Stuart Jeanne Bramhall's Blog: The Most Revolutionary Act , page 1308

“Oregon standoff: Who are the ‘rightful owners’ of the land?”

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A reminder that Native Americans also have claims to land seized by Oregon ranchers.

LEON KWASI CHRONICLES

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The Ugly Truth about Airbnb, Uber and Task Rabbit

Raw Deal: How the “Uber Economy” and Runaway Capitalism are Screwing American Workers

by Steven Hill

St Martin’s Press (2015)

Book Review

Raw Deal is about all the creative ways Wall Street and Silicon Valley have invented to exploit American workers since the 2008 meltdown escalated the wholesale destruction of US jobs.  As of 2015 the US economy had shed a total of 12 million jobs, a figure that is increasing rather than decreasing.

The book mainly focuses on so-called sharing platforms, such as Airbnb, Uber, Task Rabbit and their imitators. However author Steven Hill also includes chapters on the phenomenal growth of permatemp “contract” labor, the burgeoning System D or gray labor market (where employers pay cash under the table) and the steady replacement of workers by robots, computers and apps.

The Myth of Worker Independence

For me, the most valuable chapters expose the total fraud being perpetrated on the US public about Airbnb, Uber and Task Rabbit, namely the immense benefit they offer the economy, the environment and worker independence by eliminating the middleman. The myth about freeing up US workers by making them micro-entrepreneurs is exactly that: a carefully constructed lie.

Centering these enterprises around web-based apps only thinly disguises what they really are: a labor force made up entirely of contract employees. It’s an immediate win-win for the employer, who reduces his labor costs by 1/3 by eliminating his obligation to pay Social Security, Medicare, unemployment tax or health or pension benefits. And an immediate lose-lose for the “microentrepreur,” who as a member of the precariat,** never knows where his next dollar is coming from.

Hyperexploitation: the Fastest Way to Become a Billionaire

The CEOs who run Airbnb and Uber are both thirty-something billionaires (Task Rabbit founder and CEO Leah Busque is only a millionaire), who got their by hyperexploiting their employees.

Brian Chesky is the 34 year old billionaire who founded Airbnb, a company using a web-based app to enable ordinary moms and pops to rent out their spare rooms to tourists. Guests pay a 6-12% service fee and hosts 3%. Airbnb, which operates in 34,000 cities and 192 countries, is bigger than the Hyatt Hotel chin. It’s valued at $25 billion.

The company has been banned in numerous cities and countries owing to its violation of short term rental laws (most cities place a maximum of 30 days on rentals) and their refusal to pay hotel tax.

There’s the additional problem of Airbnb being taken over by real estate agents and slum lords seeking to cash in on a lucrative unregulated market. Of the 5,000 accommodations listed on the website, 2/3 are entire homes or buildings with no owner present, and 1/3 are controlled by people with two or more listings. In San Francisco, New York and other cities with rent control, unscrupulous slum lords are evicting whole blocks of elderly and disabled tenants to turn their buildings into Airbnb accommodation.

Uber Modeled After Ayn Rand’s Philosophy

Uber is a web based taxi services that recruits drivers to use their private vehicles to carry fares. Uber founder and billionaire Tavis Kalanick, who fancies himself an Ayn Rand revolutionary, prides himself on breaking laws he finds inconvenient

Uber, which is worth $51 billion, has gone from scandal to sandal owing to its refusal to perform criminal background checks on their drivers (after a number stole from passengers or physically/sexually assaulted them) or pay livery taxes or carry commercial liability insurance; their brutal exploitation of drivers; and their failure to protect passenger privacy.

Kalanick faces criminal charges in South Korea and Uber has been banned in France, Spain, Germany, Denmark, Netherlands and Denmark. It has also been banned (or severely curtailed) in Virginia, Maryland, South Carolina, Nevada, Miami, Philadelphia and New York City.

Rent-a-Slave

Task Rabbit was founded in 2009 by Leah Busque to connect “domestic freelancers” with customers needing tasks and errands done. It expanded to include all forms of temporary work (Walmart uses Task Rabbit, where it pays a 26% commission, as opposed to the 40% charged by conventional temp agencies).

The most controversial aspect of the Task Rabbit platform was the “bidding auction,” where “rabbits” competed with one another to provide the lowest bid for the service desired. After a storm of controversy Task Rabbit ditched the bidding auction in 2014.

*According to Forbes, the total value of the global System D economy is $10 trillion

**In sociology and economics, the precariat is a social class of people whose life is dominated by a total absence of financial predictability or security.

Russian “Weaponized Default” Will Cause Financial Collapse Of Entire Western World

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Putin strikes back – where it hurts.

A new law Putin has submitted to the Russian Duma requires Russian Federation companies, both public and private, to immediately cease paying over $700 billion in loan payments to any bank having a nationality, or even branches, in any country currently having sanctions, or threatening sanctions, against Russia.

According to a report from the Russian Security Council, this “weaponized default” threatens to plunge both the United States and European Union into immediate depression, if not outright total economic collapse.

Satu Insan - Malaysia

Russian “Weaponized Default” Law Threatens Collapse Of Entire Western World

By: Sorcha Faal, and as reported to her Western Subscribers

A new report issued today by the Security Council (SC) states that President Putin has just forwarded to the Duma (legislator/parliament) one of the most feared set of laws ever seen in modern Russian history that once enacted would create the worst “economic cyclone” the Western world has ever seen and plunge both the United States and European Union into immediate depression, if not outright total economic collapse.

