New Yorker: Koch Brothers Waging War Against Obama

by Janet Ritz

Jane Mayer, reporting on The New Yorker Magazine, has written a comprehensive article entitled: Covert Operations, The billionaire brothers who are waging a war against Obama.  In it, Mayer gives an exhaustive report on the Koch brothers'  funding of extreme right-win opposition to the current administration.

The Kochs are longtime libertarians who believe in drastically lower personal and corporate taxes, minimal social services for the needy, and much less oversight of industry—especially environmental regulation. These views dovetail with the brothers’ corporate interests. In a study released this spring, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst’s Political Economy Research Institute named Koch Industries one of the top ten air polluters in the United States. And Greenpeace issued a report identifying the company as a “kingpin of climate science denial.” The report showed that, from 2005 to 2008, the Kochs vastly outdid ExxonMobil in giving money to organizations fighting legislation related to climate change, underwriting a huge network of foundations, think tanks, and political front groups. Indeed, the brothers have funded opposition campaigns against so many Obama Administration policies—from health-care reform to the economic-stimulus program—that, in political circles, their ideological network is known as the Kochtopus.

In a statement, Koch Industries said that the Greenpeace report “distorts the environmental record of our companies.” And David Koch, in a recent, admiring article about him in New York, protested that the “radical press” had turned his family into “whipping boys,” and had exaggerated its influence on American politics. But Charles Lewis, the founder of the Center for Public Integrity, a nonpartisan watchdog group, said, “The Kochs are on a whole different level. There’s no one else who has spent this much money. The sheer dimension of it is what sets them apart. They have a pattern of lawbreaking, political manipulation, and obfuscation. I’ve been in Washington since Watergate, and I’ve never seen anything like it. They are the Standard Oil of our times.”

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_mayer?currentPage=all

Koch Industries contacted me earlier this year after I had written a report on The Huffington Post about their involvement with funding right wing organizations. I received an email response that led to a series of questions they never answered:

On April 6, 2010, I received a request for a correction from Koch Industries regarding their involvement with Dick Armey; a request that began with the representative's claim of Koch Industries' "environmental stewardship."

I updated my post regarding Dick Armey (from current to prior involvement with Koch affiliated groups) and requested answers in return to four questions about Koch Industries' environmental stewardship and involvement with Americans for Prosperity:

1. Is AFP, as seemingly implied in Lee Fang's [Think Progress] article, planning to challenge any town hall meetings, representatives or legislators over upcoming climate legislation in the manner as was observed during last summer's town hall meetings on the health care debate?

2. Is Koch Industries, as stated in Fang's article, "the largest funder of climate science denying organizations in the world" and, whether that is true or not, what is Koch Industries' position on climate change?

3. Does Koch Industries have a position on the threats of violence that have become a risk with an incited population?

4. Is Koch Industries either working with and/or interested in working with the current administration to find the best way for both business and the environment to succeed? If so, what initiatives have been proposed and/or undertaken? If not, what would you like to see happen?

The representative replied that that Koch would get back to me. I await further communication.

On April 15, 2010, Rachel Maddow reported on a curious incident where another site had received unsolicited emails from Koch Industries. The emails seemed to attempt to reply to some of the questions above. The site itself had not solicited the information from Koch:

Curiouser and curiouser...


LABELS: CLIMATE CHANGE, DICK ARMEY, ENVIRONMENT, JANE MAYER, KOCH INDUSTRIES, RACHEL MADDOW, TALKING POINTS MEMO, TEA PARTY MOVEMENT

Pakistan Floods Threaten Fragile Government

Pakistan's historic floods have displaced millions and covered over one-fifth of the nuclear armed South Asian state. They now threaten to destabilize its government. The scope of the crisis is so vast with the aid flowing in so slowly, the Taliban has seized the initiative to capitalize on growing anger to turn desperate people to their cause.

Aid is difficult with Pakistan because of a history of corruption and suspicion that monies will flow either to officials or to the Taliban with little going to the people in need. NGOs such as Save the Children, UNICEF and Doctors Without Borders have pointed out that their aid does not flow through the Pakistani government, but is sent to support the people directly.

USAID is the current largest contributor, diverting personnel, air transport and combat troops from Afghanistan over the border to provide food and rescue as many of the millions who are stranded as possible. The U.S. State Department has set up a Pakistan Relief Fund that they say will not go to corrupt officials and ask that people donate what they can.

Senator John Kerry, who hurried out to the region to tour the devastation himself said, after a twenty-five minute helicopter ride showed no dry land -- only intense flooding -- that Pakistan was in danger because of the unprecedented disaster and that could effect us all. Pakistan -- no matter how anyone feels about its involvement with Afghanistan and the politics that swirl around it -- with its nuclear arms, as a failed state, is a frightening proposition. Twenty million innocents caught in the middle is a humanitarian catastrophe. If you can give, you should. If you cannot, share the information so that others know what is at stake for everyone.

Links to aid groups:

The U.S. State Department Pakistan Relief Fund

Save the Children's Pakistan Emergency Fund

UNICEF Pakistan Emergency Fund

Doctors Without Borders in Pakistan

A list of global relief efforts

Related story: World Climate Roundup: Jet Stream's Stall Over Asia Causes Chaos, Heat Builds in the West


LABELS: CLIMATE CHANGE, ENVIRONMENT, FLOODS, GLOBAL WARMING, PAKISTAN, POLITICS, TALIBAN,WORLD NEWS

Protection of the Public Interest: Senate Hearing on Industry Influence on Government Regulators

In light of the lax oversight that contributed to the BP oil spill, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) held a hearing Tuesday on the industry influence on government regulators. The concern is what is known as "agency capture," whereas the regulators themselves have been captured by industry to become an interest group of that industry.

