Got Blood! Imperial Circus Rolls

Blood is Their Argument: The Real Campaign Trail

by Chris Floyd - Empire Burlesque

"...for how can they charitably dispose of any thing, when blood is their argument?" - Shakespeare, Henry V

Even as the presidential candidates meet in ersatz agon to spew their self-serving lies and scripted zingers in a "debate" on foreign policy, the real campaign -- the campaign of blood and bone, of death and terror, being waged in Pakistan by the American government -- goes on it all its horror.

This week, the Mail on Sunday -- one of Britain's most conservative newspapers -- published a story outlining, in horrific detail, the true nature of the drone killing campaign begun by George W. Bush and vastly expanded by Barack Obama. Coming on the heels of a recent report ("Living Under Drones") by teams at Stanford and New York universities on this ongoing war crime, the Mail on Sunday story brings the humanity of the victims -- and the inhumanity of perpetrators -- to the fore. The story concerns legal action being taken in Pakistan on behalf of families of drone-murder victims by Pakistani lawyer and activist Shahzad Akbar and the UK-based human rights group, Reprieve. As the MoS reports, two court cases have been filed that could "trigger a formal murder investigation into the roles of two US officials said to have ordered the strikes."

The MoS quotes the Living With Drones report to set the context:

…Between 2,562 and 3,325 people have been killed since the strikes in Pakistan began in 2004. The report said of those, up to 881 were civilians, including 176 children. Only 41 people who had died had been confirmed as ‘high-value’ terrorist targets.

As the paper notes, full figures on the killings are hard to come by, due to the convenient fact that "the tribal regions along the frontier are closed to journalists." The true death count of civilians is almost certainly far higher.

So who are the thousands of people being slain by brave American warriors sitting at computer consoles on a military bases on the other side of the world? From the MoS:

The plaintiff in the Islamabad case is Karim Khan, 45, a journalist and translator with two masters’ degrees, whose family comes from the village of Machi Khel in the tribal region of North Waziristan. His eldest son, Zahinullah, 18, and his brother, Asif Iqbal, 35, were killed by a Hellfire missile fired from a Predator drone that struck the family’s guest dining room at about 9.30pm on New Year’s Eve, 2009.

Mr Khan said: ‘We are an educated family. My uncle is a hospital doctor in Islamabad, and we all work in professions such as teaching. We have never had anything to do with militants or terrorists, and for that reason I always assumed we would be safe.

Zahinullah, who had been studying in Islamabad, had returned to the village to work his way through college, taking a part-time job as a school caretaker. ‘He was a quiet boy and studious – always in the top group of his class.’ Zahinullah also liked football, cricket and hunting partridges. Asif, he added, was an English teacher and had spent several years taking further courses to improve his qualifications while already in work. Asif had changed his surname because he loved to recite Iqbal, Pakistan's national poet.

Well, that's what they claim, right? No doubt the button-pushing drone "pilot" parked safely in his cushy padded chair back in Nevada could ascertain through the computer screen that the quiet student and the poetry-loving teacher were actually "active terrorists, who are trying to go in and harm America," to quote the Nobel Peace Laureate in the White House, in his only public acknowledgement of the drone campaign. Such miscreants, said the Laureate, are the only people ever killed by this "targeted, focused effort."

Mr Khan, who had been working in Islamabad at the time, hurried back to the village when he got the news. This is what he found:

He got home soon after dawn and describes his return ‘like entering a village of the dead – it was so quiet. There was a crowd gathered outside the compound but nowhere for them to sit because the guest rooms had been destroyed’.

Zahinullah, Mr Khan discovered, had been killed instantly, but despite his horrific injuries, Asif had survived long enough to be taken to a nearby hospital. However, he died during the night.

‘We always bury people quickly in our culture. The funeral was at three o’clock that afternoon, and more than 1,000 people came,’ Mr Khan said. ‘Zahinullah had a wound on the side of his face and his body was crushed and charred. I am told the people who push the buttons to fire the missiles call these strikes “bug-splats”.

‘It is beyond my imagination how they can lack all mercy and compassion, and carry on doing this for years. They are not human beings.’

In this, however, Mr Khan is wrong, and therein lies the tragedy: the people who killed his brother and thousands of other innocents, and have carried on doing it for years, are indeed human beings -- all too human. The lack of mercy and compassion they exhibit is one of our endemic human traits -- and one that has been assiduously, relentlessly, deliberately -- and profitably -- cultivated for years by our bipartisan elites, who sow fear and hatred and dehumanization to advance their agenda of domination, playing upon -- and rewarding -- what is worst in our common human nature, while mocking, denigrating and punishing what is best.

One of the officials targeted in the lawsuit is former CIA general counsel John Rizzo. As the paper notes:

Mr Rizzo is named because of an interview he gave to a US reporter after he retired as CIA General Counsel last year. In it, he boasted that he had personally authorised every drone strike in which America’s enemies were ‘hunted down and blown to bits’.

He added: ‘It’s basically a hit-list. The Predator is the weapon of choice, but it could also be someone putting a bullet in your head.’

That's nice, isn't it? Noble, worthy, honorable, isn't it? Again, these are the mafia thug values being embraced, lauded, supported and reinforced at every turn by the most respectable figures throughout American politics and media, including of course the popular media, where TV shows and movies abound with tough guys "doing whatever it takes" to kill the dehumanized "enemy" and "keep us safe."

The second case now before the Pakistani courts involves "signature strikes," the policy of killing unknown people simply because you don't like how they look or how they act. No evidence -- not even false evidence, not even the thin scraps of rumor and innuendo and ignorance that constitute the overwhelming majority of "intelligence reports" -- is required before the well-wadded Cheeto-chewer in Nevada crooks his finger and fires a drone. The MoS quotes a Pakistani official describing the signature strikes:

‘It could be a vehicle containing armed men heading towards the border, and the operator thinks, “Let’s get them before they get there,” without any idea of who they are. It could also just be people sitting together. In the frontier region, every male is armed but it doesn’t mean they are militants.’

One such signature strike killed more than 40 people in Datta Khel in North Waziristan on March 17 last year. The victims, Mr Akbar’s dossier makes clear, had gathered for a jirga – a tribal meeting – in order to discuss a dispute between two clans over the division of royalties from a chromite mine.

Some of the most horrifying testimony comes from Khalil Khan, the son of Malik Haji Babat, a tribal leader and police officer. ‘My father was not a terrorist. He was not an enemy of the United States,’ Khalil’s legal statement says. ‘He was a hard-working and upstanding citizen, the type of person others looked up to and aspired to be like.

"What I saw when I got off the bus at Datta Khel was horrible,’ he said. ‘I immediately saw flames and women and children were saying there had been a drone strike. The fires spread after the strike. The tribal elders who had been killed could not be identified because there were body parts strewn about. The smell was awful. I just collected the pieces that I believed belonged to my father and placed them in a small coffin.’

...He added that schools in the area were empty because ‘parents are afraid their children will be hit by a missile’.

This is another aspect of the drone campaign that I noted in a recent post here about the drone campaign: it is not just an illegal military operation, it is -- and is designed to be -- a terrorist campaign. It is meant to terrorize the population of the targeted regions, to keep the people there enslaved to fear and uncertainty, never knowing if the buzzing drone flying high and unreachable above their heads will suddenly spew out a Hellfire missile on their house, their school, their farm, their hospital, and blow them or their loved ones into unidentifiable shreds. It is a terrorist campaign -- not a random attack here and there, not an isolated spasm of violence -- but a continual, relentless, death-dealing campaign of terror designed to poison the daily lives of innocent people and force their cowed acquiescence to the dictates of domination.

II.

It goes without saying that this story, or the Living Under Drones report, or the abominable implications of the terrorist campaign were not discussed during the "debate" Monday night between the two clowns who are fighting for the chance to drench themselves in human blood for the next four years. (For the most thorough -- and harrowing -- consideration of these implications, including the electoral implications, see this powerful piece by Arthur Silber.) The fact that the drone campaign is actually one of the greatest threats to the national security of the American people will not impinge upon the "debate." Why should it? Neither candidate is the least bit interested in the security of the American people. In fact, both are firmly committed to imposing the drone terror campaign on the American people themselves (as Silber, again, notes here).

In a recent article, Daniel Ellsberg -- a courageous and worthy dissident for many decades -- shocked many by cataloging the many war crimes and moral atrocities of the Obama Administration, then ending with a fervent rallying cry for us all to .... support Obama. (Vast Left has more on this.) Here, Ellsberg echoes a familiar argument during this election cycle, voiced more vehemently not long ago by another honorable campaigner, Robert Parry. My response to Parry then applies equally to Ellsberg now, and to all those good progressives who advocate a 'reluctant' but 'realistic' vote for Obama:

Parry believes he is preaching a tough, gritty doctrine of "moral ambiguity." What he is in fact advocating is the bleakest moral nihilism. To Parry, the structure of American power -- the corrupt, corporatized, militarized system built and sustained by both major parties -- cannot be challenged. Not even passively, not even internally, for Parry scorns those who simply refuse to vote almost as harshly as those who commit the unpardonable sin: voting for a third party. No, if you do not take an active role in supporting this brutal engine of war and injustice by voting for a Democrat, then it is you who are immoral.

