Archives

February, 2012

An All Time Environmental Low? Objectifying Women | Nature Conservancy Partners with Sports Illustrated

“The corporate greenie Nature Conservancy takes greenwash to an all-time low. Quite unprecedented even for an “enviro” outfit that partnered with Dow Chemical.” – Tin Alvarez, Ecological Activist, EcoJustice Pilipinas

Beaches, Babes, and Conservation: What’s Wrong With That?

2/9/2012

 by Keith Goetzman

 The Nature Conservancy is taking a new stripped-down approach to environmental protection: The green group is teaming up with the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue and online luxury retailer Gilt to raise money for beach preservation in an unholy mashup of sex, commerce, marketing, publishing, and environmentalism.

Why the green tie-in? “Because everyone benefits from pristine tropical beaches. Especially when they’re occupied by gorgeous women in bathing suits.” That’s according to promotional prose about the partnership on the Gilt website, in an announcement that is no longer posted. (Though you can still buy a $1,000 ticket to a New York launch party where you can hang out with the swimsuit supermodels.)

“Hope”- the Ultimate Distraction | Pink Ribbons, Inc. *Now Playing*

 

“WE’RE MISSING SOMETHING BIG”

 

“IF PEOPLE KNEW WHAT WAS HAPPENING, THEY WOULD BE REALLY PISSED OFF”

 

“WE HAVE TO BE AWARE OF THE LIES WE’RE BEING FED”

Note from editor: And not immune to the same phyops strategically embedded in all corporate funded “advocacy” straight across the board (think environmentalism, humanitarianism, poverty, anti-war movements, etc.), the pink ribbon campaign, “the war on cancer” has also strategically played, flourished and feasted on its victims vulnerabilities, emotions and trained passiveness. The afflicted (society as a whole), display systems of denial and complete blindness to the obvious, while the corporate machine simultaneously trains members of society to “be good citizens” by not voicing concerns or questioning the obvious. Rather, keep your mouth shut, smile and shell out some cash. If you don’t conform into this mindset, the silent yet very real framing of “shame on you, don’t you like women? don’t you love your Mother, your sister, your wife … your daughter???” closes in on one from all sides.

Synopsis: “Indignant and subversive, Pink Ribbons, Inc. (based on the book by Samantha King) resoundingly pops the shiny pink balloon of the breast cancer movement/industry, debunking the ‘comfortable lies’ and corporate double-talk that permeate the massive and thus-far-ineffectual campaign against a disease that claims nearly 60,000 lives each year in North America alone.”

For more information on this documentary film please visit the following websites:

http://tiff.net/filmsandschedules/tiff/2011/pinkribbonsinc

http://www.onf-nfb.gc.ca/eng/collection/film/?id=57943

Burzynski The Movie – Cancer Is Serious Business

By far, one of the most important films of the 21st century.

Watch the full film online:

Synopsis: Burzynski, the Movie is the story of a medical doctor and Ph.D biochemist named Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski who won the largest, and possibly the most convoluted and intriguing legal battle against the Food & Drug Administration in American history.

WHY ARE PRO-REGIME CHANGE LEFTIES IN THE LEADERSHIP OF THE ANTI-WAR MOVEMENT?

7 February 2012

Introduction by Sukant Chandan, Sons of Malcolm

This is a good article from ‘Socialist Action’ which outlines the latest developments with Syria in relation to the Arab League, the west and the UN.  Importantly it also focuses on a small group of people presenting themselves as leftists in the anti-war movement around a group – Counterfire – who were expelled/left the organisation called the ‘Socialist Workers Party’.

 The SWP heralded the lynching of Gadafi – which was facilitated by two nato air-strikes on Gadafi’s convoy – as something to be welcomed comparable to the killing of Italian fascist leader Mussolini. Obviously these people cannot get their heads around this, but to compare the death of the most important anti-imperialist leader of Africa and of the Global South of recent times with the leader of Italian colonialism, who colonised Libya wiping out a massive part of the Libyan population, just shows one how far from any understanding of the people of the Global South organisations like the swp are.