This was most notably seen in the Minerals Management Service which has since been broken up by the Obama Administration to prevent a reoccurrence of the events that led to the catastrophic BP oil spill on the Gulf floor.

The entire hearing is available below. Opening statements by Senator Whitehouse, Senator Franken and Senator Kaufman are notable. The testimony by the witnesses is illuminating.

Transcript available here.

A significant speech by Senator Whitehouse on agency capture is available here.


LABELS: AL FRANKEN, BP, GULF OIL DISASTER, GULF OIL SPILL, MMS, POLITICS, POLLUTION,REGULATION, SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, TED KAUFMAN

Who are the Kurds?

by Janet Ritz

A friend who'd heard I'd spent time with the Kurds once asked me, 'who are they?' That query led to this post.

I gave the question more thought after reading Bill Clinton's statement regarding the need for troops in the Kurdish north: "Turkey doesn't like the fact that the PKK guerrillas sometimes come across into northern Iraq and hide after staging attacks in Turkey," as well as the news that Turkey has crossed to border to take on the PKK.


Who are the Kurds? Who are these Middle Eastern people that have both men and women in their army? These mountain warriors that many refer to as the best fighters in the Middle East; these ancient people whom claim descent from the Biblical Medes and count among their number: Saladin, the Muslim leader who defeated Richard the Lionheart and, more recently (through her mother), the late Benazir Bhutto.

Kurds were once a mostly nomadic people living around the mountainous regions of Iraq, Iran, Turkey and Syria. Mostly Sunni (there are Kurdish Shi'a, Alevi, Yazidi, Jews, Zoroastrians, Christians, etc), they are known to hold their Islam with a light touch. Promised an autonomous Kurdistan under the terms of the 1920 Treaty of Sevres, they saw it rescinded under the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne.

The resultant division of their historical homeland between Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria left somewhere between 25 and 40 million Kurds as the world's largest stateless minority. This has led to an an alphabet soup of alliances as the Kurds struggle to survive in a world of shifting allegiances:

1. The PUK:

The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan says they are working for "self-determination, human rights, democracy and peace for the Kurdish people of Iraq. The Secretary General is Jalal Talabani, the current president of Iraq." The PUK has extensive business interests in the region (a visitor once reported every gas station between the Turkish border and Irbil has belonging to either the PUK or KDP) and relationships with western powers, cultivated, in part, by Talabani's youngest son, Qubad, the U.S. Representative of the Kurdish Regional Government.
2. The KDP:
The Kurdish Democratic Party of Iraq was founded by Mustafa Barzani, the legendary Kurd who fought numerous revolts against Baghdad with success. It was established in Iranian Kurdistan in 1946. Rebelling against the Iraqi government in the aftermath of the first Gulf War, the KDP became perhaps the single most influential Iraqi anti-Saddam group. Its Peshmerga, or militia fighters, were able to operate with relative impunity in the no-fly zone of northern Iraq.

The KDP is the leading party in the Kurdistan Regional Government (Iraqi Kurdistan). Their leader, Mesud Barzani, is the President of Iraqi Kurdistan (the Kurdistan Regional Government). His son is the Prime Minister, with other clan members in similar positions of authority and the main body of the Peshmerga forces (the Kurdish Militia) reporting to them.

3. PJAK:

The Iranian Kurdish Militia probably numbers less than 1,000 in Qandil and thousands more underground in Iran. It recruits female guerrillas and boasts that its cruelest and fiercest fighters are Iranian women drawn to the movement's radical feminism.

4. The Peshmerga (Kurdish Armed Militia):

Falling under the leadership of the KDP and the PUK, the Peshmerga, a Kurdish compound word that means "Those who face death," is rumored to be between 100,000-190,000 strong (they may be much larger) and are considered one of the most effective fighting forces in the Middle East.

5. The PKK (Kurdish Workers Party):
This is the group the Turks are fighting, declared a terrorist group by Turkey, the U.S. and the E.U., the PKK has also been known to be at odds with the other Kurdish clans, as well (though Qubad Talabani did call for a PKK amnesty prior to the current round of fighting). There is sympathy for the PKK among the wider Kurdish population, tempered, in some part, by pragmatism and disagreement with their tactics:

Since 1984 the separatist PKK waged a violent terrorist insurgency in southeast Turkey, directed against both security forces and civilians, almost all of them Kurds, whom the PKK accuses of cooperating with the State. The government of Turkey in turn waged an intense campaign to suppress PKK terrorism, targeting active PKK units as well as persons they believe support or sympathize with the PKK. In the process, both government forces and PKK terrorists committed human rights abuses against each other and noncombatants. According to the Government, from 1984 through November 1997, 26,532 PKK members, 5,185 security force members, and 5,209 civilians lost their lives in the fighting.

Turkish Kurds point to the low standard of living in Southeastern Turkey, the oppressive measures the Turkish Kurds have endured, restrictions on their language, freedoms, opportunities (the remediation of some of which are conditions for Turkish EU membership).

The Turks point to the PKK bombings of their tourist sites and the subsequent loss of lives. What they do not talk about is the internal pressure upon the Turkish government by their own secular right-wing nationalist movement that has been growing in juxtoposition to the Islamic influence of their new president, Abdullah Gul. and his ruling party. As many of these nationalists are also anti-Kurd, it puts the Kurds (who, as mentioned above, are mostly Sunni, but who are also known to hold their Islam with a light touch) the focus of an argument that is not entirely of their making.

