Little Brother Forum

Excerpt from: “The Assault on Reason,” by Al Gore, pages 224-225

“One of President Bush’s most contemptuous and dangerous practices has been his chronic abuse of what are called “signing statements.” These are written pronouncements that the president issues upon signing a bill into law. Throughout our history, these statements have served a mainly ceremonial function, extolling the virtues of the legislation and thanking those figures responsible for enactment. On occasion, these statements have also included passages in which the president raises constitutional concerns with some provisions of the new law. What presidents have always avoided is delineating those provisions that the president simply disagrees with and announcing that the president will not comply with them. Obviously, such a device would be unconstitutional on its face. (more…)

George McGovern, a former South Dakota Senator and Democratic presidential nominee, delivered this speech at the National Press Club in Washington, DC on January 12, 2007.

(more…)

By Laurence Washington/Rocky Mountain Press/July 6, 2007

Secret History of the American Empire, Nonfiction by John Perkins, 2007, Dutton, $25.95.
Grade: A
Book in a nutshell: The Secret History of the American Empire begins where Perkins’ Confessions of an Economic Hit Man ended. This time, the novelist and former economic hit man - who once specialized in trapping Third World countries in a quagmire of debt so that the U.S. could demand payments in favors - travels to Latin America, Asia, the Middle East and Africa, exposing the long history of the U. S. government and big business’ brutal tactics to build an empire. Perkins backs his claim that the U.S. is an empire by noting that the U.S.:

(more…)

How Wars of the Future May Be Fought Just to Run the Machines That Fight Them
By Michael T. Klare

Sixteen gallons of oil. That’s how much the average American soldier in Iraq and Afghanistan consumes on a daily basis — either directly, through the use of Humvees, tanks, trucks, and helicopters, or indirectly, by calling in air strikes. Multiply this figure by 162,000 soldiers in Iraq, 24,000 in Afghanistan, and 30,000 in the surrounding region (including sailors aboard U.S. warships in the Persian Gulf) and you arrive at approximately 3.5 million gallons of oil: the daily petroleum tab for U.S. combat operations in the Middle East war zone.

Multiply that daily tab by 365 and you get 1.3 billion gallons: the estimated annual oil expenditure for U.S. combat operations in Southwest Asia. That’s greater than the total annual oil usage of Bangladesh, population 150 million — and yet it’s a gross underestimate of the Pentagon’s wartime consumption.

Such numbers cannot do full justice to the extraordinary gas-guzzling expense of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. After all, for every soldier stationed “in theater,” there are two more in transit, in training, or otherwise in line for eventual deployment to the war zone — soldiers who also consume enormous amounts of oil, even if less than their compatriots overseas. Moreover, to sustain an “expeditionary” army located halfway around the world, the Department of Defense must move millions of tons of arms, ammunition, food, fuel, and equipment every year by plane or ship, consuming additional tanker-loads of petroleum. Add this to the tally and the Pentagon’s war-related oil budget jumps appreciably, though exactly how much we have no real way of knowing.

And foreign wars, sad to say, account for but a small fraction of the Pentagon’s total petroleum consumption. Possessing the world’s largest fleet of modern aircraft, helicopters, ships, tanks, armored vehicles, and support systems — virtually all powered by oil — the Department of Defense (DoD) is, in fact, the world’s leading consumer of petroleum. It can be difficult to obtain precise details on the DoD’s daily oil hit, but an April 2007 report by a defense contractor, LMI Government, suggests that the Pentagon might consume as much as 340,000 barrels (14 million gallons) every day. This is greater than the total national consumption of Sweden or Switzerland.

(more…)

Book documents plans for merger of U.S., Mexico, Canada

WASHINGTON – Resistance to enforcing immigration laws and border security by political elites in the nation’s capital is, at least in part, a result of plans to promote political, social and economic integration of the U.S., Mexico and Canada, charges a new book, “The Late Great USA.” “It’s the only context in which the current immigration travesty makes sense,” says Jerome Corsi, co-author of the best-selling “Unfit for Command,” “and it must be stopped.”

Millions of Americans, shocked by the Senate “grand bargain” on immigration that gives the precious gift of legalization to millions of illegal aliens and felons, have taken to the phones to demand no amnesty. But, claims Corsi, there’s far more to the current Senate bill – a story documented in shocking detail in “The Late Great USA: The Coming Merger with Mexico and Canada,” published by WND Books. “Prior to this ‘grand bargain’ cooked up in a backroom by our so-called representatives, many people had never heard of the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP), yet several amendments in the Senate bill are designed specifically to further the SPP’s agenda,” explains Corsi.
(more…)

What’s In Your Milk, a book by Samuel Epstein, M.D.
An Exposé of Industry and Government Cover-Up on the DANGERS of the Genetically Engineered (rBGH) Milk You’re Drinking

Foreword by Jeffrey M. Smith, author of the bestseller Seeds of Deception, a powerful exposé of the dangers of Monsanto’s genetically engineered (rBGH) milk, and its no-holds-barred conspiracy to suppress this information.

(more…)

David McNew/NPR

Al Gore appears in Beverly Hills, Calif., to promote his book ‘The Assault on Reason,’ May 22, 2007.

You would be forgiven if you confused Al Gore’s book signings for campaign events — with overflow crowds and a stream of will-he-or-won’t-he questions.

