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Published: Tuesday, Jan. 23, 2007
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This Week You Need To Know:
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Bio-Foolery Is Causing 'Food Shocks'
by Marcia Merry Baker and Christine Craig
It shouldn't take a specialist to realize that the current fad of "biofuels" is a scientific fraud, roughly equivalent to Jonathan Swift's depiction of scientists trying to produce light from excrement. Sure, it's a scientific challenge—but it's absolutely insane. The reality is that humanity's demand for clean and plentiful energy can only be met by an advance into the nuclear realm of fission and fusion power. As we reveal below, the "biofuel" alternative is not only a rip-off, but also it will never solve the energy crisis, and will starve people in the meantime.
The impact of biofuels mania on the food chain, is now hitting as food shocks at points all along world supply lines. This results from interaction with pre-existing crises of low grain stocks, marginalized agriculture, monoculture cropping, speculation, and the many other features of globalization.
The most dramatic effects so far relate to corn (maize), the grain for which the United States has typically accounted for over 40% of the world's annual production, and 70% of annual exports.
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But in 2006, fully 20% of the entire U.S. corn harvest went into ethanol distilleries, creating an automatic squeeze on exports, current and near future, and domestic uses as well.
Mexico, forced by the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) to be a corn-importer, is in a corn-for-tortillas crisis. U.S. livestock producers are being hit by sky-high corn-for-feed prices, and family-scale operations are threatened with shutdown. Unless stopped, this food-for-fuels dynamic—based on a scientific fraud of net energy gains from bio-mass—will guarantee outright famine.
Who will starve? "In the long run, it means that we are fueling our cars with food that people might have eaten. There are important trade-offs," was the warning from the Director of Public Resources, Lisa Kuennen-Asfaw, for the Catholic Relief Services, who put out an alarm in mid-January, that the agency is being forced to drastically cut its international food aid for the coming year. One SUV's 25-gallon tank of ethanol consumes enough grain to feed one person for a year, is the calculation of the trade-off, by Lester Brown of the Earth Policy Institute....
...full article, PDF
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This Week's News Updates:
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Included
for the
Duration: |
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Recent LaRouche Webcasts*
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| "The Old Economics is Dead, and The New Economics Must Begin" |
Jan. 11, 2007 |
| "Organizing the Recovery from the Great Crash of 2007" |
Nov. 16, 2006 |
| World Crisis on Eve of U.S. General Election - From Berlin |
Oct. 31, 2006 |
| "A World-Historical Moment" - From Berlin |
Sept. 6, 2006 |
| "Rohatyn as Satan" |
July 20, 2006 |
| "Emergency Actions Required by Congress" |
June 9, 2006 |
| "The Greatest Economic Crisis in Modern History" |
Apr. 27, 2006 |
| "Make a Platonic Revolution to Save Our Civilization" |
Feb. 23, 2006 |
"Rebuild a Looted U.S. Economy"
video: Baltimore: from Industrial Powerhouse to Death Zones |
Jan. 11, 2006 |
"The Tasks Before Us in the Post-Cheney Era"
Videos: US Dams, US Nuclear Plants |
Nov. 16, 2005 |
| "Rediscovering America: The Lessons of LaRouche's Famous Oct. 12, 1988 Forecast" |
Oct. 12, 2005 |
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Sept. 16, 2005 |
Emergency Webcast,
"Pulling This Nation Together Now!"
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Sept. 3, 2005
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"LaRouche Addresses Urgent Changes in Economic and Monetary Policy"
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Short video (WMA format)
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June 16, 2005
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April 7, 2005
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This Week in
American History
Two hundred and twenty years ago, on January 25, 1787, Gen. William Shepard and 500 members of the Massachusetts Militia stopped an attack on the Federal Armory at Springfield. The insurgents were led by Daniel Shays, a Massachusetts farmer and former captain in the War of Independence, whose name was subsequently attached to the revolt known as Shays' Rebellion. The move toward a Constitutional Convention which would strengthen America's central government was taking place at the same time as Shays' Rebellion, and they were closely linked.
