Mar 31, 2013

Racism 3 - North-South Cultural Division in The USA

Background:

Morgan Freeman on the tea party, racism and Obama

Racism 1 - North-South Cultural Division in The USA

Racism 2 - North-South Cultural Division in The USA 


This one is interesting. You get to see how the natural racism in war illustrated in part 1 got reversed in World War 2. It was the military service of the Blacks (including the first black air-force guys... half of whom came from my college) that began to open up the USA to accept black people as deserving of equal rights (eventually, at first they just began to make it to "human" status). See for yourself;

First notice what the typical cartoon was like in the 1930's (white people)...




Here is another cartoon from the 1930's (black people)...




This was when black people earned the right for white people to be nice to them (WW2-1941 Cartoon)...





Black people even got thier own fairy tale cartoon made which must have been a big compliment back then (1944)...



In conclusion I would just like to copy and paste part of an article about World War 2 heroes that opened the way for black people to be seen as human which opened up society enough for the civil rights movement of the 70's (dying for your country isn't enough to overthrow centuries of racism, especially for the older generations... who tend to control decision making - from top to bottom - in modern societies). In other words, it took a generation from WW2 to move from 'good boy' to equal rights for blacks. Another generation for blacks to make it into mainstream music and TV (in that order). Another generation for elect a Black President. 3 generations after WW2 their bravery paid off. Now that's a slow moving society. This is the internet age... over half a century away from the following events. Many people involved are still alive and still racists. But as each new generation comes in the color blindness begins to fade... and the old tyrants hold on tighter (which is why we have a sudden clash between old people and young people in our time).



They were among the most heroic fighter pilots in World War Two...

The courageous and daring US Red Tail squadrons destroyed 112 German planes in the air, another 150 on the ground, hundreds of trains and trucks, even a ship.

Their bravery was the stuff of legend. Their devotion to their ­country unquestionable. Scores of pilots were ­awarded medals.

Yet there was no heroes’ return for them after the war. Because the pilots, more than 400 of them, were all black. Recruited in Tuskegee, Alabama, they were organised into segregated squadrons by the US Air Force.

And as 1940s racist America ­celebrated victory, these second-class citizens were simply forgotten and left to drift back to their pre-war poverty-stricken existence of ­segregation and ­humiliation.

Alexander Jefferson (L) and Charles McGee
Alexander Jefferson (L) and Charles McGee
One Red Tail even recalls walking down the gangplank at New York harbour on his return from the war to be given the order “Whites to the right, n******s to the left,” by a white army sergeant.

Theirs is a remarkable and moving story. And in our more enlightened times, certainly worthy of a Hollywood movie.

But when Star Wars creator George Lucas tried to get backing to make a film about the Red Tails it was a tale America didn’t want to tell. Every ­single Hollywood studio turned him down. Again and again over 23 long years.

Hero Harry Stuart
Hero Harry Stuart
“They said ‘No’ because it’s an all-black movie... there are no major white roles,” says producer Lucas, 67. “This was a ­reasonably ­expensive movie and usually black movies are low-budget.”

So he had to spend £61million of his own money to tell the story of the Tuskegee Airmen, who earned their squadron’s nickname by painting their tails red to make each other out from enemy aircraft in bad weather.
“It was 23 years in the making and I ­financed it myself,” he says. “I wanted to make an inspirational movie for teenage boys.

“When I started there were 40 Tuskegee Airmen.

“We’re down to seven. The ­pressure was on me to get it done before they were all gone.”

Red Tails, ­directed by Anthony Hemingway and starring Oscar-winner Cuba ­Gooding Jnr from Jerry Maguire, finally opened in America on Friday.

Though partly filmed in the UK, it has yet to win a release date here or anywhere else outside the US. Even though America has elected a black President, the studios ­still claim there isno market for a film with a mainly black cast.

When he first found out about the Red Tails of the US Air Force’s 332nd Fighter Group, Lucas tracked down some of the surviving veterans and ­listened, shocked and enthralled, to their stories of ­segregation and racial discrimination.

The Tuskegees were elated to learn their heroics would ­finally be acknowledged.

Black airmen were trained separately from whites because of fears of “racial friction” if they were ­allowed to mix.
The first squadron of 26 Red Tails took off for ­occupied Europe in 1943. Despite their lack of experience in the air they proved themselves on their first mission, over the Italian ­island of ­Pantelleria.

All 11,500 ­islanders ­surrendered, one of the few occasions when an enemy hasbeen ­completely overcome with airpower alone.

Despite the success of their first mission, the Red Tails did not get any praise.

