This idea of success is based on a belief that an individual is in charge of her own destiny. That individual must only work hard, get educated, and want it (success) bad enough to obtain that goal. Taken further is the belief that an individual is able to rise from lower class to upper class to obtain that American Dream. We are constantly comparing ourselves to The Jones's to see how much farther we have to go to "make it" and surpass those comparisons. One example of a goal to reach for could be Donald Trump, real estate mogul. According to Wikipedia his net worth for 2012 is $2.9 billion from such things as investments, his trademarked name, and the Miss Universe Organization. ("Donald Trump," 2012) It may appear that Mr. Trump worked hard for what he has today but really he was born into the upper class; he received an Ivy League education and took over his wealthy fathers' real estate business 3 years after graduation. There is no "rags to riches" story just the upper class maintaining their position taking full advantage of resources readily available to the upper class. But the media doesn't tend to focus on how the rich became that way, rather it's a focus on the material goods obtained in a positive and almost envious light. We are enticed by these glamorous lifestyles seemingly rewarded for striving and obtaining the American Dream.

The wealthy are also portrayed as individuals rather than as a class with their own interests as priority. Recently a CEO of Facebook renounced his U.S. Citizenship among great speculation that it was a move to avoid paying huge taxes once Facebook shares go public (Goldman, 2012). How can such actions be considered 'hard work'? Instead it is the upper class taking advantage of the poor and middle classes whom pay taxes on their income and don't have the resources to escape these laws. Although, our society has been socialized to think these are just shrewd business men whom have earned the use of such superior tactics. To further this involvement, information directly affecting the wealthy overwhelms the mainstream media, thus making it "important" to the majority of media watchers/readers, the non-wealthy. We have become followers of the wealthy on social media, we tune in to the results of winners on celebrity reality shows, and we are invested in their lives because we believe they are regular people just like us.

Another belief is that the poor are not like us; that they are ignorant, lazy and lack the desire to succeed. The media portrays and reinforces the idea of people being poor as a result of their own actions. Also perpetuated is a persona of poor black families that repeat a cycle of poverty between the generations they can never end. It is though the thought about such families is that they're not worth the effort of education or assistance so why bother, they are a burden. Often we are asked to donate money to the poor of other countries, but rarely are we asked to help our own poor. The media doesn't report on the poor people in this country, it seems they really don't exist here. Most celebrities whom adopt "unfortunate" children that have come from other countries are praised for these "humanitarian efforts". Thus American orphans are depicted as having too many behavioral problems, the wait is too long, or adoption in the states is too expensive. It appears the American poor children are not worth the investment of parenthood because they will just repeat the cycle, right? The media portrays and reinforces the idea of people being poor as a result of their own actions. For example they are described as making bad decisions with money or they don't have the drive to become successful. More than likely lost jobs, foreclosures, and bankruptcy were some causes. Media has created an "us vs. them" reporting by further out-casting the poor as 'them', the undesirable. By doing these things the media has changed the majority (middle class) into forgetting the poor and thinking we Americans are all in the same boat with the same priorities and interests.

A fear has been created that those "unfortunates" victimize the middle class with higher taxes, crimes, and losing jobs; while ignoring the crimes of corporate America and the rich. The upper class are the owners of the media thus control what is aired, reported, and which way the information is skewed towards. The upper class owns the corporations that have taken their factories and middle classes jobs to other countries to avoid taxations and regulations in the U.S. This results in the middle class taking lower wage jobs or applying for unemployment thus crossing into the lower class. The upper class have the resources to pay lobbyists to influence policies enacted to favor the interests of the upper class while ignoring the needs of lower and middle classes. They also have the resources to be elected to public office to further enact laws and control government in favor of the upper class. The media has skewed our thinking that class does not exist in America while the upper class has become the governing body in our politics and economy. Currently the two major parties in our country are dividing the middle class by blaming the other party for the above victimizations. It seems the middle class gets too caught up in that tactic to realize what is really happening: we are not equal in the U.S. The belief of reaching the American Dream, having our 15 minutes of fame, or striking it rich has blinded the middle class from reality. These ideas are characterized well in our media, especially on T.V. There is an optimism that "things will get better" without any real proposal on how to reach that state. Instead life goes on as usual with expectations of better paying jobs around the corner to pay off this debt we are continuing to incur without regard to our future. With our head in the sand more power is taken away. The recent Occupy Movements (in the U.S.) have brought to the forefront the inequality in our country, with the richest 1% in power over the 99% (www.occupytogether.org). Unfortunately the media coverage of these protests was mostly biased and depicted the protestors as anarchists and rapists without organization or a clear goal (Wyant, 2012). This made it easier for Middle America to dismiss those "hippies" and get back to work at their low paying job. I believe the middle class need to utilize their consumer dollars by spending money on American made products as much as possible and choosing to frequent small businesses instead of large corporations for goods and entertainment. If we would "vote with our dollar" the impact on our country could truly reestablish the belief in the American Dream.

Bibliography

Goldman, D. (2012, May 11). Facebook co-founder renounces US citizenship. CNNMoney Tech. Retrieved May 12, 2012 from HYPERLINK http://www.occupytogether.org

'Donald Trump'. Updated May 7, 2012 in Wikipedia. Retrieved May 12, 2012

Wyant, C. (2012, February 23). Covering The Coverage: What's Behind The Media's Depiction Of Occupy Protestors?. Mint Press Net. Retrieved May 12, 2012 from HYPERLINK http://www.mintpress.net/covering-the-coverage-whats-behind-the-medias-depiction-of-occupy-protestors/

The global economy is finally shifting away from the model that prevailed for the last three decades. Europeans are rejecting austerity. Latin Americans are nationalizing enterprises. The next head of the World Bank has actually done effective development work.

Maybe that long-heralded "end of the Washington consensus" is finally upon us.

After the near-collapse of the global financial system four years ago, obituary writers rushed to proclaim the death of the prevailing economic philosophy known as neo-liberalism. "Wall Street's financial meltdown marks the end of an era," wrote Michael Hudson and Jeffrey Sommers in Counterpunch at the end of 2008. "What has ended is the credibility of the Washington Consensus - open markets to foreign investors and tight money austerity programs (high interest rates and credit cutbacks) to 'cure' balance-of-payments deficits, domestic budget deficits and price inflation."

It was a tempting conclusion. Putting Wall Street and financial speculators at the center of the universe had generated an economic supernova, and everyone seemed to get the message. Everyone except Big Money, which never received the obituary notice. After some minor tweaking of Wall Street practices, some bailouts of enterprises deemed too big to fail, and the injection of some stimulus spending to arrest the free fall, Washington continued with business as usual. The Obama administration, like the Clinton administration before it, discovered the immense power of the bond market. The IMF and the World Bank, meanwhile, didn't fundamentally change their policies. And the European Union, led by tight-fisted Germany, continued to back austerity. All the major economic actors held to the old orthodoxy even though it flew in the face of common sense and common decency (though not in the face of the bottom line).

