The Media Freedom Foundation » World

Prison Slavery in Today’s U.S.A

admin — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 19:38:46 +0000

Prisoners earning 23 cents an hour in U.S. federal prisons are manufacturing high-tech electronic components for Patriot Advanced Capability 3 missiles, launchers for TOW (Tube-launched, Optically tracked, Wire-guided) anti-tank missiles, and other guided missile systems. We all may think that slavery has ended, but we soon forget about the prison system. Other prison produced materials include night-vision goggles, body armor, camouflage uniforms, radio communication devices, light systems, land mine sweepers, and battleship anti-air craft guns.

Prison labor offers no union protection, overtime pay, vacation days, pensions, benefits, health and safety protection, or Social Security withholding. Prisoners even recycle toxic electronic equipment and overhaul military vehicles. The prison system has quickly become and outsourcing corporation similar to cheaper labor markets overseas.

This has created cheaper labor and also some very unsafe conditions for inmates. Prisoners worked covered in dust, with out safety equipment, protective gear, air filtration or masks. The toxic dust that they where around caused serious injury like blood clots and cancer.

Labor in federal prisons is contracted out by UNICOR, previously known as Federal Prison Industries, a quasi-public, for-profit corporation run by the Bureau of Prisons. In 14 prison factories, more than 3,000 prisoners manufacture electronic equipment for land, sea and airborne communication. UNICOR is now the U.S. government’s 39th largest contractor, with 110 factories at 79 federal penitentiaries.

The majority of UNICOR’s products and services are on contract to orders from the Department of Defense. Giant multinational corporations purchase parts assembled at some of the lowest labor rates in the world, then resell the finished weapons components at the highest rates of profit. For example, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon Corporation subcontract components, then assemble and sell advanced weapons systems to the Pentagon.

The U.S. imprisons more people per capita than any country in the world. With less than 5 percent of the world population, the U.S. imprisons more than 25 percent of all people imprisoned in the world.

There are more than 2.3 million prisoners in federal, state and local prisons in the U.S. Twice as many people are under probation and parole. Many tens of thousands of other prisoners include undocumented immigrants facing deportation, prisoners awaiting sentencing and youthful offenders in categories considered reform or detention.

The racism that pervades every aspect of life in capitalist society — from jobs, income and housing to education and opportunity — is most brutally reflected by who is caught up in the U.S. prison system.

More than 60 percent of U.S. prisoners are people of color. Seventy percent of those being sentenced under the three strikes law in California — which requires mandatory sentences of 25 years to life after three felony convictions — are people of color.

Title: The Pentagon and Slave Labor in U. S. Prisons

Source: Workers World, June 6, 2011

Author: Sara Flounders

Source: http://www.workers.org/2011/us/pentagon_0609/

Student: Leta Frolli, Sonoma State University

Faculty Evaluator: Sheila Katz, Sonoma State UniversitySimilar Posts:

The Employability of Autistics

admin — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 03:15:07 +0000

Wired’s Smart List 2009 documented 12 Shocking Ideas That Could Change the World. Of the twelve ideas the most intriguing is “Thorkil Sonne: Recruiting Autistics.” With the gradually decreasing amount of jobs, it is expected that employers are looking for people with good communication and social skills. Although, some jobs require extreme concentration and total memory recall. Thorkil Sonne believes that these jobs could use the qualities that Autistic individuals have, and this creates an ethical dilemma because he is using Autism as a selling point, and possibly implying that he is more likely to hire individuals with Autism.

He reached this conclusion about six years ago, after his youngest son was diagnosed with this developmental disorder. In Sonne’s home land, Denmark, Autistics are viewed as unemployable. But because Sonne is familiar with IT (information technology) a field more fitting to people with Autism and other social and communication disorders, he learned that Autistics excelled in this area. What makes Information Technology such a good field for Autistics is the fact that it requires extreme concentration. Also, working in Information Technology requires one to be able to find even the smallest details in a quick, timely manner.

According to Sonne, Autistics are good at following structure and routines. They have excellent memory and pay strong attention to even the smallest details. They make far fewer mistakes, than most employees. According to research, employers found Autistics to be five to ten times more precise in their work than others. Although, the employee – employer relationship may be a little unusual, both companies and those with this developmental disorder will benefit greatly.

