Day: January 28, 2015

So What Does The World Bank Do Exactly?

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“The period of McNamara’s stewardship, from 1968-1980 was instrumental in shaping the institution that we know (or should know) today: a tool of the Washington power players that is used as a way of transferring the productive wealth of the third world back to the first world. The larger capital that was raised during his tenure was used to expand the bank’s lending activities, and those expanded loans kicked off the era of the third world debt crisis, including a period from 1976 to 1980 where developing world debt rose on average 20% per year.” – J Corbett

WorldBankSucksAs many have heard by now, the leaders of the so-called BRICS nations – Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa – used the occasion of the 6th BRICS Summit in Brasilia, Brazil to announce the creation of the long-awaited BRICS Development Bank. Formally the “New Development Bank”, it will be based in Shanghai and capitalized with an initial $10 billion in cash ($2 billion from each of the five founding members) and $40 billion in guarantees, to be built up to a total of $100 billion.

Immediately, the press began touting the new bank as a potential rival to the current IMF / World Bank system of infrastructure development and poverty reduction in the third world. “BRICS Development Bank Could Challenge World Bank and IMF” touts US News & World Report. “BRICS Ink $50 Billion Lender in World Bank, IMF Challenge” asserts Bloomberg. The World Bank, for its part, is downplaying the rivalry, with World Bank President Jim Young Kim openly welcoming the bank at a recent meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “The only competition we have is with poverty”, he told reporters at the meeting.

But all of this talk about a potential rival to the IMF and World Bank have exposed the general public’s ignorance about what exactly these institutions are and what they do.

While most are familiar with the IMF and its predatory lending practices (and those who aren’t are encouraged to acquaint themselves with the “IMF riot” strategy that was developed in the third world and is now being imported to Europe), the World Bank is less scrutinized and less understood. What is it, what does it do, and why is it important for the BRICS to challenge its hegemony in the development and poverty reduction arenas? Continue reading →

America’s War On Everything It Claims To Stand For

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“Prosecutorial injustice is rife. Courts most often are conspiratorially involved. Guilt by accusation suffices. Fabricated evidence is accepted as real. So are confessions extracted under torture. Multiple studies over the last half century show courts punish prosecutorial misconduct in less than 2% of cases.” – S Lendman

steveLendmanWhat kind of nation scorns basic precepts free societies cherish? Mocks them. Operates extrajudicially. Polar opposite what it claims to support.

Rewarding its wicked. Most reprehensible. Punishing its best, brightest, most honorable and deserving of praise.

What nation has far and away the world’s worst human and civil rights record over a longer duration? Affecting the greatest number of people.

Which one bears more full responsibility for multiple global genocides? At home and abroad.

Which cares only for its rich, well-born and privileged? No others. Which more systematically wants its middle class eliminated? Its working population exploited as serfs.

Which one more disproportionately shifts wealth from ordinary people to corrupted rich elites already with too much? Billionaires and multi-millionaires. Making money the old-fashioned way.

Which one more egregiously supports wrong over right on a global scale? Which continues inflicting more harm on more people than any nation in human history?

Which more systematically trashes its own laws on fundamental rights?

America’s Constitution Preamble stresses “form(ing) a more perfect union…”(E)stablish(ing) justice…(I)nsuring domestic tranquility…”

“Provid(ing) for the common defense…Promot(ing) the general welfare…Secur(ing) the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.”

Bill of Rights guarantees include free expression. A free press. Freedom of religion. Freedom of assembly and association.

Privacy by prohibiting unjustified searches and seizures. Due process and judicial fairness.

Cruel and unusual punishments forbidden. Other rights guaranteed by law. Continue reading →

Crisis In Science: Scientists’ Responsibility For The Survival Of The Human Species

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“. . .  scientists have created seeds that cannot reproduce themselves, and all this in the name of profit, under the pretext of serving humanity. Not many scientists would criticize this evil because most of them depend on a corporate paycheck. Science could benefit humanity only if it were practiced for serving others, not when it is practiced in secrecy and for profit and prestige.” – A Toupadakis

“Science is a good piece of furniture for a man to have in an upper chamber, provided he has common sense on the ground floor.” ~ Oliver Wendell Holmes

While millions of people around the world are fighting increased battles with cancer in physical and emotional pain, science is still being glorified for scientific progress. It is no secret that in hundreds of thousands of lives around the world every day, there is a lot of indignation and despair because of what the wrong practice of science has done to people.

The truth is that humanity will very soon have to ask itself the following question, if it is not already too late: Can it be that by trying to improve and lengthen our lives without being in harmony with natural laws, we are not only losing our lives but also our earth?

The human race has only one or perhaps two generations to rescue itself, according to the “2003 State of the World” report by the Washington-based World Watch Institute. According to the report “…Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has reached 370.9 parts per million, the highest level for 420,000 years and probably for 20m years. Toxic chemicals are being released in increasing quantities, and global production of hazardous waste has reached more than 300m tones a year. There is only a vague idea of what damage this does to humans and natural systems.”

The report also says, “Bird extinctions are running at some 50 times the natural rate due to habitat loss and other consequences of human activity. Each day 5,500 children die from diseases linked to polluted food, air, and water, and the global rate of ice melt has more than doubled since 1988.” And these trends have only increased since this report was first published.

Michael N. Nagler, Professor Emeritus of Classics and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Berkeley correctly states in his new book Is There No Other Way? that “Science has every right to confine its attention to the physical, i.e. the outside world. It has no right to say, when it has done so, that it has given us the whole story.”

It is almost impossible to convince the unaware citizen of the violence of science. The late Anthony Standen puts it this way: Continue reading →