Anti-PKK demonstration in Istanbul

It was into this miasma of nationalism, religion, militancy, terrorism, education and aspiration that the destabilizing influence of the Iraq war was introduced. While the two democratically aligned Kurdish clans did benefit from the removal of Saddam Hussein, the PKK, which has put bases over the Iraqi border, has become increasingly isolated on the world stage. This means the Iraqi Kurdish Regional Government must balance their citizenry's concerns about the Turkish incursion with their need to get along with the Western world.

Why does the West care? The Iraq Kurds have oil, as referenced in this earlier post, Kurdistan Hunts for Oil, regarding the deal between the KRG and Texas' Hunt Oil. This gives the KRG a bargaining position with the oil hungry West and East, along with the impetus to maintain a peaceful relationship with both sides.

Why have the Turks crossed the border now? The answer is: snow. The PKK traditionally come out of the mountains to fight (old saying: Kurds have no friends but the mountains...) when the snow melts. Therefore, it is possible the Turks have undertaken this engagement as a preemptive strike to limit the PKK's capability for a spring offensive. All of which would come to naught if war were to break out between the Iraqi Kurdish militia (Peshmerga) and Turkey over the PKK, though precedent would seem to point to the opposite, as when the Iraqi Peshmerga previously worked with Turkey to drive the PKK out of their territory. (When a friend visiting a Peshmerga camp during that period found the Pêşmerge cleaning their weapons in anticipation of a battle with the PKK, the Peshmerga commander explained, "ez ĥes ji partî demokratî dikim [I like the Democratic Party]."

Conflict that could escalate if the Turks were to kill Kurdish civilians or any Peshmerga soldier. Then the equation would change as two of the U.S.'s closest allies (Turks and Iraqi Kurds) look to their western ally for support, while Russia, Iran and other interested parties back whichever side is not chosen.

The start of a new cold and/or hot war with no good outcome.

There is pressure from within, as well: the Kurdish desire for independence self-suppressed by the aforementioned pragmatism could escalate through conflict with Turkey -- a move that would be sure to draw the large Kurdish minorities (Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Russia...) into the fray. This is what Bill Clinton might have been trying to say, when he said that troops may be necessary in Northern Iraq and what Barack Obama may mean (just guessing here), when he says we must be as "careful getting out [of Iraq] as we were careless getting in."

There is also the problem of Kirkuk, the oil rich city in Northern Iraq that the Kurds see as their Jerusalem and the rest of the Iraqis and the Turks see as the oil prize of the region. Kirkuk may be the actual tipping point between the interested parties that could lead to further destabilization.

A personal anecdote about an evening I spent with a Kurdish family during research for a book: I was interviewing a local Kurdish leader when he announced to his wife that I was joining his family for dinner (ten minutes before dinner). The serving spoon that landed on his head led him to follow her around the rest of the night asking what he'd done wrong (he never did figure it out).

The food was among the best I've tasted -- Kurdish cooking is amazing -- the hospitality was warm and inclusive on a night that devolved into the extended family with musical instruments (an important part of Kurdish culture) and all of us getting drunk on pot-stilled whiskey from which I will likely never recover.

I fell in love with the Kurds that night and, while I don't know what will happen out of the mess we've made of the Middle East, I do know the Kurds are a key to either war or peace.

I hope it's peace.

Notable Kurds:

Saladin, Sherefxan Bidlisi, Ehmedê Xanî, Nezami Ganjavi



Mostafa Barzani, Masoud Barzani, Jalal Talabani, Leyla Zana


Ahmet Kaya, Şivan Perwer, Rahim Kermanshahi, Seyhmus Dagtekin


Feleknas Uca, Bahman Ghobadi, Azad Azadpour, Darin Zanyar

Obama: Oil Capped for Now; Problem Still Not Done (Video)

President Obama made a brief statement to the press and took questions about the temporary nature of the new cap (live feed--may load slowly) that seemed to be holding for now, the need to finish the relief wells, and about the many lives, livelihoods and wildlife impacted by the disaster.

The President cautioned the media that, while the stoppage of the flow of oil (for now) was moving in the right direction, it was not the end of the story:

"There were a lot of reports coming out in the media that maybe this thing is done. We won't be done until we know that we've actually know that we've killed the well and that we have a permanent solution in place. We're moving in that direction, but I don't want us to get too far ahead of ourselves."

"In the meantime, obviously we’ve still got a big job to do. There’s still a lot of oil out there, and that’s why we’ve got more skimmers out there, there’s better coordination on the ground along the shorelines, there’s still going to be an enormous cleanup job to do, and there’s still going to be the whole set of issues of surrounding making sure people are compensated properly, that the $20 billion fund is set up and is acting expeditiously.

So we’ve got an enormous amount of work to do and people down in the Gulf, particularly businesses, are still suffering as a consequence of this disaster. But we are making steady progress and I think the American people should take some heart in the fact that we’re making progress on this front."

Full Transcript:

July 16, 2010
Remarks by the President to the Press

Rose Garden

10:11 A.M. EDT

THE PRESIDENT: Good morning, everybody. I wanted to give everyone a quick update on the situation in the Gulf. As we all know, a new cap was fitted over the BP oil well earlier this week. This larger more sophisticated cap was designed to give us greater control over the oil flow as we complete the relief wells that are necessary to stop the leak.

Now, our scientists and outside experts have met through the night and continue this morning to analyze the data from the well integrity test. What they're working to determine is whether we can safely shut in the well using the new cap without creating new problems, including possibly countless new oil leaks in the sea floor.

