JIM LOBE ARTICLES

LobeLog.com
Jim Lobe is best known for his coverage of U.S. foreign policy, particularly the neo-conservative influence in the Bush administration. The Washington Bureau Chief of the international news agency Inter Press Service (IPS), Lobe has also written for Foreign Policy In Focus, Alternet, Tompaine.com, and was featured in BBC and ABC television documentaries about motivations for the US invasion of Iraq.
This blog is an initiative of IPS news agency and its Washington DC bureau chief Jim Lobe.

Wikipedia

FROM ROOTLESS COSMOPOLITAN: Iraq: The Slimiest Benchmark

• And the most concrete litmus test cited for establishing Iraqi bona fides appears to be the passing of the draft oil law

• Washington is not hiding its belief that passing of the oil law a primary test for the viability of the Maliki government.

• But in the great Rove-ian tradition of Orwellian political communication, ...

• An oil law whose primary beneficiaries appear to be the major U.S. oil companies has become, in Rove-speak, the foundation-stone of national reconciliation in Iraq —

• the U.S. media for the most part dutifully parrots the idea that the purpose of the law is to ensure an equitable distribution of oil revenues between Iraq’s regions, defined as they are by ethnicity and sect.

• But that, in fact, is a relatively minor part of the oil law.

• “the draft law in fact says little about sharing oil revenues among Iraqi groups and a lot about setting up a framework for investment that may be disadvantageous to Iraqis over the long term.” (CSM)

• The law aims to set a framework for investment by outside oil companies, including favorable production-sharing agreements that are typically used to reward companies for taking on risk, he says. (former Iraqi oil minister Issam Al Chalabi)

• “We know the oil is there. Geological studies have been made for decades on these oil fields, so why would we let them [international firms] have a share of the oil?” he adds.

• “Iraqis will say this is solid proof that Americans have staged the war … because of this law.”

• Indeed, the opposition to the law inside Iraq appears to have united a broad political spectrum, ranging from mainstream Sunni parties and nationalist groups backing the insurgency to the Sadrists and the national trade union of Iraqi oil workers.

• as Antonia Juhasz pointed out in a remarkable New York Times op ed, the draft law in fact would take Iraq entirely out of the international mainstream by putting ownership and control of its oil reserves in the hands of foreign companies

• In an excellent summation of ‘The Struggle Over Iraqi Oil’, Michael Schwartz, writing on the indispensable TomDispatch, reveals the oil-grab policy

• what good is a law that makes for a more equitable distribution of Iraqi oil profits at the same time as ensuring that the lion’s share of those profits go to foreign oil companies

NAFTA HIGHWAY: CHINESE TRADE, CANADIAN WATER

Human Events.com
Bush Administration Quietly Plans NAFTA Super Highway
by Jerome R. Corsi
Posted: 06/12/2006


Reality Check
Commentary and analysis of news and social issues from Cornwall, Ontario, Canada.
North American Union- Connecting the Dots
My previous articles on this website explain in detail the

Thursday, July 19, 2007
The Militarization and Annexation of North America
The Militarization and Annexation of North America - by Stephen Lendman

SIERRA CLUB
Feature: Threats to Our Water: NAFTA, SPP, Atlantica, Super-Corridors
...describes the Security and Prosperity Partnership for North America (SPP agreed to by the US, Canada and Mexico without Congressional approval), NAFT...The 55 slide presentation is based on extensive research by Dr. Janet M Eaton, SCC Canadian liaison to the Water Privatization Task Force. Download here. and download here.

Cartoon by Mike Luckovich of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution

DARFUR

The United States, acting through surrogate allies in Chad and neighboring states has trained and armed the Sudan Peoples' Liberation Army, headed until his death in July 2005 by John Garang, trained at the US Special Forces school at Fort Benning, Georgia

Eritrea hosts and supports the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), the umbrella National Democratic Alliance (NDA) opposition group, and the Eastern Front and Darfur rebels.

There are two rebel groups fighting in Sudan's Darfur region against the Khartoum central government of President Omar al-Bashir - the Justice for Equality Movement and the larger Sudan Liberation Army (SLA).

In February 2003, the SLA launched attacks on Sudan government positions in the Darfur region. SLA secretary-general Minni Arkou Minnawi called for armed struggle, accusing the government of ignoring Darfur. "The objective of the SLA is to create a united democratic Sudan." In other words, regime change in Sudan.

ALSO

*War and Thievery in The Guise of Humanitarianism*

ALSO

Tue, Jun. 5th, 2007, 07:36 pm
Mahmood Mamdani on Darfur: "The Politics of Naming: Genocide, Civil War, Insurgency"

Who are Sudan's Darfur rebels?
By Martin Plaut
BBC Africa analyst

Gwynne Dyer Articles 2007

Gwynne Dyer Articles 2007

DOW JONES NEWSWIRES: STRAIGHT FROM THE HORSES MOUTH

Western companies may get 75% of Iraqi oil profits

Last Update: 7:34 PM ET Jan 8, 2007

(This article was originally published Monday.)

DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

Iraq's massive oil reserves may be thrown open for large-scale exploitation by Western oil companies - which could end up grabbing up to 75% of the beleagured nation's oil profits - under a law seen coming before the Iraqi parliament within days, the Independent reported on its Web site Monday.

A draft of this controversial law, which the U.S. government has been helping to craft and has been seen by the Independent, would give oil giants such as BP PLC (BP), Royal Dutch Shell PLC (RDSA) and ExxonMobil Corp. (XOM) 30-year contracts to extract Iraqi crude and let these foreign oil companies undertake their first large-scale operations in the country since the industry was nationalized in 1972.

Oil industry executives and analysts say the law, which would allow Western companies to pocket up to three-quarters of profits in the early years, is the only way to get Iraq's oil industry back on its feet after years of sanctions, war and loss of expertise. However, opponents say Iraq, where oil accounts for 95% of the economy, is being forced to surrender an unacceptable degree of sovereignty, the Independent reported.

Supporters counter that the 75%-profit provision will last only until they have recouped their initial drilling costs. After that, they would collect about 20% of profits, according to industry sources in Iraq. This is still twice the industry average for such deals.

Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister, Barham Salih, who chairs the country's oil committee, is expected to unveil the legislation as early as Monday and the government hopes to have the law enacted by March, according to the report.

Newspaper Web site: http://www.ft.com

AFRICAN OIL

• But what has most made Sudan a violent place has been the discovery of oil.