They were accused of being “incompetent and cowardly” for not shooting down enough enemy planes ­during the battle and there were calls for the unit to be disbanded.

But the Tuskegee men overcame ­prejudice time and again, flying more than 15,000 combat sorties and 1,578 missions. Of the 445 pilots sent to Europe, 150 were killed in action or died after being captured. Many medals for bravery and distinguished service.


In action the Tails in the 1940s
In action the Tails in the 1940s
But when the Red Tails returned to the US after the war they still suffered ­segregation and ­humiliation.
Tuskegee veteran Alexander Jefferson, now 90, wrote a book called Red Tail Captured, Red Tail Free about his war-time exploits. He was onhis 19th ­mission when he was shot down over France.

He flew to London earlier this month with actor ­Gooding to present a special showing of Double Victory, a ­documentary Lucas made to ­accompany his film.

He says his German captors treated him like any other soldier.

And then he walked down that gangplank in New York and discovered, from the mouth of a racist white army officer, that nothing had changed in the years he had been away.

After the “n*****s to the left” jibe, he and his fellow black servicemen were herded into a separatearea before being despatched back to their bases.

Fellow Red Tail Harry Stewart, 87, says that was typical of the prejudice he faced.

He says: “I flew 43 missions and had three victories hitting Nazi jets over ­Austria. When I came home I wanted to be a pilot for commercial airlines. I was turned down.

“One told me they didn’t accept African-Americans because it wouldn’t inspire confidence in passengers.”
In 1949, when a team from 332nd Fighter Group won the Air Force’s first “Gunnery Meet”, the equivalent of the US Navy’s Top Gun ­competition, their ­victory was not recognised.
The trophy was ­mysteriously “lost” until 1995.

Harry adds: “I am so glad George Lucas decided to tell our story. It’s a delightful, inspirational movie in the John Wayne gung-ho mould.

“It’s a film about prevailing under adverse conditions and youngsters will identify with that.”
Even though Harry failed to get a job with an airline after the war he carried on flying for fun and still ­occasionally takes to the skies.

Another Red Tail, retired Colonel Charles McGee, 91, served as a technical adviser on the film.
He says: “George Lucas was a stickler for a good script. He kept coming back for more ­information and ­ultimately he did a beautiful job. Watching the movie bought back many memories.

“I flew 136 missions over ­Europe. We could have done more but because of segregation we had to wait for replacements.

“Whites couldn’t fly with us even when we needed reinforcements. We accomplished a lot just by being allowed to fly but when we got home awful things ­continued to happen.

“Along with 100 other men, I was refused entry into the whites-only officers’ club. We were all arrested for protesting.

“It took the Civil Rights ­movement in the 1960s to really change things in America but I’m proud of what we did. We prevailed under dire ­circumstances. We opened doors.”

Lucas adds: “They were 19-to 20-year-olds in prop planes going up against combat jets. When they came back after the war they started the Civil Rights ­movement. This is a movie about heroes.”



Related Blog Posts:

Adventures Of The Road Runner PILOT... & Basic Child Psychology!http://www.culturesocietyblog.com/2013/03/adventures-of-road-runner-pilot-basic.html

WW2 - 3 Classic Donald Duck World War 2 Propaganda Cartoonshttp://www.culturesocietyblog.com/2013/03/ww2-3-classic-donald-duck-world-war-2.html

3 Classic Superman World War Two (WW2) Propaganda Cartoons http://www.culturesocietyblog.com/2013/03/3-classic-superman-world-war-two-ww2.html

Bugs Bunny & Donald Duck as World War 2 propaganda heroes!http://www.culturesocietyblog.com/2013/03/bugs-bunny-donald-duck-as-world-war-2.html

USA - Southern racial stereotypes in 1950's Bugs Bunny cartoons that still exist today! http://www.culturesocietyblog.com/2013/03/usa-southern-racial-stereotypes-in.html


Ducktators: An Ancient Cartoon With Modern Lessons http://www.culturesocietyblog.com/2013/03/ducktators-ancient-cartoon-with-modern.html

The Basic Cartoon ACTION Template Was Made in 1935! Check Out "Mickey's Fire Brigade" http://www.culturesocietyblog.com/2013/03/mickeys-fire-brigade-donald-duck-mickey.html 


Racism 2 - North-South Cultural Division in The USA

Background:

Morgan Freeman on the tea party, racism and Obama


Racism 1 - North-South Cultural Division in The USA



While racism is natural to war... the South was the center of slavery and so had a degree of racism that didn't exist in the North. To begin with, according to the Encyclopedia Britannica and Slave Owners arguing for continuation of slavery (or just defending it as the natural order of things)... black people (also called the "Negroid Race") was supposed to be dumber, even the slave owner and father of multiple half breed kids, Thomas Jefferson, confirmed the lower intelligence of his subjects in his studies.