The pawprints of former colonial ruler Great Britain were all over the rebellion, and it was a race against time for the nationalists, like George Washington, who knew that a return to British vassalage could only be avoided by constituting a new form of government. The fact that the revolt began in Massachusetts was a particularly ironic one, since that colony had politically led the American Revolution, had provided a large portion of troops for the Continental Army, and had sent large amounts of money to the Continental Congress for waging the war.
But now, just a few years after independence had been won, Massachusetts was suffering serious financial difficulties. She had shouldered a large part of the Revolutionary War debt, but her manufacturing and commerce were almost completely shut down by Britain's post-war tactic of dumping British manufactures below cost on the American market. To honor her war debt, Massachusetts levied additional taxes to be paid in cash, but the farmers of western Massachusetts, used to paying their debts in crops, had little or no cash even during a good year. Some of them lost their farms or were imprisoned for debt.
On August 26, 1786, a convention of delegates from 37 towns in Worcester County met and drafted a petition of grievances. The two major grievances were the high cost of justice in the courts, and the heavy tax burden levied in cash to pay off the state's depreciated public securities at par. Three days later, a mob of 1,500 men, 500 of them armed, stopped the sitting of the Hampshire County Court in Northampton. During the following months, more and more court sessions were shut down by mobs, until there was no functioning state government west and south of Boston.
Yet the Massachusetts General Court had passed laws in July streamlining the court system and reducing the expense of civil action, in addition to making taxes payable in public securities at par. But, mysteriously, none of these laws were published in the western sections of Massachusetts.
On August 20, before the court shutdowns had begun, a correspondent of Secretary of War Henry Knox wrote from London to warn him that the British were about to launch some sort of counterrevolution in New England. On September 11, Judge Artemis Ward reported to Massachusetts Gov. James Bowdoin that about a dozen men, said to be British emissaries, were seen riding from town to town, and from county to county, calling the men to arms.
Secretary Knox, who had been General Washington's Chief of Artillery during the Revolutionary War, kept Washington informed about the actions of the rebels. Knox was sent by the Congress on a fact-finding mission to Massachusetts, and on October 23, he wrote to Washington about what he had found. The General replied: "That G.B. [Great Britain] will be an unconcerned spectator of the present insurrections (if they continue) is not to be expected. That she is at this moment sowing the Seeds of jealousy & discontent among the various tribes of Indians on our frontier admits of no doubt, in my mind. And that she will improve every opportunity to foment the spirit of turbulence within the bowels of the United States, with a view of distracting our government, & promoting divisions, is, with me, not less certain.
"Her first Manoeuvres will, no doubt, be covert, and may remain so till the period shall arrive when a decided line of conduct may avail her. Charges of violating the treaty, & other pretexts, will not then be wanting to colour overt acts, tending to effect the great objects of which she has long been in labour. A Man is now at the head of their American Affairs well calculated to conduct measures of this kind, & more than probably was selected for the purpose.
"We ought not therefore to sleep nor to slumber—vigilence in the watching, & vigour in acting, is, in my opinion, become indispensably necessary. If the powers are inadequate, amend or alter them, but do not let us sink into the lowest state of humiliation & contempt, & become a byword in all the earth—I think with you that the Spring will unfold important & distressing Scenes, unless much wisdom & good management is displayed in the interim."
Another of Washington's coadjutors was David Humphreys, who sent him three letters during November. Washington replied: "Let me entreat you my dear Sir, to keep me advised of the situation of Affairs in your quarter. I can depend upon your Accounts. Newspaper paragraphs unsupported by other testimony, are often contradictory & bewildering. At one time these insurgents are represented as a mere Mob—At other times as systematic in all their proceedings.
"If the first, I would fain hope that like other Mobs, it will, however formidable, be of short duration. If the latter, there surely are men of consequence and abilities behind the Curtain, who move the puppets. The designs of whom may be deep & dangerous. They may be instigated by British Councils—actuated by ambitious motives—or being influenced by dishonest principles, had rather see the Country plunged in civil discord than do what Justice would dictate to an honest mind."