Wall Street's continued irrational exuberance, its lavishing of bonuses on its elite, and its pushback against even the most modest of regulations all suggest that the old Ptolemaic system - with Wall Street and the Washington Consensus still at the center of the universe - had not yet given way to a Copernican revolution that displaces these powerful institutions from their privileged position. Such revolutions, of course, are not made in a day. Remember: Ptolemy's system, with the earth at the center of all things, reigned for 1,300 years even as it grew inordinately complex to explain new astronomical observations. A century after the publication of the great Pole's theory of  heliocentrism, Galileo still ran afoul of church authorities for his Copernican leanings. Orthodoxy dies hard.

As a first sally against the prevailing orthodoxy of neo-liberalism, today's economic Copernicans have taken aim at austerity. It's a fat target: belt-tightening, after all, is not only unpopular but unsound. Paul Krugman marshals the economic evidence in the latest New York Review of Books, concluding that the "chances of a real turn in policy, away from the austerity mania of the last few years and toward a renewed focus on job creation, are much better than conventional wisdom would have you believe."

Nowhere is that clearer than in Europe. There, the case for austerity, explains Washington Post columnist Harold Meyerson, "was that once governments began slashing their spending and deficits, markets would reward them by investing in their presumably more productive economies. But the reverse has happened. As Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain have cut their budgets, investors have grown less willing to buy their bonds. By plunging themselves deeper into recession, these nations have convinced investors not that they're fiscally virtuous but that they won't become economically viable for many more years."

French and Greek voters rejected austerity in the elections this weekend not because, as the U.S. media coverage implies, they are unruly children who refuse to swallow their medicine. Rather, they realize that austerity economics at this delicate moment could very well precipitate a double-dip recession (i.e.: a lot more pain). Moreover, they want the pain - and everyone knows that there will be pain - to be fairly shouldered. Francois Hollande, the new Socialist president in France, has called for a 75-percent tax rate on all earnings over $1.3 million. Now that's a Buffet tax!

Don't expect Hollande to appoint Occupy protestors to his cabinet. He "may not have a radical economic program sufficient to the task of reforming the French and European financial systems," writes Foreign Policy In Focus (FPIF) contributor Jeanne Kay in The End of Austerity in Europe, "but he diverges from Sarkozy in one key aspect: government spending. Against Sarkozy's line of austerity, Hollande proposes a more Keynesian plan of job creation in the public sector, indexing the minimum wage to GDP growth rather than just inflation, and public investment."

The left has woken from its collective stupor just in time, for Europe at the moment is very much up for grabs. The far right has also rejected austerity, and it has a much simpler platform: blame the immigrants. The National Front in France has injected its xenophobic virus into the very heart of France's center-right Union for a Popular Movement; the street thugs of Golden Dawn in Greece will enter parliament for the first time; Geert Wilders and his anti-Islamic chest-thumpers brought down the government in the Netherlands last month. Where the left has failed to provide a convincing alternative to austerity, the right has prospered.

Much rests on the shoulders of Hollande and the French Socialists. To them falls the responsibility of rebuilding a European left that returns the EU to its roots - a socialist market economy that grows together and preserves unity in diversity. To pull France out of its own doldrums, Hollande can't think small. He must go big and, through persuasion and arm-twisting, rewrite the rules of European economic revival. Rejecting austerity is only a first step.

The Europeans could learn something here from Latin America, particularly Argentina. In the late 1990s, having racked up a huge debt, Argentina faced the typical recommendations from the international financial institutions: cut the budget, privatize government firms, remove barriers to outside investment. But Buenos Aires said no. It defaulted on $100 billion-plus in loans.

According to the rules of the game, Argentina should have been thrown out on its ear and forever banned from playing in the global casino. But that didn't happen. Most creditors - 93 percent - eventually accepted the 35 cents on the dollar haircut that the government offered. Foreign investors, particularly from Brazil, continued to supply capital. Bargain-hungry tourists flocked to the country. Workers banded together to take over enterprises that owners had given up on (such as the Bauen Hotel in downtown Buenos Aires).

With a bit of luck - particularly the rise in price of soybeans, a key Argentine export -- the country clawed its way back to economic health. Unemployment dropped from 25 percent in 2001 to below 8 percent in 2010. Social programs reduced the percentage of the population living beneath the poverty line from 51 to 13 percent (though it went up again in 2010). The recovery, like all recoveries, is tenuous, for it depends a good deal on the price of the commodities Argentina exports.

Which is why Argentina is going one step further to exert some control over the process. The government of Cristina Kirchner has nationalized Argentina Airlines as well as pension funds, and it has also instituted measures to slow capital flight from the country. Most recently, it nationalized a key oil company, YPL, taking back control of the firm from a Spanish company that had a majority stake. "A poll conducted by Poliarguia Consultores published in the Argentine newspaper La Nacion," writes FPIF contributor Melissa Moskowitz in Annotate This: EU Response to Argentina's Nationalization, "indicated that 62 percent of Argentines support President Cristina Kirchner's plans to nationalize YPF. President Kirchner's decision to promote and defend nationalization reflects growing opinion that the company has 'not invested enough' in Argentina 'to cope with growing international demand.'"

Argentina is by no means the only country in the region to roll back the privatization mania. The Brazilian government increased its control over the oil company Petrobras a couple years ago. In Bolivia, the government of Evo Morales recently renationalized the electricity grid, which had also been in Spanish hands. This move comes after the nationalization of hydroelectric facilities and telecommunications. Venezuela, under Hugo Chavez, has made enlarging the state sector a populist rallying cry. And Ecuador has followed suit with laws to allow the government to seize oil and gas companies that don't comply with national regulations.

Despite this new trend in Latin America, foreign investors have been flocking to the region. In 2011, the region saw a 31-percent increase in foreign capital. But here's the underlying reason for the nationalizations. According to a recent UN report, "FDI revenue transferred back to the countries of origin has increased from US$20 billion per year between 1998 and 2003 to US$84 billion between 2008 and 2010 per year." Sound familiar? Back in 1973, Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano wrote, "Latin America is the region of open veins. Everything, from the discovery until our times, has always been transmuted into European - or later United States - capital, and as such has accumulated in distant centers of power." Latin American leaders are, with these nationalizations, attempting to stem the blood loss.

Perhaps they will get some help from an unusual quarter - the World Bank. The new head Jim Yong Kim is a health professional, not a free-trader like Robert Zoellick or a neocon like Paul Wolfowitz. One person can't change an institution. But there are plenty of people at the World Bank who are waiting for this new kind of leadership. The 2000/2001 World Development Report, prepared by a team led by Ravi Kanbur and Nora Lustig, was an extraordinary effort based on interviews with more than 60,000 poor people in 60 countries. Alas, the Bank subsequently returned to its more traditional top-down approach. But Jim Kim's is much more grassroots-oriented. Perhaps the World Bank can help shift the locus of attention from facilitating financial speculation to empowering the poor.

