Tuesday, 31 December 2013

TOP 25 CENSORED STORIES FROM 2012-2013


Well, silly me. I get this ready and find that this is LAST year's list! Still relevant. Guess I better get to work and finish up the new list! Sigh.... Or is this the latest? A tad confused here but then.... Happy New Year! So what else is new?
December 30, 2013

The presentation of this year’s Top 25 stories extends the tradition originated by Professor Carl Jensen and his Sonoma State students in 1976, while reflecting how the expansion of the Project to include affiliate faculty and students from campuses across the country and around the world ~ initiated several years ago as outgoing director Peter Phillips passed the reins to current director Mickey Huff ~ has made the Project even more diverse and robust. During this year’s cycle, Project Censored reviewed 233 Validated Independent News stories (VINs) representing the collective efforts of 219 college students and 56 professors from 18 college and university campuses that participate in our affiliate program and 13 additional community evaluators.

 

25. ISRAEL GAVE BIRTH CONTROL TO ETHIOPIAN IMMIGRANTS WITHOUT THEIR CONSENT

In January 2013, Israel acknowledged that medical authorities have been giving Ethiopian immigrants long-term birth-control injections, often without their knowledge or consent. The Israeli government had previously denied the charges, which were first brought to light by investigative reporter Gal Gabbay in a December 8, 2012, broadcast of Israeli Educational Television’s news program, Vacuum. In January, the Israeli Health Ministry’s director-general, Ron Gamzu, ordered all gynecologists to stop administering the drugs.
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Gabbay interviewed over thirty women from Ethiopia in an attempt to discover why birth rates in the immigrant community were so low. Israeli medical authorities had been injecting women of Ethiopian origin with Depo-Provera, a highly effective and long-lasting form of contraception. In some cases, the drugs were reportedly administered to women waiting in transit camps for permission to immigrate to Israel. Writing for the Electronic Intifada, Ali Abunimah makes the case that, “if the allegations are proven, this practice may fit the legal definition of genocide.”
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Nearly 100,000 Ethiopian Jews have moved to Israel under the Law of Return since the 1980s, but some rabbis have questioned their Jewishness. In May 2012, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ignited controversy when he warned that illegal immigrants from Africa “threaten our existence as a Jewish and democratic state.”
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CENSORED #25
ISRAEL GAVE BIRTH CONTROL TO ETHIOPIAN IMMIGRANTS WITHOUT THEIR CONSENT
Alistair Dawber, “Israel Gave Birth Control to Ethiopian Jews without Their Consent,” Independent, January 27, 2013, 
Ali Abunimah, “Did Israel Violate the Genocide Convention by Forcing Contraceptives on Ethiopian Women?” Electronic Intifada, January 28, 2013,
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Beth Brogan, “Israel Admits Forced Birth Control For Ethiopian Immigrants,” Common Dreams, January 29, 2013, 
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Student Researchers: Shanti Williams (College of Marin); Elizabeth Saechao (Sonoma State University)
Faculty Evaluator: Andy Lee Roth (College of Marin); Noel Byrne (Sonoma State University)

 

24. WIDESPREAD GMO CONTAMINATION: DID MONSANTO PLANT GMOS BEFORE USDA APPROVAL?

Monsanto introduced genetically modified alfalfa in 2003 ~ a full two years before it was deregulated, according to recently released evidence. 
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Global Research reported that a letter from Cal/West Seeds indicated that “evidence of contamination was withheld and the USDA turned a blind eye to proof of contamination,” thus allowing widespread GMO contamination of GMO-free crops. The Cal/West Seeds letter to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) stated they found the Roundup Ready gene in foundation production lots seeds in 2005: according to the letter, the GMO-contaminated foundation seed originated in 2003 from a field in Solano County, California. The letter stated, “Cal/West Seeds had zero access to Roundup Ready seed at that time; therefore we assume the contamination originated from an external source.”
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Alfalfa is a perennial plant that grows for more than two years and may not need to be replanted each year like annuals. As a perennial, it is exceptionally vulnerable to contamination. This genetically modified alfalfa could quickly spread to crops across the US, threatening the integrity of organic products ~ including organic meat and dairy products, if those animals are fed alfalfa believed to be GMO-free, but are in fact carrying Monsanto’s patented genetically modified trait.
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In 2010, the USDA released a Final Environmental Impact Statement that acknowledged awareness of the GMO alfalfa spreading its traits to non-GMO alfalfa as far back as 2003. Not only was the USDA aware of the scandal, but the agency also deregulated genetically modified alfalfa with full awareness of the environmental dangers and contamination concerns.
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CENSORED #24
WIDESPREAD GMO CONTAMINATION: DID MONSANTO PLANT GMOS BEFORE USDA APPROVAL?
Cassandra Anderson and Anthony Gucciardi, “Widespread GMO Contamination: Did Monsanto Plant GMOs Before USDA Approval?”, Global Research, May 4, 2012,
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Student Researcher: Adam Hotchkiss (Sonoma State University)
Faculty Evaluator: Greg Hicks (Mendocino College)

 

23. TRANSACTION TAX HELPS CIVILIZE WALL STREET AND LOWER THE NATIONAL DEBT

In February 2013, United States senators Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and Peter DeFazio (D-Oregon) introduced a bill to implement a new tax of three basis points (that is, three pennies for every hundred dollars) on most non-consumer stock trades. If made law, the tax could generate $350 billion in federal revenues over the next ten years.
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Describing the proposed tax as a “simple matter of fairness and fiscal sanity,” Senator Harkin elaborated, “We need the new revenue generated by this tax in order to reduce deficits (after sequestration) and maintain critical investments in education, infrastructure, and job creation. . . . Wall Street (investors) can easily bear this modest tax.”
Because the tax is percentage-based, large transactions would be harder hit; most middle-class investors would see minimally increased charges. 
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The tax would also help curb overzealous market speculation by discouraging the large-sum, short-term, risky trading that tends to put the economy in a fragile state.
This bill has been proposed in previous congressional sessions, yet it has been underreported in the corporate media, making it hard to gain public support.
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France recently became the first country in Europe to pass such a tax. French finance minister Pierre Moscovici said the law marks “the first step toward fiscal reform and a move toward justice.” Ten other European countries are discussing similar laws. For the US, the Harkin–DeFazio transaction tax would be a major step in civilizing speculative investment, stabilizing the economy, and reducing the national debt.
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CENSORED #23
TRANSACTION TAX HELPS CIVILIZE WALL STREET AND LOWER THE NATIONAL DEBT
George Zornick, “Financial Transactions Tax Introduced Again—Can It Pass This Time?,” Nation, February 28, 2013,
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“Lawmakers Introduce Targeted Wall Street Trading Tax,” Albany Tribune, February 28, 2013,
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Gregory Heires, “As the Misguided $1.4 Trillion Cuts Begin, a Wall Street Tax Looks Like a No-Brainer,” Reader Supported News, March 7, 2013, 
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Helene Fouquet and Adria Cimino, “French Lawmakers Pass Trading Transaction Tax,” Bloomberg Businessweek, August 1, 2012,
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Student Researcher: Marisa Soski (San Francisco State University)
Faculty Evaluator: Kenn Burrows (San Francisco State University)