Now, even if a shut-in is not possible, this new cap and the additional equipment being placed in the Gulf will be able to contain up 80,000 barrels a day, which should allow us to capture nearly all the oil until the well is killed. It’s important to remember that prior to installation of this new cap, we were collecting on average about 25,000 barrels a day.

For almost 90 days of this environmental disaster, all of us have taken hope in the image of clean water instead of oil spewing in the Gulf. But it is our responsibility to make sure that we’re taking a prudent course of action and not simply looking for a short-term solution that could lead to even greater problems down the road.

So to summarize, the new cap is good news. Either we will be able to stop the flow, or we will be able to use it to capture almost all of the oil until the relief well is done. But we’re not going to know for certain which approach makes sense until additional data is in. And all the American people should rest assured that all of these decisions will be based on the science and what’s best for the people of the Gulf.

All right. I’ll take just one or two questions. Go ahead.

Q Did you feel the earthquake, Mr. President?

THE PRESIDENT: I didn’t.

Q Sir, do you think this means that basically we’re turning the corner at least in the Gulf? Tell the American people what you anticipate in the next few weeks ahead, because they’re still very anxious about this.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I think it’s important that we don’t get ahead of ourselves here. One of the problems with having this camera down there is, is that when the oil stops gushing, everybody feels like we’re done -- and we’re not.

The new cap is containing the oil right now, but scientists are doing a number of tests. What they want to make sure of is, is that by putting this cap on the oil isn’t seeping out elsewhere in ways that could be even more catastrophic. And that involves measuring pressures while this cap is on. The data is not all still in and it has to be interpreted by the scientists.

But here’s the good news that I think everybody needs to understand. Even if it turns out that we can’t maintain this cap and completely shut off the flow of oil, what the new cap allows us to do is to essentially attach many more containment mechanisms so that we’re able to take more oil up to the surface, put it on ships -- it won’t be spilling into the Gulf.

The final solution to this whole problem is going to be the relief wells and getting that completed, but there’s no doubt that we have made progress as a consequence of this new cap fitting on, and that even if it turns out that we can’t keep the containment cap on to completely stop the oil, it’s going to allow us to capture much more oil and we’ll see less oil flowing into the Gulf.

Now, in the meantime, obviously we’ve still got a big job to do. There’s still a lot of oil out there, and that’s why we’ve got more skimmers out there, there’s better coordination on the ground along the shorelines, there’s still going to be an enormous cleanup job to do, and there’s still going to be the whole set of issues of surrounding making sure people are compensated properly, that the $20 billion fund is set up and is acting expeditiously.

So we’ve got an enormous amount of work to do and people down in the Gulf, particularly businesses, are still suffering as a consequence of this disaster. But we are making steady progress and I think the American people should take some heart in the fact that we’re making progress on this front.

Q Are the relief wells still on target, sir?

THE PRESIDENT: So far, it’s actually slightly ahead of target, but the problem on the relief well is not simply drilling all the way down, it’s also connecting it up and that’s a delicate operation that could take some time.

Q Ahead of target -- what does ahead of target mean, sir?

Q Mr. President, when does BP begin paying fines according to the amount of oil spilled?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, we are obviously going to be taking measures about how much oil has spilled and those are calculations that are going to be continually refined. BP is going to be paying for the damage that it has caused, and that’s going to involve not only paying for the environmental disaster and cleanup but also compensating people who’ve been affected.

Q On a per-barrel basis?

THE PRESIDENT: That’s going to be a component of the calculations that are made.

Go ahead.

Q What do you want to say to the people there? When do you expect to go down next?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I would expect that sometime in the next several weeks I’ll be back down. What we’re trying to do right now is to make sure that the technical folks on the ground are making the best possible decisions to shut this well down as quickly as possible, that we’re standing up the fund so that people are compensated quickly. I’m staying in touch each and every day, monitoring the progress and getting briefed by the scientists.

The key here right now is for us to make decisions based on science, based on what’s best for the people of the Gulf -- not based on PR, not based on politics. And that’s part of the reason why I wanted to speak this morning, because I know that there were a lot of reports coming out in the media that seemed to indicate, well, maybe this thing is done. We won’t be done until we actually know that we’ve killed the well and that we have a permanent solution in place. We’re moving in that direction, but I don’t want us to get too far ahead of ourselves.

All right. Thank you very much, everybody.

END
10:17 A.M. EDT



LABELS: BARACK OBAMA, BP, ENVIRONMENT, GULF OIL DISASTER, GULF OIL SPILL, POLITICS,POLLUTION, SCIENCE

The Case for Informed Citizenship

by Janet Ritz

With reports of the use of child labor in horrific conditions that supply tobacco to Philip Morris cigarettes, the ongoing destruction of the Gulf of Mexico, the denial of unemployment extensions to the millions who've exhausted their benefits, the suicides by technology workers in China, the widespread use of child labor to produce chocolate, the conflict minerals used in cell phones, has the time come for citizens to look in the mirror?

Human Rights Watch, the group best known for documenting governmental abuse and war crimes, plans to release a report on Wednesday showing that child and forced labor is widespread on farms that supply a cigarette factory owned by Philip Morris International in Kazakhstan, in Central Asia.

While child labor should be condemned in any setting, the report said, employing children on tobacco farms is particularly hazardous because tobacco field laborers are exposed to high levels of nicotine while doing their jobs.