A backlash against austerity in Europe, a move toward greater state control in Latin America, a change in leadership at the World Bank: this might seem slender evidence for a Copernican revolution in economics. The evidence for overturning orthodoxy might even have seemed stronger in 1999, when the Asian financial crisis prompted New Perspectives Quarterly to ask economists Laura Tyson, Jeffrey Sachs, and others whether the Washington consensus was truly at an end (they saw greater "market pluralism" emerging). Moreover, a number of leaders like Barack Obama are styling themselves as Tyco Brahe, the Danish astronomer who attempted to combine both Ptolemy and Copernicus into an untenable geo-heliocentric system. These modern-day Brahes want to preserve the Washington consensus with only a few modifications. As the world lurches from one economic crisis to another, and with the even larger crisis of global warming looming above it all, one thing is certain: there is no longer any consensus in Washington over what to do. Neo-liberalism survives, but more out of inertia than conviction. Meanwhile, out there in the world, the economic Copernicans are busy reconstructing the order of things.

An ideology based on inequality, injustice, exploitation, militarism, and imperial wars eventually self-destructs or gets pushed.

Growing evidence in America and Europe show systemic unaddressed problems too grave to ignore. They remain so despite millions without jobs, savings, homes or futures.

Imagine nations governed by leaders letting crisis conditions fester. Imagine voters reelecting them despite demanding change. OWS aside, one day perhaps rage will replace apathy in America. The latest jobs report alone provides incentive enough to try and then some.

On May 4, the Labor Department reported 115,000 new jobs. It way overstated the true number. Official figures belie the dire state of things. At most, two-thirds the headline total were created. Even that's in doubt.

Most were low-pay, part-time, or temp positions with few or no benefits. Decades ago, workers would have avoided them. Today, there's no choice.

The report also showed economic decline. Expect much worse ahead. In 2008, Main Street Americans experienced Depression. It rages today. Poverty's at record levels. Real unemployment approaches 1930s numbers. Dire conditions are worsening.

Announced job cuts are increasing. Hiring plans are down. Compared to year ago levels, they're off 80%. Income is stagnant for those lucky to have work. The private diffusion index measuring growth fell sharply month-over-month.

The unemployment rate decline reflects discouraged workers dropping out. They want jobs but can't find them. The Labor Department considers them non-persons. They're not counted to make official figures look better.

Moreover, the broad based Household Survey showed employment dropping 169,000. It was the second consecutive monthly decline. The Labor Department uses a "population and payroll concept adjusted" calculation. Doing so tries to compare monthly payroll and household figures.

The measure plunged 495,000 in April after dropping 418,000 in March. The calculation represented the largest back-to-back decline since late 2009.

At 63.6%, America's labor force hit its lowest level since September 1981. Since then, population totals grew from 229 million to about 312 million today. The state of the nation today reflects lots of people facing few jobs, and no policy to create them.

The employment/population ratio stands at 58.4%. Alone, it represents a shocking testimony to failure. So do other data. Long-term unemployment remains near record levels. Credit deleveraging continues. Housing's in its worst ever depression. Prices keep falling. Inventories of unsold homes are huge. Foreclosures are at epidemic levels.

State and local downsizing continues. Personal income suffers. Conditions are bad and worsening.

On May 4, Pimco's Mohamed El-Erian headlined his Financial Times article "Confirmed: America's jobs crisis," saying:

"Friday's US jobs data sound a warning that should be heard well beyond economists and market watchers."

Americans with jobs have poor ones. Wage growth is stagnant. Purchasing power can't keep up with inflation. For ordinary Americans, secular income headwinds blow at gale force strength.

Crisis conditions today make "a mockery of the published unemployment rate of 8.1 per cent....The economic implications are clear." At a time, Europe's recession deepens, America's declining.

Risks are increasing. A "potential (austerity caused) year-end 'fiscal cliff' (may) suck out some 4 per cent of GDP in purchasing power, and do so in a disorderly fashion."

Instead of addressing crisis conditions responsibly, political Washington campaigns for reelection, and plans huge domestic budget cuts when stimulus help is needed.

Main Street Americans are pushed to the edge. Potential "social consequences" suggest "the possibility....of a lost generation."

Unemployed teenagers "face the risk of going from being unemployed to becoming unemployable." Today's reality is bleak. It reflects "a multi-faceted unemployment crisis that politicians, both in America and Europe, are failing to comprehend, unite around, and respond to."

"I worry greatly that facts on the ground will unfortunately warrant future analyses to be even more disheartening."

Alan Greenspan's Too Late to Matter Mea Culpa

As Fed chairman for nearly two decades (1987 - 2006), he engineered today's crisis. Some call him the Maestro of Misery for good reason. Those benefitting most sing his praises. In 2008, he had second thoughts.

A longtime Ayn Rand disciple, he strayed noticeably in October 2008 House testimony. Her libertarian views influenced his. She championed regulatory free markets. So did Greenspan. He practiced what she preached.

Perhaps House Oversight and Government Reform Committee members couldn't believe their ears. He acknowledged his worldview failure, saying:

"You know, that's precisely the reason I was shocked, because I have been going for 40 yeas or more with very considerable evidence that it was working exceptionally well."

While trying to have it both ways, he admitted his faith in regulatory free markets was shaken, saying:

"I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interests of organizations, specifically banks and others, were such as that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders and their equity in the firms."

"The Federal Reserve had as good an economic organization as exists. If all those extraordinarily capable people were unable to foresee the development of this critical problem...we have to ask ourselves: Why is that? And the answer is that we're not smart enough as people. We just cannot see events that far in advance."

In his book "Secrets of the Temple: How the Federal Reserve Runs the Country" William Grieder called Greenspan one of "the most duplicitous figures to serve in modern American government."

He used "his exalted status as economic wizard (to) regularly corrupt the political dialogue by sowing outrageously false impressions among gullible members of Congress and adoring financial reporters."

His ideology was hokum. Somehow he managed a Columbia doctorate without its dissertation requirement. His economic consulting firm flopped. It faced liquidation. He closed shop to join the Fed after serving earlier in the Reagan, Nixon and Ford administrations.

His background in government got him his job. His inability to forecast made him a perfect Fed choice. So did his reliability to serve monied interests over populist ones.

Saying he got it wrong after the fact hardly matters. Where was he when it counted. In 2006, Bernanke replaced him. He made a bad situation worse. Since 2008, he more than tripled the Fed's balance sheet from about 6% of GDP to 20%.

His day of reckoning approaches. Perhaps in future congressional testimony, he'll address his own shortcomings. Doing it when it counts matters. After the fact turns memoirs into best-sellers.

His cross to bear and Greenspan's could fill volumes. Millions their policies harmed won't line up to buy them.

How can they? They're broke, on their own, out of luck, and unreceptive to hear defrocked Fed chairmen say they're sorry. If so, they'd have done it right in the first place.

_______________________
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at [email protected]

His new book is titled "How Wall Street Fleeces America: Privatized Banking, Government Collusion and Class War." Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.

I once ran a Justice Department racketeering case and damned if I would have 'cuffed some poor schmuck like Mix--especially when there's hot, smoking guns showing greater crimes by BP higher ups.

Last week (April 19-24, 2012), I released evidence we uncovered that BP top executives concealed evidence of a prior blow-out. Had they not covered up the 2008 blow-out in then Caspian Sea, then the Deepwater Horizon probably would not have blown out two years later in 2010. [Watch the film and read the stories.]