 

22. PENNSYLVANIA LAW GAGS DOCTORS TO PROTECT BIG OIL’S “PROPRIETARY SECRETS”

In communities affected by hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” people understand that this process of drilling for natural gases puts the environment and their health at risk. In February 2013, legislators in Pennsylvania ~ a state on the forefront of a national debate over fracking ~ passed a law that requires oil companies to disclose the identity and amount of chemicals used in fracking fluids to health professionals who request the information so that they can diagnosis or treat patients who may have been exposed to hazardous chemicals.
However, as Kate Sheppard reported for Mother Jones, a provision in the new bill requires those health professionals to sign a confidentiality agreement stating that they will not disclose that information to anyone else ~ not even their own patients.
The companies deem the chemical ingredients used in the process as “proprietary secrets.”
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The crucial provision gagging doctors was added after the bill was introduced, so many lawmakers did not recognize the broad, problematic alterations to the proposed law. Pennsylvania State Senator Daylin Leach told Mother Jones,
“The importance of keeping it as proprietary secret seems minimal when compared to letting the public know what chemicals they and their children are being exposed to.”
An addendum to the Mother Jones report noted that Patrick Henderson, the energy executive for Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett, said that others’ interpretation of the law is inaccurate. Doctors will still be allowed to share information with their patients. However, Kate Sheppard reported, “the actual terms of the confidentiality agreements have not yet been drafted, and there seems to be pretty wide confusion in the state about what exactly the bill as signed into law would mean.”
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Under the Obama administration, the Environmental Protection Agency has pressed oil companies to voluntarily provide information about fracking fluids, but the industry has largely rebuffed those appeals.
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CENSORED #22
PENNSYLVANIA LAW GAGS DOCTORS TO PROTECT BIG OIL’S “PROPRIETARY SECRETS”
Kate Sheppard, “For Pennsylvania’s Doctors, a Gag Order on Fracking Chemicals,” Mother Jones, March 23, 2012,
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Christopher Banks, “Pennsylvania Law Gags Doctors,” Liberation News, June 13, 2012, http://www.pslweb.org/liberationnews/news/pennsylvania-law-gags-doctors.html.
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Student Researcher: Lyndsey Casey (Sonoma State University)
Faculty Evaluator: Peter Phillips (Sonoma State University)

 

21. MONSANTO AND INDIA’S “SUICIDE ECONOMY”

Monsanto has a long history of contamination and cover-up. In India, another Monsanto cover-up is ongoing. Since 1995, nearly 300,000 Indian farmers have committed suicide due to massive debt. Monsanto has argued that these suicides have no single cause. However, there is clear evidence that Monsanto’s Bt cotton is implicated. Physicist and author Vandana Shiva has been monitoring what is going on in these rural farming towns.
Shiva noted, “The price per kilogram of cotton seeds [has gone] from 7 to 17,000 rupees. . . . Monsanto sells its GMO seeds on fraudulent claims of yields of 1,500 kg/year when farmers harvest 300–400 kg/year on an average.” Shiva and other critics have concluded that Monsanto’s profit-driven policies have led to a “suicide economy” in India.
A new documentary film, Dirty White Gold by Leah Borromeo, goes beyond the issue of farmer suicides to explain how the global fashion industry and international consumer habits contribute to Indian farmers’ hardships. Dirty White Gold examined the cotton supply chain, with the aim of generating support for legislation that will, in Borromeo’s words, “make ethics and sustainability the norm in the fashion industry.”
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Monsanto’s horrific impact in India is also showcased in an earlier documentary, Bitter Seeds, directed by Micha X. Peled, which follows a teenage girl whose father committed suicide due to debt. Bitter Seeds showcased the major problems people in India are having, and how Monsanto lies directly to Indian farmers, going as far as making up fictitious farmers who “have success” with the new Bt cotton. Monsanto has claimed that there has also been a 25 percent reduction in pesticide costs. In Bitter Seeds, both of these claims were proven false.
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CENSORED #21
MONSANTO AND INDIA’S “SUICIDE ECONOMY”
Belen Fernandez, “Dirty White Gold,” Al Jazeera, December 8, 2012, http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/12/201212575935285501.html.
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Jason Overdorf, “India: Gutting of India’s Cotton Farmers,” Global Post, October 8, 2012, http://www.globalpost.com/dispatches/globalpost-blogs/america-the-gutted/india-cotton-farmers-monsanto-suicides.
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Student Researcher: Nicole Anacker (College of Marin)
Faculty Evaluator: Susan Rahman (College of Marin)

 