• The Khartoum government has already lost control of the south, where most of its reserves lie.

• The China National Petroleum Corporation bought the rights to Block 6, the largest oil and gas concession field still controlled by Khartoum, which lies mostly in Darfur.

• Production costs are believed to be a bargain 22 cents (less than 12p) a barrel,

• and with Rolls-Royce Marine reportedly supplying tens of millions of dollars worth of pumping equipment this summer Block 6 production is alleged to have risen from 10,000 to 40,000 barrels a day.

• To the east lies Somalia, where the descent into war is portrayed as historical enmity ...

• The real reason is likely to be that the Ogaden region, which borders Somalia, sits on a not yet exploited gas field.

• The Malaysian oil giant Petronas has bought three concession blocks there. Addis Ababa fears a resurgent Somalia will seek to annex Ogaden.

• The likely coming war there is in part gas-powered.

Ogaden (pronounced and often spelled Ogadēn, Somali: Ogaadeen) is a part of the Somali Region in Ethiopia. Sometimes known as "Abyssinian Somaliland," some locals refer to it as Ogadenia (Somali: Ogaadeeniya). The inhabitants are predominantly ethnic Somali and Muslim. The fact that some Somalis call the entire Somali region of Ethiopia "Ogadenia" is a cause of much friction in the region, because there are significant other clans in the Ogaden, such as the Sheikhal, Hawiye and Marehan.[citation needed] For this reason the titles "Somali Galbeed", which means "Western Somalia," is often preferred by supporters of the concept of Greater Somalia.

FROM THE BLOG: RECLAIMING SPACE

Reclaiming Space

Kucinich Claims War Masks the Real Objective: Iraqi Oil

It’s all about Iraq’s oil - rich, abundant, and coveted by multinational companies waiting to line their deep pockets.

• the White House and Democratic-led Congress are helping oil companies grab a stake in Iraq’s vast oil fields while claiming to be interested merely in winding down the Iraq war.
• The claim has brought Kucinich derision within his own Democratic Party. Leaders reject the suggestion that they would help “privatize” Iraqi oil.
• And Republicans dismiss him altogether, with Republican Party spokesman Dan Ronayne saying, “It sounds like congressman Kucinich is trying to get noticed with a nutty conspiracy theory.”
  

At the heart of the issue is a measure that, if ratified by the Iraqi parliament, would set the stage for rebuilding the war-torn country’s oil industry.

• Oil in Iraq, with the world’s third-biggest reserves, could pay for massive reconstruction and modernization.

• only 15 of Iraq’s 74 discovered oil fields have been developed, according to a study by Amy Myers Jaffe, a fellow in energy studies at Rice University in Houston.

• Who should develop that? What role should Baghdad play and what role should provincial governments have? If private industry helps, how should it be rewarded?

The framework for answering these questions is in the bill before the Iraqi parliament - a bill that’s been gaining detractors in Iraq.

• Some members of Congress - but not Kucinich - say it or some other so-called hydrocarbon act could serve as a benchmark for Congress and the administration to measure Iraq’s progress. It could be a measure on which to base eventual withdrawal of American troops.

• with Sunnis and Kurds differing on the central question of provincial versus central control.

• Some in Iraq also see the measure as a way for Western corporations to gain control through revenue- sharing provisions.

“Everyone knows that the oil law does not serve the Iraqi people, and that it serves Bush, his supporters and the foreign companies at the expense of the Iraqi people who have been wronged and deprived of their right to their oil despite enduring all difficulties,” Hasan Jum’a Awwad, head of the Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions, said in a May 12 letter to Democrats in the U.S. Congress.

• Iraq’s oil industry is in shambles. It needs help, but outside experts keep getting killed. Multinational oil companies, whose shareholders expect a return on investment, could help.

• Iraq could go it alone, but ... Iraq needs up to $10 billion to restore production to pre-war levels, she said, and more than $20 billion - ... - to raise output to about 5 million barrels a day, the high end of its historical production levels.

• “If it is decided that higher levels of production are desired,” Jaffe wrote, “it is inevitable that the potential role of outside investors and lenders will loom large.”

While that does not mean companies would give their resources and expertise out of charity, Karen Matusic, a spokeswoman for the American Petroleum Institute, says it does not mean privatization, either. She asks why Kucinich would not want to help Iraq, which lacks the tools.

• “They don’t have the kinds of funds or even technology needed to develop those fields,” she said.

• Sen. George Voinovich, an Ohio Republican, shares that view.

• “That oil is capital,” and all sides in Iraq need it, said Voinovich spokesman Chris Paulitz.

• Kucinich agrees with the sentiment. But he worries it won’t work out that way.

• “It’s clear,” he said, “that the people of Iraq are under enormous pressure to give up their oil.”

To reach this Plain Dealer reporter: skoff@plaind.com, 216-999-4212

© 2007 The Plain Dealer

WORLD POPULATION

What happened around 1830?

76 IRAQI MAPS

there's a hell of a good universe next door; let's go

TWO POEMS

THE FIRST

pity this busy monster, manunkind,

not. Progress is a comfortable disease:
your victim (death and life safely beyond)

plays with the bigness of his littleness
-electrons deify one razorblade
into a mountainrange; lenses extend

unwish through curving wherewhen till unwish
returns on its unself.
A world of made
is not a world of born-pity poor flesh

and trees, poor stars and stones, but never this
fine specimen of hypermagical

ultraomnipotence. We doctors know

a hopeless case if-listen: there's a hell
of a good universe next door; let's go


AND THE OTHER


when god decided to invent
everything he took one
breath bigger than a circustent
and everything began

when man determined to destroy
himself he picked the was
of shall and finding only why
smashed it into because

GRAIN: 800 MILLION AUTOS VS. 2 BILLION POOR. GUESS WHO WINS

Gwynne Dyer: Biofuel mania ends days of cheap food
5:00AM Tuesday July 10, 2007
By Gwynne Dyer

The era of cheap food is over. The price of maize has doubled in a year, and wheat futures are at their highest in a decade. The food price index in India has risen 11 per cent in one year,

But after the war, a series of radical changes, from mechanisation to the green revolution, raised agricultural productivity hugely and caused a long, steep fall in the real price of food.

...we are entering a period when three separate factors are converging to drive food prices up.

• Not only is the global population continuing to grow - about an extra Turkey or Vietnam every year -

• but as Asian economies race ahead, more people in those populous countries are starting to eat more meat.