I urge you to read the affidavit of FBI agent Barbara O'Donnell which the government filed in arresting Mix. His crime is deleting texts from his phone indicating that the blown-out Macondo well was gushing over 15,000 barrels of oil a day, not 5,000 as BP told the public and government. If true, it's a crime, destruction of evidence. But Mix is a minnow. What about the sharks? The texts were obviously sent to someone (named only "SUPERVISOR" by the FBI). If "Supervisor" knew, then undoubtedly so did BP managers higher up. Presumably, even CEO Tony Hayward would have gotten the message on his racing yacht.

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Destruction of evidence is not nice, but concealment of evidence and fraud by corporate bigs, is the bigger crime. I hope, I assume, I demand that we find out what Supervisor's supervisors knew and when they knew it--and didn't tell us.

And far, far, far more important: when is the Justice Department going to go after the greater wrongdoing? Let's begin with the cover-up before the spill that the drilling methods used on the Deepwater Horizon had led to a blow-out nearly two years earlier.

Let's face it: to go after the bigger crime means going after the entire industry. The earlier blow-out was concealed by BP as well as its partners Exxon and Chevron and, by the US State Department under Condoleezza Rice. [If you want to get that story, please check out Part II: BP Covered Up Prior Oil Spill at Ecowatch.org.]

One point in Mr. Mix's defense. During my investigation of the Deepwater Horizon, I found that employees who provide evidence against BP find their careers floating face down in the Gulf.

BP and other oil companies punish troublemakers by writing "NRB" on their record. That means "Not Required Back"--and the worker is banned from the offshore rigs. No doubt, Mr. Mix thought long and hard about what would happen to his career if his texts came to light. Not an excuse for crime, but it's a fact. It's the guys on top putting on this kind of pressure that should be doing the perp walk: the Big Bad BP Wolves, not their mixxed-up scapegoat.

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Re-prints permitted with credit to Greg Palast

Greg Palast is the author of Vultures' Picnic, which centers on his investigation of BP, bribery and corruption in the oil industry. Palast, reports can be seen on BBC-TV and Britain's Channel 4.

You can read Vultures' Picnic, "Chapter 1: Goldfinger," or download it, at no charge: click here.

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Had BP, Chevron, Exxon or the Bush State Department revealed the facts of the earlier blow-out, it is likely that the Deepwater Horizon disaster would have been prevented.

Days after the Deepwater Horizon blow-out, a message came in to our offices in New York from an industry insider floating on a ship in the Caspian Sea. He stated there had been a blow-out, just like the one in the Gulf, and BP had covered it up.

To confirm this shocking accusation, I flew with my team to the Islamic republic of Azerbaijan. Outside the capital, Baku, near the giant BP terminal, we found workers, though too frightened to give their names, who did confirm that they were evacuated from the BP offshore platform as it filled with explosive methane gas.

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Before we could get them on camera, my crew and I were arrested and the witnesses disappeared.

Expelled from Azerbaijan, we still obtained the ultimate corroboration: a secret cable from the U.S. Embassy to the State Department in Washington laying out the whole story of the 2008 Caspian blow-out.

The source of the cable, classified "SECRET," was a disaffected US soldier, Private Bradley Manning who, through WikiLeaks provided hot smoking guns to The Guardian. The information found in the U.S. embassy cables is a block-buster.

The cables confirmed what BP will not admit to this day: there was a serious blow-out and its cause was the same as in the Gulf disaster two years later: the cement ("mud") used to cap the well had failed. Bill Schrader, President of BP-Azerbaijan, revealed the truth to our embassy about the Caspian disaster:

"Schrader said that the September 17th shutdown of the Central Azeri (CA) platform... was the largest such emergency evacuation in BP's history. Given the explosive potential, BP was quite fortunate to have been able to evacuate everyone safely and to prevent any gas ignition. ... Due to the blowout of a gas-injection well there was 'a lot of mud' on the platform."

From other sources, we discovered the cement which failed had been mixed with nitrogen as a way to speed up drying, a risky process that was repeated on the Deepwater Horizon.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., president Waterkeeper Alliance and senior attorney for Natural Resources Defense Council, calls the concealment of this information, "criminal. We have laws that make it illegal to hide this."

The cables also reveal that BP's oil-company partners knew about the blow-out but they too concealed the information from Congress, regulators and the Securities Exchange Commission.

BP's major US partners in the Caspian Sea drilling operation were Chevron and Exxon. The State Department got involved in the matter because BP's U.S. partners and the Azerbaijani government were losing over $50 million per day due to the platform's shutdown. The Embassy cabled Washington:

"BP's ACG partners are similarly upset with BP's performance in this episode, as they claim BP has sought to limit information flow about this event even to its ACG partners."

Kennedy is concerned about the silent collusion of Chevron, Exxon and the Azerbaijani government. "The only reason the public doesn't know about it is because the Azerbaijani government conspired with them to disappear the people who saw it happen and then to act in concert, in collusion, in cahoots with BP, with Exxon, with Chevron to conceal this event from the American public." - To read the full story go to EcoWatch.org - Check out the Youtube video

______

Re-prints permitted with credit to EcoWatch.org and the author.

Greg Palast is the author of Vultures' Picnic (Penguin 2011), which centers on his investigation of BP, bribery and corruption in the oil industry. Palast, whose reports are seen on BBC-TV and Britain's Channel 4, will be providing investigative reports for EcoWatch.org.

You can read Vultures' Picnic, "Chapter 1: Goldfinger," or download it, at no charge: click here.

Subscribe to Palast's Newsletter and podcasts.

EcoWatch.org located an eyewitness with devastating new information about the Caspian Sea oil-rig blow-out which BP had concealed from government and the industry.

The witness, whose story is backed up by rig workers who were evacuated from BP's Caspian platform, said that had BP revealed the full story as required by industry practice, the eleven Gulf of Mexico workers "could have had a chance" of survival. But BP's insistence on using methods proven faulty sealed their fate.

One cause of the blow-outs was the same in both cases: the use of a money-saving technique--plugging holes with "quick-dry" cement.

By hiding the disastrous failure of its penny-pinching cement process in 2008, BP was able to continue to use the dangerous methods in the Gulf of Mexico--causing the worst oil spill in U.S. history. April 20 marks the second anniversary of the Gulf oil disaster.

There were several failures in common to the two incidents identified by the eyewitness. He is an industry insider whose identity and expertise we have confirmed. His name and that of other witnesses we contacted must be withheld for their safety.

The failures revolve around the use of "quick-dry" cement, the uselessness of blow-out preventers, "mayhem" in evacuation procedures and an atmosphere of fear which prevents workers from blowing the whistle on safety problems.

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Robert F. Kennedy Jr., president of Waterkeeper Alliance and senior attorney for Natural Resources Defense Council, said, "We have laws that make it illegal to hide this kind of information. At the very least, these are lies by omission. When you juxtapose their knowledge of this incident upon the oil companies constant and persistent assurances of safety to regulators, investigators and shareholders, you have all the elements to prove that their concealment of the information was criminal."