You must support this system. It is the only moral choice. What’s more, to be truly moral, to acquit yourself of the charge of vanity and frivolity, to escape complicity in government crimes, you must support the Democrat. If the Democratic president orders the "extrajudicial" murder of American citizens, you must support him. If he chairs death squad meetings in the White House every week, checking off names of men to be murdered without charge or trial, you must support him. If he commits mass murder with robot drones on defenseless villages around the world, you must support him. If he imprisons and prosecutes whistleblowers and investigative journalists more than any other president in history, you must support him. If he cages and abuses and tortures a young soldier who sought only to stop atrocities and save the nation’s honor, you must support him. If he "surges" a pointless war of aggression and occupation in a ravaged land and expands that war into the territory of a supposed ally, you must support him. If he sends troops and special ops and drones and assassins into country after country, fomenting wars, bankrolling militias, and engineering coups, you must support him. If he throws open the nation's coastal waters to rampant drilling by the profiteers who are devouring and despoiling the earth, you must support him. If he declares his eagerness to do what no Republican president has ever dared to do -- slash Social Security and Medicare -- you must support him.

For Robert Parry, blinded by the red mist of partisanship, there is literally nothing -- nothing -- that a Democratic candidate can do to forfeit the support of "the left." He can even kill a 16-year-old American boy -- kill him, rip him to shreds with a missile fired by a coddled coward thousands of miles away -- and you must support him. And, again, if you do not support him, if you do not support all this, then you are the problem. You are enabling evil.

I confess I cannot follow such logic. But in his article, Ellsberg compounds the puzzlement when he tries to clinch his case by citing Henry David Thoreau, of all people. Ellsberg writes:

I often quote a line by Thoreau that had great impact for me:

“Cast your whole vote: not a strip of paper merely, but your whole influence.” He was referring, in that essay, to civil disobedience, or as he titled it himself, “Resistance to Civil Authority.”

In other words, Ellsberg is using a call for resistance to civil authority to justify supporting a civil authority which he himself acknowledges is committing war crimes and destroying American democracy. Again, I find this "reasoning" unfathomable.

But I too often quote a line by Thoreau that has had a great impact for me. In fact, I would say that it encapsulates my entire political philosophy in this dirty, degraded Age of Empire:

“How does it become a man to behave toward this American government today? I answer that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it.”

If only more of our compatriots would say the same.



This article was originally posted at Chris Floyd

Supersize the Vote: Mother of All Elections Gets Bigger

Democratic Mockpocalypse: How Big Can One Election Get?

by Tom Engelhardt - TomDispatch  

Obesity is an American plague -- and no, I’m not talking about overweight Americans. I’m talking about our overweight, supersized presidential campaign. I’m talking about Big Election, the thing that’s moved into our homes and, especially if you live in a “swing state,” is now hogging your television almost 24/7.

There’s a wonderful old American postcard tradition of gigantism, a mixture of (and gentle mocking of) a national, but especially Western, urge toward bravado, braggadocio, and pride when it comes to this country. The imagery on those cards once ranged from giant navel oranges on railroad flatcars to saddled jackalopes (rabbits with antlers) mounted by cowboy riders on the range. Think of the 2012 election season as just such a postcard -- without the charm.

Though no one’s bothered to say it, the most striking aspect of this election is its gigantism. American politics is being supersized. Everything -- everything -- is bigger. There are now scores of super PACs and “social welfare” organizations, hundreds of focus groups, thousands upon thousands of polls, hundreds of thousands of TV ads, copious multi-million dollar contributions to the dark side by the .001%, billions of ad dollars flooding the media, up to $3 billion pouring into the coffers of political consultants, and oh yes, though it’s seldom mentioned, trillions of words.

It’s as if no one can stop talking about what might otherwise be one of the least energizing elections in recent history: the most vulnerable president in memory versus a candidate who somehow threatens not to beat him, two men about as inspired as a couple of old beanbag chairs. And yet the words about the thrill of it all just keep on pouring out. They stagger (or perhaps stun) the imagination. They are almost all horse race- and performance-oriented. Who is ahead and why? Who is preparing for what and how? Who has the most momentary of advantages and why? Who looked better, talked tougher, or out-maneuvered whom?

It never seems to end, and why should it? After all, it’s the profit-center of the ages, pure money on a stick. And there’s just so much to say about what is surely an event for the record books. The only question (and it’s not one to be taken lightly) is: What is it?

The Jumbotron Election

It started earlier and lasted longer than any election in our history, and every number associated with it is bigger and better and more striking than the last. If you happen to have the TV on, every one of its moments is The Moment. I even heard one prime-time news anchor call the vice-presidential head-to-head “an epic generational debate.”

Such hyperbole is the daily norm. Before the first presidential debate, another TV talking head assured his audience, “the Republicans were crawling out onto the 33rd floor ledge looking into the abyss.” Then, for a while, that abyss belonged to Barack Obama and he was falling, falling, falling.

That was, of course, before the second of the three presidential debates, which arrived with enough fanfare to put the Thrilla in Manila or the Rumble in the Jungle to shame. It was, according to the logos I jotted down, “The Showdown,” “The Rematch,” “The Comeback,” or simply “High Stakes” -- but what wasn’t in this election season? Of course, Romney and Obama weren’t doing something as mundane as simply debating each other for an hour and a half. They were preparing to head “into the arena” to demonstrate “the power of one night,” and not just any night but “the most crucial single night of the campaign.” All of this to be followed, of course, by debate number three ("The Last Face-Off," "The Final Showdown").

Everything about this year was, in fact, crucial and record-making, including the 73,000 (mainly attack) ads that saturated Las Vegas by October 12th, making it “the place with the most televised campaign advertisements in a single year.” (Cleveland came in second and Denver third.) And talk about obesity: for the two campaigns, which long ago busted out of their public-financing election togs, the sky’s now the limit on contributions and there’s no place in the country, however faintly competitive, at which dollars can’t be thrown.

That blitz of money -- more than $3 billion for TV ads alone -- should stagger the imagination, as should the nearly billion dollars each that the Obama and Romney crews have already raised. Then there are the multimillions pouring into mainly Republican Super PACs; the $10 million that casino magnate Sheldon Adelson and his wife Miriam gave in June to the Romney Super PAC Restore Our Future, and the $24.2 million that has followed -- with Adelson reportedly pledging another $65 million, if necessary, to get Obama out of the White House; and the multi-millions the billionaire Koch brothers have poured into Americans for Prosperity. That organization, in turn, is funneling $6 million into anti-Obama attack ads every two weeks and has even set up its own “ground game” -- 200 permanent staff members in 32 states, and thousands of volunteers armed with “sophisticated online micro-targeting tools.” All of this, of course, gives the phrase “money politics” new meaning.

And then there’s TV. Keep in mind that prime-time audiences were radically down this spring: CBS lost 8% of its audience, Fox 20%, and ABC 21%. What luck, then, that billions of ad dollars and eyeball-gluing programming have been flowing into the same medium as part of that heavily over-promoted reality show "Mitt v. Barack" (only one will remain standing!). It's been an ongoing vote-'em-outta-there show that, as in the second presidential debate, has proven capable of capturing an audience of 65.6 million across the channels, the sort of numbers that stomp the Oscars and are beaten only by a few previous presidential debates and Super Bowls.

So if you own some media outfit, from the first spring Republican debates on, politics has been a never-ending Christmas. It should surprise no one, then, that the employees of those media bosses have supersized the way they are plugging election 2012. (In one of the stranger phenomena of our election moment, however, this obvious conflict of interest is never discussed, even if its reality is daily before our eyes.)

So forget the profits involved. Just sit back and enjoy an election for the ages. Only one thing could possibly be bigger: election 2016 -- and the media isn’t even waiting for November 7th to begin handicapping that race. Articles about whether or not Billary is running are already commonplace. (Hillary’s denied it. Bill’s left the door ajar. Just about everybody suspects that, in the end, the answer could be yes.)

In the meantime, what a learning experience this election is proving to be. Who doesn’t now know about the significance of “the suburban woman,” or the "Walmart mom," or what a “four-point swing” is, or an “outlier poll,” or a campaign "prebuttal" (a preemptive response to arguments not yet made), or how to judge Gallup’s handiwork? Who couldn’t go on and on about campaign 2012? Which, in fact, is just what’s happening.