• 10 years from now, people in the developing countries will be eating 30 per cent more beef, 50 per cent more pig meat and 25 per cent more poultry.

• The animals will need a great deal of grain, and meeting that demand will require shifting huge amounts of grain-growing land from human to animal consumption

• A sixth of all the grain grown in the United States this year will be "industrial corn" destined to be converted into ethanol and burned in cars, and Europe, Brazil and China are all heading in the same direction.

• The amount of United States farmland devoted to biofuels grew by 48 per cent in the past year alone,

• Global warming hits crop yields, ... for every 0.5C hotter, crop yields fall between 3 and 5 per cent.

• So 2C hotter, which is the lower end of the range of predicted temperature rise this century, means a 12 to 20 per cent fall in global food production.

U.S. demands Pakistan act against militants, threatens intervention

SLAMABAD, Pakistan — An ambush of a military convoy that killed 17 troops near the Afghan border Wednesday pushed the death toll in a series of attacks to at least 101 Pakistanis in the past five days

The Bush administration, after publicly demanding that Musharraf rein in militants linked to al Qaida, on Wednesday threatened to launch attacks into Pakistani territory if it sees fit.

"We certainly do not rule out options, and we retain the option especially of striking actionable targets," said White House spokesman Tony Snow. "But it is clearly of the utmost importance to go in there and deal with the problem in the tribal areas."

Still Privatizing After All These Years; WORLD BANK CASE STUDY

The World Bank's Russia office turns 15

By Alexander Zaitchik ( zaitchik@gmail.com )

Browse Author (21)

« Previous (19)

Next (1) »

Russia-watchers know the horrific stat about Russian men's grotesquely low life expectancy, which in the 1990s reached levels normally associated with Tse Tse fly-infested backwaters in Africa. But over the past few years, things have started to turn around. Russia's male life expectancy has risen from a Congo-like low of 56 to nearly 60, which, coincidentally, is the retirement age for Russian men. Finally, they're about to live long enough to start collecting their pensions.

Oil Pressure: A History of U.S. Involvement in Iraq’s Oil Development

Feb.-March 2001: White House Energy Taskforce produces a list of “Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield Contracts.”3

December 2002-April 2003: U.S. State Department Oil and Energy Working Group brought together influential Iraqi exiles, U.S. government officials, and international consultants. The result of the project’s work was a “draft framework for Iraq’s oil policy” that would form the foundation for the energy policy now being considered by the Iraqi Parliament. The final report noted that Iraq “should be opened to international oil companies as quickly as possible after the war.4 Later, several Iraqi members of the group became part of the Iraqi government. The Group included future Iraqi Oil Minister, Bahr al-Uloum.

January 2003: The Wall Street Journal reported that representatives from Exxon Mobil Corp., ChevronTexaco Corp., ConocoPhillips, and Halliburton, among others, were meeting with Vice President Cheney’s staff to plan the post-war revival of Iraq’s oil industry.5

...

April 19, 2007: Defense Secretary Robert Gates travels to Baghdad to push political benchmarks and specifically the oil law.34

May 9 2007: U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney travels to Baghdad to push political benchmarks and specifically the oil law.35

June 12, 2007: U.S. Admiral Fallon, head of the Central Command, warned Iraq’s Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in a closed-door conversation to pass the oil law by July.36

July 3, 2007: Iraq cabinet approves oil law draft.37

July 12, 2007: The White House released its Initial Benchmark Assessment Report. Benchmark #3, “Enacting and implementing legislation to ensure the equitable distribution of hydrocarbon resources” is found to be not met. The report notes, “The effect of limited progress toward this benchmark has been to reduce the perceived confidence in, and effectiveness of, the Iraqi Government. This does not, however, necessitate a revision to our current plan and strategy, under which we have assigned a high priority to this subject, and the process overall has continued to move forward.”38

OIL TO THE USA

The top five crude-oil exporters to the U.S. market last year, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Figures are in barrels.

_Canada, 650,874,000

_Mexico, 575,135,000

_Saudi Arabia, 518,739,000

_Venezuela, 415,676,000

_Nigeria, 380,715,000

"HANDS OFF IRAQI OIL" BLOGSITE

Hands Off Iraqi Oil is a UK coalition opposing any foreign exploitation of Iraq's oil reserves that rips off the Iraqi people. Members include Corporate Watch, Iraq Occupation Focus, Jubilee Iraq, Naftana, PLATFORM, Voices UK, and War on Want. To be added to our updates list, please email: handsoffiraqioil@googlemail.com.


July 16, 2007 at 16:59:54

Iraqis Protest Oil Law Today

by Kathlyn Stone Page 1 of 1 page(s)

http://www.opednews.com

www.handsoffiraqioil.org

The draft hydrocarbon law being pushed by the Bush Administration is uniting citizens and disparate groups within Iraq against the U.S. government. Protests within Iraq are escalating as the Iraqi Parliament is pressured to pass the law which would turn over 70-80% of oil revenues to foreign companies. The Parliament is also wrangling over whether the oil law will be implemented under regional or national management. The Iraq Freedom Congress and the Anti-Oil Law Frontier staged a mass demonstration in Baghdad on July 7. Subhi Al-Badri, head of the Frontier, predicted an intensifying revolt against the law as pressure mounts for its passage. He said the majority of Iraqis "reject the oil law and it is in fact the law of slavery and servitude." ...

For further information, go to: www.priceofoil.org or www.uslaboragainstwar.org.

[1] Demands from the Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions to Parliament include to: (1) reject the proposed oil law; (2) expel the current Oil Minister; (3) abolish the recently announced hike in oil and gas prices in Iraq; and (4) pass a law to establish labor rights and legalize trade unions.

Contact: For information on the Iraq Oil Law: Antonia Juhasz, Oil Change International (415) 846-5447. For information on the Oil Workers Union and Protest in Basra: Denice Lombard, U.S. Labor Against the War (202) 320-5588.

www.kathystone.squarespace.com

Kathlyn Stone is a Twin Cities, Minnesota-based writer covering science, health policy, the economy and international relations.

Hundreds of Iraqis protest draft oil law

About 500 oil industry workers gathered in Iraq's main oil port of Basra on Monday to protest a draft oil law

CHE ON YOUTUBE

RON PAUL RAKES IT IN - FROM THE MILITARY

Congressman Ron Paul says:

• staunchly critical stance on the Iraq war,
• that it was a "mistake to go and a mistake to stay."
• US security has been worsened by its military presence in Iraq,
• Bush's pre-emptive war doctrine represented one of his administration's greatest moral failings.
  

