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Thursday, April 30th, 2009
Volume 8, No. 8
4 Articles, 17 Pages
1. Pinter's Dispatch to Obama
2. US Foreclosure Index
3. You're Being Lied to About Pirates
4. Dear President Obama
1. PINTER'S DISPATCH TO OBAMA
BY
MIKE WHITNEY
Come and see the blood in the streets.
Come and see
the blood in the streets.
Come and see the blood
in the streets!
Poem by Pablo Neruda
About a month before Barack Obama announced his candidacy for the presidency of the United States, former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski appeared on PBS's Charlie Rose Show and was asked whether he thought Obama would be a good choice for president. Brzezinski paused for a minute, peered at Rose out of the corner of his eye, and answered, "Just think of the symbolism." As soon as he said that, Brzezinski and Rose broke out into laughter as though they were sharing a private joke.
Brzezinski was right, of course. Obama was the perfect choice for president. Not because of his experience. He had none. He was a two year senator with a resume' small enough to fit on the back of a matchbox. Still Obama had what Brzezinski and Co. were looking for, symbolism; the kind of symbolism that connected him to people around the world and made them feel like one of their own had finally clawed their way to the top. Even better, Obama was a charismatic populist who could fill stadiums with adoring fans and put a benign face on America's interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq. What more could Brzezinski hope for? After 8 years of dragging "Brand America" through the mud, the country would finally get the emergency facelift it needed and begin to restore its battered image as the world's indispensable nation.
For leftists, Obama has been a total bust. He's escalated the war in Afghanistan, increased the cross-border bombings of Pakistan, hemmed and hawed about prosecuting war crimes, refused to actively lobby House members to make it easier for workers to organize (EFCA), and surrounded himself with bank industry reps who've committed $12.8 trillion to sinking financial institutions with no assurance that the money would be repaid. Apart from a trifling bill on stem cells, Obama has done absolutely zero to confirm his bone fides as a liberal. The truth is, Obama is neither liberal nor conservative; he's simply an inspiring orator and a skillful politician who has no strong convictions about anything. If he achieves greatness, it will be because he was thrust into a crisis he couldn't avoid and reluctantly acted in the best interests of the American people. That possibility still exists, although it seems more unlikely by the day.
Foreign leaders are clearly relieved to see the last of George W. Bush, and they appear to be willing to give Obama every opportunity to mend fences and break with the past. But Obama has made little effort to reciprocate or show that he's serious about real change. The emphasis seems to be more on public relations than policy; more on glitzy photo ops, grandiose speeches and gadding about from one capital to another, than ending the chronic US meddling and militarism. Where's the beef or is it all just empty posturing?
No one's ready to write-off Obama just yet, but he needs to show he's the real-deal by taking steps to ratchet-down the war machine and reign in the corporate elites and bank vermin. But is it really possible for one man--however well-meaning--to change the course of a nation by standing up the gaggle of racketeers who pull the strings from behind the curtain? Keep in mind, America's history of violent interventions, unprovoked wars, color-coded revolutions and coup d' etats has a long pedigree that stretches from Bunker Hill to Baghdad. That river of blood did not begin with George Bush and it won't end with Barack Obama. Every generation has produced its own litany of crimes, from Wounded Knee to Nagasaki to My Lai to Falluja. In Harold Pinter's Nobel acceptance speech, the playwright invokes one such incident which epitomizes the pattern of hostility which has been repeated over and over again wherever the Washington mandarins detect opposition to their iron-fisted rule.
Harold Pinter, Nobel Acceptance Speech:
"The United States supported the brutal Somoza dictatorship in Nicaragua for over 40 years. The Nicaraguan people, led by the Sandinistas, overthrew this regime in 1979, a breathtaking popular revolution.
The Sandinistas weren't perfect. They possessed their fair share of arrogance and their political philosophy contained a number of contradictory elements. But they were intelligent, rational and civilized. They set out to establish a stable, decent, pluralistic society. The death penalty was abolished. Hundreds of thousands of poverty-stricken peasants were brought back from the dead. Over 100,000 families were given title to land. Two thousand schools were built. A quite remarkable literacy campaign reduced illiteracy in the country to less than one seventh. Free education was established and a free health service. Infant mortality was reduced by a third. Polio was eradicated.
The United States denounced these achievements as Marxist/Leninist subversion. In the view of the US government, a dangerous example was being set. If Nicaragua was allowed to establish basic norms of social and economic justice, if it was allowed to raise the standards of health care and education and achieve social unity and national self respect, neighboring countries would ask the same questions and do the same things. There was of course at the time fierce resistance to the status quo in El Salvador.
I spoke earlier about 'a tapestry of lies' which surrounds us. President Reagan commonly described Nicaragua as a 'totalitarian dungeon'. This was taken generally by the media, and certainly by the British government, as accurate and fair comment. But there was in fact no record of death squads under the Sandinista government. There was no record of torture. There was no record of systematic or official military brutality. No priests were ever murdered in Nicaragua. There were in fact three priests in the government, two Jesuits and a Maryknoll missionary. The totalitarian dungeons were actually next door, in El Salvador and Guatemala. The United States had brought down the democratically elected government of Guatemala in 1954 and it is estimated that over 200,000 people had been victims of successive military dictatorships.
