Thursday, September 10, 2009

DRANT #333: DEATH BY HAMBURGICIDE

One need do nothing but wait, take a few steps back, and watch as self-administered Hamburgicide rids the world of the scourge of obesitus obsessivus overeatus americanus.
All Ahmadinejad or Hugo Chavez needs to do is take a siesta under a tree, and the species will be extinct in no time at all.
As Michael Pollan points out- there's billions being made on stuffing us with crap, and then treating the diseases that result.
Hopefully, the world will be rid of Americans before their insatiable unsustainable indiscriminate profito-carnivoracity can finish destroying the rest of the planet.

It had better.

__________________________________________________________
TWO items.
#1- Michael Pollan in today's NY Times.
While I can't agree with Pollan's prescription (thus his access to the NYT) for treatment or cure, (i.e. wait for the corporations and congress to wake up and change things-- as IF)-- but his analysis of the situation is perspicacious and DEADLY accurate.
#2- A report published by The Commonwealth Fund showing the continued rapid descent of health and life expectancy in the USA, especially as compared to other "civilized" nations.
Of course, what's missing is the
racial computation. Obvious to me- that as horrific as these numbers
are, they don't illustrate the racial divide- and that as with infant mortality, blacks, racial minorities and native americans are profoundly
over-represented in the worst categories, and white are more likely to
be well cared for and live longer.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

"...We're spending $147 billion to treat obesity, $116 billion to treat diabetes, and hundreds of billions more to treat cardiovascular disease and the many types of cancer that have been linked to the so-called Western diet. One recent study estimated that 30 percent of the increase in health care spending over the past 20 years could be attributed to the soaring rate of obesity, a condition that now accounts for nearly a tenth of all spending on health care. The American way of eating has become the elephant in the room in the debate over health care...

...Cheap food is going to be popular as long as the social and environmental costs of that food are charged to the future. There's lots of money to be made selling fast food and then treating the diseases that fast food causes. One of the leading products of the American food industry has become patients for the American health care industry..."

Big Food vs. Big Insurance
By MICHAEL POLLAN
Published: September 9, 2009
Berkeley, Calif.

TO listen to President Obama's speech on Wednesday night, or to just about anyone else in the health care debate, you would think that the biggest problem with health care in America is the system itself - perverse incentives, inefficiencies, unnecessary tests and procedures, lack of competition, and greed.

No one disputes that the $2.3 trillion we devote to the health care industry is often spent unwisely, but the fact that the United States spends twice as much per person as most European countries on health care can be substantially explained, as a study released last month says, by our being fatter. Even the most efficient health care system that the administration could hope to devise would still confront a rising tide of chronic disease linked to diet.

That's why our success in bringing health care costs under control ultimately depends on whether Washington can summon the political will to take on and reform a second, even more powerful industry: the food industry.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, three-quarters of health care spending now goes to treat "preventable chronic diseases." Not all of these diseases are linked to diet - there's smoking, for instance - but many, if not most, of them are.

We're spending $147 billion to treat obesity, $116 billion to treat diabetes, and hundreds of billions more to treat cardiovascular disease and the many types of cancer that have been linked to the so-called Western diet. One recent study estimated that 30 percent of the increase in health care spending over the past 20 years could be attributed to the soaring rate of obesity, a condition that now accounts for nearly a tenth of all spending on health care.

The American way of eating has become the elephant in the room in the debate over health care. The president has made a few notable allusions to it, and, by planting her vegetable garden on the South Lawn, Michelle Obama has tried to focus our attention on it. Just last month, Mr. Obama talked about putting a farmers' market in front of the White House, and building new distribution networks to connect local farmers to public schools so that student lunches might offer more fresh produce and fewer Tater Tots. He's even floated the idea of taxing soda.

