the United States, the government is bought off by industry to prevent any effective regulations or inspections. In a few years, the majority of all the produce for sale in the United States will be from genetically modified crops, thanks to the cozy relationship between Monsanto Corporation and the United States government. Worse still, due to the vast quantities of high-fructose corn syrup Americans consume, fully one-third of children born in the United States today will be diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes at some point in their lives.
Of course, it's not just the food that's killing you, it's the drugs. If you show any sign of life when you're young, they'll put you on Ritalin. Then, when you get old enough to take a good look around, you'll get depressed, so they'll give you Prozac. If you're a man, this will render you chemically impotent, so you'll need Viagra to get it up. Meanwhile, your steady diet of trans-fat-laden food is guaranteed to give you high cholesterol, so you'll get a prescription for Lipitor. Finally, at the end of the day, you'll lay awake at night worrying about losing your health plan, so you'll need Lunesta to go to sleep.
With a diet guaranteed to make you sick and a health system designed to make sure you stay that way, what you really need is a long vacation somewhere. Unfortunately, you probably can't take one. I'll let you in on little secret: if you go to the beaches of Thailand, the mountains of Nepal, or the coral reefs of Australia, you'll probably be the only American in sight. And you'll be surrounded crowds of happy Germans, French, Italians, Israelis, Scandinavians and wealthy Asians. Why? Because they're paid well enough to afford to visit these places AND they can take vacations long enough to do so. Even if you could scrape together enough money to go to one of these incredible places, by the time you recovered from your jetlag, it would time to get on a plane and rush back to your job.
If you think I'm making this up, check the stats on average annual vacation days by country:
Finland: 44
Italy: 42
France: 39
Germany: 35
UK: 25
Japan: 18
USA: 12
The fact is, they work you like dogs in the United States. This should come as no surprise: the United States never got away from the plantation/sweat shop labor model and any real labor movement was brutally suppressed. Unless you happen to be a member of the ownership class, your options are pretty much limited to barely surviving on service-sector wages or playing musical chairs for a spot in a cubicle (a spot that will be outsourced to India next week anyway). The very best you can hope for is to get a professional degree and then milk the system for a slice of the middle-class pie. And even those who claw their way into the middle class are but one illness or job loss away from poverty. Your jobs aren't secure. Your company has no loyalty to you. They'll play you off against your coworkers for as long as it suits them, then they'll get rid of you.
Of course, you don't have any choice in the matter: the system is designed this way. In most countries in the developed world, higher education is either free or heavily subsidized; in the United States, a university degree can set you back over US$100,000. Thus, you enter the working world with a crushing debt. Forget about taking a year off to travel the world and find yourself you've got to start working or watch your credit rating plummet.
If you're "lucky," you might even land a job good enough to qualify you for a home loan. And then you'll spend half your working life just paying the interest on the loan welcome to the world of American debt slavery. America has the illusion of great wealth because there's a lot of "stuff" around, but who really owns it? In real terms, the average American is poorer than the poorest ghetto dweller in Manila, because at least they have no debts. If they want to pack up and leave, they can; if you want to leave, you can't, because you've got debts to pay.
All this begs the question: Why would anyone put up with this? Ask any American and you'll get the same answer: because America is the freest country on earth. If you believe this, I've got some more bad news for you: America is actually among the least free countries on earth. Your piss is tested, your emails and phone calls are monitored, your medical records are gathered, and you are never more than one stray comment away from writhing on the ground with two Taser prongs in your ass.
And that's just physical freedom. Mentally, you are truly imprisoned. You don't even know the degree to which you are tormented by fears of medical bankruptcy, job loss, homelessness and violent crime because you've never lived in a country where there is no need to worry about such things.
But it goes much deeper than mere surveillance and anxiety. The fact is, you are not free because your country has been taken over and occupied by another government. Fully 70% of your tax dollars go to the Pentagon, and the Pentagon is the real government of the United States. You are required under pain of death to pay taxes to this occupying government. If you're from the less fortunate classes, you are also required to serve and die in their endless wars, or send your sons and daughters to do so. You have no choice in the matter: there is a socio-economic draft system in the United States that provides a steady stream of cannon fodder for the military.
