How Did the Quebec Student Movement Win?
This article/video by subMedia is re-posted from Dissident Voice.
For over 4 months, students and their allies, took over the streets of Montreal every day, to protest a tuition hike imposed by the liberal party in Quebec.
On September 21st, the newly elected Premier of Quebec scrapped the tuition hike and repealed a controversial law, that effectively banned public demonstrations.
While this is being touted as a victory by many in the student movement, one element that made this success possible is already being overshadowed. How the the movement’s militant street politics transformed the student strike from a single issue campaign to an uncompromising social insurrection.
This article is re-posted from EcoWatch.
A new report1 on shale resources and hydraulic fracturing from the Government Accountability Office (GAO)—an independent, nonpartisan agency that works for Congress—concludes that fracking poses serious risks to health and the environment. The report, which reviewed studies from state agencies overseeing fracking as well as scientific reports, found that the extent of the risks has not yet been fully quantified and that there are many unanswered questions and a lack of scientific data.
Major reports and studies were also released in Europe the past two months, all of which came to the conclusion that fracking poses serious risks to water, public health, and the environment, and that additional scientific study is necessary. Meanwhile, in NY hundreds2 of doctors, scientists, and medical organizations have renewed calls for an independent, comprehensive health impact assessment and additional scientific research.
“The big-money gas industry is at it again,” said John Armstrong of Frack Action on behalf of New Yorkers Against Fracking, a broad coalition of New Yorkers opposed to fracking. “Rather than allow a comprehensive independent health assessment that can study the dangers fracking poses to our water and health, they just want to frack as quickly as possible and take their profits back to Texas.”
Given the conclusions from the broad NY, U.S., and world-wide scientific and medical community that fracking poses serious public health and environmental risks and needs further scientific study, the gas industry and the Joint Landowners Coalition’s rush to frack is dangerously reckless and irresponsible.
The Government Accountability Office report, which includes review of the New York Department of Conservation’s study of fracking, finds that there is insufficient data and scientific study to determine the extent of risks fracking poses to groundwater and avenues for groundwater contamination, but it does note that such contamination can take place. For example, the report states that, “Underground migration can occur as a result of improper casing and cementing of the well bore as well as the intersection of induced fractures with natural fractures, faults, or improperly plugged dry or abandoned wells. Moreover, there are concerns that induced fractures can grow over time and intersect with drinking water aquifers” (page 46).
The GAO’s concerns about improperly plugged and abandoned wells strike an unnerving note in New York especially, given that the Associated Press recently found3 that Department of Environmental Conservation records, “reveal thousands of unplugged and abandoned wells and other industrial problems that could pose a threat to groundwater, wetlands, air quality and public safety.”
The GAO report also raises many other concerns long held by NY health professionals and scientists, such as the negative impacts that fracking will mean for air quality. The GAO report concludes that, “Construction of the well pad, access road, and other drilling facilities requires substantial truck traffic, which degrades air quality. Air quality may also be degraded as fleets of trucks travelingnewly graded or unpaved roads increase the amount of dust released into the air—which can contribute to the formation of regional haze” (page 33).
GAO goes on to raise concerns that silica sand—commonly used as a proppant in the hyrdaulic fracturing process—may pose a risk to human health. GAO notes that according to a federal researcher from the Department of Health and Human Services, particles from the sand “can lodge in the lungs and potentially cause silicosis” (page 33).
That the gas industry and the Joint Landowners Coalition would push to frack, rather than listen to the science and medical experts and wait for the necessary studies such as an independent, comprehensive health impact assessment4 to be undertaken, is indicative that they are comfortable putting profits before health and are unwilling to participate in a debate based on the science and facts.
On behalf of New Yorkers Against Fracking, Armstrong said, “Fracking proponents continue their reckless and irresponsible push to frack even in the face of an overwhelming body of science showing that fracking poses serious risks to health and the environment and consensus among experts and government agencies that we need more scientific study on fracking. Our water, air and health are priceless.”
The new reports from Europe include a comprehensive report5 from the European Commission’s Environment Directorate-General, a joint report6 from Germany’s Federal Environment Agency and Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety, and a year-long German Hydrofracking Risk Assessment7 study from a panel of independent experts.
Among the conclusions8 from the European Commission’s Environment Directorate-General’s comprehensive report5 are that there is “a high risk of surface and groundwater contamination at various stages of the well-pad construction, hydraulic fracturing and gas production processes, and well abandonment, and cumulative developments could further increase this risk.” The report also points to air emissions impacts that pose “potentially significant effect on air quality including ozone levels.”
The conclusions8 from the joint report6 by Germany’s Federal Environment Agency and Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety include that fracking can lead to groundwater contamination,that experts advise against large-scale fracking and that there should be a ban in areas that provide drinking water, and that more scientific study is necessary to evaluate environmental risks.