Six of the most distinguished Jesuits in the world were viciously murdered at the Central American University in San Salvador in 1989 by a battalion of the Alcatl regiment trained at Fort Benning, Georgia, USA. That extremely brave man Archbishop Romero was assassinated while saying mass. It is estimated that 75,000 people died. Why were they killed? They were killed because they believed a better life was possible and should be achieved. That belief immediately qualified them as communists. They died because they dared to question the status quo, the endless plateau of poverty, disease, degradation and oppression, which had been their birthright.
The United States finally brought down the Sandinista government. It took some years and considerable resistance but relentless economic persecution and 30,000 dead finally undermined the spirit of the Nicaraguan people. They were exhausted and poverty stricken once again. The casinos moved back into the country. Free health and free education were over. Big business returned with a vengeance. 'Democracy' had prevailed.
But this 'policy' was by no means restricted to Central America. It was conducted throughout the world. It was never-ending. And it is as if it never happened.
The United States supported and in many cases engendered every right wing military dictatorship in the world after the end of the Second World War. I refer to Indonesia, Greece, Uruguay, Brazil, Paraguay, Haiti, Turkey, the Philippines, Guatemala, El Salvador, and, of course, Chile. The horror the United States inflicted upon Chile in 1973 can never be purged and can never be forgiven.
Hundreds of thousands of deaths took place throughout these countries. Did they take place? And are they in all cases attributable to US foreign policy? The answer is yes they did take place and they are attributable to American foreign policy. But you wouldn't know it."
Pinter's speech is a somber indictment of US foreign policy; a policy which is now cloaked behind the rock-star facade of Barack Obama. Nothing has changed and, perhaps, nothing will change. The same barbarous campaign that thrived under Bush has been passed along to Obama intact. Wherever there is resistance to US ambitions; there lies the enemy. Whether its Marxists in Bogota, nationalists in Kosovo, Bolivarians in Caracas, Shia militias in Beirut, Islamic moderates in Mogadishu or Quakers in Toledo. They're all enemies, every one of them, and they need to be dealt with.
Obama is no fool; he knows he's being used. He knows he wasn't chosen for his enlightened views on health care and stem cells. He was picked because the men in charge needed a new posterboy to hide behind while they carry out their illicit activities. Obama is not so much of a Commander in chief as he is master illusionist, diverting attention from the stealth war that goes on relentlessly with or without his consent. Here's Pinter again:
"The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them. You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. It's a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis...It's a scintillating stratagem."
Consider how the news was shaped to make it look like the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan were carried out for altruistic reasons. Thus, the war in Afghanistan became "Operation Enduring Freedom", stressing the selfless generosity of bombing a country into oblivion and reinstating the thuggish warlords to power. The same strategy was used for the invasion of Iraq which was celebrated as "liberation from a brutal dictator." Liberation which cost the lives of over 1 million Iraqis and the displacement of 4 million more. Still, no one in the UN or so called international community has pressed for removing the US from the Security Council or prosecuting its leaders for war crimes. It's a testimony to the success of the US media in upholding the "tapestry of lies" of which Pinter speaks. Under Obama, the charade has only gotten worse. The coverage of the war has stopped entirely. War? What war? What matters now is Obama's cheery banter with Jay Leno, or Michelle's well-proportioned arms or Malia's adorable Portuguese Waterdog. America is whole again. Let the killing resume.
Pinter: "What has happened to our moral sensibility? Did we ever have any? What do these words mean? Do they refer to a term very rarely employed these days - conscience? A conscience to do not only with our own acts but to do with our shared responsibility in the acts of others? Is all this dead? Look at Guantanamo Bay. Hundreds of people detained without charge for over three years, with no legal representation or due process, technically detained forever. This totally illegitimate structure is maintained in defiance of the Geneva Convention. It is not only tolerated but hardly thought about by what's called the 'international community'. This criminal outrage is being committed by a country, which declares itself to be 'the leader of the free world'. Do we think about the inhabitants of Guantanamo Bay? What does the media say about them? They pop up occasionally - a small item on page six. They have been consigned to a no man's land from which indeed they may never return. At present many are on hunger strike, being force-fed, including British residents. No niceties in these force-feeding procedures. No sedative or anesthetic. Just a tube stuck up your nose and into your throat. You vomit blood. This is torture. What has the British Foreign Secretary said about this? Nothing. What has the British Prime Minister said about this? Nothing. Why not? Because the United States has said: to criticize our conduct in Guantanamo Bay constitutes an unfriendly act. You're either with us or against us."
Obama doesn't need to solve the world's problems. He doesn't have to reverse global warming or slow peak oil, cure AIDS or end world hunger. All he needs to do is meet the minimal requirement of his job as president, which is to deliver justice to his people. That's why the prosecution of Bush for war crimes is more important than any other issue on the docket. Justice precedes everything; it's the thread that keeps the social fabric stitched together. Justice for the victims who were killed in their homes with their families while they were sleeping or eating dinner. Justice for the people who were bombed in wedding parties or going to work or at the mosque praying to God. That's what people want from Obama. Justice, nothing more. The Reverend Martin Luther King said, "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice." It's up to Obama follow that arc and take at least one step on the path of legitimacy, accountability and justice.