According to this report, these new laws were ordered drawn up this past year by the Security Council who tasked famed economist Sergei Glazyev with devising what is being labeled as a “Weaponized Default” and Russia’s “ultimate answer” to Western aggression and orders all Federation companies, both public and private, to immediately cease paying…

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May 13, 1985: the Day Philadelphia Dropped a Bomb on 61 Families

Let the Fire Burn

Directed by Jason Osder (2013)

Film Review

Let the Fire Burn is a documentary about the decision by the Philadelphia police to drop a bomb on the home of a radical African American group called MOVE. The resulting fire (which the police chose not to extinguish) killed eleven people (including five children) and destroyed 61 homes.

The film is drawn entirely from archival footage. About half is TV footage of the day-long police effort to forcibly evict the group and half testimony from the Special Philadelphia Investigation Commission. The latter found city officials and Philadelphia police guilty of “negligence,” though no criminal charges were filed.

Formed in 1972 as a Christian “back to nature” commune by John Africa, MOVE members took the same surname in honor of their ancestral homeland, wore their hair in dreadlocks, shunned technology, and promoted a diet of raw food.

Living together in a home in West Philadelphia, MOVE’s unorthodox lifestyle lead to conflicts with neighbors and clashes with the police. After a 1978 police raid resulted in the death of a MOVE infant, group members armed themselves as protection against further police violence. Later that year, officer James Ramp was killed in a shootout between police and MOVE members. Nine MOVE members were later convicted for this murder, although group members maintain Ramp was actually killed by friendly police fire.

In 1984, MOVE members set up in a new home on Osage Street in West Philadelphia. The following year after many complaints about loudspeaker broadcasts, as well as worries over health hazards, the city took action to evict the group by force.

After a daylong battle in which the police used teargas, water cannons and ultimately 10,000 rounds of ammunition in their efforts to evict MOVE members, authorities ordered military-grade explosives to be dropped on the house from a helicopter.

The most compelling scenes consist of testimony given by 13-year-old Birdie Africa, one of only two people to escape from the fire.

In the two days since I watched it, Let It Burn has been taken down from YouTube, but it can be rented from Amazon (for $3.99) or Netflix. See Zeitgeist Films for details.

The Facts on the Trans-Pacific Partnership Compared to the Obama Administration’s Claims

From Kevin Zeese

I hope people will share our comparison between Obama and reality on the TPP with media outlets so they have the facts before they listen to Obama’s propaganda. Share before, during and after the State of the Union.

bit.ly/ObamasTPP

Media handles

KZ

By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers

President Obama will make his push for the ratification of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) a major part of the State of the Union as this is a major goal of his final year in office. This is an opportunity for a widespread discussion of the TPP and what impacts it will have on the economy, workers, the environment and more.

Just yesterday the World Bank published a comprehensive analysis of the TPP and concluded that by 2030 the TPP will have a miniscule 0.4% impact on US trade. See “Potential Macroeconomic Implications of the Trans-Pacific Partnership,” The World Bank, January 2016. The economic impact for the United States is minimal but the impact on workers, the environment, food safety, traditional energy and the overall balance between corporate power and government is dramatic.

The president’s claims about the TPP should be examined closely and measured against the facts of what the TPP will actually do and the impact similar trade agreements have had. We know from past comments by the president and the US Trade Representative that their sales pitch for the TPP is not always consistent with the facts. Below we provide fact-based sources of information on the key issues surrounding the TPP.

US Laws and Regulations

The president claims that “No trade agreement is going to force us to change our laws.”

In fact, trade agreements, including the TPP, can force governments from local to national to change their laws through legal challenges and regulatory coherence requirements.

There are numerous legal challenges against the US already occurring under NAFTA. The ISDS chapters in the TPP give greater legal standing to transnational corporations and give it to sectors that were not included before like the financial services sector. The TPP will immediately add 9,000 foreign corporations that can sue the United States under its current membership.

Recent cases that change US law or policy include:

TransCanada announced it is suing the United States for $15 billion in damages for refusing to allow the northern portion of the Keystone Pipeline.
Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) Act which required meat to be labeled so consumers knew where it came from was repealed because of trade tribunal decision.
Dolphin-Safe Tuna labeling repealed because of a trade tribunal decision.

The TPP will force  existing laws to be consistent with what is in the agreement. Implementing legislation for the TPP that will be sent to Congress for fast track approval will require US laws to be changed to be consistent with provisions in the TPP, e.g. Buy American procurement laws will be dramatically altered. An agency will be tasked with making sure that all new laws are consistent with the TPP provisions and the TPP privileges corporations to have influence on regulations. See: http://itsourfuture.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/JK-Memo-on-Reg-Coh.pdf

Under Article 27 of the TPP, International trade commissions that operate outside of Congress’s reach can change the provisions within the TPP, thereby changing US laws in a completely undemocratic way. No congressional approval is required for these new trade laws. Even national security can be reversed by the TPP, e.g. if Congress determines that foreign purchase of a US corporation risks our national security, the TPP overrules that congressional determination.

Made in America

According to the USTR website, the “TPP will make it easier for American entrepreneurs, farmers, and small business owners to sell Made-In-America products abroad by eliminating more than 18,000 taxes & other trade barriers on American products across the 11 other countries in the TPP—barriers that put American products at an unfair disadvantage today.”