Germany’s year-long Hydrofracking Risk Assessment7 by a panel of independent experts similarly found8 that fracking entails serious risks, that it can do substantial harm to water resources, and pointed to greater concerns about fracking in areas that supply drinking water.
Report Back from What the Frack is going on in Michigan event
This is a summary of what was presented and discussed at a forum on the impact of hydraulic fracturing in Michigan at the Bloom Collective this past Saturday.
The forum began by talking a bit about the environmental and health effects of fracking. A useful online resource can be found at Earth Works Action, which provides a hydraulic fracturing 101 page that has good information on toxic chemicals used in fracking. Reference was also made to some recent reports by the US Geological Survey, confirming the toxic contamination of groundwater by hydraulic fracturing.
The conversation then shifted to fracking that was specific to Michigan. First, it was pointed out that the oil & gas industry has been active and aggressive in trying to influence policy through money. A report by Common Cause last November shows that there is not only a surge in money going to politicians at the federal level, but in Michigan as well to influence state policy on fracking. The top recipients of money from members of Congress in Michigan are John Dingell, Dave Camp and Fred Upton, each receiving over $150,000 in campaign contributions.
Michigan legislators and candidates for state office have also received a significant amount of money from the oil & gas industry over the last decade. This money has come from a few primary sources with DTE Energy leading the way. It is also important to note that Wolverine Oil & Gas is a Grand Rapids-based company.
The conversation then shift to where many of the environmental organizations stood on this issue. It was noted that many of the larger groups, such as Clean Water Action, Sierra Club, Food & Water Watch and WMEAC did not support an outright ban on fracking in Michigan. WMEAC, like many of the environmental groups mentioned are instead supporting proposed legislation, which essentially calls for more study on the impact of fracking.
The group Ban Michigan Fracking states:
“The package of bills is a sleight-of-hand, pro-regulatory approach to ensure that fracking for shale gas is labeled ‘safe’ and continues in Michigan,” says LuAnne Kozma of Ban Michigan Fracking. A bill calling for a moratorium is tied to a bill that would initiate a gas industry-funded study and fracking advisory committee, but not the other way around. In other words, the proposed fracking panel and study could go forward even without a moratorium. One of the bills’ key sponsors, state Representative Mark Meadows, revealed shortly after introducing the bills that he is opposed to a ban on fracking.
The recently formed group Ban Michigan Fracking also provides important analysis on each of the three bills introduced that are specific to fracking.
The next thing that was discussed in Michigan is where fracking is taking place across the state and which parcels of land will be auctioned off on October 24 at a DNR meeting in Lansing.
The DNR has a searchable map that allows anyone to look at where in the state the government has listed land as “mineral lease nominations.” The counties in orange are the ones with land up for auction on October 24 and you can see that there are several counties in West Michigan with public land that is up for mineral leasing.
If we looked at a map of Kent County, you can see the proposed sites for mineral leasing that will be auctioned off on October 24 in Lansing. It appears there is a large chunk of public land between Sparta and Cedar Springs. There is also some land near Lowell and along the 131 corridor by Rockford. If you wanted to look at more details of the lands up for auction, the DNR has a detailed document of all the parcels.
It is not likely that residents near these lands that could be leased for mineral rights on October 24 have any idea that hydraulic fracturing could take place near their homes. Such a reality led some at the event to talk about possibly going door to door in those areas to provide information on fracking and organizing informational forums.
The last thing that that was discussed on Saturday was the upcoming DNR land auction in Lansing. People were aware that there is an organized protest for October 24 and they talked about ideas for the protest beyond just having a presence outside the building.
Are We Hostages to Hollywood History? Ben Affleck’s “Argo”
This article by Nima Shirazi is re-posted from Dissident Voice.
Ben Affleck’s new film, Argo, hit theaters today. It tells the tale of six American diplomats who, having escaped the besieged Embassy in Tehran in late 1979 and taken shelter at the home of the Canadian ambassador Ken Taylor, were successfully smuggled out of Iran in a daring Hollywood-produced CIA operation under the guise of being a Canadian film crew.
From the movie trailer, one can tell a great many things. The story is fascinating, the plot suspenseful and action-packed. Yet there are worrying signs that the events depicted will present a rather decontextualized and myopic perspective of Iranian actions in the wake of their revolution.
“The actions of Iran have shocked the civilized world,” President Jimmy Carter declared two weeks after the embassy’s occupation during a November 28, 1979 press conference. This was coming from the leader of the nation whose operatives orchestrated a coup d’etat 26 years earlier to overthrow the Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh for the crime of nationalizing his country’s oil industry and which funded and supported the brutal Pahlavi dictatorship for the next quarter century. Civilized, indeed.
A video of Carter speaking those very words opens Argo‘s trailer which is replete with sinister music, angry bearded mobs, clenched fists pumping the air, sounds of gunfire, glaring portraits of Ayatollah Khomeini and plenty of hand-wringing, hapless, innocent Americans and the concerned, humanitarian heroes of Tinsel Town and the Central Intelligence Agency who saved them.