But so far, food system reform has not figured in the national conversation about health care reform. And so the government is poised to go on encouraging America's fast-food diet with its farm policies even as it takes on added responsibilities for covering the medical costs of that diet. To put it more bluntly, the government is putting itself in the uncomfortable position of subsidizing both the costs of treating Type 2 diabetes and the consumption of high-fructose corn syrup.

Why the disconnect? Probably because reforming the food system is politically even more difficult than reforming the health care system. At least in the health care battle, the administration can count some powerful corporate interests on its side - like the large segment of the Fortune 500 that has concluded the current system is unsustainable.

That is hardly the case when it comes to challenging agribusiness. Cheap food is going to be popular as long as the social and environmental costs of that food are charged to the future. There's lots of money to be made selling fast food and then treating the diseases that fast food causes. One of the leading products of the American food industry has become patients for the American health care industry.

The market for prescription drugs and medical devices to manage Type 2 diabetes, which the Centers for Disease Control estimates will afflict one in three Americans born after 2000, is one of the brighter spots in the American economy. As things stand, the health care industry finds it more profitable to treat chronic diseases than to prevent them. There's more money in amputating the limbs of diabetics than in counseling them on diet and exercise.

As for the insurers, you would think preventing chronic diseases would be good business, but, at least under the current rules, it's much better business simply to keep patients at risk for chronic disease out of your pool of customers, whether through lifetime caps on coverage or rules against pre-existing conditions or by figuring out ways to toss patients overboard when they become ill.

But these rules may well be about to change - and, when it comes to reforming the American diet and food system, that step alone could be a game changer. Even under the weaker versions of health care reform now on offer, health insurers would be required to take everyone at the same rates, provide a standard level of coverage and keep people on their rolls regardless of their health. Terms like "pre-existing conditions" and "underwriting" would vanish from the health insurance rulebook - and, when they do, the relationship between the health insurance industry and the food industry will undergo a sea change.

The moment these new rules take effect, health insurance companies will promptly discover they have a powerful interest in reducing rates of obesity and chronic diseases linked to diet. A patient with Type 2 diabetes incurs additional health care costs of more than $6,600 a year; over a lifetime, that can come to more than $400,000. Insurers will quickly figure out that every case of Type 2 diabetes they can prevent adds $400,000 to their bottom line. Suddenly, every can of soda or Happy Meal or chicken nugget on a school lunch menu will look like a threat to future profits.

When health insurers can no longer evade much of the cost of treating the collateral damage of the American diet, the movement to reform the food system - everything from farm policy to food marketing and school lunches - will acquire a powerful and wealthy ally, something it hasn't really ever had before.

AGRIBUSINESS dominates the agriculture committees of Congress, and has swatted away most efforts at reform. But what happens when the health insurance industry realizes that our system of farm subsidies makes junk food cheap, and fresh produce dear, and thus contributes to obesity and Type 2 diabetes? It will promptly get involved in the fight over the farm bill - which is to say, the industry will begin buying seats on those agriculture committees and demanding that the next bill be written with the interests of the public health more firmly in mind.

In the same way much of the health insurance industry threw its weight behind the campaign against smoking, we can expect it to support, and perhaps even help pay for, public education efforts like New York City's bold new ad campaign against drinking soda. At the moment, a federal campaign to discourage the consumption of sweetened soft drinks is a political nonstarter, but few things could do more to slow the rise of Type 2 diabetes among adolescents than to reduce their soda consumption, which represents 15 percent of their caloric intake.

That's why it's easy to imagine the industry throwing its weight behind a soda tax. School lunch reform would become its cause, too, and in time the industry would come to see that the development of regional food systems, which make fresh produce more available and reduce dependence on heavily processed food from far away, could help prevent chronic disease and reduce their costs.

Recently a team of designers from M.I.T. and Columbia was asked by the foundation of the insurer UnitedHealthcare to develop an innovative systems approach to tackling childhood obesity in America. Their conclusion surprised the designers as much as their sponsor: they determined that promoting the concept of a "foodshed" - a diversified, regional food economy - could be the key to improving the American diet.