Caveman Inki...


I repeat...black people were CONFIRMED as a low intelligence and inferior race ...this was before equal education increased black literacy and before modern science proved that intelligence has to do with neural connections and NOT the shape of your skull... though some archaeologists still use the outdated 1911 theory of human intelligence in their analysis of archaeological digs. (I like to call this dichotomy "The Fragmentation Of Knowledge". My theory being that while specialization works great for building cars... it doesn't work so good to in education if an intelligent and informed population is your goal. Idiots we already got.)

Thus this cartoon makes sense...

Warner Bros 1940 - Confederate Honey - Banned Cartoon...




The following is a strange cartoon. Jazz had just been invented and was hated by the Nazi's, so it's possible this cartoon has something to do with that (in which case it's meant as a compliment)...


The Old Mill Pond...





Related Blog Posts:

Adventures Of The Road Runner PILOT... & Basic Child Psychology!http://www.culturesocietyblog.com/2013/03/adventures-of-road-runner-pilot-basic.html

WW2 - 3 Classic Donald Duck World War 2 Propaganda Cartoonshttp://www.culturesocietyblog.com/2013/03/ww2-3-classic-donald-duck-world-war-2.html

3 Classic Superman World War Two (WW2) Propaganda Cartoons http://www.culturesocietyblog.com/2013/03/3-classic-superman-world-war-two-ww2.html

Bugs Bunny & Donald Duck as World War 2 propaganda heroes!http://www.culturesocietyblog.com/2013/03/bugs-bunny-donald-duck-as-world-war-2.html

USA - Southern racial stereotypes in 1950's Bugs Bunny cartoons that still exist today! http://www.culturesocietyblog.com/2013/03/usa-southern-racial-stereotypes-in.html

Ducktators: An Ancient Cartoon With Modern Lessons http://www.culturesocietyblog.com/2013/03/ducktators-ancient-cartoon-with-modern.html

The Basic Cartoon ACTION Template Was Made in 1935! Check Out "Mickey's Fire Brigade" http://www.culturesocietyblog.com/2013/03/mickeys-fire-brigade-donald-duck-mickey.html 

Racism 1 - North-South Cultural Division in The USA

Background: Morgan Freeman on the tea party, racism and Obama


Southern Fried Rabbit...

Notice the black banjo player at 2 min 50 secs if called "one of OUR boys" by Yosemite Sam. Same mentality exists today. North Vs South conflict/Civil-War stereotypes in Bugs Bunny cartoons. Middle of the 20th Century.

Rebel Without Claws...



Note: Racism is natural to war....


Horse Hare...



"Half-Breed" at 2 mins. (Wikipedia definition here). North Vs South (Civil War) & Native American Stereotypes in Bugs Bunny cartoons.



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3 Classic Superman World War Two (WW2) Propaganda Cartoons http://www.culturesocietyblog.com/2013/03/3-classic-superman-world-war-two-ww2.html

Bugs Bunny & Donald Duck as World War 2 propaganda heroes!http://www.culturesocietyblog.com/2013/03/bugs-bunny-donald-duck-as-world-war-2.html

USA - Southern racial stereotypes in 1950's Bugs Bunny cartoons that still exist today! http://www.culturesocietyblog.com/2013/03/usa-southern-racial-stereotypes-in.html

Ducktators: An Ancient Cartoon With Modern Lessons http://www.culturesocietyblog.com/2013/03/ducktators-ancient-cartoon-with-modern.html

The Basic Cartoon ACTION Template Was Made in 1935! Check Out "Mickey's Fire Brigade" http://www.culturesocietyblog.com/2013/03/mickeys-fire-brigade-donald-duck-mickey.html 

Headlines March 29, 2013 - Guantanamo, Guns, Illegal Arms Trade, Korea, EPA


Headlines March 29, 2013...











(If video isn't working, click here to visit page)

Arms Treaty Heads for General Assembly Vote After New Objections

A proposed global arms treaty has stalled in talks at the United Nations. On Thursday, Iran, Syria and North Korea blocked adoption of the first international pact to regulate the arms trade, citing a failure to ban weapons sales to armed rebel groups. Despite the three countries’ objections, the treaty is expected to come up for a vote in the General Assembly next week. The U.N. talks marked the latest effort to craft a global standard for regulating the arms trade after the Obama administration blocked an agreement last summer.