The mastermind behind the clandestine mission featured in the film is CIA operative Tony Mendez, portrayed by Affleck himself. In a short clip of the movie shown on The Daily Show, Mendez is described as an “exfil[tration] spec[ialist]” who “got a lot of the Shah’s people out after the fall.” What a hero!
The issue is not that hostage-taking is legitimate or moral or that amazing true stories shouldn’t be made into big budget movies. It’s not, and they should be. The issue here is context. Without it, Manichean views of the world – with good guys and bad guys neatly identified – continue to prevail. At a time of especially heightened tension between Iran, the United States, and now Canada, films like Argo – with its narrative of American victimhood and Middle Eastern rage – certainly do favors.
I have not seen this film. I could be wrong about all this. Argo may very well include a nuanced and sophisticated exploration of the causes behind the Iranian Revolution and U.S. government decisions leading up to the hostage crisis, but then again, it might not.
In an interview at the Toronto Film Festival, Affleck said:
While the [action portrayed in the] movie is 30 years old, it really is still relevant. Both in the sense that it’s about the unintended consequences of revolution and in the sense that we’re dealing with the exact same issues now than we were then.
Earlier this week, Affleck joined blowhard ignoramus Bill O’Reilly on Fox News to discuss the film. In describing Argo, Affleck said:
You know, it was such a great story. For one thing, it’s a thriller. It’s actually comedy with the Hollywood satire. It’s a complicated CIA movie, it’s a political movie. And it’s all true.
In a thrillingly complicated comical twist, about thirty seconds later, the star of Surviving Christmas and Reindeer Games contradicted himself completely:
To me, I made a movie that my friends who are Democrats and my friends who are Republicans can both watch. It’s not a political movie.
Affleck also spent much of his time praising the U.S. intelligence and foreign service agents, including those who actively worked against the popular revolution that overthrew the Pahlavi monarchy.
[T]his is really a tribute to the folks and our clan that’s in services, and diplomats in the foreign service who are risking their lives over there, tragically seeing examples of that very recently. And folks who are — what they give up to serve us and to serve our country.
He added:
I’ve been to the CIA. I met General David Petraeus. These are extraordinary honorable people at the CIA. Make no mistake about it.
O’Reilly summed it up: “This is a Valentine from Ben Affleck to the Intelligence Community,” he declared.
Affleck also demonstrated a dizzying fealty to alarmist misinformation over the Iranian nuclear program. If the “Islamist regime,” he warned, “got a bomb, I think everybody thinks that would be trouble.” Affleck then proceeded to opine that “Israel is not entirely capable of whacking them to the extent in which they need to be whacked.” Read that again.
He continued, “And I wouldn’t outsource U.S. foreign policy to any other government…However, we have to have a line beyond which we say this is not acceptable in Iran.” It didn’t take much for O’Reilly to draw out what his Fox News audience most wanted to hear. ”I wouldn’t oppose military action,” Affleck obliged.
Considering its filmmaker’s perspective, there’s a good chance Argo may not present a particularly erudite understanding of the events of Autumn 1979, despite the fact that the film itself opens with a quick review of Iranian history and the revolution.
With this in mind, there is some vital context that might – I repeat, might – be missing from Argo which every theatergoer should know in order to better contextualize what they’ll be watching this weekend:
Tyranny and Terror Under the Shah, Bankrolled by the U.S.
For most Americans, the history of Iranian-U.S. relations began on November 4, 1979, the day revolutionary students seized control of the American Embassy in Tehran. According to the American narrative, one November morning – out of the blue – some crazy Iranian fanatics seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and held dozens of innocent Americans hostage for 444 days because they were mean and hated Americans for no reason.
Here’s some of what’s missing:
The United States of America backed, armed and supported the tyrannical rule of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran, for more than 25 years.
As late as 1977, President Jimmy Carter, speaking at a New Years Eve state dinner, called the Shah’s Iran “an island of stability” in an otherwise turbulent Middle East. Carter said this at a time when in Iran, under the Shah, “dissent was ruthlessly suppressed, in part by the use of torture in the dungeons of SAVAK, the [American and Israeli-trained] secret police,” Time magazine reported, adding:
The depth of its commitment to the Shah apparently blinded Washington to the growing discontent. U.S. policymakers wanted to believe that their investment was buying stability and friendship; they trusted what they heard from the monarch, who dismissed all opposition as ‘the blah-blahs of armchair critics.’
Such commitment to the belief in the Shah’s “stability” and inevitable longevity was evidenced in many U.S. intelligence assessments at the time. For example, as Jeffrey T. Richelson recalls in Wizards of Langley: “A sixty-page CIA study completed in August 1977, Iran in the 1980s, had asserted that ‘there will be no radical change in Iranian political behavior in the near future’ and that ‘the Shah will be an active participant in the Iranian life well into the 1980s.’