Agribusiness: The Corporations that Control Conservation [WWF, Conservation International, Nature Conservancy]

“So, who are the individuals guarding the mission of global conservation nonprofits? US-WWF boasts (literally) that its new vice-chair was the last CEO of Coca-Cola, Inc. (a member of Bonsucro) and that another board member is Charles O. Holliday Jr., the current chairman of the board of Bank of America, who was formerly CEO of DuPont (owner of Pioneer Hi-Bred International, a major player in the GMO industry). The current chair of the executive board at Conservation International, is Robert Walton, better known as chair of the board of WalMart (which now sells ‘sustainably sourced’ food and owns the supermarket chain ASDA). The boards of WWF and Conservation International do have more than a sprinkling of members with conservation-related careers. But they are heavily outnumbered by business representatives. On the board of Conservation International, for example, are GAP, Intel, Northrop Grumman, JP Morgan, Starbucks and UPS, among others.”

Way Beyond Greenwashing: Have Corporations Captured Big Conservation?

Beyond Greenwashing

by Jonathan Latham
Independent Science News

February 7, 2012

Imagine an international mega-deal. The global organic food industry agrees to support international agribusiness in clearing as much tropical rainforest as they want for farming. In return, agribusiness agrees to farm the now-deforested land using organic methods, and the organic industry encourages its supporters to buy the resulting timber and food under the newly devised “Rainforest Plus” label. There would surely be an international outcry.

Virtually unnoticed, however, even by their own membership, the world’s biggest wildlife conservation groups have agreed exactly to such a scenario, only in reverse. Led by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), many of the biggest conservation nonprofits including Conservation International and the Nature Conservancy have already agreed to a series of global bargains with international agribusiness. In exchange for vague promises of habitat protection, sustainability and social justice, these conservation groups are offering to greenwash industrial commodity agriculture.

U.S. Bribery: The Egyptians “are going to be told to lay off the (nonprofit groups) or the money (for military) won’t be forthcoming”

Editor’s note: Not surprising, US “aid” to Egypt benefits the US much more than Egypt on many levels. It would be completely self-defeating for the US to cut this “aid”, therefore they won’t. Regarding the military, this is also an empty threat as this “aid” is a subsidy to US defence contractors which gives them much leverage, access, etc. Besides, without this “aid”, Egypt would likely turn to China and Russia … you can almost smell Washington sweating. Special thanks to Dr. Maximilian C. Forte, Dept. of Sociology and Anthropology Concordia University for his comments and insight.

U.S. Gen. Dempsey heads to Egypt with relations on line

By NANCY A. YOUSSEF, JONATHAN S. LANDAY AND HANNAH ALLAM

McClatchy Newspapers

02.07.12

Source

WASHINGTON — With $1.3 billion in annual U.S. military aid and a three-decade relationship hanging in the balance, U.S. officials said Tuesday that Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, would travel to Egypt to press for the criminal charges against at least 16 American nonprofit workers to be dropped.

The visit later this week by the top U.S. military official likely represents the strongest leverage the United States has in its effort to get Egypt’s ruling generals to end a crackdown on American and Egyptian nonprofit groups. The White House and the State Department have unsuccessfully pressed the case with Egypt’s military council but no U.S. government department has worked more closely with the council over the years than the Pentagon has.

Officials said Dempsey would reinforce the message – echoing lawmakers on Capitol Hill – that unless Egypt scuttled its plan to try the American nonprofit workers on charges that their agencies illegally received foreign funds, the country seriously risked losing $1.3 billion annually in U.S. military aid.

The Egyptians “are going to be told to lay off the (nonprofit groups) or the money won’t be forthcoming,” said a person familiar with the deliberations, who wasn’t authorized to be quoted because of the issue’s sensitivity.

Furthering the Funding of Foreign Interference: U.S. to establish new fund supporting NGOs in Russia


Source: Panarmenia

December 15, 2011

Editor’s Note via StratRisks – Observing The Grand Geopolitical Game of Risk: “I take it that the Obama Administration is taking all this Russian Spring talk seriously. They pumped millions into the Egyptian elections and now they see a weakened Putin caught flat-footed by the large response(most likely hired force) so it is time to take advantage. Most Russians pawned their freedom for scarce security long ago so any anger directed at United Russia is temporary at best.”

The U.S. administration is in talks with Congress on the establishment of a new organization supporting NGOs in Russia, Philip Gordon, Assistant Secretary, Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs, said on Wednesday, December 14.

“As part of our democracy strategy, the administration has been consulting with Congress on an initiative to create a new fund to support Russian non-governmental organizations that are committed to a more pluralistic and open society,” Gordon said.

“The fund would not require an additional appropriation, as necessary funding would be drawn from the liquidated proceeds of the U.S.-Russia Investment Fund – an example of successful U.S. foreign assistance to Russia,” he said at a meeting of a subcommittee in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Gordon said the United States provides financial support to Russian civil society.

“Since 2009, the U.S. government has given approximately $160 million in assistance to support programs on human rights, rule of law, anti-corruption, civil society, independent media, good governance, and democratic political processes,” he said.

“Most recently, U.S. funding was used to support independent Russian monitoring of the [State] Duma elections and education for independent media on professional and unbiased reporting, encourage informed citizen participation in elections, and enhance the capacity to conduct public opinion polling,” Gordon said, RIA Novosti reported.

On December 8, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin proposed toughening responsibility for those who interfere in Russian political life on foreign orders.

How to Start a (Wall Street-backed) Revolution

Documentary Whitewashes Wall Street’s Global Blitzkrieg

by Tony Cartalucci

November 26, 2011 – Gene Sharp of the Albert Einstein Institution penned the book “From Dictatorship to Democracy,” originally designated for the destabilization and recolonization of Myanmar, still called “Burma” throughout much of the West. Sharp’s book would then be utilized by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) throughout Eastern Europe, throughout Asia, and eventually, in 2011, for the US-engineered “Arab Spring.”

According to Sharp’s own Albert Einstein Institution (AEI) 2000-2004 annual report, AEI had been sponsored by the US government’s National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and its funded subsidiary International Republican Institute (IRI) to train activists in Serbia (page 18) Zimbabwe (page 23) and Myanmar (page 26) to help overthrow their respective sovereign governments.

Australia’s Southern Cross University’s “Activating Human Rights & Peace (AHRP)” conference had put out a revealing account of their 2008 proceedings illustrating that all of Gene Sharp’s work, beyond what was even mentioned in his own institution’s annual report, had been fully funded and in support of the US government and its global domineering agenda. Beginning on page 26, Sharp’s affiliations, in particular with the National Endowment for Democracy, which is described as carrying out “a lot of work that was formerly undertaken by the CIA,” as well as the Ford Foundation, and billionaire Wall Street patriarch George Soros’ Open Society Institute are fleshed out in immense detail.

A Warning from the Fracked States of America

January 22, 2012
by Wanda

A blog all the way from America. Anti-fracking campaigners from the US give their own perspective, and warn the UK campaign about those who might pretend to be on our side.

Look out for certain politicians and environmentalists posing as our allies. The politicians may say that they find fracking unconscionable, abominable, crazy etc. but watch out! These very same might then introduce or sign on to legislation which regulate fracking or make it ‘safer’. They might ban it in some people’s watersheds but allow it in other people’s. And then these politicians who declare fracking horrendous will again show their true colors by not taking clear steps to ban it, i.e., by not educating their constituents about the threats it poses, by not rallying their colleagues to support ban legislation, by not speaking to the media to educate many others that ban legislation exists or should, by not introducing legislation and calling out all the shots to stop it. Some environmental organizations will also pose as our allies.

But beware! Some will call for industry to use only ‘best practices’, while promoting the fanciful concept of ‘safe’ fracking, and expressing their strong disappointment at how ‘bad actors’ in the industry are ruining it for the good frackers by not disclosing the list of poisons to which the public and nature are being exposed. These poseurs will collect a bunch of $ and new members by expressing outrage without calling out pro-fracking politicians, without educating or rallying members to demand that specific relevant politicians support bans etc. We, in the fight against fracking in North America, are sharing with you our experience with these pretenders and how much they have cost our movements to ban fracking. We must and we will win the fight against fracking. We know that the window of time during which effective action to counter climate catastrophe is rapidly closing and that we must get real on systemic remedies (not Obama’s source-switching). Here below is a response to the most recent masquerade of one of the corporate media’s darlings in the ‘environmental’ movement, Natural Resource Defense Council’s legal counsel and ‘safe’ fracking promoter, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr..

Sierra Club took $26M from natural gas

 

Michael Brune says his group has changed its stance since 2010. | John Shinkle/POLITICO

By DAN BERMAN

2/2/12

The Sierra Club took $26 million from one of the nation’s largest natural gas companies for three years while at the same time hawking natural gas as a clean, green energy source, the group admitted Thursday.