20. ISRAEL COUNTED MINIMUM CALORIE NEEDS IN GAZA BLOCKADE

Declassified documents reveal that the Israeli military calculated how many calories a typical Gazan would need to survive, in order to determine how much food to supply the Gaza Strip during Israel’s 2007–2010 blockade. The Israeli human rights group Gisha, which campaigns against Israel’s Gaza blockade, fought a legal battle to force the Israeli Ministry of Defense to release the documents.
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Israel began its blockade in September 2007, identifying Gaza as a “hostile territory” that had been “seized” by Hamas. Israel claimed that the blockade was necessary to weaken Hamas. Critics accused the Israeli government of targeting Gaza’s more than 1.5 million people in its failed effort to overthrow Hamas.
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In the food calculation, Israel applied the average daily requirement of 2,279 calories per person to determine that it would allow roughly 1,836 grams of food per person, per day. Food imports to Gaza were cut by nearly 75 percent, from 400 trucks per day to 106 trucks per day, five days a week, from the start of the blockade.
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“How can Israel claim that it is not responsible for civilian life in Gaza when it controls even the type and quantity of food that Palestinian residents of Gaza are permitted to consume?” asked Sari Bashi, Gisha’s executive director, in a statement. After Gisha published the documents, Israeli defense ministry official Guy Inbar defended the Israeli research paper as something “that came up in two discussions” but was “never made use of.”
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These developments occurred against the backdrop of a diplomatic cable from 2008 showing that Israel informed US officials that it would keep Gaza’s economy “on the brink of collapse” while avoiding a humanitarian crisis.
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CENSORED #20
ISRAEL COUNTED MINIMUM CALORIE NEEDS IN GAZA BLOCKADE, DOCUMENTS REVEAL
John Glaser, “Israel Counted Minimum Calorie Needs in Gaza Blockade, Documents Reveal,” Antiwar.com, October 17, 2012,
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“Israel Forced to Release Study on Gaza Blockade,” BBC News, October 17, 2012, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-19975211.
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“Israel Set Calorie Limit during Gaza Blockade,” Al Jazeera English, October 18, 2012, http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2012/10/20121017115529845399.html.
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“Israel Calculated Palestinian Calories for Gaza Blockade,” Ma’an News Agency, October 17, 2012, 
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=529743.
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Student Researchers: Mohamed Duple (College of Marin); Liliana Valdez-Madera (Santa Rosa Junior College)
Faculty Evaluator: Susan Rahman (College of Marin)

 

19. THE POWER OF PEACEFUL REVOLUTION IN ICELAND

Iceland is experiencing one of the greatest economic comebacks of all time, reported Alex Pietrowski.
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After privatization of the nation’s banking sector, completed in 2000, private bankers borrowed $120 billion (ten times the size of Iceland’s economy), creating a huge economic bubble that doubled housing prices and made a small percentage of the country’s population exceedingly wealthy. When the bubble burst, the bankers left the nation on the verge of bankruptcy and its citizens with an unpayable debt.
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In October 2008, Iceland’s people took to the streets in response to the economic crisis caused by the banksters. Over a span of five months, the main bank of Iceland was nationalized, government officials were forced to resign, the old government was liquidated, and a new government was established. By March 2010, Iceland’s people voted to deny payment of the 3,500 million debt created by the bankers, and about 200 high-level executives and bankers responsible for the economic crisis in the country were either arrested or faced criminal charges.
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In February 2011, a new constitutional assembly settled in to rewrite the tiny nation’s constitution, which aimed to avoid entrapment by debt-based currency foreign loans. In 2012, the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development expected Iceland’s economy to outgrow the euro and the average for the developed world.
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CENSORED #19
THE POWER OF PEACEFUL REVOLUTION IN ICELAND
Alex Pietrowski, “Iceland’s Hördur Torfason ~ How to Beat the Banksters,” Waking Times, December 11, 2012,
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Student Researcher: Pedro Martin Del Campo (Sonoma State University)
Faculty Evaluator: Ed Beebout (Sonoma State University)

 

18. FRACKING OUR FOOD SUPPLY

The effects of hydraulic fracturing (or “fracking”) on food supply and the environment are slowly emerging. The fracking process runs contrary to safe sustainable food production. In the agriculturally and energy-rich region called the Marcellus Shale, a tug-of-war between food producers and energy companies has begun.
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Chemicals used in the fracking process contaminate surrounding land, water, and air. Ranchers in Pennsylvania, North Dakota, Louisiana, and New Mexico have been reporting health problems and incidents of dead and tainted livestock, due to elevated levels of contaminants from nearby wells.
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While no long-term research on the effects of fracking on humans, livestock, or plants exists, a peer-reviewed report by Michelle Bamberger and Robert E. Oswald has linked fracking to illness in animals. They believe chemicals leaking from fracking sites could start appearing in human food supplies, because of a lack of regulation and testing.
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There is an absence of both adequate disclosures by energy companies and timely regulation by government to protect the environment and landowners. Secrecy shrouding the fracking process and Bush-era loopholes obscure consumer knowledge of food safety.
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A lack of whistleblowers has been attributed to fear of retaliation, nondisclosure agreements, or involvement in active litigation. While some fear that the early warnings will be ignored, two major agricultural insurance companies now refuse to cover damages from fracking.
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CENSORED #18
FRACKING OUR FOOD SUPPLY
Elizabeth Royte, “Fracking Our Food Supply,” Nation, December 17, 2012, http://www.thenation.com/article/171504/fracking-our-food-supply.
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Michelle Bamberger and Robert E. Oswald, “Impacts of Gas Drilling on Human and Animal Health,” New Solutions 22, no. 1 (January 2012): 51–77, http://www.psehealthyenergy.org/Impacts_of_Gas_Drilling_on_Human_and_Animal_Health.
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Student Researchers: Rayne Madison and Nayeli Castaneda (College of Marin)
Faculty Evaluators: Susan Rahman and Andy Lee Roth (College of Marin)

 

17. THE CREATIVE COMMONS CELEBRATES TEN YEARS OF SHARING AND CULTURAL CREATION

Creative Commons (CC) is celebrating ten years of helping writers, artists, technologists, and other creators share their knowledge and creativity with the world. CC provides free, public, and standardized licenses that allow creators to share their material with others and help create a balance between the open nature of public domain (e.g., the Internet) and copyright laws. The first CC licenses were issued in December 2002, and they now number in the millions. For example, governments and libraries make their information available to the public using CC tools. YouTube now has over four million videos available under Creative Commons, allowing everyone to use, remix, and edit them.
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A strong push for copyright reform is currently occurring around the world ~ coming both from the increased recognition of public/user rights as well as the need for author protection. Creative Commons and the free culture movement envision a new world in which partnership premised on shared benefits replaces the false battle between self-interest and community. To imitate or steal an idea is one thing, but to transform or remix content, while crediting its originator, is something new and completely different. Collaboration is the center of community, and CC tools offer a major step toward a more collaborative and abundant world.
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CENSORED #17
THE CREATIVE COMMONS CELEBRATES TEN YEARS OF SHARING AND CULTURAL CREATION
Paul M. Davis, “Creative Commons Celebrates 10 Years of Opening Culture,” Shareable, December 7, 2012,
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Jason Hibbets, “Celebrating 10 Years of Creative Commons,” opensource.com, November 29, 2012, 
http://opensource.com/law/12/11/celebrating-ten-years-creative-commons.
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Timothy Vollmer, “Pallante’s Push for U.S. Copyright Reform,” Creative Commons News, March 20, 2013,
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Student Researcher: Nicholas Lanoil (San Francisco State University)
Faculty Evaluator: Kenn Burrows (San Francisco State University)