Another CIA report from mid-1978 and entitled “Iran After the Shah”, affirmed that “Iran is not in a revolutionary or even a ‘prerevolutionary’ situation.”
As Time pointed out in its January 7, 1980 report:
Even after the revolution began, U.S. officials were convinced that ‘there is no alternative to the Shah.’ Carter took time out from the Camp David summit in September 1978 to phone the Iranian monarch and assure him of Washington’s continued support.
Popular street demonstrations against the Shah’s rule became frequent throughout Iran in 1978 (as was the killing of protesters by government forces) and, eventually, many cities were placed under martial law. During a peaceful demonstration in Tehran on September 8, 1978, government security forces opened fire on unarmed protesters, killing and wounding hundreds.
Nevertheless, that very month, the U.S. State Department expressed its confidence that the Shah would retain his control over Iran, though perhaps without “the same position of unquestioned authority he formerly enjoyed.”
At the same time that nationwide strikes spread throughout bazaars, banks, the oil and gas industry, newspapers, customs and post offices, mining and transportation sectors, as well as most universities and high schools, an “Intelligence Assessment” released by the Defense Intelligence Agency declared that the Shah “is expected to remain actively in power over the next ten years.”
On October 27, 1978, as the revolution surged, the CIA issued another report, this one suggesting that “the political situation [in Iran] is unlikely to be clarified at least until late next year when the Shah, the Cabinet, and the new parliament that is scheduled to be elected in June begin to interact on the political scene.”
Just a few months later, in the face of a massive popular uprising representing the end of millennia of monarchy in Iran, the Shah and his wife Farah fled Iran in early 1979, never to return. They flew to Egypt, where they received a warm welcome by Anwar Sadat.
Following the Shah’s departure, the transitional Iranian government immediately cut ties with two countries: Apartheid South Africa and the State of Israel, both nations founded on the violent dispossession, forced displacement, and institutionalized discrimination against an indigenous population.
Despite the leading role it had played in propping up the Shah’s dictatorship for so long, Iran did not break off relations with the United States in the hopes of ushering in a new diplomatic relationship based on mutual respect.
Catalyzing the Crisis
Later that year, in October 1979, the Shah sought medical treatment in the United States for his worsening cancer, the interim government of Iran warned the U.S. against admitting the Shah as it wished for the deposed dictator to face trial and justice in Iran for his crimes against the Iranian people. When asked whether it would be problematic if the Shah’s young children were to enter the United States for schooling, Iran’s secular Prime Minister, Mehdi Barzargan, responded that such would not create any difficulties, but still “reiterated his warning about the dangers of admitting the shah himself.”
President Carter had to make a decision and asked the advice of his closest advisers. ”He went around the room, and most of us said, ‘Let him in.’” recalls Vice President Walter Mondale. “And he said, ‘And if [the Iranians] take our employees in our embassy hostage, then what would be your advice?’ And the room just fell dead. No one had an answer to that. Turns out, we never did.”
It is rumored, however, that Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, Deputy Secretary of State Warren Christopher, and Undersecretary of State David Newsom all tried to hedge their bets and prevent the Shah’s admission to the U.S. in the hopes that it would help mend relations with the new transitional government in Tehran.
In favor of admission, on the other hand, were National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, Chase Bank chairman David Rockefeller, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, and former World Bank president John J. McCloy, who had served as Assistant Secretary of War during World War II and U.S. High Commissioner for Germany, who were collectively dubbed “influential friends of the Shah” by Brzezinski himself. Apparently, Brzezinski personally “felt strongly that at stake were [the United State’s] traditional commitment to asylum and our loyalty to a friend. To compromise those principles would be to pay an extraordinarily high price not only in terms of self-esteem but also in our standing among our allies….”
In response to such lobbying by the Shah’s good buddies, President Carter acquiesced to the Shah’s demands on October 21, 1979. The very next day, Pahlavi and his family arrived in New York City on October 22, 1979 aboard Rockefeller’s private jet.
Reporting in The New York Times in May 1981 following the Shah’s death and state funeral in Egypt, Dr. Lawrence K. Altman wrote that, from this decision “flowed a chain of events that dramatically reshaped recent American history and led, all too inevitably, to the 444 days of the hostage crisis.”
Henry Precht, the senior Iranian task-force officer at the State Department, who was then in Iran, is quoted in Altman’s article as saying that “the initial reaction of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and the Iranians was ”exceptionally controlled.” Precht added, however, “But one had the feeling that the Iranians, always suspicious, now sensed that they had indeed been duped and that the Shah had come to the United States not for medical treatment but to set up counterrevolutionary headquarters.” In response, Altman reveals, a group of Iranian students met “in a small mountain village above Teheran to determine what action they would take to vent their fury at the Shah’s admission to the United States.”
