Entrenched Washington continues BREAKDOWN

1600 Pennsylvania Ave

Who's keeping track, Who's protecting and correcting

Excerpt, editing by Carolyn Bennett

Who regulates, who stymies regulation in public interest, for the public good?

A new study looking into the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), an in-the-shadows entrenched Reagan-era “refuge for special interests seeking to avoid regulation,” has found that “OIRA routinely substitutes its judgment for that of [Federal] agencies.” The report says this Office second-guesses Federal agencies’ efforts to implement specific mandates assigned to them by the Congress of the United States in statutes such as the Clean Air Act, the Food Quality Protection Act, and the Occupational Safety and Health Act.

 

In this breach [or breakdown], “OIRA systematically undermines congressional intent that specified Federal agencies’ neutral experts in the law, science, engineering, and economics applicable to given industries make the critical decisions” in the public interest and for the public good.

Center for Progressive Reform image

In “Behind Closed Doors at the White House: How Politics Trumps Protection of Public Health, Worker Safety and the Environment,” researchers found that “the regulatory process is as political” in the current administration as it was in the George W. Bush years. The process is “no more transparent; and vigorous enforcement of the nation’s health, safety, and environmental laws has suffered as a result.”

Environmental Protection icon

The November 28 released report says, “…  [A]n executive order (EO 12,866) designed to enhance the transparency and accountability of OIRA’s review process seems to have encouraged OIRA to push its activities even farther into the shadows to escape the order’s requirements. Somewhat inconsistently, though, OIRA does abide by the provisions requiring disclosure of its meetings with outside parties during informal reviews (deciding for itself which parts of the executive order are important enough to comply with).”

 

U.S. FDA

During the Obama presidency, the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs “changed 76 percent of rules submitted to it for review.” In the George W. Bush years, there was “a 64 percent change rate.”

Small local farm

  

Historically, OIRA’s involvement in the rulemaking process has functioned as a “one-way ratchet,” characteristically weakening agency regulations in the interest of economic considerations and rarely if ever working in the other direction.

 

Coal threat

Unequal influence - Turthout

A survey of 30 top political officials at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in both the George H. W. Bush and Clinton administrations found, according to the CPR report, that 89 percent of these officials “answered that OIRA often or always sought to make regulations less burdensome for regulated industries, and rarely or never sought to make regulations more protective of health and
the environment.”

In the period the Center for Progressive Reform conducted its study (October 16, 2001- June 1, 2011), “EPA rules were changed at a significantly higher rate (84 percent) than those of other agencies (65 percent).”

Food threat

The study by the Washington-based group concludes, “OIRA’s institutional biases toward economically minded arguments and sober-minded probabilities favor the arguments of industry groups over those of public interest groups, which are often in the position of urging greater protection against unknowable or unprecedented risks.

UMass-Amherst 

 “The overwhelming abundance of industry-supplied information makes it far more cognitively ‘available’ to OIRA analysts than the rarely heard voices of the public interest community.

The Center for Progressive Reform report released November 28, 2011, announced the results of its six-month analysis of “the bare-bones information OIRA has eked onto the Web regarding 1,080 meetings held over a ten-year period (October 2001-June 2011) with 5,759 outside lobbyists, 65 percent of whom represented industry and 12 percent of whom represented public interest groups.” 

Sources and notes

Study’s further notes

The Center for Progressive Reform report is the first comprehensive effort to unpack the dynamics of OIRA’s daily work, specifically with regard to the only information that is readily available to the public about its internal review process: records of its meetings with lobbyists. These records are perhaps the only accessible accounting of OIRA’s influence. The records demonstrate that in refusing to disclose differences between regulatory drafts as they enter review and the final versions that emerge at the end of that process, OIRA has persistently ignored unequivocal mandates of three presidents — Clinton, George W. Bush, and Obama.

The Center for Progressive Reform study covers OIRA meetings that took place between October 16, 2001 and June 1, 2011. During this period, OIRA conducted 6,194 separate ‘reviews’ of regulatory proposals and final rules. According to the available data, these reviews triggered 1,080 meetings with OIRA staff involving 5,759 appearances by outside participants.