All of which suggests that passing a health care reform bill, no matter how ambitious, is only the first step in solving our health care crisis. To keep from bankrupting ourselves, we will then have to get to work on improving our health - which means going to work on the American way of eating.

But even if we get a health care bill that does little more than require insurers to cover everyone on the same basis, it could put us on that course.

For it will force the industry, and the government, to take a good hard look at the elephant in the room and galvanize a movement to slim it down.


Michael Pollan, a contributing writer for The Times Magazine and a professor of journalism at the University of California, Berkeley, is the author of "In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto."

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
France best, US worst in preventable death ranking

Tue Jan 8, 2008 12:15am EST
By Will Dunham

"It is startling to see the U.S. falling even farther behind on this crucial indicator of health system performance," Commonwealth Fund Senior Vice President Cathy Schoen said.
"The fact that other countries are reducing these preventable deaths more rapidly, yet spending far less, indicates that policy, goals and efforts to improve health systems make a difference," Schoen added in a statement.

WASHINGTON, Jan 8 (Reuters) - France, Japan and Australia rated best and the United States worst in new rankings focusing on preventable deaths due to treatable conditions in 19 leading industrialized nations, researchers said on Tuesday.
If the U.S. health care system performed as well as those of those top three countries, there would be 101,000 fewer deaths in the United States per year, according to researchers writing in the journal Health Affairs.
Researchers Ellen Nolte and Martin McKee of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine tracked deaths that they deemed could have been prevented by access to timely and effective health care, and ranked nations on how they did.
They called such deaths an important way to gauge the performance of a country's health care system.

Nolte said the large number of Americans who lack any type of health insurance -- about 47 million people in a country of about 300 million, according to U.S. government estimates -- probably was a key factor in the poor showing of the United States compared to other industrialized nations in the study.

"I wouldn't say it (the last-place ranking) is a condemnation, because I think health care in the U.S. is pretty good if you have access. But if you don't, I think that's the main problem, isn't it?" Nolte said in a telephone interview.
In establishing their rankings, the researchers considered deaths before age 75 from numerous causes, including heart disease, stroke, certain cancers, diabetes, certain bacterial infections and complications of common surgical procedures.
Such deaths accounted for 23 percent of overall deaths in men and 32 percent of deaths in women, the researchers said.

France did best -- with 64.8 deaths deemed preventable by timely and effective health care per 100,000 people, in the study period of 2002 and 2003. Japan had 71.2 and Australia had 71.3 such deaths per 100,000 people. The United States had 109.7 such deaths per 100,000 people, the researchers said.
After the top three, Spain was fourth best, followed in order by Italy, Canada, Norway, the Netherlands, Sweden, Greece, Austria, Germany, Finland, New Zealand, Denmark, Britain, Ireland and Portugal, with the United States last.
Here is the ranking by health researchers of 19 industrialized nations by how well their health systems intervene to stop preventable deaths.
The US is now dead last at number 19, below not only France and Japan but also Denmark and New Zealand.
The US has fallen four places in the past decade, so things are getting worse in this regard.

1. France (64.8 preventable death per 100,000 persons)
2. Japan (71.2)
3. Australia (71.3)
4. Spain
5. Italy
6. Canada
7. Norway
8. Netherlands
9. Sweden
10. Greece
11. Austria
12. Germany
13. Finland
14. New Zealand
15. Denmark
16. Britain
17. Ireland
18. Portugal
19. United States (109.7 preventable deaths per 100,000 persons)

The researchers concluded that the lack of access to health insurance on the part of 47 million Americans contributed to this dismal showing.

PREVIOUS RANKINGS
The researchers compared these rankings with rankings for the same 19 countries covering the period of 1997 and 1998. France and Japan also were first and second in those rankings, while the United States was 15th, meaning it fell four places in the latest rankings.
All the countries made progress in reducing preventable deaths from these earlier rankings, the researchers said. These types of deaths dropped by an average of 16 percent for the nations in the study, but the U.S. decline was only 4 percent.
The research was backed by the Commonwealth Fund, a private New York-based health policy foundation.

