Political Factors

Oversight

Perhaps its just oversight on the part of our political powers that they would play yet another of their games late on a Friday afternoon in mid-November.  It’s the perfect time to lose significant actions in society’s weekend activities.  A significant action, for instance, regarding prisoner and detainee abuse photos.  It’s certain that even if the mainstream media were to report on it, the people would be more interested in testosterone induced football players and cheerleaders doing what they do best.  

Sort of.  The executive branch, while perhaps not thinking about cheers and squeals and grunts and groans,  banks on the weekend as a guiding force in its desperate search for campaign help.   Prison abuse goes unchecked, unanswered, and unaccounted for.  

Access Documents

On this most recent of late Friday afternoons our Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates (yes, he of Bush Junior fame), exercised some of his most recent new found powers.  Any thoughts of detainee abuse photos seeing “the light of day” will remain just that, thoughts.  

Thanks to a a provision in the Homeland Security appropriations bill passed by Congress in October, Gates has the power to withhold pertinent information (i.e. “protected documents”) that could be construed as endangering U.S. citizens or U.S. soldiers or government employees deployed outside the United States.  This provision in turn gives its thanks to two bastions of civil liberties, Joe Lieberman (I - Connecticut) and Lindsey Graham (R - South Carolina), who are the original sponsors of this political marketing endeavor.  

From the Congressional Record, June 17, 2009, we have these words of wisdom by Graham: “Secondly, I wanted to be assured by the administration that if the Congress fails to do its part to protect these photos from being released, the President would sign an Executive order which would change their classification to be classified national security documents that would be outcome determinative of the lawsuit. Rahm Emanuel has indicated to me that the President is committed to not ever letting these photos see the light of day, but they agree with me that the best way to do it is for Congress to act.”  

You’ve just got to love “the light of day” concept.  The absurd idea that the Freedom of Information Act could be used in a positive manner to access documents of historical significance has been dealt a knockout blow, sponsored in part by hope and change. 

FOIA Requests

For nearly six years the ACLU has been attempting to gain access to the images.  First, through a FOIA request filed in 2003 and then sued the aforementioned Bush Junior administration.  A US District Court ordered the release of the photos, affirmed by the US Court of Appeals.  Additionally, the district court stated that Junior’s administration was attempting to expand FOIA exemptions to protect their actions while suppressing “global controversy.”

Thanks to the efficiencies of our judicial system, the case was headed for the Supreme Court.  Then of course came the Lieberman-Graham amendment along with the “light of day” banner being displayed on that fast moving to a sudden stop hope and change bandwagon. 

While the Barackstar professes that the images “are not particularly sensational,” the executive branch still feels the need to act under the cover of weekend squeals and groans.  Oh yes, and oversight.  

Asking The Right Questions

Worst Disaster

Three days after Ft. Hood’s worst disaster, a shooting spree that left 13 dead and 30 wounded, our infotainment-based media continues in its absurd and pathetic reporting of the incident.   What we do know, we think for certain, is that Nidal Malik Hasan is a psychiatrist, with the rank of Major, in the United States Army.  

Hours after the incident, news reports were based on an instant creation of hysteria and sensationalism.  Half-staffed in coverage and half-baked in their ability to do a good job, much less a decent one, news reporters instead gave us hype. This hype was based on  information received from a military installation in lockdown mode.  Three days after the fact, the facts trickle out, sensationalism still reigns.

While internet discussion boards are filled with hate, racism, and bigotry over this major disaster, little is offered up toward a rational thought process.  Nor is anyone questioning the information offered up by the military.  Any information released was, is, and will continue to be based on the age-old CYA policy.  This seems to be especially true with the military’s modus operandi.    

Ask The Right Questions

Why does the media continue to provide information to the general populace based on information provided that is based on anonymity?  How can we get accurate information if someone is providing that information without fear of accountability?  

While army officials continue to present the story that a lone gunman did all this killing and wounding with only two handguns, as presented by CNN and seemingly every other news outlet, ballistics tests from casings strewn about the murder site have yet to reach a conclusion.  A conclusion that, no doubt, will be announced by the military industrial complex as it stays in the CYA mode.  