An Election That Outgrew Us All

Still, amid all the hoopla, money, and analysis, what exactly is it? I mean this thing we still call an “election,” in which our temperatures are taken every 30 seconds, in which we are told that we have more or less voted every day for months on end, in which to keep up with events you need to read daily columns by a man who lives only to make sense of this morning's batch of polls.

What does it mean when the election season never ends, when 2016 is already gestating in the oversized body of 2012? What does it mean when a candidate must spend a startling proportion of his time glad-handing the wealthiest Americans just to keep the pump primed, the campaign rolling along? What does it mean that a “corporate strategist” -- a woman working for clients who want something from the White House -- prepares one of the candidates for the debates and helps plot his campaign strategy? What does it mean when the other’s advisors are a walking, talking directory of lobbyists? What does it mean when you already know that the $2.5 billion presidential election of 2012 will be the $3.5 billion election of 2016?

What is to be made of a phenomenon that seems to be outgrowing us all, and every explanation we have for what it is? Yes, thanks only in part to the Supreme Court, this is distinctly a 1% election, but that hardly encompasses it. Yes, corporations and lobbyists are pouring their everything into it, but that can’t really explain it all either. Yes, it’s a profit center for media owners, but no one would claim that catches the essence of it. Yes, it’s an entertainment spectacle, but is that really how you'd define it? And certainly it’s an everything-the-market-can-bear version of an election campaign, but does that encompass it either?

It’s certainly not your grandparents’ election, and you may not understand it any better than I do. But if you’ve been worried about Big Government, why haven’t you been worrying about Big Election, too?

The fact is: sometimes things outgrow all of us, even those who think they control them.

And here, to me, is the strangest thing: for all the trillions of words devoted to campaign 2012, no one even bothers to discuss its size. Americans may be willing to argue copiously about whether New York's Mayor Bloomberg should control the supersizing of soft drinks in his city, but not a peep is heard when it comes to the supersizing of the run for the presidency.

Under the circumstances, the slogan of ABC News seems either touchingly or mockingly silly: “Your Voice, Your Vote.” Whatever this thing may be, it certainly has ever less to do with your individual voice or your individual vote. As Big Election becomes a way of life, democracy -- small “d” -- increasingly seems like a term from a lost time. If this is democracy, it’s on steroids and on the Comedy Channel. It’s our own Democratic Mockpocalypse.

I’d be the last person to claim I understand it. Still, I do know one thing: whatever it is, we’re evidently going to pass right through this endless political season without stopping to take stock of our supersized political world.

Tom Engelhardt, co-founder of the American Empire Project and author of The United States of Fear as well as The End of Victory Culture, his history of the Cold War, runs the Nation Institute's TomDispatch.com. His latest book, co-authored with Nick Turse, is Terminator Planet: The First History of Drone Warfare, 2001-2050.

Follow TomDispatch on Twitter @TomDispatch and join us on Facebook.

Copyright 2012 Tom Engelhardt

Newsflash! News Sucks

BREAKING NEWS: AP, Media Fumble News Story

by WALTER BRASCH

On the Sunday before the final presidential debate, Mitt Romney and some of his senior staffers played a flag football game with members of the Press Corps on Delray Beach, Fla.

Ashley Parker of the Associated Press, apparently mistaking fashion reporting for news, reported that Mitt Romney was “wearing black shorts, a black Adidas T-shirt and gray sneakers.” Romney’s team, composed of senior campaign staff whom Parker identified, was “clad in red T-shirts.” She didn’t report what the members of the press wore, their names, or how many were on a team, but did acknowledge she “also played, winning the coin toss for her team, but doing little else by way of yardage accrual.” Yardage accrual? If this was Newswriting 101, and she put that phrase into a news story, there wouldn’t be one college prof anywhere in the country who wouldn’t have red-marked it, and suggested she stop trying to be cute.

Romney was a starter—we don’t know which position he played—made a “brief beach appearance” and left when “the game was in full swing,” possibly not wanting to get too mussed up by having to interact with commoners. There is so much a reporter could have done with Romney’s failure to finish the game, but didn’t. Parker, however, did tell readers breathlessly awaiting the next “factoid” that Ann Romney “made a brief appearance . . . after cheerleading from the sidelines.” She was protected by the Secret Service who served as the offensive line, undeniably allowing her to take enough time to do her nails, brush her hair, put on another coat of makeup for the AP camera, and then throw a touchdown pass to tie the game at 7-7. At 14-14, the game was called because, reported Parker, “Mr. Romney’s aides needed to get to debate prep, and the reporters had stories to file.” Obviously, stories about a beach flag football game on a Sunday afternoon was critical enough breaking news to stop the game and breathlessly inform the nation.

Amidst the sand, Parker reported, “There is a long history of candidates and their staff members occasionally interacting with reporters on a social level.” She referred to a couple events during the 2008 campaign; Sen. Barack Obama played Taboo with reporters; Sen. John McCain hosted a barbeque for the media. Those facts alone should have kept any alert comedy writer, satirist, or political pundit in material for the next four years.

A beach football game between politician and press may seem innocent enough—a couple of hours of fun to break the stress of a long, and usually annoying, political campaign. But there’s far more than flags pulled from shorts.

Reporters who socialize with the power elite—and this happens far more than it doesn’t happen—often fail to do their primary job: challenge authority, as the Founding fathers so eloquently asked. It wasn’t White House reporters who broke the Watergate story that eventually led to the resignation of Richard Nixon, it was two police reporters at the Washington Post, who took abuse heaped upon them by the White House reporters and hundreds of others, including some of their own newspaper, for going on what was called a vindictive witch hunt. It was the media who proved they were better stenographers than reporters who dutifully chowed down whatever crumbs they were fed by the Bush–Cheney administration, and seldom questioned why the U.S. was invading Iraq. A few from the major media and many from the alternative press who did question authority were dismissed as mere gadflies. It was the sycophantic press that also didn’t question the destruction of civil liberties by the passage of the PATRIOT Act.

Against policy wonk/environmentalist Al Gore in 2000, Americans said they would rather have a beer with George W. Bush. Many of the press did have beers with candidate Bush, who once invited the media onto his ranch to watch him shoot and then barbeque pigeons for a group barbecue.

Every year in the nation’s capital is a high society event, the “Gridiron dinner.” Everyone—politicians, members of the press, and a horde of actors and singers—dress up in ball gowns and white-tie tuxedos to drink and schmooze. When it isn’t Gridiron Season, there’s all kinds of social events at all kinds of places that reporters just have to attend in order to get their stories, they simplistically justify.

Sports reporters who are too close to the teams or the sports they cover are derisively known as “homers,” not for Homer Simpson, who some of them act like, but because they favor the home team. Entertainment reporters and arts critics feel important because publicists will often go to extraordinary lengths to get them face-time with celebrities. To prove how “independent” they are, some, who have no discernible creative talent, will write snarky columns about celebrities and their works, thinking they are clever rather than the pompous self-aggrandizing jerks they really are. Many in the media—especially those in television and the print reporters who often do TV talk-show commentaries—probably should drop the pretense they’re journalists and just accept the appellations that they are celebrities.

It isn’t just reporters who cover national stories who get too close to their sources. There are now state and metropolitan gridiron dinners. At a local level, Reporters who cover the police and city council are often on a first-name basis with their sources. Even if they honestly believe they are objective, and will knock down lies and deceptions, they often don’t. They believe they need these sources to get more news, and are afraid that if they become too tough, the news, which is fed to them, will somehow dry up. They often accept “background” and “off-the-record” comments, which they never report or attribute, because somehow it makes them feel that they, unlike their readers of a lesser level, are “in the know.” And yet, every reporter will swear upon a stack of style manuals that he or she is objective and independent.

Don’t believe that? Put yourself in the position of being a reporter. You’re sitting at your desk in the bullpen of a newsroom, now decimated by layoffs. In walks a man in a three-piece suit and a woman in fashionably-acceptable skirt, blouse, blazer, and two-inch heels. They have a story to tell. Now, you may think that because they are PR people or middle-management executives for a large corporation, they are suspect to begin with, but they, like you, are college graduates; they are eloquent; they have a news release with the story laid out. Want anything else? They’re more than pleased to get it for you.

Now, the next day, while walking outside your office, a bag lady accosts you. She’s wearing little more than rags. Her hair is unkempt; her breath stinks. It’s doubtful she was ever a sorority president. “You a reporter?” she barks, knowing that if you’re wearing jeans, a nice but not expensive shirt and a tie you probably aren’t a corporate executive or big-shot politician. She wants to tell you a story—something about a corporation that did something very unethical and possibly illegal. You’re running late to your appointment with a physical trainer who has promised to keep you fit and attractive. You just want to get past this obstacle.