If you call a life of surveillance, anxiety and ceaseless toil in the service of a government you didn't elect "freedom," then you and I have a very different idea of what that word means.
If there was some chance that the country could be changed, there might be reason for hope. But can you honestly look around and conclude that anything is going to change? Where would the change come from? The people? Take a good look at your compatriots: the working class in the United States has been brutally propagandized by jackals like Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity. Members of the working class have been taught to lick the boots of their masters and then bend over for another kick in the ass. They've got these people so well trained that they'll take up arms against the other half of the working class as soon as their masters give the word.
If the people cannot make a change, how about the media? Not a chance. From Fox News to the New York Times, the mass media in the United States is nothing but the public relations wing of the corporatocracy, primarily the military industrial complex. At least the citizens of the former Soviet Union knew that their news was bullshit. In America, you grow up thinking you've got a free media, which makes the propaganda doubly effective. If you don't think American media is mere corporate propaganda, ask yourself the following question: have you ever heard a major American news outlet suggest that the country could fund a single-payer health system by cutting military spending?
If change can't come from the people or the media, the only other potential source of change would be the politicians. Unfortunately, the American political process is among the most corrupt in the world. In every country on earth, one expects politicians to take bribes from the rich. But this generally happens in secret, behind the closed doors of their elite clubs. In the United States, this sort of political corruption is done in broad daylight, as part of legal, accepted, standard operating procedure. In the United States, they merely call these bribes campaign donations, political action committees and lobbyists. One can no more expect the politicians to change this system than one can expect a man to take an axe and chop his own legs out from underneath him.
No, the United States of America is not going to change for the better. The only change will be for the worse. And when I say worse, I mean much worse. As we speak, the economic system that sustained the country during the post-war years is collapsing. The United States maxed out its "credit card" sometime in 2008 and now its lenders, starting with China, are in the process of laying the foundations for a new monetary system to replace the Anglo-American "petro-dollar" system. As soon as there is a viable alternative to the US dollar, the greenback will sink like a stone.
While the United States was running up crushing levels of debt, it was also busy shipping its manufacturing jobs and white-collar jobs overseas, and letting its infrastructure fall to pieces. Meanwhile, Asian and European countries were investing in education, infrastructure and raw materials. Even if the United States tried to rebuild a real economy (as opposed to a service/financial economy) do think American workers would ever be able to compete with the workers of China or Europe? Have you ever seen a Japanese or German factory? Have you ever met a Singaporean or Chinese worker?
There are only two possible futures facing the United States, and neither one is pretty. The best case is a slow but orderly decline essentially a continuation of what's been happening for the last two decades. Wages will drop, unemployment will rise, Medicare and Social Security benefits will be slashed, the currency will decline in value, and the disparity of wealth will spiral out of control until the United States starts to resemble Mexico or the Philippines tiny islands of wealth surrounded by great poverty (the country is already halfway there).
Equally likely is a sudden collapse, perhaps brought about by a rapid flight from the US dollar by creditor nations like China, Japan, Korea and the OPEC nations. A related possibility would be a default by the United States government on its vast debt. One look at the financial balance sheet of the US government should convince you how likely this is: governmental spending is skyrocketing and tax receipts are plummeting something has to give. If either of these scenarios plays out, the resulting depression will make the present recession look like a walk in the park.
Whether the collapse is gradual or gut-wrenchingly sudden, the results will be chaos, civil strife and fascism. Let's face it: the United States is like the former Yugoslavia a collection of mutually antagonistic cultures united in name only. You've got your own version of the Taliban: right-wing Christian fundamentalists who actively loathe the idea of secular Constitutional government. You've got a vast intellectual underclass that has spent the last few decades soaking up Fox News and talk radio propaganda, eager to blame the collapse on Democrats, gays and immigrants. You've got a ruthless ownership class that will use all the means at its disposal to protect its wealth from the starving masses.
On top of all that you've got vast factory farms, sprawling suburbs and a truck-based shipping system, all of it entirely dependent on oil that is about to become completely unaffordable. And you've got guns. Lots of guns. In short: the United States is about to become a very unwholesome place to be.