Student Researcher: Rachel Lounsbury 
Faculty Instructor: Professor Elliot Cohen Indian River State College 
Sources:
 Bennett, Drake. “Thorkil Sonne: Recruit Autistics.” Wired.com. Web. 22 Mar. 2011. .

Khaleel, Zenifer. “Sonne Shines with Company for People with ASD.” Gulfnews. Web. 22 Mar. 2011. . ”Specialisterne.” Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Web. 22 Mar. 2011. .

“Thorkil Sonne | Ashoka.org.” Front Page | Ashoka.org. Web. 22 Mar. 2011. .
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World Tobacco Treaty is Saving Lives, US Still Absent

admin — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 07:39:48 +0000

Five years in, 168 countries around the world have ratified the World Health Organization’s tobacco treaty to protect the public from the tobacco industry. After five years, the US is still absent from this list. “It’s time for the United States to join the global community and reclaim a leadership role in taking on the tobacco epidemic,” said Kellett. “This treaty will outlast all of us, setting not only a strong standard for tobacco control but also a powerful precedent for safeguarding democracies against the interference and abuses of powerful industries.”

Title: Five Years In, Tobacco Treaty is Saving Lives, Continues to be Stymied by Industry, US Still Absent

Corporate Accountability International, February 26, 2010

http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2010/02/26-2

Author: Gigi Kellet

Researcher: Bretta Diekmann

Faculty Evaluator: Julie Andrzejewski

St. Cloud State UniversitySimilar Posts:

Massive African Land Grab By Rich Nations

admin — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 03:23:31 +0000

Over Twenty African countries are selling or leasing land for intensive agriculture in what may be the greatest change of ownership since the colonial era. Ethiopia is one of the hungriest countries in the world with more than 13-million people needing food aid, but paradoxically the government is offering at least 7.5 million acres of its most fertile land to rich countries and some of the world’s most wealthy individuals to export food. Ethiopia alone has approved 815 foreign-financed agricultural projects since 2007. Any land there, which investors have not been able to buy, is being leased for approximately $1 per year per 2.5 acres.

Ethiopia is only one of 20 or more African countries where land is being bought or leased for intensive agriculture on an immense scale in what may be the greatest change of ownership since the colonial era.

An Observer investigation estimates that up to 125 million acres of land — an area more than double the size of the UK—has been acquired in the last few years or is in the process of being negotiated by governments and wealthy investors working with state subsidies. The land rush, which is still accelerating, has been triggered by the worldwide food shortages which followed the sharp oil price rises in 2008, growing water shortages and theEuropean Union’s insistence that 10% of all transport fuel must come from plant-based biofuels by 2015.
The foreign companies are arriving in large numbers, depriving people of land they have used for centuries. There is no consultation with the indigenous population. The deals are done secretly. The only thing the local people see is people coming with lots of tractors to invade their lands. In many areas the deals have led to evictions, civil unrest and complaints of “land grabbing”.

Leading the rush are international agribusinesses, investment banks, hedge funds, commodity traders, sovereign wealth funds as well as UK pension funds, foundations and individuals attracted by some of the world’s cheapest land. Together they are scouring Sudan, Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania,Malawi, Ethiopia, Congo, Zambia, Uganda, Madagascar, Zimbabwe, Mali, Sierra Leone, Ghana and elsewhere. Saudi Arabia, along with other Middle Eastern emirate states such as Qatar, Kuwait and Abu Dhabi, is thought to be the biggest buyer..

Many of the deals are widely condemned by both Western non-government groups and nationals as “new colonialism”, driving people off the land and taking scarce resources away from people.

Title: Food, water driving 21st-century African land grab Mail & Guardian / March 7, 2010

URL; http://www.mg.co.za/article/2010-03-07-food-water-driving-21stcentury-african-land-grab

Author: By John Vidal

Fuculty Evaluator: Peter Phillips

Sonoma State UniversitySimilar Posts:

Key oil figures were distorted by US pressure, says whistleblower

admin — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 20:10:29 +0000

The world is much closer to running out of oil than official estimates admit, according to a whistleblower at the International Energy Agency (IEA) who claims it has been deliberately underplaying a looming shortage for fear of triggering panic buying. The senior official claims the US has played an influential role in encouraging the IEA to underplay the rate of decline from existing oil fields while overplaying the chances of finding new reserves.