One might think such criticism of the war and the Commander-in-Chief's leadership would make Paul a pariah to the military community, however, the latest figures indicate the antiwar Republican is receiving more donations from employees of the US military than any other Republican candidate.

But a closer look at the reports reveals a less obvious but more remarkable development--the antiwar Republican received nearly 50% of the money donated by employees of the US military.

BENCHMARKS

WASHINGTON (CNN) — A report on U.S.-set benchmarks for Iraq shows “satisfactory progress” in eight areas, while highlighting that there’s “more work to do” in other areas, President Bush said Thursday.

“Of the 18 benchmarks Congress asked us to measure, we can report that satisfactory progress is being made in eight areas,” Bush said during a White House news conference.

Iraqis “have provided the three brigades they promised for operations in and around Baghdad,” said the president. However, Iraqis have “not done enough to prepare for local elections or pass a law to share in oil

UNSATISFACTORY

1. De-Ba'athification laws
2. Distribution of oil revenues
3. Independent electoral commission
4. Disarming of militias
5. Increase number of Iraqi security forces capable of operating independently
6. Allocation of $10bn in Iraqi reconstruction
7. Ensure political authorities are not undermining security forces
   

MIXED

1. Enacting and implementing legislation addressing amnesty

SATISFACTORY

1. Constitutional review
2. Training of three key Iraqi army brigades
3. Providing Iraqi commanders with authority to pursue US troop "surge" without political interference
4. Even handed law enforcement by Iraqi forces
5. Reduce sectarian violence
6. Establish joint US-Iraqi security stations in Baghdad
7. Protect rights of minority political parties
8. Enacting and implementing legislation on procedures to form semi-autonomous regions
9. Ensure that the Baghdad security plan will not provide a safe haven for any outlaws, regardless of their political affiliation
10. Establishing supporting political, media, economic and services committees in Baghdad in support of the security plan

From BBC

From Military Keynesianism to Global-Neoliberal Militarism

by James M. Cypher

In mid-summer of 2006 a Harris Opinion poll:

• 50 percent of the U.S. public believed that weapons of mass destruction (WMD) had been found in Iraq by U.S. forces

• nearly 67% of those polled thought that the Iraqi regime had been collaborating with al-Qaeda forces prior to the Washington invasion in the spring of 2003.

• a large majority of the population believed that the invasion had been a mistake and favored significant troop withdrawals in the near future.

Psychologists might interpret these discordant results as indications of mass cognitive dissonance.

• Although the United States suffered significant losses in terms of death and injury to its fighting forces, the economy boomed during the war, the Depression faded, and the fight was “over there.”

• This unique positive U.S. relationship between economic recovery and heavy bouts of military spending (if not war) has remained up to the present.

• With the onset of the Persian Gulf War of 1991, a new factor was thrown into the relationship—high-tech, “precision-guided” weaponry would make combat antiseptic.

• A childish and disengaged language also began to circulate in this period. There were “good guys” and “bad guys.”

• High-tech war would eliminate the bad guys—not innocent civilians whose deaths had been compartmentalized heretofore as collateral damage.

• The presentation of war as entertainment during the 1991 Gulf War was designed to beat back the Vietnam Syndrome—what conservatives saw as a pathology regarding the U.S. population’s increased reluctance to support interventions in the third world.

• The public will support military adventurism, but it will not sustain high human costs of war in the United States.

• In the United States militarism is and has been since the late 1940s a hegemonic societal perception—the prism through which global political events and U.S. foreign policy are interpreted.

...

HE'S POLL PROOF. IT'S GOING TO TAKE A BALA

Great article by LEE SUSTAR

VENEZUELA’S “BOLIVARIAN Revolution” ... “socialism for the twenty-first century.” Revenues from the state oil company, PDVSA, have funded vast increases in social spending.

• reduction of poverty from 55 percent of the population to 34 percent

• share of gross domestic product (GDP) on social spending has increased from 7.83 percent to 14.69 percent;

• the achievement of literacy for 1.5 million adults;

• the virtual elimination of hunger through subsidized grocery stores that service 13 million people;

• medical care provided by Cuban doctors via free clinics in slums, reaching 18 million people, nearly 70 percent of the population;

• access to higher education for the poor and working class;

• and special affirmative action programs for indigenous people.

• The minimum wage is now the highest in Latin America at $286 per month,

• and the workweek is to be shortened from forty to thirty-six hours by 2010.

• Land reform has shifted 8.8 million acres to impoverished families, more than half of that from private owners.

• Government seed money has increased the number of cooperative enterprises from fewer than 800 to 181,000 to try and provide more stable employment for the approximately half of Venezuelan workers who toil in the informal sector of the economy.

• All this is being achieved despite the implacable hostility of Venezuelan capital and of U.S. imperialism,

• Chávez looms ever larger on the world stage, having turned Venezuela from one of the most compliant states in Washington’s “backyard” into the cutting edge of the revolt against neoliberalism and a laboratory for socialism in the twenty-first century—

• all with oil money earned from exports to the United States.

• Oil prices are high, of course, owing to the Iraq War,

WARNING SIGNS FROM THE BLOG "STATION CHARON"

This is a new feature here at Station Charon looking at how the signs were there for the current global fascist corporate police state and the looter capitalist system that it uses as a tool for the coming hostile takeover of the United States.

Warning Signs Part One: Saul Alinsky

All their old values seem to have deserted them, leaving them rudderless in a sea of social chaos. Believe me, this is good organizational material.

The despair is there; now it's up to us to go in and rub raw the sores of discontent, galvanize them for radical social change. We'll give them a way to participate in the democratic process, a way to exercise their rights as citizens and strike back at the establishment that oppresses them, instead of giving in to apathy.

Warning Signs Part Two: Henry A. Wallace

...the creation of the CIA, the McCarthy years during which the real left was beaten back and degraded as a political force, the gradual and growing influence of the military industrial complex, the creation of a massive, well-funded infrastructure of think tanks and media shills, the hijacking of religion, the dumbing down of Americans through incessant propaganda, the destruction of the quality of education available in public schools, the erosion of worker’s rights as well as globalist ‘free trade’ pacts that would facilitate the looting of the fascist oligarchs...

Warning Signs Part 3: Smedley D. Butler

Those were the good ole days when the wetwork of building the empire was primarily done by the use of the U.S. military rather than the CIA, the economic hitmen and mercenary armies like Blackwater.