The researchers’ analysis based on an exhaustive evaluation of the impact of White House political interference on the mandates of agencies assigned to protect public health, worker safety, and the environment, reveals a highly biased process that is far more accessible to regulated industries than to public interest groups.

Among the study’s list of the 30 organizations that met with OIRA most frequently, five were national environmental groups (Natural Resources Defense Council at number 2, Environmental Defense Fund at 5, Sierra Club at 6, Earth justice at 8, and Consumer Federation at 30).  

Seventeen were regulated industries, including the American Chemistry Council at 1,  ExxonMobil at 3, American Forest and Paper Association  at 4, American Petroleum Institute at 7, Edison Electric Institute at 9, American Trucking Association at 12, National Association of Home Builders at 13, Air Transport Association at 15, National Association of Manufacturers at 16, National Cattlemen’s Beef Association at 17, and DuPont at 19.

Washington, D.C.-based industry law firms placed at 10 (Hunton & Williams), 14 (Hogan & Hartson), 18 (Crowell & Moring), and 20 (Barnes & Thornburg).

Termed “small” (as in Small Business Administration) is big

“Under the SBA’s own rules, petroleum refineries, ammunition and aircraft manufacturers, line-haul railroads, and pipeline transporters of crude oil can have 1,500 employees and still qualify as ‘small businesses.’

“In their efforts to undermine health and environmental regulations, SBA’s Office of Advocacy representatives often shared OIRA meetings with industrial giants like the American Petroleum Institute, the American Chemistry Council, ExxonMobil, and Atlantic Southeast Airlines—all of them lobbying in tandem for weaker rules.”

The Obama government “[continues] the Reagan and Bush tradition of enthroning OIRA as the final arbiter of whether public health and environmental protections see the light of day.

Centralized White House regulatory review shoves policymaking behind closed doors, wastes increasingly limited government resources, confuses agency priorities, demoralizes civil servants, and, worst of all, costs the nation dearly in lost lives, avoidable illness and injury, and destruction of irreplaceable natural resources.

“New Report: Behind Closed Doors at the White House, Obama Administration Politicizes the Regulatory Process” by Rena Steinzor, November 28, 2011, http://www.progressivereform.org/CPRBlog.cfm?idBlog=EA35C6AD-D47F-EC16-C57E798F4EE9747D

Also CPR blog: “Politicizing the Regulatory Process”

The Behind Closed Doors database; Visit CPR’s “Behind Closed Doors” database CPRBlog post by Rena Steinzor on the report;  The Eye;  CPR’s Eye on OIRA page, http://www.progressivereform.org/OIRASpecInterests.cfm

Rena Steinzor  is Professor of Law at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law, http://www.progressivereform.org/scholarGateway.cfm

The Center for Progressive Reform

CPR also works to open the regulatory process to greater public scrutiny, particularly by facilitating the participation of groups representing the public interest that are often hobbled by restrictions on their ability to access information upon which decision-makers rely.

The Center for Progressive Reform is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit research and educational organization with a network of Member Scholars working to protect health, safety, and the environment through analysis and commentary.

CPR believes sensible safeguards — including doing the best to prevent harm to people and the environment, distributing environmental harms and benefits fairly and protecting the earth for future generations — serve important shared values.

CPR rejects the view that the economic efficiency of private markets should be the only value used to guide government action. CPR supports thoughtful government action and reform to advance the well-being of human life and the environment.

CPR believes people play a crucial role in ensuring both private and public sector decisions that result in improved protection of consumers, public health and safety, and the environment. Accordingly, CPR supports ready public access to the courts, enhanced public participation, and improved public access to information.

Founded in 2002, CPR is a network of university-affiliated Member Scholars (more than 50 around the United States) with expertise in legal, economic, and scientific fields. CPR Member Scholars and staff prepare studies, reports, articles, and other analyses, and participate in educational forums and conferences to promote informed and effective public policy.