Related News Reports:
*** Bribes are a depressingly constant feature of The Shadow World, whether it is the £40 billion Al Yamamah arms deal between BAE and Saudi Arabia, “arguably the most corrupt transaction in trading history”, or the illegal payments made by arms dealers like Ukrainian-Israeli Leonid Minin, who supplied Liberia with weapons worth millions of dollars in return for diamond and timber concessions. The cast of arms dealers like Minin is unsavoury but thoroughly riveting. They range from the superficially glamorous (Adnan Khashoggi) to the downright callous (Yoshio Kodama, “The Monster”, a Japanese war criminal) and the opportunistic (Viktor Bout, the “Merchant of Death”).

The United States and Britain occupy centre stage in this exposé, joined by the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the author’s native South Africa, Sierra Leone, Iraq and Afghanistan. BAE Systems is the arch-villain of the piece, although the American giant Lockheed Martin, together with those US companies like KBR, Halliburton and Blackwater that work closely with the arms industry, run it close.

Feinstein is tough on Washington’s notorious “revolving door” of people and money between the public and private sector. He notes that, within a year of taking office, President George W Bush had given more than 30 arms industry executives and lobbyists senior positions in his administration. ***

 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/8848716/The-Shadow-World-Inside-theGlobal-Arms-Trade-by-Andrew-Feinstein-review.html?fb

North Korea Orders Rocket Unit on Standby as U.S. Denies Provocation

Tensions are continuing to mount between the United States and North Korea. The North Korean regime says it has ordered its rocket units on standby for an attack on regional U.S. military bases after the United States flew nuclear-capable stealth bombers over South Korea. It was the latest threat by North Korea in the standoff over U.S.-South Korean military drills and U.S.-backed Security Council sanctions in response to North Korea’s recent nuclear test. On Thursday, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel rejected assertions the South Korea flights are a provocation.
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel: "We have security issues here that we have to protect, and commitments and our security interests. So, no, I don’t think we’re doing anything extraordinary or provocative or out of the — out of the orbit of what nations do to protect their own interests and assure, as the general said, especially not only to our South Korean ally, but to our other allies in that region, that we must make clear that these provocations by the North are taken by us very seriously and we’ll respond to that."

Metaphor for Korea style politics:



Newtown Shooter Had Massive Arsenal at Home

Police in Connecticut have unsealed key findings of their investigation into the shooting massacre at Newtown’s Sandy Hook Elementary School. The gunman, Adam Lanza, had a massive arsenal of weapons at home, including swords, knives and guns. Other findings at Lanza’s home included a newspaper clipping of another school shooting, several books on autism, a report card from when he attended Sandy Hook, and a certificate from the National Rifle Association bearing Lanza’s name. Lanza used 30-round magazines to fire 154 times at Sandy Hook, killing 26 people in less than five minutes. In a statement, Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy said the fact Lanza opted for the high-capacity magazines instead of the smaller ones he had at home underscores the need for an assault weapons ban.


RELATED BLOG POST:  Gun Debate Nonsense Revisited 1 - The Piers Morgan Debacle 

Guantánamo Attorneys Say Guards Cracking Down on Hunger Strikers; Red Cross Visit Begins

Defense attorneys for hunger-striking prisoners at Guantánamo Bay are accusing military officials of imposing harsh conditions in a bid to halt their protest. An emergency motion filed in federal court says guards are denying prisoners water and keeping camp temperatures at "extremely frigid" levels to increase their discomfort. The prisoners have refused food for nearly two months over intrusive searches and their continued detention without charge. At least three prisoners were hospitalized for dehydration earlier this week. The allegations come as the International Committee of the Red Cross has begun a fact-finding mission at Guantánamo to evaluate conditions for the hunger-striking prisoners.


Stephen Colbert on GuantanamoGitmo detainees craft a dangerous new weapon behind bars that may shatter our aesthetic paradigm...


EPA Set to Unveil New Car, Gasoline Standards

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is set to unveil new federal standards today for cleaner gasoline and vehicles. The rules will reduce sulfur in gasoline by two-thirds and impose pollution limits on all cars by 2017. The Obama administration says the standards will be equal to taking 33 million cars off the roads. They have been held up for well over a year amidst political opposition led by oil industry lobbyists. At least 16 congressional Democrats have signed on to a Republican demand for the rules to be delayed.





Mar 30, 2013

The Emergence Of The Corporate Oil War Economy In The USA (Proven Mostly In Cartoons!)

Background:

In Cartoons: War Bonds, Advertising & War Propaganda 

War & Glory: Selling War Through The Ages... Illustrated IN Cartoons!