The allegations raise serious questions about the accuracy of the organization’s latest World Energy Outlook on oil demand and supply. In particular they question the prediction in the last World Economic Outlook, believed to be repeated again this year, that oil production can be raised from its current level of 83m barrels a day to 105m barrels. External critics have frequently argued that this cannot be substantiated by firm evidence and say the world has already passed its peak in oil production.

Now the “peak oil” theory is gaining support at the heart of the global energy establishment. “The IEA in 2005 was predicting oil supplies could rise as high as 120m barrels a day by 2030 although it was forced to reduce this gradually to 116m and then 105m last year,” said the IEA source, who was unwilling to be identified for fear of reprisals inside the industry. A second senior IEA source, who has now left but was also unwilling to give his name, said a key rule at the organization was that it was “imperative not to anger the Americans” but the fact was that there was not as much oil in the world as had been admitted.

The senior IEA official who blew the whistle on the organization’s tendency to overstate supply says the group is manipulating data in order to placate financial markets.”Many inside the organization (IEA) believe that maintaining oil supplies at even 90 million to 95 million barrels a day would be impossible, but there are fears that panic could spread on the financial markets if the figures were brought down further,” a senior IEA said.

Title: Key oil figures were distorted by US pressure, says whistleblower

Source: guardian.co.uk, Monday 9 November 2009

URL: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/09/peak-oil-international-energy-agency

Author: Terry Macalister

and

Title: Oil: A Market of Psychology of Fear

Source: IPSnews: Dec 8 2009

http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=49586

Author: Chris Arsenault

Faculty Evaluator: Peter Phillips

Sonoma State UniversitySimilar Posts:

Cluster Bomb Trade Funded By World’s Biggest Banks

admin — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 01:13:10 +0000

The deadly trade in cluster bombs is funded by the world’s biggest banks who have loaned or arranged finance worth $20bn to firms producing the controversial weapons, despite growing international efforts to ban them.

HSBC, led by ordained Anglican priest Stephen Green, has profited more than any other institution from companies that manufacture cluster bombs. The British bank, based at Canary Wharf, has earned a total of £657.3m in fees arranging bonds and share offerings for Textron, which makes cluster munitions described by the US company as “leaving a clean battlefield”.

Campaigners maintain the deadly weapons can explode years after combat, killing or maiming innocent people.

Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, JP Morgan and UK-based Barclays Bank are also named among the worst banks in a detailed 126-page report by Dutch and Belgian campaign groups IKV Pax Christi and Netwerk Vlaanderen.

“Our policy also explicitly prohibits financing trade in landmines, cluster bombs or any equipment designed to be used as an instrument of torture.” A spokeswoman added that Barclays had supplied money to Textron, which makes cluster bombs, but that the US firm was a broad-based weapons manufacturer.

Last December 90 countries, including the UK, committed themselves to banning cluster bombs by next year. But the US was not one of them. So far 23 countries have ratified the convention. New Zealand government’s pension fund sold shares in Lockheed Martin because of its link to the manufacture of cluster bombs. Similar actions have been taken by the Irish and Dutch government.

Title: Cluster Bomb Trade Funded By World’s Biggest Banks

Source: The Guardian, Thursday 29 October 2009

URL: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/oct/29/banks-fund-cluster-bomb-trade

Author: Nick Mathiason

Faculty Evaluator: Peter Phillips

Sonoma State UniversitySimilar Posts:

Haitian Aid Racket-NGOs Profiting from Grave Situation

admin — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 19:45:41 +0000

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reports that “more than 3 million people–one in every three Haitians–were severely affected by the earthquake, of whom 2 million need regular food aid. Over 1.1 million people are homeless, many of them still living under sheets and cardboard in makeshift camps. The government of Haiti estimates that at least 300,000 people were injured during the quake.”

The world’s largest multinational charities–CARE, CRS, World Vision and ADRA–execute the political will of institutions, governments and lobbyists that had identified Haiti’s comparative advantage as low wages–i.e. poverty–and in doing so, these charitable organizationdedicated to helping the poorest of the poor wound up working to make the people of Haiti even poorer.

While some NGOs like Partners in Health have done and are doing amazing work to provide services for quake victims, overall, the catastrophe in Haiti revealed the worst aspects of the U.S. government and the NGO aid industry.

