Amazon Natives in Ecuador Get Dumped On Again

September 9, 2018

by David Lincoln

It is practically impossible to discuss oil industry impacts in Ecuador without first dealing with the lawsuits by the native peoples against the oil companies.

As a result of exploration and production activities in Ecuador between 1972 and 1992, TEXACO/TEXPET [now CHEVRON] has faced several lawsuits stemming from alleged environmental damages. During that period, Texaco produced an average of more than 8 million gallons per day of oil from the Oriente region of the Amazon in Northeastern Ecuador.

 Reportedly, the first lawsuit against Texaco was filed on behalf of a half-million Ecuadorians soon after Texaco disposed of its oil interests in Ecuador in 1992. The suit was apparently dismissed in January 1994. In November 1993, a $1-billion lawsuit was filed against Texaco for about 30,000 Quechua Indians, who claimed that the oil company had caused irreparable damage to the Oriente rain forest. This suit was reportedly dismissed in November 1996 by the New York federal court. In July 1994, the municipality of Lago Agrio, a small town in the Amazon oil-producing region of northeastern Ecuador filed a $2 billion lawsuit for alleged environmental damages. Texaco is said to have settled this suit in September 1996 for far less money -- about $1 million -- without any admission of liability.

There is also an Ecuador lawsuit, originally filed in 1993 in New York, which alleges that Chevron dumped 18 billion gallons of toxic waste in Ecuador's rainforest from 1964 to 1992. According to the suit, this threatened multiple indigenous groups with extinction and caused skyrocketing rates of cancer.

The EIA states that in May 1995, Texaco signed an agreement with Ecuador's government to undertake cleanup activities in northeastern Ecuador in return for releasing the company from future responsibility related to its former oil operations. Under the deal, Texaco was to treat polluted water, clean and reforest production sites, build schools and medical centers at three sites, and provide riverboats and an airplane to local communities. Texaco also agreed to negotiate with several regional municipalities, including Lago Agrio, which had raised its own claims against the company. In late 1996, Ecuador's Attorney General Leonidas Plaza reportedly attempted to annul this deal, but this attempt failed after President Buckram’s government was removed from power.

This lawsuit which was just dismissed on September 8, 2018, by the International Tribunal at the Hague in the Netherlands. According to the BBC, Chevron wins Ecuador rainforest 'oil dumping' case, “the oil giant now stands to be awarded hundreds of millions of dollars in costs by the Hague's Permanent Court of Arbitration.” (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-45455984)

It is possible that had the courts allowed testimony of oil field experts (not working with TEXACO/CHEVRON), the Native Tribes (who were the victims in this case) might have been more successful in their claim.

The ruling this month states that Texaco had hired a contractor to clean-up the contaminated area. In truth, the consulting companies sampled less than half of the pits. Many that were partially remediated were completed in only a few weeks.

The chart above shows the Produced Water (millions of bbls/month)

from the TexPet concession between 1972 and 1992.

This shows that TexPet alone discharged over 375 million bbls (more than 15 billion gallons) of Produced Water during the period they operated. Note the shutdown in 1987 was due to the major earthquake in 1987.

When I worked for Texaco in 1974, they paraded their successes in Ecuador for all the employees and stockholders and they were particularly pleased with the contracts they negotiated with the Corporacion Estatal Petrolera Ecuatoriana (CEPE), a predecessor of PetroEcuador. At the time, it was one of their most profitable ventures.

The full impacts on the Oriente people and the environment from oil and Produced Water discharged at these fields have never fully been revealed. This understanding is made even more difficult because of Chevron/Texaco defers to consultant reports rather than releasing its own original data. Simultaneously, they challenge the integrity of every lawyer who dares to attach his reputation to the case and they challenge every piece of evidence even it was produced by their own company.

Despite these obstacles, a few details have emerged which can shed some light on these controversies. Texaco certainly constructed more than 600 pits for the separation and disposal of oily Produced Water. The area receives between 2000 mm and 4000 mm (6.5 feet to 13 feet) of rainfall per year, so when these pits flood or overflow, the hydrocarbons are released directly into the river and streams. The geography and ecology of the Lago Agrio region also contribute primarily to the intensity of the environmental damage. The water table in the Amazonian basin is very high, this means that the average depth at which drinking water is found underground is significantly less than that of other nations and ecological regions. As a result, seepage of wastewaters and discharged oil results in the direct contamination of regional drinking water, rivers, and wells. Contaminated water and oil can permeate the aquifers through fractures or through the underground beds of sand, gravel, or porous rock that store water.

Court documents have claimed that the risk of excess cancers for people who chronically drank from and bathed in oil-contaminated waters ranged from 12-1000 cases per million persons.

A Texaco Audit of Practices between 1964-1990 produced by the consultant Fugro-McClelland in 1992 (which examined only half of the wells and about 30 miles of the pipeline) found that approximately half of the well pits contained crude oil in them. Various degrees of crude oil contamination existed on many of the sites audited. Hydrocarbon contamination was also observed at the production facilities of the two largest fields Sacha and Shushufindi.

Another Environmental Audit and Assessment produced by consultants HGT AGRA in 1993 found wellsite spills had occurred at more than 150 of the 163 assessed sites. Thirty-nine of produced fluid spills originated along a flowline. Thirteen of these spills had migrated off-site. In addition, more than 125 open or closed well site pits contained oily waste. The oily waste was apparently confined within about 50 of the pits, while evidence of seepage was noted at nearly 70 of the pits. Four facilities at Sacha Field (Sacha Central, Sacha Sur, Sacha Norte 1 and Sacha Norte 2) all but Sacha Norte 2 had large accumulations of crude oil (Greater than 95%) in their final stage pits [Pits that discharge directly to a surface water feature]. 

Gas is burned off at a separation station outside the town of Shushufindi.

