The John James Newsletter 123
18 June 2016
Men become civilised, not in proportion to their willingness to believe, but in proportion to their readiness to doubt
H L Mencken
Corporations try to prevent the public from making decisions over their own fate, to make sure that the fundamental decisions that determine how the world is going to be run are not in the hands of the public, but in those of highly concentrated private power. In effect, tyranny unaccountable to the public
Noam Chomsky
Read this on Trade Treaties, negotiated in secret, designed to end
Protection for the environment
Protection for our health and wellbeing
Protection of working conditions and wages
Protection of the culture of our country
Protection of an independent internet
Protection for democracy and the will of the people
I have published many references to TTIP and other “Free” Trade Treaties. They are the means by which the largest companies will have the power to turn us into consumer-serfs.
Money’s Reach
The trade secrets directive, approved by the European Council last month, treats any information that a corporation hopes to keep out of the public domain as “commercial property”. Whistleblowers and campaigners trying to expose corporate malfeasance could be subject to massive fines.
http://www.monbiot.com/2016/06/15/moneys-reach/
War With Russia Without Public Debate?
NATO is continuing its military buildup and “exercises” on Russia’s borders, Moscow is taking “counter-measures,” while the US mainstream media remains silent. The NATO build up is not episodic but intended to grow and be permanent, and be ratified at the NATO summit in Warsaw in July. No such hostile forces have amassed on Russia’s Western frontiers—now from the Baltic to the Black Sea—since the Nazi German invasion in 1941.
http://www.thenation.com/article/war-with-russia-without-public-debate/
NATO Says It Might Now Have Grounds To Attack Russia
NATO announced that if a NATO member becomes the victim of a cyber attack by (say) Russia or China, then the “collective defense” provision requires each NATO country to join the country under attack.
http://www.countercurrents.org/zuesse160616.htm
Silencing the United States as It Prepares for War
Returning to the US in an election year, I am struck by the silence.
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/opinion/SilencingPilger-20160527-0015.html
Why Is The Western Media Ignoring The New Cold War?
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article44883.htm
The Pentagon’s Real $trategy
The military establishment does indeed have a highly successful strategy: to protect and enhance its own prosperity. Creating and maintaining an effective fighting force becomes secondary, reflecting a relative disinterest in the actual business of war, as opposed to the business of raking in dollars for the Pentagon and its industrial and political partners.
http://lobelog.com/the-pentagons-real-trategy/#more-34659
Why the insane spike in temperature?
Rapid Polar Warming causes a dramatic transition in which El Nino has lost the power to influence climate and become a slave to a heat-sucking engine at the pole. It heralds death to winter. The extra heat in the system that scientists are now pretty concerned about appears to be coming from a ramping Northern Hemisphere polar amplification.
To understand the role of the Jetstream
BREXIT – Britain staying or leaving the EU?
The Implications of Leave
http://thecipherbrief.com/article/europe/implications-leave-1093
The Implications of Remain
http://thecipherbrief.com/article/europe/implications-remain-1093
Which Corporations Control The World?
FASCINATING … A surprisingly small number of corporations control massive global market shares. How many of the brands below do you use?
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article44864.htm
Battle royale brews over battery storage and control of energy markets
Large energy users, battery storage developers and some small energy retailers are pushing for a change in energy market rules that could have dramatic consequences for the industry – levelling the playing field for battery storage
Our Bodies are Rife with Cancer-Causing Chemicals
Analysis details the astounding number of carcinogens we are exposed to that are building up in our systems.
Coalition turns Clean Energy Finance Corp into election slush fund
First, they branded it the Bob Brown green bank or slush fund, and then they spent nearly three years trying to abolish it. But now the Coalition government has found a new use for the Clean Energy Finance Corporation – a ready source of funds for some good old election pork-barrelling.
http://reneweconomy.com.au/2016/coalition-turns-clean-energy-finance-corp-election-slush-fund-85583
Smashing the ‘B’ in BRICS
The stakes could not be higher. Not only the future of the BRICS, but the future of a new multipolar world is in the balance. And it all hinges on what happens in Brazil in the next few months.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/kill-list-smashing-the-b-in-brics-neoliberalism-or-chaos/5530979
CIA and FBI Had Planned to Assassinate Hugo Chávez
http://www.globalresearch.ca/cia-and-fbi-plan-to-assassinate-hugo-ch-vez/1296
The US Is Preparing to Oust President Evo Morales
Washington feels under the gun in Bolivia. Morales is steadily strengthening his financial, economic, trade, and military relationship with Beijing. Chinese businesses in La Paz are thriving
Is The “Official 9/11 Story” Coming Apart At The Seams?
It seems that Washington is clearly setting the Saudis up to take the fall should the 9/11 cover-up start to unravel. The Saudis can already see the guns being pointed at its direction. This has the potential to bring an end to the strategic alliance between Washington and Saudi Arabia.
http://www.countercurrents.org/jamal100616.htm
Saudis Exert Pressure to Escape UN Blacklist
If they were not removed from the annex to the UN’s annual report on children and armed conflict, the Saudis had threatened to cut off millions of dollars in humanitarian funding.
http://lobelog.com/saudis-exert-pressure-to-escape-un-backlist/
Mass Exodus of Oil Companies From the Arctic
With the departure of a Spanish oil company from the Chukchi Sea, only Shell still holds a drilling lease in U.S. Arctic waters. Here’s why an Arctic oil boom never happened and why it probably never will.
The Cost of Proposed Offshore Drilling $180 Billion
The net increase in global carbon emissions from those leases over their lifespans would be 850 million metric tons of C02 = the annual emissions of 3.6 million vehicles over fifty years.
http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/06/10/cost-you-and-me-proposed-offshore-drilling-1792-billion
Climate Change Could End Global Trade
Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines destroyed more than half the world’s production of coconut oil which is one of the two most commonly used vegetable fats in food production worldwide. The 2011 flood in Queensland stopped production in the fourth biggest coal exploration site on Earth for weeks, with economic repercussions well beyond Australia. The effects of small daily perturbations due to extreme temperatures leading to heat-stress among workers in construction, agriculture and other economic sectors.
http://firstfinancialinsights.blogspot.com.au/2016/06/climate-change-could-end-global-trade.html
CO2 turned into stone in climate change breakthrough
Radical new technique promises a cheaper and more secure method of burying CO2 emissions.
Activists Complete 150-Mile Walk To Thomson Prison
Chicago group Voices for Creative Nonviolence held a 150-mile walk against indefinite detention, solitary confinement, and the racist US prison system. For two weeks, a group of 20 walked across the state of Illinois from east to west.
http://www.countercurrents.org/bell140616.htm
BRICS bank ready to follow China by financing Moscow-Kazan high-speed railroad
The Moscow-Kazan High Speed Railway’s total length will stand at around 770 kilometers. Trains may go at a speed of 350-400 kilometers per hour, and the time en route between the two cities could be 3-3.5 hours against the current 14 hours.
http://tass.ru/en/economy/879988
How Peabody Energy Became Treasury for Climate Denialists
Peabody gave money to at least two dozen companies including trade associations, lobbying groups, conservative think tanks, and other organizations that campaigned against climate science.
Al Gore’s Revenge — A Ridiculously Powerful Electric Turbine Truck
Boasts superior performance when compared to internal combustion engine based trucks that are currently available.