The U.S. in fact used its “relief” operation to disguise a military occupation of Haiti, intended to prevent a flood of refugees reaching the U.S., impose even greater sweatshop development on Haiti.

The U.S. is funneling $379 million in aid through its own agencies and then through NGOs. According to the Associated Press: Each American dollar roughly breaks down like this: 42 cents for disaster assistance, 33 cents for U.S. military aid, nine cents for food, nine cents to transport the food, five cents for paying Haitian survivors for recovery efforts, just less than one cent to the Haitian government, and about half a cent to the Dominican Republic.

Title: The Aid Racket

Souece: Socialist Worker, February 24, 2010

URL: http://socialistworker.org/2010/02/24/the-aid-racket

Author: Ashley Smith

Faculty evaluator: Peter Philllips Sonoma State UniversitySimilar Posts:

World Bank Pledges to Save Trees, Then Helps Cut Down Amazon

admin — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 01:27:42 +0000

The World Bank, funded by British taxpayers, has pledged an undisclosed amount of money to fund programs that avoid deforestation in the Amazon. However, it has recently been reported that the World Bank is also funding programs that are promoting the expansion of cattle ranching in the Amazon, which is the second leading cause of carbon emissions worldwide, and destroys up to 300,000 hectares of forest per single slaughterhouse expansion. Brazil’s beef industry produced 12 billion tons of carbon dioxide in the past ten years, which is the equivalent of two years of carbon dioxide emissions from the United States.

Essentially, the World Bank is investing much more into causes that destroy the Amazon rainforests than help to preserve them and prevent such acts from happening in the future. One in ten of the world’s mammals lives in the Amazon, as well as 15% of land-based species. The Amazon is home to more than 50% of the world’s fresh water, and the forests act to help keep the greenhouse effect to a minimum.

Sources:

Howden, Daniel. “World Bank Pledges to Save Trees, Then Helps Cut Down Amazon.”

Alternet. 17 January 2008. Web. 1 October 2009.

<http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/74031>.

Student Researchers: Abbey Wilson & Jillian Harbin

Faculty Instructor: Kevin Howley, Associate Professor of Media Studies, DePauw University

Evaluator: Tim Cope, Department of Geosciences, DePauw UniversitySimilar Posts:

State Crimes Against Democracy

admin — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 00:50:10 +0000

By Peter Phillips and Mickey Huff

New research in the journal American Behavioral Scientist (Sage publications, February 2010) addresses the concept of “State Crimes Against Democracy” (SCAD). Professor Lance deHaven-Smith from Florida State University writes that SCADs involve highlevel government officials, often in combination with private interests, that engage in covert activities for political advantages and power. Proven SCADs since World War II include McCarthyism (fabrication of evidence of a communist infiltration), Gulf of Tonkin Resolution (President Johnson and Robert McNamara falsely claimed North Vietnam attacked a US ship), burglary of the office of Daniel Ellsberg’s psychiatrist in effort to discredit Ellsberg, the Watergate break-in, Iran-Contra, Florida’s 2000 Election (felon disenfranchisement program), and fixed intelligence on WMDs to justify the Iraq War.1

Other suspected SCADs include the assassination of Lee Harvey Oswald, the shooting of George Wallace, the October Surprise near the end of the Carter presidency, military grade anthrax mailed to Senators Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy, Martin Luther King’s assassination, and the collapse of World Trade Center Building 7 on September 11, 2001. The proven SCADs have a long trail of congressional hearings, public records, and academic research establishing the truth of the activities. The suspected SCADs listed above have substantial evidence of covert actions with countervailing deniability that tend to leave the facts in dispute.2

The term “conspiracy theory” is often used to denigrate and discredit inquiry into the veracity of suspected SCADs. Labeling SCAD research as “conspiracy theory” is an effective method of preventing ongoing investigations from being reported in the corporate media and keep them outside of broader public scrutiny. Psychologist Laurie Manwell, University of Guelph, addresses the psychological advantage that SCAD actors hold in the public sphere. Manwell, writing in American Behavioral Scientist (Sage 2010) states, “research shows that people are far less willing to examine information that disputes, rather than confirms, their beliefs . . . pre-existing beliefs can interfere with
SCADs inquiry, especially in regards to September 11, 2001.”3