Ducktators: An Ancient Cartoon With Modern Lessons 


The following cartoon has a great overview of infrastructure, how taxes are involved, how war affects freedom etc. Adopted for the Air Force in 1954 it has more value today than ever before to provide a much needed overview of how capitalism under a proper Law (or Constitution) is supposed to be. What follows after this first cartoon is a step by step cartoon illustration of how war breaks freedoms, develops a single industry and has led to the current state of affairs of "corporate socialism" or ;bailouts for the rich' and 'on the street' for the rest.

Cartoon: It's Everybody's Business (1954)...


The above cartoon outlines the basic structure of religious and economic freedom that the United States had in the 1950's. The structure is somewhat different now which this post will attempt to illustrate...

Freedom of choice
War cracks freedoms
Freedoms must be replenished
War makes taxes to high for a healthy economy
Important resources get misdistributed and have to be fixed after the war time is over

Taxes (& war bonds) were needed to build war machines for World War 2 against the "axis" powers...


Donald Duck: The Spirit of '43 (1943)

Fell in the public domain because it was made for the American government and all films made for or by the government of the U.S.A. are in the public domain.




All resources are used to develop war machines (in the case of this cartoon, planes)...




Note: The dogfight in the above cartoon was more of a World War 1 and World War 2 thing. Nowadays, planes don't do dog fights (at the speed of sound that's kinda ridiculous anyways).



This next cartoon was made in 1946. It's a Navy Department training video for pilots in Navy Aircraft Carriers...



Notice that the last thing the cartoon says is "Keep The Fleet To Keep The Peace". In Other words, by this time keeping the exceedingly expanded army due to world war 2 became necessary with the commencement of the cold war. Now the war machine could be toned down but the war factories, whose owners had by now been labeled/confirmed as patriots, had the ears of the government and the government and possibly the people probably felt a debt owed to them. This is how crony capitalism begins (seeking to keep certain industries going at war time levels during peacetime... eventually creating a war based economy).



News Reports confirming this image...






The man once regarded as the world's most powerful banker has bluntly declared that the Iraq war was 'largely' about oil.

Appointed by Ronald Reagan in 1987 and retired last year after serv
ing four presidents, Alan Greenspan has been the leading Republican economist for a generation and his utterings instantly moved world markets.

In his long-awaited memoir - out tomorrow in the US - Greenspan, 81, who served as chairman of the US Federal Reserve for almost two decades, writes: 'I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil.'

In The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World, he is also crystal clear on his opinion of his last two bosses, harshly criticising George W Bush for 'abandoning fiscal constraint' and praising Bill Clinton's anti-deficit policies during the Nineties as 'an act of political courage'. He also speaks of Clinton's sharp and 'curious' mind, and 'old-fashioned' caution about the dangers of debt.

Greenspan's damning comments about the war come as a survey of Iraqis, which was released last week, claims that up to 1.2 million people may have died because of the conflict in Iraq - lending weight to a 2006 survey in the Lancet that reported similarly high levels.

More than one million deaths were already being suggested by anti-war campaigners, but such high counts have consistently been rejected by US and UK officials. The estimates, extrapolated from a sample of 1,461 adults around the country, were collected by a British polling agency, ORB, which asked a random selection of Iraqis how many people living in their household had died as a result of the violence rather than from natural causes.

Previous estimates gave a range between 390,000 and 940,000, the most prominent of which - collected by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and reported in the Lancet in October 2006 - suggested 654,965 deaths.





The economics of this situation is in this hip-hop video, towards the end...

Hayek VS Keynes Part 2 ...


Fight of the Century, Keynes vs. Hayek from Seo on Vimeo.


Note: $1.2 trillion for an outdated plan that doesn't work! = "In fact, the entire $1.2 trillion dollars that the sequester is supposed to save could be realized by cutting one unneeded, wasteful boondoggle: the $1.5 trillion F-35 fighter program. The F-35, billed as the next generation all-purpose military fighter and bomber, has been an unmitigated disaster. Its performances in recent tests have been so bad that the Pentagon has been forced to dumb-down the criteria. It is overweight, overpriced, and unwieldy. It is also an anachronism: we no longer face the real prospect of air-to-air combat in this era of 4th generation warfare. The World War II mid-air dogfight era is long over" http://the-free-foundation.org/tst3-3-2013.html

At the end of the above video, where you see cronies lighting cigars with money i.e. the people giving each other money while starving the rest of the country is explained now...


How war and oil combined together....

Propaganda Cartoon: Destination Earth (1956)

In this corporate-sponsored cartoon, Martian dissidents learn that oil and competition are the two things that make America great.




