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The US and the Honduran coup by Alex Lantier

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Dandelion Salad

by Alex Lantier
http://www.wsws.org
1 July 2009

Washington’s criticisms of the June 28 military coup that ousted President Manuel Zelaya of Honduras lack any element of sincerity or historical truth. Washington is uneasy at the ouster of Zelaya, a conservative-turned-populist allied to Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, because it reveals all too clearly the character of US foreign policy.

President Barack Obama’s condemnation of Zelaya’s overthrow as a “terrible precedent” is belied by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s refusal to characterize it as a coup. Under US laws, such a designation would force the government to cut off tens of millions of dollars in aid to Honduras and its armed forces. Clinton also declined to call for Zelaya’s reinstatement, saying, “We haven’t laid out any demands that we’re insisting on, because we’re working with others on behalf of our ultimate objectives.”

Zelaya was overthrown because his populism was seen as a threat both to conservative sections of the bourgeoisie in Honduras and to US strategic interests in Latin America and the Caribbean.

[…]

via The US and the Honduran coup

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Clashes continue after the coup in Honduras

The Honduran coup: another US destabilization operation

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What is behind US-Taliban talks?

Dandelion Salad

by Alex Lantier
http://www.wsws.org
29 October 2008

Yesterday the Wall Street Journal reported on US plans to open direct negotiations with Taliban leaders in Afghanistan. The fact that the Journal, a conservative financial paper, broke the story shows that it was not a journalistic exposé, but a deliberate public declaration of a shift in state policy.

According to the Journal, “The US is actively considering talks with elements of the Taliban, the armed Islamist group that once ruled Afghanistan and sheltered al-Qaeda, in a major policy shift that would have been unthinkable a few months ago.” It reported that such talks were included in a “draft recommendation in a classified White House assessment of US strategy in Afghanistan.”

These plans seek to address a serious deterioration of the US position in Afghanistan. Violence has spread through the country and into neighboring tribal areas of Pakistan, whose US-backed government has been discredited by its acquiescence in US bombings and ground incursions into Pakistan against Taliban militants. The US war on the Taliban has also antagonized important US allies that helped the US organize the Taliban militias in the interests of US pipeline politics in the mid-1990s: the Saudi clerical establishment and Pakistan’s powerful military espionage agency, Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI).

[…]

via What is behind US-Taliban talks?

FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog may contain copyrighted material. Such material is made available for educational purposes, to advance understanding of human rights, democracy, scientific, moral, ethical, and social justice issues, etc. This constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

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The world food crisis and the capitalist market Part III

Dandelion Salad

By Alex Lantier
http://www.wsws.org
10 June 2008

This is the third and concluding part of a series of articles on the world food crisis. Part one was posted June 7. Part two appeared on June 9.

The current food crisis reflects not only financial events of recent years, but longer-term policies of world imperialism. Instead of allowing for a planned improvement of infrastructure and farming techniques, globalization on a capitalist basis has resulted in a restriction in many parts of the world of farm production. This has been carried out in order to lessen competition and prevent market gluts from harming the profit interests of the major powers.

One major aspect of imperialist policy was to limit farm production in the so-called “First World” to prevent sudden falls in world prices. In the US, this policy took the form of the federal government’s Conservation Reserve Program, first passed as part of the 1985 Food Security Act.

The program allows farmers to apply for payments of $50 per acre of land on which they do not plant crops. A nationwide limit of 180,000 square kilometers (about 10 percent of US arable land) was imposed on the program, later decreased to 130,000 square kilometers in 2007.

Though the bill was presented as a means of limiting soil erosion due to overplanting of ecologically vulnerable land, much of the fallow land registered under the project was not, in fact, vulnerable to erosion, but rather chosen by farmers on the basis of the price of the crops that could be grown on it. This was in line with the law’s stated objectives, which were “acreage reduction” and the maintenance of “target prices and price-support loans.”

…continued

see

The world food crisis and the capitalist market Part I

The world food crisis and the capitalist market Part II

The politics of food by Margarita Windisch

The way the world can feed itself

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The world food crisis and the capitalist market Part II

Dandelion Salad

By Alex Lantier
http://www.wsws.org
9 June 2008

This is the second part of a three-part series of articles on the world food crisis. Part one was posted June 7. The third and concluding part will be posted June 10.