 

16. JOURNALISM UNDER ATTACK AROUND THE GLOBE

The world is a more dangerous place for journalists. Journalists are increasingly at risk of being killed or imprisoned for doing their jobs, a situation that imperils press freedom. From 2011 to 2012, the number of journalists behind bars because of their work increased from 53 to 232, and the 70 journalists killed in the line of duty during 2012 represents a 43 percent increase, compared with 2011, according to a study by the Committee to Project Journalists (CPJ). Over the past two decades, a journalist is killed once every eight days.
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The CPJ also published a Risk List, identifying the ten countries worldwide where press freedom suffered the most in 2012. Notably, half of the nations on the Risk List ~ Brazil, Turkey, Pakistan, Russia, and Ecuador ~ “practice some form of democracy and exert significant influence on a regional or international stage.”
“When journalists are silenced, whether through violence or laws, we all stand to lose because perpetrators are able to obscure misdeeds, silence dissent, and disempower citizens,” said CPJ deputy director Robert Mahoney.
The CPJ has been a leader in advocating for full implementation of a five-year-old UN resolution calling for protection of journalists in conflict zones, in order to guarantee a free and safe press. Article 19 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights includes the freedom to “impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers,” making freedom of press a transnational right.
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The New York Times ran a story on the CPJ report on February 15, 2013, noting the alarming rise in the number of journalists killed and imprisoned during 2012. However, the Times’ report did not address the possible UN resolution or freedom of press as a transnational right.
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Dave Lindorff, of ThisCantBeHappening!, writes that “the incidence of journalists killed by US forces in recent US conflicts has been much, much greater than it ever was in earlier wars, such as the one in Vietnam, or in Korea or World War II,” begging the question of whether some of the deaths have been “deliberate, perhaps with the intent of keeping journalists in line.”
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CENSORED #16
JOURNALISM UNDER ATTACK AROUND THE GLOBE
Roy Greenslade, “Journalism Under Attack Across the Globe Imperils Press Freedom,” Guardian, February 14, 2013,
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“Attacks on the Press: Journalism on the Frontlines in 2012,” Committee to Project Journalists,
http://cpj.org/2013/02/attacks-on-the-press-in-2012.php.
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Dave Lindorff, “Incidents Raise Suspicions on Motive: Killing of Journalists by US Forces a Growing Problem,” ThisCantBeHappening!, November 22, 2012, http://www.thiscantbehappening.net/node/1438.
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Student Researcher: Qui Phan (College of Marin)
Faculty Evaluator: Andy Lee Roth (College of Marin)

 

15. FOOD RIOTS: THE NEW NORMAL?

Reduced land productivity, combined with elevated oil costs and population growth, threaten a systemic, global food crisis. Citing findings from a study by Paul and Anne Ehrlich, published by the Royal Society, Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed identified the links among intensifying economic inequality, debt, climate change, and fossil fuel dependency to conclude that a global food crisis is now “undeniable.”
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“Global food prices have been consistently higher than in preceding decades,” reported Ahmed, leading to dramatic price increases in staple foods and triggering food riots across the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia. The crux of this global phenomenon is climate change: severe natural disasters including drought, flood, heat waves, and monsoons have affected major regional food baskets. 
By mid-century, Ahmed reported, “world crop yields could fall as much as 20–40 percent because of climate change alone.”
Industrial agricultural methods that disrupt soil have also contributed to impending food shortages. As a result, Ahmed reported, global land productivity has “dropped significantly,” from 2.1 percent during 1950–90 to 1.2 percent during 1990–2007.
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By contrast with Ahmed’s report, corporate media coverage of food insecurity has tended to treat it as a local and episodic problem. 
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For example, an April 2008 story in the Los Angeles Times covered food riots in Haiti, which resulted in three deaths. Similarly, a March 2013 New York Times piece addressed how the loss of farmland and farm labour to urbanization contributed to rising food costs in China. 
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Corporate media have not connected the dots to analyze how intensifying inequality, debt, climate change, and consumption of fossil fuels have contributed to the potential for a global food crisis in the near future.
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CENSORED #15
FOOD RIOTS: THE NEW NORMAL?
Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed, “Why Food Riots Are Likely to Become the New Normal,” Guardian, March 6, 2013,
Paul R. Ehrlich and Anne H. Ehrlich, “Can a Collapse of Global Civilization Be Avoided?,” Proceedings of the Royal Society 280, no. 1754 (March 7, 2013), http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/280/1754/20122845.full.
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Student Researcher: Julian Kuartei (College of Marin)
Faculty Evaluator: Andy Lee Roth (College of Marin)

 

14. WIRELESS TECHNOLOGY A LOOMING HEALTH CRISIS

As a multitude of hazardous wireless technologies are deployed in homes, schools, and workplaces, government officials and industry representatives continue to insist on their safety despite growing evidence to the contrary. Extensive deployment of “smart grid” technology hastens this looming health crisis.
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By now many residents in the United States and Canada have smart meters ~ which transfer detailed information on residents’ electrical usage back to the utility every few minutes ~ installed on their dwellings. Each meter has an electronic cellular transmitter that uses powerful bursts of electromagnetic radio frequency (RF) radiation to communicate with nearby meters, which together form an interlocking network. Such information can easily be used to determine individual patterns of behaviour based on power consumption.
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Utilities sell smart grid technology to the public as a way to “empower” individual energy consumers, allowing them to access information on their energy usage so that they may eventually save money by programming “smart” (i.e., wireless-enabled) home appliances and equipment to run when electrical rates are lowest. 
In other words, a broader plan behind smart grid technology involves a tiered rate system for electricity consumption that will be set by the utility, to which customers will have no choice but to conform.
CENSORED #14
WIRELESS TECHNOLOGY A LOOMING HEALTH CRISIS
James F. Tracy, “Looming Health Crisis: Wireless Technology and the Toxification of America,” Global Research, July 8, 2012,
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Student Researcher: Lyndsey Casey (Sonoma State University)
Faculty Evaluator: Peter Phillips (Sonoma State University)

 