Following the seizure of the Embassy and the taking of hostages, a reporter asked Carter why he had reversed his previous position and permitted the Shah to enter the U.S. when “medical treatment was available elsewhere [and] you had been warned by our chargé that the Americans might be endangered in Tehran.” Carter replied that he has made “the right decision” and had “no regrets about it nor apologies to make.” He said:
The decision that I made, personally and without pressure from anyone, to carry out the principles of our country, to provide for the means of giving the Shah necessary medical assistance to save his life, was proper.
Carter’s humanitarian mission to save Iranian lives was apparently limited to that of a single corrupt despot, a puppet dictator that served Washington’s hegemonic designs in the Middle East for decades. The lives of Iranian civilians who suffered under the Shah’s rule and American largesse, however, had not been considered worth saving.
Decades of Torture and Repression
The Shah’s Organisation of Intelligence and National Security, known by its Farsi acronym SAVAK, acted as the dictator’s personal secret police force, was tasked with suppressing dissent and opposition to the monarchy. Created in 1957 with the help of American and Israeli intelligence agents, the SAVAK grew in size and brutality and, as journalist Marsha Cohen points out, included “thousands of informers, censorship, arbitrary arrest and imprisonment, and widespread torture and assassination of political opponents. A censorship office monitored journalists, academics and writers, and kept a watchful eye on students. The penalty for possession of forbidden books included interrogation, torture and long term imprisonment.”
In 1976, according to Amnesty International, the Shah’s Iran had the “highest rate of death penalties in the world, no valid system of civilian courts and a history of torture which is beyond belief.” The report concluded, “No country in the world has a worse record in human rights than Iran.” The number of political prisoners detained at any given point was reportedly “anything between 25,000 and 100,000.”
The same year, renowned Iranian poet and author Reza Baraheni wrote in New York Review of Books:
The CIA re-created the monarchy, built up the SAVAK and trained all its prominent members, and stood by the Shah and his secret police as their powerful ally. Iran became the police state it is now.
He continued:
Thousands of men and women have been summarily executed during the last twenty-three years. More than 300,000 people have been in and out of prison during the last nineteen years of the existence of SAVAK; an average of 1,500 people are arrested every month. In one instance alone, American-trained counterinsurgency troops of the Iranian Army and SAVAK killed more than 6,000 people on June 5, 1963.
In another article, Baraheni wrote that “[c]orruption is so widespread that threats of jailing, even shooting, cannot solve the problem, because at the heart of corruption are the Shah himself and the royal family.”
The Associated Press also ran a story about the abusive, and sometimes lethal, treatment of prisoners by the SAVAK as reported by the Red Cross, which had gained access to “5,000 inmates in 37 jails and prisons” over three separate visits to Iran between March 1977 and February 1978.
Both the United States and Israel played a large role in the SAVAK’s activities. As Robert Fisk points out in his book The Great War For Civilisation, “A permanent secret US mission was attached to Savak headquarters.”
Jesse Leaf, a former high-level CIA analyst in Iran until his resignation in 1973, revealed years later “that the CIA sent an operative to teach interrogation methods to SAVAK” in seminars that “were based on German torture techniques from World War II.” While no Americans admitted to witnessing torture, Leaf recalled “seeing and being told of people who were there seeing the rooms and being told of torture. And I know that the torture rooms were toured and it was all paid for by the USA.” When asked why none of the American agents protested such brutality, Leaf explained, “Why should we protest? We were on their side, remember?”
“Methods of interrogation” often used by SAVAK, writes Fisk, “included – apart from the conventional electric wires attached to genitals, beating on the soles of feet and nail extraction—rape and ‘cooking,’ the latter a self-explanatory form of suffering in which the victim was strapped to a bed of wire that was then electrified to become a red-hot toaster…They recorded that the inmates had been beaten, burned with cigarettes and chemicals, tortured with electrodes, raped, sodomised with bottles and boiling eggs. Interrogators forced electric cables into the uterus of female prisoners. The Red Cross report named 124 prisoners who had died under torture.”
According to Iranian scholar R.K. Ramazani:
Mossad was totally identified with the Shah’s CIA-created SAVAK. This was the principal instrument of the regime’s repressive measures, which included physically punishing religious and secular political dissidents by electric shock, tearing out of fingernails and toenails, rape, and genital torture.
The Mossad connection was confirmed earlier this year by CBS News’ Dan Raviv and Israeli journalist Yossi Melman in their book Spies Against Armageddon, in which they reveal:
Israeli intelligence trained Savak, the Shah’s brutal secret police and espionage service. As part of the compensation, the Shah allowed the Mossad to operate on his soil as a base for recruiting agents in Iraq and other countries. Iran even provided documentation to enhance the Israelis’ cover stories.
In early January 1980, an Associated Press report noted that the “Iranian militants…holding some 50 Americans hostage in the U.S. Embassy in Tehran…say they will not release them until Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi is returned to Iran to stand trial on charges of corruption and other crimes – including the reported torture.” The article continued, “The Iranian government has demanded an international hearing of its grievances against the shah and his former government.”