Performance Evaluation Process

While the kicking of a downed human continues, little is said about the suspect reaching the rank of Major in one of the world’s most powerful militaries.  Instead, as Osman Danquah states, we hear “I didn’t get the feeling he was talking for himself, but something just didn’t seem right.”  This in reference to Hasan’s seeking counsel from Danquah regarding what to tell fellow Muslim soldiers regarding the killing of Iraqis and Afghanis in those U.S. military-occupied countries.  Danquah is the co-founder of the Islamic Community of Greater Killeen.  Another question, if things didn’t seem quite right, did Danquah report any of this?  It’s just a question, but maybe it’s one of the many right questions.

How about Major Hasan’s performance evaluation?  This man reached the rank of Major based on his performance.  Right?  Again, questions.  This of course leads us to the question of staff evaluations.  Who was, or is, responsible for determining where Hasan’s performance evaluation report lands?  On whose desk does the report ultimately land?  Better yet, in which file cabinet is the report stashed?  Who evaluates those who evaluated Hasan?  So many questions that may never be asked.

Anyone or any entity can present their own agenda, passing it off as fact, as long as the right questions aren’t asked.  Infotainment remains king, even in tragedy.  

New Name Is Squeaky Clean

Names In The News

With all the publicity, most of it bad, regarding Canada’s tar sands project, it’s amusing to see - in a pathetic sort of way - the marketing forces behind this project cranking things up a bit.  Funding must have finally made its way into their bank account.

Syncrude, operator of one of Canada’s largest mines in man’s newest venture into the environmental disaster arena,  now prefers that we refer to the tar sands as “oil sands”, the reason being that it sounds more positive.  Forget the visuals associated with the ecological disaster of tar sands mining, let’s prioritize things here by emphasizing the sound quality of a name.  On a side note (pardon the pun), this does question the proper spelling of their company name.  

Even Wikipedia, that fountain of almost accurate wisdom, now refers to the tar sands as oil sands.  Everywhere one looks in the corporate world, tar sands money is growing on those evergreen corporate trees.  

Boom Town, Tar Sands Style

Fort McMurray, 270 miles northeast of Edmonton, is surrounded by boreal forest and sits at the confluence of the Clearwater River and the Athabasca River.  Hint: forests and rivers.  In 1966, the town’s population was estimated at just over 2,000 residents.  Population projections for the year 2012 come in at 100,000.  

The town’s economy is based, unnaturally, on the tar sands of Alberta.  Specifically, on the Athabasca tar sands project.  This tar sands deposit is the largest of three tar sands projects in Canada, and the single largest tar sands deposit in the world.  Combined with the other two Alberta deposits, the Peace River deposit and the Cold Lake deposit, a 54,000 square mile section of this boreal forest and muskeg continues to be under extreme attack by the oil industry.  

Forgive me, I digress.  Fort McMurray’s other driving forces in its economy are natural gas, oil pipelines, and forestry.  Oh yes, and tourism.  It’s probably a safe bet to say that the recent spike in their tourism numbers comes from carbon energy executives flocking to the area just to see what the recent Greenpeace fuss is all about. 

Oil Sands Jobs

Oil sands employment, not tar sands employment, is booming these days, as the mental thought process seems to diminish.  Jean Fournier, a 64 year old scaffolder recently earned $64,000.00 Canadian dollars (approximately $60,000.00 USD) over the last four months.  His take on the recent Greenpeace activities at the tar sands plants was simply “ Greenpeace will make people starve by killing the economy.”  He obviously believes the Greenpeace economic policy is equivalent to the Bush-Cheney economic policy.  

The oil industry has, over it’s storied history, created strong employee alliances the same way they create strong corporate alliances.  The money grows on a different tree in the same orchard.  

Losing Money

During the roller coaster oil price years of the Bush Jr.’s presidency, tar sands projects went along for the ride.  However, once oil prices dropped below or at $60.00 per barrel, tar sands became sand castles.  In today’s economy, prices must be above $60.00 per barrel in order to justify the extreme expenses associated with tar sands mining, otherwise its a losing money proposition.  If there’s one thing oil companies care very little for, other than a positive environmental plan, it’s losing money.  

As peak oil production across the planet becomes ever more distant in our rear view mirrors, expect today’s major disaster in Canada to become a global disaster.    

Oh, Canada.