“On August 4, 2005 American Israel Political Affairs Committee (AIPAC) operatives Steven J. Rosen and Keith Weissman were arrested on charges relating to espionage on behalf of Israel.

This had a lot to do with Iran. It followed the arrest in May 2004 of Larry Franklin, the Pentagon’s top Iran analyst by the FBI after he had been caught turning over secret documents (including ones pertaining to Iran) to Israeli Embassy staffers including Mossad Station Chief Naor Gilon. . . .

You might suppose that Israeli intelligence officers would have intimate access to U.S. intelligence without resorting to espionage. According to retired Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski, Israeli officials didn’t even need to sign in when visiting Feith’s Office of Special Plans in the Pentagon when she worked there in 2002.This whole affair is testimony to the extraordinary concern of the Jewish state with Iran, with knowing whatever the U.S. knows about Iran’s nuclear program, and with influencing U.S. plans to ‘deal with’ Iran.” (Read more from counterpunch.org)

At first I struggled to understand everything Vandana Shiva was saying.

At about 7:30, she dismissed the idea of seeds being intellectual property. Regardless of whether or not I agree with her, I think she oversimplifies it. Monsanto genetically modified seeds to make them grow certain chemicals in them which kill harmful insects. So, there was some intellectual innovation. This issue is covered in today’s other post.

11:00 – The Austrian Economist in me cringeD when she suggests Monsanto’s seeds are causing crop failures, because I thought she was suggesting that government needs to keep farmers from using them? If the seeds are unproductive, the free market would remove them from use.

20:00 – Here and elsewhere she talks about the destructiveness of new technologies. I remained confused about this, as the free market would get rid of harmful technologies.

The first glimpse of evil I comes at 24:00, when she talks about an agreement between U.S. and Indian governments and Monsanto, but I’m confused again at 26:30. If organic farmers are 10x more productive, why are their neighbors still using Monsanto seeds? The free market is the best arbiter of ideas.

The heart of the problem finally becomes clear at 36:00. The Indian government seems to be preventing farmers from saving seeds. She says “there is no need for state regulation.” Okay. Now I’m with her. Like all regulation, the Indian government’s seed regulation is an attempt to eliminate competition for big companies, in this case Monsanto, by preventing farmers from saving seeds.

From 36:00 until she finishes her talk at 43:00, she speaks about seeds from a freedom perspective.

“If we don’t have seed for nutrition, we won’t have nutrition. If we don’t have seed for climate-resiliance, we won’t have climate-resiliance. And if we don’t have seend for freedom, we won’t have freedom.”

I lover her passion.

from translate.google.de

Trauma drives West’s denial of Iran’s genocidal anti-Semitism “The West is ignoring Iranian genocidal anti-Semitism due to a psychological ‘trauma model,’ according to an Israeli professor. . . . There is an ‘identification with the aggressor out of fear’ that the perpetrator will cause further harm, Lubin told The Jerusalem Post. This helps to explain why the Iranian ‘threat to annihilate Israel, which is very straightforward, very alarming, is ignored by the West,’ she said.” (Read more from jpost.com)

I wonder how this propagandist reconciles Iran’s “genocidal anti-Semitism” with the peaceful co-existence of 30,000 Jews in Iran.

Gingrich: Obama endangering the Jewish state “Former US House Speaker Newt Gingrich on Sunday blasted the Obama administration for setting itself on a collision course with Israel and endangering the Jewish state, ahead of his address to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).” (Read more from jpost.com)

“Motorola has sold a controversial unit that produced bomb fuses and other equipment for the Israeli military, according to the Israeli financial newspaper Globes. The sale rids Motorola of some activities that had made it the target of a growing boycott in the US and worldwide. No explanation was offered in the media reports for the sale by Motorola Israel — a wholly owned subsidiary of Motorola — of its unit called Government Electronics Department (GED) to the Israeli company Aeronautics Defense Systems Ltd.