Pinter: "How many people do you have to kill before you qualify to be described as a mass murderer and a war criminal? One hundred thousand? More than enough, I would have thought. Therefore it is just that Bush and Blair be arraigned before the International Criminal Court of Justice."
It's highly unlikely that a black man with a background in community organizing really believes that expanding the war in Afghanistan is the right thing to do. Nor is it likely that he supports wiretapping, the crackdown on immigrants, penalizing sellers of medical marijuana, trillion dollar bank bailouts or "enhanced" interrogation. He is merely reading from the script that he has been given. But as the economic crisis deepens and the country becomes more radicalized and politically unstable, that script will have to be tossed aside. Obama will have plenty of opportunities to shrug off his handlers and show what he's really made of. Perhaps he is great man after all.
Pinter: "When we look into a mirror, we think the image that confronts us is accurate. But move a millimeter and the image changes. We are actually looking at a never-ending range of reflections. But sometimes a writer has to smash the mirror - for it is on the other side of that mirror that the truth stares at us."
Go ahead, Barack. Smash the mirror.
2. U.S. FORECLOSURE INDEX
BY
ALEXIS McGEE & SOFIA GUTIERREZ
(Foreclosures Soar in March, Up 44 Percent Over February’s High.
Lenders End Moratoria, Opening Flood of Foreclosures; Re-Defaults and Job Losses Also Take Their Toll)
Completed foreclosures hit another monthly record in March as 175,199 homes were lost to foreclosure, up 44 percent from February’s record high, according to the latest U.S. Foreclosure Index released today by ForeclosureS.com, a leading real estate information provider.
The number of foreclosed properties was up dramatically from 121,756 in February. Nearly 370,000 properties have been repossessed by lenders so far this year – 18.3 of every 1,000 households – up more than 38 percent from 266,986 in the fourth quarter of 2008, the U.S. Foreclosure Index shows, and up 76 percent from 210,280 in the first quarter of 2008.
The first-quarter 2009 total is the highest quarterly total of completed foreclosures since the foreclosure crisis began. Pre-foreclosure filings – filings that could lead up to a completed foreclosure – also reached their highest quarterly level, topping 600,000 for the first time since the foreclosure crisis began.
While February and March headlines boasted of government efforts to stop foreclosures, in fact March was the first month when major government-backed lenders – including Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – lifted moratoria on many properties in the first week of March. Only properties eligible for modification under the Obama administration’s plan were covered by continuing foreclosure moratoria, according to statements by the two agencies.
“The floodgates of foreclosure opened with the expiration of these foreclosure freezes,” says Alexis McGee, foreclosure expert, educator, and author. “With rising unemployment, a backlog of delayed foreclosures and increasing abandonment of properties, foreclosures soared in March to levels we have not seen in this crisis.”
“Hopefully, this is a short-term surge caused by months of delayed foreclosures. This is a very troubling turn after seeing some bright spots earlier this year. However, with Obama’s new Making Homes Affordable Plan now in effect we are hoping that in the near future we will see a reduction in new pre-foreclosure filings, which will help stabilize the housing markets,” McGee said.
“March’s high numbers may also be caused by defaults on previously modified loans. Earlier this month the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Office of Thrift Supervision reported higher and rising re-default rates on modified mortgages as part of their fourth-quarter 2008 report,” McGee added. “The report points to the fact that not all previously modified loans result in lower monthly payments, and when combined with today’s economics, the result can be catastrophic for already strapped homeowners.”
The Obama administration’s Making Home Affordable Plan is intended to help promote loan modifications by bringing debt-to-gross income ratios down to 31 percent. In short, that would allow homeowners to only spend 31 percent of their income on the mortgage, including taxes. With such low payment levels – compared to 50 percent payments as the recent norm of banks – people who get their loans modified under the new plan will be far more likely to remain in their home.
Regionally, the U.S. Foreclosure Index of Completed Foreclosures (Real Estate Owned) shows double-digit increases in March over February’s already record high monthly numbers:
NATIONWIDE REOs
Region
January
February
March
Mar-Feb
Increase
Totals
Midwest
12,716
24,130
35,707
48%
72,553
Southeast
21,839
32,024
43,085
35%
96,948
Northeast
4,495
10,706
12,645
18%
27,846
Southwest
33,513
54,676
83,363
52%
171,552
Other States
131
220
399
81%
750
Nationwide
72,694
121,756
175,199
44%
369,649
California led the nation in number of foreclosures last month — 38,318, up more than 59 percent from February, the U.S. Foreclosure Index shows.
“But the state also is a leader in the housing recovery,” says McGee, “and mixes the good with the troubling news. It’s indicative of what’s beginning to happen in states across the country.”
Consider a few numbers from the California Association of Realtors:
Existing, single-family home sales in the state increased 83 percent in February to a seasonally adjusted rate of 620,410 on an annualized basis.
The statewide median price of an existing single-family home decreased 40.8 percent in February to $247,590.
CAR’s Unsold Inventory Index fell to 6.5 months in February, compared with 15.3 months in February 2008.