Right now, the government is building fences and walls along its northern and southern borders. Right now, the government is working on a national ID system (soon to be fitted with biometric features). Right now, the government is building a surveillance state so extensive that they will be able to follow your every move, online, in the street and across borders. If you think this is just to protect you from "terrorists," then you're sadly mistaken. Once the shit really hits the fan, do you really think you'll just be able to jump into the old station wagon, drive across the Canadian border and spend the rest of your days fishing and drinking Molson? No, the government is going to lock the place down. They don't want their tax base escaping. They don't want their "recruits" escaping. They don't want YOU escaping.
I am not writing this to scare you. I write this to you as a friend. If you are able to read and understand what I've written here, then you are a member of a small minority in the United States. You are a minority in a country that has no place for you.
So what should you do?
You should leave the United States of America.
If you're young, you've got plenty of choices: you can teach English in the Middle East, Asia or Europe. Or you can go to university or graduate school abroad and start building skills that will qualify you for a work visa. If you've already got some real work skills, you can apply to emigrate to any number of countries as a skilled immigrant. If you are older and you've got some savings, you can retire to a place like Costa Rica or the Philippines. If you can't qualify for a work, student or retirement visa, don't let that stop you travel on a tourist visa to a country that appeals to you and talk to the expats you meet there. Whatever you do, go speak to an immigration lawyer as soon as you can. Find out exactly how to get on a path that will lead to permanent residence and eventually citizenship in the country of your choice.
You will not be alone. There are millions of Americans just like me living outside the United States. Living lives much more fulfilling, peaceful, free and abundant than we ever could have attained back home. Some of us happened upon these lives by accident we tried a year abroad and found that we liked it others made a conscious decision to pack up and leave for good. You'll find us in Canada, all over Europe, in many parts of Asia, in Australia and New Zealand, and in most other countries of the globe. Do we miss our friends and family? Yes. Do we occasionally miss aspects of our former country? Yes. Do we plan on ever living again in the United States? Never. And those of us with permanent residence or citizenship can sponsor family members from back home for long-term visas in our adopted countries.
In closing, I want to remind you of something: unless you are an American Indian or a descendant of slaves, at some point your ancestors chose to leave their homeland in search of a better life. They weren't traitors and they weren't bad people, they just wanted a better life for themselves and their families. Isn't it time that you continue their journey?
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info
By Lance Freeman
Information Clearing House
5-2-10
Americans, I have some bad news for you:
You have the worst quality of life in the developed world by a wide margin.
If you had any idea of how people really lived in Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and many parts of Asia, you'd be rioting in the streets calling for a better life. In fact, the average Australian or Singaporean taxi driver has a much better standard of living than the typical American white-collar worker.
I know this because I am an American, and I escaped from the prison you call home.
I have lived all around the world, in wealthy countries and poor ones, and there is only one country I would never consider living in again: The United States of America. The mere thought of it fills me with dread.
Consider this: you are the only people in the developed world without a single-payer health system. Everyone in Western Europe, Japan, Canada, Australia, Singapore and New Zealand has a single-payer system. If they get sick, they can devote all their energies to getting well. If you get sick, you have to battle two things at once: your illness and the fear of financial ruin. Millions of Americans go bankrupt every year due to medical bills, and tens of thousands die each year because they have no insurance or insufficient insurance. And don't believe for a second that rot about America having the world's best medical care or the shortest waiting lists: I've been to hospitals in Australia, New Zealand, Europe, Singapore, and Thailand, and every one was better than the "good" hospital I used to go to back home. The waits were shorter, the facilities more comfortable, and the doctors just as good.
This is ironic, because you need a good health system more than anyone else in the world. Why? Because your lifestyle is almost designed to make you sick.
Let's start with your diet: Much of the beef you eat has been exposed to fecal matter in processing. Your chicken is contaminated with salmonella. Your stock animals and poultry are pumped full of growth hormones and antibiotics. In most other countries, the government would act to protect consumers from this sort of thing; in the United States, the government is bought off by industry to prevent any effective regulations or inspections. In a few years, the majority of all the produce for sale in the United States will be from genetically modified crops, thanks to the cozy relationship between Monsanto Corporation and the United States government. Worse still, due to the vast quantities of high-fructose corn syrup Americans consume, fully one-third of children born in the United States today will be diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes at some point in their lives.