When asked about these demands by the press, President Carter replied:
I don’t know of any international forum within which charges have ever been brought against a deposed leader who has left his country. There have been instances of changing governments down through the centuries in history, and I don’t know of any instance where such a leader, who left his country after his government fell, has been tried in an international court or in an international forum…
But as I said earlier, I don’t think there’s any forum that will listen to the Iranians make any sort of claim, justified or not, as long as they hold against their will and abuse the hostages, in complete contravention to every international law and every precept or every commitment or principle of humankind.
Within three weeks of the Embassy takeover, about a dozen women and African-Americans were released by the Iranian students in what Khomeini called an act of solidarity with oppressed minority groups in the U.S. Later, a sick hostage was also released. None of the hostages were killed.
Open Hands and Iron Fists
The remaining 52 American hostages were released upon the inauguration of President Ronald Reagan in January 1981, in accordance with the Algiers Accord, an agreement signed by Iran and the United States.
Shortly after the hostage-taking, President Carter imposed sanctions upon Iran and had frozen billions of dollars of Iranian government assets in an act that one U.S. official described as “economic and political warfare.” The Accord assured Iran that all assets would be returned; to date, the U.S. has never complied with this agreement.
The Accord also affirms, as its primary point, that the “United States pledges that it is and from now on will be the policy of the United States not to intervene, directly or indirectly, politically or militarily, in Iran’s internal affairs.”
Since then, not only did the U.S. government renege on this promise two years later when it again imposed sanctions on Iran, it has continued to violate the agreement through relentless and inhumane economic warfare, drone surveillance, covert operations, support for Iranian terrorist groups, and cyber attacks, not to mention the sporadic murder of Iranian civilians.
In March 2009, President Obama delivered a Nowruz message to Iranians and their government in which he declared that his new “administration is now committed to diplomacy that addresses the full range of issues before us, and to pursuing constructive ties among the United States, Iran and the international community” and affirmed that the “process will not be advanced by threats.” Just nine days before this message, however, Obama had announced the extension of economic sanctions on Iran imposed by President Clinton in March 1995 and were set to expire.
Subsequently, Obama has imposed ever more brutal sanctions on the Iranian people, increased arms sales to Iran’s Middle East neighbors, substantially built-up America’s own armaments and warship presence in the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean, expanded covert operations in the region (and in Iran specifically), and has consistently maintained the aggressive posture that “all options are on the table” when it comes to dealing with Iran, code for the willingness of the American executive to commit the supreme international crime of launching a voluntary war.
Nevertheless, this weekend, moviegoers will be treated to a full dose of Western diplomats running scared from angry Middle Eastern mobs, unwitting victims of seemingly irrational rage. Even though Argo‘s audience will obviously be rooting for the daring rescue to succeed, it’s still essential to understand what all those Iranians might have been so upset about.
Vote Screws
Jonik is a long-time contributor of cartoons to National Lampoon, New Yorker, NY Times, Gourmet, Cosmopolitan, Audubon, Fantasy & Science Fiction, Wall St. Journal, Mad, and other national publications. He began also doing editorial cartoons the day after Papa Bush started bombing Baghdad. His editorial work has been published in many alternative publications and is not copyrighted so that activists without budgets can “steal this cartoon.” Those with budgets, however, are nice about sharing that. Read other articles by Jonik, or visit Jonik’s website.
Interview with Beatrix Hoffman: Health Care for Some
Earlier today, we sat down with Professor Beatrix Hoffman, author of the recent book Health Care for Some: Rights and Rationing in the United States Since 1930.
Beatrix was in Grand Rapids to present at the 2012 Great Lakes History Conference at GVSU.
We talked about the history of what she referred to as health care rationing in the US, from the early part of the 20th Century through the Affordable Health Care Act. She talked a bit about the history of grassroots social movements and health care reform, which once again demonstrates that change comes from below, not from those in power.
Beatrix also highlighted three women activists, each of which had a tremendous impact on health care policy and health care rights from the 1930s through the 1980s.
Tariq Ali on the EU receiving the Nobel Peace Prize
This video is re-posted from Democracy Now.
The European Union was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize earlier today for its historic role in uniting the continent. Committee chair Thorbjoern Jagland praised the EU for transforming Europe “from a continent of wars to a continent of peace.” The selection surprised many as it comes at a time when much of Europe is facing an economic crisis that threatens the EU’s future. Just this past week, thousands of Greeks protested in Athens against a visit by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has pushed Greece, Spain and Ireland to enact deep austerity measures.
For more, we go to London to speak with Tariq Ali, political commentator, historian, activist and editor of the New Left Review. “My initial response was to burst out laughing, because this Nobel Peace Prize committee, basically run by clapped-out former politicians in Norway, never fails to amuse and disappoint,” Ali says. “To give the prize to the European Community at a time, effectively, when economically it is promoting unemployment, creating real class divides in virtually every country in Europe, where it has led to enormous violence on the streets of Greece, because of the policies being pushed by the EU … it’s a complete and utter joke.”