The above was made in 1956. There were 1000's of oil companies. An INCREASING Standard of Living. Oil was constantly being found. Competition was important. That was before the subsidies for oil companies while making billions in profits. That was before the CIA moved to Iran for oil and set up a puppet Shah that tortured it's citizens. Then the Iranian Revolution happened. People in the States heard about the second but not the first. The war economy continues under the consciousness of the American public as uncovered by PBS in 1987. Now there are only a few oil companies...

[ Note: This image is edited from "Capitalism Visualized"  - I found the link to the above image from BillMoyers.com (at the bottom of the page of Bill Moyers Interview of David Stockman on "Crony Capitalism") ]


Eventually, from 1000's of companies that were supposed to exist according to the promise of America from World War 2 onwards, this is the structure that emerged that is clearly not democratic or fair...




This lack of fairness leads to gross inequalities which many have taken to calling "Corporatism" or "Socialism for the Rich". i.e. stuff like this...




More detail into the US Corporate Oil industry here:





Background:

Documentary: Fuel

3. Energy/Oil (Documentary "Fuel")  - Director Josh Tickell takes us along for his 11 year journey around the world to find solutions to America's addiction to oil. A shrinking economy, a failing auto industry, rampant unemployment, an out-of-control national debt, and an insatiable demand for energy weigh heavily on all of us. Fuel shows us the way out of the mess we're in by explaining how to replace every drop of oil we now use, while creating green jobs and keeping our money here at home. The film never dwells on the negative, but instead shows us the easy solutions already within our reach.


Quick Reference:



A. Evidence On Fracking...

Fracking DID cause ELEVEN earthquakes in Ohio last year

How fracking might have led to an Ohio earthquake

Ohio Earthquake Likely Caused by Fracking Wastewater

News Report: "In what the Pennsylvania governor says will 'level the playing field for gas exploration', a controversial bill has been passed, rendering previous zoning laws void"


Mother Jones On Fracking:

There are plenty of reasons to worry about fracking—groundwater contamination, methane leaks, that flaming tap water thing. But can it really cause earthquakes? That's the question the US Geological Survey set out to answer after a spate of tremors in the Midwest—an area not usually known for earthquakes—alerted scientists to the possibility that some of them might be man-made.

Seismic activity in the Midwest started increasing around 12 years ago but picked up significantly in the past few years, says seismologist Bill Ellsworth, the lead author of a new USGS study examining potential links between fracking and earthquakes in the region. Since 1970, the baseline for earthquakes in the Midwest measuring above a 3.0 hovered at around 21 per year, but beginning in 2001, that number began to rise. There's been a "remarkable increase" in the past few years: The number of 3.0-plus earthquakes rose from 29 in 2008 to 50 in 2009, then to 87 in 2010, and in 2011 to a staggering 134. Something unusual was going on, but what? As Ellsworth and his colleagues at USGS ask in the study, "Is this increase natural or manmade?" And if it's man-made, is fracking—which has ramped up in the region in the past several years—to blame?
-


B. On Keystone Pipeline

Citizen voices (rights vs oil company profits - as there are no long-term civilizan benefits)

1. Citizens don't want their property destroyed: "See the land owners and citizens of Nebraska as they voice thier concerns about the Trans Canada XL Pipeline which could affect the protected Sandhills and drinking water supply"

2. The Keystone Pipeline creates ONLY a few temporary jobs (i.e. it's a pipeline... how many people do you need to manage the pipes in your house? None): "The State Department said in a report to Congress yesterday that the pipeline would create 5,000 to 6,000 construction jobs during the two years needed to build the project, based on labor expenses TransCanada included in its application."









A. Sex For Oil Scandal At Interior Department (CBS/ AP) Government officials handling billions of dollars in oil royalties engaged in illicit sex with employees of energy companies they were dealing with and received numerous gifts from them, federal investigators said Wednesday. The allegations of bad behavior involve 13 government employees in Denver and Washington, reports CBS News investigative correspondent Sharyl Attkisson. Those accused are workers who sell U.S. mineral rights to oil companies. Such sales are one of the government's biggest sources of revenue besides taxes. But the Inspector General for the Interior Department says they rigged contracts, and engaged in illegal moonlighting, drugs, sex and gift-taking from oil company representatives, according to three reports released Wednesday. The reports revealed startling allegations including that an employee attended a so-called "treasure hunt" in the desert with all expenses paid by an oil producer, and that a former supervisor - who bought cocaine from a colleague then boosted her performance award - had sex with subordinates, and steered government contracts to an outside business where he also worked, Attkisson reports.