Professor Steven Hoffman, visiting scholar at the University of Buffalo, recently acknowledged this phenomenon in a study “There Must Be a Reason: Osama, Saddam and Inferred Justification.” Hoffman concluded, “Our data shows substantial support for a cognitive theory known as ‘motivated reasoning,’ which suggests that rather than
search rationally for information that either confirms or disconfirms a particular belief, people actually seek out information that confirms what they already believe. In fact, for the most part people completely ignore contrary information.”4

Sometimes even new academic research goes largely unreported when the work contradicts prevailing understandings of recent historical events. A specific case of unreported academic research is the peer reviewed journal article from Open Chemical Physics Journal (Volume 2, 2009), entitled “Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust for the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe.” In the abstract the authors write, “We have discovered distinctive red/gray chips in all the samples. These red/gray chips show marked similarities in all four samples. The properties of these chips were analyzed using optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray energy dispersive spectroscopy (XEDS), and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). The red portion of these chips is found to be an unreacted thermitic material and highly energetic.” Thermite is a pyrotechnic composition of a metal powder and a metal oxide which produces an aluminothermic reaction known as a thermite reaction and is used in controlled
demolitions of buildings.5

National Medal of Science recipient (1999) Professor Lynn Margulis from the Department of Geosciences at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst is one of many academics who supports further open investigative research in the collapse of the World Trade Center towers. Margulis recently wrote in Rock Creek Free Press, “all three buildings were destroyed by carefully planned, orchestrated and executed controlled demolition.”6 Richard Gage, AIA, architect and founder of the non-profit Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth, Inc. (AE911Truth), announced a decisive milestone February 19, 2010 at a press conference in San Francisco, CA. More than 1,000 architects and
engineers worldwide now support the call for a new investigation into the destruction of the Twin Towers and Building 7 at the World Trade Center complex on September 11, 2001.7

Credible scientific evidence brings into question the possibility that some aspects of the events of 9/11 involved State Crimes Against Democracy. Psychologically this is a very hard concept for Americans to even consider. However, ignoring the issue in the context of multiple proven SCADs since World War II seems far more dangerous for
democracy than the consequences of future scientific inquiry and transparent, fact-based investigative reporting. Anything short of complete, open discourse based on all the evidence about these critical issues in our society relating to the possible continuation of SCADs is simply a matter of censorship.8
________________________________________________________________________

Peter Phillips is professor of sociology at Sonoma State University, President of Media
Freedom Foundation/Project Censored, former director of Project Censored, and coeditor
of Censored 2010.
Mickey Huff is associate professor of history at Diablo Valley College, Director of
Project Censored/Media Freedom Foundation, and co-editor of Censored 2010.

________________________________________________________________________

1 Lance deHaven-Smith, “Beyond Conspiracy Theory: Patterns of High Crime in
American Government,” American Behavioral Scientist, Vol. 53, No. 6, (February,
2010): pp. 795-825. For more studies on SCADs and related issues see all articles for
American Behavioral Scientist, Sage publications, Vol. 53, No. 6, (February, 2010),
online at http://abs.sagepub.com/content/vol53/issue6/.