Who do you relate to? Those who look, act, and think more like you—or those who you probably wouldn’t have a drink with after work?

Don’t expect the media to stop having social encounters with their sources; it will never happen. But, do expect that maybe some will heed the call of the Founding Fathers and be independent of the sources they are expected to cover.



[Walter Brasch spent more than 40 years as a journalist and university professor, covering everything from local school board meetings to the White House. He is currently a syndicated columnist and book author. He acknowledges that in his early 20s he was enamored by being at the same parties as the “power elite,” but quickly got over it, and has been fiercely independent from the power-elites, including the power-media, whether at local, state, or national levels. His current book is the critically-acclaimed Before the First Snow: Stories from the Revolution.]

           

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Walter M. Brasch, Ph.D.
 Latest Book: Before the First Snow: Stories from the Revolution
 (www.greeleyandstone.com)
www.walterbrasch.com
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6cC4zHnFAY

Bitter Pills: Big Pharma, Bad Journalism

Bad Pharma, Bad Journalism

by David Cromwell - Media Lens

Ben Goldacre is a medical doctor and science writer who, until November 2011, wrote the Guardian’s Bad Science column which was presented as a thorn in the side of pseudoscience, quackery and ‘Big Pharma’, the giant and powerful pharmaceutical industry. On September 21, the Guardian published an extract, ‘The drugs don't work: a modern medical scandal’, from Goldacre's new book, Bad Pharma. (Unfortunately no longer available on the Guardian website. However, it can currently be accessed here). A disturbing picture emerges of corporate drug abuse:

'Drugs are tested by the people who manufacture them, in poorly designed trials, on hopelessly small numbers of weird, unrepresentative patients, and analysed using techniques that are flawed by design, in such a way that they exaggerate the benefits of treatments. Unsurprisingly, these trials tend to produce results that favour the manufacturer. When trials throw up results that companies don't like, they are perfectly entitled to hide them from doctors and patients, so we only ever see a distorted picture of any drug's true effects.’

As an example, Goldacre cites detailed medical reviews of trials testing the benefits of statins, cholesterol-reducing drugs, taken to reduce the risk of heart attacks. In 2003, two such reviews were published. Both found that industry-funded trials were about four times more likely to report positive results. A further review in 2007 found twenty new studies in the intervening four years. All but two of them showed that industry-sponsored trials were more likely to report flattering results. In other words, industry-funded drug trials with negative results tend to be buried, glossed over or otherwise ignored.

Goldacre notes:

‘In any sensible world, when researchers are conducting trials on a new tablet for a drug company, for example, we'd expect [...] that all researchers are obliged to publish their results, and that industry sponsors – which have a huge interest in positive results – must have no control over the data. But, despite everything we know about industry-funded research being systematically biased, this does not happen. In fact, the opposite is true: it is entirely normal for researchers and academics conducting industry-funded trials to sign contracts subjecting them to gagging clauses that forbid them to publish, discuss or analyse data from their trials without the permission of the funder.’

As a further example, consider the giant pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline which wanted to extend the market for the commonly used antidepressant paroxetine to children. Drugs that are licensed for use in adults are sometimes also prescribed for children. Clearly this represents a potential hazard with the risk of unknown side-effects. Regulators have tried to address this by offering inducements to companies to apply for formal authorisation for drug use in children. GSK therefore conducted a series of trials of paroxetine in children. However, at the end of the trials there was no clear benefit in treating depression. Rather than tell doctors and patients, or withdraw the drug, a secret internal company memo concluded: 'It would be commercially unacceptable to include a statement that efficacy had not been demonstrated, as this would undermine the profile of paroxetine.’ In the year after this secret memo, 32,000 prescriptions were nonethless issued to children for paroxetine in the UK alone. So while the company knew the drug didn't work in children, it was in no hurry to tell doctors, despite knowing that large numbers of children were taking it.

Goldacre continues:

‘It gets much worse than that. These children weren't simply receiving a drug that the company knew to be ineffective for them; they were also being exposed to side-effects. This should be self-evident, since any effective treatment will have some side-effects, and doctors factor this in, alongside the benefits (which in this case were nonexistent). But nobody knew how bad these side-effects were, because the company didn't tell doctors, or patients, or even the regulator about the worrying safety data from its trials. This was because of a loophole: you have to tell the regulator only about side-effects reported in studies looking at the specific uses for which the drug has a marketing authorisation. Because the use of paroxetine in children was “off-label” [i.e., marketing authorisation had been granted for adults, but not specifically for children], GSK had no legal obligation to tell anyone about what it had found.’

And he concludes:

‘Missing data poisons the well for everybody. If proper trials are never done, if trials with negative results are withheld, then we simply cannot know the true effects of the treatments we use. Evidence in medicine is not an abstract academic preoccupation. When we are fed bad data, we make the wrong decisions, inflicting unnecessary pain and suffering, and death, on people just like us.’

No reasonable person could fail to be troubled by Goldacre’s damning assessment of the drugs industry. But had he gone far enough? Economist Harry Shutt didn't think so. Shutt is a rare example of a professional economist who is also a radical critic of the current economic system. Since the 1970s, he has been a consultant for international development agencies including the UN and the World Bank. He has also written easily-digested books, such as The Trouble with Capitalism (Zed Books, 1998/2009) and The Decline of Capitalism (Zed Books, 2005), exposing the growing unsustainability of the status quo. In 2005, he warned presciently of 'an unavoidable financial crisis' on a greater scale than any before. Ever since the global crash of 2007-2008, he has argued that a return to enduring growth is neither desirable nor possible, and that western societies have to 'grasp the nettle' of a 'post-capitalist' economic future. His articulate thoughts on this can be found in his latest book, Beyond the Profits System (Zed Books, 2010).
Those Dirty Words: 'Public Ownership'

Shutt emailed Goldacre:

‘The blindingly obvious inference of the extract from your book published in the Guardian - as of so many others you once commendably wrote in your Bad Science column - is that this is an industry totally unsuited to being run on profit-maximising lines by conventional shareholder companies. Given that, and the tremendous level of subsidy the industry already receives from governments around the world, why not spell out the vital necessity of locating it within publicly owned/non-profit organisations where there need be no obstacle to full transparency?’

In an Observer interview, Goldacre responded to Shutt (as well as other readers who had submitted questions after publication of the book extract):

‘I am a realist about this. I don't want a central-command state economy. In general, drug companies are reasonably good at developing new treatments and there's also a lot of good in the industry. The point of my book is that it's possible for good people in badly designed systems to perpetrate acts of great evil completely unthinkingly. I don't think any of the people I write about would punch an old lady in the face, but they would inflict the same level of harm when they are abstracted away from the outcomes of their actions.

‘This is made easier, I think, because in general, most drugs do work better than nothing: it's just that we may be misled into using, for example, an expensive new drug where an older, cheaper one is more effective.

‘Overall, the problem is we don't have a competent regulatory framework that prevents things from going horribly wrong. If companies are allowed to hide the results of clinical trials then they will, and that will distort clinical practice. Doctors and patients will be misled and make sub-optimal decisions about what treatment is best for them.

‘Similarly, if you can get on to the market by making a me-too copycat drug that represents little or no therapeutic advance and is even less effective than the drugs that it copies, then you will. And you can get such a drug to the market because regulators approve new treatments even when they've only been shown only to be better than placebo.’

But this ducked the question that had been put to him, as Shutt pointed out in a follow-up email (October 9, 2012):

Dear Ben Goldacre

I was disappointed in your response to my question regarding the appropriateness of the profit-maximising model for the pharmaceutical industry and surprised at your implied suggestion that I must be advocating a centrally planned (Soviet-style?) economy.

You must be aware that many major industries in market economies are or have been state-owned without the countries concerned being identifiable as centrally planned. An obvious example is the rail industry, which is state-owned in nearly every European country and demonstrably performs more cost-effectively than its privatised UK counterpart, which (as pointed out in a recent Guardian article) the overwhelming majority of the British public has consistently favoured being renationalised (along with the water sector) without anyone inferring that those expressing this view must be card-carrying Communists. You must likewise know that a major British drug manufacturer - the Wellcome Foundation - was until 1986 a wholly owned subsidiary of a charitable trust, and that charitable and NHS institutions continue to provide vital funding for medical research here and around the world - to the considerable profit of Big Pharma.

In view of this and of your own work demonstrating the damaging consequences of profit-driven business models in terms of a) bad health outcomes and b) wasted public resources, I find your position rather baffling. Yet I am not so cynical as to suppose you might be motivated by a fear that reducing or eliminating perverse incentives to Big Pharma would tend to reduce the market for investigative journalism in the sector.