The central problem underlying the current food crisis is not a physical lack of food, but rather its unaffordability for masses of people due to rapidly increasing prices. Among the immediate factors driving the rapid worsening of the food crisis, a major role is played by the explosion of speculative investment in basic commodities such as oil and grain, itself bound up with the difficulties facing US and world financial markets and the decline in the US dollar. Rampant speculation by hedge funds and other big market players has increased costs, encouraging private firms to further bid up prices in a competitive drive to amass as much profit as possible.

Official statistics disprove the assertion that there is not enough food for everyone. According to 2008 US Department of Agriculture figures, the average per capita consumption is 2,618 calories per day in developing countries and 3,348 in developed countries, compared with a recommended minimum of 2,100 calories. However, profound disparities in access to this food, stemming from poverty and social inequality, condemn many millions to hunger.

Time magazine quoted United Nations World Food Program official Josette Sheeran as saying, “We are seeing food on the shelves but people being unable to afford it.”

…continued

see

The world food crisis and the capitalist market Part I

FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog may contain copyrighted material. Such material is made available for educational purposes, to advance understanding of human rights, democracy, scientific, moral, ethical, and social justice issues, etc. This constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

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The world food crisis and the capitalist market Part I

Dandelion Salad

By Alex Lantier
http://www.wsws.org
7 June 2008

This is the first part of a three-part series of articles on the world food crisis. Part two will be posted June 9.

As the June 3-5 Conference on World Food Security of the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) began in Rome, FAO Director Jacques Diouf said of the explosion of food prices: “It is touching every country in the world. We have not only seen riots and people dying, but also a government toppled [in Haiti], and we know that many countries… could tilt to one way or the other depending on the discontent or satisfaction of their population.”

With these words, Diouf expressed the growing concern of governments and ruling elites internationally over the potentially revolutionary implications of the upward spiral of prices for basic food staples, which has already sparked a social and economic crisis of global dimensions. In recent months, strikes and demonstrations against rising food prices have occurred in many parts of the world. These initial struggles have exposed the contradiction between the elementary demand of the world’s masses for affordable food and the workings of the capitalist market.

Diouf called for donations of US$30 billion to be invested in world agriculture. Even were this sum to be allocated, it would not begin to address the sources of the current crisis, which lie in economic and political processes of privatization and price speculation that have unfolded over the past three decades and are bound up with the globalization of capitalist agriculture.

…continued

FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog may contain copyrighted material. Such material is made available for educational purposes, to advance understanding of human rights, democracy, scientific, moral, ethical, and social justice issues, etc. This constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

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Dow Chemical announces massive price increase

Dandelion Salad

By Alex Lantier
http://www.wsws.org
30 May 2008

Dow Chemical announced it would charge up to 20 percent more for its products on May 28, citing spiraling price increases for oil and other petrochemical inputs. This decision by Dow—a behemoth with $54 billion in 2007 sales spread throughout numerous consumer industries—is expected to substantially increase inflation, which is already increasing rapidly in the US and throughout the world, cutting into workers’ purchasing power.

Dow’s action will affect a huge array of basic materials and consumer items, including: plastics used in automobile components and shopping bags; propylene glycols used in antifreeze, coolants, solvents, cosmetics and pharmaceuticals; and acrylic acid-based products used in detergents, wastewater-treatment and disposable diapers.

The Wall Street Journal commented: “Over the past months, Dow and other chemical companies have been raising product prices to pass on higher raw-material costs to their customers, but the increases have been usually confined to one product or one region. The company’s decision to increase prices for all its products world-wide is nearly unprecedented.”

Dow’s price increase comes on the heels of announcements of planned price increases of 4-8 percent on a variety of consumer goods produced by companies such as Procter & Gamble and Kimberly-Clark, which are among Dow’s main clients. It appears that Dow is trying to position itself to claim a significant portion of the new revenue that will be generated by retailers and consumer goods makers as they jack up their prices.

…continued

FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog may contain copyrighted material. Such material is made available for educational purposes, to advance understanding of human rights, democracy, scientific, moral, ethical, and social justice issues, etc. This constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

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The New York Times and Washington’s new prison in Afghanistan

Dandelion Salad

By Alex Lantier
http://www.wsws.org
20 May 2008

On May 17 the New York Times reported on plans for a new, US-run prison complex at Bagram air base north of the Afghan capital, Kabul. The prison complex would occupy 40 acres on the base, house up to 1,100 prisoners, and cost more than $60 million to build. The complex will replace an existing prison, the Bagram Theater Internment Facility.