AL QAEDA'S GRAND STRATEGY: SUPERPOWER BAITING

An in depth interview with Saad al-Faqih, an expert on al Qaeda, provides some insight into this. See also, Frontline, Asia Times, BBC,

• The American mentality is a cowboy mentality-- if you confront them with their identity theoretically and practically they will react in an extreme manner.

• They will then elevate you and this will satisfy the Muslim longing for a leader who can successfully challenge the West. ...(you must) identifying every American as a target.

• The statement in February 1998, which was only 3 or 4 lines, effectively sanctioned shedding the blood of every American.

This decision resulted in the east African embassy attacks of 1998. The result of these attacks were as follows:

• ...the Americans over-reacted by bombing Afghanistan and Sudan and consequently shifted the focus of blame away from al-Qaeda.

• Clinton himself identified Bin Laden as the enemy and, in effect, delivered a hero to the Muslims. Bin Laden was transformed into a popular hero.
  
• The immediate effect of this was that thousands of Muslims travelled to Afghanistan.

He goes on to explain the motivation for 9/11 and the result of the American reaction:

• The next stage involved initiating a full scale polarization between Muslims and America.

• The 9/11 attacks forced America into a cosmic battle with Muslims.

• Ultimately the real issue here is the perception of Muslims and the vast majority of Muslims around the world feel besieged by America.

The result of this, according to al-Faqih will be internal turmoil in America and its eventual adoption of an isolationist policy:

• Now strategically I think America has not only lost but it is likely to vanish.

• It has started a campaign which has forced the majority of Muslims against it.

• There are many people in America who want to tackle the matter in a much more intelligent manner but they have been silenced by this pervasive McCarthyism.

• Once the next attack occurs they are likely to say ... is the time to try a different approach.

• Now of course the right wingers, the Zionists and the arms lobby will refuse to give ground and then a clash inside America is likely to ensue.

FROM 2005: THE OPEN-SOURCE WAR BY JOHN ROBB

Originally published as an op-ed in the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/15/opinion/15robb.html
Republished with permission of the author.

...The insurgents have ... expanded their campaign of violence to include Iraqi troops, police officers, government officials and Shiite civilians. Since the American military's objective is to gain a monopoly on violence in Iraq, these developments indicate ...a rapid loss in market share.

According to the military, it kills or captures 1,000 to 3,000 insurgents a month. Its estimate of the insurgency, however, is a mere 12,000 to 20,000 fighters. Simple math indicates we have destroyed the insurgency several times over since it started.

... observers estimate that up to 20 percent of the two million former Baathists

...that the insurgency isn't a fragile hierarchical organization but rather a resilient network made up of small, autonomous groups. This means that the insurgency is virtually immune to attrition and decapitation.

First, out-innovating the insurgency will ... prove unsuccessful. The insurgency uses an open-source community approach (similar to the decentralized development process now prevalent in the software industry) to warfare that is extremely quick and innovative. New technologies and tactics move rapidly...innovation cycles are faster than the American military's slower bureaucratic processes ( body and vehicle armor).

Second, there are few visible fault lines in the insurgency ... Like software developers in the open-source community, the insurgents have subordinated their individual goals to the common goal of the movement. ... the military is not going to find a way to chop off parts of the insurgency through political means - particularly if former Ba'athists are systematically excluded from participation in the new Iraqi state by the new Constitution.

Third, the United States can try to diminish the insurgency by letting it win. The disparate groups in an open-source effort are held together by a common goal. Once the goal is reached, the community often falls apart.

Unfortunately, this solution arrived too late. There are signs that the insurgency's goal is shifting from a withdrawal of the United States military to the collapse of the Iraqi government.

What's left? It's possible, as Microsoft has found, that there is no good monopolistic solution to a mature open-source effort. In that case, the United States might be better off adopting I.B.M.'s embrace of open source. This solution would require renouncing the state's monopoly on violence by using Shiite and Kurdish militias as a counterinsurgency.

In fact, it appears the American military is embracing it. In recent campaigns in Sunni areas, hastily uniformed peshmerga and Badr militia supplemented American troops; and in Basra, Shiite militias are the de facto military power.

If an open-source counterinsurgency is the only strategic option left, it is a depressing one. The militias will probably create a situation of controlled chaos that will allow the administration to claim victory and exit the country. They will, however, exact a horrible toll on Iraq and may persist for decades.

John Robb is working on a book on the logic of terrorism. Visit his blog at: http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/johnrobb/

GIULIANI AND PODHORETZ

The naming of leading neoconservative Norman Podhoretz as one of Republican presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani's senior foreign policy advisers is disconcerting to those Americans who have hoped that the current disagreements with Iran might be resolved short of war. Giuliani

Podhoretz has recently called on the United States to bomb Iran and he describes the current situation -- pitting Washington against what he describes as "the Islamofascist threat" -- as World War IV. Podhoretz basically advocates a world-wide conflict not unlike World War II to defeat Islamists everywhere they are to be found. Giuliani is already the U.S. presidential hopeful who is perceived most favorably in Israel because of his uncompromising stance on issues like the Iranian threat and terrorism, and the addition of Podhoretz will certainly be viewed favorably by many influential neoconservatives. Podhoretz is himself an uncompromising advocate of what he sees as Israeli national security imperatives very much in the mold of the right-wing Likud party.

Wolves in Sheep's Clothing: The New Liberal Menace in America.

Forget the neoconservatives. As the Democrats retake Washington and progressives think they can pull the U.S. back from the brink, Stephen Marshall’s up close and personal investigation finds that the biggest threat to Western democracy is the U.S. liberal elite.

For the new capitalist revolution, there is New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman...there is probably no other liberal who fits the description of a wolf in sheep's clothing than America's preeminent globalization advocate.

Friedman was one of the first A-list liberals to peddle the idea that Iraqis would treat American soldiers as liberators.

• Friedman declared, "This is the most radical-liberal revolutionary war the U.S. has ever launched -- a war of choice to install some democracy in the heart of the Arab-Muslim world."

• "U.S. power is not being used in Iraq for oil, or imperialism, or to shore up a corrupt status quo, as it was in Vietnam and elsewhere in the Arab world during the cold war," wrote Friedman in his column.

