FYI from BATR

The World is at the crossroads of the most serious crisis in modern history. In the largest display of military might since the Second World War, the United States and its indefectible British ally have embarked upon a military adventure, which threatens the future of humanity.

VIDEO WEBCAST: Click here to view the Webcast of Michel Chossudovsky's Presentation to the Perdana Peace Forum, Kuala Lumpur

Interview With William R. Clark, Author "Petrodollar Warfare: Oil, Iraq and the Future of the Dollar"

Petrodollar Warfare discusses the crucial shift in US monetary policy during the 1970s away from the gold standard to becoming the monopoly currency for worldwide oil sales, effectively enabling the US to dominate world trade. It then analyses global Peak Oil as an additional driver of US foreign policy and the parallel growth of political fundamentalism in the current US administration. Tracking the emergence of the euro as an important challenger to dollar supremacy, the book pinpoints Hussein's November 2000 switch to selling oil for euros as the defining moment for Iraq and, perhaps - without an immediate change in governance - for the noble American experiment.

Bovard also makes valuable points about the way democracy has become a means to provide credibility to the rulers rather than to elect officials who represent the people. I think of California's gerrymandered system, where not one of 153 legislative races produced a switch in parties in 2004. We aren't choosing between different ideologies so much as anointing the current rigged system.

Is American democracy in a death spiral? Why do Americans tolerate so many lies and abuses from their rulers? Why have Americans permitted the U.S. government to shred their rights? Why have so many people been willing to assume that foreign empire and presidential supremacy are the highest forms of American freedom? Why are politicians not held liable for conning the nation into wars that leave scores of thousands of people dead and maimed? Why do most Americans not recognize that Leviathan Democracy will be the end of individual liberty?

I wrestle with these and other questions in my new book, Attention Deficit Democracy. Following is the book’s Introduction. More information on the book is available at my website. The book itself is available through Amazon.

Last Friday, The New World, a fictionalized account of the (most likely nonexistent) romance between Captain John Smith of Jamestown and the Indian princess Pocahontas in 1608, rolled out nationwide to 811 movie theatres. It is currently boring senseless any filmgoer naïve enough to believe the rapturous reviews in much of the prestige press.

Among the critics and reinterpreters of Fourth Generation war, the bad is most powerfully represented by Thomas Barnett’s two books The Pentagon’s New Map and Blueprint for Action. What Barnett advocates is bad in two senses: first, that it won’t work, and second, that if it did work the result would be evil.

Co-op radio, CFRO 102.7 FM,
Vancouver, B.C., Canada

Interviewer: Don Nordin
Guest: Michel Chossudovsky

Jeremy's been speaking to Former US Secretary of State Colin Powell - about Iran, rendition, the decisions that took the US and Britain to war, and that notorious presentation to the United Nations on Iraq's weapons programme. It's worth watching.

A Review of Mark Glenn's No Beauty in the Beast
No Beauty in the Beast

Over the past several years the name 'Mark Glenn' has become familiar worldwide via the Internet. Those who have accessed Internet news and information relating to the problems surrounding the state of Israel and its aggressive imperial aims in historic Palestine and beyond have had the opportunity to read Glenn's eloquent writings. And now, with the release of Glenn's book, No Beauty in the Beast, much of Glenn's writings, previously available only on the worldwide web, are now accessible for those who don't care for the glare of the computer screen. Anyone who is familiar with the problem of Israel and honest enough to acknowledge that Israel is indeed just that - a problem - knows full well that there are three consistent components in Israel's mode of operation (and in America's continuing support for Israel): 1) lies, 2) bullying, and 3) double standards. In No Beauty in the Beast, Mark Glenn demonstrates, beyond any doubt, that Israel 'without her mascara' is no beauty, but, instead, a beast.

By 1967, King had also become the country's most prominent opponent of the Vietnam War, and a staunch critic of overall U.S. foreign policy, which he deemed militaristic. In his "Beyond Vietnam" speech delivered at New York's Riverside Church on April 4, 1967 -- a year to the day before he was murdered -- King called the United States "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today."