The first blow-out occurred on a BP rig in the Caspian Sea off the coast of Baku, Azerbaijan, in September 2008. BP was able to conceal such an extraordinary event with the help of the ruling regime of Azerbaijan, other oil companies and, our investigators learned, the Bush Administration.

Our investigation began just days after the explosion and sinking of BP's Deepwater Horizon oil rig on April 20, 2010 when this reporter received an extraordinary message from a terrified witness--from a ship floating in the Caspian Sea:

"I know how .... Would not be wise for me to communicate via [official] IT system, ...."

When the insider was contacted on a secure line, he stated that he witnessed a blow-out and the panicked evacuation of the giant BP "ACG" drilling platform.

To confirm the witness' story, British television's premier investigative program, Dispatches, sent this reporter under cover into Baku, Azerbaijan, with a cameraman. While approaching the BP oil terminal, the Islamic republic's Security Ministry arrested the crew.

To avoid diplomatic difficulties, we were quickly released. However, two new witnesses suddenly vanished, all communication lost with them, after they confirmed the facts of the 2008 blow-out. Both told us they had been evacuated from the BP off-shore platform as it filled with methane.

Furthermore, witnesses confirmed that, "there was mud (drill-pipe cement) blown out all over the platform." It appears the cement cap failed to hold back high-pressure gases which, "engulfed the entire platform in methane gas," which is highly explosive.

In both cases, the insider told us, BP had used "quick-dry" cement to cap their well bores and the cost-saving procedure failed catastrophically.

We have learned this week that BP failed to notify the International Association of Drilling Contractors (IADC) about the failure of the cement. (British companies report incidents as minor as a hammer dropped.) Notification would have alerted Gulf cement contractor Halliburton that the process of adding nitrogen to cement posed unforeseen dangers.

In fact, this past December, BP attempted to place the blame and costs of the Gulf disaster on Halliburton, the oil services company that injected quick-dry cement into the well under the Deepwater Horizon. BP told a federal court that Halliburton concealed a computer model that would show that, under certain conditions, the cement could fail disastrously.

Following the Deepwater Horizon explosion, it became clear that nitrogen-laced mud can leave "channels" in the cement, allowing gas to escape and blow out the well-bore cap. However, that would have become clearer, and risks better assessed, had Halliburton and regulators known of the particulars of the Caspian blow-out.

We have also just learned that the cement casing itself appears to have cracked apart in the Caspian Sea. The sea, we were told, "was bubbling all around [from boiling methane]. You're even scared to launch a life boat, it may sink."

This exposed another problem with deepwater drilling. BP had promoted Blow-Out Preventers (BOPs) as a last line of defense in case of a blow-out. But if the casing shatters, the BOPs could be useless.

BP has gone to extraordinary lengths to conceal the story of the first blow-out, and for good reason: If the company deliberately withheld the information that it knew "quick-dry" cement had failed yet continued to use it, the 11 deaths on its Gulf rig were not an unexpected accident but could be considered negligent homicide.

Kennedy told me, "This is a critical piece of information. The entire government is basing its policy on the assurances of this company that this process can be done safely and it never failed before. This is what they were telling everybody. Yet, the whole time they knew that this was a process that had failed disastrously in the Caspian Sea."

Why haven't these stories come out before? This week our witness explained that in Azerbaijan, "People disappear on a regular basis. It's a police state."

But even in the U.S. and Europe, BP and other industry workers are afraid to complain for fear their files will be marked "NRB," for Not Required Back­­--which will end a workers' offshore career. Jake Malloy, head of the Offshore Oil Workers Union, reached in Aberdeen, Scotland, independently confirmed statements of the whistleblowers. He noted that companies create an atmosphere of fear for one's job with the "NRB" system and its latest variants, which discourage reports on safety problems.

BP refused an interview for this investigation, though the company responded to our written questions regarding the Caspian blow-out. Notably, the company does not deny that the blow-out occurred, nor even that it concealed the information from U.S. and UK regulators. Rather, the company says there was a "gas release"--a common and benign event, not a blow-out. As to the accusation of concealment, BP states:

While BP says it issued a press release at the time of the September 2008 Caspian blow-out, the company did not tell the whole truth as reported by workers and witnesses. The BP press release of that day admitted only that, "a gas leak was discovered in the area of" the platform when, in fact, it was an explosion of cement and methane, say our witnesses, "which engulfed the platform."

BP later stated that all operations on the platform were suspended as a "precautionary measure," suggesting a distant, natural leak. In fact, the workers themselves said that, like the workers on the Deepwater Horizon, they were one spark away from death, with frightened minutes to escape.

While BP called the evacuation a by-the-textbook procedure, in fact, said our witness, "It was total mayhem," and that a lifeboat rammed a rescue ship in the chaos. U.S. government investigators in the Gulf cite BP's confused and chaotic evacuation procedures for possibly adding to the Deepwater Horizon's death toll. Information about the 2008 blow-out should have led to improved procedures and possibly could have saved lives.

More seriously, BP PLC's official filing to the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission, which requires reporting of all "material" events in company operations, again talked about a "subsurface release," concealing that the methane blew out through its drilling stack.

Both the safety of quick-dry cement (which some drillers won't use) and deep water drilling itself were in contention before the April 20, 2010 Gulf blow-out. In fact, the U.S. Department of Interior was refusing BP, Chevron and Exxon the right to expand the area of their deep water drilling in the Gulf over safety questions.

However, BP and the industry conducted a successful lobbying campaign to expand deep water drilling. BP's Vice-President for operations in the Gulf, David Rainey, testified before Congress in November 2009, five months before the Deepwater Horizon explosion that, "Releases from oil and gas operations are rare." Rainey assured Congressmen that reliable "well control techniques" such as cement caps will prevent a deep water disaster. Rainey made no mention to Congress of the blow-out in the Caspian Sea which occurred a year before his testimony.

BP itself states that if not for Halliburton's quick-dry cement failures, the Deepwater Horizon would never have blown out. Halliburton defends itself by saying that BP's methods created air channels in the cement that caused it to fail. Notably, BP's court Motion states, "Halliburton has deprived the Court and parties of uniquely relevant evidence." BP claims that hiding the information about problems with the cement caused the loss of lives.

Kennedy suggests that if Halliburton's withholding evidence was deadly, so was BP's concealment of the cement failure in the Caspian. Stefanie Penn Spear, editor of EcoWatch.org, says that BP's hiding evidence ultimately led to, "The biggest oil spill in U.S. history. It entirely turned the Gulf Coast economy upside down and threatened--and continues to threaten--the health and livelihoods of the people in the Gulf region."

How is it that a major oil disaster, a blow-out that shut down one of the world's biggest oil fields and required the emergency evacuation of 211 rig workers could be covered up, hidden from U.S. regulators and Congress?

The answer: pay-offs, threats, political muscle and the connivance of the Bush Administration's State Department, Exxon and Chevron.