"It is startling to see the U.S. falling even farther behind on this crucial indicator of health system performance," Commonwealth Fund Senior Vice President Cathy Schoen said.
"The fact that other countries are reducing these preventable deaths more rapidly, yet spending far less, indicates that policy, goals and efforts to improve health systems make a difference," Schoen added in a statement.
(Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

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Read more!!

Monday, June 29, 2009

DRANT # 332: CHAOS 'R US

ABC News reporters Brian Ross and Richard Esposito reported on May 23rd, 2007 that "The
CIA has received secret presidential approval to mount a covert black
operation to destabilize the Iranian government, current and former
officials in the intelligence community tell ABC News".


The London Telegraph, also, had reported on May 27th, 2007 that "Mr.
Bush has signed an official document endorsing CIA plans for propaganda
and disinformation campaign intended to destabilize, and eventually
topple the theocratic rule of the mullah".


In the New Yorker, June 29th, 2008, Seymour Hersh reported that "Late
last year, Congress agreed to a request from President Bush to fund a
major escalation of covert operations against Iran, according to
current and former military, intelligence, and congressional sources.
These operations, for which the President sought up to four hundred
million Dollars, were described in a Presidential Finding signed by
Bush, and are designed to destabilize the country's religious leadership".




Demonizing Iranian Democracy
Op_ed
By Elias Akleh
Monday, 29 June 2009
For the last three weeks the Western media had bombarded us with what they called the Iranian stolen election. They allege that the election was fraudulent and that the masses went into the streets of Tehran protesting the results and demanding new election. The Iranian government is described as fascist and oppressive and is responsible for the chaos in the streets. The opposition is described as reformists and democratic, who are peacefully demonstrating in the streets demanding justice and freedom.

Color Revolutions, Old and New
Special Features
By Stephen Lendman
Monday, 29 June 2009
In his new book, "Full Spectrum Dominance: Totalitarian Democracy in the New World Order," F. William Engdahl explained a new form of US covert warfare - first played out in Belgrade, Serbia in 2000. What appeared to be "a spontaneous and genuine political 'movement,' (in fact) was the product of techniques" developed in America over decades.

AND HERE'S A VIDEO:
SCOWCROFT LETS THE CIAT OUTTA THE BAG

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wr2SALuISyk

Read more!!

Sunday, June 21, 2009

DRANT # 331: IRAN//CIA- THE TRUTH KEEPS ON COMING

It ain't just me howling in the wind.
Others around what used to be called The World are sniffing and howling as well. The Iran "uprising" stinks to Jannah-- the most obvious C.I.A. op since 1953 with our old pals Kermit Roosevelt, Mossadegh and Da Shah.
Don't take my woid- I am just an old hippie with an overactive Bullshit Detector I've been tweaking since the Dodgers abandoned me in Brooklyn. Take it from Paul Craig Roberts - he's been one of Them (big-time) , and now he's acting like one of Us a lot of the time.
Take it from him -- This is a C.I.A. op- in green.
_____________

Are the Iranian Election Protests Another US Orchestrated 'Color Revolution'?




By Paul Craig Roberts



June 20, 2009 "Information Clearing House" -- -A
number of commentators have expressed their idealistic belief in the
purity of Mousavi, Montazeri, and the westernized youth of Terhan. The
CIA destabilization plan, announced two years ago (see below) has
somehow not contaminated unfolding events.



The claim is made that Ahmadinejad stole the election, because the
outcome was declared too soon after the polls closed for all the votes
to have been counted. However, Mousavi declared his victory several
hours before the polls closed. This is classic CIA destabilization
designed to discredit a contrary outcome. It forces an early
declaration of the vote. The longer the time interval between the
preemptive declaration of victory and the announcement of the vote
tally, the longer Mousavi has to create the impression that the
authorities are using the time to fix the vote. It is amazing that
people don't see through this trick.