Photo by Lou Dematteis, courtesy of Amazon Watch

   

At Shushufindi, the largest pit measured over 10,000 sq. ft and even after passing through two separation pits the final stage pit still had over half-covered with oil. Produced water flow diagrams show that of the 15 pits used at the four production facilities, 13 had 100% oil covering the surface when audited.

Undoubtedly, hydrocarbons in soils represent a potentially long-term exposure to hydrocarbons. During the original audits, contamination of soil and water was seen throughout the concession. It was observed at well sites, production stations, flowlines, and secondary pipelines and along roadways.

So, the evidence is clear that Chevron/Texaco polluted the Amazon rainforest with obsolete equipment and methods. It doesn’t matter if the government oil company continued to pollute using the poorly designed system that Chevron/Texaco left behind.

Their best defense then proved to be the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) designed to punish racketeering. This may be the first time that a multi-national corporation sued a country for racketeering and go away with it.

Full Disclosure: I was employed as a Geologist by Texaco in New Orleans from 1974 to 1976. I was also deposed as a witness for the plaintiffs by Chevron in 2007. My testimony related to this litigation, but it was determined that the statute of limitations had expired.

Response to Interview of Alexandra Datig by Michael Medved and Datig's interview with Tucker Carlson

NOTE:  

Insight on who Alexandra Datig's background from City Watch LA by Rick Lee Abrams

by Melinda Pillsbury-Foster 

There is no question that Eric Garcetti, who has been in office as Mayor of Los Angeles for six years, has demonstrated his incompetence to cope with the problem of homelessness in the city.

In this, he is no different from other mayors or county supervisors in California and elsewhere across America. This is no excuse, but it must be noted as a matter of fairness.  Equal incompetence, tyranny and stupidity for all. 

Today, Los Angeles is facing an explosive growth in the number of rats and mice, which provide a vector for fleas and lice which can carry communicable diseases such a Bubonic Plague, Cholera and Typhus. 

Mountains of trash were dumped by local businesspeople who recognized the opportunity to lower their bill for trash collection. Because of this, Los Angeles is looking at the strong likelihood of an epidemic of monumental proportions with 33 million rats and mice looking for more homes suitable for birthing the 15,000 additional blessings they will produce, per couple, each year. 

One measure of the lack of empathy and concern is the way rats and mice are treated in comparison to the homeless.

PETA has a section on Rats and Mice which reads, “Captured mice and rats can be kept calm by placing a towel over the trap. Release them within 100 yards of where they were trapped. (Rodents can also be humanely euthanized by a veterinarian or at a local animal shelter.) Releasing a mouse or rat into a strange area will almost surely result in the animal’s death because relocated animals don’t know where to find adequate food, water, or shelter and often become weak and succumb to predation or foreign parasites or disease against which they lack a natural immunity.”

PETA shows more compassion and understanding for rats and mice than Eric Garcetti or Alexandra Datig show for the homeless.  Please pause to consider this.    

The stupidity of this conflict and the ignorance and thick-skulled knee-jerk thinking would be mind-boggling to Governor Ronnie Reagan, who notably freed mentally-challenged people over the objections of Democrats who refused human investment accommodations. Ronnie was known both for his warmth and compassion and his advocacy for free-market solutions, even if these never were actually used.

The  videographer for Seattle is Dying, Roger Montgomery, changed his mind after making the movie and has asked to work with us.    

Garcetti spent millions building out a bureaucracy without spending a cent on the homeless.  Datig clearly has not researched the successful programs for assisting the homeless in Utah and North Carolina.  Housing must come first; that is the model which works.  Leaving people on the street increases the trauma of homelessness, raising the likelihood of greater impact from trauma, disease, and other causes.  On the street, many who start out sleeping in their homes lose these to the police because they are homeless and have no place else to sleep.  As fines pile up, cars and motorhomes are seized, stored property on which the individual depends, is also lost.  RIP - offs cause all of this. 

A significant number of those homeless today are working poor, and simply cannot afford a place to live.  The originating problem includes the high cost of housing, which is outrageously overpriced and not sustainable.  Others now on the streets include, former foster kids who aged out and were pushed out without training or resources; veterans with PTSD; families evicted from their homes; elderly, also evicted because they are unable to pay their RIP rent or mortgages; people who suffered job losses, injuries, and illnesses which left them unable to work, or earn enough to keep a roof over their heads.  These are not, per se, emotional problems.  Counseling does not work for this any more than campaign promises actually to result in any effective action. It is all pretension.

But they are problems which create desperate circumstances for a simple cause, which we can immediately alleviate with free-market leadership.  Know anyone who is free-market and a Republican?  Neither do we.  But we are, ourselves, Free-Market advocates who also know we need a Sustainable Humane Economy (SHE).

Our solution:

·         Cleans the streets, buildings, and infrastructure of Los Angeles of rats and mice, humanely, and uses NO poisons or heavy metals to impact people or our air, water, and land.

·         Provides transitional housing with RVs, to be replaced by sustainable homes built using 3DPrinting with geopolymer materials.  We are now organizing an architectural competition for at least a dozen 3DPrinting Builders of sustainable and affordable homes for a similar challenge with the California Wildfire Prevention & Battle Ideation Contests Prizes.

·         Provides Health Portal Health Care, which accepts pre-existing conditions and treatment for trauma caused by the hideous conditions the homeless have endured.  Neuro-feedback and Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy will be provided in the Revival Villages, which are clearly needed.

·         Access to Maker Shops and training for re-entering the job market or choosing to become entrepreneurs.  Training in 3DPrinting and IOS, phone apps, web development, and computer programming will also be available, among other options. 

How is this funded?

Garcetti could cough up funds, but he probably hopes to keep these for other purposes.  Politicians become very attached to funds consigned to their control, as we all know. 

Datig will likely be satisfied if the homeless are no longer on the streets, forced to use ad hoc bathroom facilities and concentration camp shelters. 

Band-aid Solutions offend human decency.   