Of course, it's not just the food that's killing you, it's the drugs. If you show any sign of life when you're young, they'll put you on Ritalin. Then, when you get old enough to take a good look around, you'll get depressed, so they'll give you Prozac. If you're a man, this will render you chemically impotent, so you'll need Viagra to get it up. Meanwhile, your steady diet of trans-fat-laden food is guaranteed to give you high cholesterol, so you'll get a prescription for Lipitor. Finally, at the end of the day, you'll lay awake at night worrying about losing your health plan, so you'll need Lunesta to go to sleep.
With a diet guaranteed to make you sick and a health system designed to make sure you stay that way, what you really need is a long vacation somewhere. Unfortunately, you probably can't take one. I'll let you in on little secret: if you go to the beaches of Thailand, the mountains of Nepal, or the coral reefs of Australia, you'll probably be the only American in sight. And you'll be surrounded crowds of happy Germans, French, Italians, Israelis, Scandinavians and wealthy Asians. Why? Because they're paid well enough to afford to visit these places AND they can take vacations long enough to do so. Even if you could scrape together enough money to go to one of these incredible places, by the time you recovered from your jetlag, it would time to get on a plane and rush back to your job.
If you think I'm making this up, check the stats on average annual vacation days by country:
Finland: 44
Italy: 42
France: 39
Germany: 35
UK: 25
Japan: 18
USA: 12
The fact is, they work you like dogs in the United States. This should come as no surprise: the United States never got away from the plantation/sweat shop labor model and any real labor movement was brutally suppressed. Unless you happen to be a member of the ownership class, your options are pretty much limited to barely surviving on service-sector wages or playing musical chairs for a spot in a cubicle (a spot that will be outsourced to India next week anyway). The very best you can hope for is to get a professional degree and then milk the system for a slice of the middle-class pie. And even those who claw their way into the middle class are but one illness or job loss away from poverty. Your jobs aren't secure. Your company has no loyalty to you. They'll play you off against your coworkers for as long as it suits them, then they'll get rid of you.
Of course, you don't have any choice in the matter: the system is designed this way. In most countries in the developed world, higher education is either free or heavily subsidized; in the United States, a university degree can set you back over US$100,000. Thus, you enter the working world with a crushing debt. Forget about taking a year off to travel the world and find yourself you've got to start working or watch your credit rating plummet.
If you're "lucky," you might even land a job good enough to qualify you for a home loan. And then you'll spend half your working life just paying the interest on the loan welcome to the world of American debt slavery. America has the illusion of great wealth because there's a lot of "stuff" around, but who really owns it? In real terms, the average American is poorer than the poorest ghetto dweller in Manila, because at least they have no debts. If they want to pack up and leave, they can; if you want to leave, you can't, because you've got debts to pay.
All this begs the question: Why would anyone put up with this? Ask any American and you'll get the same answer: because America is the freest country on earth. If you believe this, I've got some more bad news for you: America is actually among the least free countries on earth. Your piss is tested, your emails and phone calls are monitored, your medical records are gathered, and you are never more than one stray comment away from writhing on the ground with two Taser prongs in your ass.
And that's just physical freedom. Mentally, you are truly imprisoned. You don't even know the degree to which you are tormented by fears of medical bankruptcy, job loss, homelessness and violent crime because you've never lived in a country where there is no need to worry about such things.
But it goes much deeper than mere surveillance and anxiety. The fact is, you are not free because your country has been taken over and occupied by another government. Fully 70% of your tax dollars go to the Pentagon, and the Pentagon is the real government of the United States. You are required under pain of death to pay taxes to this occupying government. If you're from the less fortunate classes, you are also required to serve and die in their endless wars, or send your sons and daughters to do so. You have no choice in the matter: there is a socio-economic draft system in the United States that provides a steady stream of cannon fodder for the military.