13. A FIFTH OF AMERICANS GO HUNGRY

An August 2012 Gallup poll showed that 18.2 percent of Americans lacked sufficient money for needed food at least once over the previous year. To make matters worse, the worst drought in half a century impacted 80 percent of agricultural lands in the country, increasing food prices. Despite this, in 2012, Congress considered cutting support for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) ~ the official name of its food stamp program ~ as part of the 2013 Farm Bill.
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Proposed Senate cuts would cost approximately 500,000 households about ninety dollars a month in nutritional assistance. Proposed cuts in the House of Representatives would go much further than the ones in the Senate, and would have removed at least 1.8 million people from SNAP. Republicans controlling the House have been eager to cut spending and were the primary supporters of food stamp cuts.
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Opponents have expressed concern over the harm the cuts would cause to society’s more vulnerable members, including seniors, children, and working families. Rising food prices would hit Southern states the hardest, while Mountain-Plains and Midwest states would be least affected. Despite all the food hardship, the National Resources Defense Council reported that 40 percent of food in the country goes to waste.
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CENSORED STORY #13
A FIFTH OF AMERICANS GO HUNGRY
Mike Ludwig, “Millions Go Hungry as Congress Considers Food Stamp Cuts and Drought Threatens Crops,” Truthout, August 23, 2012, 
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Student Researcher: Noah Tenney (Sonoma State University)
Faculty Evaluator: Andy Lee Roth (Sonoma State University)

 

12. THE US HAS LEFT IRAQ WITH AN EPIDEMIC OF CANCERS AND BIRTH DEFECTS

High levels of lead, mercury, and depleted uranium are believed to be causing birth defects, miscarriages, and cancer for people living in the Iraqi cities of Basra and Fallujah. Researchers have claimed that the United States bombings of Basra and Fallujah are to blame for this rapidly increasing health crisis.
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A recent study showed more than 50 percent of babies born in Fallujah have a birth defect, while one in six pregnancies ends in a miscarriage. While there is no conclusive evidence to show that US military attacks directly caused these health problems among Iraqi citizens, the immense increase of birth defects and miscarriages after the attacks has been enough to concern a number of researchers.
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Military officials continue to dodge questions about the attacks and about use of depleted uranium in particular, while maintaining silence about the health crisis. Instead, the US government has dismissed the reports as controversial and baseless.
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CENSORED #12
THE US HAS LEFT IRAQ WITH AN EPIDEMIC OF CANCERS AND BIRTH DEFECTS
Sarah Morrison, “Iraq Records Huge Rise in Birth Defects,” Independent, October 14, 2012, 
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/iraq-records-huge-rise-in-birth-defects-8210444.html.
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Ross Caputi, “The Victims of Fallujah’s Health Crisis are Stifled by Western Silence,” Guardian, October 25, 2012,
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Dahr Jamail, “Ten Years Later, U.S. Has Left Iraq with Mass Displacement & Epidemic of Birth Defects, Cancers,” Democracy Now!, March 20, 2013, http://www.democracynow.org/2013/3/20/ten_years_later_us_has_left
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M. Al-Sabbak, S. Sadik Ali, O. Savabi, et al., “Metal Contamination and the Epidemic of Congenital Birth Defects in Iraqi Cities,” Bulletin of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology 89, no. 5 (November 2012),
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Student Researchers: Ivan Konza (Florida Atlantic University); Marc David Prophete (Indian River State College)
Faculty Evaluators: James F. Tracy (Florida Atlantic University); Elliot D. Cohen (Indian River State College)

 

11. BUSH BLOCKED IRAN NUCLEAR DEAL

According to a former top Iranian negotiator, Seyed Hossein Mousavian, in 2005 Iran offered a deal to the United States, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom that would have made it impossible for Iran to build nuclear weapons. At that time, Iran did not have the capability to fabricate fuel rods. The offer included the plan to ship its uranium to an “agreed upon country” for enrichment in exchange for yellowcake, the raw material used to make fuel rods. Once uranium is fabricated into fuel rods, it is practically impossible to reconvert for military purposes. As Gareth Porter reports for Consortium News, Mousavian’s account makes it clear that President George W. Bush’s administration “refused to countenance any Iranian enrichment capability, regardless of the circumstances.”
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The French and German governments were prepared at the time to discuss the offer and open up negotiations, but the UK vetoed the proposal at the insistence of the United States. “They were ready to compromise but the US was an obstacle,” Mousavian reported in his 2012 memoir, The Iranian Nuclear Crisis.
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The continuation of these negotiations could have headed off the current political crisis over the Iranian nuclear program, if not eliminated the threat of war and the strain of strict economic sanctions.
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After the US and the UK rejected the offer, the European Union stated that more time was required to consider the proposal, but Mousavian’s team learned later that the EU had no intention of revisiting the proposal.
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Mousavian quoted Francois Nicoullaud, the French ambassador to Iran, as saying that “for the United States the enrichment in Iran is a red line the EU cannot cross.” British representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Peter Jenkins recalled that “the British objective was to eliminate entirely Iran’s enrichment capability,” at the urging of the United States. One proposal placed a ceiling on the number of centrifuges and the scale of production so that it remained well below the levels necessary for the production of weaponry. Then British and American teams ignored these negotiations to put pressure on Iran with the threat of referral to the United Nations Security Council. As Iranian presidential elections approached, the talks were abandoned.
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Now a visiting research scholar at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Mousavian was arrested by the Mahmoud Ahmadinejad administration on charges of espionage in April 2007.
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CENSORED #11
BUSH BLOCKED IRAN NUCLEAR DEAL
Gareth Porter, “Bush Blocked Iran Disarmament Deal,” Consortium News, June 6, 2012, http://consortiumnews.com/2012/06/06/bush-blocked-iran-nuke-deal/.
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Student Researcher: Seamus O’Herlihy (Santa Rosa Junior College)
Faculty Evaluator: Susan Rahman (Santa Rosa Junior College)

 