In a society that runs on oil, on gas, on coal, on supermarket produce sections piled high with colorful fruits and vegetables that many around the world would see as equivalent to the gold in Fort Knox, we have distractions from the consequences of our choices. If we stop to think about what went into the production of that phone, that tank of gas, that bar of chocolate, what will we see in ourselves? Are we, by our own obtuseness, responsible for those who toil in unsafe conditions, who find themselves looking out at a destroyed Gulf of Mexico, who mourn for loved ones buried in an unsafe mine?

There used to be more concern about the world, about our impact through climate change, the heartbreak of unemployment in a great recession, the desire to make a difference through sustainability and social responsibility. Now see members of Congress who ridicule those they've helped to throw out of work and a worldwide press that feverishly touts "Climategate" allegations - ruining careers and endangering the progress toward needed repair -- and then the buries the retractions of those false allegations in their back pages.

Given the trajectory the scientists say we are on, one must hope that the academy’s report, and Wednesday’s debunking of Climategate, will receive as much circulation as the original, diversionary controversies.

No one notices the correction of a diversion when a broken Washington won't extend unemployment benefits to those at effect of their own failed policies and who slap each other on the back for their own through-the-looking-glass sense of street cred of being bigger and badder than anyone else, all the while exposing the missing piece of a soul that would allow the middle class to fall into poverty while they demand unpaid for tax breaks for the richest among us.

All amid cries of "socialism"!

Who is benefiting from socialism in the United States right now? It's not the growing legions of the unemployed. It's not the dwindling middle class being forced into a new standard of poverty as the decided norm pronounced from on high by those who have never had to use an ATM. It's the very rich who are able to pay less taxes than their secretaries, as was pointed out by Warren Buffet. It's the corporations who see their oil and gas exploration now polluting our Gulf and fracking of our water, subsidized by politicians voted in by uninformed citizens too distracted to anticipate the consequences of their vote.

The American people have nothing against capitalism. Everyone wants to make a buck. But this is not capitalism. It's corporate socialism and social Darwinism that is being perpetrated against the American people and their natural resources -- with disastrous consequences -- while the poorest of other countries suffer for the never-ending appetite of the socially irresponsible consumerism that pervades our culture.

The late American psychologist, Gustave Gilbert, once made the observation (paraphrased) that evil was the absence of empathy. There are members of House and Senate who have made a stand that empathy is weak and wrong. There are those who vote them into office and who keep them there that have either been persuaded by this argument or who agree with it wholeheartedly.

What has happened to this country? What has happened to help thy neighbor? What has happened to strength in numbers? What has happened to the heart and soul of the good American? How long can we put our heads in the sand while the heat waves rage above us before we realize that there are consequences to our choices? That the neighbor whose house goes into foreclosure because their Senator blocked their unemployment has now brought the value down on everyone's house on the block?

Naomi Klein warned in her book, The Shock Doctrine, that there was a concerted effort to create crises in societies that would allow corporate interests to take advantage of dazed citizenry:

In The Shock Doctrine, Naomi Klein explodes the myth that the global free market triumphed democratically. Exposing the thinking, the money trail and the puppet strings behind the world-changing crises and wars of the last four decades, The Shock Doctrine is the gripping story of how America’s “free market” policies have come to dominate the world-- through the exploitation of disaster-shocked people and countries.

Disaster capitalism has been active around the world for decades while the American public has remained oblivious. Is it any surprise that those who have profited would bring their modus operandi to our shores? Is it possible that America has become a third world country to these mega corporations and their representatives in Washington and in state governments?

When viewed from that perspective, the horrific and continually unfolding disaster in the Gulf takes on a troubling light. Did BP act with such recklessness because they knew the officials in the Gulf Coast region and the regulatory agencies long ago captured by industry would do little in response to unwanted outcomes? Have corporations come to see Louisiana and the surrounding states in the same way they look at third world regions so long at effect of their carelessness and callous behavior?

The only people who can change this downward spiral in which American has found itself are those who are willing to change themselves. Do you feel dazed by events? In a trance where only rage and outrageousness moves you? Do you watch only one news channel? Do you read only opinions that are similar to your own? Do you vote against your own interests, whether you realize that or not? Do you feel blindsided when your options are reduced?

The change to informed citizenship requires due diligence. Where does the product you're about to buy come from? Who manufactured it? What are the conditions that were incurred to produce it? Are those conditions something you would support? That's due diligence.

The same diligence can apply to the American economy. Were American jobs displaced to make that product elsewhere? Is there a viable American alternative, preferably local, available?

The diligence is the responsibility of a citizen when it comes to elected representatives. Who donates to their campaigns? Who are they beholden to? What are their voting records? What alternatives are available if those answers are not satisfactory?

The diligence can overcome bias in the media through ratings. Are you voting with your remote control for out-of-control rhetoric and the very distractions that daze and confuse you?

President Obama made an important point at a commencement speech delivered earlier this year:

ANN ARBOR, Michigan (AP) — In a blunt caution to political friend and foe, President Obama said Saturday that partisan rants and name-calling under the guise of legitimate discourse pose a serious danger to America's democracy, and may incite "extreme elements" to violence.

"What troubles me is when I hear people say that all of government is inherently bad," Obama said after receiving an honorary doctor of laws degree. "When our government is spoken of as some menacing, threatening foreign entity, it ignores the fact that in our democracy, government is us."

The founding fathers left a remarkable system of representative democracy that requires nurturing by those who depend upon it for their life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. If you're an informed citizen, you know it's your responsibility to protect and nurture that system. The results of your actions and of those who are empowered by your actions are important to you. You research it to protect yourself.