The median number of days it took to sell a single-family home declined to 51.5 days in February 2009, compared with 69.3 days in February 2008.
The U.S. Foreclosure Index ranks Florida No. 2 nationally in March foreclosure numbers, with 18,946 foreclosures, up 33 percent from February. Similarly the Florida Association of Realtors reports solid housing economic news, too:
Existing home sales in that state rose 20 percent in February over a year ago, the sixth month in the row with year over year increases.
February’s statewide existing home sales were 16.7 percent higher than January’s statewide sales.
Statewide sales of existing condominiums rose 15 percent in February over a year ago, with sales also up 25.1 percent over January.
Florida’s median sales price for existing homes last month was $141,900, down 29 percent from a year ago.
Even in an economically hard-hit state like Michigan where the unemployment rate is among the highest in the nation, and March foreclosures top 11,000 (up 25.6 percent from February), the Michigan Association of Realtors reports year-over-year home sales up 3.5 percent in February. Average home prices were down nearly 30 percent, too.
Nationwide REOs 6 month
Rank
State
Oct-08
Nov-08
Dec-08
Jan-09
Feb-09
Mar-09
Totals
Per
Household
1
California
17,214
16,032
20,952
14,351
23,988
38,318
130,855
1.14%
2
Florida
10,187
11,373
12,786
10,007
14,243
18,946
77,542
1.23%
3
Arizona
7,415
7,553
7,658
5,250
10,651
15,401
53,928
2.84%
4
Texas
5,425
4,645
7,505
5,367
7,998
9,140
40,080
0.66%
5
Michigan
4,783
4,974
5,138
2,465
8,869
11,138
37,367
1.25%
6
Georgia
5,524
5,322
5,753
4,746
6,170
8,831
36,346
1.73%
7
Ohio
3,884
3,314
5,594
4,300
4,763
7,046
28,901
0.74%
8
Nevada
3,196
3,551
4,039
3,207
3,989
8,778
26,760
3.60%
9
Illinois
2,909
2,155
2,217
2,111
3,301
4,869
17,562
0.46%
10
Tennessee
1,795
2,252
2,529
1,659
2,988
3,935
15,158
0.72%
The U.S. Foreclosure Index also found that nationally the number of properties in the pre-foreclosure process climbed slightly to 225,131 in March, up 5.8 percent from February’s 212,703.
Nationwide Preforeclosures 2009
State
January
February
March
Mar-Feb
% Change
Totals
Midwest
19,319
23,021
24,665
7%
67,005
Southeast
56,853
70,491
67,642
-4%
194,986
Northeast
15,616
17,020
21,839
28%
54,475
Southwest
74,563
101,492
110,132
9%
286,187
OtherStates
405
679
853
26%
1,937
Nationwide
166,756
212,703
225,131
6%
604,590
For the quarter, 604,590 pre-foreclosure filings occurred nationwide, up 14.5 percent from 528,241 in the fourth quarter of 2008 and up 17.3 percent from 515,411 in the first quarter of 2008. The quarterly pre-foreclosure filings are also the highest quarterly numbers since the foreclosure crisis began.
Annualizing that number, the U.S. is on track to top 2.4 million pre-foreclosure filings before year-end.
California had the most pre-foreclosure filings, followed closely by Florida, in March. Over the last six months, however, Florida has had the most pre-foreclosure filings, followed by California, Arizona, Illinois and Nevada.
Nationwide Pre-Foreclosures 6 month
Rank
State
Oct-08
Nov-08
Dec-08
Jan-09
Feb-09
Mar-09
Totals
Per
Household
1
Florida
46,281
47,371
50,633
43,070
53,173
51,985
292,513
4.62%
2
California
19,211
30,363
41,710
33,008
44,713
59,763
228,768
1.99%
3
Arizona
10,970
11,988
12,327
10,223
16,453
15,477
77,438
4.10%
4
Illinois
9,016
7,549
9,637
8,165
10,725
11,130
56,222
1.45%
5
Nevada
8,132
6,891
6,935
6,774
9,738
13,081
51,551
6.97%
6
Texas
7,899
7,471
8,210
9,917
8,661
2,954
45,112
0.86%
7
New Jersey
8,180
7,219
7,385
5,887
6,928
7,775
43,374
1.42%
8
Michigan
5,847
4,574
4,728
5,752
6,033
6,979
33,913
1.21%
9
Georgia
5,888
4,487
4,585
4,315
6,129
4,995
30,399
1.22%
10
Colorado
2,810
3,463
3,914
3,373
3,811
4,542
21,913
1.38%
ForeclosureS.com has been the professional’s source for accurate foreclosure property information for more than 20 years. To ensure the accuracy of its foreclosure statistics, ForeclosureS.com bases its analysis on the number of formal notices filed against a property during the foreclosure process. That can include notice of default, notice of foreclosure auction, and/or notice of REO (lender-owned real estate that occurs after a foreclosed property fails to sell at auction and reverts back to the lender). Pre-foreclosure filings are initial notices that all do not end up as foreclosures.
For more Foreclosure Statistics and Information for your area, as well as expert commentary from Alexis McGee, president of ForeclosureS.com, please contact Sofia Gutierrez, ForeclosureS.com, 916-781-0648 or sofia@halldinpr.com.