Since the close of the American Revolution, George Washington had been working to foster close relations among the states which could lead to a stronger national government. He had a hand in the March 1785 conference between Virginia and Maryland which was to deal with navigation on the Potomac River and on part of the Chesapeake Bay. When the commissioners convened in Alexandria, he invited them to Mount Vernon, and the resulting agreement was known as the Mount Vernon Compact.
The Maryland delegates, responding to a suggestion by Washington, proposed that such meetings be held every year, that they also deal with commercial matters, and that Pennsylvania and Delaware be included. Washington's allies in the Virginia Legislature then proposed that delegates from all 13 states be sent to Annapolis in the fall of 1786 "to consider how far a uniform system in their commercial regulations may be necessary to their common interest and their permanent harmony."
Full article on separate page...
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No matter how much Howard Dean screams, he will never be able to claim credit for the landslide victory that the Democrats won on Nov. 7. The new 110th Congress is full of maverick freshmen Democrats who rode the wave of a great generational paradigm shift, which swept them into Congress, and they are now in Washington with a mandate from millions of young people to make trouble. On campuses across the country, these millions of youth were shocked to discover that you didn't have to imitate the Howard "Scream" to consider yourself political, but that the real political leadership were the youth who were calling for the impeachment of Cheney and Bush, pushing for a FDR-style economic recovery, and mobilizing the population through song!
...full article, PDF
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InDepth Coverage
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Feature:
Bio-Foolery Is Causing 'Food Shocks'
by Marcia Merry Baker and Christine Craig
It shouldn't take a specialist to realize that the current fad of 'biofuels' is a scientific fraud, roughly equivalent to Jonathan Swift's depiction of scientists trying to produce light from excrement. Sure, it's a scientific challenge—but it's absolutely insane. The reality is that humanity's demand for clean and plentiful energy can only be met by an advance into the nuclear realm of fission and fusion power. As we reveal below, the 'biofuel' alternative is not only a rip-off, but also it will never solve the energy crisis, and will starve people in the meantime.
Ethanol, Free Trade in Mexico Augur Inflation, Starvation, Mass Migration
by Dennis Small
Have you ever eaten a Mexican tortilla? Odds are you have. . . or what passes for a tortilla in the fast-food demiworld of tacos and burritos. But Mexicans—all 107 million of them—eat the real thing every day. In fact, according to Mexican press accounts, Mexicans are estimated to eat a staggering 630 million tortillas a day!
Inside the Cartesian Corridor of Congress
by Joe Smalley, LaRouche Youth Movement
Echoing what Lyndon LaRouche has described as an intrinsically incompetent approach to economics, a wave of propaganda is now being dumped on the U.S. Congress and the American public, to divert attention from the necessity actual technological progress.
It's Still Moonshine
Smell of Gigantic Hoax in Government Ethanol Promotion
by Laurence Hecht
The warning signs of a gigantic hoax in the promotion of ethanol as a substitute for gasoline came into sharp focus in mid-January, as EIR stepped up investigations of the claims by government agencies to the efficiency of biofuels. The evidence is not yet conclusive, but sufficiently suggestive to warrant prompt Congressional investigation into what might be one of the greatest and most costly hoaxes perpetrated by the Cheney-Bush Administration since the selling of the Iraq War.
Only Nuclear Power Can Close Energy Gap
by Marjorie Mazel Hecht
Nuclear energy is the only way to keep the lights on and the wheels of industry turning in the United States and around the world. There is no other way to ensure that the 6.5 billion and growing world population will enjoy the standard of living and longevity typical in the industrial world today. Windmills, solar cells, biomass, and other so-called alternatives cannot power an industrial society.
British Crown Assaults Canadian Wheat Board in Grab for World Grain Control
by Rob Ainsworth and Jean-Franc¸ois Sauve´, Canadian LaRouche Youth Movement
Acting through its Canadian and Australian Privy Councilors, the British Crown has launched a coordinated assault to destroy both the Canadian and Australian Wheat Boards, to the benefit of its assets in the international grain cartel. Combined, the two nations account for a stunning 65% of global wheat exports, control of which would give the Crown and its food cartel unchallenged dominance over world wheat prices and supplies.