Interview with Filmmaker Grace Lee
We had the opportunity to sit down and have a conversation with independent filmmaker Grace Lee, while she was in Grand Rapids for the Great Lakes History Conference at GVSU.
Grace has produced several films, such as The Grace Lee Project and more recently, Janeane From Des Moines, which is a film meant to counter the media created narrative around elections in the US.
We spoke about how Grace got involved in filmmaking, her current project (a film on Detroit activist Grace Lee Boggs), the film Janeane from Des Moines (being screened in many swing states in the US) and the importance of independent media.
Yesterday, MLive ran a brief article with comments from some local Venezuelans on the recent election in their country.
In the MLive article we hear from three Venezuelans, all of which reflect disappoint in the re-election of Hugo Chavez. One of those interviewed for the story, Maria Morin, said the following about the Chavez government:
Society is getting used to depending on the state. That promotes paternalism and nepotism, and people are not becoming financially independent, which I think is what should happen.
Morin also believes that the “educated” people in the country will grow tired of the paternalism and leave Venezuela.
The only contextual information provided by the MLive reporter spoke about how long Chavez has been President and that he, “has remained popular over the years because of his vast social programs funded by Venezuela’s oil wealth.”
While there is some truth to this comment, it comes nowhere near to reflecting what is happening on the ground in Venezuela. One thing the Chavez government has done since 1999, has been to give more autonomy to local communities. The giving of power to local communities is described in detail in a recent book entitled, Venezuela Speaks: Voices from the Grassroots.
Another major omission from the MLive story was the failure to even mention what the US government has been doing to undermine the Chavez government since, beginning with the attempted coup in 2002 that is well documented in the film, The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.
Since the 2002 attempted coup by the US, there have been other means by which the Bush and Obama administrations have sought to undermine the Venezuelan government. This campaign is best described in Eva Golinger’s book, Bush vs Chavez: Washington’s War on Venezuela.
Golinger reveals that Venezuela’s revolutionary process has drawn more than simply the ire of Washington. It has precipitated an ongoing campaign to contain and cripple the democratically elected government of Latin America’s leading oil power. Bush Versus Chávez details how millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars are used to fund groups such as the National Endowment for Democracy, the United States Agency for International Development, and the Office for Transition with the express purpose to support counter-revolutionary groups in Venezuela. It describes how Washington is attempting to impose endless sanctions, justified by fabricated evidence, to cause economic distress. And it illuminates the build-up of U.S. military troops, operations, and exercises in the Caribbean, that specifically threaten the Venezuelan people and government.
The MLive article potentially leaves readers with the impression that the Chavez government is bad for Venezuelans and that the only hope for the country will be the next election that could deposed the current President. It’s not only lazy journalism, it misleads people on a critical point of US foreign policy.
For those wanting solid ongoing analysis of what is taking place in Venezuela, we recommend the site http://venezuelanalysis.com/. There is also this informative interview with Venezuelan Analysis founder Gregory Wilpert on the Real News Network.
Pinkwashing Fracking?
This article by Steve Horn is re-posted from CounterPunch.
The Wizard of Oz was spot on when he said to “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.” That’s good life advice if you fall into the “Ignorance is bliss” camp. For a journalist though, it’s doing the exact opposite that’s a sin qua non for the job.
Kevin Begos of the Associated Press took the Wizard’s advice to heart in his July 22 story titled, “Experts: Some fracking critics use bad science.”
Citing “Gasland” director Josh Fox’s viral video “The Sky is Pink” as an example, Begos wrote, “Opponents of fracking say breast cancer rates have spiked exactly where intensive drilling is taking place — and nowhere else in the state…But researchers haven’t seen a spike in breast cancer rates in the area.”
As his main source of expertise on the breast cancer issue, Begos turned to Chandini Portteus, Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation’s Vice President of Research, Evaluation, and Scientific Programs. Of the connection between fracking and breast cancer she stated, “what we do know is a little bit, and what we don’t know is a lot.”
Sara Jerving of the Center for Media and Democracy came to diametrically different conclusions in her April 2012 probe for PR Watch, writing,
Benzene, which the U.S. EPA has classified as a Group A, human carcinogen, is released in the fracking process through air pollution and in the water contaminated by the drilling process. The Institute of Medicine released a report in December 2011 that links breast cancer to exposure to benzene.
Up to thirty-seven percent of chemicals in fracking fluids have been identified as endocrine-disruptors — chemicals that have potential adverse developmental and reproductive effects. According to the U.S. EPA, exposure to these types of chemicals has also been implicated in breast cancer.