• Prowar liberals like Friedman, architects of the new millennial liberal project, cannot afford to second-guess the motives driving America's War on Terror. From the outset, Friedman believed implicitly that Bush's Iraq War plan was a high-stakes gamble based on ideological motives,

• Who bets the house on an abstraction? No one. So we're to believe that Bush and Cheney went for broke to bring democracy to Iraq? That's insanity. This is an administration so mired in cronyism and conflicts of interest that to believe they would take such a huge bet on a political ideal is delusional. And yet that is exactly what the pro-war liberals have done. The question is: why?

STATUS OF IRAQUI OIL EXPLAINED BY ANTONIA JUHASZ

• But the device ultimately chosen to win this war for oil is only slightly more subtle: a law, to be passed by the Iraqis themselves, which would turn Iraq's oil over to foreign oil companies.

• The U.S. State Department Iraq Study Group began laying the foundations for the new law prior to the invasion of Iraq

• The Bush administration has spent four years trying to force successive Iraqi governments to pass the law, referred to as either the "hydrocarbons" or "oil" law.

• The law would change Iraq's oil system from a nationalized model -- all but closed to U.S. oil companies -- to a privatized model open to foreign corporate control.

• At least two-thirds of Iraq's oil would be open to foreign oil companies under terms that they usually only dream about, including 30-year-long contracts.

• In January, ....announcing the "surge" of 20,000 additional American troops to Iraq.

• The president explained that the surge would be successful ... because ... of specific "benchmarks." .... including to "enact [a] hydrocarbons law to promote investment, national unity, and reconciliation."

• ...the law's capacity to bring "national unity and reconciliation" by establishing a mechanism to evenly distribute Iraq's oil revenues among Iraqis on a per capita basis.

• the American press ... refers to the oil law as a revenue sharing measure -- ignoring completely the fact that Iraqis would only be able to share the revenues left over after the foreign oil companies received their very sizeable cut.

• In February, the oil law passed...Iraq's cabinet... (who sent) it to the parliament. However, resistance in the parliament was too great, and the law was not introduced.

• Congress passed and the president signed the Iraq Supplemental War Spending Bill (PDF) to fund the Iraq war through the end of September.

• In the Supplemental, Congress deliberately adopted the president's benchmarks, specifically and continually referencing his January 10, 2007, speech.

• Instead, Congress referenced the president's benchmarks but described only the revenue-sharing component.

• The Supplemental finds ... that 'America will change our approach to help the Iraqi government as it works to meet these benchmarks.'"

• including: (iii) Enacting and implementing legislation to ensure the equitable distribution of hydrocarbon resources of the people of Iraq without regard to the sect...

• Congress stipulated that if the benchmarks were not met by September, it would cut off funds being made available to Iraq

• Congress required the Bush administration to report back on the status of the benchmarks by July 15. Thus, a flurry of effort erupted between the Bush administration and the Al-Maliki government in recent weeks to try to finally pass the law.

• Four days later, on July 7, Usama al-Nujeyfi, a member of Iraq's parliamentary energy committee, quit in protest over the oil law, saying that it would cede too much control to global companies and "ruin the country's future."

• His response has been typical ... the parliament has not yet taken the measure up for consideration.

• At the same time ... negotiations were also moving forward on the federal revenue law (referred by the Bush administration as the "revenue management law")... A limited agreement was reached on the revenue law, but it has yet to approved by the Iraqi cabinet.

• ...the future of the "framework hydrocarbon law" (the oil law) is very unclear. As U.S. pressure intensifies to pass the law before September 2007, the deadline established by the Supplemental, Iraqi resistance grows.

• On June 19, five Nobel Peace Prize recipients released a statement publicly denouncing not only the Iraq oil law, but also the pressure being applied by the U.S. Congress and the Bush adminstration on the Iraqi government to pass it.

• declares that "the U.S. government should leave the matter of how Iraq will address the future of its oil system to the Iraqi people to be dealt with at a time when they are free from occupation and more able to engage in truly democratic decision making. It is immoral and illegal to use war and invasion as mechanisms for robbing a people of their vital natural resources."

• The debate in the U.S. Congress has finally shifted from "whether" to "how" to end the U.S. invasion of Iraq. ... We must be ... demand not only that the occupation end, but ... that the requirement that Iraqis change their oil system is taken off of the table.

THE OIL WAR

• The fate of and fight for control over Iraq's oil is the same for the country itself. At issue is to what extent the federal government, as stewards of Iraq as a whole, will decide oil policy.

• "It has to be a package of laws in which all the Iraqis can agree, which is why it is a benchmark of national reconciliation," a State Department official told UPI in May,

• ...adding that's why revenue sharing is the main emphasis of the U.S. government. Revenue sharing would be decided in a revenue sharing law, not the oil law

• The oil law already faced opposition from Iraq oil experts -- including two of the law's three original authors -- as well as the powerful oil unions.

• "The last four years have witnessed repeated attempts at dismantling the basis for any well planned resources management for the whole nation, only to replace it with market oriented destabilization and fragmentation policies that are at variance and in competition with each other and the national interest," said Tariq Shafiq

• "It's really important to challenge the notion that the law is going to unite 'warring factions,'" said Ewa Jasiewicz of the London-based campaigner Platform.

• Parliament was supposed to take up the oil law Wednesday but boycotts and chronic absenteeism scrapped that.

• The Sadr Movement and the Iraqi Accord Front now say they may end the boycott specifically to challenge the law. The former held mass rallies over the weekend in opposition to Maliki. IAF says it will call for a vote of no confidence in him.

• The Association of Muslim Scholars issued an edict against any Parliamentarian approving the law

• Last week the Iraq Freedom Congress -- whose motto is "Working for a Democratic, Secular and Progressive Alternative to both the U.S. Occupation and Political Islam in Iraq" -- teamed up with the new Anti Oil Law Frontier to rally masses against the law.

Mexico: A Nation-State Dissolves as the Cantarell field collapses

Posted by jeffvail on July 12, 2007 - 10:00am on The Oil Drum

• Mexico’s Oil Production is Collapsing

• Mexico’s National and State Boundaries are Separating

• The State of Mexico is Failing to Provide for its Nation

• Mexico’s Monopoly on Violence is Collapsing

• Can Mexico Protect Its Oil Infrastructure?

• Collapse is a Positive Feedback Loop

• Is Mexico a unique case or a bellwether?

MULTIMEDIA-GRASSROOTS CAMPAIGN LAUNCHED TO HELP ACHIEVE HISTORIC LATINO TURNOUT IN 2008

The Univision network has launched a multi-media campaign names "Ya Es Hora" (Now is the Time) on its air to encourage Hispanic immigrants to become citizens and register to vote in the presidential election next year. According to the federal immigration data of the 8 Million legal residents eligible to become citizens the majority are from Latin American countries.