In fact, the Labor Advisory Council created by the US Congress wrote President Obama to say that it reached the opposite conclusion: “While the TPP may create some limited opportunities for increased exports, there is an even larger risk that it will increase our trade deficit, which has been a substantial drag on job growth for more than twenty years. Especially at risk are jobs and wages in the auto, aerospace, aluminum and steel, apparel and textile, call center, and electronic and electrical machinery industries. The failure to address currency misalignment, weak rules of origin and inadequate state-owned enterprise provisions, extraordinary rights provided to foreign investors and pharmaceutical companies, the undermining of Buy American, and the inclusion of a labor framework that has proved itself ineffective are key among the TPP’s mistakes that contribute to our conclusion that the certain risks outweigh the TPP’s speculative and limited benefits”

Banking regulation

The White House claims the TPP “makes sure that the United States and other TPP members have the ability to fully regulate financial markets so as to ensure financial stability . . .”

In fact, the TPP gives banks and other financial services more power than any other previous trade agreement and minimizes the power of governments to regulate financial services. Under the TPP, financial firms can sue in trade tribunals to challenge financial stability measures that do not conform to their “expectations.” It requires countries to allow new financial products (like complex derivatives) and services to enter their economies if permitted in other TPP countries. The use of capital controls and other financial policies that regulate capital flows to promote financial stability are forbidden and subject to compensation demands by foreign corporations.

Workers’ rights and jobs.

According to the Wall Street Journal, President Obama said the TPP is “an agreement that puts American workers first and will help middle-class families get ahead.”

In fact, the Labor Advisory Council created by the US Congress wrote President Obama and said the TPP “should not be submitted to Congress or, if it is, it should be quickly rejected. The interests of U.S. manufacturers, businesses, workers and consumers would be severely undermined by the entry into force of the TPP.”  Their 121 page analysis concluded that the was a  “threat to future economic gains here in the U.S. and the standard of living of our people will be put in jeopardy by the Agreement.” In short “The TPP is likely to harm the U.S. economy, cost jobs, and lower wages.” The TPP does not meet the negotiating objectives set by Congress when they granted the president trade promotion authority (fast track) five years after negotiations had begun.

The Coalition for a Prosperous America finds that the best case scenario for the TPP is a 0.4% increase in GDP over ten years. And the Center for Economic and Policy Research finds that the vast majority of workers will find a decrease in wages because of the TPP.

The TPP opens up the floodgates of legal immigration of workers into the US. Under Chapter 10 of the TPP, not only foreign companies will be coming to the United States to compete with US companies, but those foreign companies can send in their foreign employees – they don’t have to hire US workers even if there are people in the United States who can do the job. Under Section 10.5 the US cannot limit the number of foreign service companies or the number of workers. Chapter 12 requires the US to grant visas to all professionals and their families seeking to enter the country for business purposes along with their families to work for a foreign corporation.  Insourcing may have a greater impact on employment than outsourcing.

Globalization

According to the USTR website,“The rules of the road are up for grabs in Asia. If we don’t pass this agreement and write those rules, competitors will set weak rules of the road, threatening American jobs and workers while undermining U.S. leadership in Asia.”

In fact, the United States already has bilateral trade agreements with 6 of the 11 TPP countries and for the large economies that we don’t have trade agreements with, Japan and New Zealand, the tariffs are already extremely low. This goes hand-in-hand with Obama’s statement that “Almost 95% of the world’s consumers are outside America’s borders.“ While the statement is true, the TPP will not have a significant impact on increased trade as the World Bank found only a 0.4% increase by 2030. See more on why Obama’s 95% claim is irrelevant here.

NAFTA

According to the USTR website, “Because TPP includes Canada and Mexico and improves substantially on NAFTA’s shortcomings, it delivers on that promise. TPP learns from past trade agreements, including NAFTA, by upgrading existing standards and setting new high standards that reflect today’s economic realities.”

President Obama campaigned on a platform of renegotiating NAFTA to improve environmental and labor standards, but in actuality the TPP weakens those standards. As described in other sections, the environmental protections are weaker than previous agreements and do not include enforceable standards. Labor protections are likewise absent. While corporations can sue if laws that protect workers or the environment interfere with their profit margins, unions, environmental advocates and the public do not have the right to sue corporations under the TPP if corporations are causing harm to them. Under ‘economic realities’, the Obama administration is clearly using the TPP to push greater privatization of goods and services and to undermine public provision of goods and services. The TPP goes beyond NAFTA to take away the ability of governments to support entities, called state-owned enterprises (SOEs), that provide for the common good such as in health care, education, housing, transportation, energy, water, etc. Instead, these areas are opened for private corporations to take over through what the administration calls a ‘leveled playing field’ but which in reality is an effort to give more subsidies to corporations. Ending SOEs hurts workers in the US by opening these jobs to foreign corporations who can bring in foreign workers to displace US workers.

China

The White House claims that if the US does not write the rules then “competitors who don’t share our values, like China, will step in to fill that void.”

In fact, “China is already deeply integrated into trade and supply chains with all TPP countries—far more deeply than the U.S. is in many cases. A number of forces are responsible for drawing China closer together with other Pacific economies—including geography and several hundred billion dollars in Chinese foreign investment and development funding. It is difficult to believe that these deep relationships will be weakened simply through the conclusion of the TPP, particularly based on the TPP’s porous rules.”  In addition, “The TPP will allow China to benefit without even joining. Its weak rules of origin, lack of rules on currency manipulation, and benefits that would apply to Chinese companies operating in any of the TPP countries mean that China has very little incentive to change its mercantilist model that has been undercutting U.S. manufacturers and displacing millions of U.S. jobs for more than a decade.

Fear of China has been used before to pass trade agreements that ended up hurting the US economy. We were warned that unless NAFTA and free trade deals with eight Latin American nations were enacted, China would write the rules and grab our trade in the hemisphere.  NAFTA went into effect and in its first 20 years, the US share of goods imported to Mexico dropped from 70 percent to under 50 percent while China’s share rose more than 2,600 percent.

The Environment

The White House claims the “TPP’s Environment chapter [is] the most far-reaching ever achieved in a trade agreement.”

Friends of the Earth describes the TPP as a step backward from trade agreements negotiated by President George W. Bush writing: “The environment chapter, which actually only deals with a narrow range of conservation measures, is largely unenforceable and is substantially weaker than trade deal conservation provisions negotiated by President George W. Bush.” According to the Sierra Club’s analysis of the TPP “The final TPP environment chapter fails to provide adequate protection in five of six environmentally critical areas, while doing nothing to strengthen an enforcement mechanism that has consistently failed to curb environmental violations on the ground.” In fact, while the language and enforcement provisions are a step backward, polluting firms actually gain more power to stop laws designed to protect the environment and deal with climate change: “The TPP investment chapter would allow firms to sue governments for billions in money damages if climate, environmental or public health regulations interfere with expected future profits.

Human Rights

The USTR claims “Through the commitments in TPP, we can press to ensure that people everywhere are treated with dignity and respect.”

The Obama showed its ‘commitment’ to human rights through its treatment of Malaysia. Malaysia was initially not eligible to be a member of the TPP because if its record of human rights abuses, including human trafficking i.e., slavery. Many US electronics corporations have outsourced their labor to Malaysia. Instead of demanding higher human rights standards for Malaysia before granting it membership, the US State Department arbitrarily altered its human rights status to make Malaysia eligible. See U.S. Officially Ignores Grave Human Right’s Violations in Malaysia to Advance TPP.

Food Safety

According to the USTR website, the “TPP is an opportunity to set better standards for food safety. TPP promotes the use of transparent and science-based rules, and allows the United States to help TPP countries improve their food safety systems. At the same time, TPP does not require any changes to U.S. food safety laws or regulations.”

We have already described how trade tribunals can force the repeal of US laws that require labeling of food for country of origin or dolphin-safe tuna, but that is just the beginning; “The TPP is a giveaway to big agribusiness and food companies that want to use trade deals to attack sensible food safety rules, weaken the inspection of imported food and block efforts to strengthen U.S. food safety standards. The food and agribusiness industries inserted language into the text of the TPP that will undermine U.S. food safety oversight and expose consumers to risky imported foods.”  At the border, food inspections are hobbled because the TPP’s “Rapid Response Mechanism allows companies to challenge border inspection procedures that companies claim cause unnecessary delay—like holding suspect shipments while awaiting laboratory test results.” As to controversial Genetically Modified foods, the TPP is the first agreement that provides protections for GMO’s as “Agribusiness and biotech seed companies can now more easily use trade rules to challenge countries that ban GMO imports, test for GMO contamination, do not promptly approve new GMO crops or even require GMO labeling.”

Trade Deficit

An oft repeated mantra of the president is that the TPP will reduce 18,000 tariffs (which he likes to call taxes for rhetorical reasons) and that this will lead to a reduced international trade deficit.

Last year, the U.S. only exported any goods in less than half of the 18,000 touted tariff categories. For the nearly 7,500 categories of goods out of the claimed 18,000 for which we did sell something, almost 50 percent had sales under $500,000, e.g. a 34 percent “tax” cut by Vietnam on Alaskan caviar. In 2014, Vietnam’s per capita GDP was about $2,000 and about $150,000 worth of caviar was imported by Vietnam from anywhere. Almost 2,000 of the tariff reductions in the products we do sell won’t be realized for over a decade or more, including beef and pork to Japan. The Department of Agriculture issued the administration’s only major study on TPP’s economic impact and found it would result in 0.00% increased US growth if all tariffs on all products were eliminated, which did not occur. The United States already has free trade deals in place with Canada, Mexico, Peru, Australia, Chile, and Singapore, which collectively represent over 80 percent of the trade counted in the oft-touted line about the TPP covering 40 percent of world trade.

So-called Free Trade Agreements continue to produce massive deficits currently at more than $40 billion per month as exports continue to decline. Global Trade Watch reports that the massive increase in international trade deficits — which should be seen as the hollowing out of the US economy — has coincided with post-NAFTA trade agreements,  “since establishment of NAFTA and the WTO in the mid-1990s, the U.S. trade deficit jumped exponentially from under $100 billion to over $700 billion — over 5 percent of national income.” There is nothing in the TPP that will change this trend.

Internet Freedom

According to the USTR website, they describe the TPP as “Ensuring a Free and Open Internet, the “TPP puts in place strong rules that make sure the best communications tools and platforms are not unduly limited by trade barriers and laws that restrict the flow of data and information.”

In fact, the TPP is “biggest global threat to the internet” and will bring new restrictions to the Internet.  The TPP forces other countries to adopt very restrictive and punitive laws regarding copyright and internet use. which would impact users’ freedom of expression, privacy, right to due process and ability to innovate. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) summarizes the impact, “The TPP is likely to export some of the worst features of U.S. copyright law to Pacific Rim countries: a broad ban on breaking digital locks on devices and creative works (even for legal purposes), a minimum copyright term of the lifetime of the creator plus seventy years (the current international norm is the lifetime plus fifty years), privatization of enforcement for copyright infringement, ruinous statutory damages with no proof of actual harm, and government seizures of computers and equipment involved in alleged infringement,”

One little talked about provision would “make it a crime to reveal corporate wrongdoing ‘through a computer system.’ Experts have pointed out that the wording is very vague, and could lead to whistleblowers being penalised for sharing important information, and lead to journalists stopping reporting on them.” See more from EFF in this statement.

« San Francisco: ‘TPP is Betrayal’ Rally








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Other Excellent TPP Resources

Source: The Facts on the Trans-Pacific Partnership Compared to the Obama Administration’s Claims

Glyphosate in your Bread*

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Most people are unaware that all that commercial wheat products are saturated with glyphosate (to facilitate drying) before harvest. The World Health Organization recently determined that glyphosate (aka Monsanto’s Roundup) is a probable carcinogen. In a recent study, 70% of UK residents tested had glyphosate in their urine. If you buy bread, donuts, crackers, cookies and other wheat products at the supermarket, ask your doctor to test your urine for glyphosate. Better still, stick to organic products.

Hwaairfan's Blog

Glyphosate in your Bread*

By Jeffrey Phillips

Now that the World Health Organization has publicly condemned glyphosate herbicide as “probably carcinogenic to humans,” awareness of this insidious chemical’s contamination of the human food supply is suddenly exploding among health-conscious consumers.

Most people, however, have no awareness at all that commercial wheat products are saturated with glyphosate before harvest. They think glyphosate is only used on genetically modified crops like corn and soybeans. But it turns out that glyphosate is routinely used as a wheat crop drying chemical to speed up harvesting. (Monitor breaking news headlines on glyphosate in real time at Glyphosate.news, part of the new FETCH.news network.)

The very chemical that was designed to kill weeds, in other words, is so toxic to plant life that commercial farmers are using it to accelerate the death of wheat crops, thereby reducing the delay between cutting the crop and delivering…

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Hitting Private Prisons Where it Hurts: Prison Divestment

Divesting from the Prison Industrial Complex

The National Prison Divestment Campaign has been in the news the last few weeks, after the University of California became the second US college to sell their shares in private prison companies.

Founded by Enlace* in May 2011, the National Prison Divestment Campaign consists of a coalition of over 150 grassroots organizations, worker centers, unions, and other nonprofits. Over the past four years, this coalition has won numerous victories, such as the recent divestments of SCOPIA, Amica Mutual Insurance, and DSM Netherlands, and the implementation of a investment policy for the City of Portland, OR, that will prevent the city from ever investing in private prisons.

The National Prison Divestment Campaign focuses primarily on two companies: Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and Geo Group (GEO). These companies have a history of buying politicians and using lobbying for policies that criminalize immigrants and people of color. One example of this policy is the latest federal budget, which proposes a record allocation of $2.9 billion for the Department of Homeland Security to imprison 34,000 people on any given day. Meanwhile, legislatures at every level of government are cutting budgets for essential services like public education and healthcare.

In June, Columbia University became the first US college to divest from private prisons. This entailed dumping 220,00 shares in G4S, the world’s largest private security firm, as well as its shares in CCA. On December 29, the University of California joined them, selling $30 million $30 million of CCA and GEO stock.

African American lawyer and activist Michelle Alexander describes the infamous school-to-prison pipeline endured by minority families in The New Jim Crow. The US has the highest prison population in the world. The vast majority are African Americans and Hispanics, locked away for victimless crimes such as drug possession. As Alexander ably documents police disproportionately enforce these crimes in minority communities, where effective legal representation is virtually non-existent.

*Enlace is a strategic alliance of low-wage worker centers, unions, and community organizations in Mexico and in the U.S.

Is the Oregon Occupation Being Stage-Managed?

This article raises provocative questions about the possible role of US intelligence in orchestrating the Oregon stand-off and what their motives might be.

By Eric Draitser

US and international media have been abuzz in recent days with the ongoing armed occupation at the headquarters of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon.  The social media space has been, quite predictably, polarized with many on the far right lionizing the armed occupiers as “patriots” and “heroes” defending a just cause in the name of “liberty.”  Naturally many liberals and assorted leftists have condemned the occupation, pointing out both the relevant legal and historical issues at play here, including the vicious tradition of white militias in the US, the blatant disregard of environmental regulations, and much more that is well beyond the scope of this article.

But what has been missed by seemingly every pundit, left and right, who has chimed in on the Oregon occupation is the unmistakable stench of provocation.  Simply put, something is off about this whole story, and it struck me from the first moment I read about what was happening, who was involved, and who wasn’t involved.  Specifically, there are indications that this entire fiasco has been manufactured by either government agencies themselves or some other private forces for any number of reasons.

If this sounds like “conspiracy theory” to you, it should; I am here theorizing about a potential conspiracy [studio audience gasps].  While the media, academia, and other assorted handmaidens of the ruling class have conditioned many on the Left to recoil in horror at the mere mention of the word, the fact remains that conspiracies are everywhere, that the government and corporations are involved in them, and that refusing to question received narratives and facts for fear of being tarred and feathered as a “conspiracy nut” is precisely the sort of mindless twaddle that has become all too pervasive on the Left.

And so, armed with my bullshit detector, and with full knowledge that many potential angry emailers have already stopped reading, I now dive into the morass that is the #OregonOccupation.

Questions about the Key Players

While much can be said about Ammon Bundy, the son of Nevada rancher (and well known racist) Cliven Bundy, the real suspicion lies with three of the “activists” widely regarded as instrumental in organizing the occupation.  By examining what is known and unknown about these three shady characters, a much different picture begins to emerge, one in which a publicity stunt-cum-armed occupation is less an act of protest, and more an act of provocation.

First up for scrutiny is Ryan Payne, an Army veteran and one of the spokespeople for the occupiers both in Oregon, and during the 2014 standoff at the Bundy Ranch in Nevada.  Speaking of the ongoing Oregon occupation, Payne told the New York Times, “We will be here for as long as it takes…People have talked about returning land to the people for a long time. Finally, someone is making an effort in that direction.”  Leaving aside the hilariously wrongheaded idea that public lands can be seized and given over to private landowners, and that that would somehow qualify as “returning land to the people,” it is Payne himself who deserves further investigation.

Payne, who served in the US Army in Iraq from 2003-2005, is described in his Army Commendation Medal certificate as having performed “exceptionally meritorious service as a long range surveillance senior scout observer and assistance team leader” while being part of the 519th Military Intelligence Battalion.  It strikes me as curious, if not completely suspicious, that a young white veteran of military intelligence happens to have been part of both the Bundy Ranch standoff and the ongoing occupation in Oregon.  But maybe I’m just paranoid, right?  Maybe he’s just some right wing young veteran with an overzealous desire to effect political change.  Well, maybe.  But when you consider that this nobody from Nowhere, Montana has become one of the main participants of these two actions in Nevada and Oregon, and that he’s been at the center of nearly every aspect of both incidents, it should certainly raise some questions.

But don’t take it from me.  Gary Hunt, a right wing, pro-militia blogger writing at Canada Free Press, had this to say about Payne, “[Payne provided] ‘meritorious service’ at Bunkerville[the Bundy Ranch standoff in 2014], holding the chaotic mass of militia and molding them into a cohesive force.” That certainly does not sound like some Johnny-come-lately just trying to be part of some cool anti-government action.  Instead, that sounds like an intelligence operator, someone coordinating actions and groups and maintaining operational security, among other responsibilities.  In short, Payne appears from all indications to be a focal point of both episodes.

However, “molding the militia into a cohesive force” was not Payne’s only contribution to the 2014 standoff.  According to the Southern Poverty Law Center report entitled War in the West:

After watching the [viral Cliven Bundy] video from his home in Anaconda, Montana, 650 miles away, Ryan Payne, 30, an electrician and former soldier who had deployed twice to the Iraq war, became enraged […] Payne left that day with another member of his militia, Jim Lardy, and drove through the night, a few sleeping bags in tow, burning up cell phones hoping to bring every militia member they could. On April 9 he sent out an urgent call for the militias to mobilize. ‘At this time we have approximately 150 responding, but that number is growing by the hour,’…Militia snipers lined the hilltops and overpasses with scopes trained on federal agents. What happened was not unplanned. As Payne later told the SPLC, he had ordered certain gunmen [sic] ‘to put in counter sniper positions’ and others to hang behind at the rance [sic]. ‘[M]e and Mel Bundy put together the plan for the cohesion between the the Bundys and the militia…. Sending half of the guys up to support the protestors…and keep overwatch and make sure that if the BLM wanted to get froggy, that it wouldn’t be good for them.’

According to Payne’s own words, and those of his supporters, there is certainly ample reason to suspect that this 30 year old veteran was more than simply a participant in this saga, but that he was one of the principal organizers of nearly every aspect of the event, from recruitment and media penetration to operational control.  Payne’s message to his fellow right wing militia brothers certainly has the air of provocation as he suggests that they be prepared to lay down their lives in armed struggle against the federal government. “All men are mortal, most pass simply because it is their time, a few however are blessed with the opportunity to choose their time in performance of duty,” Payne explained in a thinly veiled threat of potentially lethal violence.

As I adjust my tinfoil hat, allow me to suggest that such words as those uttered by Payne reek of the tactics of agents provocateurs whose objective it is to incite violence in order to either discredit a particular targeted group or to effect a confrontation designed to escalate a given conflict.  While impossible to say definitively, it seems just based on his words and deeds, that Payne has become what amounts to a coordinator of the militia movement.  Whether he is still working for military intelligence, some other intelligence or law enforcement agency, or the FBI, it seems clear that Payne deserves far more scrutiny than the controlled corporate media has given him.

Interestingly, The Oregonian reported the following:

Among those joining Bundy in the occupation are Ryan Payne, U.S. Army veteran, and Blaine Cooper. Payne has claimed to have helped organize militia snipers to target federal agents in a standoff last year in Nevada. He told one news organization the federal agents would have been killed had they made the wrong move.  He has been a steady presence in Burns in recent weeks, questioning people who were critical of the militia’s presence. He typically had a holstered sidearm as he moved around the community.

So not only is Payne one of the main coordinators and organizers of the occupation, he seems to also be doing double duty, acting as a liaison while obviously gathering intelligence about the participants, the non-participants, critical voices in the community, etc.  Again, one could say he’s just a zealous right winger trying to help a cause.  But when you combine the various threads of evidence about his background and his activities, my suspicions are certainly raised.  It seems I’m not alone, as many commenters on right wing blogs use phrases like “plant” and “Fed shill” and “agent” when describing Payne.  According to sources involved in the Bundy Ranch standoff, some were even accusing Payne of precisely that from the very beginning.

Then there is the man known as Blaine Cooper (given name Stanley Hicks) who poses on his Facebook page in military fatigues with sniper rifles and a veritable potpourri of other weapons claiming to be a “patriot” defending the rights of citizens.  Cooper aka Hicks enlisted in the Marines in the Delayed Entry Program which allows prospective soldiers a year before they have to report to boot camp.  However, according to US Marine Corps records, Cooper/Hicks never showed up.  This failure to honor his signed commitment, coupled with more than a dozen arrests and convictions under the name Stanley Hicks, might account for why he changed his name to Cooper and reinvented himself as a self-styled militia leader.

Cooper/Hicks is well known on YouTube within right wing militia circles, with tens of thousands of views of his various videos.  He has also falsely presented himself as a member of the Oath Keepers, another militia organization that has featured prominently in various exploits, including their much maligned visible presence in Ferguson, Missouri at the height of the protests over the murder of Mike Brown.  Here is what Stewart Rhodes, a founder and President of the Oath Keepers had to say about Cooper/Hicks (see also here and here):

Actually, he [Cooper/Hicks] has never been a member of Oath Keepers. Being a felon, he is automatically disqualified and inelligible [sic] for membership in our org, nor has he ever tried to join. He has paraded around in an Oath Keepers T shirt, and misrepresented himself as being onr [sic] of us, and has used our logo without our permission in some of his idiotic crap he has done. He is a loose cannon retard and blow-hard…But he is not an Oath Keeper.

Interestingly, the Oath Keepers, along with a number of other militia organizations, have been quick to distance themselves from the Burns, Oregon occupation, and from the likes of Payne and Cooper. According to a statement on the Oath Keepers website, the organization disavows the actions of Payne, Cooper & Co., making clear that

“In the Hammond case, there is no clear and present danger of the family being mass murdered, there is no stand off [sic], and the family has no intent of starting one … If you want to go protest, by all means do so … but do not allow yourselves to be roped into an armed stand off [sic] the Hammonds do not want.”

Similarly, the Oregon chapter of the Three Percenters, another right wing militia organization, released a statement on their Facebook page in which they explained that:

Unbeknownst to the Idaho 3%, Oregon 3%, it’s [sic] leaders, associations, rally participants, or the citizens of Harney County; these actions were premeditated and carried out by a small group of persons who chose to carry out this takeover after the rally [emphasis added]. The 3% of Idaho, 3% of Oregon, The Oregon Constitutional Guard, and PPN organizations in no way condone nor support these actions. They do not mirror our vision, mission statement, or views in regards to upholding the Constitution, The Rule of Law, or Due Process.

(Also, check out this video from Cooper and read the comments which, aside from the standard anti-semitic nonsense, are littered with commenters accusing Cooper of being a liar, a plant, a provocateur, an agent.)

Such strongly worded disavowals and condemnations indicate that Payne, Cooper, and their cohort are manufacturing this incident entirely.  Whether or not the disagreement between the militias and the occupiers is purely a matter of tactics, or something more deeply rooted, including suspicions about the motives and connections of Payne and Cooper, this is a question for those involved in these groups.  At the very least however, it seems that segments of the right wing militia movement are not exactly embracing these actions.

Finally we come to the loathsome buffoon Jon Ritzhemier.  If that name rings a bell, it should; Ritzheimer was the organizer and sponsor of the “Draw Muhammad” contest in Phoenix, Arizona which made national headlines.  One important aspect of the protest outside a Phoenix area mosque which coincided with the contest was the fact that Ritzheimer was deliberately provoking both the Muslim community and the hardcore right wingers who participated in the protest.  Ritzheimer described the rally as being “about pushing out the truth about Islam.”  However, according to the event’s Facebook page (since deleted but quoted by the Washington Times), “This will be a PEACEFUL protest in front of the Islamic Community Center in Phoenix AZ… Everyone is encouraged to bring American flags and any message that you would like to send to the known acquaintances of the 2 gunmen…People are also encouraged to utilize their second amendment right at this event just in case our first amendment right comes under the much anticipated attack.”

While Ritzheimer talked up his event as a “peaceful protest,” it’s quite clear that there was a not so subtle implied threat of violence, just as there was at Bunkerville, just as there is in Burns, Oregon today.  The salient point is not that these are gun-toting lunatics, but rather that they are being lured into a potentially dangerous and violent confrontation by an individual whose intentions are suspect to say the least.

A further indication that Ritzheimer’s objective is provocation rather than protest is his outlandishly stupid, and incredibly irresponsible, “roadtrip” to New York where he planned to confront the Muslims of America organization which had referred to him as the “American Taliban.”  What is particularly interesting is that Ritzheimer was in communication with the FBI throughout the trip until he allegedly cut off communication.   How does an allegedly anti-government right wing activist spend hours talking on the phone with Federal agents?  Perhaps, as some are likely to say, I’m reading too much into this.  Well, the right wing militia types who have been suggesting that Ritzheimer is a provocateur might also be “reading too much into this.”

As well known patriot blogger and journalist Patrick Henningsen of 21st Century Wire acerbically wrote in the lead up to Ritzheimer’s rally:

The net result of this elaborately staged event is that it may have opened the flood gates for some of America’s craziest paranoid and politically warped individuals to fall off the edge of reality altogether….“Come armed to march on the Mosque while holding-up cartoons of Mohammed” and wearing T-Shirts that say, “F*** Islam”…? Apparently the police and the FBI are cool with that. No safety risk? Really?  Hmmm. Doesn’t that sound a little crazy? Not really, if you consider that this is probably a stage-managed event.