One thing is for sure: The former vice president turned Oscar-winning crusader against global warming wants to get a few things off his chest.

His new book, called The Assault on Reason, reads much like a legal brief — an indictment, really — on current policymaking.

Gore takes a harsh look at the media’s fascination with flash over substance and a lack of courage among politicians of both parties.

Most of all, The Assault on Reason is an assault on President Bush’s use of power and his handling of the war. The White House has taken strong issue with Gore’s book, both its substance and analysis.
(more…)

An Excerpt from Tempting-Faith-Inside-Political-Seduction by David Kuo, copyright 2006, The Free Press. The book’s author, David Kuo, was deputy director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives and is now Beliefnet’s Washington Editor.

(more…)

“We live in troubling times. The giant corporations control much of the world’s food, as well as the patents on our seeds. Billions of farm animals live in conditions of utmost deprivation and misery. Humans and animals are increasingly becoming poisoned from the chemicals that have been lavishly sprinkled over fields, crops, and food produce and that have contaminated the earth’s water, soil and air. Disease-causing bacteria are building up resistance to the antibiotics that are routinely administered to livestock in factory farms. Genetically modified organisms, GMO’s have escaped into the environment and who knows what that will mean? Billions of tons of fossil fuel are used to transport our food from one end of the planet to the other – and often back again – contributing to the changes in global climate. And the soil of our planet is being not only poisoned but swept away by the wind from areas cleared for agriculture. Monoculture crops subsidized by governments provide fuel for the manufacture of hamburgers and T-bone steaks. Thousands of children die of obesity and its attendant ills in the West, while millions more die of starvation in the developing world. Family farms are going out of business and asphalt and concrete is spreading over more and more arable land. Water is becoming terrifyingly scarce as well as polluted.” Page 278-279
Harvest for Hope, a book by Jane Goodall.

Out of Iraq, A practical Plan for Withdrawal Now
George McGovern, William Polk

“The evidence suggests that they (falsehoods) were part of a deliberate campaign to alter the findings the intelligence evaluation officers of the CIA, the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence & Research, and the Department of Defense’s Defense Intelligence Agency. Not only did senior administration officials, including Vice President Cheney, attempt to get analysts to alter their judgments to certify what they did not believe to be true, but when those analysts did not do so to the degree demanded, the Department of Defense set up a separate organization, the office of Special Plans, to bypass these seasoned experts and justify the decisions the administration had already made.” p.5

“In his meeting with British prime minister Tony Blair in the Oval Office on January 31, 2003, nearly three months before the invasion of Iraq, President Bush acknowledged that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction and that he was searching for a pretext to justify the attack to the American people. One way, he suggested, would be to fly an American aircraft painted with UN insignia over Iraq; if the Iraqis fired on it, they would be in breach of Un resolutions, thereby justifying an attack;” p.6 *Senior Bush officials accompanying Blair wrote a memo of this talk. It was reported by Don Van Natta, Jr., in The New York Times of March 27, 2006, having been authenticated by two senior Foreign Office officials. (http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F70A1FFA3F540C748EDDAA0894DE404482)

P.12-13,  Al Jazeera shut down by US.  See Christian Parenti, “Al Jazeera goes to jail,” Nation, March 29, 2004

“Understanding Iraq,” William R. Polk, 2005, 2006

p. 34, Footnote. In 2002, just before the American invasion, only one of the world’s ten most profitable corporations was in the oil and gas field; in 2005 four of the ten were. They were Exxon-Mobil and Chevron Texaco (American) and Shell and BP (British). The Iraq war doubled the price of crude; it would go up another 50% during the first months of 2006.

Focus: Part One, The Human Cost – “Does Tony Have Any Idea What the Flies Are Like That Feed Off The Dead?” Independent, January 26, 2003

Regarding Fallujah…”The weight of ordinance fired was extraordinary. Against what was apparently just sniper fire, a single Marine contingent fired thirty-five or more heavy artillery shells plus an estimated thirty thousand rounds from rifles and machine guns. Far more devastating than heavy shells and “light” ammunition were the internationally banned chemical weapons that the American forces used in what Iraq called “a grim reminder of Saddam Hussein’s gassing of the Kurds in 1988.” “Willy Pete” as the soldiers called white phosphorus, incinerates everyone within a radius of 150 meters, actually caramelizing the skin of the victims. White phosphorus is an internationally banned weapon. Although they first denied it, military spokesman admitted that it was used, but, they said, only for illumination during the night. Documentary photos filmed by an Italian camera crew show a very different and hideous reality; some victims are still in their beds, with their bodies completely burned. * ….casualties are believed to be in thousands. Attacking troops were told that the city was a “free fire zone” and that anyone, of any age or sex, was a target and should be shot.  *Documentary photographs can be seen at www.informationclearinghouse.info/article 10907.htm.

p. 69 Radiation from depleted uranium in antiarmor shells in both Gulf War and Iraq War. Thousands of Iraq children exposed. Gulf War Syndrome. 169,000 of the 580,400 soldiers who took part in 1991 Gulf War were on permanent medical disability a decade later.
Cancer. Future implications.

p. 71 Costs of war, see National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper 12054, at www.nber.org/papers/w12054.