Funding will be provided by capital donations and investments, though Garcetti has plenty of funds which, if used properly, would have made any expenditure of tax dollars unnecessary.

Repayment will be made with the original American charging method, Percentage As You Earn (%PAYE). See PAYEhome.org  

This puts the cost of buying a home within reach of the homeless.  They no longer need to worry about eviction.  The lender receives a decent interest rate, keeping the long-term contract in effect through economic down-turns and multiple incidents of erratic income.  The buyer pledges a percentage-of-income, and the method takes, as a given, erratic incomes.  Payments can be ZERO, if that is what the buyer has earned.

 Readying the available properties, can take place rapidly.  Revival Villages will be placed as small, detached entrepreneurial communities with additional resources available to the formerly homeless.  %PAYE loans are finansured both for lender and buyer. 

The charging method in use by all banks today is the Rigid Installment Payment (RIP), which is expected to result in failure in 16% – 27% of loans every year.  Also, RIPs fail in use for other kinds of payments, such as vehicles, student loans, and storage, medical care premiums, and rent.   These, in large part, account for the present economic meltdown and the numbers of homeless.  Using %PAYE, sales and manufacturing can continue even during a recession, providing a stable economy. 

%PAYE loans, which have been used in multiple applications do not result in default.  While they provide a decent interest rate to lenders and landlords, without the problems caused by eviction and repossession; %PAYE loans also provide to buyers the security they need to move forward, increase their earnings, and realize their dreams.

Everyone benefits. 

See Housing the American Dream to get in touch, and help us make this happen. 

Good Health & Happiness to You in Freedom,

Melinda Pillsbury-Foster, Chair & CEO, Freedom Interactive TV Networks Association and Deep Green Futures, Inc.

Note to Michael Medved:

Michael, I met you at an Associated Latter-day Media Association (ALMA) meeting about 2000.  I expressed interest in your moral, caring scenarios for family movies with great dramatic form.  Soon after, you called Libertarians, Losertarians.  In response, as one of the co-founders of the International Society for Individual Liberty, now, Liberty-Intl.org, now in 90 nations; I decided to be the LOSS Leader creating the Libertarian Office of Strategic Services to provide free market solutions to otherwise politically created problems. 

Welcome to Volitional Science, Brock d’Avignon

Please help one of our authors

Mark Crispin Miller has courageously posted the work of others and written enormously important articles himself.  You see these here.  

Mark has Lyme Disease and needs treatment if he is to survive.  

We need him writing and we need his voice.  Please help!

Blitzkrieg: London, Pearl Harbor, Gaza, Yemen

 By Jane Stillwater  https://jpstillwater.blogspot.com/2019/05/blitzkrieg-london-pearl-harbor-gaza.html

     On the night of September 7, 1940, the Nazi Luftwaffe began a inhumanly murderous bombing blitz on the helpless city of London.  For the next eight terror-filled months, death from the skies continued to rain down on heroic British citizens every single night, night after horrific night -- and yet the plucky British still managed to keep a stiff upper lip and even go on about their business during daylight hours, each one knowing full well that each day could be their very last.

    Archibald Macleish wrote a tribute to Edward R. Murrow, the gutsy American reporter who broadcasted from London to America, on the radio night after night, making the horrors of what the Nazis were doing to London vividly known to the American people.  "You have destroyed the superstition that what is done beyond 3000 miles of water is not really done at all," wrote Macleish.  https://www.harpercollins.com/9780062436665/the-american-agent/

     Night after night, month after month, Winston Churchill and the people of London endured Hitler's terrible and deadly bombing raids.  Americans held their breath.  Would the valiant and defenseless Londoners even survive yet another night of these brutal attacks?

    But how come the citizens of London during Hitler's horrific blitz of monstrous destruction are such gritty and stoic heroes -- and yet the citizens of Yemen and Gaza are not?

       And then there came Pearl Harbor -- and Americans suddenly knew first-hand what such horrors were actually like.  On just one sunny Sunday morning in lovely Hawaii, 2403 Americans were murdered in cold blood by yet another evil blitzkrieg from the skies.  Americans went into paroxysms of indignation and and outrage and grief.  "Stop this horror!" they cried.

     And yet heroic Yemeni have endured this very same type of nightmare blitzkrieg from the Saudis night after night for years now.  And the citizens of Gaza have too.  Yet where are America's modern-day Edward R. Murrows?  And where is America's indignation and outrage and grief for this heinous slaughter?  "Oh.  Them.  They are only Muslims.  They can't be heroes,  They can't feel pain.  They don't count."  And the lethal and cruel bombs that are dropped on Yemen and Gaza each horrific night are not being manufactured and supplied by Tojo or Hitler -- but by the good old USA.  https://www.moonofalabama.org/2019/05/israel-again-bombs-gaza-but-is-it-in-response.html

     That's just evil, cold-hearted and mean.

     And anyone who has ever survived the ruthless attacks on London and Pearl Harbor will have to agree that the people of Yemen and Gaza are being heroic as well -- to endure the exact same torture night after night.  To quote Edward R. Murrow himself, "How long these people will stand up to this sort of thing I don't know, but tonight they're magnificent."  https://www.freedomsphoenix.com/News/260953-2019-05-09-what-i-saw-in-gaza-changed-me-forever.htm

     The very same thing can be said about the heroic men, women and children of Gaza and Yemen.  And we Americans?  The same thing can be said about us that was said about Hitler and Tojo.  Do we really want to be linked with these two evil and greedy colonialist monsters in future history books as well?  If not, then perhaps it's time to pull the plug on our own evil Luftwaffe and our own greedy blitzkrieg on defenseless civilians "beyond 3000 miles away".  https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/05/14/gabbard-says-shed-drop-all-charges-against-assange-and-snowden/

PS:  John Bolton is currently acting like he seriously wants to become the next Hermann Goering.  Let us just hope that Philadelphia and Charleston don't also become the next Dresden too -- or the next Hiroshima.