3. YOU ARE BEING LIED TO ABOUT PIRATES
BY
JOHANN HARI
Who imagined that in 2009, the world's governments would be declaring a new War on Pirates? As you read this, the British Royal Navy - backed by the ships of more than two dozen nations, from the US to China - is sailing into Somalian waters to take on men we still picture as parrot-on-the-shoulder pantomime villains. They will soon be fighting Somalian ships and even chasing the pirates onto land, into one of the most broken countries on earth. But behind the arrr-me-hearties oddness of this tale, there is an untold scandal. The people our governments are labeling as "one of the great menace of our times" have an extraordinary story to tell -- and some justice on their side.
Pirates have never been quite who we think they are. In the "golden age of piracy" - from 1650 to 1730 - the idea of the pirate as the senseless, savage thief that lingers today was created by the British government in a great propaganda-heave. Many ordinary people believed it was false: pirates were often rescued from the gallows by supportive crowds. Why? What did they see that we can't? In his book Villains of All nations, the historian Marcus Rediker pores through the evidence to find out. If you became a merchant or navy sailor then - plucked from the docks of London's East End, young and hungry - you ended up in a floating wooden Hell. You worked all hours on a cramped, half-starved ship, and if you slacked off for a second, the all-powerful captain would whip you with the Cat O' Nine Tails. If you slacked consistently, you could be thrown overboard. And at the end of months or years of this, you were often cheated of your wages.
Pirates were the first people to rebel against this world. They mutinied against their tyrannical captains - and created a different way of working on the seas. Once they had a ship, the pirates elected their captains, and made all their decisions collectively. They shared their bounty out in what Rediker calls "one of the most egalitarian plans for the disposition of resources to be found anywhere in the eighteenth century." They even took in escaped African slaves and lived with them as equals. The pirates showed "quite clearly - and subversively - that ships did not have to be run in the brutal and oppressive ways of the merchant service and the Royal navy." This is why they were popular, despite being unproductive thieves.
The words of one pirate from that lost age - a young British man called William Scott - should echo into this new age of piracy. Just before he was hanged in Charleston, South Carolina, he said: "What I did was to keep me from perishing. I was forced to go a-pirating to live." In 1991, the government of Somalia - in the Horn of Africa - collapsed. Its nine million people have been teetering on starvation ever since - and many of the ugliest forces in the Western world have seen this as a great opportunity to steal the country's food supply and dump our nuclear waste in their seas.
Yes: nuclear waste. As soon as the government was gone, mysterious European ships started appearing off the coast of Somalia, dumping vast barrels into the ocean. The coastal population began to sicken. At first they suffered strange rashes, nausea and malformed babies. Then, after the 2005 tsunami, hundreds of the dumped and leaking barrels washed up on shore. People began to suffer from radiation sickness, and more than 300 died. Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the UN envoy to Somalia, tells me: "Somebody is dumping nuclear material here. There is also lead, and heavy metals such as cadmium and mercury - you name it." Much of it can be traced back to European hospitals and factories, who seem to be passing it on to the Italian mafia to "dispose" of cheaply. When I asked Ould-Abdallah what European governments were doing about it, he said with a sigh: "Nothing. There has been no clean-up, no compensation, and no prevention."
At the same time, other European ships have been looting Somalia's seas of their greatest resource: seafood. We have destroyed our own fish-stocks by over-exploitation - and now we have moved on to theirs. More than $300m worth of tuna, shrimp, lobster and other sea-life is being stolen every year by vast trawlers illegally sailing into Somalia's unprotected seas. The local fishermen have suddenly lost their livelihoods, and they are starving. Mohammed Hussein, a fisherman in the town of Marka 100km south of Mogadishu, told Reuters: "If nothing is done, there soon won't be much fish left in our coastal waters."
This is the context in which the men we are calling "pirates" have emerged. Everyone agrees they were ordinary Somalian fishermen who at first took speedboats to try to dissuade the dumpers and trawlers, or at least wage a 'tax' on them. They call themselves the Volunteer Coastguard of Somalia - and it's not hard to see why. In a surreal telephone interview, one of the pirate leaders, Sugule Ali, said their motive was "to stop illegal fishing and dumping in our waters... We don't consider ourselves sea bandits. We consider sea bandits [to be] those who illegally fish and dump in our seas and dump waste in our seas and carry weapons in our seas." William Scott would understand those words.
No, this doesn't make hostage-taking justifiable, and yes, some are clearly just gangsters - especially those who have held up World Food Programme supplies. But the "pirates" have the overwhelming support of the local population for a reason. The independent Somalian news-site WardherNews conducted the best research we have into what ordinary Somalis are thinking - and it found 70 percent "strongly supported the piracy as a form of national defence of the country's territorial waters." During the revolutionary war in America, George Washington and America's founding fathers paid pirates to protect America's territorial waters, because they had no navy or coastguard of their own. Most Americans supported them. Is this so different?