Film Synopsis:

"Provides a striking comparison of U.S. and international media coverage of the crisis in the Middle East, zeroing in on how structural distortions in U.S. coverage have reinforced false perceptions of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This pivotal documentary exposes how the foreign policy interests of American political elites--oil, and a need to have a secure military base in the region, among others--work in combination with Israeli public relations strategies to exercise a powerful influence over how news from the region is reported.

The acclaimed critic of U.S. foreign policy analyzes Bush's current political troubles, the war on Iraq, and what's really behind the global 'war on terror.'

One of America's foremost authorities on immigration responds to questions about the problem of illegal aliens and the necessity of controlling our borders.

William King is one of America's foremost authorities on immigration, combining decades of field experience in the Border Patrol and Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) with additional decades of study and speaking on the issue. After stints in the U.S. Coast Guard and the United States Army, William King joined the Border Patrol in 1957. He saw service as a Border Patrol agent on our northern and southern borders and many of our major coastal ports, including New York City, Miami, and San Diego.

The Baltimore-based chapter of the national Iraq Pledge of Resistance is an anti-war organization working for peace by challenging people in power, educating the public and getting citizens to take action. In the interview below, Maria Allwine of the Pledge, describes how the National Security Agency (NSA) is spying on them. These allegations, which have not been reported in the media despite attempts to get coverage, are based on documents received by the pledge in litigation with the government.

The harm that has come to our nation through the reckless interventionism of the past 15 years cannot be quickly reversed, but the path to recovery must begin with an urgent commitment to stop the bleeding. Of the ten or so major military operations since the end of the Cold War, the overthrow of the Taliban in Afghanistan stands alone as a legitimate and wise exercise of American military power. And yet, even here, Kaplan admits to the difficult challenges we face. “Everything was possible in Afghanistan—with years and patience,” he explains. “The empires that had succeeded in bringing order and a better material life to their colonies had had both of these elements. But it was unclear if the Americans did.”

The following interview appeared in the December issue of the popular Flemish monthly Menzo. It was then translated into French and appeared on January 7 at AMI Belgique (the best, in my opinion, of the nineteen national editions of the Altermedia News Web sites). As the geostrategist Robert Steuckers (himself a gallant son of Brave Flanders) notes, this interview is a real coup for Faye, testament to the growing recognition of his prophetic warnings, as well as to the rapidly evolving contours of the European discourse on Islam.

America and the world enter 2006 on the strength of some powerful geopolitical and economic trends that are bound together by the unrelenting pace of globalization, which despite causing unease in many pockets quietly continues more unchallenged and faster than ever before. This rapid globalization feeds the underlying strength and stability of the world economy, especially as the United States and China continue to drive growth well beyond their borders in places such as Europe, Japan and Latin America. However, despite the enhanced efficiency of the global economy and enormous benefits it brings, the forces of globalization will continue to feed unease that will be at the center of most of the world's economic, social and political issues in 2006 as leaders and policymakers continue to struggle with its paradoxes.

Three years ago, as America was preparing to go to war in Iraq, there were few discussions of the likely costs. When Larry Lindsey, President Bush’s economic adviser, suggested that they might reach $200 billion, there was a quick response from the White House: that number was a gross overestimation.[2] Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz claimed that Iraq could “really finance its own reconstruction,” apparently both underestimating what was required and the debt burden facing the country. Lindsey went on to say that “The successful prosecution of the war would be good for the economy.”

Pataki's speech to the joint session of the Legislature

ALBANY, Jan. 4

Alex talks with WhatReallyHappened.com editor Michael Rivero about the alternative truth movement, brainwashed pro-war imbeciles, the Dyncorp sex slave scandal and more.

(New York Daily News (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) NEW YORK _ The CIA may have handed Iran the formula for building a nuclear bomb in a clumsy covert operation involving a double-crossing Russian agent, a new book charges.

The blueprint that was funneled to Tehran contained an error that was meant to derail the Islamic state's efforts at building a nuclear arsenal.

Interview with Professor Norman Finkelstein
By Nora Barrows

This was the year the publishing industry created the Quill Awards so they’d get a book prize ceremony onto American TV (just as the Man Booker Prize is televised in England). That way, they’d fire up more interest in books. It’s all about literacy, not profits.