*************************************

       Stop Wall Street and War Street from destroying our world.

And while you're at it, please buy my books:  https://www.amazon.com/Jane-Stillwater/e/B00IW6O1RM  

Our Constitution – The Open Source for Freedom

Recycled from 2008.  

And I mean it.

by Melinda Pillsbury-Foster

Last week I wrote about the martial law that those in power have been planning for so long. That is the bad news; there are a few more things you should keep in mind as the status quo continues to shred.

Those in power are going to lose. They are the past, the top-down form of human organizing that has always been overthrown by the people with time. We are in the final throes of a revolution that began to reverse the centralization of power with the computer. Now, it is spreading. Those in power know this. Their plans reflect that fear..

Just as we are seeing that open source software will always win we are witnessing a transformation in ourselves. Top-down structure makes those in power dinosaurs, eaten alive by the dispersed, lemurs. Their day is over but they continue to struggle.

The power of open source vs. closed source is a battle that is still shaping the next millennium. Both software engineers and cats understand this. The first has witnessed the change. The second simply refuses to be herded. It only takes a few to innovate. The rest follow.

The world is changing.

The last arenas to feel that change are government and its adjunct, law. They made grandiose and ruthless plans and those are now failing.

We all know about the Red and Blue Lists; we know that Bush and Cheney's plans include instituting martial law and incarcerating approximately eight million Americans whose ideas are hostile to their continued hijacking of America's wealth through the corporate system built up over the last century or more. If you can't control the cats then cage them, they cry.

Most of us have read about the spring night in 2004 when Acting Attorney James Comey, rushed to prevent Chief of Staff Andrew Card and then–White House counsel Alberto Gonzales, sent by George Bush, to bully the hospitalized John Ashcroft from signing papers that would have authorized a surveillance of Americans that they all knew to be entirely unconstitutional. The measure, known by the pompous name of “Continuity of Governance,” was the road map for martial law that would never end. Everyone knows that; in another spring, 2007, the same man, Comey, sat before Congress and told what had taken place that night. An article in Radar Magazine told the story a few days ago but most of us had already heard rumors.

Those in power have been making plans for a long time. They rely on signatures on pieces of paper to immunize them from their crimes. Sometimes those plans worked out; increasingly often they do not.

One of the six nuclear bombs that disappeared last summer left a radio-active crater in Peru, reported by Pravda, September 20, 2007. Naturally, here in the US it was a non-news item.

In most of the world the conflict within the United States over who will dominate is very much under discussion. They cannot change our direction. That, we need to do ourselves.

The problem is greed married to power without conscience. The problem is here.

Today ordinary people struggle to survive the meltdown of our economy, they tremble at the threat of rampant homelessness, a police militarization that has been linked into the use of government to convert all American institutions into reliable if shrinking streams of income which, in cookie cutter fashion, have been replicated everywhere to be changed as needed. One such change is in the offing.

Television and the Internet are merging; that was determined by the logic of technology. Who will be in control is the issue that excites the gluttonous appetites of corporate greed.

According to ipower.ning.com, 2012 will be the Year the Internet Ends . Given the propensities of those in power the wish to extend their business model, all too familiar to Americans today, into the ether regions is not surprising. The computer age is not the sort of thing that megacorporations tolerate. They see the enormous flow of energy and money that began to course through its invisible conduits. They drooled all over the desk of Kevin Martin, the troll of the FCC who has done all possible to give the control of the airways into their hands.

The rise of convergent technologies, technologies will blend all forms of communication into one mighty river; The greedy want control. They believe they are fighting each other, dinosaurs thrashing, clawing, and gouging, for the opportunity to plunder the tiny multitudes. They will fail.

People are open source minded. They move towards freedom whenever and where ever they can. They find or build tools as needed.

Those tools come from all directions. Today a book was republished, and it is a book that anyone who cares about freedom should read. It is a short book, written by a man who said it could be read while sipping a cup of coffee and eating a doughnut. The book talks about things that seem far removed from the open-closed source war, but it encapsulates another debate with the very same underpinnings. That is the militarization of our police and legacy given to us by our Founders and the displacement of that legacy, the Constitution and common law, by statute law and equity courts.

“The Proper Role of Law Enforcement – What Every Citizen Should Know. What Every Cop Should Believe” was originally published by Richard Mack, the Sheriff who first filed against the Brady Bill in 1994. Over the next five years the case worked its way up to the Supreme Court which handed down the opinion in 1998 that the sheriff of a county can make the determination of what is, and what is not, constitutional. The decision cheered gun advocates but it went much further than the 2nd Amendment in its implications.

The Constitution is an open source document, founded on the common law, which is the open source form for justice.

Statute law, code, and unending agencies constructed on the top-down hierarchal model, are government as we have come to know it. Statute is the artifact of top down thinking, telling us by demonstration that the individual has no power. Government and law perpetuate conflict, converting animosity and control into an industry that squeezes us dry, draining us through all of our relationships, including the most intimate.

It is an ugly picture. Justice should bring peace and with it, happiness. Today the justice system brings fear, bankruptcy, and unending conflict; it is war played out in our communities and lives.

The common law and the Constitution, used as intended by the Founders were reliable, inexpensive, and remained directly in the hands of the people. The Constitution and common law was power in the hands of the people, the open source for freedom, allowing individuals and communities to reduce their conflict and find peace.

Today Americans live in fear of the law. Today the law is war waged against each of us. Ask someone who is stopped for a traffic ticket if they are afraid. Ask a family how they feel when Child Protective Services comes to call.

The war in America is as deep and savage as that being waged in Iraq. It is war made on each of us.