Cui Bono?

The question of motive is obviously front and center when considering the potential that the entire Oregon Occupation is being staged.  Why would the handlers of these potential agents provocateurs want to do this?  Here are some, but certainly not all, of the possible motives:

Create a situation that is likely to escalate in order to then use it to justify everything from increasingly draconian anti-terror legislation (especially “domestic” terrorism) to potential dragnet policing of the radical fringes on both left and right. Nothing would justify a crackdown on radical environmentalists, armed self-defense organizations (be they Oath Keepers or the Huey P. Newton Gun Club), revolutionary communists and anarchists, and other such groups better than a nice, messy, dramatic event in Oregon.
Use this event, and others like it, as a means of discrediting, dividing, and factionalizing not merely the right wing organizations, but all groups who see corporations and the State as the enemy. As communist writer and journalist Harriet Parsons correctly wrote in 1980:

The state’s tactics fall into two broad categories, spying and provocation… The government boasts that over 87% of the information on revolutionaries collected by the state comes from informants, members of organizations solicited by the police or people placed within a group to gather information. Once in the organization, the informants worm their way into key positions in order to have access to critical information about the leadership and tactical plans… In some cases, agents within will try to push the line of the organization to an incorrect position on the right or left so as to discredit the Party’s work among the masses… Excellent examples of this technique can be seen in the government’s disruption of the mass organizations engaged in the anti-war movement in the 1960s… FBI agents often offered to supply dynamite and weapons to the radicals to encourage terrorist action which would raise public sentiment against them and make them vulnerable to legal prosecution.

Manufacture some sort of heroism or martyrdom on the part of the occupiers in order to promote right wing extremist ideology which will appeal to an increasing segment of the population, particularly in light of recent developments ranging from the ascendance of Trumpism to the ongoing economic breakdown of the middle class. In doing so, the ruling class then ‘lances the boil’ of activism and revolutionary energies, directing them to fascistic, nationalistic dead ends rather than to a genuine mass movement centered on the rights of working people and the poor.  In other words, social engineering.

Naturally there are likely many other possible motives for manufacturing the sort of fiasco that is unfolding in Burns, Oregon.  Whatever the true motives, one thing is clear: what’s happening in Oregon is dangerous, unproductive, and dare I say, counter-revolutionary.

I should note that, as if it weren’t already plainly obvious, I’m not a supporter of right wing militia groups in the US, though I do share some of their concerns in regards to the police state and the corporate entity called the US Government. Nor am I a fan of that nebulous thing called the “Patriot Movement,” riddled as it is with anarcho-capitalist claptrap, radical libertarian pseudo-politics, racism, xenophobia, and outright fascism.

However, that aside, it is important to separate what’s real from what’s manufactured.  There are real people with real grievances and a genuine desire to roll back the fascist police state in this movement.  It is precisely such activists who are the REAL target of the Oregon occupation, and along with them, so too are any radical activists who want to use direct action to effect change.

While many on the left and right are mesmerized by Bernie and Trump and the non-revolutionary “revolutions” they represent, the ruling class knows perfectly well that true revolution will come from below.  Oregon might just be yet another effort to cut the legs out from under it.

Source: Is the Oregon Occupation Being Stage-Managed?

Improving Food Production by Subtracting Oil

The following video is the keynote address by Indian activist Vendana Shiva at the 2015 Soil Not Oil conference in Richmond California. Her primary theme is the destructive effect of industrial agriculture on soil, human health, water balance, climate, ecological diversity, economic inequality and world peace (as the driver of continual resource wars).

She maintains industrial agriculture is an extremely inefficient method of food production – requiring ten calories of oil for every calorie of food produced. Factory farming is only economically viable because of heavy government subsidies of oil production and the synthetic nitrogen fertilizer manufactured from natural gas. If Food Inc were required to pay the full cost of industrial farming (including the toxic effects of the chemicals they use), it would be many times more expensive than organic farming.

She maintains real purpose of industrial farming is to increase GDP by producing more commodities, when it should be to maintain soil and human health.

Prior to the industrial age, farming was as much about soil regeneration as food production. The talk particularly emphasizes the importance of “carbonizing” soil with organic matter. It cites studies showing that a two ton per hectare increase in organic matter removes ten gigatons of CO2 from the atmosphere. This also makes the soil drought resistant by improving its capacity to store water.

Monsanto Cutting 1,000 Jobs Facing First Annual Loss in 6 Years*

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Couldn’t happen to a more deserving company.

Hwaairfan's Blog

Monsanto Cutting 1,000 Jobs Facing First Annual Loss in 6 Years*

By Claire Bernish

Agrichemical behemoth Monsanto plans to cut an additional 1,000 jobs to compensate, in part, for a slump in sales of its genetically-engineered corn seeds. The seeds led to a first quarter loss of $253 million — which, on the whole, represents a 17% drop in revenue.

“Monsanto has struggled in recent quarters to deal with slumping corn prices in the U.S., which have reduced demand for its best-selling product: genetically-enhanced [read: modified] corn seeds,”reportedABC News.

“Farmers are shifting more acres to other crops after surpluses of corn and other crops, including wheat, have squashed commodity prices.”

In fact, Monsanto’s sales have fallen roughly 20% over the past year — perhaps indicative of the growing backlash against both its ubiquitous, genetically-modified crops, as well as the glyphosate-based Roundup required to treat them. These…

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