Jerving also cites the piece of evidence that Fox used to tie fracking to breast cancer in “The Sky is Pink,” explaining, “In the six counties in Texas which have seen the most concentrated gas drilling, breast cancer rates have risen significantly, while over the same period the rates for this kind of cancer have declined elsewhere in the state.”
Who, then, are the “men behind Komen’s curtain”?
Many environmental activists are familiar with the “greenwashing” concept. Fewer, though, are familiar with “pinkwashing,” best documented by the book Pink Ribbons, Inc.: Breast Cancer and the Politics of Philanthropy by Samantha King. It’s a concept fully on display with regards to the ties that bind Komen to the shale gas industry.
Komen’s Ties to the Halliburton Loophole
Behind curtain one is Jane Abraham, named to the Komen Board of Directors in May 2012. She’s the “wife of former [U.S.] Senator and U.S. Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham,” according to Komen’s website.
Upon leaving his posts as a Senator and Energy Secretary under the George W. Bush Administration, Spencer fled straight for the Board of Directors of Occidential Petroleum, where he still sits on the Board today. Occidential has fracking operations set up in both California– and North Dakota-based shale basins.
He also is one of the Principals of The Abraham Group, LLC, a consulting firm which, among other things, advises oil and gas industry clientele, headed by his wife Jane.
Spencer Abraham was the Bush Administration’s Secretary of Energy when Vice President Dick Cheney oversaw the Energy Task Force. The Task Force was composed of Cheney, as well as the Secretaries of State, Treasury, Interior, Agriculture, Commerce, Transportation and Energy. It was instrumental in facilitating private meetings between oil and gas executives and upper-level Bush Administration Cabinet members.
In the fracking sphere, one of the crucial outcomes of the Task Force’s meetings was the “Halliburton Loophole.” This clause located within the Energy Policy Act of 2005 allows chemicals found in “fracking fluid” to be deemed a “trade secret,” exempting the shale gas industries from both the Clean Water Act and the Safe Drinking Water Act when they perform hydraulic fracturing for shale gas.
Other Komen Oil and Gas Industry Ties that Bind
Komen also maintains what it calls its “Million Dollar Council,” which receives funding from Koch Industries’ subsidiary, Georgia-Pacific, as well as General Electric (GE). Koch Industries and its many subsidiaries have a major financial stake in shale gas drilling. So too does GE.
Georgia-Pacific “produces resins used for chemicals used to prop open micro-fractures, an important process for fracking to occur,” explained Lee Fang of the Republic Report. Other Koch subsidiaries — including Koch Pipeline, Flint Hills Resources, Koch Supply & Trading and Koch Chemical Technology Group — all have a fiscal future intricately tied to shale gas production, according to Fang’s reporting.
GE, meanwhile, also describes itself as a “massive player” in shale gas production. As I wrote for AlterNet in September 2011:
GE created a device for recycling the water used during the controversial and toxic hydraulic fracturing (fracking) process. Furthermore, it maintains natural gas fueled power plants, and manufactures natural gas-powered turbines, having sold more than $1 billion worth of them in 2011 in the United States, according to Reuters. GE also recently made a deal with Russia to sell between $10 and $15 billion worth of turbines.
The Komen “Million Dollar Council” list also includes a key investor backing oil and gas industry interests, Bank of America, a corporation which boasts on its website of its investments in commodities like coal, oil and natural gas.
Furthermore one of the members of Komen’s Board of Directors, John D. Raffaelli, has spent many years working as an oil and gas industry lobbyist. Described by Komen “as one of the most effective lobbyists in Washington,” Raffaelli served as a hired gun for the American Petroleum Institute, Atlas Energy (which has since been sold to Chevron), General Electric and Edison Electric respectively between 2008-present.
Pink Ribbons, Inc.
In response to a long email query from CounterPunch to Begos questioning numerous aspects of his story, CounterPunch received a short email response from AP’s Director of Media Relations, Paul Colford stating, “The AP stands by his story.”
Fox wasn’t too thrilled with the AP story.
“It is clear to me, as it was from the first moment, that Kevin Begos was not out to give fracking critics a fair shake or look objectively at the facts,” Fox said. “He was deliberately seeking ways to try to discredit the anti-fracking movement and he was willing to twist facts and quotes to serve that purpose while disguising his work as impartial. It is worse than bad journalism, it is highly unethical, dangerous and irresponsible”
It’s unlikely Begos had a vendetta, as Fox suggests. Alternatively, by not doing his homework, Begos was likely unaware that he was serving as a stenographer for the shale gas industry’s stealthy public relations apparatus via Komen.
“Komen has, since its inception, prioritized corporate partnerships over environmental health,” King told CounterPunch. “They do so by providing companies such as General Electric, whose products and practices are linked to cancer, with a platform from which to declare a commitment to ending the disease. At the same time, Komen refuses to prioritize research on the environmental causes of breast cancer and on primary prevention — an unsurprising stance given their dependence on pinkwashing sponsors.”
Grand Rapids Institute for Information Democracy 