As for the grand ayatollah Montazeri's charge that the election was
stolen, he was the initial choice to succeed Khomeini, but lost out to
the current Supreme Leader. He sees in the protests an opportunity to
settle the score with Khamenei. Montazeri has the incentive to
challenge the election whether or not he is being manipulated by the
CIA, which has a successful history of manipulating disgruntled
politicians.



There is a power struggle among the ayatollahs. Many are aligned
against Ahmadinejad because he accuses them of corruption, thus playing
to the Iranian countryside where Iranians believe the ayatollahs'
lifestyles indicate an excess of power and money. In my opinion,
Ahmadinejad's attack on the ayatollahs is opportunistic. However, it
does make it odd for his American detractors to say he is a
conservative reactionary lined up with the ayatollahs.



Commentators are "explaining" the Iran elections based on their own
illusions, delusions, emotions, and vested interests. Whether or not
the poll results predicting Ahmadinejad's win are sound, there is, so
far, no evidence beyond surmise that the election was stolen. However,
there are credible reports that the CIA has been working for two years
to destabilize the Iranian government.



On May 23, 2007, Brian Ross and Richard Esposito reported on ABC News:
"The CIA has received secret presidential approval to mount a covert
"black" operation to destabilize the Iranian government, current and
former officials in the intelligence community tell ABC News."



On May 27, 2007, the London Telegraph independently reported: "Mr. Bush
has signed an official document endorsing CIA plans for a propaganda
and disinformation campaign intended to destabilize, and eventually
topple, the theocratic rule of the mullahs."



A few days previously, the Telegraph reported on May 16, 2007, that
Bush administration neocon warmonger John Bolton told the Telegraph
that a US military attack on Iran would "be a 'last option' after
economic sanctions and attempts to foment a popular revolution had
failed."



On June 29, 2008, Seymour Hersh reported in the New Yorker: "Late last
year, Congress agreed to a request from President Bush to fund a major
escalation of covert operations against Iran, according to current and
former military, intelligence, and congressional sources. These
operations, for which the President sought up to four hundred million
dollars, were described in a Presidential Finding signed by Bush, and
are designed to destabilize the country's religious leadership."



The protests in Tehran no doubt have many sincere participants. The
protests also have the hallmarks of the CIA orchestrated protests in
Georgia and Ukraine.

It requires total blindness not to see this.



Daniel McAdams has made some telling points. http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/027782.html

For example, neoconservative Kenneth Timmerman wrote the day before the
election that "there's talk of a 'green revolution' in Tehran." How
would Timmerman know that unless it was an orchestrated plan? Why would
there be a 'green revolution' prepared prior to the vote, especially if
Mousavi and his supporters were as confident of victory as they claim?
This looks like definite evidence that the US is involved in the
election protests.


Timmerman goes on
to write that "the National Endowment for Democracy has spent millions
of dollars promoting 'color' revolutions . . . Some of that money
appears to have made it into the hands of pro-Mousavi groups, who have
ties to non-governmental organizations outside Iran that the National
Endowment for Democracy funds." Timmerman's own neocon Foundation for
Democracy is "a private, non-profit organization established in 1995
with grants from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), to promote
democracy and internationally-recognized standards of human rights in
Iran."



Read more!!

Friday, June 19, 2009

DRANT # 330: IRAN= C.I.A. OP

In my last DRANT, I wrote about how IRAN is a total C.I.A. OP, how the pimp media is once again conspiring with the CIA and US government to create destructive lies, and how this is IRAN 1953 all over again, not to mention Georgia, Ukraine, Gaza, etc etc. This time the CIA picked green for its cute headbands, but all the rest is the same.
Many are jumping on the bandwagon now- but NOBODY I have seen has made the obvious C.I.A. and historical link.