The campaign consists of public service announcements detailing the process, costs and where to go to get help with the application. They also provide pop quizzes with questions from the citizenship exam. Being dubbed as a community service campaign, once has to ask what is the real motivation behind the campaign?

Although we can't deny that Univision does good for the Hispanic community in America, one has to wonder if there isn't some other motivation for them. Like attracting more attention to the Hispanic vote and therefore increase the ad spent by political candidates on all Spanish networks. Remember TV ad spending usually increases during election years, and I am sure we will probably report next year how ad spending is up in the 4th quarter of 2008 versus 2007.

Mountain View Community College
4849 W. Illinois Ave
Dallas, Texas 75211

Historiography

* Plutarch--Great Men and their Character. His thesis is that the very character of men changes history. His study of Mark Antony suggests that his love for Cleopatra blinded him to his duties in Rome and was destroyed by Augustus; who, it turned out, was not a lightweight.


* Historical Forces. This is the assertion that certain ideas, movements, etc., become irresistible forces that will have their way. An example is Christianity being such a force that would eventually not only survive persecution, but emerge victorious over the Roman Empire. Another is the dominance of Science in the West over Theology and Philosophy as the authority for determining Truth.


* Toynbee--Challenge and response. Toynbee's theory is that all civilizations are faced with a crisis which is either one of ideas, or one of technology. How they respond determines whether they will survive. An example is the Fall of Rome. Many blame Christianity for sapping the Pagan strength of Rome and causing her downfall. Toynbee points out that the Byzantine Empire (the Eastern Roman Empire) used Christianity to revitalize and reform the Roman Empire for another thousand years.


* Hegel--Dialectic. Hegel's Theory of History says that for every old idea, there is a new one which conflicts with it. Out of the struggle a new idea is created (Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis). He felt that this was how God led us to perfection and revealed new truth. History is just the product of conflict


* Darwin. Not a historian, but he took Hegel's idea and applied them to science. His biological application led to the Origin of Species. Herbert Spencer and others then used his biological ideas to support their ideas that a struggle among races of people and differing nations led to the strongest and most able nations ruling the world. Victory in combat meant the superiority of a nation or people.


* Marx--Material Dialectic. Marx used Hegel's ideas and applied them to classes of people throughout history. Any ruling class controlled the "means of production" which gave them wealth and power to rule. Whenever a new method of production occurred, there was conflict between the older ruling class and a newer class using the newer and superior means of production. An example is how the Businessman and his money destroyed the power of the old Aristocracy based on land and hereditary ownership


* Turner--Geography and the Frontier. Turner's thesis said that geography determines the character of a people and, depending on the situation, gave them certain advantages and disadvantages. An example is that the English and Japanese, being Island Nations, would naturally have an advantage at sea combat. And, in an age of sea-trade they would, tend to be powerful. His thesis explicitly stated how the Frontier shaped the American mind to be open to new things and to strive for what was new. In our modern technological age, Americans are very open to new technologies.


* Radicals--History is the story of who won. This thesis says that history is little more than mythmaking. "History is the history of winners." Those who win, write the history books. Those who have lost are excluded or demonized. History is determined by who has the political power to write the books. But, for some, reading a restaurant menu is as important as reading "history."


* Boorstin--The unexpected. Daniel J. Boorstin's books suggest a thesis that ideas and practices simply come together in various places and time and can hardly be predicted. What has mattered, is that the great Creators and Discoverers have been open to the challenge and took previously unrelated ideas and put them together in a way that was entirely new. They thus change the world. An example is how an anonymous optician in Belgium created the first telescope to be used in combat. It found its way to Italy where Galileo began to look at stars with it. His findings undermined the Ptolemaic system. However, the Church used his information to create the modern Gregorian Calendar we use today. But sixteen years later in the firestorm of the Reformation, Galileo was ordered to remain silent. Boorstin is hostile to the Hegelian-Marxist-Darwinian school as it can only tell what the future is like based on the past. The Hegelians could never have predicted the impact of the telescope. Boorstin makes considerable money showing that no one can predict; you can only remain open to change. Change cannot be managed.

MARICON, SI!!

The New Mexico governor used the term as part of a joke instigated by talk show host Don Imus during a March 29, 2006, segment of his “Imus in the Morning” syndicated radio program, simulcast on MSNBC. “Bernard on the staff here has been claiming you’re not really Hispanic so-- that you're just claiming that for some sort of advantage or something,” Imus said to Richardson, tongue clearly in cheek. “You can just answer this yes or no and this will answer that question. Would you agree that Bernard is a maricón?”
Without missing a beat, Richardson replied in Spanish, “Yo creo que Bernardo, sí — es un maricón si él piensa que yo no soy hispano. [General laughter] Was that good enough or what? [General laughter]”
“That’s good enough for me,” Imus replied.

WAS IT EJERCITO POPULAR REVOLUCIONARIO (EPR) OR PAN

The left-leaning Democratic Revolution Party issued a statement Wednesday casting doubt on the EPR's involvement. The party said it "wasn't ruling out" the government's own involvement, either to generate support for allowing private investment in Pemex, to use as an excuse to crack down on leftist groups or "to distract people from the grave problems that afflict the country."

THE PEOPLE'S REVOLUTIONARY ARMY

The People's Revolutionary Army shuts down 800 business' and the gas supply to Guadalajara, Aguascalientes, Querétaro, León y Celaya.

They state that:

We have initiated a national campaign of harassment to the economic interests of the oligarchy and of this antipopular government (Felipe Calderon and PAN), declaring their military objective all the interests of the oligarchy that violently impose the illegitimate government of Calderón


Alrededor de la una de la mañana del martes ocurrió la explosión en el gasoducto de Coroneo, Querétaro,

Partido Democrático Popular Revolucionario-Ejército Popular Revolucionario

Por todos los agravios cometidos en estos años contra el pueblo, ante la brutal violencia intitucionalizada, ante la criminalización del descontento social, por la detención-desaparición de los luchadores sociales informamos a nuestro pueblo y a sus organizaciones que:

1. Hemos iniciado una campaña nacional de hostigamiento a los intereses económicos de la oligarquía y de este gobierno antipopular, declarando objetivo militar todos los intereses de la oligarquía que impuso violentamente al gobierno ilegítimo de Calderón.