In his book Sheriff Mack said, ” It is time that”…this nation under God, shall have a new birth of freedom… .” It's time for law enforcement officers to get back to the basics of law enforcement for which their jobs were created—preserving our Constitution. Police have a difficult and thankless job. They put their lives on the line every day in a world affected by drugs and violence and social decay. May each of us in this most noble profession, as we pursue the guilty among us, never be guilty ourselves of the greater crime, that of violating our oath in God's name to defend the constitutional rights of the people for whom we work.”

When you read the Mack book you cry. Hand it to the cop who wants to make his quota. Hand it to the judge who would hear your case. Give it to your neighbor who thinks there is a difference between McCain, Obama, and Clinton Walk in to your local sheriff or police station and hand it to everyone; write a letter and send it along. Your local cop can read it while having a cup of coffee and a doughnut. Here is a tool for serving notice that the Nuremberg Defense will not work. They signed the oath, when they say they were only following orders it will be time to convict, sentence, and carry out the penalty. They need to know that now, you can tell them. The book has been reissued as a special edition and you can order them in bulk as well. Contact their site for bulk orders.

Those in power fear the Constitution. They jeer at the common law, but they are afraid. That is why the term, “Home-grown Terrorist,” was crafted. Threats and the posturing of authority are growing thin, and they know it.

The Constitution, laid on the foundation of common law, was intended to be the whole of the law. Read “The Role of Law Enforcement” and you will understand why they are afraid. They know we can still remember freedom.

And NOW we have the free market tools to deliver.  Check out DebateTourney.com

War and the Paper Standard

Is there a hidden threat that explains chaotic U.S. foreign policy?

By L. Reichard White

May 11, 2019

Maybe you’ve noticed the frenzied U.S. Government attempt to replace Venezuela’s duly elected hood-ornament — PresideNT Nicolas Maduro — with Juan Guaido, a nearly unknown U.S. prepped Venezuelan politician?

Why are they trying to do that?

With National. Security Advisor John Bolton suggesting a berth at Gitmo for Mr. Maduro if he doesn’t step down and flee the country — and Sen. Marco Rubio implying Muammar Gadaffi’s last minutes of life being intimate with a bayonett as another future for Mr. Maduro — “our” D.C. reprehensibles are displaying their unsavory colors.

Prominently showcasing this level of thuggery, usually hidden from polite society in smoke-filled back rooms, restricted C.I.A. workshops — and censored and classified “above top secret” for decades — marks a whole new phase in international relations.

But why?

With Mr. “Art of the Deal” Trump & Company seriously abusing the standard Games Theory and negotiation baseline — you know, “All options are on the table” — they’ve already (March 3, 2019) played the “suggest a U.S. invasion” card.

And pulling out all the Art of War stops too, Trump & Company — clearly with maximum arm twisting — have wheedled, cajoled, bribed, bullied, and/or threatened about one quarter of the world’s governments into suddenly proclaiming this relatively unknown to be PresideNT of Venezuela. Despite — or maybe because of — Mr. Maduro’s democratic victory last year (May 20, 2018.)

Merely labeling the democratically elected Maduro “dictator” while proclaiming unknown Guaido “PresideNT” — without an invasion or bloody revolution so far or even a vote — though ingenuous is pure Sun Tsu genius. If it works.

But why are they doing that?

Now most folks, I among them, certainly prefer this so-far almost bloodless U.S. coup to the normal bloody ones that have become C.I.A./U.S. tradition since their finally confessed prototype over-turning Iran’s popular democratically elected Mohammad Mossadegh in 1953.

Uncle Sam, in cahoots with the Brits, replaced him with U.S. puppet Mohammad Reza “Shah of Iran” Pahlavi — and 24 years of bloody repression. Which may have something to do with why Iranians think we’re “exceptional,” just not in a nice way.

Now I want to go on the record as disaproving of Mr. Maduro and most other hood-ornaments, but this is a very dangerous precedent.

First, if the U.S. Government pulls this one off, the governments of the world — OK, only about a quarter of them — which will immediately be branded “The International Community” by Uncle Scam’s scripters — can replace leaders in any country merely by recognizing a replacement. Apparently any replacement — as long as it takes orders from Washington D.C.

Second, or maybe part of the first — and I have serious misgivings about reminding folks of this — Mr. Trump wasn’t democratically elected, which, despite the Maduro gambit, is still all the rage.

Remember, Ms. Clinton got more popular votes and thus won the democratic majority. So a quarter of the world’s governments — now “The International Community” remember — could declare her PresideNT of the U.S. with a heck of a lot more legitimacy than declaring Mr. Guaido presideNT of Venezuela.

Hold on while I clean the partially digested contents of my latest meal off my keyboard. And thoroughly wash my mind out with soap – – –

OK, that’s better.

But ignoring all the U.S. Government/C.I.A. election meddlings, coups, assassinations, regime changes, invasions, “wars,” (in total, at least 198 of them since WWII) — and sanctions — does Mr. Maduro have psychological problems?

After all, he did reject U.S. humanitarian aid because he thought it might be a Trojan Horse.

I know, I know, the U.S. set the precedent by rejecting aid from Cuba after Hurricane Katrina, but that’s different. Isn’t it? And then he blamed the C.I.A. for Venezuela’s current persistent blackout problems. AND, the water service disruption too.

Is he paranoid?

Well, O.K., there was that C.I.A. inspired August 2018 drone attempt on his life

Do you suppose they really are out to get him?

But why? Why this frenzied — “All options on the table” attempt to get this poor guy?

Unlke former H.W. Bush buddy, Panamanian PresideNT Manuel Noreiga, Mr. Maduro probably doesn’t have a dope-deal-gone-bad with the U.S. PresideNT.

Herr Bush Sr. morphed that breakup with Mr. Noreiga into the U.S. Government invasion of Panama, mis-named as usual, “Operation Just Cause.” According to a U.S. Army memo, that war crime killed at least 1,000 innocent Panamanian men, women and children.

Furthermore, Venezuela doesn’t have nukes (they may want to reconsider), we’ve never been at war with them, and it has never threatened the U.S. Has it? OK, at least never militarily. Hmmm – – –

So, why then?