More on this below-


Iranian Elections: The 'Stolen Elections' Hoax
(from ZIOPEDIA)

Friday, 19 June 2009 06:30
by James Petras

Change for the poor means food and jobs, not a relaxed dress code or mixed recreation...Politics in Iran is a lot more about class war than religion. Financial Times Editorial, June 15 2009
There is hardly any election, in which the White House has a significant stake, where the electoral defeat of the pro-US candidate is not denounced as illegitimate by the entire political and mass media elite. In the most recent period, the White House and its camp followers cried foul following the free (and monitored) elections in Venezuela and Gaza, while joyously fabricating an 'electoral success' in Lebanon despite the fact that the Hezbollah-led coalition received over 53% of the vote.

The recently concluded, June 12, 2009 elections in Iran are a classic case: The incumbent nationalist-populist President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (MA) received 63.3% of the vote (or 24.5 million votes), while the leading Western-backed liberal opposition candidate Hossein Mousavi (HM) received 34.2% or (3.2 million votes). Iran's presidential election drew a record turnout of more than 80% of the electorate, including an unprecedented overseas vote of 234,812, in which HM won 111,792 to MA's 78,300. The opposition led by HM did not accept their defeat and organized a series of mass demonstrations that turned violent, resulting in the burning and destruction of automobiles, banks, public building and armed confrontations with the police and other authorities. Almost the entire spectrum of Western opinion makers, including all the major electronic and print media, the major liberal, radical, libertarian and conservative web-sites, echoed the opposition's claim of rampant election fraud. Neo-conservatives, libertarian conservatives and Trotskyites joined the Zionists in hailing the opposition protestors as the advance guard of a democratic revolution. Democrats and Republicans condemned the incumbent regime, refused to recognize the result of the vote and praised the demonstrators' efforts to overturn the electoral outcome. The New York Times, CNN, Washington Post, the Israeli Foreign Office and the entire leadership of the Presidents of the Major American Jewish Organizations called for harsher sanctions against Iran and announced Obama's proposed dialogue with Iran as 'dead in the water'.

The Electoral Fraud Hoax

Western leaders rejected the results because they 'knew' that their reformist candidate could not lose...For months they published daily interviews, editorials and reports from the field 'detailing' the failures of Ahmadinejad's administration; they cited the support from clerics, former officials, merchants in the bazaar and above all women and young urbanites fluent in English, to prove that Mousavi was headed for a landslide victory. A victory for Mousavi was described as a victory for the 'voices of moderation', at least the White House's version of that vacuous cliché. Prominent liberal academics deduced the vote count was fraudulent because the opposition candidate, Mousavi, lost in his own ethnic enclave among the Azeris. Other academics claimed that the 'youth vote' - based on their interviews with upper and middle-class university students from the neighborhoods of Northern Tehran were overwhelmingly for the 'reformist' candidate.

What is astonishing about the West's universal condemnation of the electoral outcome as fraudulent is that not a single shred of evidence in either written or observational form has been presented either before or a week after the vote count. During the entire electoral campaign, no credible (or even dubious) charge of voter tampering was raised. As long as the Western media believed their own propaganda of an immanent victory for their candidate, the electoral process was described as highly competitive, with heated public debates and unprecedented levels of public activity and unhindered by public proselytizing. The belief in a free and open election was so strong that the Western leaders and mass media believed that their favored candidate would win.

The Western media relied on its reporters covering the mass demonstrations of opposition supporters, ignoring and downplaying the huge turnout for Ahmadinejad. Worse still, the Western media ignored the class composition of the competing demonstrations - the fact that the incumbent candidate was drawing his support from the far more numerous poor working class, peasant, artisan and public employee sectors while the bulk of the opposition demonstrators was drawn from the upper and middle class students, business and professional class.

Moreover, most Western opinion leaders and reporters based in Tehran extrapolated their projections from their observations in the capital - few venture into the provinces, small and medium size cities and villages where Ahmadinejad has his mass base of support. Moreover the opposition's supporters were an activist minority of students easily mobilized for street activities, while Ahmadinejad's support drew on the majority of working youth and household women workers who would express their views at the ballot box and had little time or inclination to engage in street politics.