Best regards

Harry Shutt

Receiving no reply, Shutt emailed him again on October 15:

Dear Ben Goldacre

Further to my message of 9 October I have just noticed that in your response to some of the comments arising you repeat your assertion that you 'don't think it's common that medical interventions do more harm than good'. This statement seems an obvious and regrettable departure from your normal very proper insistence that findings and policy in the field of medical science should be evidence-based. May I also point out that the same principle is supposed to apply as far as possible in social sciences such as economics, although there practitioners are much more easily allowed to get away with claims - such as that 'cutting taxes stimulates growth' - for which there is no real evidential basis.

It is of course well known that bigotry is too readily passed off as science in any field according to whichever ideology or vested interest is dominant. It has been one of the great merits of your Bad Science column that you have consistently challenged this tendency in the field of medicine and diet. It is therefore all the more disappointing that you seem unwilling to maintain this rational stance when the evidence you have so commendably accumulated points to a conclusion which, although totally logical, may be viewed as too politically extreme by Big Pharma and other powerful commercial interests.

Given what is now at stake in the disintegrating global economy, leadership towards rational solutions to our problems from those such as yourself with established authority in their field has never been more needed. I hope you will not shrink from giving it through whatever medium you can.

I look forward to receiving your reply.

Best regards

Harry Shutt

Ben Goldacre has not replied to Harry Shutt’s follow-up emails.

Power, Profit And The Law

Meanwhile, the Guardian published a positive review of Goldacre's book by Luisa Dillner who works for the British Medical Journal. She concurred with his assessment of 'how the $600bn drug industry, doctors, academics, regulators and medical journals have let patients down.'

How will Big Pharma respond to Goldacre's book? Dillner speculates:

'Drug companies may say that the problems he identifies have now disappeared. New rules insist they register the details of trials, and publish the results – whether negative or positive. But as Goldacre points out, little has really changed, because no one checks up.'

Like Goldacre, Dillner hopes that better, tougher regulation will fix things, adding weakly:

'At the BMJ we are revising our declarations of interest form to say we will seek [our emphasis] to work with doctors who have not received financial hand-outs from drug companies...'

Making it clear she doesn't want to push things too far, she adds:

'But pharmaceutical companies are, after all, not charities. They exist to make and sell drugs, some of which work well, and to make a profit for their shareholders.'

Which begs the question: why not charities or public ownership, as suggested by Shutt? Dillner herself points out that doctors do not like admitting that they could ever be influenced by corporate ads and sponsorship, 'even though the evidence to the contrary is overwhelming.' And because they are not charities or publicly owned, and exist to make a private profit for shareholders, Big Pharma massively inflates the cost of developing new drugs. Companies claim that it costs £550m to bring a new drug to the market, but Goldacre cites evidence putting it at a quarter of that cost.

Nick Harvey reports in New Internationalist that:

'one-fifth of the world’s generic drugs – containing the same active ingredients as a patented drug but made by a different company at a fraction of the price – are made in India. As well as supplying India’s huge population, these drugs are shipped to poor countries around the world.'

Moreover, notes Harvey, the majority of global research and development funding is used to produce merely minor variations in existing drugs. This leads not only to high prices - indeed 'mammoth profits are generated by aggressive pricing' - but a dearth of genuinely new drugs.

Harvey adds:

'Countries are allowed by the World Trade Organization to produce generic drugs if there is a major public health imperative, a practice known as compulsory licensing. India issued its first compulsory licence in March, ordering German drugmaker Bayer to allow a generic manufacturer to make its cancer drug Nexavar (sorafenib) for one-thirtieth of the usual $5,000 price tag. India’s patent controller argued that not only had Bayer failed to make the drug "reasonably affordable", it had failed to supply the drug in large enough quantities, a decision Bayer is challenging in the courts.'

Novartis, another large drugs company, is also mounting a legal challenge in India to enable it to continue patenting 'new' drugs that are little different from existing drugs.

Big Pharma is abusing its power to attack a legal framework that allows generic drug production to benefit people, particular in poor countries. So again - why not charities or public ownership?

Who's Living In Cloud-Cuckoo Land?

In an astute piece on Goldacre’s published response to Shutt's first email, titled ‘Bad Pharma meets the Good Regulation Fairy’, one commentator started off by quoting the Slovenian cultural critic Slavoj Žižek:

‘It’s easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.’

Goldacre’s evasive answer to Shutt illustrated that point. The author of the piece, a freelance journalist who maintains anonymity on his blog, rightly noted that Goldacre, in raising the spectre of a Soviet-style ‘central command economy’, was dismissive of Shutt’s perfectly reasonable challenge. Goldacre's riposte was ‘a very jaded straw man and definitely not what Shutt was advocating.’

The journalist continued:

‘This was followed, most bizarrely, by the assertion that people in the drugs industry perpetuate acts of great evil, not because they are innately evil, but because they work in a badly designed system. This is precisely what Shutt was saying – it’s a badly designed system, its acts are not the “fault” of the individuals working in it, so change the system. As an answer, that lacks something. It’s like saying 2+3 isn’t 5, it’s 5.’

Goldacre’s ineffectual rebuttal of Shutt's challenge boiled down to the good regulation fairy of a ‘competent regulatory framework’ to fend off rampant global capitalism. This displays a curious ideological faith in an inequitable system; curious, because it comes from a science writer and doctor who prides himself – usually with justification - on reliance on hard evidence and clear analysis.

The journalist then asks us to imagine the reaction if the state had been guilty of flooding hospitals, clinics and GP surgeries with dangerous or dysfunctional drugs. There would, of course, have been howls of outrage followed immediately by urgent and deafening demands for the privatisation of pharmaceuticals. That critics of the cynical, profit-driven and abusive practices of corporate drug companies call merely for better regulation provides a crucial insight into the dangerous imbalance of power in society. In his naive and faith-based appeal for a ‘competent regulatory framework’, Goldacre has overlooked the fundamental problem that western ‘democratic’ political systems are utterly dominated and skewed by destructive, profit-driven corporate priorities.

Given the failure of Goldacre’s imagination, the journalist suggests a thought experiment. Consider ‘an ideal world where the state sits benevolently above the fray and government regulation can do its job unimpeded. What would regulation actually do?’

'...competent and effective regulation will, if it does anything, radically reduce the number of pharmaceuticals that are allowed to go on the market. Thereby massively hitting drug company profits (they are currently the darlings of stock markets worldwide because they are so profitable) and, in turn, the number of people they employ.

‘Thus, you are soon face to face with a fundamental conflict of our capitalist system. An unavoidable collision between the impulse most decent people share for reducing the anti-social effects of capitalism, against the need for capitalism to prosper so that everyone can have good jobs and incomes. We are, whether we like it or not, materially dependent on the system’s success. But a successful system causes results, such as global warming and prescribing dangerous medicines, that are inherently destructive.’

He sums up cogently:

‘If regulation of the pharmaceutical industry were actually competent, as Goldacre wants it to be, it would prevent capitalism from working (actually it’s not working well anyway but effective regulation would be another drag on profits). A 2009 UN report found that a third of the profits of the world’s biggest 3,000 companies would be wiped out if firms were forced to pay for the use, loss and damage to the environment they cause. In other words, truly effective environmental regulation would render capitalism impossible.

‘So regulation is, quite deliberately, not effective. It allows, as research has found, just enough reform to buy off critics without seriously impeding corporate priorities. In the end, Goldacre’s vision of a “competent regulatory framework” is far more utopian than changing the system so that profit maximization is not the modus operandi of pharmaceutical companies.’

This is a devastating conclusion: it’s the would-be reformers who are living in cloud-cuckoo land. The same applies to other ‘mainstream’ journalists, activists and writers, on any number of topics, who are propping up the present unjust, unstable and planet-devouring system of global capitalism by calling merely for ‘better regulation’. Anything more challenging than this is well off the corporate media agenda. It is even off the agenda of the bulk of the green movement, trade unions, human rights groups and other major nongovernmental organisations that we are supposed to believe are challenging the status quo.

Cut To The Chase

As mentioned earlier, Ben Goldacre has still not responded to economist Harry Shutt’s polite and rational follow-up emails. Perhaps he realises the simple points made by Shutt are unassailable. This is not unusual in our experience. Challenging those with a platform in the corporate media about its failure – indeed, its systemic inability – to question the very framework of corporate capitalism in which it is embedded is routinely met with silence, evasions or even condescending brush-offs. Media Lens has seen them all, whether from the Guardian, the Independent, The Sunday Times or the Financial Times.

Indeed, it was the Sunday Times economics editor who declared dismissively from his Murdoch-funded position that:

‘Most of us get these things out of our system when we are students.’

Well, undoubtedly he did; and perhaps with some residual feelings of regret or even guilt.