If you call a life of surveillance, anxiety and ceaseless toil in the service of a government you didn't elect "freedom," then you and I have a very different idea of what that word means.
If there was some chance that the country could be changed, there might be reason for hope. But can you honestly look around and conclude that anything is going to change? Where would the change come from? The people? Take a good look at your compatriots: the working class in the United States has been brutally propagandized by jackals like Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity. Members of the working class have been taught to lick the boots of their masters and then bend over for another kick in the ass. They've got these people so well trained that they'll take up arms against the other half of the working class as soon as their masters give the word.
If the people cannot make a change, how about the media? Not a chance. From Fox News to the New York Times, the mass media in the United States is nothing but the public relations wing of the corporatocracy, primarily the military industrial complex. At least the citizens of the former Soviet Union knew that their news was bullshit. In America, you grow up thinking you've got a free media, which makes the propaganda doubly effective. If you don't think American media is mere corporate propaganda, ask yourself the following question: have you ever heard a major American news outlet suggest that the country could fund a single-payer health system by cutting military spending?
If change can't come from the people or the media, the only other potential source of change would be the politicians. Unfortunately, the American political process is among the most corrupt in the world. In every country on earth, one expects politicians to take bribes from the rich. But this generally happens in secret, behind the closed doors of their elite clubs. In the United States, this sort of political corruption is done in broad daylight, as part of legal, accepted, standard operating procedure. In the United States, they merely call these bribes campaign donations, political action committees and lobbyists. One can no more expect the politicians to change this system than one can expect a man to take an axe and chop his own legs out from underneath him.
No, the United States of America is not going to change for the better. The only change will be for the worse. And when I say worse, I mean much worse. As we speak, the economic system that sustained the country during the post-war years is collapsing. The United States maxed out its "credit card" sometime in 2008 and now its lenders, starting with China, are in the process of laying the foundations for a new monetary system to replace the Anglo-American "petro-dollar" system. As soon as there is a viable alternative to the US dollar, the greenback will sink like a stone.
While the United States was running up crushing levels of debt, it was also busy shipping its manufacturing jobs and white-collar jobs overseas, and letting its infrastructure fall to pieces. Meanwhile, Asian and European countries were investing in education, infrastructure and raw materials. Even if the United States tried to rebuild a real economy (as opposed to a service/financial economy) do think American workers would ever be able to compete with the workers of China or Europe? Have you ever seen a Japanese or German factory? Have you ever met a Singaporean or Chinese worker?
There are only two possible futures facing the United States, and neither one is pretty. The best case is a slow but orderly decline essentially a continuation of what's been happening for the last two decades. Wages will drop, unemployment will rise, Medicare and Social Security benefits will be slashed, the currency will decline in value, and the disparity of wealth will spiral out of control until the United States starts to resemble Mexico or the Philippines tiny islands of wealth surrounded by great poverty (the country is already halfway there).
Equally likely is a sudden collapse, perhaps brought about by a rapid flight from the US dollar by creditor nations like China, Japan, Korea and the OPEC nations. A related possibility would be a default by the United States government on its vast debt. One look at the financial balance sheet of the US government should convince you how likely this is: governmental spending is skyrocketing and tax receipts are plummeting something has to give. If either of these scenarios plays out, the resulting depression will make the present recession look like a walk in the park.
Whether the collapse is gradual or gut-wrenchingly sudden, the results will be chaos, civil strife and fascism. Let's face it: the United States is like the former Yugoslavia a collection of mutually antagonistic cultures united in name only. You've got your own version of the Taliban: right-wing Christian fundamentalists who actively loathe the idea of secular Constitutional government. You've got a vast intellectual underclass that has spent the last few decades soaking up Fox News and talk radio propaganda, eager to blame the collapse on Democrats, gays and immigrants. You've got a ruthless ownership class that will use all the means at its disposal to protect its wealth from the starving masses.
On top of all that you've got vast factory farms, sprawling suburbs and a truck-based shipping system, all of it entirely dependent on oil that is about to become completely unaffordable. And you've got guns. Lots of guns. In short: the United States is about to become a very unwholesome place to be.