B. Billions Missing From U.S. Indian Trust Fund
In his testimony before Congress, John Echohawk, director of Native American Rights Fund, called it "yet another serious and continuing breach in a long history of dishonorable treatment of Indian tribes and individual Indians by the United States government." Arizona Senator John McCain, the chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, bluntly called it "theft from Indian people." These men were describing the single largest and longest-lasting financial scandal in history involving the federal government of the United States. With no other recourse left at their disposal, NARF, along with other attorneys, filed a class action lawsuit in federal district court on June 10 on behalf of more than 300,000 American Indians. The suit charges Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt, Assistant Interior Secretary of the Interior for Indian Affairs Ada Deer and Secretary of the Treasury Robert Rubin with illegal conduct in regard to the management of Indian money held in trust accounts and managed by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. If the lawsuit's claims are correct, and there's an overwhelming body of evidence that suggests they are, then the federal government has lost, misappropriated or, in some cases, stolen billions of dollars from some of its poorest citizens.

XL Pipeline, Fracking and Oil Scandal: Koch company declared 'substantial interest' in Keystone XL pipeline: Document filed with Canada's Energy Board appears to cast doubt on claims by Koch Industries that it has no interest in the controversial pipeline.


Some news reports of extreme corruption in the Department of the Interior;

Sex For Oil Scandal At Interior Department (CBS/ AP) Government officials handling billions of dollars in oil royalties engaged in illicit sex with employees of energy companies they were dealing with and received numerous gifts from them, federal investigators said Wednesday. The allegations of bad behavior involve 13 government employees in Denver and Washington, reports CBS News investigative correspondent Sharyl Attkisson. Those accused are workers who sell U.S. mineral rights to oil companies. Such sales are one of the government's biggest sources of revenue besides taxes. But the Inspector General for the Interior Department says they rigged contracts, and engaged in illegal moonlighting, drugs, sex and gift-taking from oil company representatives, according to three reports released Wednesday. The reports revealed startling allegations including that an employee attended a so-called "treasure hunt" in the desert with all expenses paid by an oil producer, and that a former supervisor - who bought cocaine from a colleague then boosted her performance award - had sex with subordinates, and steered government contracts to an outside business where he also worked, Attkisson reports.


Days Before Scandal, Interior Got Ethics Award Oh, the irony. Just before the Department of Interior's inspector general released reports that laid bare the oil-and-sex scandal in the department's oil royalties office this week, Interior won an annual award from the federal Office of Government Ethics, The Post's Mary Pat Flaherty and Derek Kravitz report. The inspector general said Wednesday that federal officials in the Mineral Management Service's royalty-in-kind program allegedly were plied with alcohol and expensive gifts from industry representatives, and in some cases had sex and did drugs with them. The Denver-area office takes in roughly $4 billion each year in oil and natural gas reserves from companies drilling on federal and Indian land and offshore. 



Oil Industry and Government connections
 
(Image is edited from here - Found this image through Bill Moyers.com)


Solyndra Scandal: 5 More U.S. Energy Scandals

2005: Halliburton and Iraq: The Texas oil giant reportedly overcharged $108 million for work in Iraq, but reports didn't leak until after the 2004 election. Former Vice President Dick Cheney, who was once chief executive, came under fire for his connection to the company. Nonetheless, Halliburton continued to be awarded government contracts, such as in 2006 when subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root received a $385 job to build immigration detention centers in the U.S. for the Department of Homeland Security.

Over the last eight years, President Bush, Vice President Cheney and their Republican allies in Congress have fallen over themselves to give oil companies huge tax breaks. They have repeatedly blocked meaningful progress toward energy independence and they have shown no interest in taking on the unchecked speculation that has created extreme volatility in energy markets and pushed oil and gas prices upward. Yesterday, addressing the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Vice President Cheney said, "We have to recognize that there isn't anything out there that is going to get us away from a hydrocarbon economy anytime in the near future. There really isn't anything on the horizon that today is economic, relative, for example, to basic, good old oil and gas." Not surprising coming from an oil man, and the man who sat down with oil company lobbyists behind closed doors to write the current failed policy. But those remarks show the bankruptcy of the Republican vision on energy. It's a vision of the status quo, invested in the problem, not in finding a solution. And it just doesn't cut it.

Note: A closed door meeting on a ‘failed’ policy that put Halliburton at number one and helped Exxon have the largest profits EVER. I wonder how many other failed policies have helped the oil companies?


The following is from an old book called Unequal Democracy

The recession of 1974-1975 was triggered by a massive oil price shock engineered by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). The real price of oil increased by 140% in 1974, throwing the industrial sector of the United States and other advanced economies into a tailspin. Accidental president Gerald Ford entered the White House in the midst of a major economic crisis not of his own making.