Although D.C.’s illegal sanctions have reportedly killed 40,000 Venezuelan men, women and children by putting them on short rations, etc., I’m sure a few folks will still believe it’s for humanitarian reasons. You know, it’s to help them lose weight – – –

And then there’s a minor theme: “OMG, Venezuela is a socialist country and that scares us excrementless!”

O.K., so leave it alone and use it as yet another object lesson — like the U.S.S.R. (not Russia) — to prove once again that all folks of good will should avoid socialist governments like the plague. In fact, all governments period, but that’s another story.

The main story-line, however, mostly from the left, is that it’s to steal Venezuela’s heavy crude oil. And Mr. Bolton did make at least one comment that supports that idea.

But the U.S. is now one of the world’s top energy producers and doesn’t need Venezuela’s heavy crude.

So, what gives?

With all these U.S. Government interventions, at least 198 of them remember — and sanctions — it’s tempting to conclude there is no rational reason and “we” screw with other folks purely on whim, whimsey, and maybe as a hobby.

But sometimes, maybe there’s a method to this madness. And if so, it often does involve oil, just not quite the way most left-coasters think.

So we have this latest attempted Venezuela coup against Mr. Maduro. And you didn’t forget the previous one in 2002 against Mr. Maduro’s predecessor, super popular and, as certified by Jimmy Carter, overwhelmingly and democratically elected Hugo Chavez did you?

So, what about this persistent two-decade attack on Venezuela? Whim, whimsey, hobby, madness, or is there more to the story?

Consider this headline from September 2017, only a few months before Venezuela’s current problems started – – –

Venezuela Plans to Drop US Dollar in Gas, Oil Trade

And this before the U.S. supported and/or instigated temporary coup against super-popular and certified by Jimmy Carter Mr. Chavez – – –

…it must be noted that Iraq is attempting to switch to the euro as its currency for settling oil exports, and that Venezuela is reportedly planning to follow suit. –The Japan Times: November 20, 2000

“So,” you may be thinking, “What’s the big deal with that?”

Well, because of a 1974 agreement cobbled together by the Nixon administration between the U.S. and Saudis, nearly all oil trade in the world ended up requiring U.S. dollars.

Not coincidentally, this was just three years after Nixon, attempting to finish replacing the gold standard with the U.S. paper-dollar standard, closed the gold window and thus threatened to throw the world economy into chaos. This explains a lot more than most folks realize.

Remember the “petro dollar?” Well, thanks to the Saudi/U.S. established oil-for-dollars tradition, the Brits, Germans, Japanese — in fact just about everyone — had to keep dollars on hand to pay for their oil imports.

And the oil sellers also ended up with a lot of dollars. And so did the countries they bought stuff from. And the dollar tradition spread to trade in other commodities as well. That meant that a large aggregate of U.S. dollars stayed overseas and didn’t return to the U.S.

In fact, “The Federal Reserve estimates that the majority of the cash in circulation today is outside the United States.“

Experts estimate that “majority of cash … outside the United States” is as much as 80% of the U.S. dollars in circulation. All that money overseas has a lot to do with the fact that everyone has to pay for oil, etc., with dollars.

As Case Sprenkle of the University of Illinois puts it, “Insofar as the money remains abroad and is not used to purchase goods or services from the country that printed it, it serves as an interest-free loan from poor countries to the rich.”

That’s mostly how Uncle Sam is able to run-up such huge budget deficits without causing inflation. So far.

But what happens if people overseas stop using the dollar — and discover the only place they can spend it now is back here in the good ole’ U.S. of A.?

What would happen if the Saudi Arabians said they didn’t want to be paid [for oil] in dollars anymore, but wanted instead, to be paid, say in yen. There would be inflation that would make the 15 to 20 percent inflation in the early 80’s look good. —Sen. Pete Domenici, R-NEW MEXICO, C-SPAN II, 18 May 1995 ~12:33:55 PM

Unfortunately, selling oil for something other than U.S. dollars isn’t the only thing threatening the paper-standard. It’s also become the norm for governments and central banks to stockpile U.S. Treasuries to support their own currencies.

So, if a country reduces its stock-pile of U.S. Treasuries, either by selling them off or no longer rolling them over when they reach maturity — and replaces them with something else, as in the past, gold perhaps — this also threatens the U.S. dollar paper-standard.

The problem is, the paper-standard is mostly psychological. It’s literally a con — that is, confidence — game and when the confidence evaporates, game over.

And it’s very difficult to enforce confidence, no matter how many aircraft carriers, etc. you deploy. Or to predict when the confidence will implode.

As former FED Chair Alan Greenspan confessed,

We can readily describe this process, but, to date, economists have been unable to anticipate sharp reversals in confidence. Collapsing confidence is generally described as a bursting bubble, an event incontrovertibly evident only in retrospect. –Alan Greenspan, “New challenges for monetary policy”

And these days, instead of cash paper money, most of those Treasury bonds and dollars are now nothing more than electronic zeros and ones, just accounting entries in computer memories that circle the globe at about the speed of light — and can pretty much land anywhere instantly. Ah-oh!

So now we know the likely basis of this frenzied attempt to replace Venzuela’s current hood-ornament. Before he replaces the dollar. AND why Uncle was almost as desperate to replace the previous hood decoration, Mr. Chavez.

Perhaps you also noticed from that Nov. 2000 Japan Times article above that at the turn of the century, “Iraq [was] attempting to switch to the euro as its currency for settling oil exports” too?

“Attempting” because as a result of the settlement ending the first U.S./Iraq so-called “War,” waged by Bush Sr., and otherwise known as “Desert Storm,” Iraq had to get U.N. permission. Yes, in case you don’t remember, there were two so-called Iraq “Wars.”

