By Dave Lindorff

President Obama, in his visit to China, held a “town meeting” with
Chinese students in which he praised openness and lectured them on the
value of freedom of information, saying that he is a “supporter of
non-censorship” and that open access to information was a “source of
strength.”

And yet America is hardly free of censorship. Heck, the president
himself has gone to court to prevent the release of photographs of US
troops torturing captives in Iraq, Afghanistan and at Guantanamo. Talk
about censorship! But it goes way beyond just such crude, totalitarian
style control over information.

By Dave Lindorff

It may not be obvious today, and certainly it’s not how the corporate media reported it, but future historians are likely to look back at March 13, 2009 as the day that American imperialism began it’s inexorable decline. That’s the day that Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao announced that his country was “worried” about its holdings of over $1 trillion in US treasury securities, and warned that he wanted the US to assure China that it would maintain its good credit and “honor its promises” and “maintain the safety of China’s assets.”

By Dave Lindorff

With the government now having spent over $800 billion in less than
a year shoring up tottering financial companies that had become little
more than casinos (and rigged ones at that), America is looking
increasingly like China, a country where the state has been gradually
getting out of the business of directly owning companies.

At this point, with the US government owning 80 percent of the
world’s largest insurance company, AIG, and essentially owning mortgage
firms Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae as well as bankrupt Lehman Brothers,
and with the nation’s two largest automakers in line asking for $25
billion in government loans, one would be hard-pressed to spot the
difference between the two systems.

By Dave Lindorff

What the hell is Barack Obama talking about?

He says that America should be talking with leaders in Cuba, Iran, Venezuela, Korea, Syria. Fine. But he calls this “talking with our enemies.”

What enemies?

Let’s get something straight. Enemies are people who are fighting against you, who are trying to destroy you. Is Cuba fighting against America? Is Iran fighting against America? Is Venezuela fighting against America? Syria? China? No. These countries may be rivals, but they are not enemies.

The closest we come to having an actual enemy in today’s world is North Korea, where we are technically still in some kind of truce following a hot war, but of course that war itself has been over for half a frigging century, and nobody has been killing anyone on the Korean Peninsula in decades.

By Dave Lindorff

 Americans are in a panic over rising gas and heating oil prices, and with reason. For months, the price of a barrel of crude oil has been rising steadily, hitting a record $127 yesterday.

Analysts keep getting trotted out on TV and in print, attributing the dramatic price rise to everything from “peak oil”—the idea that producing countries have reached their peak of productive capacity, and that the only direction for oil supplies looking forward is down, while demand continues to rise—to increasing demand in China and India, to supply bottlenecks, to specific news events, like a pipeline break in Nigeria, or a closed refinery in California.

Why the Government Tests Few Chinese Imports

Joel S. Hirschhorn

Massive amounts of Chinese imports are threatening public health and safety.  Many food and consumer products pose risks.  Lead in children’s toys and jewelry.  Toxins in foods for pets and humans, and in toothpaste.  Unsafe automobile tires.  Many prescription drugs made with few safeguards.  The list is endless.  The federal government is not safeguarding American citizens through thorough testing of imports.  Why?

June 25, 2007

CHINA’S NEW WEAPONS

This is an excerpt from What's It All About? The Decline of the American Empire by John Chuckman published by Constable & Robinson Ltd, London. Available from Indigo Books, Canada.

John Chuckman

First I invite you to watch this excellent 10 minute speech by George Galloway to the British Parliament on January 27, 2007 in which he delivers a stark warning that Britain is sleepwalking into a catastrophic war with Iran along with the US and Israel. George Galloway was the man who you may remember lambasting the US Senate over false accusations of oil bribes with Saddam.

George Galloway's speech to the British Parliament, January 2007

China’s unannounced test of an anti-satellite ballistic missile on the 11 January 2007 has evidently caused significant concern in the West and in particular the US. Not only does it put existing military and civilian satellite networks at risk, the act was clearly intended as a warning in the true cold war sense.

As I write this report, the story has finally hit the mainstream media but in most cases only a fairly sanitized version of the events is being made public. This very newsworthy event was not made public for 6 days after the launch, but despite the delay in publication, some interesting details are emerging that indicate increasing tensions between China and the US.