  With all the evidence of corruption above, the following connections between General Electric and it's (initial) lack of taxes makes complete sense, as it's part of the government so obviously it will create policy that will benefit them...


With so many corporations so firmly embedded in the government, it's funny the kind of tax breaks for multi-billion dollar profit companies you hear about. Jon Stewart explains...


Conclusion:

Crony Capitalism has existed for a long time. So energy companies have been able to get government officials to pass legislation that helps them make more money. So they get tax breaks, loopholes, subsidies while the rest of the economy suffers and they make huge profits (and in some cases, record breaking profits).

Top Ten Tax Avoiders

[Senator Bernie Sanders] BURLINGTON, Vt., March 27 - While hard working Americans fill out their income tax returns this tax season, General Electric and other giant profitable corporations are avoiding U.S. taxes altogether.
With Congress returning to Capitol Hill on Monday to debate steep spending cuts, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said the wealthiest Americans and most profitable corporations must do their share to help bring down our record-breaking deficit.
Sanders renewed his call for shared sacrifice after it was reported that General Electric and other major corporations paid no U.S. taxes after posting huge profits. Sanders said it is grossly unfair for congressional Republicans to propose major cuts to Head Start, Pell Grants, the Social Security Administration, nutrition grants for pregnant low-income women and the Environmental Protection Agency while ignoring the reality that some of the most profitable corporations pay nothing or almost nothing in federal income taxes.
Sanders compiled a list of some of the 10 worst corporate income tax avoiders.
1)      Exxon Mobil made $19 billion in profits in 2009.  Exxon not only paid no federal income taxes, it actually received a $156 million rebate from the IRS, according to its SEC filings.  (Source: Exxon Mobil's 2009 shareholder report filed with the SEC here.)
2)      Bank of America received a $1.9 billion tax refund from the IRS last year, although it made $4.4 billion in profits and received a bailout from the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department of nearly $1 trillion. (Source: Forbes.com here, ProPublica here and Treasuryhere.)
3)      Over the past five years, while General Electric made $26 billion in profits in the United States, it received a $4.1 billion refund from the IRS. (Source: Citizens for Tax Justice hereand The New York Times here.  Note: despite rumors to the contrary, the Times has stood by its story.)
4)      Chevron received a $19 million refund from the IRS last year after it made $10 billion in profits in 2009.  (Source: See 2009 Chevron annual report here.  Note 15 on page FS-46 of this report shows a U.S. federal income tax liability of $128 million, but that it was able to defer $147 million for a U.S. federal income tax liability of $-19 million)
5)      Boeing, which received a $30 billion contract from the Pentagon to build 179 airborne tankers, got a $124 million refund from the IRS last year. .  (Source: Paul Buchheit, professor, DePaul University, here and Citizens for Tax Justice here.)
6)      Valero Energy, the 25th largest company in America with $68 billion in sales last year received a $157 million tax refund check from the IRS and, over the past three years, it received a $134 million tax break from the oil and gas manufacturing tax deduction. (Source: the company's 2009 annual report, pg. 112, here.)
7)      Goldman Sachs in 2008 only paid 1.1 percent of its income in taxes even though it earned a profit of $2.3 billion and received an almost $800 billion from the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury Department.  (Source: Bloomberg News here, ProPublica here, Treasury Department here.)
8)      Citigroup last year made more than $4 billion in profits but paid no federal income taxes. It received a $2.5 trillion bailout from the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury. (Source: Paul Buchheit, professor, DePaul University, here, ProPublica here, Treasury Department here.)
9)      ConocoPhillips, the fifth largest oil company in the United States, made $16 billion in profits from 2006 through 2009, but received $451 million in tax breaks through the oil and gas manufacturing deduction.  (Sources: Profits can be found here.  The deduction can be found on the company's 2010 SEC 10-K report to shareholders on 2009 finances, pg. 127,here)
10)  Over the past five years, Carnival Cruise Lines made more than $11 billion in profits, but its federal income tax rate during those years was just 1.1 percent.  (Source: The New York Times here)
Sanders has called for closing corporate tax loopholes and eliminating tax breaks for oil and gas companies. He also introduced legislation to impose a 5.4 percent surtax on millionaires that would yield up to $50 billion a year. The senator has said that spending cuts must be paired with new revenue so the federal budget is not balanced solely on the backs of working families.
"We have a deficit problem. It has to be addressed," Sanders said, "but it cannot be addressed on the backs of the sick, the elderly, the poor, young people, the most vulnerable in this country.  The wealthiest people and the largest corporations in this country have got to contribute. We've got to talk about shared sacrifice."



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