When the documentary film-maker Michael Moore was asked why he made his 2009 film, Capitalism: A Love Story, he responded:

‘Well, I’ve been making movies for about twenty years now. Actually, it’s twenty years ago this week Roger & Me was at the New York Film Festival. And the films I’ve done, from that one all the way through Sicko, always seem to come back to this central core concern, which is the economic system we have is unfair, it’s unjust, it’s not democratic, it seems to lack any sort of ethical center to it. And I guess I can keep making movies for another twenty years about the next General Motors or the next healthcare issue or whatever, but I thought I’d just kind of cut to the chase and propose that we deal with this economic system and try to restructure it in a way that benefits people and not the richest one percent.’

Our battle, then, is not for ‘reform’ or better ‘regulatory frameworks’ applied to a fundamentally unjust and undemocratic state of affairs. It’s about restructuring the economic system so that it benefits everyone and not just the rich few.


SUGGESTED ACTION

The goal of Media Lens is to promote rationality, compassion and respect for others. If you do write to journalists, we strongly urge you to maintain a polite, non-aggressive and non-abusive tone.

Write to Ben Goldacre, Bad Science website.

Email: ben@badscience.net

Twitter: @bengoldacre

Gaza Boat Estelle Crew Beaten by Captors

Estelle crew were beaten during the attack and by interrogators, Canadian Jim Manly still in detention

by Canadian Boat to Gaza

As Jim Manly, former Canadian MP (1980-88) and retired United Church Minister, continues to be detained in Israel with many of the other crew members of the Estelle, without any news about when he will be released. This despite freeing the Greek, Italian and Spanish citizens who were on the Estelle and the release of Israeli activists after being detained and charged.

Elik Elhanan, one of the Israelis released, said that excessive force and tasers were used against them and that a Greek MP was beaten by Shabak Security Service interrogators.

"I am now on my way home, but I keep thinking of my shipmates, my fellow activists from abroad who are still imprisoned under harsh conditions and undergo interrogation by the Shabak Security Service, among them Parliament Members from several countries," said Elik Elhanan, one of the Israeli activists who had sailed aboard the Gaza-bound Swedish ship "Estelle". 

Today, the court ordered his release and that of two other detained Israelis, Yonatan Shapira and Reut Mor.

"At first they tried to charge us with all kinds of very serious felonies, such as 'aiding the enemy'. The court rejected this out of hand. Today they tried an article on the law books called "Attempted infiltration into a part of the Land of Israel which is not part of the State of Israel" (sic). But the court threw out this charge, too". 

The detained activists were represented by Attorney Gaby Lasky and her team, who have considerable experience with Human Rights cases.

The released detainees were cheerfully greeted by peace activists who arrived at the courtroom, among them Elik Elhanan's parents - Rami Elhanan and Nurit Peled-Elhanan, who is the daughter of the late Major General Matti Peled. Smadar Elhanan, Elik's sister, was killed in a suicide bombing at the center of Jerusalem a harsh experience which made surviving family members all the more determined to strive for peace between Israel and the Palestinians, so as to prevent further casualties on either side.

"They used a completely disproportional amount of force against us" continues Elhanan. "When the Navy arrived to take us over, Yonatan Shapira counted no less than fifteen vessels surrounding us on all sides. Large and small ships and boats, a ship carrying a helicopter, as well as the Zodiacs of the Naval Commandos. Fifteen armed naval vessels against one small civilian boat carrying games for the children of Gaza. We must have disturbed very much the Navy and those who give orders to the Navy."

"These testimonies increase our concern for Jim and continue to raise the question why aren't the Canadian government and the opposition NDP doing more to secure his release?" Said Eva Manly, Jim's wife.

-- 30 --

for immediate release

Montreal; 20121022 - 22h00

for more information:

www.tahrir.ca
info@tahrir.ca

Where Truth is Derided as Merely Tactical

Is Truth a Tactic?

by Alexandra Morton

This blog is dedicated to Ransom Myers, RAM 1952- 2007

On October 15, 2012, Anissa Reed and I purchased an Atlantic salmon from Sobey’s supermarket in Truro, Nova Scotia, we had no idea what series of events would follow.

When we examine salmon we always count the number of sea lice, but there were so many on this fish that we began pulling them off and onto a plate to get an accurate count.



We took a picture. We were in a parking lot, working from a shopping cart and a previously purchased salmon from Superstore was on the lower level of the cart awaiting processing. That is why, as some have noted, there is an Atlantic Superstore shopping bag visible in some of the images.

Most of the lice were hiding under the gill flap of the Sobey’s salmon, not a usual place for lice.



Many of the 28 parasitic crustaceans were gravid females full of eggs. When Anissa posted an image of the paper plate covered in lice on facebook people began to “share” the image widely. Within 24 hours there were 270 shares, we don’t know how many “shares,” there were from other people’s facebook pages. We have never seen anything like that before. The image had “gone viral.” The next day, we bought another farmed Atlantic from Sobey’s - it had 33 sea lice.




A few days later, on October 18, when tried to purchase a farm salmon from Sobey’s in St. John, New Brunswick, they told us whole Atlantic salmon had been recalled due to sea lice, and that 84 stores had pulled the product from their shelves. We went to a second Sobey’s and heard the same thing, so we went to Lord's Lobster in the Saint John City Market and bought several more Atlantic salmon. The three fish had 24, 29, and approximately 100 sea lice.






Lord's had a sign on their fish counter saying there were groups with their own agenda pitting farm-raised salmon against wild. I wondered of they are talking about the small communities throughout the Maritimes trying to hold onto their way of life, their fisheries, their schools and economy?



Clearly one salmon farm or more is harvesting salmon in the Maritimes with a serious sea lice problem. The fish had extensive damage to their backs where many of the lice were attached.

On October 18, we went to the Fisherman’s Market in Bedford. These fish, advertised as “utility grade,” had 54 and 30 sea lice. The poor creatures had lost part of their heads to sea lice. The skin was eaten away and raw flesh exposed.



Inka Milewski, Science Advisor for the Conservation Council of New Brunswick. joined us in the autopsy. http://www.conservationcouncil.ca/Chaleur-to-Tormentine/




Testifying before the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans on November 29, 2011, Milewski, who has done 34 years of scientific fieldwork on impact of salmon farms knows about the potential for the drugs used to kill sea lice to harm lobster populations – the most valuable fishery in Canada.

“ Despite failing to meet the criteria that DFO has set out, these farms have been granted permits to operate. In fact, in the case of Shelburne Harbour, these are now before the courts; the decisions that have been made by the province with advice from DFO have landed these farm applications in court. It's similar in St. Mary's Bay. Fishermen have come forward and said the farms were being put where they fish lobster. The consultants for the proponent for the fish farm have taken bottom video at a time of the year when we would not expect to see lobster and have said, “Look, we didn't find any lobster here. Therefore this is not lobster bottom.” Yet they've ignored the experience and the expertise of people who have fished those areas for 30 years. This is what I'm saying.”

Inka ran her hands over hard yellow pimples along the inside of one of the salmon, saying, “I have seen this before, I will look this up and get back to you.” While the salmon had quite a few lice, the extreme damage to their heads suggested far more lice had been there recently.



From these simple observations, that there are sea lice on farm salmon being sold in New Brunswick, PEI, and Nova Scotia, came a flurry of media stories, 100’s of comments and some heated accusations. Usually I just let this kind of thing go, but it broke my heart going community to community for the past 10 days and hearing how big business salmon farmers have invaded communities against their will supported by all levels of government.

When you see fish disfigured by lice, you know the salmon farmers are loosing money on that fish. Sea lice in the Maritimes have become resistant to drugs. This has been noted by the University of PEI scientist John F. Burka

In the Multi-National Sea Lice R&D Meeting, Bergen Norway, Feb 10 & 11, 2010 on sea lice, it is recognized that salmon farm sea lice are now resistant to drugs throughout New Brunswick. New drugs called “AlphaMax”, “Salmosan,” “Calicide,” have been used in an attempt to kill the parasite. It goes on to say bath treatments are now being used. This is where a farm is diapered in tarps and the drug added to the water, or the fish are pumped into a “well-boat” treated and then the fish pumped back out the tank emptied. When I see adult salmon damaged by sea lice, it suggests even these new drugs are failing.

While the greatest known impact of sea lice in BC is damage to juvenile salmon migrating near salmon farms where billions of larval lice can be wafting out of these marine feedlots, the issue in eastern Canada has more to do with the drugs. In the losing arms race, the fish farmers are trying to kill a parasitic crustacean. Since sea lice and lobsters are both crustaceans, it is not surprising the drug appears to kill lobster, including, potentially the larval lobster.

The media

Sobey’s took a good step in recalling the product, but if they are truly committed to the communities they have their stores in, they need to tell the public where these fish came from and what drug is being used to protect the lobster fishermen.