For that story, read Part 2 of Greg Palast's investigation BP Covers up Blow-Out--Bush, Big Oil and WikiLeaks.

-----

Re-prints permitted with credit to EcoWatch.org and the author.

Greg Palast is the author of Vultures' Picnic (Penguin 2011), which centers on his investigation of BP, bribery and corruption in the oil industry. Palast, whose reports are seen on BBC-TV and Britain's Channel 4, will be providing investigative reports for EcoWatch.org.

You can read Vultures' Picnic, "Chapter 1: Goldfinger," or download it, at no charge: click here.

Brazen crimes of war and against humanity were committed. International protection wasn't afforded. Responsible officials remain unaccountable.

Before his fall from grace, Richard Goldstone said:

"(T)here is evidence indicating serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law were committed by Israel during the Gaza conflict, and that Israel committed actions amounting to war crimes, and possibly crimes against humanity."

Over 1,400 Gazans were killed. Around 80% or more were civilians. Thousands of others were injured, many seriously. Extensive civilian infrastructure and private property were destroyed or damaged, including homes, schools, hospitals, mosques, and businesses.

Killing 29 members of one family perhaps was Cast Lead's greatest crime. Bombing their home killed 21. The previous day, IDF soldiers gathered 100 members there. Surviving ones and human rights activists demanded justice. They still do. They were denied.

On May 1, Israel said those responsible won't be prosecuted. The case was closed. Major Dorit Tuval, Deputy Military Advocate for Operational Matters, said civilians "who did not take part in the fighting" weren't killed "in a manner that would indicate criminal responsibility."

He lied! They were willfully targeted and murdered. All Israeli investigations are whitewashed. Justice is denied. It never has a chance. International law prohibits targeting civilians. Doing so is official Israeli policy.

B'Tselem attorney Yael Stein said:

"It cannot be that in a well-managed system no person will be found guilty of the army operation that led to the killing of 21 people who were not involved in combat, and resided in a structure on the instructions of the army - even if the attack was not done purposefully."

"The manner in which the army rids itself of responsibility in this case... again illustrates the need for an investigatory body outside of the army."

On January 4, soldiers ordered Salah Samouni and those with him from their home. They took it for a command post. Those inside moved next door to family member Wael's house.

Concentrating unarmed men, women, children, infants, and the elderly in one building made them feel safe. So did having soldiers close by who knew they were there, even though war raged around them.

On January 4, they used six or more Samouni compound houses as military posts. Earlier fighting killed family members. Some were shot in cold blood at close range. The atmosphere was trigger-happy. Israeli soldiers used Palestinian civilians for target practice.

They also fired at anyone who moved. They willfully targeted civilians. Wounded victims bled to death. Commanders kept ambulances away from target sites. Even unarmed civilians trying to walk away were shot. Bombing and shelling killed others.

On January 5, Salah thought family members still remained in another house. He wanted them safer with him. IDF shells and rockets struck the building. He said:

"My daughter Azza, my only daughter, two and a half years old, was injured in the first hit on the house. She managed to say, 'Daddy, it hurts.' And then, in the second hit, she died."

"And I'm praying. Everything is dust and I can't see anything. I thought I was dead. I found myself getting up, all bloody, and I found my mother sitting by the hall with her head tilted downward."

"I moved her face a little, and I found that the right half of her face was gone. I looked at my father, whose eye was gone. He was still breathing a little, and then he stopped."

Under dust and rubble in one large room, nine family members remained alive. They included the elderly matriarch, five grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. The youngest was three.

The previous day, nine-year old Amal saw soldiers burst into her home. They killed her father, Atiyeh. She took shelter in Uncle Tallal's home. Together with other family members, they moved to Wael's house. She didn't know her brother Ahmad was bleeding to death in his mother's arms in another neighborhood home.

Surviving children found food scraps to eat. They went from corpse to corpse shaking them, hitting them, telling them to get up. Amal regained consciousness. Her head was bloody. Her eyes rolled in their sockets. She cried out for water. She wanted her mother and father. She beat her head on the floor.

Doctors called removing shrapnel from her head too dangerous. No one's sure how events unfolded after Wael's house was struck. Survivors were dazed and injured.

After Cast Lead ended, rescue teams returned to the neighborhood. Wael's house lay in ruins. IDF bulldozers demolished what remained. Corpses were still inside.

Saleh wanted to know why soldiers attacked them. "Why did they take us out of the house one at a time, and the officer who spoke Hebrew with my father verified that we were all civilians. So why did they they shell us, kill us? This is what we want to know."

He feels exiled on his own land in his own country. "We sit and envy the dead. They are the ones who are at rest."

Masouda Samouni said:

"I have no hope, no future, I lost everything in the offensive. I was in the corner with my children just watching. I was screaming and crying, I saw everything, the blood and the brains."

"There was smoke everywhere. I saw my brother-in-law falling down, and my mother-in-law. I realized that my three brothers-in-law and my mother-in-law were dead....I was injured in the chest and couldn't move....I was bleeding and five months pregnant."

Soldiers stormed Ateya Samouni's home. He identified himself as the owner. Soldiers shot him while he was still holding his ID and an Israeli driver's license.

They opened fire inside the room where 20 family members were sheltered. Deaths and injuries resulted. Other abuses followed. Mona Samouni saw her parents shot to death.

Almaza Samouni lost her mother and six siblings. Survivors suffer from depression and nightmares. Like most Gazans, they manage as best they can. Trauma still affects many. Children are harmed most. How can any family recover from 29 members lost? They want answers but never got them.

Brigade commander Colonel Ilan Malka ordered an air strike on their house. Militants were inside, he claimed. He ignored junior officers saying civilians were there or close by.

Twenty-one inside were killed, including women and children. Another 19 were wounded.

When is a crime not one? When Israel says so. When is denied justice gotten? Maybe next time.

_______________________
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at [email protected]

His new book is titled "How Wall Street Fleeces America: Privatized Banking, Government Collusion and Class War." Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.

On April 24, an Israeli ministerial committee approved three settlement outposts - Bruchin and Rechelim in the northern part of the West Bank, and Sansana in the south. Although all settlement activities in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem are considered illegal by international law, Israeli law differentiates between sanctioned settlements and 'illegal' ones. This distinction has actually proved to be no more than a disingenuous attempt at conflating international law, which is applicable to occupied lands, and Israeli law, which is in no way relevant.

Since 1967, Israel placed occupied Palestinian land, privately owned or otherwise, into various categories. One of these categories is 'state-owned', as in obtained by virtue of military occupation. For many years, the 'state-owned' occupied land was allotted to various purposes. Since 1990, however, the Israeli government refrained from establishing settlements, at lease formally. Now, according to the Israeli anti-settlement group, Peace Now, "instead of going to peace the government is announcing the establishment of three new settlements...this announcement is against the Israeli interest of achieving peace and a two states solution"

Although the group argues that the four-man committee did not have the authority to make such a decision, it actually matters little. Every physical space in the occupied territories - whether privately owned or 'state owned', 'legally' obtained or 'illegally' obtained - is free game. The extremist Jewish settlers, whose tentacles are reaching far and wide, chasing out Palestinians at every corner, haven't received such empowering news since the heyday of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

The move regarding settlements is not an isolated one. The Israeli government is now challenging the very decisions made by the Israeli Supreme Court, which has been used as a legitimization platform for many illegal settlements that drove Palestinians from their land.