Led by CPR President Rena Steinzor (University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law) — the Center for Progressive Reform has a seven-member Board of Directors:

1. John Applegate (Indiana University School of Law Bloomington)
2. Robert L. Glicksman (George Washington University Law School)
3. David Hunter (American University Washington College of Law)
4. Thomas O. McGarity (University of Texas Law, CPR immediate past president)
5. Catherine A. O’Neill (Seattle University School of Law)
6. Sidney A. Shapiro (Wake Forest University School of Law)
7. Amy Sinden (Temple University Beasley School of Law)

http://www.progressivereform.org/aboutCPR.cfm

Also: “Report: Obama Has Weakened More Lobbyist-Opposed Health, Public Safety Regulations Than Bush — A new report shows that Despite a campaign pledge to get lobbyists out of Washington, the Obama White House” — [exceeding its predecessor at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue] — “has weakened regulation in favor of corporate interests. … This is the finding in the latest Center for Progressive Reform study ‘Behind Closed Doors at the White House: How Politics Trumps Protection of Public Health, Worker Safety, and the Environment.’  The study, ‘Behind Closed Doors at the White House: How Politics Trumps Protection of Public Health, Worker Safety, and the Environment,’” November 30, 2011, http://www.democracynow.org/2011/11/30/report_obama_has_weakened_more_lobbyist

UMass-Amherst, College of Natural Resources and the Environment

Clean air, clean water, and healthy soil.

Some things are too important to compromise. 

Help make sure they'll still be possible 

for the next generation. 

And the one after that.

 http://www.umass.edu/nre/getagrip/clueless/page.php?id=1

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Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire http://www.facebook.com/#!/bennetts2ndstudy
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Hearts and minds with Snickers bars

You kill my son then offer me a tree

Occupying troops in Kirkuk
Northeastern Iraq

Excerpt, editing, re-reporting by Carolyn Bennett

“There were several ways to make friends, most of them slow and difficult— among them is to “build relationships … based on trust earned and respect freely given.”

Instead the U.S. Army in Iraq chose million-dollar Humanitarian Assistance (HA) ‘drop’ drives — tree seedlings, dried beans, Snickers bars, says Peter Van Buren in We meant well: How I helped lose the battle for the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people.

The [U.S.] Army drove around looking for places to conduct Humanitarian Assistance (HA) ‘drops,’ Van Buren writes. The soldiers would pull up to a chosen village and hand out “HA bags to whoever showed up to take them”— usually children attracted by bright colored items or Snickers bars.

Today's bombing in Iraq

U.S. Army media and PR people showed up too and captured the HA handout events, making “terrific photos of a soldier holding a kid in his arms, a soldier smiling at a hijab-clad woman.… PR fired off hundreds of frames of the same shot of a smiling Joe handing a Transformer toy to a beaming Iraqi child.”

Anti-war

An ancient people recognize insult

Among Iraqi adults, the handout scenes were decidedly different from those with children. A mother accepted “a blanket without making eye contact”; Iraqi men rarely accepted these giveaways, says Van Buren. “If they showed up at all, they usually stood toward the back of the crowd smoking, their faces hard and blank.”

On a handout occasion involving “fruit tree seedlings,” a local farmer “spat on the ground and demanded, “‘You killed my son and now you are giving me a tree?’…”

“Each repeat of handouts caused loss of respect from a proud people — forced into an uneven relationship,” the author comments.

Anti-occupation

“Resorting to gifts to seem popular was quick and easy but like most quick solutions really didn’t help. Once you started down the path of easy answers, your methods tended to sabotage later efforts to try the harder way. In a counterinsurgency campaign, there were several ways to make friends, most of them slow and difficult, like building relationships within the local community based on trust earned and respect freely given.”

In Iraq, Van Buren says, “Violence did not taper off. No jobs were created. The rich sheikhs who controlled the territory stayed rich and in control. Giving away free stuff reminded folks of Saddam’s [assassinated former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein’s] own clumsy attempts to buy love.”

 Today in U.S. occupied Iraq

Today's blast in occupied Iraq

Daily bomb attacks, roadside bombs and shootings widespread since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. 