Cartels Crush Wheat Board in Australia
by Robert Barwick
The Liberal/National government of Australian Prime Minister John Howard, in December 2006, stripped the Australian Wheat Board (AWB) of its export monopoly of wheat, known as the 'single desk.' Thus ended over six decades of regulated wheat marketing for Australia's wheat growers, who produce 15% of all world wheat exports.
International:
International Mobilization To Stop U.S. Attack on Iran
by Muriel Mirak-Weissbach
Anyone, including those in Iranian political circles,who cherished the illusion that the Cheney-Bush cabal was not committed to a new war in Southwest Asia, has had to abandon such dreams in the wake of George W. Bush's Jan. 10 speech on his 'new' policy for Iraq.
Madrid +15 Conference Calls for Immediate Mideast Peace Negotiations
by Dean Andromidas
Yossi Beilin, chairman of Israel's Meretz party and architect of the Oslo Peace Accords, called last August for the convening of a Madrid II peace conference as the only solution to ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and ending the war in Iraq. Beilin's call soon received the warm endorsement of American statesman Lyndon H. LaRouche. This month, some of the original Madrid conference organizers took steps toward the goal of an official Madrid II.
Interview: Yossi Ben Ari
Madrid +15 Must Lead To a New Peace Plan
Brig. Gen. Yossi Ben Ari (res.) was a participant in the Madrid +15 Conference. He served in the Israeli Defense Forces as a senior military intelligence officer, and is a former codirector of the Strategic Affairs Unit of IPCRI (Israel-Palestine Center for Research and Information).
Even Sharon Allowed Israel-Syria Talks
by Dean Andromidas
As Vice President Dick Cheney was plotting newwars against Iran and Syria, the Israeli daily Ha'aretz on Jan. 16 revealed that secret back-channel talks were held between the two nations' representatives from September 2004 to July 2006.
London, Opus Dei Ran Argentine Atrocities
by Cynthia R. Rush
When Argentine Federal judge Rau´l Acosta ordered the arrest of former President Marí Estela Martínez de Perón on Jan. 12, charging her with responsibility for atrocities carried out under her 1974-76 government, it set off a political firestorm in the country, while attracting significant international media attention.
New Ecuador Leader: Replace 'Inhuman' Globalization With National Economy!
Inaugurated on Jan. 15, coinciding with the birthday of that great fighter for the universal dignity of man, Martin Luther King, the new President of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, addressed with remarkable pungency, the fundamental issue facing mankind today: the urgency of restoring the moral principle of the Common Good as the premise of economic policy. To do that, he made clear, 'inhuman and cruel globalization' must be buried, replaced by a return to the primacy of the Nation State.
Response to Chancellor Merkel: Germany Needs a New Economic Policy
by Helga Zepp-LaRouche
The speech that German Chancellor Merkel gave before the European Parliament on Jan. 17, in her capacity as President of the European Union, betrayed a fundamental problem which lurks behind her policy of 'small steps.' That she holds the opinion that Voltaire, of all people, expressed the soul of Europe, is alarming. One can only hope that it is just due to Mrs. Merkel's youthful frivolity, as a '17-year-old youth in the European Union,' as she herself put it in her speech, that she sides with Voltaire, in the anti-Leibnizian tradition in Europe.
French Elections Cheminade and the LYM Revive Republicanism
by Fred Bayle, LaRouche Youth Movement
'Now I'm back in shape.' This is how one French mayor ended his meeting with Jacques Cheminade, the Presidential candidate of the Solidarity and Progress party, who is allied with Lyndon LaRouche. As the April 22 date of the Presidential election is getting closer, the LaRouche Youth Movement (LYM) and Cheminade are awakening the soul of the country, so that the nation can shake off its rotten elite, and regain its republican tradition.