Military officials told the press they were concerned about the health effects on US troops stationed at the current Bagram facility, which is heavily contaminated with toxic heavy metals. They are unwilling to turn “dangerous” detainees over to the Afghan puppet government, however, and are planning on building a new prison, under direct US control.

The Times described the existing Bagram prison as overcrowded, with inadequate restroom and exercise facilities, and acknowledged that American guards had beaten several detainees to death there. Comparing conditions there to those at Guantánamo Bay, the US-run concentration camp in Cuba which has become notorious for its torture and arbitrary punishment of detainees, it reported: “Military personnel who know both Bagram and Guantánamo describe the Afghan site […] as far more Spartan. Bagram prisoners have fewer privileges, less ability to contest their detention and no access to lawyers.”

Starting with these horrible facts, the Times then took on a grotesquely Orwellian task: presenting the construction of the new prison as an exercise in humanitarianism.

Citing US military officials who told the Times the new prison would be would be “more modern and humane,” it continued: “Classrooms will be built for vocational training and religious discussion, and there will be more space for recreation and family visits, officials said. […] The structures will have more natural light, and each will have its own recreation area.”

It quoted a senior Pentagon official for detention policy, Sandra L. Hodgkinson: “The driving factor behind this is to ensure that in all instances we are giving the highest standards of treatment and care.”

One rubs one’s eyes in disbelief. US treatment of prisoners in Afghanistan has been distinguished, in fact, by its murderous brutality, from the very beginning of the US-led occupation.

…continued

h/t: The Man Common

FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog may contain copyrighted material. Such material is made available for educational purposes, to advance understanding of human rights, democracy, scientific, moral, ethical, and social justice issues, etc. This constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

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Bush Middle East trip highlights crisis of US policy

Dandelion Salad

By Alex Lantier
http://www.wsws.org
15 May 2008

President George W. Bush arrived in Israel yesterday for the first leg of his five-day tour of the Middle East, which will also take him to Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Bush strove to limit himself to pleasantries in public statements, but even they took on a clumsily ominous character in the face of a region increasingly destabilized by the US occupation of Iraq and Washington’s overall foreign policy.

Bush arrived in Tel Aviv amid the celebrations of the 60th anniversary of the founding of the state of Israel, a date that is known among Palestinians as “the catastrophe.” For the two days of Israeli festivities, the government of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert sealed the borders between Israel and the Palestinian territories, and Israeli forces on Wednesday attacked Palestinian protesters at several border checkpoints with tear gas.

After reiterating US support for Israel, Bush praised “60 years of democracy in Israel” and concluded, “What happened here is possible everywhere.” To millions of people around the world, watching the ongoing repression of the Palestinians and the bloody US-led occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan, Bush’s comment doubtless sounded more like a threat than a promise.

…continued

FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog may contain copyrighted material. Such material is made available for educational purposes, to advance understanding of human rights, democracy, scientific, moral, ethical, and social justice issues, etc. This constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

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Bush Addressing Israeli Parliament + Bush Compares Obama To Hitler Appeasers + Kerry & Biden

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In the wake of the Bear Stearns collapse – US Federal Reserve cuts interest rates again

Dandelion Salad

By Alex Lantier
wsws.org
19 March 2008

In a further move aimed at easing the credit crisis and propping up US banks, the Federal Reserve Board on Tuesday cut the federal funds rate, the key short-term interest rate, from 3 percent to 2.25 percent.

This is the Federal Reserve’s sixth rate cut since September of last year, slashing a full 3 percent from the target rate for short-term inter-bank loans. The Fed also cut the discount rate, the rate it charges banks for direct loans, from 3.25 percent to 2.5 percent.

Interest rate futures markets and many financial commentators had indicated they were expecting cuts of 1 percent in both the federal funds and discount rates. However, after a brief 150-point plunge following the Fed’s announcement, the stock market rallied sharply, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average closing at 12,391.52, up 419.27 points, or 3.5 per cent, for the day.

…continued

FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog may contain copyrighted material. Such material is made available for educational purposes, to advance understanding of human rights, democracy, scientific, moral, ethical, and social justice issues, etc. This constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

see

As Big Banks Fall: The Bear Has Fallen & the Bull is Gone + In Debt We Trust Trailer

The Collapse of American Power By Paul Craig Roberts