In October, more than 250 people died in Iraq.

Today, at least two people died and seven others including a lawmaker suffered injuries in an explosion near the Iraqi parliament in Baghdad.

On Thursday, Thanksgiving USA, 20 people (est.) died and dozens more were injured when multiple bombs exploded in Iraq’s southern port city of Basra.

On Saturday, at least 16 people died and 41 others suffered wounds when a series of bombs exploded in and around the Iraqi capital of Baghdad.

Early Saturday in the village of al-Zaidan, west of Baghdad, 8 people died and 13 others were wounded when two bombs exploded. In Bab al-Sharqi, Baghdad’s central market district, another three bombs exploded killing eight and injuring 28 people.

Sources and notes

We meant well: How I helped lose the battle for the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people, Peter Van Buren. New York: Metropolitan Books Henry Holt and Company, 2011, Chapter: “Humanitarian Assistance” (HA), pages 114-116

“Multiple blasts kills 16 Iraqis, injure 41” (PM/JR/HGH), November 26, 2011,

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/212257.html

"Iraqi MP injured in mortar attack, 2 dead," November 28, 2011, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/212688.html

Also today "Explosion at Iraqi prison gate kills 19-- At least 19 people have been killed and 22 others injured in a car bomb explosion outside an Iraqi prison near the capital, Baghdad, officials say," November 28, 2011 

Photo captions

Foreign soldiers in Kirkuk, city in northeastern Iraq: 145 miles (233 km) north of Baghdad, the national capital, with which it is linked by road and railway.

Website for this imageCANADIAN ANTI-WAR DEMONSTRATION - 2006. Canadian anti-war demonstrators ... efootage.com

CANADIAN ANTI-WAR DEMONSTRATION - 2006

Canadian anti-war demonstrators demand the return of troops from Iraq and Afghanistan.

March 18, 2006 - COLOR

Source: Video: DV

Website for this image

By Tania Cervantes The Guardsman. Jess Ghamman from the Free Palestine ...

theguardsman.com, http://theguardsman.com/author/writer-tancer/

Website for this image, Anti-war demonstrators march through downtown Detroit protesting the fifth flickr.com

Massive Protest in Iraq Against U.S. Occupation

http://www.anti-imperialist.org/iraq-protest_4-14-07.html

Out of Afghanistan - RAWA

http://www.rawa.org/temp/runews/2011/01/24/canada-in-afghanistan-the-big-lie-machine.html

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Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire http://www.facebook.com/#!/bennetts2ndstudy
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U.S. cluster bomb plan fails — what of chemical weapons plan

U.S. plane
dropping cluster bombs
over Baghdad

Call to rid the world of chemical, cluster weapons 
News editing, re-reporting, brief comment by Carolyn Bennett

Bomblets exterminate into the future

Cluster bombs are not only “extremely imprecise weapons” but also they are threats in the future and to the future — they threaten and kill the children. Cluster bomb’s “bomblets” last on land far into the future where children play and are “attracted to the “unusual, toy-like shapes and colors of these killer weapons.

Cluster bomb "bomblets" 

These killer materiel “work by dispersing hundreds of smaller sub-munitions referred to as ‘bomblets’ or grenades.”

On the callous policy of the United States and other war makers and weapons manufacturers (along with the United States, Israel, Russia, China, South Korea, India and Pakistan) — these killer weapons would never be banned or stop killing children. The United States, Israel, Russia, China, South Korea, India and Pakistan have refused to sign the Convention on Cluster Munitions.

Reported earlier on this site, the United States hatched a plan “to establish new rules regarding the manufacture and use of cluster bombs,” a plan to “‘regulate rather than ban’ cluster munitions.”  Joined by five countries (Russia, China, India, Israel and Belarus), the United States pushed this farce at the recent United Nations meeting on conventional weapons in Geneva. However, this time, their deadly mission failed.

Fifty countries said “no” to the U.S. plan.

People on the side of human rights, on the moral side of history urge a total ban on cluster munitions. Ban cluster bombs because of their high failure rate, their indiscriminate performance, and their potential to kill and disfigure civilians long after conflicts end.