Did we expect starving Somalians to stand passively on their beaches, paddling in our nuclear waste, and watch us snatch their fish to eat in restaurants in London and Paris and Rome? We didn't act on those crimes - but when some of the fishermen responded by disrupting the transit-corridor for 20 percent of the world's oil supply, we begin to shriek about "evil." If we really want to deal with piracy, we need to stop its root cause - our crimes - before we send in the gun-boats to root out Somalia's criminals.
The story of the 2009 war on piracy was best summarised by another pirate, who lived and died in the fourth century BC. He was captured and brought to Alexander the Great, who demanded to know "what he meant by keeping possession of the sea." The pirate smiled, and responded: "What you mean by seizing the whole earth; but because I do it with a petty ship, I am called a robber, while you, who do it with a great fleet, are called emperor." Once again, our great imperial fleets sail in today - but who is the robber?
POSTSCRIPT: Some commenters seem bemused by the fact that both toxic dumping and the theft of fish are happening in the same place - wouldn't this make the fish contaminated? In fact, Somalia's coastline is vast, stretching to 3300km. Imagine how easy it would be - without any coastguard or army - to steal fish from Florida and dump nuclear waste on California, and you get the idea. These events are happening in different places - but with the same horrible effect: death for the locals, and stirred-up piracy. There's no contradiction.
APRIL 24, 2009
HON. BARACK OBAMA
PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
1600 PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE NW
WASHINGTON, DC 20500
DEAR PRESIDENT OBAMA
We welcome your decision to curtail activity at the proposed Yucca Mountain radioactive waste site and endorse your plan to evaluate the nation’s high-level radioactive waste and commercial irradiated fuel programs and policies. We want to be involved in this process and we hope it will be earnest, open, and transparent. In that spirit, we urge you to ask all levels of your Administration to embrace and honor this period of evaluation of nuclear waste policy and ensure that the voices of the public are heard in that evaluation.
We represent groups rooted in communities impacted by radioactive waste -- the generation, storage, and potential transportation of this dangerous material, as well as communities that have been targeted for, or currently “host” disposal sites. We are concerned for the health and sustainability of our communities. We are “stakeholders,” in the original sense of the word, when it comes to radioactive waste policy.
It is deeply disturbing to us that Secretary Chu suggested that the Yucca licensing process might continue – and also that acting DOE Assistant Secretary for Environmental Management Ines Triay recently traveled to a meeting in Georgia at which DOE contractors were urged by her office to pursue irradiated fuel storage and reprocessing -- long before the radioactive waste evaluation has even begun. We ask you and your team to conduct a real evaluation – not prejudge the outcome.
President Obama, we applaud your commitment to sound science as the basis for sound public policy. In our view, there are few decisions that our government will make which rank, in terms of long-term impact, with the plan for this waste. Irradiated fuel contains more than 95% of the radioactivity generated to date by industrial-scale nuclear enterprise.
We wish to offer you our perspective on Yucca, on nuclear reprocessing, centralizing storage and on the current storage of irradiated fuel at commercial reactor sites.
It is our unequivocal finding that sound science has not been the basis of, nor the guide for implementation of the Yucca Mountain project; many of the organizations signing this letter have repeatedly called, and worked for the cancellation of the Yucca dump.
In 1987, when Congress amended the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, abandoning the deliberate repository site selection process of the Act and singling out the Yucca Mountain site as the only candidate repository site to be studied, it was understood that this was a purely political decision that the Nevada congressional delegation was powerless to stop. In 1992, when it was evident that the Yucca Mountain site could not meet the EPA’s general radiation protection standard for repositories, instead of rejecting Yucca, Congress rescued the site. It directed EPA to promulgate new, “reasonable” standards, specific to Yucca Mountain, consistent with recommendations of a National Academy of Sciences panel study to consider the technical bases for a site-specific Yucca Mountain radiation protection standard. A key portion of the new standard subsequently was overturned by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals for not being consistent with an important safety recommendation of the NAS report. The revised standard is now in litigation over how that safety recommendation is to be addressed.
By 1995, sufficient information existed to convince DOE that infiltrating water could move rapidly down through fractures in the mountain, incorporate radionuclides from the emplaced waste, and result in unacceptable radiation releases to the environment. This ultimately resulted in a Yucca Mountain repository strategy change by DOE to primary reliance on engineered, rather than natural, barriers to delay release of radionuclides. And in 2001, the recognition of technical flaws in the site resulted in the removal from DOE’s Site Recommendation Guidelines of a site disqualification provision designed to assure that a site with such a hydrologic defect would not be considered for development as a repository – another change in the rules rather the application of them.
In 1998, many of the undersigned groups tried to have these same rules enforced by signing the “Petition for Disqualification of Yucca Mountain” that put a spotlight on the fact that Yucca could not meet the original, legislatively defined Site Suitability Guidelines for a geologic repository with respect to rapid groundwater movement. With more than 200 organizations supporting this petition, it was a grave disappointment that then-Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson did not act to disqualify the Yucca Mountain site. Richardson stated that he agreed with the Petition, but paradoxically, did not act on it; stating only that further study was needed. We do appreciate that President Clinton was an ally we worked closely with in stopping the shipment of irradiated fuel to the Yucca site in Nevada during the 1990’s while the site was still under study. We affirm to you today our backing, and readiness to work with you for a decision to suspend all activity at Yucca Mountain – and its ultimate cancellation.