On April 27, the Israeli government reportedly asked the high court to delay the demolition of an 'unauthorized' West Bank outpost in the Beit El settlement which was scheduled to take place on May 1st. The land, even by Israeli legal standards, is considered private Palestinian land, and the Israeli government had committed to the court to take down the illegal outposts - again, per Israeli definition - on the specified date.

Now the rightwing Netanyahu government is having another change of heart. In its request to the court, the government argued: "The evacuation of the buildings could carry social, political and operational ramifications for construction in Beit El and other settlements." Such an argument, if applied in the larger context of the occupied territories, could easily justify why no outposts should be taken down. It could eradicate, once and for all, such politically inconvenient terms such as 'legal' and 'illegal'.

"Previous Israeli governments have pledged to demolish the unauthorized settler outposts in the West Bank, but only a handful have been removed," according to CNN online. In fact, that 'handful' are likely to be rebuilt, amongst many more new outposts, now that the new legal precedence is underway.

Michael Sfard, an attorney with Yesh Din, which reportedly advocates Palestinian rights, described the request as "an announcement of war by the Israeli government against the rule of law." More specifically, "they said clearly that they have reached a decision not to evacuate illegal construction on private Palestinian property."

Some analysts suggested that Netanyahu was bowing down to the more rightwing elements in his cabinet - as if the man had, till now, been a peacemaker. The bottom line is that Israel has decided embark on a new and dangerous phase, one that violates not only international law, but Israel's own self-tailored laws that were designed to colonize the occupied territories. It appears that even those precarious 'laws' are no longer capable of meeting the colonial appetite of Israeli settlers and the ruling class.

Israeli settlements have been contextualized through Israeli legal and political references, as opposed to references commonly accepted in international law. The emphasis on differences between Israeli governments, political parties and religious/ultra-nationalist settlement movements is distracting and misleading; colonizing the rest of historic Palestine has been and remains a national Israeli project.

An article in the rightwing Israeli Jerusalem Post agrees. "Support for settlement is not simply a program of right-of-center Likud. Its history has firm roots in Labor party activity during the periods of its governments, and activities by predecessors of the Labor party going back before the creation of the Israeli state" (April 27).

The only variable that might be worth examining is the purpose of the settlement, not the settlement itself. Following the war of 1967, the Allon plan sought to annex more than 30 percent of the West Bank and all of Gaza for security purposes. It stipulated the establishment of a "security corridor" along the Jordan River, as well outside the "Green Line", a one-sided Israeli demarcation of its borders with the West Bank. Then, there was no Likud party to demonize, for that was the Labor party's vision for the newly occupied territories.

While the Israeli settlement drive since then has swallowed much of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, populating them with over half a million Israelis, the international community's response was as moot in 1967 as it is now in 2012. Responding to the latest sanctioning of illegal outposts, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon declared that he was "deeply troubled" by the news. Meanwhile, Russia was 'deeply concerned' and so was the EU's Catherine Ashton. As for the US, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland insisted that the Israeli measure is not "helpful to the process." What process?

While Israel has now showed all of its cards, and the international community declared its complacency or impotence, the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah continues to plan some kind of UN censure of the settlements. Even if a watered-down version of some UN draft managed to survive the US veto, what are the chances of Israel heeding the call of international community?

There is no doubt that Israel is plotting its version of the endgame in Palestine, which sees Palestinians continuing to subsist in physical fragmentation and permanent occupation. Unless a popular Palestinian uprising takes hold, no one is likely to challenge what is actually an Israeli declaration of war against the Palestinian people.

______________________________
Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an internationally-syndicated columnist and the editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His latest book is My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story (Pluto Press, London), available on Amazon.com.

The strike by the remotely piloted aircraft on Miranshah, the capital of North Waziristan, part of Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas, expressed Washington's unconcealed contempt for the Pakistani government, which had publicly conditioned a resumption of its full collaboration in the so-called AfPak war on a halt to the drone attacks.

Pakistan's Foreign Ministry issued a formal statement saying that it "strongly condemns the US drone attack that occurred in North Waziristan today." The statement continued: "Such attacks are in total contravention of international law and established norms of interstate relations. The Government of Pakistan has consistently maintained that drone attacks are violative of its territorial integrity and sovereignty. The matter will be taken up through diplomatic channels both in Islamabad and Washington."

The drone strike comes on the heels of last week's negotiations in Islamabad between the Pakistani government and a US team led by US Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Marc Grossman.

Pakistani officials had indicated Sunday that a deal was in the works in which Pakistan would agree to reopen its borders to the transport of materiel for the US-led occupation troops in Afghanistan in return for the payment of some $1.1 billion in withheld coalition support funds, money which Washington and its allies had agreed to pay Islamabad for expenses incurred in counterinsurgency operations in the border region. No payments have been made since mid-2010.

The deal is of decisive importance for Washington, given that the route from Pakistani seaports to Afghanistan is far less costly than the alternative it has pursued through Central Asia to the north. Moreover, given the carrying through of a scheduled drawdown of large numbers of US and NATO troops, it will be next to impossible to ship out the huge quantities of vehicles, heavy weapons and other equipment that have been amassed in Afghanistan over more than a decade of war without access to the Pakistani supply routes.

One stumbling block in the negotiations was reportedly Islamabad's demand that Washington issue an unconditional apology for the slaying last November of 24 Pakistani troops in strikes by US attack helicopters and fighter jets against a border post inside Pakistan.

The Pentagon's story is that the incident was a result of "friendly fire," a mistaken clash in which both sides bore blame. Pakistan's military has categorically rejected this account. In any case, the US military is strongly opposed to issuing any apology, holding Pakistan responsible for harboring forces fighting the US occupation of Afghanistan, in particular the so-called Haqqani network, which was blamed for the coordinated attacks in the center of Kabul and other areas on April 15.

The Obama White House is not about to cross the Pentagon on such an issue in an election year. Moreover, an apology would cut across the right-wing re-election campaign being waged by the Democratic Party, which is extolling the US Seal assassination of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan a year ago and suggesting that Obama is more militarily aggressive than his presumptive Republican rival Mitt Romney.

According to some reports, the US and Pakistan were prepared to work out some sort of face-saving statement that would fall considerably short of the apology, which had been set as part of the "terms of engagement" in a resolution approved by the Pakistani parliament last month.

The same resolution demanded an immediate halt to the drone strikes. Sunday's attack was the first on a target inside Pakistan since March 30. While Grossman left Pakistan Friday night with no agreement, Pakistani officials reported that a team of 10 US officials from the State and Treasury departments, the Pentagon and other agencies had remained in Islamabad to iron out an deal.

The latest drone strike, however, has made it more difficult to reach a bargain with Washington. The brazen attacks on Pakistani soil and the resulting loss of civilian lives has provoked widespread anger in Pakistan, which the country's ruling elite has had to take into account, even as the government has in the past collaborated with the drone campaign, going so far as to provide the CIA with a base inside Pakistan for the pilotless aircraft.