October 18
CBC reports “Sobey’s pulls whole salmon from stores” featuring the picture of the paper plate with all the sea lice.

A quote from the article:

“The decision to pull the salmon appears to be the result of a campaign launched by anti fish farming activist Alexandra Morton.”

October 19
CBC does a second story: Fish Farmers defend Atlantic salmon after recall

A quote from the story:
“The Atlantic Canada Fish Farmers Association says sea lice is not a risk to human health after it was found on whole Atlantic salmon at Sobeys.
The grocery chain pulled the fish from shelves Thursday after anti-fish farming activist Alexandra Morton posted a photo of lice on the fish on Facebook.
In response, the Fish Farmers Association issued a release touting the benefits of Atlantic salmon.”
This story was not open to comments. The first mention of sea lice as a threat to human health seems to have originated with the Atlantic Canada Fish Farmers Association.
Next came the Global News story which shifted the focus to me, not sea lice on farm salmon: Anti-fish farming activist Alexandra Morton

A quote from the story:
“There's a certain need for people bringing awareness to public so everyone is paying attention,” said Dr. Larry Hammell, the director of the Centre for Aquatic Health Sciences.

“But the pendulum can swing too far. It starts to be an issue with inflaming half the points so people are afraid rather than dealing with science of it.”

Hammell said this is what happened with the pictures and Sobeys’ response. Morton knows sea lice pose no human health risk, but many people may not, so she took advantage of the situation, Hammell said.

Morton’s Crusade

Morton is an activist that has become a movement campaigning against the salmon farm-fishing industry. ”

I never said sea lice were a human health issue. I have a call into Dr. Hammell’s office, he must have been misinformed, or misquoted.

I was flown to Halifax by Dalhousie University to deliver the 5th annual Ransom Myers lecture. Dr. Myers, or RAM, as he is known by his many friends and colleagues, was a man familiar with the controversy that block progress in protecting the wild fisheries of Canada. Wild fisheries are not decorative luxury items. They fuel local economies, they are food security, they keep the oceans alive, which in turn regulate ocean climate – something they are essential to the survival of humankind.

Communities throughout Nova Scotia and New Brunswick ask me to visit them. They want to tell me about the impact of salmon farms on them.




They are fighting for their communities, they are hoping for solutions. I was deeply affected hearing fisherman after fisherman tell me that the drugs being used to kill sea lice are killing lobster. They all repeated that herring weirs stop producing, as soon as, salmon farms appear. Fishermen of the Eastern Shore, Shelbourne County, Freeport, St Andrews, Deer Island, Grand Manan – all said the same thing. Did they plot together to make up a story, learn their lines to repeat to me? NO, that would be ludicrous! I believe them and seeing farm salmon that are so damaged by lice that they are offered to the public as low cost “utility grade” suggests to me that some farm in the Maritimes has sea lice so resistant to drugs that they are out of control. Question is what drug is going to be used next and does that drug belong in public waters affecting the biggest fishery in Canada – lobster?

Pam Parker, Executive Director of the Atlantic Canada was quoted in the Global news Article: “We do not believe that sea lice in our farms have any impact on wild salmon.”
This was a shocker. Ms. Parker was an administrator of the $3 million BC Pacific Salmon Forum in 2008. I was one of the researchers, partnered with DFO, and one of the resulting recommendations called for delousing of farm salmon when nearby juvenile wild salmon became infected with more lice than normal. This was expressly to wild salmon from death by farm salmon-origin sea lice. Parker moved straight from that job, to her current position to promote salmon farming.
I don’t see how she can still not “believe” sea lice from salmon farms are not a problem for wild salmon.

I was sent pictures by a Maritimes biologist of sea lice on wild Atlantic salmon




Vivian Krause chimed in in the Global News Story casting doubt on my integrity:

“Morton received funding from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, which she said supports the wild salmon industry and is against farm-fishing practices.

“If your research is being funded by folks that want to kill an industry, you must disclose that.”

Krause has insinuated this before. The fact is, when the Moore Foundation funded a coalition of environmental groups in BC to reach an agreement with Marine Harvest, the biggest salmon farmer in the world, I left the coalition, because the deal supported doubling the production license of salmon feedlots against the wishes of the First Nations whose territory they were sited in. The wild salmon I was studying would not survive this. I walked away from the money.

While Krause is right, we do need to look at where the money comes from research needs funding. Boats, fuel, people’s time all require money. Dr. Hammell lists Cooke Aquaculture as a “collaborator.” Cooke is the dominant fish farmer in the Maritimes. That should not matter because science attempts safe-guards through peer – review. When I write a paper on the impact of sea lice from salmon farms, the journal sends my work to scientists they hope will be my fiercest opponents. The editors evaluate the comments and they decided more than 20 times to publish my work in the most prestigious fisheries journals in the world.

In a third article, Dr. Hammell goes on: “

A quote from the article:

Larry Hammell, a professor of aquaculture health management at the Atlantic Veterinary College in Charlottetown, says the action was not necessary.
“There is absolutely no human health concern associated with them (sea lice)…there is no reason scientifically to remove these salmon from the shelves,’’ said Hammell.
He says since food safety is not affected by sea lice Morton’s campaign amounts to nothing more than fear mongering.
“It’s a scare tactic,’’ he said.
“I have to admit it is a pretty effective one.’’

If people are scared, then sea lice on farm salmon are scary. When does making something public become a “tactic?” I think people deserve the truth about things they are buying to eat, things that are raised in their communities.

There were 107 “comments” posted below some of the articles above. Most people expressed distrust of the government, and the salmon farming industry and voiced concern that the industry is damaging the rural economic backbone of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick coastal communities – lobster fishing – the most valuable fishery in Canada.

However, others that did not identify themselves felt differently.







The debate rages on. Karen Crocker lobster fisherman and tourism operator is taking the heat today. Karen I hope the people who are fighting this industry back you up, you are a brave person, a fisherman and tourism operator.

On Friday night, I presented the 5th annual Ransom Myer lecture to about 400 academics, politicians, students and fishermen. My account of the government cover up of the impact of salmon feedlots on wild salmon in western Canada drew the first-ever standing ovation for this series.




I feel certain RAM would approve that I gave this lecture in carrying his name amid the controversy sparked last week by a single picture. Dr. Myers stood strong against Fisheries and Ocean Canada. When he discovered the cod of the North Western Atlantic were going down he informed DFO how to avert the looming collapse. DFO told RAM, a young scientist at the time, to sit down and be quiet. He told me it took him about 7 minutes to quit. He spent his life as a powerful voice for truth and rigorous scientist, mentoring an entire generation of brilliant young scientists. RAM visited me just before he was diagnosed with terminal cancer. He was about to enter the salmon farm fight with a seminal paper with Jennifer Ford on the world-wide decline of wild salmon wherever salmon feedlots appear.

He told me DFO is a “criminal organization.” I was not ready to hear that then. I thought his statement was extreme. But after ten days at the kitchen tables of fishermen, tourism operators, people six generations on a piece of land, children asking me if salmon farms were going to kill off the livelihoods of their parents and women saying they hoped their children would find their way out of their dying communities, I have to agree.

Imagine if DFO had listened to Dr. Ransom Myers. Imagine if abundant cod were still being harvested by eastern Canada. Imagine what they would mean for Nova Scotia and the health these fish could have brought to people eating this food brimming with nutrition.

The only hope I can see is for the people who know the wild fish to band together and make the decision for themselves where and whether the salmon farms belong in their waters.

As for the anonymous person, hiding behind a pseudonym posting that I should be sued for a million dollars….

Bring it on! Let's take this into the courts. This is about much more than a dirty little sunset industry, this is about the future of our planet.

Passing: Russell Means

Longtime Indian Activist Russell Means Dies

by DIRK LAMMERS and KRISTI EATON Associated Press

Russell Means spent a lifetime as a modern American Indian warrior. He railed against broken treaties, fought for the return of stolen land and even took up arms against the federal government.

A onetime leader of the American Indian Movement, he called national attention to the plight of impoverished tribes and often lamented the waning of Indian culture.

After leaving the movement in the 1980s, the handsome, braided activist was still a cultural presence, appearing in several movies.

Means, who died Monday from throat cancer at age 72, helped lead the 1973 uprising at Wounded Knee — a bloody confrontation that raised America's awareness about the struggles of Indians and gave rise to a wider protest movement that lasted for the rest of the decade.

Who Counts the Vote Counters? Romney Family Connection to Hart Intercivic Vote Machine Maker

Coup 2012 underway: Romney Family-Linked Voting Machine Company Will 'Count' the Votes

by CLG

 
                 [CLGers, please forward this particular edition to as many lists/people as possible.]