2. Las explosiones en los ductos de PEMEX en Celaya, Salamanca, Valle de Santiago Guanajuato y la válvula de seccionamiento Coroneo fueron acciones quirúrgicas de hostigamiento, llevadas a cabo por unidades de nuestro ejército, apoyadas por milicias populares, bajo la conducción del Comité Estatal de Guanajuato.

3. Las acciones de hostigamiento no pararán hasta que sean presentados con vida nuestros compañeros Edmundo Reyes Amaya y Raymundo Rivera Bravo o Gabriel Alberto Cruz Sánchez, así como todos los desaparecidos denunciados en Oaxaca, del Estado de México y Guerrero.
Ante la imposición de un gobierno ilegítimo y la violencia de éste, convocamos a todo nuestro pueblo y a sus organizaciones legales, clandestinas y revolucionarias a sumarse a esta campaña impulsando desde cada trinchera de lucha las acciones de hostigamiento a su alcance para exigir todos juntos la presentación de todos los detenidos-desaparecidos y la libertad de todos los presos políticos y de conciencia del país. ¡A no permitir ninguna agresión más contra el pueblo!, ¡Ni un detenido-desaparecido más!, ¡Alto a la guerra sucia!

Para todos nuestros militantes, combatientes, colaboradores y simpatizantes la orden es ¡A continuar con la campaña nacional de hostigamiento en los tiempos y forma definidos!

¡EXIGIMOS LA PRESENTACION INMEDIATA DE NUESTROS COMPAÑEROS DETENIDOS-DESAPARECIDOS DESDE EL 25 DE MAYO EN EL ESTADO DE OAXACA!
¡EXIGIMOS LA PRESENTACION DE TODOS LOS DETENIDOS-DESAPARECIDOS DEL PAIS!
¡LIBERTAD A TODOS LOS PRESOS POLITICOS Y DE CONCIENCIA DEL PAIS!
¡POR NUESTROS CAMARADAS PROLETARIOS!
¡RESUELTOS A VENCER!
¡POR LA REVOLUCION SOCIALISTA!
¡VENCER O MORIR!
¡CON LA GUERRA POPULAR!
¡EL EPR TRIUNFARA!

"DOG AND PONY SHOW OF PURPLE FINGER DEMOCRACY

...NBC News, the corporate media propaganda outlet owned and operated by General Electric, makers of cruise missiles, Stealth bombers, B-52 bombers, AWACS, and the NAVSTAR spy satellite system, the sort of stuff used up in record numbers inside Iraq and Afghanistan, thus ensuring mega-profits for the merchants of death and destruction.

After Bush Senior attacked Iraq in 1991, methodically destroying the country’s power, communications, water, sewage treatment and health facilities, more than a decade of sanctions were imposed to make sure these critical services were not rebuilt and restored, thus resulting in the premeditated murder of around a million Iraqis, half of them helpless children.

DARFUR? --- CHEVRON PIPELINE FROM CHAD -- CHINESE PIPELINE FROM DARFUR SUDAN

SELECT YOUR MARKET

Los Angeles

* #1 Hispanic Market
* 7,811,100 Hispanic Population
* $105 Billion Hispanic Buying Power
* Hispanics Make Up 44.5% of Total Los Angeles

New York City

* #2 Hispanic Market
* 4,316,400 Hispanic Population
* $59.2 Billion Hispanic Buying Power
* Hispanics Make Up 20.5% of Total New York City\

Miami

* #3 Hispanic Market
* 1,838,000 Hispanic Population
* $32.9 Billion Hispanic Buying Power
* Hispanics Make Up 43.9% of Total Miami
Population

Houston

* # 4 Hispanic Market
* 1,822,600 Hispanic Population
* $25.1 Billion Hispanic Buying Power
* Hispanics Make Up 33.4% of Total Houston

Chicago

* # 5 Hispanic Market
* 1,836,800 Hispanic Population
* $24.2 Billion Hispanic Buying Power
* Hispanics Make Up 19.0% of Total Chicago

San Francisco

* #6 Hispanic Market
* 1,509,700 Hispanic Population
* $20.9 Billion Hispanic Buying Power
* Hispanics Make Up 21.3% of Total San Francisco

Dallas

* #7 Hispanic Market
* 1,491,800 Hispanic Population
* $20.8 Billion Hispanic Buying Power
* Hispanics Make Up 23.5% of Total Dallas

San Antonio

* #8 Hispanic Market
* 1,293,700 Hispanic Population
* $17.9 Billion Hispanic Buying Power
* Hispanics Make Up 60.3% of Total San Antonio

Phoenix

* #9 Hispanic Market
* 1,208,000 Hispanic Population
* $16.7 Billion Hispanic Buying Power
* Hispanics Make Up 27.2% of Total Phoenix

San Diego

* # 10 Hispanic Market
* 927,600 Hispanic Population
* $12.6 Billion Hispanic Buying Power
* Hispanics Make Up 31.2% of Total San Diego

McAllen

* # 12 Hispanic Market
* 1,142,000 Hispanic Population
* $11 Billion Hispanic Buying Power
* Hispanics Make Up 94.8% of Total McAllen

Fresno

* # 13 Hispanic Market
* 893,000 Hispanic Population
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* Hispanics Make Up 50.7% of Total Fresno

El Paso

* # 15 Hispanic Market
* 782,500 Hispanic Population
* $10.3 Billion Hispanic Buying Power
* Hispanics Make Up 87.7% of Total El Paso

Albuquerque

* #16 Hispanic Market
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* $9.8 Billion Hispanic Buying Power
* Hispanics Make Up 41.6% of Total Albuquerque

Las Vegas

* # 20 Hispanic Market
* 438,800 Hispanic Population
* $6.1 Billion Hispanic Buying Power
* Hispanics Make Up 26% of Total Las Vegas

UN AÑO DESPUES

Más de 100 mil personas acudieron al llamado de Andrés Manuel López Obrador para marchar por Paseo de la Reforma, avenida Juárez y congregarse en el Zócalo capitalino para recordar ''el fraude electoral'' del 2 de julio del año pasado. En su discurso, el llamado ''presidente legítimo'' dijo que ''es imprescindible cambiar la política económica. Se persiste en mantener el atraso del país y el empobrecimiento del pueblo al aplicar impuestos a los trabajadores y a la clase media, a la que se trata con saña desagradecida'' FOTO Carlos Ramos Mamahua

LATIN AMERICA NEWS REVIEW