CIA Agents on Trial in Amu Omar Kidnapping
by Claudio Celani
CIA paramilitary activities launched under the Cheney-Bush phony 'war on terror' policy went to court in Milan on Jan. 9, when the first preliminary hearing took place in a trial against 26 CIA officials for the kidnapping and torture of an Egyptian citizen, Nasr Osama Mustafa Hassan, known asAbu Omar. Abu Omar was kidnapped on Feb. 17, 2003, in Milan, and flown to Egypt via U.S. military bases in Italy and Germany.He was imprisoned and tortured, but managed to smuggle out an affidavit to Milan prosecutors, with a dramatic description of the treatment he underwent.
U.S. Military Strike In Somalia Is Part of Bush-Cheney 'Surge'
by Lawrence K. Freeman
In good political intelligence work, one should never get so focussed on the facts on the ground, that one fails to see the actual cause motivating the observed events. This is certainly true of the U.S.-supported Ethiopian invasion into Somalia. After the U.S. used an AC-130 gunship attack on Jan. 8 in southern Somalia, which mowed down dozens of civilians according to numerous accounts, I kept asking myself this question: If the U.S. were truly serious about hunting down three alleged al-Qaeda operatives, why would they use the equivalent of a flying tank to indiscriminately fire on a large group of Somalians?
Congress Takes First Steps Toward Curbing Cheney
by Jeffrey Steinberg
Scarcely two weeks have passed since the 110th Congress was sworn in, and already battle lines have been sharply drawn between the legislative branch and the embattled BushCheney White House. And, as forecast by Lyndon LaRouche in his Jan. 11 Washington webcast, increasingly, Republicans are joining with their Democratic counterparts to challenge the permanent war dogmas of Bush-Cheney, and the words 'double impeachment' are being heard around the Capitol.
Will Congress Sing for Double Impeachment?
by Matthew Ogden, LaRouche Youth Movement
No matter how much Howard Dean screams, he will never be able to claim credit for the landslide victory that the Democrats wonon Nov. 7. The new 110th Congress is full of maverick freshmen Democrats who rode the wave of a great generational paradigm shift, which swept them into Congress, and they are now in Washington with a mandate from millions of young people to make trouble. On campuses across the country, these millions of youth were shocked to discover that you didn't have to imitate the Howard 'Scream' to consider yourself political, but that the real political leadership were the youth who were calling for the impeachment of Cheney and Bush, pushing for a FDR-style economic recovery, and mobilizing the population through song!
LYM at the 'Temple of Doom'
'Moving On,' From The Old Politics
by Wesley Irwin, LaRouche Youth Movement
In the weeks leading into the Nov. 7, 2006 Democratic Congressional landslide victory, and later, in an even more focussed intervention the following month in a special election held in San Antonio, Texas, the LaRouche Youth Movement (LYM) physically demonstrated, that the political process in the United States for the coming revolutionary period will be determined by the quality of creativity embodied by the LYM.
Culture:
Rembrandt's 'Thirty Years War' vs. Anglo-Dutch Liberal Tyranny
by Bonnie James
The year 2006 was an unusually rich year for significant birthdays: We commemorated the 250th birthday of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Jan. 27, 1756) and the 300th birthday of Benjamin Franklin (Jan. 17, 1706). It is therefore fitting that, as we bid adieu to 2006, we remember the great genius and sublime artist, Rembrandt van Rijn, born 400 years ago, on July 15, 1606 (Rembrandt lived till 1669).
Editorial:
Don't Be a Bio-Fool!
While there is no question but that the issue of the impeachment of Vice President Cheney, and the prevention of the war against Iran, are at the cutting edge of what the incoming Congress must do in the weeks ahead, Lyndon LaRouche nonetheless chose to commission amajor feature this week on the subject of 'biofuels.' Why? As LaRouche put it in one memo, 'the characteristics of the present intersection of the Congressional agenda with the global strategic, economic, and other realities, require that the biofuels delusion be called into question, popularly, as widely and deeply as possible.'
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