With that research, you can make informed choices about what you buy, how you live, how you get your information, how much you are at effect of the policies enacted by those you've empowered. With your dollar, you can choose items that do not harm children or that enslave adults in the process of manufacture. With your dollar, you can choose products that do not harm or deplete our natural resources by use or misuse. With your dollar, you can choose items that enhance the quality of life rather than destroy it.

With your vote, you can change the world. Who is obstructing the process? Ask yourself that. Be willing to look at the answer even if it does not fit your ideology. Don't give in to inflammatory rhetoric designed to shock and awe you into supporting those who would use you for their own profit. Don't give in to "us and them" thinking; the idea that bad things happen to people because they must somehow deserve it, rather than the clear-eyed suspicion that maybe, just maybe, someone is profiting off their misery and doesn't want you do know your complicity.

It takes courage and discipline to be an informed citizen. The pressure to join a mob mentality where personal responsibility is diluted within the group is very high in a society pressured by the worries of day-to-day survival. It is not helped when the government itself turns into factionalism akin to a cafeteria fight where the cooks and servers run to see the combatants which leaves no one to stock the food trays for starving students.

There are Americans who are starving, who are increasingly homeless, who are sitting in growing despair at the betrayal by the representatives they voted into Congress. A large majority of Americans, by the latest poll, want unemployment compensation restored past the 99 week threshold. That it has not been done means the representatives they voted into office are not representing them. And yet, when asked who they will vote for, many of these same displaced citizens, angry at their situation but uninformed as to the reason, state they will vote for the very politicians who have denied or will deny them their needed support.

An informed citizen can change that. An informed citizen can change the world. The golden land that beckoned others to freedom is still here, somewhere, under the oil spill and the heat waves and the recession and the businesses that hoard their trillions rather than hiring or lending. The layers of pollution and the cries of children are a thick muck from which to emerge. It will take discipline on the part of every citizen It will take the commitment to self-inform.

If you are a citizen who is lucky enough to have a job, to have security, to have clean water to drink and clean air to breath and clean oceans in which to bathe, whose children are happy and safe rather working in obscene conditions while getting poisoned by nicotine, don't just count your blessings, look at your part in the impact on others who don't share your advantages.

If you do that, sleep well at night, even if the world's not perfect.





LABELS: BARACK OBAMA, BP, BUSINESS, CLIMATE CHANGE, CLIMATEGATE, ENVIRONMENT, GLOBAL WARMING, GULF OIL DISASTER, GULF OIL SPILL, PHILIP MORRIS, POLITICS, RESPONSIBILITY

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse's Historic Speech on Corporate Influence in Government (VIDEO)

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) gave a historic speech on the corporate influence in government as seen through the "regulatory capture" of government regulatory agencies by corporations.

"We must act in defense of the integrity of this great government of ours, which has brought such light to the world, such freedom and equality to our country. We cannot allow this government - that is a model around the world, that inspires people to risk their lives and fortunes to come to our shores - we cannot allow any element of this government to become the tool of corporate power, the avenue of corporate influence, the puppet of corporate tentacles.

This American government of ours should never, never be on its knees before corporate power, no matter how strong. It should never be in the thrall of corporate wealth no matter how vast.

This American government of ours should never give the American citizen reason to question whose interests are being served. Never.

In this complex world of ours, Mr. President, government must protect us in remote and specialized precincts in the economy. In those remote precincts, few people are watching, but big money is made. We must be able to trust our government, both in plain view in front of us, and in corners far from sight, to be serving always the public interest, not doing the secret bidding of special interests; of corporate interests, because that's where the big money is at stake.

It was a remarkably clear presentation of the problem left for the current administration; for the American people -- the accidents waiting to happen and the catastrophes already affecting our planet and our lives to such an extreme level, while those who benefited from the advantage they took through "captive regulators" live well and without relative consequence.

Whitehouse proposes that the Attorney General step in and clean house of all regulatory agencies to insure the integrity of the personnel to make sure they are not taken over by corporate interests. Given the disasters that have happened and have yet to unfold, it seems only the responsible thing to do.

Senator Whitehouse's speech is in its entirety is copied here:

Mr. President, we have watched with horror the unfolding disaster in the Gulf. We have seen precious lives lost; hard-earned livelihoods hammered; treasured ways of life imperiled.

We have seen the largest deployment of resources ever against an environmental disaster.
We have seen astonishing corporate negligence.

But we have seen something else too-something that ought to be a lasting lesson from this catastrophe: we have seen the revolting specter of an agency of government subservient to - captive to - the industry it is supposed to regulate.

From the Minerals Management Service, supposed to regulate deep sea oil drilling, here's what we have seen:

From the 2008 Inspector General's report on MMS's Royalty in Kind program based in Colorado:

• Senior executives steering lucrative contracts to an outside company created by the executives;
• Staff failing to collect millions of dollars in royalties owed to the American people and allowing oil and gas companies to revise their own multi-million-dollar bids;
• Staff accepting gifts and money from oil and gas companies with whom the office was conducting official business; and
• Staff participating in social events with industry representatives that included illegal drug use and sex.

From the IG report, the Inspector's General's report, released last month on the MMS office in Lake Charles, Louisiana:

• The District Manager telling investigators: "obviously we're all oil industry."
• Employees accepting numerous gifts from companies doing business with the MMS, including a trip to the 2005 Peach Bowl on a private airplane, skeet shooting contests, hunting and fishing trips, and golf tournaments.
• An MMS inspector conducting four inspections of oil drilling platforms while negotiating a job for himself with the company that owned those platforms, and finding (guess what?) no violations during those inspections.

And a 2007 Inspector General Report into the MMS' Minerals Revenue Management office cited, and I quote:

• "Significant issues worthy of separate investigation, including ethical lapses, program mismanagement, and process failures."