A hundred and eleven (111) UN member states have signed the Oslo Convention prohibiting the production, transfer, or use of cluster munitions, while requiring the destruction of stockpiles within eight years.

Also in lethal news—the U.S. puts forth a plan to keep chemical killers

Prohibition of
Chemical Weapons Convention
document

In advance of the Conference on the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons convening at The Hague, the Netherlands, “the United States has let it be known that it plans to keep its arsenal of chemical weapons for many years to come. The country reportedly is seeking to extend by a decade the April 2012 deadline obliging states signatories to the international Chemical Weapons Convention to dismantle their chemical weapons.

Chemical weapons or WMDs supplied by the West were used against Iran in the 1980s by Iraq's later-assassinated head of state, Saddam Hussein. The United States has refused to implement the Chemical Weapons Convention. As one of the main victims of chemical weapons, Iran has called on Washington to abide by international law.

The Hague

The Conference of the States Parties to the Chemical Weapons Convention begins its sixteenth session at the World Forum Convention Center (WFCC) in The Hague tomorrow and ends Friday December 2, 2011.

Sources and notes

“UN kills US cluster bombs proposal,” November 26, 2011, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/212211.html

“U.S. rejects destroying chemical weapons,” November 23, 2011, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/211707.html

“Sixteenth Session of the Conference of the States Parties,” November 28-December 2, 2011, World Forum Convention Center, The Hague, http://www.opcw.org/csp16/

The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) is the implementing body of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC or Convention). Its mandate is to achieve the object and purpose of the Convention, to ensure the implementation of its provisions, including those for international verification of compliance with it and to provide a forum for consultation and cooperation among States Parties. http://www.opcw.org/about-opcw/

The OPCW States Parties represent about 98 percent of the global population and landmass, as well as 98 percent of the worldwide chemical industry.

The OPCW provides all States not Party to the CWC support in preparing to join the CWC and to effectively implement the global ban on chemical weapons.

It is the fastest growing international disarmament organization in history.

The United Nations has called on all States to join the CWC and to rid the world of the threat chemical weapons pose to international security.

Press TV captions

An unexploded cluster bomb revealing a large supply of cluster "bomblets" within (file photo)

An American B-1B Lancer dropping cluster bombs over Baghdad (file photo)

OPCW caption document

http://www.opcw.org/index.

The Hague, The Netherlands, Britannica image

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Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire http://www.facebook.com/#!/bennetts2ndstudy

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Air, land, sea occupation kills indiscriminately

Pakistan's anti-U.S. demonstration

Civilians, “soldiers” die under U.S.-led onslaught, anti-U.S. protests rise

Re-reporting, editing by Carolyn Bennett

Today from the U.S. war on South Central Asia, Islamabad, Pakistan, is now accusing the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, according to Deutsche Welle, of “killing dozens of Pakistani soldiers.”

zesham dot.blogspot image source

“NATO helicopters ‘carried out unprovoked and indiscriminate firing’ in the Mohmand tribal area” — an attack that left “26 Pakistani troops” dead and “14 others” wounded. The news report attributed a statement issued by the governor of the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, Masood Kausar. 

Breach of Pakistan's Sovereignty 

U.S. drone

Following NATO’s Saturday attack of two Pakistani military outposts, the government of Pakistan shut down two border crossings — the Torkham and Chaman border crossings — “the main overland supply routes used by the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan.” An estimated “30 percent” of the Alliance’s “non-lethal supplies pass through the two border crossings.”

Pakistan protests

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani reportedly characterized the aggression, “‘an attack on Pakistan’s sovereignty.’” Moreover, he said, “‘We will not let any harm come to Pakistan’s sovereignty and solidarity.’”

Pakistan’s chief of army staff, General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, said, “‘A strong protest has been launched with NATO/ISAF [demanding] … that strong and urgent action be taken against those responsible for this aggression.’”

U.S. in
Pakistan and Afghanistan

This latest mass killing fuels mounting protests in this region and in East Africa against the U.S. and NATO drone attacks on civilians, occupation and breaches with impunity of national sovereignty.