10. A “CULTURE OF CRUELTY” ALONG MEXICO–US BORDER

Migrants crossing the Mexico–US border not only face dangers posed by an unforgiving desert but also abuse at the hands of the US Border Patrol. During their journey through the desert, migrants risk dehydration, starvation, exhaustion, and the possibility of being threatened and robbed. Unfortunately, the dangers continue if they come in contact with the Border Patrol. 
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In “A Culture of Cruelty,” the organization No More Deaths revealed human rights violations by the US Border Patrol including limiting or denying migrants water and food, verbal and physical abuse, and failing to provide necessary medical attention. Female migrants face additional violations including sexual abuse, according to No More Deaths. As Erika L. Sánchez reported, “Dehumanization of immigrants is actually part of the Border Patrol’s institutional culture. Instances of misconduct are not aberrations, but common practice.” The Border Patrol has denied any wrongdoing and has not been held responsible for these abuses.
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Public debate on immigration tends to ignore not only the potential dangers of crossing the desert, but also the reasons for the migration of undocumented immigrants to the US. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), signed by US president Bill Clinton and Mexican president Carlos Salinas in 1994, displaced many Mexican farmers and workers from their farms. Lack of employment resulting from NAFTA continues to motivate many to migrate to the US.
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CENSORED #10
A “CULTURE OF CRUELTY” ALONG MEXICO–US BORDER
Erika L. Sánchez, “Ripped Off by Smugglers, Groped by Border Patrol: The Nightmares Women Migrants Face,” AlterNet, June 26, 2012,  
http://www.alternet.org/immigration/156035/ripped_off_by_smugglers,_groped_by_border_patrol%3A_the_nightmares_women_migrants_face?page=entire.
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No More Deaths, “A Culture of Cruelty,” September 21, 2011, http://www.nomoredeaths.org/cultureofcruelty.html.
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Student Researcher: Marylyn Phelps (Santa Rosa Junior College)
Faculty Evaluator: Susan Rahman (Santa Rosa Junior College)

 

9. ICELANDERS VOTE TO INCLUDE COMMONS IN THEIR CONSTITUTION

In October 2012, Icelanders voted in an advisory referendum regarding six proposed policy changes to the nation’s 1944 Constitution. In response to the question, “In the new Constitution, do you want natural resources that are not privately owned to be declared national property?,” Iceland’s citizens responded with a decisive “yes.” Eighty-one percent of those voting supported the commons proposal.
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The constitutional reforms are a direct response to the nation’s 2008 financial crash, when Iceland’s unregulated banks borrowed more than the country’s gross domestic product from international wholesale money markets. As Jessica Conrad of On the Commons reported, “It is clear that citizens are beginning to recognize the value of what they share together over the perceived wealth created by the market economy.”
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After the October vote, Prime Minister Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir said, “The people have put the parliament on probation.”
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CENSORED #9
ICELANDERS VOTE TO INCLUDE COMMONS IN THEIR CONSTITUTION
Jessica Conrad, “Icelanders Vote to Include the Commons in Their Constitution,” Commons Magazine, November 2012,
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Thorvaldur Gylfason, “Iceland: Direct Democracy in Action,” Open Democracy, November 12, 2012, 
http://www.opendemocracy.net/thorvaldur-gylfason/iceland-direct-democracy-in-action.
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Student Researcher: Pedro Martin Del Campo (Sonoma State University)
Faculty Evaluator: Andy Lee Roth (Sonoma State University)

8. BANK INTERESTS INFLATE GLOBAL PRICES BY 35 TO 40 PERCENT

A stunning 35 to 40 percent of everything we buy goes to interest. As Ellen Brown reported, “That helps explain how wealth is systematically transferred from Main Street to Wall Street.” In her report, Brown cited the work of Margrit Kennedy, PhD, whose research in Germany documents interest charges ranging from 12 percent for garbage collection, to 38 percent for drinking water, and 77 percent for rent in public housing.  

Kennedy found that the bottom 80 percent pay the hidden interest charges that the top 10 percent collect, making interest a strongly regressive tax that the poor pay to the rich.
Drawing on Kennedy’s data, Brown estimated that if we had a financial system that returned the interest collected from the public directly to the public, 35 percent could be lopped off the price of everything we buy.  To this end, she has advocated direct reimbursement. According to Brown, “We could do it by turning the banks into public utilities and their profits into public assets. Profits would return to the public, either reducing taxes or increasing the availability of public services and infrastructure.”
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CENSORED STORY #8
BANK INTERESTS INFLATE GLOBAL PRICES BY 35 TO 40 PERCENT
Ellen Brown, “It’s the Interest, Stupid! Why Bankers Rule the World,” Global Research, November 8, 2012,
Originally posted at Web of Debt, November 8, 2012,
Student Researcher: Cooper Reynolds (Sonoma State University)
Faculty Evaluator: Peter Phillips (Sonoma State University)

 

7. MERCHANTS OF DEATH AND NUCLEAR WEAPONS

The Physicians for Social Responsibility released a study estimating that one billion people ~ one-seventh of the human race ~ could starve over the decade following a single nuclear detonation. 
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A key finding was that corn production in the United States would decline by an average of 10 percent for an entire decade, with the most severe decline (20 percent) in the fifth year.
Another forecast was that increases in food prices would make food inaccessible to hundreds of millions of the world’s poorest: the 925 million people in the world who are already chronically malnourished (with a baseline consumption of 1,750 calories or less per day) would be put at risk by a 10 percent decline in their food consumption.
The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) released its 180-page study showing that nuclear-armed nations spend over $100 billion each year assembling new warheads, modernizing old ones, and building ballistic missiles, bombers, and submarines to launch them. 
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The US still has about 2,500 nuclear weapons deployed and 2,600 more as backup. Washington and Moscow account for 90 percent of all nuclear weapons. Despite a White House pledge to seek a world without nuclear weapons, the 2011 federal budget for nuclear weapons research and development exceeded $7 billion and could (if the Obama administration has its way) exceed $8 billion per year by the end of this decade.
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Nuclear-armed nations spend over $100 billion each year on weapons programs. The institutions most heavily involved in financing nuclear arms makers include Bank of America, BlackRock, and JPMorgan Chase in the United States; BNP Paribas in France; Allianz and Deutsche Bank in Germany; Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group in Japan; Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria (BBVA) and Banco Santander in Spain; Credit Suisse and UBS in Switzerland; and Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds, and Royal Bank of Scotland in Britain.
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CENSORED #7
MERCHANTS OF DEATH AND NUCLEAR WEAPONS
Marc Pilisuk, “Occupying the Merchants of Death,” Project Censored, November 22, 2012, http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/occupying-the-merchants-of-death/.
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Student Researcher: Jessica Eccles (Sonoma State University)
Faculty Evaluator: Peter Phillips (Sonoma State University)

 