As my hometown Providence Journal wrote in a recent editorial, "The Deepwater Horizon accident has made it painfully clear that, in its current form, MMS is a pathetic public guardian. Neither it nor BP was prepared for a disaster of this magnitude, and MMS' cozy relationship with industry is a big reason why." I agree with the Providence Journal.

The scope, the extent, the insidious nature of corporate influence in regulatory agencies of government - this question of regulatory capture - is something we should attend to here. It is the lesson. And it raises the question, beyond the Minerals Management Service, how far does this corporate influence reach into our agencies of government?

The wealth of the international corporate world is staggering. The five biggest oil companies just this quarter posted profits of $23 billion dollars. That's a 23 with twelve zeros behind it-in just one quarter.

The Republican appointees on the Supreme Court just overturned decades of precedent and a hundred years of practice to give these big corporations freedom to spend unlimited funds in our American elections.

Put it to scale; consider $23 billion of pure profit, just in one quarter, by Big Oil. And compare: the Obama and McCain campaigns together spent about $1 billion in the last election. Do the math: for 5% of one quarter's profits, Big Oil could outspend both American presidential campaigns. That may be some politicians' idea of a happy day, because that is who they work to please, but it is wrong and needs to be stopped.

But think: if that's what corporate influence could do in a national election, think of what those vast powerful tentacles of corporate influence can do to a little government agency like the Minerals Management Service:


• Revolving doors to lucrative jobs in the industry so you're set for life; 
• Sports tickets, gifts, drugs;
• Constant, relentless lobby pressure and threats of litigation;
• Steadily inserting industry operatives into regulatory positions.

Inch by inch, the tentacles of industry reach further and further into the regulator, until it silently and invisibly comes under industry control, and becomes the industry's puppet; until it is serving the special interests, and not the public interest.

This is no new phenomenon. Marver Bernstein wrote about regulatory capture 55 years ago. He explained that a regulator tends over time to "become more concerned with the general health of the industry and tries to prevent changes which will adversely affect it," to become "passive toward the public interest." This, he said, "is a problem of ethics and morality as well as administrative method," and he called it "a blow to democratic government and responsible political institutions." Ultimately, this leads to what he called "surrender:" "the commission finally becomes a captive of the regulated groups."

If you don't want to go back half a century for a discussion of regulatory capture, look to last week's Wall Street Journal editorial page, where a senior fellow at the Cato Institute writes, "By all accounts, MMS operated as a rubber stamp for BP. It is a striking example of regulatory capture: Agencies tasked with protecting the public interest come to identify with the regulated industry and protect its interests against that of the public. The result: Government fails to protect the public."

There is plenty of evidence that the oil and gas industry had captured MMS. And when you have a captured agency, you get what we've seen:


• Altering, deleting, or ignoring warnings and recommendations from government scientists. 


A draft environmental analysis for drilling in the Gulf from May of 2000 included the haunting prediction that "the oil industry's experience base in deep-water well control is limited" and a massive oil spill "could easily turn out to be a potential showstopper for the [outer continental shelf] program if the industry and MMS do not come together as a whole to prevent such an incident." This unwelcome observation was deleted from the final analysis published.


• Oil and gas company employees filled out official inspection forms in pencil, for the MMS inspectors to trace over in pen. 
• Nearly 400 categorical exclusions, shielded even deepwater drilling from thorough environmental review.
• Cut-and-paste Environmental Assessments were provided by oil and gas companies. BP's Environmental Assessment listed walruses as a species of concern in the Gulf of Mexico. Mr. President, there are not, and never have been, in the memory of man, walruses in the Gulf of Mexico. When they are writing about walruses in the Gulf of Mexico, you know 1) they are cutting and pasting out of documents in Alaska, 2) they are paying no attention to what they write because they know it doesn't matter, and 3) they know perfectly well that MMS will never catch the fact that they've cut and pasted, because they're not looking at it either.
• MMS adopted wholesale for its oil and gas drilling "best practices" proposals of the American Petroleum Institute, and then they made most of those best practices only suggestions.
• There's been virtually no enforcement: According to the MMS website, between 2000 and 2009, civil penalties averaged less than $130 per well per year on our Outer Continental Shelf; and only three criminal referrals were made to the Department since 1990 in the last twenty years.

Add it all up, and there is no real question MMS was a captive regulator. So the question is, after all those years of corporate control of government in the Bush years, how far-reaching is the insinuation of corporate influence? We know big Pharma wrote the Bush pharmacy benefit legislation. We know big oil and big coal sat down in secret with Dick Cheney to write their energy policy. But down below the decks, down in the guts of the administration's agencies, how far were the tentacles of corporate influence allowed to reach? How many industry plants are stealthily embedded in the government, there to serve the industry, not the administration or the public.

Well, how is it looking, Mr. President? Well, it is not looking good. The Securities and Exchange Commission, for instance, gave up its watchdog role years ago and became the lap dog of the big Wall Street financiers: raising leverage limits; refusing to investigate Bernie Madoff; and helping to precipitate the biggest financial disaster since the Great Depression.

29 miners were killed in a West Virginia mine with a safety record that President Obama called troubled." The Mine Safety and Health Administration has been described as a "revolving door" with industry, staffed by people with mining companies' interests at heart, even at the expense of worker safety. The Bush head of MSHA, for instance, oversaw the rewriting of regulations in 2004 that allowed conveyor belt tunnels to double as ventilation shafts, a practice that contributed to a fatal 2006 Massey mine disaster.