In an update, Press TV is reporting on this incident, that NATO has “confirmed that the attack has left some Pakistani soldiers dead and has launched an investigation into the incident.”

However, in the northwestern city of Lahore, Pakistan, “activists with the student wing of Jamaat-e-Islami party” (Islami Jamiat Tulba) have reportedly “staged a protest to denounce the killings of soldiers” and “the Pakistani government has ordered the U.S. to vacate an airbase within 15 days.”

Afghanistan

Neighboring Afghanistan

The UN figures released September 28, 2011, said by comparison with the same period last year, violent incidents in the war on Afghanistan “increased by nearly 40 percent.”

Despite or because of an occupation of thousands of forces, “security incidents have averaged 2,108 a month in the first eight months of 2011.”

This week foreign forces continued to kill Afghan civilians, seven this past Wednesday.

U.S. in Iraq

“Afghan civilians have paid a heavy price since the U.S.-led invasion of the country in 2001…   insecurity continues to rise across Afghanistan,” Press TV reports, [and] “the loss of civilian lives at the hand of foreign forces has dramatically increased anti-American sentiments in Afghanistan.”

November 26, 2011

Sites reporting (estimates only)

U.S.-led WAR DEAD

ANTI-OCCUPATION

Iraq Body Count

Documented civilian deaths from violence

103,746 – 113,339

Full analysis of the WikiLeaks’ Iraq War Logs may add

15,000 civilian deaths.

http://www.iraqbodycount.org/

Icasualties dot org

AFGHANISTAN

1,845 U.S. • 2,815 Coalition

http://icasualties.org/OEF/Index.aspx

ANTIWAR, ANTI-OCCUPATION

IRAQ

4,483 U.S. • 4,801 Coalition

http://icasualties.org/Iraq/index.aspx

Sources and notes

“Islamabad accuses NATO of killing dozens of Pakistani soldiers” [Author: Spencer Kimball (AP, AFP, Reuters), Editor: Andreas Illmer], November 26, 2011, DW-WORLD.DE www.dw-world.de | © Deutsche Welle; http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,15559770,00.html

“Pakistan orders U.S. to vacate airbase,” November 26, 2011, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/212301.html

“Death toll continues to rise in Afghanistan” [Author: Marina Joarder (AFP, dpa), Editor: Grahame Lucas], September 29, 2011, http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,6628640,00.html

“U.S.-led forces kill 7 Afghan civilians.” November 24, 2011, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/211898.html

Globe and Mail reports November 22-23/26, 2011

“The U.S. helicopter attack that killed two Pakistani soldiers on September 30 of last year took place south of Mohmand in the Kurram tribal area. A joint U.S.-Pakistan investigation found that Pakistani soldiers fired at the two U.S. helicopters prior to the attack, a move the investigation team said was likely meant to notify the aircraft of their presence after they passed into Pakistani airspace several times. A U.S. airstrike in June 2008 reportedly killed 11 Pakistani paramilitary troops during a clash between militants and coalition forces in the tribal region.

“Pakistan to review co-operation with U.S., NATO after deadly air strike” [Sebastian Abbot, Peshawar, Pakistan — Associated Press], November 26, 2011, http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/pakistan-to-review-co-operation-with-us-nato-after-deadly-air-strike/article2250795/singlepage/#articlecontent

“Pakistan’s ambassador to U.S. resigns” [Affan Chowdhry], November 22-23, 2011, http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/asia-pacific/pakistans-ambassador-to-us-resigns/article2245280/

Helicopter image at http://zesham.blogspot.com/2011/08/pakistan-let-china-see-crashed-us.html
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Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire http://www.facebook.com/#!/bennetts2ndstudy
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Forgotten peoples’ 43-year re-uprising — Wallerstein

1968 global movement 

 “The decisive characteristic” of the current global uprising, Immanuel Wallerstein writes in an opinion piece published this month at Al Jazeera-English, is that it “is the second feature of the world-revolution of 1968.”