6. BILLIONAIRES’ RISING WEALTH INTENSIFIES POVERTY AND INEQUALITY

As a direct result of existing financial policies, the world’s one hundred richest people grew to be $241 billion richer in 2012. This makes them collectively worth $1.9 trillion, just slightly less than the United Kingdom’s total economic output.
A few of the policies responsible for this occurrence are the reduction of tax rates and tax enforcement, the privatization of public assets, wage controls and the destruction of collective bargaining.
These same policies that are building up the richest people are causing colossal hardships to the rest of the world’s population.
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George Monbiot has attributed this situation to neoliberal policies, which produce economic outcomes contrary to those predicted, and even promised, by advocates of neoliberal policy and laissez faire markets. In consequence, across the thirty-four countries that constitute the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), taxation has decreased among the rich and increased among the poor. Despite what neoliberals claimed would happen, the spending power of the state and of poorer people has diminished, contracting demand along with it.
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Wage inequality and unemployment have both skyrocketed, making the economy increasingly unstable with monumental amounts of debt. Monbiot observed,
“The complete failure of this world-scale experiment is no impediment to its repetition. This has nothing to do with economics. It has everything to do with power.”
CENSORED #6
BILLIONAIRES’ RISING WEALTH INTENSIFIES POVERTY AND INEQUALITY
George Monbiot, “Bang Goes the Theory,” Monbiot.com, January 14, 2013, http://www.monbiot.com/2013/01/14/bang-goes-the-theory/.
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Student Researcher: Paige Fischer (Sonoma State University)
Faculty Evaluator: Peter Phillips (Sonoma State University)

 

5. HATE GROUPS AND ANTIGOVERNMENT GROUPS ON RISE ACROSS US

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), which monitors hate groups and antigovernment groups, released a report showing that 1,360 radical, antigovernment “patriot” groups and 321 militias actively operate within the United States. Released in March 2013, these statistics show an 813 percent rise in the number of such groups since 2008, with increasing numbers each year. Hate groups are most prevalent in California, with eighty-four total; Texas was second among states with sixty-two.
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The SPLC counted over 1,000 hate groups in the US in 2012. By the SPLC’s standards, hate groups “have beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristics,” and their activities can include “criminal acts, marches, rallies, speeches, meetings, leafleting or publishing.”
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With the numbers of Patriot groups now much higher now than they were during the peak of the militia movement in the 1990s, the threat of domestic terror attacks is very real. After the SPLC’s report was released, the Center’s president, Richard Cohen, sent a letter to the US attorney general as well as the Homeland Security secretary requesting them to “create a new task force to ensure the government is devoting the resources needed to address domestic terrorism.”
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Hate groups are now transitioning from racist hatred to hatred focused on the government and its representatives. The patriot and militia groups are some of the fastest growing groups, and their goals and rhetoric must be understood in order to implement successful strategies to counter their behavior if it should become violent, according to the SPLC. The SPLC also identified “sovereign citizens,” who often operate as “lone wolves,” breaking away from the group to perform the violent acts. Unfortunately, with the use of social media and the Internet, hate groups are able to recruit and spread their beliefs more readily than in the past.
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Corporate media have paid scattered attention to the SPLC report and its findings. Both the New York Times and MSNBC covered the report on the day the SPLC issued it, but otherwise, establishment media have done little to shed light on this subject.
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CENSORED #5
HATE GROUPS AND ANTIGOVERNMENT GROUPS ON RISE ACROSS US
Brian Levin, “U.S. Hate and Extremist Groups Hit Record Levels, New Record Says,” Huffington Post, March 8, 2012,
Mark Potok, Intelligence Report: The Year in Hate and Extremism, Southern Poverty Law Center, Spring 2013,
LaurieInQueens, “‘Patriot’ Groups At All-Time High, Hate Groups Up Again: Report,” National Memo, March 7, 2013,
Student Researchers: Sunnie Ayers (Sonoma State University); Jackson Hand and Amanda Baron (College of Marin)
Community and Faculty Evaluators: Ben Parry (Sonoma State University); Andy Lee Roth (College of Marin)

 

4. OBAMA’S WAR ON WHISTLEBLOWERS

Obama signed both the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act, expanding whistleblower protections, in November 2012, and the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) furthering these protections in January 2013. His NDAA signing statement, however, undermines these protections, stating that those expanded protections “could be interpreted in a manner that would interfere with my authority to manage and direct executive branch officials.” 
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Thus, in his signing statement, Obama promised to ignore expanded whistleblower protections if they conflicted with his power to “supervise, control, and correct employees’ communications with the Congress in cases where such communications would be unlawful or would reveal information that is properly privileged or otherwise confidential.”
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Despite rhetoric to the contrary, the Obama administration is targeting government whistleblowers, having invoked the otherwise dormant Espionage Act of 1917 seven times. 
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The Obama justice department has also used the Intelligence Identities Protection Act to obtain a conviction against Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) whistleblower John Kiriakou for exposing the waterboarding of prisoners, ironically making Kiriakou the first CIA official to be sentenced to prison in connection with the torture program. The justice department charged former National Security Agency senior executive Thomas Drake with espionage for exposing hundreds of millions of dollars of waste.
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The highly visible prosecution of Bradley Manning has become what some may argue to be the most effective deterrent for government whistleblowers. Manning admitted to leaking troves of classified documents to WikiLeaks, but pleaded not guilty on counts of espionage.
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CENSORED #4
OBAMA’S WAR ON WHISTLEBLOWERS
Dana Liebelson, “Why Is Obama Bashing a Whistleblower Law He Already Signed?,” Mother Jones, January 10, 2013,
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Glenn Greenwald, “Kiriakou and Stuxnet: The Danger of the Still-Escalating Obama Whistleblower War,” Guardian, January 27, 2013,
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Paul Harris, “Barack Obama’s ‘Extreme’ Anti-Terror Tactics Face Liberal Backlash,” Guardian, February 9, 2013, 
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Ed Pilkington, “Bradley Manning Prosecution to Call Full Witness List Despite Guilty Plea,” Guardian, March 1, 2013, 
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Student Researchers: Shannon Polvino, William Scannapieco, Kathyrn La Juett, and Justin Lewis (State University of New York–Buffalo)
Faculty Evaluator: Michael I. Niman (State University of New York–Buffalo)

 