We hope and ask that you will include in your policy review of radioactive waste, data and analysis from non-industry sources. Sound science and democratic inclusion of the public, particularly impacted communities such as ours, must be the basis for any plan going forward.
We cannot wait for that process, however, to deliver these urgent findings: reprocessing is not a credible plan for radioactive waste management and it is not a “waste solution.” The volume of irradiated fuel is reduced; nonetheless total waste volume is substantially increased. Further, a robust solid, ceramic waste form is converted to a caustic, highly radioactive liquid -- not an improvement! Where reprocessing has been done, this liquid waste has either been directly discharged into water (France, United Kingdom, Russia, Japan) or has leaked into groundwater (Hanford, Savannah River Site, West Valley). “Dilution” is not a solution, particularly when the most efficient concentrating food chain is aquatic.
The claim that waste is “recycled” is inaccurate–only 1% is re-usable, and that is plutonium. Plutonium as a fuel is needlessly dangerous; in commerce this weapons-usable material could be diverted into the wrong hands. In a reactor plutonium is harder to control; if reactor control is lost, plutonium fuel results in twice as many fatal cancers as the same accident would cause if uranium fuel were in use.
The claim that the uranium can be re-used is patently false since the attempts to do so during the Cold War resulted in catastrophic contamination of the uranium enrichment infrastructure. These “hidden costs” or externalities must be included in an assessment of the cost of such a program, over and above the DOE’s projected $15 billion cost to build a reprocessing plant. Reprocessing is only an appearance of a solution. We also share the concern that many of the likely sites for reprocessing in the United States would unfairly impact low-income communities or low-income communities of color. Together we must find a better way.
Centralizing the storage of irradiated fuel is integral to reprocessing. We are concerned that any centralized storage site may become de facto permanent. Over the last four decades there has also been a long series of attempts to establish “centralized interim storage” independent of reprocessing: the defunct Monitored Retrievable Storage (MRS) program which toward the end systematically targeted Indian Reservations; the industry’s “privatized” storage program – again targeting the Native Americans, first the Mescalero Apache Nation in New Mexico and the Skull Valley Goshute Reservation in Utah; a near decade of effort by the industry to change the Nuclear Waste Policy Act to allow centralized storage at Yucca, the sovereign treaty lands of the Western Shoshone Nation.
As a community we have worked, and will continue to work, to stop such plans–for five key reasons: first, the risks and hazards of transportation are compounded if the waste is taken to a “temporary” site; second, we do not believe that a site will be “temporary” as long as more of this waste is being generated; third, we do not see moving the waste just so more can be generated as appropriate policy; fourth, putting this most persistent and deadly of wastes in a single congressional district when there is not a fully funded permanent program in place does not facilitate ongoing congressional appropriation for this problem; and finally in the case of an Indian Reservation, we oppose the export of some of the worst wastes our dominant society has ever produced in order to dump it on the people of another Nation.
In addition to sharing these views we ask your help with the waste where it is today in existing decentralized storage–at reactors. This situation is responsive to the concerns and needs of the communities where this storage is located. The activist community that has opposed Yucca Mountain over the past two decades engaged with community organizers in reactor communities. A dialogue was established about current waste storage practices and the needs of communities where that is currently happening. We would like to share the findings known as “Community Principles for Safeguarding Nuclear Waste at Reactors” with you. Please see the attached document (also endorsed by over 200 groups nationwide). In summary these principles include:
Ø Potential for drain-down leading to fire in overloaded wet-storage pools. This is the single greatest danger at a nuclear site–and one of the greatest threats to homeland security today;
Ø Pools should only store irradiated fuel for the first 5 years;
Ø Dry waste containers must be built with more quality control and care;
Ø Containers should include heat and radiation monitors;
Ø Containers should not be visible from outside the site boundary;
Ø Containers should not be put on a pad like bowling pins – rather should be spread out and “hardened” to prevent and minimize harm from a potential attack;
Ø Communities should have funding for monitoring;
Ø Storage should be reviewed on a regular, annual basis;
Ø Those signing the “Principles for Safeguarding Nuclear Waste at Reactors” oppose reprocessing of the waste due to the increased number of waste streams and the potential for nuclear proliferation.
These minimal requests from communities that currently host this deadly waste and are most impacted now, and will likely remain so for decades to come, must be factored into a fair review of radioactive waste policy, particularly if future policy is to rely upon further storage at these sites.
We do not, however, support the continued generation of more radioactive waste–whether by extending the licenses of the existing reactors, expansion of the existing sites with the addition of new reactors, or from new reactor sites. Many of the undersigned are active intervenors in the proposed licenses for new reactors in part because generation of this very troubling waste is not an acceptable by-product of making electricity.
Today the cost of a new nuclear power plant is on par with retail prices for solar panels. “Nega-watts” generated through aggressive efficiency upgrades and standards for new construction are more than 10 times cheaper than building new reactors and also deliver far greater and more rapid reductions in Greenhouse Gas Emissions. When good design is employed, all new construction in the United States could be “net- zero” and retro-fits of existing buildings could reverse demand projections, obviating the need for expanded nuclear generation.