Seattle, Washington, USA
1999

Excerpting, editing by Carolyn Bennett

forgotten peoples’ rising

“The world-revolution of 1968 included, in a very major way, a revolution of the ‘forgotten peoples’ — those who had been left out of the concerns of the major organized forces of all political stripes. The forgotten peoples had been told that their concerns, their complaints, their demands were secondary and had to be postponed until some other primary concerns were resolved.

District of Columbia, USA
1963

“Who were these forgotten peoples? 

They were first of all women, half the world’s population. They were secondly those who were defined in a given state as ‘minorities’ — a concept that is not really numerical but rather social (and has usually been defined in terms of race or religion or language or some combination thereof).

Myanmar 2007

“In addition to women and the social ‘minorities,’ there exists a long list of other groups who also proclaimed their insistence on not being forgotten.

Those with ‘other’ sexual preferences. Those who were disabled. 

Those who were the ‘indigenous’ populations in a zone that had been subject to in-migration by powerful outsiders in the last 500 years. 

Greenpeace protest
near Murcia, Spain, 2007

Those who were deeply concerned with threats to the environment. 

Lebanon 2005

Those who were pacifists. The list has continued to grow, as more and more ‘groups’ became conscious of their status as ‘forgotten peoples.’”

As one analyzes one after another Arab state, “one realizes quite quickly that the list of forgotten peoples and their relation to the regime in power varies considerably so the degree to which ‘concessions’ can limit revolt varies. The degree to which ‘repression’ is easy or difficult for the regime varies; but … all regimes want, above all, to stay in power.” 

1970 Kent State University, Ohio, USA
U.S. National Guardsmen 
firing a tear gas

powers relinquish power, hegemony unwillingly

“… [T]he 1968-revolutionaries were against vertical decision-making and in favor of horizontal decision-making — participatory and therefore popular. … [T]he rapid public embrace of this current terrified those in power — the rulers of every Arab state without exception, the governments of the ‘outside’ states who were an active presence in the geopolitics [Britain, France] of the Arab world, even the governments of very distant states [USA]. The spread of an anti-authoritarian logic, and especially its success anywhere, menaced all of them [and] governments of the world joined forces to destroy the ‘1968 current.’…

Yemen protests

“In the ‘Arab Spring,’” … this current is “strongly at work in Tunisia and Egypt…

“One way to stay in power is for some of those who are in power to join the uprising — casting overboard a personage who happens to be the president or ruler in favor of the pseudo-neutral armed forces. This is exactly what happened in Egypt. It is that about which those who are today reoccupying Tahrir Square in Egypt are complaining as they seek to reinvigorate the ‘1968 current.’

Bahrain protests

The problem for the major geopolitical actors is that they are not sure how best to ‘distract’ attention and advance their own interests amidst the turmoil. …” 

despite repression 

‘68 becomes 43-year re-uprising

“[T]he Arab Spring has become one part of what is now very clearly a worldwide unrest occurring everywhere: Oxi in Greece, Indignados in Spain, students in Chile, ‘Occupy’ movements that have now spread to 800 cities in North America and elsewhere, strikes in China and demonstrations in Hong Kong, multiple happenings across Africa.

Birmingham, Alabama, USA
1963

“The ‘1968 current’ is expanding — despite repression, despite concessions, despite co-option.… Those who believe that Arab unrest, that world unrest, is a passing moment will discover in the next major bubble burst (which we can anticipate quite soon) that the ‘1968 current’ will no longer be so easily contained.”

Anti-occupation, Antiwar
March 2009 USA

Sources and notes

“The contradictions of the Arab Spring — The spirit of 1968 flows through Arab Spring and Occupy movement — as its counter-current attempts to suppress uprising” [Immanuel Wallerstein (opinion) is a professor in the department of sociology at Yale University and author of many books including The Modern World System, published in four volumes. …  Professor Wallerstein’s decades of work, critical of global capitalism and supporting ‘anti-systemic movements’ have led to recognition as a world-renowned expert in social analysis … The views expressed in this article are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial policy], November 14, 2011, Source: Al Jazeera,  

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2011/11/20111111101711539134.html

Added source: Immanuel Maurice Wallerstein

Born September 28, 1930 in New York City, Immanuel Maurice Wallerstein is a United States sociologist, historical social scientist, and world-systems analyst. He contributes syndicated commentaries on world affairs. Wallerstein’s interest in world affairs began in his teen years and he began as an expert of post-colonial African affairs as the focus of his studies after an international youth conference in 1951. Until the early 1970s, his publications were almost exclusively devoted to this area. Later he distinguished himself as a historian and theorist of the global capitalist economy on a macroscopic level.