The Washington Post quoted an unnamed Pakistani government official as saying, "When a duly elected democratic Parliament says three times not to do this, and the US keeps doing it, it undermines democracy." In reality, what it undermines is the credibility of the government and its attempt to mask its continued dependence upon US imperialism, which treats it as a neocolonial subject.

The Associated Press quoted unnamed American officials as stating that Washington has "no intention of stopping the covert drone program in Pakistan."

The US intransigence on both the drone attacks and the apology for the November massacre of Pakistani troops appears likely to lead at least to a delay in any reopening of Pakistani supply routes to Afghanistan. It may also result in Pakistan boycotting a NATO summit meeting to be held later this month in Chicago, centering on future operations in Afghanistan.

The strike on Pakistan came on the same day that White House counterterrorism advisor John Brennan issued an unusual public defense of the CIA's drone missile attacks in various parts of the globe. While the drone campaigns have been widely reported in the media and are no secret in the countries where Hellfire missiles are claiming their victims, the official US position has been that it is a covert program, not to be officially acknowledged.

Appearing in Sunday television news interviews, followed by a Monday speech at the Woodrow Wilson Center, Brennan claimed that the extra-territorial and extra-judicial assassinations by drone attacks were both legal and effective.

"The constitution empowers the president to protect the nation from any imminent threat of attack," Brennan said in the Monday speech. "It is hard to imagine a tool that can better minimize the risk to civilians than remotely piloted aircraft."

The claim that these drone strikes are aimed at protecting the US from "imminent threat of attack" is a lie. As US officials acknowledged, Sunday's attack in Pakistan was directed at elements who were allegedly preparing not to attack the US, but rather to resist the US military occupation of Afghanistan.

In Yemen, they are aimed against armed opponents of the US-backed regime. The White House last month approved a CIA request for permission to stage so-called "signature strikes" in which targets may be selected on the basis of "suspicious activity" with no knowledge of who is being killed.

While extolling the "laser-like" precision of drone strikes, Brennan said that, "Unfortunately, in war, there are casualties, including among the civilian population." While acknowledging that "innocent civilians have been killed in these strikes," he claimed that such deaths are "exceedingly rare, but it has happened. When it does, it pains us and we regret it deeply, as we do any time innocents are killed in war."

He added, "Sometimes you have to take a life to save lives."

There have been some 3,000 Pakistanis killed in drone attacks, of whom only 170 have been identified as known "militants".

Bo was stripped of his post as party secretary in Chongqing last month, then arrested. He faces serious corruption charges and could face the death penalty over the alleged murders of his wife's British business partner Neil Heywood and at least two policemen who refused to cover it up. Until the allegations emerged, Bo had been considered a candidate for the CCP's top body--the Politburo Standing Committee--in the leadership change due later this year.

Bo, who was known for his populist criticisms of the country's wealthy elite, presented himself as a "servant of the people" on a salary of $26,000 a year and his wife, Gu Kailai, as a stay-at-home mother. In fact, relying on Bo's political influence, Gu, according to Bloomberg News, "controlled a web of businesses from Beijing to Hong Kong to the Caribbean worth at least $126-million." Their son, who went to the elite Harrow private school in Britain, is now studying at Harvard and is notorious for driving expensive sports cars.

Neil Heywood reportedly was part of Bo's "inner circle," lining up foreign investors for Bo's fiefdoms in China and helping the family to transfer huge sums of money abroad. He was found dead last November--allegedly poisoned by Bo's wife. A cover-up fell apart after a police team refused to sign a document declaring Heywood had died of excessive alcohol consumption.

The case of Bo is so politically sensitive precisely because it exposes the staggering levels of corruption at the very top levels of the party and state apparatus. It has further undermined the legitimacy of the capitalist class that has emerged in China as a result of the processes of capitalist restoration since the 1970s, fuelling deep popular anger and resentment.

Recent statistics compiled by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) conservatively estimated that some 18,000 officials had transferred illicit money to the tune of $123 billion out of the country from 1990 to 2008.

Premier Wen Jiabao's family, for instance, is believed to be one of the richest in China. His son Winston Wen has an MBA from Northwestern University and extensive interests in the private equity market and telecommunications. Wen's wife Zhang Peili was president of Beijing Diamond Jewelleries and made a fortune in the diamond trade.

The worsening world economic crisis has exacerbated tensions in China's ruling elite. The global financial turmoil that erupted in 2008 exposed China's dependence on Western investment, technology and markets. As exports to the US and Europe plunged, 23 million Chinese workers quickly lost their jobs. The CCP regime narrowly avoided a social explosion through a massive stimulus package and a flood of cheap credit from state banks.

Nearly four years later, Beijing's hope of a swift recovery in the West has not eventuated. Austerity measures in Europe and the US are driving down consumer spending and thus the demand for Chinese exports. In China, growth rates are falling, the speculative boom in property threatens to implode and the first signs of social unrest have emerged in strikes and protests. These economic difficulties are being compounded by the Obama administration's aggressive "pivot to Asia" aimed at undermining Chinese influence throughout the region.

Bo's downfall is bound up with divisions inside the CCP over how to respond. Wen and President Hu Jintao are seeking to open up the remaining state-owned sectors to Western capital in the expectation that a new influx of investment will maintain high economic growth and prevent a social upheaval. At the same time, they hope this will appease the Obama administration, which has repeatedly demanded changes to China's alleged "unfair trade practices."

Bo, on the other hand, has been associated with layers inside the CCP closely connected to the state-owned conglomerates and banks, which have amassed large profits in recent years due to continuing state protection. Last year the Big Four state banks recorded a combined profit of $99 billion. Bo and his supporters call for this money to be used to transform the biggest state enterprises into national "champions" that can challenge the economic dominance of Western corporations.

At last month's National People's Congress (NPC), Wen effectively declared war on the "monopolies" and their "easy super-profits." In a pointed reference to the populist rhetoric of Bo, the premier also warned that China could face social turmoil like the so-called Cultural Revolution of the 1960s. Bo's dismissal as Chongqing Party Secretary immediately followed.

The political infighting inside the CCP will only intensify as the country's economic problems worsen. While now the world's second largest economy, China remains completely dependent on foreign capital, technology and markets and is thus being heavily impacted by the deepening global economic breakdown.

The CCP as a whole is acutely aware that the country's falling growth rate threatens mass unemployment and widespread social unrest. That is why the issue of corruption in the upper echelons of the state apparatus is such a politically explosive issue. It poses real dangers to the CCP regime and the capitalist class that the party represents.

The lesson that Chinese workers must draw is the necessity of building an independent revolutionary movement based on socialist internationalism in opposition to the thoroughly rotten CCP bureaucracy. That involves an assimilation of all the political lessons of the protracted struggle of the Trotskyist movement against Stalinism and Maoism in China and internationally. What is required is the construction of a Chinese section of the International Committee of the Fourth International as the genuine vanguard party of the working class