Who knows how far it leads? Think of the timber rights the taxpayer gives up every year, the grazing rights, the multi-billion dollar contracts to big government contractors, the oil and coal leases on land, the carnival of public wealth at which these big corporations feed.

The vital question is this: are these assets of our nation still in the hands of servants of the nation? Or have the servants of the nation quietly and insidiously become the servants of the big private corporations who want to profit from that public wealth-corporations for whom every dollar of a sweet deal, every avoided expense allowed by a cozy regulator, every corner cut in safety or environmental protection, goes straight to their bottom line and right into their pockets?


The big, multi-billion dollar corporations - Is this who we want safeguarding our national assets? Is this who we want controlling agencies of the United States government?

Mr. President, Winston Churchill once said, in a phrase that I like, that history turns on sharp agate points. What is the sharp agate point on which the history of this Gulf catastrophe should turn? What lesson of history, if left unlearned after this disaster, are we condemned to repeat?


I hope that the lesson we learn is this one: that we can never, never, never again let agencies of the government of the United States of America fall so far under the influence of the corporations they are supposed to regulate.

This government of ours, founded in a Revolution pledging the lives, fortunes and sacred honor of those early patriots;

This government of ours, which has raised for more than two centuries the promise of freedom in human hearts;

This government that lifts its lamp aloft to brighten the darkness of chaos and despair in far distant corners of the globe;

This government, whose finely tuned balance, crafted by those Founders, has seen us through civil war and world war, through westward expansion and great depression, through the light bulb and the Model T and the Boeing 747 and the iPod.

This government, of ours, formed by Washington and Madison, Jefferson and Adams, and led by each of them; and later led by Abraham Lincoln, and by Harry Truman, and by Theodore Roosevelt and by Franklin Roosevelt and by John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

This American government of ours should never, never be on its knees before corporate power, no matter how strong. It should never be in the thrall of corporate wealth no matter how vast.


This American government of ours should never give the American citizen reason to question whose interests are being served. Never.

In this complex world of ours, Mr. President, government must protect us in remote and specialized precincts in the economy. In those remote precincts, few people are watching, but big money is made.

We must be able to trust our government, both in plain view in front of us, and in corners far from sight, to be serving always the public interest, not doing the secret bidding of special interests; of corporate interests, because that's where the big money is at stake.

Have we now learned, have we now finally learned, from the financial melt-down and the Gulf disaster, the price, the terrible price, of all those quietly cut corners?

Have we now learned what price must be paid when the stealthy tentacles of corporate influence are allowed to reach into and capture our agencies of government?

I pray, let us have learned this; let us have learned that lesson. I sincerely pray we have learned our lesson, and that this will never happen again. But let's not just pray.

In this troubled world God works through our human hands; grows a more perfect union through our human hearts; creates his beloved community through our human thoughts and ideas. So it is not enough to pray. We must act.

We must act in defense of the integrity of this great government of ours, which has brought such light to the world, such freedom and equality to our country. We cannot allow this government - that is a model around the world, that inspires people to risk their lives and fortunes to come to our shores - we cannot allow any element of this government to become the tool of corporate power, the avenue of corporate influence, the puppet of corporate tentacles.

I propose a simple device, in this country of laws not men - of rule of law - and that is to allow our top national law officer, the Attorney General of the United States, to step in and clean house whenever an agency or element of government is no longer credibly independent of the industry and businesses it is intended to regulate.

When a component of government is deemed no longer credibly independent of the corporations or industry it is supposed to regulate, I suggest the Attorney General be allowed to come in and clean up:


- To hire and fire and take personnel actions, to assure the integrity of the personnel;
- To establish interim regulations and procedures, to assure the integrity of the process;
- To audit permits and contracts and assure they were not affected by improper corporate influence; and, if they were,
- To rescind them where they are not in the public interest due to that improper corporate influence;
- To establish an integrity plan for that component of government;
- All subject to appropriate judicial review where private rights are affected;
- And then the Attorney General can get back out, with his or her job done: sort of like an ethics trusteeship or receivership.

Mr. President, I'll conclude by saying that the damage to America from the corporate takeover of the Securities and Exchange Commission was nothing short of catastrophic - just in my home state, just in Rhode Island, 70,000 Rhode Islanders are unemployed, and many have lost homes, retirement, health insurance. The toll is devastating.

The damage from the corporate takeover of the Minerals Management Service has also been catastrophic; and who knows what potentially catastrophic damage lurks in whatever other agencies of government have silently succumbed to corporate takeover, but just have not exploded in disaster? If the financial catastrophe and the Gulf catastrophe, and whatever other catastrophes lurk, if they have any meaning at all, it is that business as usual is no longer enough to stem the tide of corporate influence, insidious, secret corporate influence in agencies of the United States government.

It is an institutional problem: relentless, remorseless, constantly grasping and insinuating corporate influence; it will never go away; it will only worsen as corporations get bigger and richer and more global; and there has to be an institutional mechanism in place to resist it, so that it no longer takes a catastrophe to call the failure of governance of an American regulator to proper attention.

I think this is the right way. If a colleague has a better idea, I'm more than willing to listen. But, one thing I know: after our economic catastrophe and this environmental catastrophe, this much, at least, is clear: we can no longer wait for catastrophes to root out improper corporate influence in our government, in this government of our United States. We have to at long last address the problem of insidious regulatory capture, of agencies of our government captive to the industries they are suppose to regulate.

I thank the Presiding Officer. I yield the floor.

LABELS: BP, GULF OIL DISASTER, GULF OIL SPILL, MMS, POLITICS, SEC, SHELDON WHITEHOUSE