For more background reading on this subject with specifics on the controversial
cases mentioned in this paragraph, see the following scholarly works: Robert Abele, The
Anatomy of a Deception: A Reconstruction and Analysis of the Decision to Invade Iraq
(New York: University Press of America, 2010); Bob Coen and Eric Nadler, Dead
Silence: Fear and Terror on the Anthrax Trail (Berkeley, CA: Counterpoint, 2009);
Daniel Ellsberg, Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers (New York:
Viking Adult, 2002); Steve Freeman and Joel Bleifuss, Was the 2004 Election Stolen?
Exit Polls, Election Fraud, and the Official Count (New York: Seven Stories Press,
2006); Robert Griffith, The Politics of Fear: Joseph R. McCarthy and the Senate.
(Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 1987); David Ray Griffin, The
Mysterious Collapse of World Trade Center 7: Why the Final Official Report About 9/11
Is Unscientific and False (New York: Olive Branch press, 2008); Mark Crispin Miller,
Loser Take All: Election Fraud and the Subversion of Democracy, 2000-2008 (New
York: Ig Publishing, 2008); Kenneth O’Reilly, Hoover and the Un-Americans: The FBI,
HUAC, and the Red Menace (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1983); Robert
Parry, Trick or Treason: The October Surprise Mystery (New York: Sheridan Square
Press, 1993); William Pepper, An Act of State: The Execution of Marin Luther King
(Updated) (New York: Verso, 2008); Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber, Weapons of
Mass Deception: The Uses of Propaganda in Bush’s War on Iraq (New York: Tarcher
and Penguin, 2003); selected works of Peter Dale Scott, including Deep Politics and the
Death of JFK (1993, 1996), Drugs Oil and War (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield,
March 2003), The Road to 9/11 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007), and The
War Conspiracy: JFK, 9/11, and the Deep Politics of War (Ipswich, MA: Mary Ferrell
Foundation Press, 2008); Norman Solomon, War Made Easy: How Presidents and
Pundits Keep Spinning us to Death (New Jersey: John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 2005);
Lawrence Walsh, Firewall: The Iran-Contra Conspiracy and Cover-up (New York:
W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1997); Gary Webb, Dark Alliance: The CIA, The
Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2nd Edition,
2003);
2 Ibid.
3 American Behavioral Scientist, Sage publications, February, 2010, Vol. 53, No. 6,
online at http://abs.sagepub.com/content/vol53/issue6/. Specifically, see Laurie A.
Manwell, “In Denial of Democracy: Social Psychological Implications for Public
Discourse on State Crimes Against Democracy Post-9/11,” American Behavioral
Scientist, Vol. 53, No. 6, (February, 2010): pp. 848-884.
4 “How We Support Our False Beliefs,” Science Daily (Aug. 23, 2009) online at
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/08/090821135020.htm. For the full study see
Steven Hoffman, Ph.D., et al, “There Must Be a Reason: Osama, Saddam and Inferred
Justification,” Sociological Inquiry, Volume 79 Issue 2, (2009): pp. 142-162.
5 Niels H. Harrit, Jeffrey Farrer, Steven E. Jones, Kevin R. Ryan, Frank M. Legge, Daniel
Farnsworth, Gregg Roberts, James R. Gourley, Bradley R. Larsen, “Active Thermitic
Material Discovered in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe,” Open
Chemical Physics Journal, Vol. 2 (April 3, 2009): 7-31, online at
http://www.bentham.org/open/tocpj/openaccess2.htm.
6 Lynn Margulis, “Two Hit, Three Down, the Biggest Lie,” Rock Creek Press, February
2010, Vol. 4, No. 2, p. 6, and online at
http://rockcreekfreepress.tumblr.com/post/353434420/two-hit-three-down-the-biggest-lie
7 Richard Gage, AIA, Architects and Engineers for 911 Truth, Press Conference,
February 19th, 2010, SF, CA, online at http://www.ae911truth.org/info/160. See the
Conference announcement video online at
http://www.youtube.com/ae911truth#p/c/891B0945A34D98F7/0/R35O_QQP8Vw
8 For more on issues of media censorship see Peter Phillips and Mickey Huff, eds.,
Censored 2010 (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2009).Similar Posts:

President Obama’s Signing Statement Ignores IMF and World Bank Abuse

admin — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 00:41:26 +0000

President Obama used his sixth signing statement to negate provisions of US legislation that would have compelled the World Bank to strengthen labor and environmental standards. Obama also refused to require the Treasury department to report to congress on the activities of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). One section negated would have compelled US World Bank representatives to pressure that institution to use metrics that “fairly represent the value of internationally recognized workers’ rights.” Another section Obama rejected would have pushed the World Bank to account for the cost of greenhouse gas in pricing projects and to more fully disclose operating budgets and contract recipients. Obama said in the statement that “Provisions of this bill…would interfere with my constitutional authority to conduct foreign relations by directing the Executive to take certain positions in negotiating or discussions with international organizations and foreign governments.” Obama has issued five other signing statements since taking office, according to the University of California Santa Barbara’s “American Presidency Project.”

Title: Obama issues signing statement on $106B war bill”

Author: Michael O’Brien,

Source: The Hill, 06/26/2009http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/48019-obama-issues-signing-statement-on-106b-war-bill

Student Researcher: Marissa WarfieldFaculty Evaluator: Ben Frymer

Sonoma State UniversitySimilar Posts: