Health Care Reform and the American Apocalypse
by James Ridgeway
Across the nation this summer, unknown numbers of people are hunkering down and arming up for what they believe is an imminent battle for the soul of America. Town halls and tea parties provide just a small glimpse of the rage, fear, and paranoia fomenting on front porches and in Internet chat rooms, in the conservative heartland and beyond. While the details may vary, the visions in such forums share a common theme: In one way or another, a fight to the death is coming, and coming soon.
These deep-seated fears explain at least some of the vitriol, the violent scuffles, and death threats bubbling up in town hall protests against health care reform. It's all too easy for certain right-wing activists to accept that the president's plan will create death panels or mandate taxpayer-funded abortions. Because some of these
people don't just believe that Obama wants to destroy capitalism and kill their granny and their unborn child -- they believe he wants to kill them, too.
At a town hall meeting with Democratic Senator Ben Cardin in Hagerstown, Maryland, on August 12, one attendee carried a sign that read "Death to Obama," and "Death to Michelle and her two stupid kids." Another sign at the same event compared Obama to Hitler. At least some of the Obama-Hitler iconography originates from followers
of perennial whack-job Lyndon LaRouche, but the comparison has been disseminated by Rush Limbaugh to a wider audience of hardline conservatives.
That’s not the only insidious comparison making the rounds: One protester who attended a raucous town hall with Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter told a Village Voice reporter that Obama was a "21st-century Marxist" who would adopt the same methods Hugo Chavez used to take power in Venezuela: "infiltration of the education system, political correctness, class warfare ideology, voter fraud, brainwashing through the mainstream media."
As the town halls have become more heated, the hints of violence have become increasingly overt. One man showed up outside the president's town hall meeting in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, with a hand gun strapped to his thigh; on August 17, another brought an assault rifle to a demonstration at the site of Obama's speech to veterans in Phoenix. It emerged that the latter's presence at the meeting had been coordinated with a former member of the Viper Militia, whose adherents were convicted of weapons and conspiracy charges in the 1990s and were accused of plotting to blow up federal buildings.
Clearly, this is about far more than health care policy. Instead, it's just one sign out of many heralding a resurgence of the extreme right wing. It's been widely reported that extremist groups are growing, in numbers and membership, since Obama launched his presidential campaign. As in the past, some of the ideas espoused by
these groups are working their way further toward the political core with the help of right-wing politicians and media figures.
For instance, take Rep. Michele Bachmann's (R-Minn.) claim that expanding AmeriCorps would result in liberal "re-education camps."
This statement has now morphed into rumors that the young community service volunteers are being armed to take over the country -- possibly with some help from the New Black Panther Party.
Similarly, Dick Armey, the former House majority leader and lobbyist for the pharmaceutical industry, is predicting an October surprise from Obama in the form of "a hyped-up outbreak of the swine flu, which they'll say is as bad as the bubonic plague to scare the bed-wetters to vote for health care reform."
The assertion may sound ludicrous, but it dovetails nicely with a view among conspiracy theorists that a sweeping and deadly plot lurks behind the swine flu pandemic. Influenced by the work of a whacked-out Austrian "journalist" named Jane Bürgermeister, some on the far right believe the virus was manufactured by the World Health Organization, the United Nations, and the rest of the black helicopter crowd's usual suspects, as "part of a long-term plan by the syndicate, who have built large numbers of FEMA concentration camps with incinerators and prepared mass graves in states such as Indiana and in New York to quarantine people and dispose of the bodies of the people who are killed by the bioweapons attack." This depopulation" scheme has in turn been linked by conspiracy theorists to the Obama administration's plans for a "global planetary regime to enforce forced abortion" and sterilizing the population through the water supply.
Among liberals, the dominant take on all of this seems to be ridicule and derision, or else impotent hand-wringing about the demise of "civil discourse." It's as if they'd forgotten that many of these so-called loonies just happen to own guns -- and while liberals go on chattering, these folks are stocking up on ammunition. And right-wing radicals have an advantage when it comes to ideological fervor. Obama and the Democrats in Congress quickly frittered away any populist energy that might have come out of the recession, the fiasco of the Bush years, or the 2008 election. All that's left are compromises on top of compromises that they call policymaking -- for which no one can muster much enthusiasm. Right-wing zealots, on the other hand, think they are fighting for their lives by standing fast against communism, or the anti-Christ, or both; they're not only doing God's work, but also fulfilling their destiny as true American patriots.
Indeed, the right-wing revival is infused with the words and imagery of the American Revolution. The gun-toting protestor at Obama's New Hampshire health care town hall was also carrying a sign that read, "It Is Time To Water The Tree Of Liberty” -- a clear reference to a quote from Thomas Jefferson that the "tree of liberty must be
refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." (Because he had a permit and wasn't in shooting range of the tyrant, the patriot was allowed to keep his gun.) On a website also called The Tree of Liberty, members exchange Obama insults and apocalyptic visions in a forum called Committees of Correspondence, named for assemblies in colonial America that protested tyrannical British policies.
The denizens of these gatherings and websites, the tea parties and the raucous town halls, represent a long-standing force in the country's political culture: American nativism. This oft-ignored strain draws its central impulse from an opposition to anything that challenges the vision of America as a white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant
nation. Nativists have taken aim at Catholics, Jews, freed slaves, and successive waves of immigrants, beginning with the Irish fleeing the potato famine in the 1840s and continuing through to present-day immigrants from Latin America. They call for a closing of US borders and support strict adherence to the Constitution in its most literal sense, shorn of equivocating amendments, as a remedy for unwanted social change. And they have been inextricably linked to racist right-wing movements, from the Ku Klux Klan to the Militias to the Minutemen who now "guard" the border. (In the current debate over health care reform, one of the most powerful myths is that it will extend free coverage to illegal immigrants at the expense of "real" Americans.)
Many followers of modern extremist right-wing groups also adhere to the doctrine of Christian Identity, which teaches that white men are the descendants of the Lost Tribes of Israel, who traced their lineage back to Adam and Eve. The black and yellow people, they believe, are of lesser stature, likened by some to a bad first copy made by God in his fashioning of the Garden of Eden. They are not real people, the thinking goes, and should be cast down as "mud people." The American Founding Fathers were among the true sovereigns, and the white patriots of today are their descendants.
Even before Obama's election, many believed that the nation's political and economic systems had been taken over by the Zionist Occupied Government. Jews, according to them, are not true white people, and are bent upon world domination, with the aid of their henchmen, the racial minorities.
That's why the election of Barack Obama adds even more fuel to nativist rage: The president is a black man, child of an interracial union, the son of a foreigner who bears a foreign name. According to some, he is not even an American citizen. "[T]he face of the federal government -- the enemy that almost all parts of the extreme right see as the primary threat to freedom -- is now black," says a report from the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks extremist groups.
"And the fact that the president is an African American has injected a strong racial element into even those parts of the radical right, like the militias, that in the past were not primarily motivated by race hate."
For me, the recent outpourings on the right-wing fringe resonate strongly with what I witnessed in the mid-1980s, when I was working on a book and film on the racialist far right called Blood in the Face. I came across people caught in the misery of economic depression, caused by tough loan practices and declining prices for farm commodities, along with a drive by big banks and insurance companies -- the primary farm lenders -- to consolidate smaller farms into bigger and bigger agribusiness units in the interest of larger profits. Many residents were losing farms that had been in their families for generations.
In this atmosphere of desperation, paranoia flourished. Some talked about a hunting party in Mexico that had spotted a secret airfield of MIGs. Some had heard reports from Baja California of a troop of North Korean troops hidden in the forest. Others said they knew the Russians were breeding an especially strong horse to haul heavy
artillery across the Bering Strait for the coming attack. Still others told me that the United States and the Soviets were making deals aboard small submarines under the Arctic ice. And the new superhighways leading from Texas up the Mississippi River, they said, were part of a secret plan to accommodate Mexicans carrying backpacks stuffed with small nuclear bombs. Many also saw social factors like abortion, feminism, homosexuality, and interracial marriage as symptoms of the general devolution of American culture after it had been wrested from the hands of the true sovereigns. Behind it all, they believed were the Jewish bankers, the Trilateral Commission, the Federal Reserve, the UN -- and the US government.
The people who believed these things bought food and ammunition and hid it in safe places. They got out of the banks, went from paper money to gold, bought mini 14s. Some built bomb shelters, or small forts for defense. They studied the Bible at night and believed they had discovered in Scripture secret plans to eradicate their way of life. They got ready to fight. A few actually died in bloody shoot-outs with the Feds: Elusive Posse Comitatus leader Gordon Kaul and the Order's Bob Mathews were the movement's first martyrs in the 1980s, followed by those who died in the 1990s at Ruby Ridge and WACO -- both cited by Timothy McVeigh as inspiration for the Oklahoma City bombing. The vision of dead babies being carried out of the Murrah
building in 1995 prompted a crackdown on far-right movements by federal law enforcement. But even before Obama's election, pockets of activity remained.
The Southern Poverty Law Center has reported rapid growth among right-wing fringe organizations, although it says the numbers don't yet equal the heyday of the militias in the 1990s. Still, the greatest danger is likely to come not from card-carrying members of any organization, but from small, leaderless cells or lone gunmen, perhaps inspired by another far-right favorite: the biblical story of the Phineas Priest, a man who caught an interracial couple together and slew them both, declaring that he was acting in the name of a just God. It is the same notion of justifiable homicide -- whether in self-defense or in defense of a just cause -- that has reportedly drove Scott Roeder, the gunman accused of killing abortion doctor George Tiller, and James von Brunn, accused of murdering a guard at the Holocaust Museum.
The people I met back in the 1980s told me about their theories and their plans for the coming conflict earnestly, fervently. I first saw this fervor resurface last year, while covering the election in the so-called heartland. I saw it on the fringes of Sarah Palin rallies, and I saw it when a Missouri ethanol plant manager leaned forward confidentially and declared, for the video cameras, why he was
against Obama -- because the candidate, he said, bore the mark of the Beast, of Satan, or the anti-Christ: 666.
Veteran reporter James Ridgeway is a senior correspondent for Mother
Jones magazine.
Copyright © 2009 Mother Jones -- distributed by Agence Global
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Monday, August 24, 2009
Lockerbie suspect working for US?
Was Lockerbie suspect working for US?
Published Date: 27 October 2008
By David Maddox
CAMPAIGNERS yesterday renewed calls for the United States to answer fresh questions over a Lockerbie bombing suspect.
Former Labour MP Tam Dalyell and Edinburgh law professor Robert Black urged the Scottish and UK governments to answer reports there is evidence Abu Nidal was a US agent.
They have long believed Abu Nidal, who died in Iraq in 2002, and his Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine General Command were responsible for co-ordinating the bomb that blew up Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie on 21 December, 1988 with the loss of 270 lives.
Intelligence reports, said to have been drawn up for Saddam Hussein's security services, said Kuwaitis had asked Abu Nidal, whose real name was Sabri al-Banna, to find out if al-Qaeda was present in Iraq.
The reports referred to Abu Nidal's "collusion with both the American and Kuwaiti intelligence apparatuses in co-ordination with Egyptian intelligence".
And campaigners said the latest evidence adds weight to the claims that Libyan secret agent Abdelbasset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi – who was found guilty of the atrocity in 2001 – and the Libyan government were scapegoats to cover up a wider plot.
Mr Dalyell said the reports added weight to the theory that Lockerbie was a "tit-for-tat" attack for the shooting down of an Iranian passenger airliner by the warship USS Vincennes in 1988, and was allowed by the US administration.
He said the claims that Abu Nidal was working for the Americans would explain some of the mysteries that surrounded the Lockerbie outrage. These included a notice that went up at the American embassy in Moscow warning diplomats not to travel on Pan Am flights, and senior South African figures being "hauled off" the plane before its final flight.
The diplomats were replaced by students, who lost their lives.
Added to that is the mystery over why then prime minister Margaret Thatcher overruled her transport secretary, Cecil Parkinson, and stopped a public inquiry into the attack. It has been claimed this was because the US administration did not want an inquiry.
In a joint statement issued yesterday, Mr Dalyell and Prof Black said: "If the American public had known of a link with Abu Nidal, and had known that the US government knew enough to pull VIPs off the plane and let home-going students take their place, there would have been fury at a time of transition between the presidencies of Ronald Reagan and George Bush Snr.
"The fact that the Iraqi government either executed Abu Nidal or forced him to commit suicide suggests they had discovered he was an American spy."
Mr Dalyell and Prof Black – who with Lockerbie relative Dr Jim Swire persuaded the Libyan government to hand over Megrahi for trial – said they were "deeply and personally concerned" about the Libyan, who is suffering from cancer.
source
Published Date: 27 October 2008
By David Maddox
CAMPAIGNERS yesterday renewed calls for the United States to answer fresh questions over a Lockerbie bombing suspect.
Former Labour MP Tam Dalyell and Edinburgh law professor Robert Black urged the Scottish and UK governments to answer reports there is evidence Abu Nidal was a US agent.
They have long believed Abu Nidal, who died in Iraq in 2002, and his Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine General Command were responsible for co-ordinating the bomb that blew up Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie on 21 December, 1988 with the loss of 270 lives.
Intelligence reports, said to have been drawn up for Saddam Hussein's security services, said Kuwaitis had asked Abu Nidal, whose real name was Sabri al-Banna, to find out if al-Qaeda was present in Iraq.
The reports referred to Abu Nidal's "collusion with both the American and Kuwaiti intelligence apparatuses in co-ordination with Egyptian intelligence".
And campaigners said the latest evidence adds weight to the claims that Libyan secret agent Abdelbasset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi – who was found guilty of the atrocity in 2001 – and the Libyan government were scapegoats to cover up a wider plot.
Mr Dalyell said the reports added weight to the theory that Lockerbie was a "tit-for-tat" attack for the shooting down of an Iranian passenger airliner by the warship USS Vincennes in 1988, and was allowed by the US administration.
He said the claims that Abu Nidal was working for the Americans would explain some of the mysteries that surrounded the Lockerbie outrage. These included a notice that went up at the American embassy in Moscow warning diplomats not to travel on Pan Am flights, and senior South African figures being "hauled off" the plane before its final flight.
The diplomats were replaced by students, who lost their lives.
Added to that is the mystery over why then prime minister Margaret Thatcher overruled her transport secretary, Cecil Parkinson, and stopped a public inquiry into the attack. It has been claimed this was because the US administration did not want an inquiry.
In a joint statement issued yesterday, Mr Dalyell and Prof Black said: "If the American public had known of a link with Abu Nidal, and had known that the US government knew enough to pull VIPs off the plane and let home-going students take their place, there would have been fury at a time of transition between the presidencies of Ronald Reagan and George Bush Snr.
"The fact that the Iraqi government either executed Abu Nidal or forced him to commit suicide suggests they had discovered he was an American spy."
Mr Dalyell and Prof Black – who with Lockerbie relative Dr Jim Swire persuaded the Libyan government to hand over Megrahi for trial – said they were "deeply and personally concerned" about the Libyan, who is suffering from cancer.
source
Sunday, August 23, 2009
The Lies of Lockerbie
Lockerbie: Will the Truth Ever Come Out?
By Paddy McGuffin
source
August 23, 2009 "Morning Star" -- August 21, 2009 -- Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi's release on compassionate grounds, although welcomed by many campaigners in Britain, means we are no further forward in terms of establishing the truth regarding the Lockerbie bombing.
For many, Megrahi was a convenient scapegoat, deflecting attention away from a wealth of evidence which would bring into question the official version of events.
This suspicion has deepened with the suggestion that Megrahi had been forced to withdraw his appeal against conviction or be refused leave to return to Libya to see out his dying days.
An estimated 600 pages of evidence, much of which may prove Megrahi's innocence, has been withheld from the public.
The families of British victims of the bombing are understandably dismayed that, with the withdrawal of the appeal, the best chance to have the evidence exposed has faded.
Although we cannot know the exact details of what the withheld documents contain, there is enough evidence already in the public domain to raise serious questions over the Libyan's conviction and why he was fitted up for a crime he almost certainly did not commit.
In the immediate aftermath of the bombing, investigations centred on Iran, Syria and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine General Command (PFLP-GC) - the secular resistance group founded by George Habash.
Three weeks before the Lockerbie bombing, German anti-terror officers arrested Marwan Khreesat, a known bomb-maker with links to the PFLP. He was released, apparently due to lack of evidence, but in April 1989 further raids discovered two more bombs designed by Khreesat, both of which were specifically made for targeting aircraft.
Among those arrested were a number of Palestinians with links to the PFLP-GC.
PFLP-GC leader Ahmed Jibril was at that time under the protection of Syria.
It has been suggested that Jibril was assigned the Lockerbie bombing by the Iranian regime in revenge for the shooting down of an Iranian Airbus passenger plane by the USS Vincennes earlier in 1988 with the loss of 290 lives.
During the German arrests, a Toshiba tape-recorder packed with Semtex was discovered. Pieces of a similar model recorder were discovered among the Lockerbie debris. One of the Palestinian group, Abu Talb, is known to have been in Malta shortly before the bombing.
Despite the large amount of evidence pointing to Iranian or Syrian involvement, these lines of inquiry abruptly ended, apparently with a phone call from George Bush Senior to Margaret Thatcher warning her to stop Scottish police digging.
It is argued that the pending invasion of Iraq required the support of Iran and Syria, both of whom had pariah status a year earlier, and that therefore exposing their involvement in the atrocity was not helpful.
A politically expedient scapegoat was sought.
Libya fitted neatly into the frame. It was commonly regarded as a terrorist state with a history of funding and supporting armed groups including the IRA and its leader Muammar Gaddafi had been branded a "mad dog" by Ronald Reagan.
Two years earlier the US had bombed Gaddafi's residence in Tripoli, killing his adopted daughter. There also remained the unresolved issue of the murder of PC Yvonne Fletcher at the Libyan embassy in London.
In addition, Libya was the only Middle Eastern state to openly support Iraq during the US-led invasion.
As this seismic shift in political alliances occurred, new evidence conveniently appeared, in the form of a fragment of circuitboard from a timing device, apparently discovered in the remote Scottish countryside after the bombing.
This fragment was reportedly traced by the FBI to a swiss manufacturer who sold timers to Libya.
In November 1991, indictments for murder were issued against Megrahi, who was head of security for Libyan Arab Airlines (LAA), and Lamin Khafilah Fhimah, Maltese station manager for LAA.
Crippling United Nations-imposed sanctions eventually forced Libya to hand over the two men in 1999 in exchange for the lifting of the embargo.
Libya also agreed to pay $2.7 billion in compensation to the victims of the bombings, although it has been argued that this was not, as has been claimed, an admission of guilt but rather a way of having the punitive sanctions removed.
The two accused men were handed over to Scottish custody at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands.
The trial at Camp Zeist, before a panel of three Scottish judges, was a farce.
Megrahi was convicted solely on the spurious and lucrative evidence of a Maltese shop-owner who claimed the Libyan had bought items of clothing from his store weeks prior to the bombing.
These items, which had been found in the wreckage of Pan Am Flight 103, had been traced back to the shop of Tony Gauci.
Megrahi's co-accused Lamin Khafilah Fhimah was acquitted on the same evidence after a so-called "Libyan defector," in the pay of the CIA, was wholly discredited.
Investigative reporter Paul Foot commented at the time: "His testimony was such a fantastic farrago of lies and fantasies that it was thrown out by the Scottish judges."
Gauci was also handsomely paid for his "evidence" to the court but even then gave a wildly inaccurate description of the man whom he claimed had bought the clothes from his shop.
In addition, little if any evidence was provided to explain how Megrahi had allegedly secreted a suitcase bomb on a feeder flight in Malta, which was then transferred twice through Frankfurt and Heathrow airports undetected.
The claim that an explosive device was physically handled through three airports without suspicions arising is ludicrous.
Police investigating the atrocity had even been told by a security guard at Heathrow that a Pan Am baggage storage area at the airport had been broken into on the night of the bombing.
This, one would have thought, should have set major alarm bells ringing and added massive weight to the long-argued hypothesis that the bomb was placed on the flight at Heathrow, not Malta.
This evidence, given in a sworn affidavit, was withheld from the trial.
At the time UN observer to the trial Dr Hans Kochler described it as "a spectacular miscarriage of justice."
In 2007 the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission referred Megrahi's case to the High Court of Justiciary. SCCRC chairman Rev Dr Graham Forbes said: "The commission is of the view, based upon our lengthy investigations, the new evidence we have found and other evidence which was not before the trial court, that the applicant may have suffered a miscarriage of justice."
The full SCCRC report into the Lockerbie bombing has never been disclosed, however.
With the dropping of his appeal by Megrahi this week, in a step strongly believed to have been forced upon him in exchange for his freedom, campaigners and the families of the victims fear that the report may now never be published.
The calls for a full public inquiry into the bombing have been dismissed by consecutive governments, both Tory and Labour.
The main argument against such an inquiry was that it would jeopardise the criminal investigation.
In truth, the "criminal investigation" ended with Megrahi's indictment in 1991. There has never been any attempt to arrest the real culprits.
Monday, August 17, 2009
War Footing South?
Prepare For War: Chavez
By AFP
August 17, 2009 "AFP" -- CARACAS - PRESIDENT Hugo Chavez on Sunday bridled at US plans to use military bases in Colombia, asserting that Venezuela was the top US target in the region and that Venezuelans should prepare for war.
Speaking in his weekly live radio and television broadcast, Chavez also chided US President Barack Obama for accusing leftist Latin leaders of 'hypocrisy' for demanding that Washington intervene more forcefully to reinstate Honduras' ousted President Manuel Zelaya.
Mr Obama 'is lost in the clouds. I think he is entering a terrible labyrinth', Mr Chavez said. 'Obama doesn't understand. He needs to study a bit more. He is a young man, full of good intentions.'
'Obama, we are not asking you to intervene in Honduras. To the contrary, we are asking that the empire remove its hand from Honduras and that the empire remove its claws from Latin America,' he said.
His comments come amid growing tension over a plan by Colombia to give US forces access to seven of its military bases to accommodate counter-drug operations following the closure of a base in Ecuador.
Mr Chavez cast the move as a US attempt to encircle Venezuela, warning of a coming military escalation aimed at the country's oil, access to the Amazon basin and plentiful water sources.
'An aggression against Venezuela will be met not only by Venezuela; various countries would take up arms,' he said. 'It is clear to me that a great anti-imperialistic movement would rise up on these lands, God help us.'
'But we have to prepare for it. And one of the best ways to avoid it is to show the enemy that it would be so costly for them to attack Venezuela that they would repent,' he said.
'We do not want war, we hate it. But we must prepare for it. We are number one on the list, Venezuela. We are the first target of the (United States). Using Colombia and the bases in Aruba and Curacao, they are surrounding us,' Mr Chavez warned. -- AFP
By AFP
August 17, 2009 "AFP" -- CARACAS - PRESIDENT Hugo Chavez on Sunday bridled at US plans to use military bases in Colombia, asserting that Venezuela was the top US target in the region and that Venezuelans should prepare for war.
Speaking in his weekly live radio and television broadcast, Chavez also chided US President Barack Obama for accusing leftist Latin leaders of 'hypocrisy' for demanding that Washington intervene more forcefully to reinstate Honduras' ousted President Manuel Zelaya.
Mr Obama 'is lost in the clouds. I think he is entering a terrible labyrinth', Mr Chavez said. 'Obama doesn't understand. He needs to study a bit more. He is a young man, full of good intentions.'
'Obama, we are not asking you to intervene in Honduras. To the contrary, we are asking that the empire remove its hand from Honduras and that the empire remove its claws from Latin America,' he said.
His comments come amid growing tension over a plan by Colombia to give US forces access to seven of its military bases to accommodate counter-drug operations following the closure of a base in Ecuador.
Mr Chavez cast the move as a US attempt to encircle Venezuela, warning of a coming military escalation aimed at the country's oil, access to the Amazon basin and plentiful water sources.
'An aggression against Venezuela will be met not only by Venezuela; various countries would take up arms,' he said. 'It is clear to me that a great anti-imperialistic movement would rise up on these lands, God help us.'
'But we have to prepare for it. And one of the best ways to avoid it is to show the enemy that it would be so costly for them to attack Venezuela that they would repent,' he said.
'We do not want war, we hate it. But we must prepare for it. We are number one on the list, Venezuela. We are the first target of the (United States). Using Colombia and the bases in Aruba and Curacao, they are surrounding us,' Mr Chavez warned. -- AFP
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Cree Nation vs the Tar Sands
The Beaver Lake Cree Nation vs the Tar Sands
by Drew Mildon, lawyer at the Canadian law firm Woodward and Company. Woodward and Company is overseeing the Beaver Lake Cree Nation law suit against the Government of Canada.
The Cooperative Financial Services delegates flew into Edmonton on Canada day. They brought along with them Emily Beament, a member of the British Press Association, a BBC film crew and Paul Myles from Ecologist Magazine. We drove north to Lac La Biche, passing through Fort Saskatchewan – the refinery and upgrading center of Alberta, the nexus of so many pipelines – pushing the natural gas needed to drive the engines of the oil industry. Past the Dow Chemical plant and the miles and miles of puffing smokestacks.
Across the road from all this industry a few skinny cattle graze and you begin to give serious thought to how enticed you’ll be next time you see the words “Alberta Beef.”
On Thursday morning, we meet our plane at the tiny green terminal building of the Lac La Biche airport. We fly north over the vast green forests, bogs and fens of the boreal. Seismic lines old and new checkering and criss-crossing and carving the wood into unnatural patterns in long desperate lines that stretch as far as the eye can see. Everywhere little squares of SAGD’s old and new scar the landscape.
In Fort McMurray the “Beeb” crew tape up the helicopters with duct tape and external cameras for the flight out over the heart of the problem. We slide up the valley of the Clearwater River and its pretty, pretty like river valleys are supposed to be, and then you come up over the rise and its all there in front of you. And. it. is. devastating.
There are moments when, 2,000 ft up, the entire horizon is open pit mines and upgraders, a thousand of those tiny trucks down there, each three stories high and carrying 100 tons of tar sands, these hundreds of foot high pipes burning off sour gas in eternal shooting flames (because its cheaper than upgrading it) – and the lakes (no ponds, no) the lakes of strange grayish yellow that go on and on and on. There’s a new lake district in Alberta – but you wouldn’t want to pop in there to cool off on a hot sunny day.
There’s another moment, when each of us on that helicopter, each of us committed, by the laws of our childhood, by our faiths, by our sense of duty, by what ever moral or ethical bubble guides us, committed to the care and the protection of this good earth which sustains us, which fills us with food and life and cool, cool water and we all think – “this is too big, too terrible and it cannot be stopped.” And I am weeping, weeping with the sickness of it, weeping with the anger and hatred for those who direct this thing, for those who profit from this thing.
Remember the scene in the animated version of Watership Down? Where the rabbits who escaped the warren late catch up and describe the bulldozers and the gas poured down the holes?
In my early 20s I was diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder – and looking down on this fucked up mess I think: “This will all start over again. I will wake every night now, shivering and shaking and unable to scream and this will be the thing that is in my head – this image I will carry with me all of my life.” But it is a good thing to go, and to see, and to bear witness, I think.
We retire to the Benson hunting lodge for the evening. It’s a buffalo ranch next to the Beaver Lake reserve, and it is incredible peaceful and serene. In the early morning you wake to the soft snorting of the buffalo and the deer jump golden in the slanting light from their nighttime safety slip among the herd. And we pack up to drive around to some of the SAGD and pipelines in the area. Everything seems mild after the tar sands pits – but you don’t have to look long at the miles of gleaming silver pipelines running six-abreast to understand why the caribou went away. On the side of a massive upgrader a huge sign, one presumes about worker safety, reads “Stop and think!!!”
Yes, perhaps we should.
But in the evening we are back at the Beaver Lake cultural grounds for the Pow Wow. And it is a hell of a show. It is the plains First Nations at their very finest, at their most joyful and their most proud and it is a truly amazing thing to behold. It is one of those moments when I feel most blessed in my vocation. When we first arrive there are cameras and journalists everywhere, Chief Lameman and the Pow Wow marshals emerge from the tent where they have just completed a pipe ceremony – to respond to the reports and the mics in their faces. And they are soft-spoken, thoughtful – and determined as hell.
We walk into the Grand Entry, following Chief Lameman and his Council, Germaine Anderson, Jerry Gladue, and Hank Gladue. As we stand in the center of the ring and hundreds of swirling dancers in traditional gear move around us – it’s enough to make a scrawny white guy a bit nervous. And it is so, so cool. I think the pasty Brits from Manchesters’ eyes are going to fall out of their heads.
No one is prepared for the precision and power of the spectacle, or the strength and power of Cree drumming and singing. Your body just moves to it. We are honoured by Chief and Council with blankets and as we try to slip quietly to the sidelines we’re instructed – “No, no – you have to dance one round with your blankets.” I laugh, thinking they’re having me off (as the Brits would say). And the photographer for the Journal says “I think he’s serious.” And I think the photographer just sees a good opportunity for some funny shots of lawyers trying to dance. So after one dance I try to slip away again – only to be told by a grinning Kookum – “No, no, once you start you have to dance until it’s over.” So someone is having me off – but who am I to complain?
The beat rides your blood. Some of the children have recognized Colin from pictures around the Band office – and they gather around him – teaching him their styles.
The next day it’s back to the Pow Wow and a breakfast of Bannock burgers and Indian tacos. We aim for the less-professional looking stands, hoping for the perfect home-made bison burger. On the way I’m asked by Colin if there’s any sort of “shamanistic” tradition amongst the Cree and I grin – knowing what lies ahead in the next few days. As we walk in, a local healer is standing, chatting with my colleagues.
Throughout the day the announcers at the Pow Wow are welcoming the visitors from over the big pond – and cracking wise about words like “Blimey” (apparently from “God Blind Me!”). That afternoon Colin goes up to give away some presents from the Cooperative – and the announcer invites folks up from outside Treaty 6 and Colin is surrounded by children – the perfect pale slim summer Santa. And Colin and Paul present a check for $100,000 Canadian to Chief Lameman and a director from RAVEN – to help protect the lands, to help constraint the tar sands in their seemingly insurmountable march. Chief Al says – “without the land we have nothing, we must protect it.” My boss, big Jack Woodward, standing tall in his misshapen cowboy hat takes the mic, and sets the crowd on fire. He gives them a new copy of an old treaty – says that promises must be kept.
And the shouts and war cries fill the Pow Wow ring, and my heart. And I think “Hi, hi. It is an honour to serve the People.”
by Drew Mildon, lawyer at the Canadian law firm Woodward and Company. Woodward and Company is overseeing the Beaver Lake Cree Nation law suit against the Government of Canada.
The Cooperative Financial Services delegates flew into Edmonton on Canada day. They brought along with them Emily Beament, a member of the British Press Association, a BBC film crew and Paul Myles from Ecologist Magazine. We drove north to Lac La Biche, passing through Fort Saskatchewan – the refinery and upgrading center of Alberta, the nexus of so many pipelines – pushing the natural gas needed to drive the engines of the oil industry. Past the Dow Chemical plant and the miles and miles of puffing smokestacks.
Across the road from all this industry a few skinny cattle graze and you begin to give serious thought to how enticed you’ll be next time you see the words “Alberta Beef.”
On Thursday morning, we meet our plane at the tiny green terminal building of the Lac La Biche airport. We fly north over the vast green forests, bogs and fens of the boreal. Seismic lines old and new checkering and criss-crossing and carving the wood into unnatural patterns in long desperate lines that stretch as far as the eye can see. Everywhere little squares of SAGD’s old and new scar the landscape.
In Fort McMurray the “Beeb” crew tape up the helicopters with duct tape and external cameras for the flight out over the heart of the problem. We slide up the valley of the Clearwater River and its pretty, pretty like river valleys are supposed to be, and then you come up over the rise and its all there in front of you. And. it. is. devastating.
There are moments when, 2,000 ft up, the entire horizon is open pit mines and upgraders, a thousand of those tiny trucks down there, each three stories high and carrying 100 tons of tar sands, these hundreds of foot high pipes burning off sour gas in eternal shooting flames (because its cheaper than upgrading it) – and the lakes (no ponds, no) the lakes of strange grayish yellow that go on and on and on. There’s a new lake district in Alberta – but you wouldn’t want to pop in there to cool off on a hot sunny day.
There’s another moment, when each of us on that helicopter, each of us committed, by the laws of our childhood, by our faiths, by our sense of duty, by what ever moral or ethical bubble guides us, committed to the care and the protection of this good earth which sustains us, which fills us with food and life and cool, cool water and we all think – “this is too big, too terrible and it cannot be stopped.” And I am weeping, weeping with the sickness of it, weeping with the anger and hatred for those who direct this thing, for those who profit from this thing.
Remember the scene in the animated version of Watership Down? Where the rabbits who escaped the warren late catch up and describe the bulldozers and the gas poured down the holes?
In my early 20s I was diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder – and looking down on this fucked up mess I think: “This will all start over again. I will wake every night now, shivering and shaking and unable to scream and this will be the thing that is in my head – this image I will carry with me all of my life.” But it is a good thing to go, and to see, and to bear witness, I think.
We retire to the Benson hunting lodge for the evening. It’s a buffalo ranch next to the Beaver Lake reserve, and it is incredible peaceful and serene. In the early morning you wake to the soft snorting of the buffalo and the deer jump golden in the slanting light from their nighttime safety slip among the herd. And we pack up to drive around to some of the SAGD and pipelines in the area. Everything seems mild after the tar sands pits – but you don’t have to look long at the miles of gleaming silver pipelines running six-abreast to understand why the caribou went away. On the side of a massive upgrader a huge sign, one presumes about worker safety, reads “Stop and think!!!”
Yes, perhaps we should.
But in the evening we are back at the Beaver Lake cultural grounds for the Pow Wow. And it is a hell of a show. It is the plains First Nations at their very finest, at their most joyful and their most proud and it is a truly amazing thing to behold. It is one of those moments when I feel most blessed in my vocation. When we first arrive there are cameras and journalists everywhere, Chief Lameman and the Pow Wow marshals emerge from the tent where they have just completed a pipe ceremony – to respond to the reports and the mics in their faces. And they are soft-spoken, thoughtful – and determined as hell.
We walk into the Grand Entry, following Chief Lameman and his Council, Germaine Anderson, Jerry Gladue, and Hank Gladue. As we stand in the center of the ring and hundreds of swirling dancers in traditional gear move around us – it’s enough to make a scrawny white guy a bit nervous. And it is so, so cool. I think the pasty Brits from Manchesters’ eyes are going to fall out of their heads.
No one is prepared for the precision and power of the spectacle, or the strength and power of Cree drumming and singing. Your body just moves to it. We are honoured by Chief and Council with blankets and as we try to slip quietly to the sidelines we’re instructed – “No, no – you have to dance one round with your blankets.” I laugh, thinking they’re having me off (as the Brits would say). And the photographer for the Journal says “I think he’s serious.” And I think the photographer just sees a good opportunity for some funny shots of lawyers trying to dance. So after one dance I try to slip away again – only to be told by a grinning Kookum – “No, no, once you start you have to dance until it’s over.” So someone is having me off – but who am I to complain?
The beat rides your blood. Some of the children have recognized Colin from pictures around the Band office – and they gather around him – teaching him their styles.
The next day it’s back to the Pow Wow and a breakfast of Bannock burgers and Indian tacos. We aim for the less-professional looking stands, hoping for the perfect home-made bison burger. On the way I’m asked by Colin if there’s any sort of “shamanistic” tradition amongst the Cree and I grin – knowing what lies ahead in the next few days. As we walk in, a local healer is standing, chatting with my colleagues.
Throughout the day the announcers at the Pow Wow are welcoming the visitors from over the big pond – and cracking wise about words like “Blimey” (apparently from “God Blind Me!”). That afternoon Colin goes up to give away some presents from the Cooperative – and the announcer invites folks up from outside Treaty 6 and Colin is surrounded by children – the perfect pale slim summer Santa. And Colin and Paul present a check for $100,000 Canadian to Chief Lameman and a director from RAVEN – to help protect the lands, to help constraint the tar sands in their seemingly insurmountable march. Chief Al says – “without the land we have nothing, we must protect it.” My boss, big Jack Woodward, standing tall in his misshapen cowboy hat takes the mic, and sets the crowd on fire. He gives them a new copy of an old treaty – says that promises must be kept.
And the shouts and war cries fill the Pow Wow ring, and my heart. And I think “Hi, hi. It is an honour to serve the People.”
Friday, August 14, 2009
battery could change world, one house at a time
New battery could change world, one house at a time
source
In a modest building on the west side of Salt Lake City, a team of specialists in advanced materials and electrochemistry has produced what could be the single most important breakthrough for clean, alternative energy since Socrates first noted solar heating 2,400 years ago.
The prize is the culmination of 10 years of research and testing -- a new generation of deep-storage battery that's small enough, and safe enough, to sit in your basement and power your home.
It promises to nudge the world to a paradigm shift as big as the switch from centralized mainframe computers in the 1980s to personal laptops. But this time the mainframe is America's antiquated electrical grid; and the switch is to personal power stations in millions of individual homes.
Former energy secretary Bill Richardson once disparaged the U.S. electrical grid as "third world," and he was painfully close to the mark. It's an inefficient, aging relic of a century-old approach to energy and a weak link in national security in an age of terrorism.
Taking a load off the grid through electricity production and storage at home would extend the life of the system and avoid the expenditure of tens, or even hundreds, of billions to make it "smart."
The battery breakthrough comes from a Salt Lake company called Ceramatec, the R&D arm of CoorsTek, a world leader in advanced materials and electrochemical devices. It promises to reduce dependence on the dinosaur by hooking up with the latest generation of personalized power plants that draw from the sun.
Solar energy has been around, of course, but it's been prohibitively expensive. Now the cost is tumbling, driven by new thin-film chemistry and manufacturing techniques. Leaders in the field include companies like Arizona-based First Solar, which can paint solar cells onto glass; and Konarka, an upstart that purchased a defunct Polaroid film factory in New Bedford, Mass., and now plans to print cells onto rolls of flexible plastic.
The convergence of these two key technologies -- solar power and deep-storage batteries -- has profound implications for oil-strapped America.
"These batteries switch the whole dialogue to renewables," said Daniel Nocera, a noted chemist and professor of energy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who sits on Ceramatec's science advisory board. "They will turn us away from dumb technology, circa 1900 -- a 110-year-old approach -- and turn us forward."
Why not just upgrade to a so-called "smart grid" as President Obama has proposed in his economic stimulus package? There are complications, Nocera said.
"First you have to rebuild the grid because the one we have now is a creaky machine from the 1920s, and we keep trying to retrofit it," he said. "Then you're going to have computers trying to manage the energy, which brings up issues like security. You have to make it really secure so you don't have people hacking into things. And then politics. Just wait until you try to run power lines through someone's backyard.
"I can't imagine anything more secure than generating my own energy with the sun at my house, and now I'll have a way to store it. It's the ultimate in security, and the ultimate in control."
With small-scale electrical generation taking place at millions of individual homes -- as opposed to today's large-scale power generation from a handful of giant power plants -- there would be less worry about what's called "point failure" on the grid. That's when a single component gets knocked out and shuts off power to a whole region. California-style rolling blackouts would be history.
The threat of terrorism has heightened the worry. But wide distribution of batteries in homes would virtually eliminate it.
***
Inside Ceramatec's wonder battery is a chunk of solid sodium metal mated to a sulphur compound by an extraordinary, paper-thin ceramic membrane. The membrane conducts ions -- electrically charged particles -- back and forth to generate a current. The company calculates that the battery will cram 20 to 40 kilowatt hours of energy into a package about the size of a refrigerator, and operate below 90 degrees C.
This may not startle you, but it should. It's amazing. The most energy-dense batteries available today are huge bottles of super-hot molten sodium, swirling around at 600 degrees or so. At that temperature the material is highly conductive of electricity but it's both toxic and corrosive. You wouldn't want your kids around one of these.
The essence of Ceramatec's breakthrough is that high energy density (a lot of juice) can be achieved safely at normal temperatures and with solid components, not hot liquid.
Ceramatec says its new generation of battery would deliver a continuous flow of 5 kilowatts of electricity over four hours, with 3,650 daily discharge/recharge cycles over 10 years. With the batteries expected to sell in the neighborhood of $2,000, that translates to less than 3 cents per kilowatt hour over the battery's life. Conventional power from the grid typically costs in the neighborhood of 8 cents per kilowatt hour.
Re-read that last paragraph and let the information really sink in. Five kilowatts over four hours -- how much is that? Imagine your trash compactor, food processor, vacuum cleaner, stereo, sewing machine, one surface unit of an electric range and thirty-three 60-watt light bulbs all running nonstop for four hours each day before the house battery runs out. That's a pretty exciting place to live.
And then you recharge. With a projected 3,650 discharge/recharge cycles -- one per day for a decade -- you leave the next-best battery in the dust. Deep-cycling lead/acid batteries like the ones used in RVs are only good for a few hundred cycles, so they're kaput in a year or so.
How do you recharge? By tapping your solar panels or windmills. It's just like plugging in your cell phone or iPod, only you plug in your house.
A small three-bedroom home in Provo might average, say, 18 kWh of electric consumption per day in the summer -- that's 1,000 watts for 18 hours. A much larger home, say five bedrooms in the Grandview area, might average 80 kWh, according to Provo Power.;Either way, a supplement of 20 to 40 kWh per day is substantial. If you could produce that much power in a day -- for example through solar cells on the roof -- your power bills would plummet.
Ceramatec's battery breakthrough now makes that possible.
Clyde Shepherd of Alpine is floored by the prospect. He recently installed the second of two windmills on his property that are each rated at 2.4 kilowatts continuous output. He's searching for a battery system that can capture and store some of that for later use when it's calm outside, but he hasn't found a good solution.
"This changes the whole scope of things and would have a major impact on what we're trying to do," Shepherd said. "Something that would provide 20 kilowatts would put us near 100 percent of what we would need to be completely independent. It would save literally thousands of dollars a year."
Shepherd is connected to the grid through Rocky Mountain Power, which charges a variable rate for power depending on demand during a given 24-hour period. With his windmill setup, Shepherd has what's called "net metering" -- an electric meter that spins both ways. He pays for electricity coming in, but gets a credit from Rocky Mountain for any excess power generated by his windmills that flows back onto the grid. Already, he's cut his power bills in half, and with good storage batteries he thinks he could reduce the bill to zero.
While Shepherd opted for windmills over solar at the time he was planning his alternative energy installation, he said he would reconsider that decision today as the bottom continues to fall out of the cost of solar cells.
"Batteries and PV are about to merge," said MIT's Nocera, using the shorthand for "photovoltaics" or solar power. "First Solar is now saying that it takes $1 a peak watt to manufacture, and another 80 cents for installation. So they're saying that you can get PV for under $2 a watt. That's a reduction of cost by a factor of four. Only a few years ago, it was $8. If CoorsTek and Ceramatec come up with a good battery, the market will develop quickly."
The long-term impact of home electric generation for a power company's business model could be huge. After all, you can't stay in business if nobody's paying for power. Exactly how that will play out remains to be seen.
***
Fifty miles south of Ceramatec's laboratories, Chris Cannon, the former congressman from Utah County, is on a crusade to transform the world through technology. He currently sits on Ceramatec's advisory board with Nocera. No longer burdened by the pressures of Washington, he's using his experience in energy, manufacturing and government to carry the message of innovation and help move research to reality.
"What I choose to concentrate on now are things that will make the world a better place," Cannon said, "and Utah is an incredibly good place to do that."
Approached by Ceramatec after he left Congress, Cannon fills a complementary role in a group of smart engineers and academic types. With extensive Washington contacts and an understanding of the inner workings of power generation, he hopes to be able to make connections that will push the new battery technology forward for the benefit of the country.
"I have an energy and manufacturing background, so I understand the process," he said. "Ceramatec had a gap in their experience which I think I filled pretty well." On top of that, there was "good chemistry" from the start.
While Cannon's six terms in Congress representing what is arguably the most conservative district in America means keeping a somewhat jaundiced eye on the Obama administration, he's far from negative. He thinks of himself as a "post-partisan Republican" willing to run with good ideas regardless of their source. And when it comes to energy policy, he's anything but discouraged.
"If you look at the president, he inherited some really difficult things," Cannon said. "But he hired a guy to be the secretary of energy who is a scientist. And we are on the verge of so many scientific breakthroughs that no matter what the president's ideology is, if we do the right thing scientifically, America is going to do well. Many of the innovations that are coming out of Utah that I'm involved with are likely to be really important, regardless of the leadership."
Last month, Obama introduced a raft of broad energy proposals that were sharply criticized by conservatives as economic back-breakers. Proponents hailed the plans as progressive. Either way the administration appears to be on a path that could soon drive the cost of conventional energy higher -- some say as much as double. Electrical generation at home using solar panels, coupled with storage in effective batteries, could soften the financial impact on many homeowners' utility costs.
The new Ceramatec battery could also change the way private enterprises invest in energy, Cannon said. Instead of building another power plant, for example, maybe they buy 100,000 or a million batteries and distribute those around the service area of a utility to reduce loads and eliminate expensive "spinning reserve," the supplementary power generation that's fired up in response to daily spikes in electric demand.
"The technology could mean a lot of things," Cannon said, "but it certainly means that we change the way we invest. It also means that we shift our expenditures on terrorism, because our infrastructure for power transmission is probably the weakest link in America today. If you have local batteries with local control, that gives terrorists a more difficult target. And local control systems are much simpler than a vast national transmission grid."
***
CoorsTek's manufacturing roots go back to the early 20th century, when Adolph Coors diversified his beer brewing empire based in Golden, Colo. He set up a ceramic manufacturing business called the Herold China and Pottery Company, whose early product line included dinnerware and utensils but later moved to high-tech industrial products made of ceramics. With World Wars I and II, the company stepped up to provide needed ceramics for industry and the military, including materials used in the production of the atom bomb.
"To most Americans, the word 'Coors' means beer," wrote Business Wire on the ceramic maker's 75th birthday. "But to scientists and industrialists throughout the world, the word 'Coors' means technical ceramics of extraordinary quality."
That hasn't changed. Cellular telephones, car engines, computer chips, soda dispensers, semiconductor casings, blood processing pumps, bulletproof vests and armor for military vehicles, to name just a few items in a dizzying high-tech product array, all use ceramic components produced by Coors enterprises. And so it was natural in 2008 for CoorsTek to purchase the hottest ceramics R&D firm going -- Ceramatec, with its 165 employees in Salt Lake City.
Ceramatec was founded in 1976 by a group of University of Utah professors who made important contributions to the sodium-sulphur battery technology being pursued by Ford Motor Company for vehicles at the time. Those early liquid-core batteries didn't pan out well for transportation, though, because of their size and weight, and because of the extremely harsh internal chemical conditions required for them to work.
In the years since, electric cars have remained on the sexy-tech list, with substantial industry efforts aimed at developing various flavors of zippy batteries to power them. Ceramatec had other ideas, recognizing a vast potential market for a different sort of power -- for homes.
"With a house, you don't need to get energy in and out instantaneously. You need huge amounts of storage capacity," says MIT's Nocera. "That suggests a different commercial market and different technical restraints and opportunities."
***
In 2000 Ashok Joshi, a native of India, took the helm at Ceramatec. His international reputation in ion technology and fuel cells kept the company among the first rank of innovators.
Joshi (he prefers A.J.) looked to the potent combination of sodium and sulphur for the basic components of a new battery. That was known chemistry. But while he wanted to achieve a high energy density offered by those elements, he also wanted to get rid of the extreme heat, corrosion and toxicity of liquid sodium batteries.
The key would be found in a paper-thin, yet strong and highly conductive, electrolyte material -- an advanced ceramic -- to serve as the barrier between the battery's sodium and sulphur. The thinner the barrier, the cooler the battery can operate. If you can get below the melting point of 98 C, sodium stays in its solid state, and you've got enough energy to run a house with safety.
Charged particles of sodium and sulphur -- ions -- now scoot so effortlessly through the new ceramic wafer that the sodium doesn't even approach 98 C, let alone 350.
The ceramic that made this possible was dubbed NaSICON by chemists. That stands for "sodium super ion conductor" -- "Na" being the code name for sodium in chemistry's periodic table.
Ceramatec's formulation is a trade secret. With trademark modesty, A.J. observes, "We feel confident it's a good material."
"It's a miracle material," corrects Grover Coors. He's the great-grandson of Adolph Coors, the brewmaster-industrialist who started all this. Grover has a Ph.D and specializes in solid-state ionics and advanced materials. He's working with Ceramatec as a sort of research fellow to evaluate technologies and advise senior management. A.J. stayed on as president after the sale to CoorsTek.
"There are two classes of ceramic materials that are good conductors," Coors explained. "One is what developed here in the early days -- beta-alumina solid electrolyte, or BASE. It's temperamental, brittle. A.J. thought of a better material. It's a better conductor, easier to manipulate and process, and lower cost."
This is where the earth moves for renewable energy. The new electrolyte enables the development of an energy-dense, inexpensive and safe storage battery for use at home. Combined with the rapidly emerging thin-film solar cells, it presents an unparalleled business opportunity.
***
Grover's brother, John K. Coors, is CEO of CoorsTek, the manufacturing company that applies what the scientists at Ceramatec dream up. Their nephew, Doug Coors, oversees R&D.
With some 21 plants producing advanced ceramic products worldwide, the expectation is that full-scale production of ceramic sheets for the new batteries could be tooled up in short order. In fact, only a handful of CoorsTek facilities would likely be employed.
The order of magnitude pencils out along these lines: a target of 20 gigawatt hours of storage in 20 kilowatt-hour battery increments equals 1 million batteries. Or using a different metric, 1 million square meters of thin ceramic electrolyte would yield 20 gigawatt hours of batteries, equal to California's entire spinning reserve.
Nobody at CoorsTek even blinks at such figures. The company already produces 3 million pounds of ceramic material per month. "Once we have a working prototype battery with all the standards and cost requirements met, it will come up quickly," said Grover Coors. "It would scare people to know how quickly we can bring this up."
They're about about six months away from initial scale-up toward a commercial product, he said.
Lots of sodium will be needed to make the new batteries, and Ceramatec proposes a symbiotic relationship with the federal government to get it. Enormous quantities of sodium metals, the byproducts of nuclear weapons manufacturing, just happen be available for cleanup at Hanford nuclear reservation near Richland, Wash. It's a ready-made source of material that CoorsTek can recycle.
***
In a laboratory at Ceramatec, a small battery -- a NaSICON sandwich in silver foil -- has been cycling up and down since October to prove out the electrochemistry. Engineers are confident the tests will support a projected useful life of 3,650 cycles, which meet the standard of one discharge/recharge cycle per day for 10 years. It's a tall challenge, according to Coors, but doable. "It's very efficient in terms of watt-hours per kilogram," he said. "We're now in excess of 200, which puts us in the sweet spot for all the applications we've been talking about."
There are a handful of small hurdles yet to cross in the science, but nobody seems terribly concerned. One is the fact that when two solids are joined along flat surfaces, there will always be at least a 1-micron gap between them. That needs to be closed somehow. Nocera is making some suggestions for suitable fillers, but neither he nor Ceramatec developmental scientist John Watkins feel that the problem will be a difficult one.
"I want to say, this is no big deal," Nocera said. "But sometimes little things can bite you in the butt. So we'll just work it out."
***
Meanwhile, heavyweight liquid sodium-sulphur batteries from Japan are making an inroad into the United States at Luverne, Minn. They're part of a demonstration project by Xcel Energy, an eight-state power utility. In February, Xcel began testing a 1-megawatt battery installation intended to capture power from a giant 11-megawatt wind farm owned by Minwind Energy, LLC. It's said to be the first attempt to store wind-generated power at a large-scale.
Contrasting with Ceramatec's vision of many small home-based power centers with refrigerator-size batteries, this project is another mainframe -- albeit fueled by wind. Hot liquid sodium-sulphur batteries from NGK are intended to move a lot of energy to the grid. The 50-kilowatt battery modules -- 20 cylindrical cells -- are roughly the size of two semi-trailers and weigh 80 tons. They'll store about 7.2 megawatt hours of electricity, enough to power 500 homes for seven hours, according to company data. The test is intended to validate greater penetration of wind energy on the Xcel Energy system.
It's one of many efforts by industry to cut down carbon dioxide emissions and move to a more sustainable energy model, but it's not without hurdles.
"One of the big problems with the NGK system is that it's megawatt-scale storage," said Ceramatec's Coors. "It has to be on top of the 10 kilowatt side of the utility transformer, meaning that there's a lot of step-down transformers and whatnot involved in hooking those things up -- a lot more system complication.
"If you go with a smaller system like the 5 kilowatts for four hours system that we're contemplating, that's all done on the 110-volt side of the transformer, and so all the switching can be done with solid-state relays very inexpensively."
Such comparisons are batted around frequently by Ceramatec insiders as they seek to optimize the science and develop business models. A recent Sunday dinner with several board members was a popcorn machine of problem-solving and technical musings.
Over dessert, Cannon suggested a new angle: Was it possible to use the thin ceramic membrane developed at Ceramatec to reduce the production costs and improve efficiency of NGK's existing hot liquid batteries -- replacing the old beta-alumina electrolyte currently used in those devices? After all, the new ceramic membrane is cheaper and a better conductor. That got Nocera's attention, and the idea then bounced to A.J., whose mental wheels were rolling.
The exchange was typical of the collegial atmosphere and dynamic thinking processes that characterize Ceramatec.
***
Joe Hunter envisions applications for a new generation of batteries in his specialty of hydroelectric power -- not massive banks of batteries at dam sites, but maybe something along the lines of the 1 megawatt battery array at Minwind's Minnesota wind farm. Alternatively, many small batteries could be distributed throughout a community.
Hunter is a former deputy assistant secretary in the Department of the Interior and was Cannon's chief of staff.
In Hunter's world, large dams typically don't employ batteries on-site because the torrent of juice a hydroelectric plant generates is overwhelming. Glen Canyon Dam, for example, produces close to 1,000 megawatts, which is comparable to a big coal-fired power plant. In eastern Utah, Flaming Gorge churns out 150 megawatts.
The advantage of a dam over a wind farm, however, is predictability. Water must be released continuously to support fisheries and other environmental systems downstream. That's essentially wasted power. If small energy generation and battery storage could piggyback on such flows, the community could benefit at low cost. Inexpensive batteries could be used economically in areas serviced by many dams, Hunter suggested.
Take Deer Creek at the head of Provo Canyon, for instance. Generators at the dam can produce up to 5 megawatts, but they run mainly in the irrigation season. But water to sustain the Provo River has to be released all the time, and local residences, with batteries trickle-charging continuously, could benefit.
It's another value proposition added to others, like the net metering enjoyed by the Shepherds in Alpine. The idea in all this is to ease pressure on the grid while moving people toward greater energy independence.
"What we're talking about is the ability to take the edges off," Hunter said. "We're at a tipping point for alternative energy."
In Salt Lake City, Grover Coors agrees: "This will be the largest industry of all time," he said. "But it's all about cost and reliability."
source
In a modest building on the west side of Salt Lake City, a team of specialists in advanced materials and electrochemistry has produced what could be the single most important breakthrough for clean, alternative energy since Socrates first noted solar heating 2,400 years ago.
The prize is the culmination of 10 years of research and testing -- a new generation of deep-storage battery that's small enough, and safe enough, to sit in your basement and power your home.
It promises to nudge the world to a paradigm shift as big as the switch from centralized mainframe computers in the 1980s to personal laptops. But this time the mainframe is America's antiquated electrical grid; and the switch is to personal power stations in millions of individual homes.
Former energy secretary Bill Richardson once disparaged the U.S. electrical grid as "third world," and he was painfully close to the mark. It's an inefficient, aging relic of a century-old approach to energy and a weak link in national security in an age of terrorism.
Taking a load off the grid through electricity production and storage at home would extend the life of the system and avoid the expenditure of tens, or even hundreds, of billions to make it "smart."
The battery breakthrough comes from a Salt Lake company called Ceramatec, the R&D arm of CoorsTek, a world leader in advanced materials and electrochemical devices. It promises to reduce dependence on the dinosaur by hooking up with the latest generation of personalized power plants that draw from the sun.
Solar energy has been around, of course, but it's been prohibitively expensive. Now the cost is tumbling, driven by new thin-film chemistry and manufacturing techniques. Leaders in the field include companies like Arizona-based First Solar, which can paint solar cells onto glass; and Konarka, an upstart that purchased a defunct Polaroid film factory in New Bedford, Mass., and now plans to print cells onto rolls of flexible plastic.
The convergence of these two key technologies -- solar power and deep-storage batteries -- has profound implications for oil-strapped America.
"These batteries switch the whole dialogue to renewables," said Daniel Nocera, a noted chemist and professor of energy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who sits on Ceramatec's science advisory board. "They will turn us away from dumb technology, circa 1900 -- a 110-year-old approach -- and turn us forward."
Why not just upgrade to a so-called "smart grid" as President Obama has proposed in his economic stimulus package? There are complications, Nocera said.
"First you have to rebuild the grid because the one we have now is a creaky machine from the 1920s, and we keep trying to retrofit it," he said. "Then you're going to have computers trying to manage the energy, which brings up issues like security. You have to make it really secure so you don't have people hacking into things. And then politics. Just wait until you try to run power lines through someone's backyard.
"I can't imagine anything more secure than generating my own energy with the sun at my house, and now I'll have a way to store it. It's the ultimate in security, and the ultimate in control."
With small-scale electrical generation taking place at millions of individual homes -- as opposed to today's large-scale power generation from a handful of giant power plants -- there would be less worry about what's called "point failure" on the grid. That's when a single component gets knocked out and shuts off power to a whole region. California-style rolling blackouts would be history.
The threat of terrorism has heightened the worry. But wide distribution of batteries in homes would virtually eliminate it.
***
Inside Ceramatec's wonder battery is a chunk of solid sodium metal mated to a sulphur compound by an extraordinary, paper-thin ceramic membrane. The membrane conducts ions -- electrically charged particles -- back and forth to generate a current. The company calculates that the battery will cram 20 to 40 kilowatt hours of energy into a package about the size of a refrigerator, and operate below 90 degrees C.
This may not startle you, but it should. It's amazing. The most energy-dense batteries available today are huge bottles of super-hot molten sodium, swirling around at 600 degrees or so. At that temperature the material is highly conductive of electricity but it's both toxic and corrosive. You wouldn't want your kids around one of these.
The essence of Ceramatec's breakthrough is that high energy density (a lot of juice) can be achieved safely at normal temperatures and with solid components, not hot liquid.
Ceramatec says its new generation of battery would deliver a continuous flow of 5 kilowatts of electricity over four hours, with 3,650 daily discharge/recharge cycles over 10 years. With the batteries expected to sell in the neighborhood of $2,000, that translates to less than 3 cents per kilowatt hour over the battery's life. Conventional power from the grid typically costs in the neighborhood of 8 cents per kilowatt hour.
Re-read that last paragraph and let the information really sink in. Five kilowatts over four hours -- how much is that? Imagine your trash compactor, food processor, vacuum cleaner, stereo, sewing machine, one surface unit of an electric range and thirty-three 60-watt light bulbs all running nonstop for four hours each day before the house battery runs out. That's a pretty exciting place to live.
And then you recharge. With a projected 3,650 discharge/recharge cycles -- one per day for a decade -- you leave the next-best battery in the dust. Deep-cycling lead/acid batteries like the ones used in RVs are only good for a few hundred cycles, so they're kaput in a year or so.
How do you recharge? By tapping your solar panels or windmills. It's just like plugging in your cell phone or iPod, only you plug in your house.
A small three-bedroom home in Provo might average, say, 18 kWh of electric consumption per day in the summer -- that's 1,000 watts for 18 hours. A much larger home, say five bedrooms in the Grandview area, might average 80 kWh, according to Provo Power.;Either way, a supplement of 20 to 40 kWh per day is substantial. If you could produce that much power in a day -- for example through solar cells on the roof -- your power bills would plummet.
Ceramatec's battery breakthrough now makes that possible.
Clyde Shepherd of Alpine is floored by the prospect. He recently installed the second of two windmills on his property that are each rated at 2.4 kilowatts continuous output. He's searching for a battery system that can capture and store some of that for later use when it's calm outside, but he hasn't found a good solution.
"This changes the whole scope of things and would have a major impact on what we're trying to do," Shepherd said. "Something that would provide 20 kilowatts would put us near 100 percent of what we would need to be completely independent. It would save literally thousands of dollars a year."
Shepherd is connected to the grid through Rocky Mountain Power, which charges a variable rate for power depending on demand during a given 24-hour period. With his windmill setup, Shepherd has what's called "net metering" -- an electric meter that spins both ways. He pays for electricity coming in, but gets a credit from Rocky Mountain for any excess power generated by his windmills that flows back onto the grid. Already, he's cut his power bills in half, and with good storage batteries he thinks he could reduce the bill to zero.
While Shepherd opted for windmills over solar at the time he was planning his alternative energy installation, he said he would reconsider that decision today as the bottom continues to fall out of the cost of solar cells.
"Batteries and PV are about to merge," said MIT's Nocera, using the shorthand for "photovoltaics" or solar power. "First Solar is now saying that it takes $1 a peak watt to manufacture, and another 80 cents for installation. So they're saying that you can get PV for under $2 a watt. That's a reduction of cost by a factor of four. Only a few years ago, it was $8. If CoorsTek and Ceramatec come up with a good battery, the market will develop quickly."
The long-term impact of home electric generation for a power company's business model could be huge. After all, you can't stay in business if nobody's paying for power. Exactly how that will play out remains to be seen.
***
Fifty miles south of Ceramatec's laboratories, Chris Cannon, the former congressman from Utah County, is on a crusade to transform the world through technology. He currently sits on Ceramatec's advisory board with Nocera. No longer burdened by the pressures of Washington, he's using his experience in energy, manufacturing and government to carry the message of innovation and help move research to reality.
"What I choose to concentrate on now are things that will make the world a better place," Cannon said, "and Utah is an incredibly good place to do that."
Approached by Ceramatec after he left Congress, Cannon fills a complementary role in a group of smart engineers and academic types. With extensive Washington contacts and an understanding of the inner workings of power generation, he hopes to be able to make connections that will push the new battery technology forward for the benefit of the country.
"I have an energy and manufacturing background, so I understand the process," he said. "Ceramatec had a gap in their experience which I think I filled pretty well." On top of that, there was "good chemistry" from the start.
While Cannon's six terms in Congress representing what is arguably the most conservative district in America means keeping a somewhat jaundiced eye on the Obama administration, he's far from negative. He thinks of himself as a "post-partisan Republican" willing to run with good ideas regardless of their source. And when it comes to energy policy, he's anything but discouraged.
"If you look at the president, he inherited some really difficult things," Cannon said. "But he hired a guy to be the secretary of energy who is a scientist. And we are on the verge of so many scientific breakthroughs that no matter what the president's ideology is, if we do the right thing scientifically, America is going to do well. Many of the innovations that are coming out of Utah that I'm involved with are likely to be really important, regardless of the leadership."
Last month, Obama introduced a raft of broad energy proposals that were sharply criticized by conservatives as economic back-breakers. Proponents hailed the plans as progressive. Either way the administration appears to be on a path that could soon drive the cost of conventional energy higher -- some say as much as double. Electrical generation at home using solar panels, coupled with storage in effective batteries, could soften the financial impact on many homeowners' utility costs.
The new Ceramatec battery could also change the way private enterprises invest in energy, Cannon said. Instead of building another power plant, for example, maybe they buy 100,000 or a million batteries and distribute those around the service area of a utility to reduce loads and eliminate expensive "spinning reserve," the supplementary power generation that's fired up in response to daily spikes in electric demand.
"The technology could mean a lot of things," Cannon said, "but it certainly means that we change the way we invest. It also means that we shift our expenditures on terrorism, because our infrastructure for power transmission is probably the weakest link in America today. If you have local batteries with local control, that gives terrorists a more difficult target. And local control systems are much simpler than a vast national transmission grid."
***
CoorsTek's manufacturing roots go back to the early 20th century, when Adolph Coors diversified his beer brewing empire based in Golden, Colo. He set up a ceramic manufacturing business called the Herold China and Pottery Company, whose early product line included dinnerware and utensils but later moved to high-tech industrial products made of ceramics. With World Wars I and II, the company stepped up to provide needed ceramics for industry and the military, including materials used in the production of the atom bomb.
"To most Americans, the word 'Coors' means beer," wrote Business Wire on the ceramic maker's 75th birthday. "But to scientists and industrialists throughout the world, the word 'Coors' means technical ceramics of extraordinary quality."
That hasn't changed. Cellular telephones, car engines, computer chips, soda dispensers, semiconductor casings, blood processing pumps, bulletproof vests and armor for military vehicles, to name just a few items in a dizzying high-tech product array, all use ceramic components produced by Coors enterprises. And so it was natural in 2008 for CoorsTek to purchase the hottest ceramics R&D firm going -- Ceramatec, with its 165 employees in Salt Lake City.
Ceramatec was founded in 1976 by a group of University of Utah professors who made important contributions to the sodium-sulphur battery technology being pursued by Ford Motor Company for vehicles at the time. Those early liquid-core batteries didn't pan out well for transportation, though, because of their size and weight, and because of the extremely harsh internal chemical conditions required for them to work.
In the years since, electric cars have remained on the sexy-tech list, with substantial industry efforts aimed at developing various flavors of zippy batteries to power them. Ceramatec had other ideas, recognizing a vast potential market for a different sort of power -- for homes.
"With a house, you don't need to get energy in and out instantaneously. You need huge amounts of storage capacity," says MIT's Nocera. "That suggests a different commercial market and different technical restraints and opportunities."
***
In 2000 Ashok Joshi, a native of India, took the helm at Ceramatec. His international reputation in ion technology and fuel cells kept the company among the first rank of innovators.
Joshi (he prefers A.J.) looked to the potent combination of sodium and sulphur for the basic components of a new battery. That was known chemistry. But while he wanted to achieve a high energy density offered by those elements, he also wanted to get rid of the extreme heat, corrosion and toxicity of liquid sodium batteries.
The key would be found in a paper-thin, yet strong and highly conductive, electrolyte material -- an advanced ceramic -- to serve as the barrier between the battery's sodium and sulphur. The thinner the barrier, the cooler the battery can operate. If you can get below the melting point of 98 C, sodium stays in its solid state, and you've got enough energy to run a house with safety.
Charged particles of sodium and sulphur -- ions -- now scoot so effortlessly through the new ceramic wafer that the sodium doesn't even approach 98 C, let alone 350.
The ceramic that made this possible was dubbed NaSICON by chemists. That stands for "sodium super ion conductor" -- "Na" being the code name for sodium in chemistry's periodic table.
Ceramatec's formulation is a trade secret. With trademark modesty, A.J. observes, "We feel confident it's a good material."
"It's a miracle material," corrects Grover Coors. He's the great-grandson of Adolph Coors, the brewmaster-industrialist who started all this. Grover has a Ph.D and specializes in solid-state ionics and advanced materials. He's working with Ceramatec as a sort of research fellow to evaluate technologies and advise senior management. A.J. stayed on as president after the sale to CoorsTek.
"There are two classes of ceramic materials that are good conductors," Coors explained. "One is what developed here in the early days -- beta-alumina solid electrolyte, or BASE. It's temperamental, brittle. A.J. thought of a better material. It's a better conductor, easier to manipulate and process, and lower cost."
This is where the earth moves for renewable energy. The new electrolyte enables the development of an energy-dense, inexpensive and safe storage battery for use at home. Combined with the rapidly emerging thin-film solar cells, it presents an unparalleled business opportunity.
***
Grover's brother, John K. Coors, is CEO of CoorsTek, the manufacturing company that applies what the scientists at Ceramatec dream up. Their nephew, Doug Coors, oversees R&D.
With some 21 plants producing advanced ceramic products worldwide, the expectation is that full-scale production of ceramic sheets for the new batteries could be tooled up in short order. In fact, only a handful of CoorsTek facilities would likely be employed.
The order of magnitude pencils out along these lines: a target of 20 gigawatt hours of storage in 20 kilowatt-hour battery increments equals 1 million batteries. Or using a different metric, 1 million square meters of thin ceramic electrolyte would yield 20 gigawatt hours of batteries, equal to California's entire spinning reserve.
Nobody at CoorsTek even blinks at such figures. The company already produces 3 million pounds of ceramic material per month. "Once we have a working prototype battery with all the standards and cost requirements met, it will come up quickly," said Grover Coors. "It would scare people to know how quickly we can bring this up."
They're about about six months away from initial scale-up toward a commercial product, he said.
Lots of sodium will be needed to make the new batteries, and Ceramatec proposes a symbiotic relationship with the federal government to get it. Enormous quantities of sodium metals, the byproducts of nuclear weapons manufacturing, just happen be available for cleanup at Hanford nuclear reservation near Richland, Wash. It's a ready-made source of material that CoorsTek can recycle.
***
In a laboratory at Ceramatec, a small battery -- a NaSICON sandwich in silver foil -- has been cycling up and down since October to prove out the electrochemistry. Engineers are confident the tests will support a projected useful life of 3,650 cycles, which meet the standard of one discharge/recharge cycle per day for 10 years. It's a tall challenge, according to Coors, but doable. "It's very efficient in terms of watt-hours per kilogram," he said. "We're now in excess of 200, which puts us in the sweet spot for all the applications we've been talking about."
There are a handful of small hurdles yet to cross in the science, but nobody seems terribly concerned. One is the fact that when two solids are joined along flat surfaces, there will always be at least a 1-micron gap between them. That needs to be closed somehow. Nocera is making some suggestions for suitable fillers, but neither he nor Ceramatec developmental scientist John Watkins feel that the problem will be a difficult one.
"I want to say, this is no big deal," Nocera said. "But sometimes little things can bite you in the butt. So we'll just work it out."
***
Meanwhile, heavyweight liquid sodium-sulphur batteries from Japan are making an inroad into the United States at Luverne, Minn. They're part of a demonstration project by Xcel Energy, an eight-state power utility. In February, Xcel began testing a 1-megawatt battery installation intended to capture power from a giant 11-megawatt wind farm owned by Minwind Energy, LLC. It's said to be the first attempt to store wind-generated power at a large-scale.
Contrasting with Ceramatec's vision of many small home-based power centers with refrigerator-size batteries, this project is another mainframe -- albeit fueled by wind. Hot liquid sodium-sulphur batteries from NGK are intended to move a lot of energy to the grid. The 50-kilowatt battery modules -- 20 cylindrical cells -- are roughly the size of two semi-trailers and weigh 80 tons. They'll store about 7.2 megawatt hours of electricity, enough to power 500 homes for seven hours, according to company data. The test is intended to validate greater penetration of wind energy on the Xcel Energy system.
It's one of many efforts by industry to cut down carbon dioxide emissions and move to a more sustainable energy model, but it's not without hurdles.
"One of the big problems with the NGK system is that it's megawatt-scale storage," said Ceramatec's Coors. "It has to be on top of the 10 kilowatt side of the utility transformer, meaning that there's a lot of step-down transformers and whatnot involved in hooking those things up -- a lot more system complication.
"If you go with a smaller system like the 5 kilowatts for four hours system that we're contemplating, that's all done on the 110-volt side of the transformer, and so all the switching can be done with solid-state relays very inexpensively."
Such comparisons are batted around frequently by Ceramatec insiders as they seek to optimize the science and develop business models. A recent Sunday dinner with several board members was a popcorn machine of problem-solving and technical musings.
Over dessert, Cannon suggested a new angle: Was it possible to use the thin ceramic membrane developed at Ceramatec to reduce the production costs and improve efficiency of NGK's existing hot liquid batteries -- replacing the old beta-alumina electrolyte currently used in those devices? After all, the new ceramic membrane is cheaper and a better conductor. That got Nocera's attention, and the idea then bounced to A.J., whose mental wheels were rolling.
The exchange was typical of the collegial atmosphere and dynamic thinking processes that characterize Ceramatec.
***
Joe Hunter envisions applications for a new generation of batteries in his specialty of hydroelectric power -- not massive banks of batteries at dam sites, but maybe something along the lines of the 1 megawatt battery array at Minwind's Minnesota wind farm. Alternatively, many small batteries could be distributed throughout a community.
Hunter is a former deputy assistant secretary in the Department of the Interior and was Cannon's chief of staff.
In Hunter's world, large dams typically don't employ batteries on-site because the torrent of juice a hydroelectric plant generates is overwhelming. Glen Canyon Dam, for example, produces close to 1,000 megawatts, which is comparable to a big coal-fired power plant. In eastern Utah, Flaming Gorge churns out 150 megawatts.
The advantage of a dam over a wind farm, however, is predictability. Water must be released continuously to support fisheries and other environmental systems downstream. That's essentially wasted power. If small energy generation and battery storage could piggyback on such flows, the community could benefit at low cost. Inexpensive batteries could be used economically in areas serviced by many dams, Hunter suggested.
Take Deer Creek at the head of Provo Canyon, for instance. Generators at the dam can produce up to 5 megawatts, but they run mainly in the irrigation season. But water to sustain the Provo River has to be released all the time, and local residences, with batteries trickle-charging continuously, could benefit.
It's another value proposition added to others, like the net metering enjoyed by the Shepherds in Alpine. The idea in all this is to ease pressure on the grid while moving people toward greater energy independence.
"What we're talking about is the ability to take the edges off," Hunter said. "We're at a tipping point for alternative energy."
In Salt Lake City, Grover Coors agrees: "This will be the largest industry of all time," he said. "But it's all about cost and reliability."
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Salmon on the Seine
Salmon return to Paris - they must be in Seine
Atlantic salmon
Charles Bremner in Paris
It is not quite a return to the days when dolphins and even whales were seen making their way upstream to Paris, but the Seine is welcoming back at least one long-lost visitor: the Atlantic salmon.
A fish that in the Middle Ages abounded in the river is returning in healthy numbers after efforts to clean the polluted waters.
“There are more and more fish swimming up the Seine. This year the numbers have exceeded anything we could have imagined,” said Bernard Breton, the secretary-general of the National Federation for Fishing. “I would not be surprised if we had passed the 1,000 mark.”
It may be a while, however, before le pavé de saumon Notre Dame becomes a local delicacy. Salmon may be allowed to frolic in the Seine but levels of pesticide, lead and bacteria remain too high for people to risk it.
Times Archive 1897 Can the Thames again become a salmon river?
Probably the last salmon taken in the Thames was that caught near Monkey Island in 1823 and sent to the King at Windsor
Even overheated patrons of Paris Plage, the summer beach on the Right Bank, are warned to stay clear of the waters in which Louis XIV used to take his mistress for moonlight dips.
Those who ignore the rules are taken to hospital for checks once they have been hauled out by police.
Not so long ago, the Seine was connected to the famed sewers that the writer Victor Hugo called “a world of slime without human form”.
Efforts have been made in the past 30 years to end the fouling of the Seine with organic pollution and chemical run-off from industry and agriculture. Most species of fish had disappeared from the city’s waters by the 1920s.
Today the surface is cleaned regularly and there is a system that pumps oxygen into fish-friendly stretches when floodwaters run into the river.
Bertrand Delanoë, the Mayor of Paris, called the return of the Atlantic salmon a triumph for the Seine purification effort after the INRA, the leading state research institute, issued its study on the fish.
A statement on the mayor’s website said: “Without any project to reintroduce them we see that several species of migratory fish, including salmon, have come back up the Seine. This is a sign of a clear improvement in the quality of water in the river.”
The gradual return of about 30 species of fish — the Atlantic salmon made a tentative appearance a few years ago — has encouraged an urban angling boom. At weekends the Île Saint Louis, opposite Notre Dame, and the Left Bank by the Eiffel Tower are thick with anglers casting for bream, carp, pike, perch, catfish and sea trout.
“They do not eat them,” Stephanie Hofer, of the fishing federation, told The Times. “They throw them back — but that’s what 80 per cent of the anglers in France do.”
Central Paris hosted the world angling championship in 2001. No salmon were caught and few have since been hooked by the registered 7,000 fishermen in Paris.
The return of the salmon was spectacularly illustrated last October when a 15½lb (7kg) fish was caught in Suresnes, on the western downstream edge of the capital.
From genetic samples and age measurements, the INRA reported that all the Atlantic salmon were found to have swum up, or back up, the Seine via the estuary to the Channel in Le Havre after months or years in the sea. Some were born in French rivers, others farther afield.
The researchers said that the return was significant because the Atlantic salmon were bioindicators — creatures whose choice of habitat indicate a healthy environment.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Practical Guide to Free-Energy
Practical Guide to Free-Energy Devices
by Patrick J. Kelly
The purpose of this web site is to provide you with an introduction to a series of devices which have been shown to have very interesting properties and some are (incorrectly) described as 'perpetual motion' machines.
What's that you say - perpetual motion is impossible? My, you're a difficult one to please. The electrons in the molecules of rock formations have been orbiting steadily for millions of years without stopping - at what point will you agree that they are in perpetual motion?
source
So, why don't electrons run out of energy and just slow down to a standstill? Quantum Mechanics has shown that the universe is a seething cauldron of energy with particles popping into existence and then dropping out again. Knowing that E = mC2, we can see that a tremendous amount of energy is needed to create any form of matter. Scientists remark that if we could tap even a small part of that energy, then we would have free energy for our lifetime.
The Law of Conservation of Energy is undoubtedly correct when it shows that more energy cannot be taken out of any system than is put into that system. However, that does not mean that we cannot get more energy out of a system than we put into it. A crude example is a solar panel in sunlight. We get electrical power out of the panel but we do not put the sunlight into the panel - the sunlight arrives on its own. This example is simple as we can see the sunlight reaching the solar panel.
If, instead of the solar panel, we had a device which absorbs some of the energy which Quantum Mechanics observes and gives out, say, electrical power, would that be so different? Most people say "yes! - it is impossible!" but this reaction is based on the fact that we cannot see this sea of energy. Should we say that a TV set cannot possibly work because we cannot see a television transmission signal?
Many people have produced devices and ideas for tapping this energy. The energy is often called "Zero-Point Energy" because it is the energy which remains when a system has its temperature lowered to absolute zero. This presentation is introductory information on what has already been achieved in this field: devices which output more power than they require to run. This looks as if they contradict the Law of Conservation of Energy, but they don't, and you can see this when you take the zero-point energy field into account.
The material on this web site describes many different devices, with diagrams, photographs, explanations, pointers to web sites, etc. As some of the devices need an understanding of electronic circuitry, a simple, step-by-step instruction course in electronics is also provided in Chapter 12. This can take someone with no previous knowledge of electronics, to the level where they can read, understand, design and build the type of circuits used with these devices.
This is a very interesting field and the topic is quite absorbing once you get past the "it has to be impossible" attitude. We were once told that it would be impossible to cycle at more than 15 mph as the wind pressure would prevent the cyclist from breathing. Do you want to stay with that type of 'scientific' expert? Have some fun - discover the facts.
There are many, many interesting devices and ideas already on the web. This site does not mention them all by any means. What it does, is take some of what are in my opinion, the most promising and interesting items, group them by category, and attempt to describe them clearly and without too many technical terms. If you are not familiar with electronics, then some items may be difficult to understand. In that case, I suggest that you start with Chapter 12 and go through it in order, moving at whatever speed suits you, before examining the other sections. I hope you enjoy what you read.
Note: When you have finished reading any of the sections shown below, use the 'Back' button of your browser
to return to this page. You will need a recent version of the Adobe 'Acrobat' reader to display these sections.
It can be downloaded free from: Adobe
THE INFORMATION PRESENTED ON THIS WEB SITE IS FOR INFORMATION PURPOSES ONLY. SHOULD YOU DECIDE TO PERFORM EXPERIMENTS OR CONSTRUCT ANY DEVICE, YOU DO SO WHOLLY ON YOUR OWN RESPONSIBILITY -- NEITHER THE COMPANY HOSTING THIS WEB SITE, NOR THE SITE DESIGNER ARE IN ANY WAY RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR ACTIONS OR ANY RESULTING LOSS OR DAMAGE OF ANY DESCRIPTION, SHOULD ANY OCCUR AS A RESULT OF WHAT YOU DO.
The main information on this web site has been gathered together into a standard book format. You can download the main set of information, including the patents, as an eBook, using this link Book Release 11.0. The document contains over 2,000 pages and has a file size of about 26 Mb which means that it will take some time to download. It is also possible to use a background download from fileFactory. Alternatively, you can pick individual chapters as you wish. May I suggest that you store anything you download on your local drive as web sites do not remain in place for ever.
Chapter 1 Magnet Power: Introduction, Contents, Overview, COP, the Wang magnet motor, Bedini magnet motor, Ecklin-Brown magnetic generator, the Phi Transformer, Howard Johnson magnet motor, Carousel magnet motor, Robert Tracy magnet motor, Ben Teal electromagnetic motor, Jines magnet motor, Invention Intelligence magnet motor, Stephen Kundel's magnet motor, Charles Flynn's magnet motor, the Asymmetrical magnet motor, Lines of Magnetic Force, Steele Braden's magnet motor, Emil Hartman's magnetic track, Howard Johnson's magnetic track, James Roney's shielded stator magnets, the shielded twin-rotor idea, Don Kelly's magnet motor patent and the Perendev Magnet Motor. size 1.1 Mb, 7 Jun 2009 HTML
Chapter 2 Moving Pulsed Systems: The Adams motor, Harold Aspden's modifications of the Adams motor, Raymond Kromrey's No-drag Generator, Teruo Kawai's motor, self-powered 800 watt generator, the Muller motor, the RotoVerter, Phil Wood's energy pick-up, Phil Wood's DC motor RotoVerter modification, the David Kousoulides energy pick-up, thyristor testing circuit and alternator design details from Prof. Kevin Sullivan. size 1.1 Mb, 30 Jul 2009 HTML
Chapter 3 Motionless Pulsed Systems: Graham Gunderson's Solid-state Electric Generator, Charles Flynn's magnetic power enhancement system, Floyd Sweet's VTA, Dan Davidson's acoustic generator, the Pavel Imris optical amplifier, Michael Ognyanov's self-powered power pack, the Meyer-Mace Isotopic Generator, the Colman/Seddon-Gilliespie generator, Hans Coler's passive device and Don Smith's "Resonance Energy Methods". size 440 Kb, 21 Jul 2009 HTML
Chapter 4 Gravitational Pulsed Systems: Chas Campbell's pulsed flywheel, John Bedini's pulsed flywheel, the water-jet generator, Johann Bessler's gravity wheel, the Dale Simpson gravity wheel, the Veljko Milkovic pendulum/lever system, the Dale Simpson hinged-plate system, the Murilo Luciano gravity chain and Ivan Monk's Rotary Power Unit. size 728 Kb, 17 Jan 2009 HTML
Chapter 5 Energy-Tapping Pulsed Systems: Frank Prentice's electrical power accumulator, Dave Lawton's cold electricity water-splitter cell, John Bedini's pulsed battery charger, the Tesla Switch, Dave Lawton's cold electricity lightbulb, Bob Boyce's TPU energy tapping circuit, Steven Mark's TPU, comments from Jack Durban on Steven's TPU, a Nikola Tesla patent, the Ed Gray power tube, Radiant Energy waves, Nikola Tesla's experiments, Don Smith information, the Alberto Molina-Martinez generator, Alfred Hubbard's device, Joseph Cater's device, Floyd Sweet's VTA and Collapsing Field Technology generators. size 585 Kb, 3 Jul 2009 HTML
Chapter 6 Battery-Charging Pulsed Systems: John Bedini's pulsed systems, battery information from Ronald Knight, Ron Pugh's battery charger build, a self-charging battery pulser, the fan pulse charger, the automotive pulse charger, the self-charging motor, the one-battery pulse charger and the Tesla Switch. size 535 Kb, 5 Nov 2008 HTML
Chapter 7 Aerial Systems: Nikola Tesla's system, Thomas Henry Moray's system, Moray King's circuit suggestions, Hermann Plauston's systems, Roy Meyer's device and Raymond Phillips' RF to DC aerial system. size 342 Kb, 18 Jun 2009 HTML
Chapter 8 Fuel-less Engines: The energy in air, Bob Teal's compressed air engine, Scott Robertson's thoughts on putting low-pressure air into a tank of high-pressure air, the Leroy Rogers compressed-air vehicle engine adaption, the Vortex Tube, the Eber Van Valkinberg compressed fluids engine, the Clem engine, Vortex analysis by Prof. Evert, the Josef Papp engine, the Robert Britt engine, the Michael Eskeli turbines and the water-jet generator. size 1.5 Mb, 4 Nov 2008 HTML
Chapter 9 Passive Systems: Hans Coler's device, Thomas Trawoeger's pyramid, Karel Drbal's pyramid, James Brock's pyramids, Verne Cameron's pyramid transmission technique, the Pancake coil, Peter Grandic's patent, the Joe Cell, Bill Williams' design and recent analytical advances and co-ax cable electrets. size 584 Kb, 22 May 2009 HTML
Chapter 10 Vehicle Systems: The HydroStar and HydroGen designs, running an engine on water alone, Hydroxy Boosters, the Smack's Booster design plans, electrolyser design, the Hotsabi Booster construction plans, the 7-cell Isolated Cell booster design, the Series Cell design, Pulse Width Modulation current control, controlling heating, The DuPlex booster, dealing with the oxygen sensor, the Zach West electrolyser design, electrolyser principles, Bob Boyce's high-efficiency electrolyser system, how to wind Bob's toroid, running with high voltage, water-level sensors, water supply systems, connecting to the engine, safety devices, timing details, diesel engines, dealing with 'waste' sparks, measuring gas output rates, operating from the mains, Bob Boyce's experiences, Dave Lawton's replication of Stan Meyer's Water Fuel Cell water-splitter, Dave Lawton's circuits and construction details, pipe-tuning details, Dr Cramton's low-power water-splitting, Tad Johnson's ultra low-power water splitting, Stan Meyer's water injection system, mpg improvement through cam timing, the Firestorm spark plug, Ted Ewert's Vortex Turbine, Water Vapour Injection systems, the Ram Implosion Wing, Fuelsavers, high mpg carburettors, Vortex fuel reformers, water as a fuel and the weird nature of water. size 2.6 Mb, 8 May 2009 HTML
Chapter 11 Other Devices: Nikola Tesla's power from air system, Dr. Harold Apsden's Electrical Power Generating Apparatus patent, Our Energy Future, Paulo and Alexandra Correa's conversion of Longitudinal Electromagnetic Waves to ordinary electricity, Prof. Constantin Meyl's scalar wave information, Nikola Tesla's MHD device, the effects of the Zero-Point Energy field, John R. R, Searle's self-powered garvitational device, construction details for Dave Lawton's gravity wave detector, the Butch Lafonte motor/generator, the Joseph Newman motor, the differences between Maxwell and Heaviside, Daniel Cook's electrical generator, Michael Eskeli's work-free heater design, Karl Schapeller's Device, Condensation-induced water hammer and William Hyde's COP=10 electrostatic power generator. size 1.2 Mb, 12 Jun 2009 HTML
Chapter 12 Electronics Tutorial: Simple descriptions of Voltage, resistors, capacitors, current flow, multimeters, transistor circuits, sensor systems, relays, diodes, transistor testing circuits, Power Supply Units, AC, DC, rectification, the SCR, the triac, the opto-isolator, LEDs, chokes, transformers, the Schmitt Trigger, solenoids, RF detection, coil impedance, the diode bridge, multivibrators, inverters, truth tables, the 7414 chip, NAND gates, latches, bistables, gating, the 4093 chip, prototype construction, the 4011, the Darlington pair, using a gate as an amplifier, the 555 chip, the 741 chip, op-amps and comparators, the 4022 chip, laying out a circuit, test equipment and how to build it, and 'the weird stuff'. size 483 Kb, 7 Jun 2009 HTML
Chapter 13 Doubtful Devices: Paul Baumann's Thestatika, Michael Faraday's Homopolar Generator (or the N-Machine), the Romag and Mini-Romag, Cold Fusion, Moller's Atomic Hydrogen Generator, Muammer Yildiz's 'Ocean Star' electrical generator, Jesse McQueen's 'Internal Energy-generating Power Source', the 'D18' Nitro Cell, the HydroStar and HydroGen systems, Hydrogen from Aluminium, Francois Cornish's system, Ultrasonic Water-splitting, Tom Bearden's Motionless Electromagnetic Generator, Dave Lawton's assymetric MEG and Valeri Ivanov's Motionless Generator. size 689 Kb, 21 Jun 2009 HTML
Chapter 14 Renewable-Energy Devices: Efficient solid-fuel burners, Stan Meyer's hydroxy gas burner system, the Eugene Frenette heater, the Eugene Perkins heater, the multi-disc heater, the Peter Davey heater, the simple home-build windmill design from Dan Bartmann and Dan Fink, Frank Herbert's high-efficiency windmill, the 'Power Plant for Caravans' from Claude Mead and William Holmes, the easy-build Solar Funnel cooker, water and milk pasteurisation, the Solar Funnel as a Cooler, the Solar Puddle, the 'Easy-Lid Cooker', drinking water systems, solar sills, Elmer Grimes' high-volume drinking water from air, the Chalice Courneya water from air system, Toribio Bellocq's well-pumping system, Richard Dickinson's well-pumping system, Arthur Bentley's well-pumping system, the self-powered Ram Pump, wave power systems, solar icemaking and Einstein's refrigeration through heating. size 1.3 Mb, 29 Oct 2008 HTML
Chapter 15 The Time Available: The time limits set by coming world events, the Astronomical situation, the New World Order people's economic attack, the New World Order people's biological attack, a Home-Made Remedy for the biological attack and the present status of the flu "epidemic", the Japanese company Panasonic has instructed all it's foreign company executives to sell up and move back to Japan no later than September 2009 - find out why. size 688 Kb, 7 Aug 2009 HTML
Saturday, August 08, 2009
Mexico: The Genome and the Genocide
The Mexican Genome
by JOHN ROSS
When last May 11th, at the nadir of this spring's swine flu panic, President Felipe Calderon strode to the flag-bedecked podium in southern Mexico City and, under the strictest health protocols, lowered his "tapaboca" (surgical mask) to punch the button that would load "The Mexican Genome" onto the world's computers, the only thing that seemed to be missing was a military band to strike up the National Anthem.
The human genome is the ordering of genes in a determined set of chromosomes that contain all the genetic and hereditary memory of the human organism, i.e. the history of our DNA. Although distinct genomes have been decoded for racial groupings - European Caucasians, Asians, and Africans -, science has never before been assigned to decipher the genome of a national state or nation which is, by definition, a political entity, and many here questioned the existence of a "Mexican Genome."
Despite the nay sayers, Dr. Gerardo Jimenez, director of the National Institute of Genomic Medicine (INMEGEN) whose scientists did the gene mapping insists that the 89 deviations from genetic patterns found in other races, justifies the national character of the "Mexican Genome."
Other scientists scoffed at the INMEGEN project. Science writer Julio Munoz Rubio wondered if Calderon's genome would prompt a genetic explanation for such peculiarly Mexican propensities as "mariachis, tequila, wife-beating, gay-bashing, and racist attitudes towards indigenous peoples." Would a gene be discovered for electoral fraud and the corruption of public officials asked one letter-writer to La Jornada, the left daily, pointing out that, according to a government audit, half a million Yanqui dollars appears to have gone missing during the construction of the INMEGEN headquarters in the south of the city?
Calderon's political opponents also questioned the timing of the announcement of the discovery of the Mexican Genome during a health crisis that had been tainted by his administration's overreaction to the swine flu pandemic after a six-week delay in alerting the public to the contagion.
The president countered his critics by lauding the cost benefits that the decoding of the Mexican Genome would mean for public health care. Cost effective preventative medicines and treatments could now be delivered to confront the nation's Number One killers, Diabetes, and Obesity. So-called "personalized" drugs would now be designed to deal with the health problems of the Mexican people. "Super Positive News!" read the crawl on the Univision report about the "Mexican Genome."
But which Mexicans will be the beneficiaries of this cutting edge science? Mexico is, indeed, many nations. The vast bulk of the population - 80 million out of 103 million - are of mixed European and indigenous stock (65% of the genetic material identified in the Mexican Genome is listed as "Amerindian".) On the other hand, Mexico is home to 57 distinct ethnic groups or "peoples" (15 to 20 million, a fifth of all Mexicans) whose genetic make-up is distinct from the Mestizo population.
The INMEGEN's Jimenez insists that indigenous peoples were not slighted in the compilation of the Mexican Genome - although he is not sure if samples of DNA were collected from all 57 indigenous peoples.
During a forum held this July at the National College to celebrate the publication of the Mexican Genome, Dr. Jimenez explained that INMEGEN scientists had rounded up samples from anonymous Indian donors - it is unclear if the donors knew what they were being swabbed for. Skeptical academics in the audience also wondered if drugs or treatments designed for the mestizo population would be accessible to Indian communities? Dr. Jimenez did not respond to questions about the sale or leasing of the Mexican Genome to transnational pharmaceutical giants.
"The Indians will contribute the prime material - their DNA - to enrich the pharmaceutical industry," observes Silvia Ribiero, a biotech writer for La Jornada. "As usual, we will be excluded from the benefits," adds Genaro Dominguez, founder of the National Coordinating Council of the Indian Peoples (CNPI), arguing that the Mexican Genome is a form of ethnocide.
The posting of the Mexican Genome raises critical ethical questions, Diego Valades, former Mexican attorney general and now dean at the National Autonomous University (UNAM)'s law faculty, posited at the July 2nd forum. Will indigenous peoples, the first Mexicans, be regarded as "unMexican" because their genetic sequencing differs from the mestizo norm? Could the compilation of a separate indigenous genome be used to imply the inferiority of Indian Mexicans? The commercial implications of the Mexican Genome are troubling to Valades - the genome is commercial property and can be bought and sold by service providers. Could insurance companies, for example, up premiums for policyholders with bad genes?
The manipulation of the genetic mapping of the indigenous peoples of Mexico is only one front on which Big Science aids and abets ethnic cleansing. The contamination of native maize by transgenic corn and the forced privatization of Indian lands also place scientists in the service of ethnocide.
For eight millenniums, indigenous Mexicans developed and cultivated 300 families of native corn, each with properties designed for the soils and climates in which they were grown. Indian culture and civilization are indelibly entwined with corn cultivation - indeed the Mayans are "people of the corn", literally made from maiz. "No hay pais sin maiz!" ("We have no country without corn!) is the battle cry of Indian campesino movements.
The penetration of transgenic corn into Mexico is the result of massive importation of biotech grains under provisions of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA.) Some like Zapotec Indian leader Aldo Gonzalez consider the contamination of native corns by transgenic strains developed by U.S. biotech titans like Monsanto tantamount to genocide.
The discovery that genetically modified corn had been introduced into the rural Oaxaca outback in 2001 alarmed Zapotec farmers in the Sierra Norte, sometimes known as the Sierra of Benito Juarez because it is the birthplace of Mexico's only Indian president. Three years ago, at a forum in the state capital that brought together scientists from the three NAFTA nations to evaluate the impacts of the penetration of transgenic corn on the native crop, Gonzalez, a spokesperson for the Union of Social Organizations of the Juarez Sierra (UOSJS), shook a drying cornstalk at the distinguished panel and accused its member of nothing less than genocide: "the seed of the Zapotec people is our corn and when you kill our corn, you kill us."
Recent non-government studies indicate that the incidence of transgenic corn has spread to maiz-growing regions in at least five non-contiguous states. The surge of transgenic corn threatens to overwhelm and homogenize native species and obliterate millions of years of genetic history.
Now the Sierra of Juarez is under siege from an unlikely coalition of U.S. scientists and the U.S. military. It seems hardly to be a coincidence that University of Kansas geographers working on a grant supplied by the U.S. Department of Defense have spent the past three years mapping the "human terrain" of Zapotec corn growers in the Oaxacan sierra. The "Mexico Indigena" (sic) Project was launched in 2006 by geographers Peter Herlihy and Jerome Dobson and is underwritten by the Foreign Military Study Office (FMSO) based at Fort Leavenworth Kansas, the home of the United States War College. The FMSO is administrated by Lieutenant Colonel Geoffrey Demarest, a graduate of the School of the Americas and author of such pertinent texts as "Mapping Counterinsurgency."
Technology and data processing for the Mexico Indigena Project is provided by Radiance Technologies, a Pentagon contractor that specializes in information gathering technology. Information gathered by Mexico Indigena will be made available to U.S. government agencies such as the Department of Homeland Security and its Customs & Border Protection branch.
Ever since the rising of the Mayan Indian Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) in Chiapas on the very night that NAFTA kicked in in January 1994 and the election of Aymara Indian leader Evo Morales as the first indigenous president of majority Indian Bolivia a decade later, the continent's 60,000,000 Indian peoples have become a source of alarm for Washington strategists. The National Intelligence Council document "Global Trends 2000-2015" warned that Indian uprising would be a cause of instability south of the border in the coming years. The NIC's successor document "Global Trends 2020: Mapping the Global Future" is even more explicit: "indigenous movements are redrawing the regional map."
In Oaxaca, the Mexico Indigena Project is mapping the NIC's global future.
Curiously, Mexico Indigena was launched in 2006 in two Sierra Norte villages, the same year as Oaxaca was torn asunder by the uprising of a broad coalition of grassroots organizations determined to remove the state's despotic governor - the Union of Social Organizations of the Juarez Sierra was a prominent member of the Assembly of the Oaxacan Popular Peoples Organization or APPO. In the Mexico Indigena prospectus posted on line, Project director Herlihy boasts that his work "will illuminate important but neglected facets of these movements."
The Oaxaca isthmus, which the Juarez Sierra borders, is the narrowest neck of Mexico separating the Pacific and Atlantic oceans by a scant 225 kilometers of mountainous terrain and has been considered a strategic passage for global trade between the east and the west for centuries - the isthmus has been an object of U.S. interest ever since Benito Juarez was Mexico's president in the mid-19th century.
According to Aldo Gonzalez, Mexico Indigena geographers have violated their project's stated ethical guidelines by gathering information on the human terrain of the Juarez Sierra by deception. Villagers testify that Herlihy and Dobson never informed the elders' councils of the two villages being mapped that Mexico Indigena was funded by the U.S. military.
Nor did the two University of Kansas scientists divulge to their Zapotec informants that in 2006 they met with none other than General David Petraeus, now in charge of the Central Command and charged with running the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Petraeus, the author of the U.S. Marine corps counter-insurgency manual, complimented the Mexico Indigena Project's goals: "understanding the cultural terrain is a force multiplier (for the U.S. military.")
But what the Mexico Indigena scientists did tell the Zapotec elders was that the mapping information elicited from their communities would be shared with the PROCEDE program, the Mexican Secretary of Agriculture's agency that certifies the holdings of the nation's 27,000 "ejidos" (villages organized as rural production units) and encourages farmers to privatize their plots. Under neo-liberal revisions of Article 27 of the Mexican constitution, ejido farmers can now sell or rent their land or enter into "association" with transnational capital. Although Indian lands are held collectively, Gonzalez reports that PROCEDE agents try to convince Indian farmers to apply for ejido status so their land can be privatized. PROCEDE, in effect, converts Indian land into real estate.
By compiling a plot-by-plot map of the human terrain of the Juarez Sierra, the Mexico Indigena Project is committing "geo-piracy", the Zapotec leader warns. The U.S. scientists locate and map natural resources and facilitate biological theft - bio-piracy, if you will. "The Mexico Indigena scientists are looting Zapotec knowledge of land and territories," Gonzalez insists.
Privatizing Indian land is as much a facet of ethnocide as destroying native corn or submerging indigenous genes in a mestizo genome. Although science has learned to mask its homicidal intentions since the days when Lord Jeffrey Amherst distributed typhoid-impregnated blankets to Ottawa Indian rebels under Chief Pontiac and General George Custer decimated the Sioux, corporate scientists continue to serve the interests of Indian genocide.
John Ross' "El Monstruo - Dread & Redemption In Mexico City" will be published by Nation Books this December. "Iraqigirl", the diary of an Iraqi teenager growing up under U.S. occupation, developed and edited by Ross, is now available from Haymarket Books. John Ross has just been declared cancer-free and will soon be returning to Mexico. He can be reached at: johnross@igc.org
by JOHN ROSS
When last May 11th, at the nadir of this spring's swine flu panic, President Felipe Calderon strode to the flag-bedecked podium in southern Mexico City and, under the strictest health protocols, lowered his "tapaboca" (surgical mask) to punch the button that would load "The Mexican Genome" onto the world's computers, the only thing that seemed to be missing was a military band to strike up the National Anthem.
The human genome is the ordering of genes in a determined set of chromosomes that contain all the genetic and hereditary memory of the human organism, i.e. the history of our DNA. Although distinct genomes have been decoded for racial groupings - European Caucasians, Asians, and Africans -, science has never before been assigned to decipher the genome of a national state or nation which is, by definition, a political entity, and many here questioned the existence of a "Mexican Genome."
Despite the nay sayers, Dr. Gerardo Jimenez, director of the National Institute of Genomic Medicine (INMEGEN) whose scientists did the gene mapping insists that the 89 deviations from genetic patterns found in other races, justifies the national character of the "Mexican Genome."
Other scientists scoffed at the INMEGEN project. Science writer Julio Munoz Rubio wondered if Calderon's genome would prompt a genetic explanation for such peculiarly Mexican propensities as "mariachis, tequila, wife-beating, gay-bashing, and racist attitudes towards indigenous peoples." Would a gene be discovered for electoral fraud and the corruption of public officials asked one letter-writer to La Jornada, the left daily, pointing out that, according to a government audit, half a million Yanqui dollars appears to have gone missing during the construction of the INMEGEN headquarters in the south of the city?
Calderon's political opponents also questioned the timing of the announcement of the discovery of the Mexican Genome during a health crisis that had been tainted by his administration's overreaction to the swine flu pandemic after a six-week delay in alerting the public to the contagion.
The president countered his critics by lauding the cost benefits that the decoding of the Mexican Genome would mean for public health care. Cost effective preventative medicines and treatments could now be delivered to confront the nation's Number One killers, Diabetes, and Obesity. So-called "personalized" drugs would now be designed to deal with the health problems of the Mexican people. "Super Positive News!" read the crawl on the Univision report about the "Mexican Genome."
But which Mexicans will be the beneficiaries of this cutting edge science? Mexico is, indeed, many nations. The vast bulk of the population - 80 million out of 103 million - are of mixed European and indigenous stock (65% of the genetic material identified in the Mexican Genome is listed as "Amerindian".) On the other hand, Mexico is home to 57 distinct ethnic groups or "peoples" (15 to 20 million, a fifth of all Mexicans) whose genetic make-up is distinct from the Mestizo population.
The INMEGEN's Jimenez insists that indigenous peoples were not slighted in the compilation of the Mexican Genome - although he is not sure if samples of DNA were collected from all 57 indigenous peoples.
During a forum held this July at the National College to celebrate the publication of the Mexican Genome, Dr. Jimenez explained that INMEGEN scientists had rounded up samples from anonymous Indian donors - it is unclear if the donors knew what they were being swabbed for. Skeptical academics in the audience also wondered if drugs or treatments designed for the mestizo population would be accessible to Indian communities? Dr. Jimenez did not respond to questions about the sale or leasing of the Mexican Genome to transnational pharmaceutical giants.
"The Indians will contribute the prime material - their DNA - to enrich the pharmaceutical industry," observes Silvia Ribiero, a biotech writer for La Jornada. "As usual, we will be excluded from the benefits," adds Genaro Dominguez, founder of the National Coordinating Council of the Indian Peoples (CNPI), arguing that the Mexican Genome is a form of ethnocide.
The posting of the Mexican Genome raises critical ethical questions, Diego Valades, former Mexican attorney general and now dean at the National Autonomous University (UNAM)'s law faculty, posited at the July 2nd forum. Will indigenous peoples, the first Mexicans, be regarded as "unMexican" because their genetic sequencing differs from the mestizo norm? Could the compilation of a separate indigenous genome be used to imply the inferiority of Indian Mexicans? The commercial implications of the Mexican Genome are troubling to Valades - the genome is commercial property and can be bought and sold by service providers. Could insurance companies, for example, up premiums for policyholders with bad genes?
The manipulation of the genetic mapping of the indigenous peoples of Mexico is only one front on which Big Science aids and abets ethnic cleansing. The contamination of native maize by transgenic corn and the forced privatization of Indian lands also place scientists in the service of ethnocide.
For eight millenniums, indigenous Mexicans developed and cultivated 300 families of native corn, each with properties designed for the soils and climates in which they were grown. Indian culture and civilization are indelibly entwined with corn cultivation - indeed the Mayans are "people of the corn", literally made from maiz. "No hay pais sin maiz!" ("We have no country without corn!) is the battle cry of Indian campesino movements.
The penetration of transgenic corn into Mexico is the result of massive importation of biotech grains under provisions of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA.) Some like Zapotec Indian leader Aldo Gonzalez consider the contamination of native corns by transgenic strains developed by U.S. biotech titans like Monsanto tantamount to genocide.
The discovery that genetically modified corn had been introduced into the rural Oaxaca outback in 2001 alarmed Zapotec farmers in the Sierra Norte, sometimes known as the Sierra of Benito Juarez because it is the birthplace of Mexico's only Indian president. Three years ago, at a forum in the state capital that brought together scientists from the three NAFTA nations to evaluate the impacts of the penetration of transgenic corn on the native crop, Gonzalez, a spokesperson for the Union of Social Organizations of the Juarez Sierra (UOSJS), shook a drying cornstalk at the distinguished panel and accused its member of nothing less than genocide: "the seed of the Zapotec people is our corn and when you kill our corn, you kill us."
Recent non-government studies indicate that the incidence of transgenic corn has spread to maiz-growing regions in at least five non-contiguous states. The surge of transgenic corn threatens to overwhelm and homogenize native species and obliterate millions of years of genetic history.
Now the Sierra of Juarez is under siege from an unlikely coalition of U.S. scientists and the U.S. military. It seems hardly to be a coincidence that University of Kansas geographers working on a grant supplied by the U.S. Department of Defense have spent the past three years mapping the "human terrain" of Zapotec corn growers in the Oaxacan sierra. The "Mexico Indigena" (sic) Project was launched in 2006 by geographers Peter Herlihy and Jerome Dobson and is underwritten by the Foreign Military Study Office (FMSO) based at Fort Leavenworth Kansas, the home of the United States War College. The FMSO is administrated by Lieutenant Colonel Geoffrey Demarest, a graduate of the School of the Americas and author of such pertinent texts as "Mapping Counterinsurgency."
Technology and data processing for the Mexico Indigena Project is provided by Radiance Technologies, a Pentagon contractor that specializes in information gathering technology. Information gathered by Mexico Indigena will be made available to U.S. government agencies such as the Department of Homeland Security and its Customs & Border Protection branch.
Ever since the rising of the Mayan Indian Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) in Chiapas on the very night that NAFTA kicked in in January 1994 and the election of Aymara Indian leader Evo Morales as the first indigenous president of majority Indian Bolivia a decade later, the continent's 60,000,000 Indian peoples have become a source of alarm for Washington strategists. The National Intelligence Council document "Global Trends 2000-2015" warned that Indian uprising would be a cause of instability south of the border in the coming years. The NIC's successor document "Global Trends 2020: Mapping the Global Future" is even more explicit: "indigenous movements are redrawing the regional map."
In Oaxaca, the Mexico Indigena Project is mapping the NIC's global future.
Curiously, Mexico Indigena was launched in 2006 in two Sierra Norte villages, the same year as Oaxaca was torn asunder by the uprising of a broad coalition of grassroots organizations determined to remove the state's despotic governor - the Union of Social Organizations of the Juarez Sierra was a prominent member of the Assembly of the Oaxacan Popular Peoples Organization or APPO. In the Mexico Indigena prospectus posted on line, Project director Herlihy boasts that his work "will illuminate important but neglected facets of these movements."
The Oaxaca isthmus, which the Juarez Sierra borders, is the narrowest neck of Mexico separating the Pacific and Atlantic oceans by a scant 225 kilometers of mountainous terrain and has been considered a strategic passage for global trade between the east and the west for centuries - the isthmus has been an object of U.S. interest ever since Benito Juarez was Mexico's president in the mid-19th century.
According to Aldo Gonzalez, Mexico Indigena geographers have violated their project's stated ethical guidelines by gathering information on the human terrain of the Juarez Sierra by deception. Villagers testify that Herlihy and Dobson never informed the elders' councils of the two villages being mapped that Mexico Indigena was funded by the U.S. military.
Nor did the two University of Kansas scientists divulge to their Zapotec informants that in 2006 they met with none other than General David Petraeus, now in charge of the Central Command and charged with running the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Petraeus, the author of the U.S. Marine corps counter-insurgency manual, complimented the Mexico Indigena Project's goals: "understanding the cultural terrain is a force multiplier (for the U.S. military.")
But what the Mexico Indigena scientists did tell the Zapotec elders was that the mapping information elicited from their communities would be shared with the PROCEDE program, the Mexican Secretary of Agriculture's agency that certifies the holdings of the nation's 27,000 "ejidos" (villages organized as rural production units) and encourages farmers to privatize their plots. Under neo-liberal revisions of Article 27 of the Mexican constitution, ejido farmers can now sell or rent their land or enter into "association" with transnational capital. Although Indian lands are held collectively, Gonzalez reports that PROCEDE agents try to convince Indian farmers to apply for ejido status so their land can be privatized. PROCEDE, in effect, converts Indian land into real estate.
By compiling a plot-by-plot map of the human terrain of the Juarez Sierra, the Mexico Indigena Project is committing "geo-piracy", the Zapotec leader warns. The U.S. scientists locate and map natural resources and facilitate biological theft - bio-piracy, if you will. "The Mexico Indigena scientists are looting Zapotec knowledge of land and territories," Gonzalez insists.
Privatizing Indian land is as much a facet of ethnocide as destroying native corn or submerging indigenous genes in a mestizo genome. Although science has learned to mask its homicidal intentions since the days when Lord Jeffrey Amherst distributed typhoid-impregnated blankets to Ottawa Indian rebels under Chief Pontiac and General George Custer decimated the Sioux, corporate scientists continue to serve the interests of Indian genocide.
John Ross' "El Monstruo - Dread & Redemption In Mexico City" will be published by Nation Books this December. "Iraqigirl", the diary of an Iraqi teenager growing up under U.S. occupation, developed and edited by Ross, is now available from Haymarket Books. John Ross has just been declared cancer-free and will soon be returning to Mexico. He can be reached at: johnross@igc.org
The Kidney Broker and the Money Laundering Rabbis
The Kidney Broker and the Money Laundering Rabbis
by SAUL LANDAU
I thought of Cousin Harry when I read about the July 21 bust of five New York and New Jersey orthodox rabbis along with scores of New Jersey officials. Like the clean shaven, dapper and secular Harry, these long bearded and black garbed religious leaders and a ring of politicians, had become professional scammers. They engaged in massive money-laundering and illegal organ trading operations in addition to selling fake Gucci and Prada handbags and anything else. The Sopranos-style network operated with Brooklyn and New Jersey rabbis washing tens of millions of dollars through charities which they controlled.
The arrested included mayors of Hoboken, Secaucus and Ridgefield, two state legislators, the Jersey City Council president and its deputy mayor. The rabbis forwarded some of their ill gotten gains to Israeli yeshivas linked to the super-duper Orthodox Shas Party and its uber Rabbi Ovadia Yosef.
Federal officials also discovered that some of the money laundered by these supposed pillars of Jewish law and ethics came from the sale of human kidneys by a Brooklyn orthodox Jew named Levi Izhak Rosenbaum.
This kick back to politicians, illegal organ sale rackets and rabbis laundering illicit dough -- supposedly to support their ultra orthodox kin in Israel – offered new twists in Talmudic logic. In this tangled narrative the leading money laundering suspect, Rabbi Eliyahu Ben-Haim’s good buddy in Israel, Rabbi David Yosef, is also Shas jefe Ovadia Yosef’s son. They belonged to an advanced Talmudic studies center in Jerusalem headed by Ovadia Yosef’s family. Ben-Haim got rich Jews in New York to bankroll the institute. Because of the scandal, Haaretz reporter Zvi Zrahiya concludes, “these donations are expected to cease.” He also reports that un-named banks were also apparently involved in the scandal. (Haaretz, 26/07/2009) Shocking!
As a young boy, I accompanied my grandfather to interminable Saturday services at his East Bronx Orthodox synagogue. After hours of muttering in Hebrew, the men in prayer shawls and skull caps retreated to a table laden with sponge and honey cakes alongside shot glasses of whiskey. As they partook, one of my grandfather’s prayer colleagues would inevitably offer me a shot glass and watch, with the others, as a seven year old imitated the pious elders. I was dizzy for hours as the elders giggled “The little pisher is drunk.”
Grandpa also introduced me to some long-bearded, extremely pious looking rabbis, clad in traditional black with skull caps or black hats. Just a few years later, in the early 1950s, some of these authorities on Jewish law and ethics found their names in the New York newspapers as accused Harlem slum lords who refused to supply heat in the winter, make basic repairs or call the exterminator in the rat and roach-laden tenements they owned.
Indeed, periodically such scandals erupt around the hypocrisy of the fundamentalist preachers of the Hebrew faith, as my wife’s Methodist grandmother from Texas referred to them. But the family “oyed” and “veyed” when Cousin Harry got nabbed in a sleazy money fraud in Florida and went to prison. “How could a good Jewish boy [as if!] do such a terrible thing?”
After my grandfather died and I recognized one of the slum owners as a rabbi friend of my grandfather, I asked my grandmother about how such a religious man could have refused to supply heat to poor black families and not called exterminators to oust the rats and roaches. She shrugged indifferently.
“They’re not our people,” my grandmother said in Yiddish.
In October 1964, a story again erupted. Jewish demonstrators picketed the Manhattan offices of the New York Board of Rabbis to protest against Jewish slumlords. The mostly young – teens and twenties – protestors claimed that a published list of New York slumlords contained a large proportion of Jewish names and they were petitioning “the rabbis of New York to seek out the slum owners in their congregations and to threaten them with denunciation from the pulpit and even excommunication if they fail to repair and maintain their properties.” More than 250 Jewish landlords owned more than 500 slum buildings in Manhattan alone.
The demonstrators tried to meet with Head Rabbi Harold Gordon, but he refused. The picketers handed out leaflets charging that “most of 600 buildings whose tenants have complained to housing ‘clinics’ and ‘tenants’ councils on the lower East Side have Jewish landlords” and that “74 of the 80 Lower East Side buildings hit by rent strikes have Jewish landlords.”
A Conservative rabbi told the Village Voice reporter – refusing to give his name or congregation – the picket line was “more exotic than effective.” Asked what the rabbis have done, he said: “They did what they could.” When pressed on what, specifically, the rabbis have done, he replied: “Specifically, I don’t know.” (Stephanie Gervis Harrington, Village Voice, May 7, 1964)
Forty five years later, another scandal involving rabbis and dubious business practices brought this comment from one of my cousins. “At least they don’t test little boys for hemorrhoids and hernias like the Catholic priests do.”
Over the centuries, rabbis, like priests and Protestant ministers galore, have engaged in sexual hanky panky as well as old fashioned theft. Often, they try to cover their wrongdoings with pretenses of religious zealotry – keeping those cash-starved yeshivas open in Jerusalem or bankrolling other charities. But the invisible shield of ethics did not protect these supposed holy men from engaging in flagrant crime.
A New Jersey State Attorney said “it seemed that everyone wanted a piece of the action. Corruption was widespread and pervasive.” The politicians sold their services to the rabbis who “cloaked their extensive criminal activity behind a facade of rectitude.”
The laundered money came from Israel, via Swiss banks and then to New Jersey. Israeli gonifs would buy kidneys from “vulnerable people” in Israel for $10,000, and then get them shipped to their rabbinical associates who would sell them in the United States for $160,000, he said. (AP, July 25, 2009)
Like Cousin Harry, Brooklyn’s Levy Izhak Rosenbaum considered himself a “matchmaker.” In a secretly recorded conversation, Rosenbaum boasted about matching kidney donors with recipients. “I bring a guy what I believe, he’s suitable for your uncle.” Rosenbaum, 58, an Orthodox Jew from Brooklyn, resembles Tony Soprano who worked in “waste management.” Rosenbaum claimed he was in “construction.” Criminals who lead traditional lives!
Unlike the traditional shotchen (Yiddish for marriage broker), Rosenbaum promoted illegal kidney transplants, not marriages, as he explained to a government informant and an FBI agent posing as the informant’s secretary. The Agent claimed he had an uncle on dialysis, on a transplant list at a Philadelphia hospital. But shortage of kidneys might cost him his life. 4,540 people died in the U.S. last year while waiting for a kidney, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing. Thus, the kidney black market!
In 2002, UC Berkeley’s Nancy Scheper-Hughes alerted the FBI that Rosenbaum was a broker for an international kidney trafficking gang. He used Moldovan villagers as donors. He promised them jobs in the United States, then coerced them into “donating” their kidneys to recipients who posed as relatives and threatened them with a gun if they resisted. Rosenbaum would show his real gun and then make his fingers into a gun and point one at the reluctant donor’s head. (Somatosphere: Science, Medicine and Anthropology. July 27, 2009, http://www.somatosphere.net/)
Some kidney transplants using Rosenbaum’s donors were performed at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York. Secret FBI recordings of Rosenbaum had him saying he had to spread money around liberally to Israeli doctors, visa preparers and those who cared for the organ donors in this country. “One of the reasons it’s so expensive is because you have to shmear (pay others) all the time,” he was quoted as saying. (AP, July 25, 2009)
Like Cousin Harry, Rosenbaum bragged: “So far, I’ve never had a failure.”
Harry went to synagogue on high holidays and prayed. Rosenbaum went more often. The rabbis prayed daily. Nowhere in the sacred texts did any of them find the quote: “Religion is about getting rich, no matter how, and you can use God to cover your path.” Or, “it’s OK to commit crimes to help Israeli yeshivas."
Saul Landau is vice chair of the Institute for Policy Studies board of trustees. His most recent book is A BUSH AND BOTOX WORLD (CounterPunch / AK Press).
by SAUL LANDAU
I thought of Cousin Harry when I read about the July 21 bust of five New York and New Jersey orthodox rabbis along with scores of New Jersey officials. Like the clean shaven, dapper and secular Harry, these long bearded and black garbed religious leaders and a ring of politicians, had become professional scammers. They engaged in massive money-laundering and illegal organ trading operations in addition to selling fake Gucci and Prada handbags and anything else. The Sopranos-style network operated with Brooklyn and New Jersey rabbis washing tens of millions of dollars through charities which they controlled.
The arrested included mayors of Hoboken, Secaucus and Ridgefield, two state legislators, the Jersey City Council president and its deputy mayor. The rabbis forwarded some of their ill gotten gains to Israeli yeshivas linked to the super-duper Orthodox Shas Party and its uber Rabbi Ovadia Yosef.
Federal officials also discovered that some of the money laundered by these supposed pillars of Jewish law and ethics came from the sale of human kidneys by a Brooklyn orthodox Jew named Levi Izhak Rosenbaum.
This kick back to politicians, illegal organ sale rackets and rabbis laundering illicit dough -- supposedly to support their ultra orthodox kin in Israel – offered new twists in Talmudic logic. In this tangled narrative the leading money laundering suspect, Rabbi Eliyahu Ben-Haim’s good buddy in Israel, Rabbi David Yosef, is also Shas jefe Ovadia Yosef’s son. They belonged to an advanced Talmudic studies center in Jerusalem headed by Ovadia Yosef’s family. Ben-Haim got rich Jews in New York to bankroll the institute. Because of the scandal, Haaretz reporter Zvi Zrahiya concludes, “these donations are expected to cease.” He also reports that un-named banks were also apparently involved in the scandal. (Haaretz, 26/07/2009) Shocking!
As a young boy, I accompanied my grandfather to interminable Saturday services at his East Bronx Orthodox synagogue. After hours of muttering in Hebrew, the men in prayer shawls and skull caps retreated to a table laden with sponge and honey cakes alongside shot glasses of whiskey. As they partook, one of my grandfather’s prayer colleagues would inevitably offer me a shot glass and watch, with the others, as a seven year old imitated the pious elders. I was dizzy for hours as the elders giggled “The little pisher is drunk.”
Grandpa also introduced me to some long-bearded, extremely pious looking rabbis, clad in traditional black with skull caps or black hats. Just a few years later, in the early 1950s, some of these authorities on Jewish law and ethics found their names in the New York newspapers as accused Harlem slum lords who refused to supply heat in the winter, make basic repairs or call the exterminator in the rat and roach-laden tenements they owned.
Indeed, periodically such scandals erupt around the hypocrisy of the fundamentalist preachers of the Hebrew faith, as my wife’s Methodist grandmother from Texas referred to them. But the family “oyed” and “veyed” when Cousin Harry got nabbed in a sleazy money fraud in Florida and went to prison. “How could a good Jewish boy [as if!] do such a terrible thing?”
After my grandfather died and I recognized one of the slum owners as a rabbi friend of my grandfather, I asked my grandmother about how such a religious man could have refused to supply heat to poor black families and not called exterminators to oust the rats and roaches. She shrugged indifferently.
“They’re not our people,” my grandmother said in Yiddish.
In October 1964, a story again erupted. Jewish demonstrators picketed the Manhattan offices of the New York Board of Rabbis to protest against Jewish slumlords. The mostly young – teens and twenties – protestors claimed that a published list of New York slumlords contained a large proportion of Jewish names and they were petitioning “the rabbis of New York to seek out the slum owners in their congregations and to threaten them with denunciation from the pulpit and even excommunication if they fail to repair and maintain their properties.” More than 250 Jewish landlords owned more than 500 slum buildings in Manhattan alone.
The demonstrators tried to meet with Head Rabbi Harold Gordon, but he refused. The picketers handed out leaflets charging that “most of 600 buildings whose tenants have complained to housing ‘clinics’ and ‘tenants’ councils on the lower East Side have Jewish landlords” and that “74 of the 80 Lower East Side buildings hit by rent strikes have Jewish landlords.”
A Conservative rabbi told the Village Voice reporter – refusing to give his name or congregation – the picket line was “more exotic than effective.” Asked what the rabbis have done, he said: “They did what they could.” When pressed on what, specifically, the rabbis have done, he replied: “Specifically, I don’t know.” (Stephanie Gervis Harrington, Village Voice, May 7, 1964)
Forty five years later, another scandal involving rabbis and dubious business practices brought this comment from one of my cousins. “At least they don’t test little boys for hemorrhoids and hernias like the Catholic priests do.”
Over the centuries, rabbis, like priests and Protestant ministers galore, have engaged in sexual hanky panky as well as old fashioned theft. Often, they try to cover their wrongdoings with pretenses of religious zealotry – keeping those cash-starved yeshivas open in Jerusalem or bankrolling other charities. But the invisible shield of ethics did not protect these supposed holy men from engaging in flagrant crime.
A New Jersey State Attorney said “it seemed that everyone wanted a piece of the action. Corruption was widespread and pervasive.” The politicians sold their services to the rabbis who “cloaked their extensive criminal activity behind a facade of rectitude.”
The laundered money came from Israel, via Swiss banks and then to New Jersey. Israeli gonifs would buy kidneys from “vulnerable people” in Israel for $10,000, and then get them shipped to their rabbinical associates who would sell them in the United States for $160,000, he said. (AP, July 25, 2009)
Like Cousin Harry, Brooklyn’s Levy Izhak Rosenbaum considered himself a “matchmaker.” In a secretly recorded conversation, Rosenbaum boasted about matching kidney donors with recipients. “I bring a guy what I believe, he’s suitable for your uncle.” Rosenbaum, 58, an Orthodox Jew from Brooklyn, resembles Tony Soprano who worked in “waste management.” Rosenbaum claimed he was in “construction.” Criminals who lead traditional lives!
Unlike the traditional shotchen (Yiddish for marriage broker), Rosenbaum promoted illegal kidney transplants, not marriages, as he explained to a government informant and an FBI agent posing as the informant’s secretary. The Agent claimed he had an uncle on dialysis, on a transplant list at a Philadelphia hospital. But shortage of kidneys might cost him his life. 4,540 people died in the U.S. last year while waiting for a kidney, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing. Thus, the kidney black market!
In 2002, UC Berkeley’s Nancy Scheper-Hughes alerted the FBI that Rosenbaum was a broker for an international kidney trafficking gang. He used Moldovan villagers as donors. He promised them jobs in the United States, then coerced them into “donating” their kidneys to recipients who posed as relatives and threatened them with a gun if they resisted. Rosenbaum would show his real gun and then make his fingers into a gun and point one at the reluctant donor’s head. (Somatosphere: Science, Medicine and Anthropology. July 27, 2009, http://www.somatosphere.net/)
Some kidney transplants using Rosenbaum’s donors were performed at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York. Secret FBI recordings of Rosenbaum had him saying he had to spread money around liberally to Israeli doctors, visa preparers and those who cared for the organ donors in this country. “One of the reasons it’s so expensive is because you have to shmear (pay others) all the time,” he was quoted as saying. (AP, July 25, 2009)
Like Cousin Harry, Rosenbaum bragged: “So far, I’ve never had a failure.”
Harry went to synagogue on high holidays and prayed. Rosenbaum went more often. The rabbis prayed daily. Nowhere in the sacred texts did any of them find the quote: “Religion is about getting rich, no matter how, and you can use God to cover your path.” Or, “it’s OK to commit crimes to help Israeli yeshivas."
Saul Landau is vice chair of the Institute for Policy Studies board of trustees. His most recent book is A BUSH AND BOTOX WORLD (CounterPunch / AK Press).
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