We look forward to working with you, your Department of Energy, Environmental Protection Agency, Council on Environmental Quality, and with Congress to explore options for the nuclear waste we have today. We will work diligently, and hope you and your administration will join us, as we anticipate that an honest, rational, science-based analysis of policy will show that when it comes to radioactive waste, prevention is the best medicine. We would like to work with you to stop the expanded production of this waste for which there truly is nothing except responsible long-term stewardship to achieve the goal of isolation–ensuring that it does not enter our air, our water, our food, or our children.
Sincerely,
Petition for Disqualification of Yucca Mountain posted on-line at: http://www.nirs.org/radwaste/yucca/disqualifyyuccapetitionfinal.htm
Letter to Secy Richardson with Petition for Disqualification Signatories posted on-line at: http://www.nirs.org/radwaste/yucca/disqualifyyuccafinalletterwithsignatures.htm
Letter from Secy Richardson to Michael Mariotte, Executive Director, Nuclear Information and Resource Service, January, 1999.
President Clinton issued veto statements on revisions to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act offered by nuclear industry-supporters during both his terms. A letter from White House Chief of Staff Panetta to Congress pledging this veto in 2000 is attached.
Schneider, Mycle and Yves Merignac, April 2008. “Spent Nuclear Fuel Reprocessing in France.” A report of International Panel on Fissile Materials. Posted as of 04-10-2009 at: http://www.fissilematerials.org/ipfm/site_down/rr04.pdf
ibid.
See Bob Alvarez, June 2008. Institute for Policy Studies “Nuclear Spent Fuel Recycling” posted at: http://www.cornnet.nl/~akmalten/Alvarez_nuclear_recycling_June-21-2008-rev-2.pdf. And July 2008. Foreign Policy in Focus “Nuclear Recycling Fails the Test” posted at: http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/5351
Union of Concerned Scientists June 2008. Nuclear Reprocessing: Dirty, Dangerous and Expensive. Posted on-line: http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/nuclear_power/nuclear-reprocessing-factsheet.pdf
See, among others, Dana Powers of the Advisory Committee on Reactor Safety to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, letter to Chairwoman Jackson, May 17, 1999 post at: http://www.nrc.gov/materials/fuel-cycle-fac/mox/pdf/4621825.pdf which raises specific concerns about response time to reactivity transients in the reactor core, and also Paul Leventhal, Nuclear Control Institute http://www.nci.org/s/sp21297.htm
Lyman, Edwin, 1999. Nuclear Control Institute, Public Health Consequences of MOX Fuel: NRC Reactor Licensing Issues. Posted at: http://www.nci.org/i/ib12199.htm
See series of articles in the Washington Post, August – December 1999 from investigative journalist, Jobie Warrick, including: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/daily/sept99/paducah21.htm
Also posted on-line at: http://www.citizen.org/documents/PrinciplesSafeguardingIrradiatedFuel.pdf
Alvarez, Robert, Jan Beyea, Klaus Janberg, Jungmin Kang, Allison McFarlane, Gordon Thompson, Frank N. von Hippel. 2003. Reducing Hazards from Stored Stored Spent Power-Reactor Fuel in the United States. Science and Global Security journal, posted on-line at: http://www.princeton.edu/~globsec/publications/pdf/11_1Alvarez.pdf and Board on Radioactive Waste Management, National Academy of Sciences, 2005. “Safety and Security of Commercial Spent Nuclear Fuel Storage” (public report).
Conversely, waste that has less than 5 years in liquid storage is too thermally hot to put in dry storage.
Kamp, Kevin, 2004. “Get the Facts on High-Level Atomic Waste Storage Casks.” Nuclear Information and Resource Service. Posted at: http://www.nirs.org/radwaste/atreactorstorage/drycaskfactsheet07152004.pdf , and “Summary of Oscar Shirani’s Allegations of Quality Assurance Violations Against Holtec Storage/Transport Casks.” Compiled by Kevin Kamps, 2004. Posted at: http://www.nirs.org/radwaste/atreactorstorage/shiranialleg04.htm
Currently there is no real-time monitoring of these installations at reactor sites in the U.S.
At Palisades in Michigan the containers are in clear view 150 yards from the water of Lake Michigan with no restriction on boat access; at Brown’s Ferry in Alabama, the waste is on a pad next to the fence on a deserted, but public country road; on Prairie Island, the waste containers are like bowling pins lined up across the street from the Prairie Island Indian Community Day Care Center. Many other sites are similarly vulnerable at this moment. Irradiated fuel in a single dry cask is sufficient source-term to create a clear and present danger to anyone downwind if the material were dispersed and would create an enormously expensive clean-up.
Current regulations of the U.S. NRC do not require any of the above.
Citations provided in Got Solar! Fact sheet posted at: http://www.nirs.org/factsheets/gotsolar.pdf
Coined by Amory Lovins, Rocky Mountain Institute, a “Nega-Watt” is a Watt of energy that was previously required to do a certain task, which is no longer required, thanks to energy efficiency or conservation.
21 Lovins, Amory, 2008. “Forget Nuclear.” Rocky Mountain Institute. Posted at: http://www.rmi.org/sitepages/pid467.php
Net Zero cite
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