3. TRANS-PACIFIC PARTNERSHIP THREATENS A REGIME OF CORPORATE GLOBAL GOVERNANCE

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), branded as a trade agreement and negotiated in unprecedented secrecy, is actually an enforceable transfer of sovereignty from nations and their people to foreign corporations.
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As of December 2012, eleven countries were involved ~ Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, Vietnam, and the United States ~ with the possibility of more joining in the future due to inclusion of an unusual “docking agreement.”
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While the public, US Congress, and the press are locked out, 600 corporate advisors are meeting with officials of signatory governments behind closed doors to complete text for the world’s biggest multinational trade agreement, which aims to penalize countries that protect their workers, consumers, or environment.
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Leaked text from the thirty-chapter agreement has revealed that negotiators have already agreed to many radical terms, granting expansive new rights and privileges for foreign investors and their enforcement through extrajudicial “investor-state” tribunals. Through these, corporations would be given special authority to dispute laws, regulations, and court decisions. Foreign firms could extract unlimited amounts of taxpayer money as compensation for “financial damages” to “expected future profits” caused by efforts to protect domestic finance, health, labour, environment, land use, and other laws they claim undermine their new TPP privileges.
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There is almost no progressive movement or campaign whose goals are not threatened, as vast swaths of public-interest policy achieved through decades of struggle are targeted. Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch, reported that once this top-secret TPP is agreed to, its rules will be set in stone. No rule can be changed without all countries’ consent to amend the agreement. People of the world will be locked into corporate domination.
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CENSORED #3
TRANS-PACIFIC PARTNERSHIP THREATENS A REGIME OF CORPORATE GLOBAL GOVERNANCE
Kevin Zeese, “Obama’s ‘Employment Creation’ Program: Massive Outsourcing of American Jobs,” Global Research, September 10, 2012,
Lori Wallach, “Breaking ’08 Pledge, Leaked Trade Doc Shows Obama Wants to Help Corporations Avoid Regulations,” Democracy Now!, June 14, 2012, http://www.democracynow.org/2012/6/14/breaking_08_pledge_leaked_trade_doc.
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Andrew Gavin Marshall, “The Trans-Pacific Partnership: This Is What Corporate Governance Looks Like,” Truthout, November 20, 2012,
Lori Wallach, “Can a ‘Dracula Strategy’ Bring Trans-Pacific Partnership into the Sunlight?,” Yes! Magazine, November 21, 2012,
Student Researcher: Kyndace Safa (College of Marin)
Community Researcher: Tricia Boreta
Faculty Evaluators: Susan Rahman (College of Marin); Andy Lee Roth (Sonoma State University)

 

2. RICHEST GLOBAL 1 PERCENT HIDE TRILLIONS IN TAX HAVENS

The global 1 percent hold twenty-one to thirty-two trillion dollars in offshore havens in order to evade taxes, according to James S. Henry, the former chief economist at the global management consulting firm, McKinsey & Company. Based on data from the Bank for International Settlements, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and 139 countries, Henry found that the top 1 percent hid more than the total annual economic output of the US and Japan combined. For perspective, this hidden wealth is at least seven times the amount ~ $3 trillion ~ that many estimates suggest would be necessary to end global poverty.
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If this hidden wealth earned a modest rate of 3 percent interest and that interest income were taxed at just 30 percent, these investments would have generated income tax revenues between $190 and $280 billion, according to the analysis.
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Domestically, the Federal Reserve reported that the top seven US banks hold more than $10 trillion in assets, recorded in over 14,000 created “subsidiaries” to avoid taxes.
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Henry identified this hidden wealth as “a huge black hole in the world economy that has never before been measured,” and noted that the finding is particularly significant at a time when “governments around the world are starved for resources, and we are more conscious than ever of the costs of economic inequality.”
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CENSORED #2
RICHEST GLOBAL 1 PERCENT HIDE TRILLIONS IN TAX HAVENS
Carl Herman, “1% Hide $21 Trillion and US Big Banks Hide $10 Trillion; Ending World poverty: $3 Trillion,” Washington’s Blog, July 24, 2012, http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2012/07/1-hide-21-trillion-us-big-banks-hide-10-trillion-ending-world-poverty-3-trillion.html.
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James S. Henry, “The Cost of Offshore Revisited,” Tax Justice Network, July 2012, http://www.taxjustice.net/cms/upload/pdf/Price_of_Offshore_Revisited_120722.pdf.
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Student Researcher: Lyndsey Casey (Sonoma State University)
Faculty Evaluator: Peter Phillips (Sonoma State University)

1. BRADLEY MANNING AND THE FAILURE OF CORPORATE MEDIA
In February 2013, United States military intelligence analyst Bradley Manning confessed in court to providing vast archives of military and diplomatic files to the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks, saying he wanted the information to become public “to make the world a better place” and that he hoped to “spark a domestic debate on the role of the military in (US) foreign policy.” The 700,000 released documents revealed a multitude of previously secret crimes and acts of deceit and corruption by US military and government officials.
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According to Manning’s testimony in February 2013, he tried to release the Afghanistan and Iraq War Logs through conventional sources. In winter 2010, he contacted the Washington Post, the New York Times, and Politico in hopes that they would publish the materials. Only after being rebuffed by these three outlets did Manning begin uploading documents to WikiLeaks. Al Jazeera reported that Manning’s testimony “raises the question of whether the mainstream press was prepared to host the debate on US interventions and foreign policy that Manning had in mind.”
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Indeed, US corporate media have largely shunned Manning’s case, not to mention the importance of the information he released. When corporate media have focused on Manning, this coverage has often emphasized his sexual orientation and past life, rather than his First Amendment rights or the abusive nature of his imprisonment, which includes almost three years without trial and nearly one year in “administrative segregation,” the military equivalent of solitary.
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In his February 2013 court appearance, Manning pled guilty to twelve of the twenty-two charges against him, including the capital offense of “aiding and abetting the enemy.” He faces the possibility of a life sentence without parole. His severe treatment is a warning to other possible whistleblowers.
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CENSORED #1
BRADLEY MANNING AND THE FAILURE OF CORPORATE MEDIA
Kevin Gosztola, “The US Press Failed Bradley Manning,” FireDogLake, February 28, 2013, http://dissenter.firedoglake.com/2013/02/28/the-us-press-failed-bradley-manning/.
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Glenn Greenwald, “Bradley Manning: The Face of Heroism,” Guardian, February 28, 2013, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/feb/28/bradley-manning-heroism-pleads-guilty.
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Janet Reitman, “Did the Mainstream Media Fail Bradley Manning?,” Rolling Stone, March 1, 2013,
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/did-the-mainstream-media-fail-bradley-manning-20130301.
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“The Case of the US vs. Bradley Manning,” Al Jazeera English, March 9, 2013, http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/listeningpost/2013/03/201339107329512.html
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Student Researcher: Amanda Renteria (San Francisco State University)
Faculty Evaluator: Kenn Burrows (San Francisco State University)
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