And, a little more substantial, Saddam Turns His Back on Greenbacks

In due course, the U.N. bureaucrats ruled that Iraq could indeed sell it’s oil for any currency it chose. In due course, Iraqi Food for Oil was paid for in euros rather than in dollars. Ah-oh!

Subsequently, seizing on the 911 attacks as the illegitimate and completely bogus excuse, George Bush Jr. and his cronies told at least 935 documented and recordedfalsehoods to get “us” to attack the men, women and children of Iraq for the secondtime.

Here’s the timeline:

March 2000, Iraq announces it’s intention to change Oil for Food to euros and, according to the Oct. 12, 2000 Oil & Gas News, as of Sunday, Oct. 8, the Iraq central bank announced it had begun to buy European currencies.

Twelve months later in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001 “911” attacks — and using them as an illegitimate excuse — Bush Jr., Dick Cheney & Company start their bogus anti-Iraq propaganda campaign.

March 19, 2003, 18 months after 911, based on his 935+ lies, U.S. strongman Bush Jr., following in his fathers footsteps, again attacks the men, women and children of Iraq.

And, emphatically punctuating that paper-standard connection, one of the first executive orders Herr Bush Jr. signed after declaring victory on May 2, 2003 “switched trading on Iraq’s oil back to the dollar.”

So perhaps not all U.S. meddlings, assassinations, coups, invasions, regime changes, “wars,” and sanctions are done purely on whim or whimsey, although given the sheer volume of them — and with Operation Just Cause as an example — we can’t rule-out hobby and/or madness.

And there’s a missing piece. Ever since The Church Committee hearings uncovered it, we know the U.S. MSM (Main Stream Media) has been in cahoots with C.I.A./U.S. plots, lies, and scams. Bush Jr.’s Iraq war-crime with his minimum of 935 falsehoods is a good example. And unfortunately, little has changed.

In fact, it’s gotten worse. The one-sided coverage of Mr. Maduro proves nearly complete control in the U.S. Further, C.I.A. media meddling and control have expanded world-wide. Britain is particularly well controlled. German journalist Udo Ulfkotte explains the big picture this way — “We All Lie for the CIA.”

Because of this wide-spread CIA influence, there’s a marker for a standard U.S. Government tactic we can look for as a harbinger of interventions: Demonization – – –

“Well Jim, it is very important in a democracy that you have the support of the people. One of the reasons why [U.S. President] George [Herbert Walker] Bush had to demonize [Iraq’s President] Saddam Hussein was to get the support of the people, and [U.S. President] Bill Clinton has done the same thing, Vice President Gore has done the same thing with respect to [Serbian President] Milosevic.” —Raymond Tanter, Fmr. Natl. Security Council Staffer, WATCH IT!, MSNBC, 2 Apr 1999, ~11:56:45 AM EST

However, demonization has a long pedigree. As described by perennial Bush Sec. of State James Baker III to top German news magazine Der Spiegel, like this for example – – –

“We made a monster of Hitler, a devil. That is why we could not, after the war, say otherwise. We had personally mobilised the masses against the devil. Thus we were forced after the war, to play along with this devils‘ scenario. We could not possibly have made it clear to our people that the war [WWII] was only an economic preventative measure!” —James Baker, Der Spiegel, 13/1992

Find that hard to believe? I sure did. See how well it works?

And if you review the stories demonizing Mr. Maduro — and his popular predecessor Mr. Chavez — not to mention Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gadaffi — you’ll see that demonization and the C.I.A./media/Deep-State relationship have blossomed.

There’s another central piece to the puzzle.

As revealed by the Wikileaks-liberated Army Unconventional Warfare Manual (us-fm3-05-130.pdf) , the U.S. War Department regularly uses the U.S. controlled IMF(International Monetary Fund), BIS (Bank for International Settlements) and even USAID, etc. as integral and important parts of its war strategy. Even though the U.S. Government hasn’t been legally at war since the end of WWII.

SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Transactions), the organization that makes it possible for banks to easily transfer funds among themselves, has also been compromised by the NSA and that’s an important part of what makes it possible for the U.S. Government to be passing out sanctions as if they were pancakes on Shrove Tuesday.

One of the best known examples of this evolving U.S. economic warfare was revealed when, in the early 1970s, Nixon told the CIA to “Make Chile’s economy scream” in an attempt to regime-change Chile’s popular president Salvador Allende. That didn’t work so they bombed the Presidential Palace, killing Mr. Allende. They replaced him with bloody dictator Augusto Pinochet, eventually charged with “crimes against humanity” for what his regime did to the men, women and children of Chile.

So now you know how D.C., using its illegal sanctions and other Unconventional Warfare, was able to put Venezuelans on short rations, reportedly killing 40,000 of them since 2017.

And there’s the CIA handbook, How to Start a Revolution.

So, with complicit media, demonization — and Unconventional Warfare using IMF, BIS, USAID, and keeping SWIFT in mind for sanctions and other economic attacks — we have three tools to help us sort things out. Like this – – –

1. Look for U.S. Government intervention against a country or its hood-ornament. These days (2019 A.D.) especially sanctions.
2. Look for previous pressure on that country and/or it’s hood-ornament(s) from the U.S. MSM — even Brit and world-wide MSM. Particularly look for demonization.
3. Look for a paper-standard (non-use-of-the-dollar) connection.

These points are also predictive. Our tactic is simple: If we see U.S. Government pressure on a country or its hood-ornament, look for a paper-standard connection. If we find one, look out, intervention(s) are highly likely.

And, even when non-use-of-the-dollar isn’t the main consideration, it’s often a strong contributing factor.

With Venezuela and Iraq, we have two pretty good examples of how all this works.

Let’s see if we can apply the formula to other countries.

You’ve probably noticed the on-going demonization of Mr. Putin and Russia? Or at least it’s effects. Perhaps you even took a sip of that kool-aid yourself?