Right now, the government is building fences and walls along its northern and southern borders. Right now, the government is working on a national ID system (soon to be fitted with biometric features). Right now, the government is building a surveillance state so extensive that they will be able to follow your every move, online, in the street and across borders. If you think this is just to protect you from "terrorists," then you're sadly mistaken. Once the shit really hits the fan, do you really think you'll just be able to jump into the old station wagon, drive across the Canadian border and spend the rest of your days fishing and drinking Molson? No, the government is going to lock the place down. They don't want their tax base escaping. They don't want their "recruits" escaping. They don't want YOU escaping.
I am not writing this to scare you. I write this to you as a friend. If you are able to read and understand what I've written here, then you are a member of a small minority in the United States. You are a minority in a country that has no place for you.
So what should you do?
You should leave the United States of America.
If you're young, you've got plenty of choices: you can teach English in the Middle East, Asia or Europe. Or you can go to university or graduate school abroad and start building skills that will qualify you for a work visa. If you've already got some real work skills, you can apply to emigrate to any number of countries as a skilled immigrant. If you are older and you've got some savings, you can retire to a place like Costa Rica or the Philippines. If you can't qualify for a work, student or retirement visa, don't let that stop you travel on a tourist visa to a country that appeals to you and talk to the expats you meet there. Whatever you do, go speak to an immigration lawyer as soon as you can. Find out exactly how to get on a path that will lead to permanent residence and eventually citizenship in the country of your choice.
You will not be alone. There are millions of Americans just like me living outside the United States. Living lives much more fulfilling, peaceful, free and abundant than we ever could have attained back home. Some of us happened upon these lives by accident we tried a year abroad and found that we liked it others made a conscious decision to pack up and leave for good. You'll find us in Canada, all over Europe, in many parts of Asia, in Australia and New Zealand, and in most other countries of the globe. Do we miss our friends and family? Yes. Do we occasionally miss aspects of our former country? Yes. Do we plan on ever living again in the United States? Never. And those of us with permanent residence or citizenship can sponsor family members from back home for long-term visas in our adopted countries.
In closing, I want to remind you of something: unless you are an American Indian or a descendant of slaves, at some point your ancestors chose to leave their homeland in search of a better life. They weren't traitors and they weren't bad people, they just wanted a better life for themselves and their families. Isn't it time that you continue their journey?
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info
Why is this still happening when our U.S. infrastructure is failing?
Pentagon Doles Out Sweetheart Deals for Wartime Supplies
By Nathan Hodge April 29, 2010 | 12:38 pm | Categories: Af/Pak
According to White House budget estimates, it costs roughly $1 million a year to support the deployment of a single soldier to Afghanistan. Ever wonder why it costs so much? Landlocked country, long supply lines, poor infrastructure, yadda yadda. But how about another possible contributing factor: The reliance of the Pentagon’s main supply agency on no-bid contracts?
Newsweek’s stellar Declassified blog got the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) to fess up to awarding $1.4 billion in no-bid contracts to two shady foreign entities to supply aviation fuel to U.S. military bases in Kyrgyzstan and Afghanistan. In a statement to Declassified, DLA confirmed that it had awarded contracts to two firms, Mina Corp. and Red Star Enterprises, under federal procurement guidelines that allow “contracting without providing for full and open competition.”
That’s problematic for a number of reasons: For starters, allegations of crooked base supply deals helped lead to the violent overthrow of the government of Kyrgyzstan. And leaving aside the question of whether the United States deliberately turned a blind eye to corruption in a strategically located Central Asian state, let’s turn to another point: Why the hell is DLA awarding no-bid contracts on this scale?
It’s not just limited to fuel contracts. DLA, for instance, has also given major sole-source awards to Hesco Bastion, the U.K. firm that manufactures the ubiquitous sand-and-soil-filled perimeter defenses seen at U.S. bases throughout the Middle East and Central Asia. An Illinois company, Infrastructure Defense Technologies, recently submitted a formal protest with the Government Accountability Office in a bid to overturn DLA’s most recent award to Hesco, claiming that the agency had unfairly given a monopoly on defensive barriers to Hesco.