Wallerstein has reportedly cited the ‘world revolution’ of 1968 as having a major influence on his work. Wallerstein is credited with anticipating the growing importance of the North-South divide at a time when the main world conflict was the Cold War. Since 1980, he has argued that the United States is a ‘hegemon in decline’ and was often mocked for this claim but since the Iraq War, this argument has become more widespread.

Wallerstein took his academic credentials at Columbia University (B.A., 1951; M.A., 1954; Ph.D., 1959). He has been on university faculties at McGill and Binghamton; has held several visiting professor positions at universities worldwide and has received many honorary titles.

Immanuel Maurice Wallerstein was on the faculty of Columbia University at the time of the student uprising there and participated in a faculty committee that attempted to resolve the dispute. He has argued in several works that this revolution marked the end of ‘liberalism’ as a viable ideology in the modern world system. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanuel_Wallerstein

Terms

Indignado Movement

The Indignado Movement in Spain is “driven by supreme outrage or indignation (thus ‘Indignado’) at the present economic crisis in Spain.  The Indignados are deeply upset by the way that the political system in Spain works; their argument that there is always, effectively, only two political parties to choose from to govern the country and that both are notable for their corrupt and self-serving politicians.”

In October 17, 2011, “Spanish Indignado movement goes global, safe to buy property in Spain? Spanish bank downgrades…” http://www.culturespain.com/2011/10/17/spanish-indignado-movement-goes-global-safe-to-buy-property-in-spain-spanish-bank-downgrades%E2%80%A6/

Oxi

Anniversary of the ‘No’ celebrated throughout Greece, Cyprus and the Greek communities around the world on October 28 each year to commemorate Greek Prime Minister Ioannis Metaxas’ (in power from August 4, 1936, until January 29, 1941) rejection of the [occupation/war] ultimatum made by Italian dictator Benito Mussolini on October 28, 1940.

Ohi Day (also spelled Ochi Day, Greek: Επέτειος του «’Οχι» Epeteios tou Ohi, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohi_Day

Captions

In 1968, socially and economically marginalized groups of people protested in a global movement [GALLO/GETTY], Al Jazeera

Demonstration against the World Trade Organization in Seattle, Washington, U.S., 1999.

John G. Mabanglo—AFP/Getty Images, Britannica

Buddhist monks protesting in Myanmar, September 2007, Yangon, Myan.

AFP/Getty Images, Britannica

Greenpeace: protest near Murcia, Spain; Greenpeace and other activists protesting the construction of a new harbour near Murcia, Spain, 2005, AFP/Getty Images, Britannica

Lebanon: protest against the Syrian presence in Lebanon, 2005; Thousands of Lebanese gathered in Beirut to protest against the Syrian presence in Lebanon, 2005, Ramzi Haidar—AFP/Getty Images, Britannica

U.S. National Guardsmen firing a tear gas barrage into a crowd of demonstrators at Kent State University, Kent, Ohio, May 4, 1970, Britannica

March on Washington: Civil rights supporters carrying placards at the March on Washington, D.C., August. 28, 1963, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; Warren K. Leffler (digital file: cph ppmsca 03128), Britannica

Civil Rights Movement: Civil rights demonstrator attacked by a police dog on May 3, 1963, in Birmingham, Alabama; Prompted by the revived Ku Klux Klan and by the quickly organized White Citizens Councils, the general reaction of the white South to the sit-ins and other civil rights demonstrations of the 1960s was violence., Bill Hudson/AP, Britannica

Others Press TV
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