Despite one of Mr. Putin’s favorite operational phrases, “Our friends and partners in the west” — and Mr. Trump’s observation that Russia “isn’t an enemy but just a competitor and could even become a friend” — the U.S. MIC/MSM/Deep-State amalgam is successfully exploiting the confusion Americans have between the old communist USSR and today’s non-communist Russia.

Why do you suppose?

The MIC part of the Deep-State must, of course, have a scary enemy to justify its runaway “Defense” spending and rampant waste and so, to make Uncle’s soap-opera work, has been busily creating Russia as its “Essential Villain“ .

But is there a paper-standard connection too?

Here’s a clue – – –

Why Russia Is Dumping Dollars And Buying Gold At The Fastest Pace In Decades –Tyler Durden, Zero Hedge, April 2, 2019

“Dumping dollars” is now called, appropriately, “de-dollarization“. The idea has been around for quite awhile, but with Uncle threatening and irritating nearly everyone — and Russia now taking the lead — well, all those dollar accounting entries circling the globe at the speed of light may be looking at Capistrano — or more likely, the banking centers of New York, Chicago, D.C. and San Francisco as places to land.

Despite trade negotiations, likely to fall far short of Trump’s stated goals, China has also begun to draw U.S. heat. Ironically, the U.S. periodically accuses China of currency manipulation for previously keeping the yuan pegged to the dollar.

Is China being framed?

Led by Steve Bannon and the resurrected “Committee On The Present Danger” there’s the ginned-up on-going narrative about China trying to impose it’s Belt and Road free-trade initiative on Europe, Africa and the Far East, take-over the South China Sea, and exaggerating its rather wimpy — compared to the U.S. — military build-up.

The main talking point is that “China is our greatest existential threat.”

Do you suppose there might be paper-standard connections?

And there’s Uncle’s perennial whipping-boy Iran. In violation of International Law as usual, Trump’s main morons are now — mostly using sanctions — attempting to stop allIranian oil trade. While stupid, immoral, illegal and dangerous, this is as usual, clearly in line with Uncle’s role as Israel’s female canine, but is there a paper-standard connection as well?

There are so many developments dissing the dollar lately, it’s difficult to attach them to particular countries. For example, there are two movements to replace SWIFT.

SPFS is a Russian based equivalent, created by the Russian Central Bank to circumvent U.S. initiated SWIFT interference with its financial transactions. Additionally in September 2018, Iran, the EU Commission, Germany, France, UK, Russia and China proposed developing an alternative to SWIFT, not including the U.S. —SWIFT use in sanctions

And – – –

Putin’s plan is similar to that of Iran, which announced that it would open an oil-bourse (oil exchange) on Kish Island in two months. The bourse would allow oil transactions to be made in petro-euros, thus discarding the dollar. … Vladimir Putin and the rise of the petro-ruble, Mike Whitney, May 21, 2006

Currently, China has started an oil exchange denominated in yuan.

China is reportedly taking the first steps to pay for oil in yuan –CNBC

And most troubling,

Saudi Arabia threatens to ditch dollar oil trades –Reuters

Could that threat be why Mr. Trump vetoed Congress’ first attempt in 70 years to control unconstitutional U.S. war involvement by ending support for the Saudi-led murder of the men, women and children in Yemen?

And not just incidentally, killing more men, women and children is a classic result of the the paper-standard. As Ferdinand Lips explains so well, compared to the gold standard, the paper-standard makes financing wars easy and so they happen more often, are longer, stronger, and kill more innocent men, women and children.

As some folks like to put it, “The U.S. dollar used to be supported by gold, now it’s supported by aircraft carriers, B-52s and killer drones.”

I think we can safely add that it’s also supported by election meddling, coup, regime change, assassination, sanctions, invasion, and fake undeclared war. Perhaps, then, a more accurate title for this piece would be “Intervention and the Paper Standard.”

Keep in mind that, other than nuclear annihilation, by far the greatest and least controllable “existential threat” to the U.S., particularly the government, is the loss of the dollar as the world’s reserve currency and collapse of the paper-standard.

Maybe you were already aware this is a factor in U.S. foreign policy but, although available in plain sight, it’s usually avoided and/or hushed-up, especially in official communications. For example, during Federal Reserve hearings, you sometimes hear things like this: “Thank you Mr. Chairman. I know that you have to be careful in the terms you use and particularly of using terms that might become self-fulfilling prophecies.”

And there’s a subtle but insidious problem with the way Trump and the U.S. Deep State are chronically implementing “All options are on the table” Games Theory. Originally a U.S. invention, Games Theory is based on poker.

Legacy of Ashes: The H...Tim WeinerBest Price: $2.07Buy New $6.00(as of 09:55 EDT - Details)

The problem with poker — and BTW mercantilism as well — is that, unlike voluntary exchange in unhanmpered markets, it’s a zero-sum game. If you’re in a game with someone who thinks they’re playing poker, someone wins and someone loses — and they intend to make sure you’re the loser.

Unhampered markets on the other hand — and other forms of normal co-operation — are, in the long run, nearly always win-win propositions. As long as they stay unhampered — and normal. But it looks to me like Mr. Trump and the Deep State are programmedto play all-in poker.

Understandably, Uncle doesn’t want the dollar to go quietly into the night. Unfortunately Uncle’s alternative seems to be raging against the passing of the light — maybe with a whole lot of nuclear flashes.

Is this acceptable? Will the world call Uncle’s bluff — or has he forgotten, especially with thoroughly nuked-up Russia, he’s playing a game where everyone loses?

HERE for updates, additions, comments, and corrections.

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The Best of L. Reichard White

L. Reichard White [send him mail] taught physics, designed and built a house, ran for Nevada State Senate, served two terms on the Libertarian National Committee, managed a theater company, etc. For the next few decades, he supported his writing habit by beating casinos at their own games. His hobby, though, is explaining things he wishes someone had explained to him. You can find a few of his other explanations listed here.

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