The sale came just days after a 30 March protest in Brooklyn by The New York Campaign for the Boycott of Israel (NYCBI) kicking off a city-wide campaign to boycott Motorola over its support for Israeli apartheid.” (Read more from electronicintifada.net)

“George Galloway admits ‘it’s hard to see scientifically why both of the Towers fell down in the way that they did and it’s practically impossible for me to see how Building 7 could have fallen down in the way it did’” (Read more from indymedia.org.uk)

“The C.I.A. officers used waterboarding at least 83 times in August 2002 against Abu Zubaydah, according to a 2005 Justice Department legal memorandum. Abu Zubaydah has been described as a Qaeda operative.

A former C.I.A. officer, John Kiriakou, told ABC News and other news media organizations in 2007 that Abu Zubaydah had undergone waterboarding for only 35 seconds before agreeing to tell everything he knew.

The 2005 memo also says that the C.I.A. used waterboarding 183 times in March 2003 against Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the self-described planner of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. . . .

Mr. Obama said C.I.A. officers who had used waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods with the approval of the Justice Department would not be prosecuted. He has repeatedly suggested that he opposes Congressional proposals for a ‘truth commission’ to examine Bush administration counterterrorism programs, including interrogation and warrantless eavesdropping.” (Read more from nytimes.com)

Happy Mothers’ Day.

Aside from protecting the rights of parents to raise their kids, this bill attempts to stymie the other type of government “regulation,” the passing of laws which direct your money to a product or service some big soulless company wouldn’t be able to sell in a free market.

“The Bill is new, but the battle by Ron Paul against mandatory Mental Health Screening and the drugs used in our children is not. There are 5 co-sponsors to date. . . .

. . . the speech given by Ron Paul in the House of Representatives, April 30, 2009:

Madam Speaker, I rise to introduce the Parental Consent Act. This bill forbids Federal funds from being used for any universal or mandatory mental-health screening of students without the express, written, voluntary, informed consent of their parents or legal guardians. This bill protects the fundamental right of parents to direct and control the upbringing and education of their children.” (Read more from dailypaul.com)

Cartoon from 1934:

click for full-sized version

“The White House threatened to use the White House press corps to besmirch the reputation of one of the financial firms that holds Chrysler debt, according to a prominent New York bankruptcy lawyer. If true, the explosive charge shows that the White House was willing to go much further than is widely known to have its way in the attempt to restructure the Detriot automaker. . . .

Perella Weinberg had been one of the firms that was resisting the Obama administration’s plans for restructuring, alongside Stairway Capital and Oppenheimer Funds. The group had argued that their position as senior creditors gave them legal rights to be paid in full before junior creditors were paid. They had put forth a counter-offer under which they would have received far less than the face-value of the debt they held, but more than the Obama adminstration had proposed. This compromise deal was rejected by the administration, and the holdouts were characterized by the president himself as unwilling to make sacrifices for the common good.” (Read more from businessinsider.com)

If Chairman Obama insists on renegotiating the terms of loans “for the common good,” there will be many fewer loans.

This reminds of how Herbert Hoover called captains of industry to the White House and convinced them to “voluntarily” keep wages and prices high, thereby ensuring the highest unemployment America has ever seen (and wide-spread malnutrition).

Ron Paul asking Bernanke tough questions as he does here is nothing new:

Toward the end, Bernanke says he’d be open to provisions which limit the Fed’s secrecy. (Yeah, right.) He goes on to suggest they have oversight from the Inspector General. Well, lets see what Inspector General Elizabeth Coleman says when questioned by Rep. Alan Grayson:

Commentary from the Huffington Post article Fed Inspector General Knows Roughly Nothing About The Fed: Coleman could not tell Grayson what kind of losses the Fed has so far suffered on its $2 trillion portfolio, which has greatly expanded since September. She appeared unaware that the Fed engages in trillions of dollars in off-balance-sheet exchanges. She is not investigating the role of the Fed in allowing the collapse of Lehman Brothers. She did not know where the Fed has invested its $2 trillion on the liability side of the balance sheet. ‘I do not know. We have not looked at that specific area at this particular point on,’ she said.

Sounds like she doesn’t know much. Thank goodness we have the internet, so these criminals/useful idiots can be exposed for what they are.

There is some reason to be hopeful. Ron Paul’s HR 1207, the Federal Reserve Transparency Act now has over 120 co-sponsors. This level of support would have been unimaginable just a few years ago.