It’s worth pointing out here that Infrastructure Defense Technologies unsuccessfully sued DLA in the Court of Federal Claims over the same issue. The website of the powerhouse law firm Patton Boggs, which successfully represented Hesco in the case, notes that the court ruled Hesco “was properly awarded the sole source contract because only the Hesco product could meet the government’s stated needs for the procurement.”
That’s essentially the same rationale that DLA offered to Declassified for its no-bid award to Red Star, described as ““the only company that had the capability to meet operational needs.”
But saying that doesn’t necessarily make it so. We’ve covered some dubious “sole-source” awards before — the procurement of Russian helicopters, for instance — and it’s easy to detect a pattern: In cases where the government grants someone an exclusive rather than seeking multiple quotes, it usually ends up paying a much higher price. Shortly after taking office, President Barack Obama vowed to limit no-bid contracts, saying that contracting overhaul could save taxpayers billions of dollars a year. One wonders if anything at all has changed.
[PHOTO: U.S. Department of Defense]
Read More http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/04/pentagon-doles-out-sweetheart-deals-for-wartime-supplies/#ixzz0moCdVgjI
By Nathan Hodge April 29, 2010 | 12:38 pm | Categories: Af/Pak
According to White House budget estimates, it costs roughly $1 million a year to support the deployment of a single soldier to Afghanistan. Ever wonder why it costs so much? Landlocked country, long supply lines, poor infrastructure, yadda yadda. But how about another possible contributing factor: The reliance of the Pentagon’s main supply agency on no-bid contracts?
Newsweek’s stellar Declassified blog got the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) to fess up to awarding $1.4 billion in no-bid contracts to two shady foreign entities to supply aviation fuel to U.S. military bases in Kyrgyzstan and Afghanistan. In a statement to Declassified, DLA confirmed that it had awarded contracts to two firms, Mina Corp. and Red Star Enterprises, under federal procurement guidelines that allow “contracting without providing for full and open competition.”
That’s problematic for a number of reasons: For starters, allegations of crooked base supply deals helped lead to the violent overthrow of the government of Kyrgyzstan. And leaving aside the question of whether the United States deliberately turned a blind eye to corruption in a strategically located Central Asian state, let’s turn to another point: Why the hell is DLA awarding no-bid contracts on this scale?
It’s not just limited to fuel contracts. DLA, for instance, has also given major sole-source awards to Hesco Bastion, the U.K. firm that manufactures the ubiquitous sand-and-soil-filled perimeter defenses seen at U.S. bases throughout the Middle East and Central Asia. An Illinois company, Infrastructure Defense Technologies, recently submitted a formal protest with the Government Accountability Office in a bid to overturn DLA’s most recent award to Hesco, claiming that the agency had unfairly given a monopoly on defensive barriers to Hesco.
It’s worth pointing out here that Infrastructure Defense Technologies unsuccessfully sued DLA in the Court of Federal Claims over the same issue. The website of the powerhouse law firm Patton Boggs, which successfully represented Hesco in the case, notes that the court ruled Hesco “was properly awarded the sole source contract because only the Hesco product could meet the government’s stated needs for the procurement.”
That’s essentially the same rationale that DLA offered to Declassified for its no-bid award to Red Star, described as ““the only company that had the capability to meet operational needs.”
But saying that doesn’t necessarily make it so. We’ve covered some dubious “sole-source” awards before — the procurement of Russian helicopters, for instance — and it’s easy to detect a pattern: In cases where the government grants someone an exclusive rather than seeking multiple quotes, it usually ends up paying a much higher price. Shortly after taking office, President Barack Obama vowed to limit no-bid contracts, saying that contracting overhaul could save taxpayers billions of dollars a year. One wonders if anything at all has changed.
[PHOTO: U.S. Department of Defense]
Read More http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/04/pentagon-doles-out-sweetheart-deals-for-wartime-supplies/#ixzz0moCdVgjI
Is this a man worth listening to?
"Your beliefs become your thoughts, Your thoughts become your words, Your words become your actions, Your actions become your habits, Your habits become your values, Your values become your destiny" Mahatma Gandhi
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