'Voting' machines used in Hamilton County, Ohio--the county home of Cincinnati-- are supplied by Hart Intercivic, a national provider of voting systems in use in a wide variety of counties scattered throughout the states of Texas, Oklahoma, Hawaii, Colorado and Ohio.

Hart Intercivic is owned, in large part, by H.I.G. Capital--a large investment fund with billions of dollars under management--that was founded by a fellow named Tony Tamer. ...H.I.G. employees hold at least two of the five Hart Intercivic board seats.

Tony Tamer, H.I.G.'s founder, turns out to be a major bundler for the Mitt Romney campaign, along with three other directors of H.I.G. who are also big-time money raisers for Romney. Indeed, two of those directors--Douglas Berman and Brian Schwartz--were actually in attendance at the now infamous "47 percent" fundraiser in Boca Raton, Florida.

Two members of the Hart Intercivic board of directors, Neil Tuch and Jeff Bohl, have made direct contributions to the Romney campaign. Solamere Capital--the investment firm run by Mitt Romney's son, Tagg, and the home of money put into the closely held firm by Tagg's uncle Scott, mother Anne and, of course, the dad, Mitt--have shared business interests with H.I.G. either directly or via Solamere Advisors which is owned, in part, by Solamere Capital, including a reported investment in H.I.G. by either Solamere Capital or Solamere Advisors.

[WHY are RMoney's 'voting' machines still standing? They need to be dismantled and deep-sixed, ASAP. Otherwise, the same coterie of a**wipes is going to steal this election, too -- as they did in 2000 (Florida) and in 2004 (Ohio) for George W. Bush. --LRP]

CIA Plots Ecuador Regime Change

 

CIA Look to Swamp Correa

by Craig Murray

About a month ago I asked a former colleague in the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office what Hague saw as the endgame in the Julian Assange asylum standoff, and where the room for negotiation lay. My friend was dismissive – the policy was simply to wait for the Presidential election in Ecuador in February. The United States and allies were confident that Correa will lose, and my friend and I having both been senior diplomats for many years we understood what the United States would be doing to ensure that result. With Correa replaced by a pro-USA President, Assange’s asylum will be withdrawn, the Metropolitan Police invited in to the Embassy of Ecuador to remove him, and Assange sent immediately to Sweden from where he could be extradited to the United States to face charges of espionage and aiding terrorism.

I have been struck by the naivety of those who ask why the United States could not simply request Assange’s extradition from the United Kingdom. The answer is simple – the coalition government. Extradition agreements are government to government international treaties, and the decision on their implementation is ultimately political and governmental – that is why it was Teresa May and not a judge who took the final and very different political decisions on Babar Ahmad and Gary Mackinnon.

CIA supporters in the UK have argued vociferously that it would be impossible for Sweden to give Assange the assurance he would not be extradited to the United States, with which he would be prepared to return to Sweden to see off the rather pathetic attempted fit-up there. In fact, as extradition agreements are governmental not judicial instruments, it would be perfectly possible for the Swedish government to give that assurance. Those who argue otherwise, like Gavin Essler and Joan Smith here, are not being truthful – I suspect their very vehemence indicates that they know that.

Most Liberal Democrat MPs are happy to endorse the notion that Assange should be returned to Sweden to face sexual accusations. However even the repeatedly humiliated Lib Dem MPs would revolt at the idea that Assange should be sent to face life imprisonment in solitary confinement in the United States for the work of Wikileaks. That is why the United States has held off requesting extradition from the United Kingdom, to avoid the trouble this would cause Cameron. I am not speculating, there have been direct very senior diplomatic exchanges on this point between Washington and London.

There was confidence that the Correa problem would soon pass, but the State Department has since been shocked by the return of Hugo Chavez. Like Correa, senior US diplomats had convinced themselves – and convinced La Clinton – that Chavez was going to lose. The fury at Chavez’s return has led to a diktat that the same mistake must not be made in Ecuador.

CIA operations inside Ecuador are in any case much less disrupted than in Venezuela. I learn that the US budget, using mostly Pentagon funds, devoted to influencing the Ecuadorean election has, since the Venezuelan result, been almost tripled to US $87 million. This will find its way into opposition campaign coffers and be used to fund, bribe or blackmail media and officials. Expect a number of media scandals and corruption stings against Correa’s government in the next few weeks.

I do not have much background on Ecuadorean politics and I really do not know what Correa’s chances of re-election are. Neither do I know if any of the opposition parties are decent and not in the hands of the USA. But I do know that the USA very much want Correa to lose, were very confident that he was going to lose, and now are not. From their point of view, the danger is that in upping the ante, their efforts will become so obvious they will backfire in a nationalist reaction. My US source however is adamant that the Obama adminstration will not actually use the funds to incite another military coup attempt against Correa. That has apparently been ruled out. Assange being expelled into the arms of the CIA by a newly installed military dictatorship might be a difficult sell even for our appalling mainstream media.

Passing: George McGovern

R.I.P. George McGovern, 1922-2012

by Democracy Now! 

October 19, 2012 -- We play excerpts of "One Bright Shining Moment" about McGovern’s 1972 grassroots campaign for the presidency, featuring interviews with the candidate himself; supporters and activists like Gore Vidal, Gloria Steinem, Warren Beatty, Howard Zinn; and music from Bob Dylan, Robbie Robertson, Donovan and Elvis Costello.

Two days before Sen. McGovern’s death on October 21, we aired Steve Vittoria’s award-winning documentary, "One Bright Shining Moment: The Forgotten Summer of George McGovern," narrated by Amy Goodman.

Eva Manly Demands Canada Call for Immediate Release of Husband Jim from Israeli Custody

Jim Manly must be released immediately!

by Paul Manly

My parents want to raise awareness.

My mother, Eva Manly has said she would like the media to focus on

 the PALESTINIANS of GAZA that this story is not about my dad. My parents concern is with all Palestinians and with the courageous Israeli Jews who work with them for justice. 

They are the reason for my parents involvement in the Gaza Ark.  My father, 

Jim spent some time with his youngest grandson just before leaving for GAZA. He said that this reinforced for him his conviction that ALL CHILDREN have a right to grow up healthy & with the possibility of a future.

The children of Gaza, many permanently stunted by malnutrition,  do not now have this future. That is one of the reasons my parents are so committed to this international action.

Both the UN UNRWA report Gaza in 2020: A liveable place?  and the recently released 2008 Israeli government document that details it's "red lines" for "food consumption in the Gaza Strip" show that there is an intentional humanitarian crisis in the Gaza strip.

According to the Haaretz report entitled 

2,279 calories per person: How Israel made sure Gaza didn't starve the Israeli government has been limiting imports of food severely. Three quarters of the population of Gaza are reliant on food through the United Nations. 

I want my father home.

I support my parents conviction to this cause but it is time for my father to come home. It is time for Prime Minister Harper to speak up for an honourable Canadian citizen (a retired United Church Minister and former Member of Parliament)  and secure his release. If Canada and Israel are the close allies that the Prime Minister has said they are, then he should be able to secure my father release with one quick phone call.

We have made the following three requests to the government of Canada.

1. That my father immediately be given an opportunity to phone his family - either my mother Eva or myself.

2. That the Canadian Ambassador to Israel seek the immediate release of my father from Israeli detention. The Italian, Greek and Spanish governments all sent ambassadors or consular officials to meet with their citizens as soon as the Estelle arrived at port and have secured the release of all of their citizens. The Canadian government must do the same immediately. 

3. That my father not be forced to sign a document containing a false confession to secure his release. I understand the document they are demanding that he sign states that he confesses to entering Israel illegally. This is a lie and my father should not be forced to lie in order to be released from custody. The Estelle was intercepted by Israeli forces in international waters and my father was forced to go to Israel against his will. The destination of the Estelle was Gaza not Israel. I also understand that some people who have signed this document in the past have been detained for almost a week afterwards. Signing this false confession is not necessarily a get out of jail card.

The Israelis have reassured the media and foreign governments, including Canada, that the Estelle was boarded peacefully. It has now been confirmed by eye witnesses aboard the Estelle that this is not true. The facts are that Israeli military tasered some of the people on the Estelle with stun guns, that some passengers were handcuffed very tightly and left in uncomfortable positions for hours on end and that passengers were left in the sun all day Saturday. 

Here is an account from Marco Ramazzotti Stockel an Italian citizen who was aboard the Estelle.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lO6ljkKNkL8&feature=youtu.be

I have also heard from people who have been in Israeli detention that the Israelis will play psychological games with my father, try to scare him and stress him out.

My father must be released from detention immediately and put on the first plane available back to Canada.

(30)

For Immediate release

For interviews contact: 

Eva Manly

ejmanly@islandnet.com (Jim & Eva Manly)