A number of newspaper pundits, including Gideon Rachman of the Financial Times, claim as evidence of electoral fraud the fact that Ahmadinejad won 63% of the vote in an Azeri-speaking province against his opponent, Mousavi, an ethnic Azeri. The simplistic assumption is that ethnic identity or belonging to a linguistic group is the only possible explanation of voting behavior rather than other social or class interests. A closer look at the voting pattern in the East-Azerbaijan region of Iran reveals that Mousavi won only in the city of Shabestar among the upper and the middle classes (and only by a small margin), whereas he was soundly defeated in the larger rural areas, where the re-distributive policies of the Ahmadinejad government had helped the ethnic Azeris write off debt, obtain cheap credits and easy loans for the farmers. Mousavi did win in the West-Azerbaijan region, using his ethnic ties to win over the urban voters. In the highly populated Tehran province, Mousavi beat Ahmadinejad in the urban centers of Tehran and Shemiranat by gaining the vote of the middle and upper class districts, whereas he lost badly in the adjoining working class suburbs, small towns and rural areas.

The careless and distorted emphasis on 'ethnic voting' cited by writers from the Financial Times and New York Times to justify calling Ahmadinejad 's victory a 'stolen vote' is matched by the media's willful and deliberate refusal to acknowledge a rigorous nationwide public opinion poll conducted by two US experts just three weeks before the vote, which showed Ahmadinejad leading by a more than 2 to 1 margin - even larger than his electoral victory on June 12. This poll revealed that among ethnic Azeris, Ahmadinejad was favored by a 2 to 1 margin over Mousavi, demonstrating how class interests represented by one candidate can overcome the ethnic identity of the other candidate (Washington Post June 15, 2009). The poll also demonstrated how class issues, within age groups, were more influential in shaping political preferences than 'generational life style'. According to this poll, over two-thirds of Iranian youth were too poor to have access to a computer and the 18-24 year olds "comprised the strongest voting bloc for Ahmadinejad of all groups" (Washington Porst June 15, 2009). The only group, which consistently favored Mousavi, was the university students and graduates, business owners and the upper middle class. The 'youth vote', which the Western media praised as 'pro-reformist', was a clear minority of less than 30% but came from a highly privileged, vocal and largely English speaking group with a monopoly on the Western media. Their overwhelming presence in the Western news reports created what has been referred to as the 'North Tehran Syndrome', for the comfortable upper class enclave from which many of these students come. While they may be articulate, well dressed and fluent in English, they were soundly out-voted in the secrecy of the ballot box.

In general, Ahmadinejad did very well in the oil and chemical producing provinces. This may have be a reflection of the oil workers' opposition to the 'reformist' program, which included proposals to 'privatize' public enterprises. Likewise, the incumbent did very well along the border provinces because of his emphasis on strengthening national security from US and Israeli threats in light of an escalation of US-sponsored cross-border terrorist attacks from Pakistan and Israeli-backed incursions from Iraqi Kurdistan, which have killed scores of Iranian citizens. Sponsorship and massive funding of the groups behind these attacks is an official policy of the US from the Bush Administration, which has not been repudiated by President Obama; in fact it has escalated in the lead-up to the elections.

What Western commentators and their Iranian protégés have ignored is the powerful impact which the devastating US wars and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan had on Iranian public opinion: Ahmadinejad's strong position on defense matters contrasted with the pro-Western and weak defense posture of many of the campaign propagandists of the opposition.

The great majority of voters for the incumbent probably felt that national security interests, the integrity of the country and the social welfare system, with all of its faults and excesses, could be better defended and improved with Ahmadinejad than with upper-class technocrats supported by Western-oriented privileged youth who prize individual life styles over community values and solidarity.

The demography of voting reveals a real class polarization pitting high income, free market oriented, capitalist individualists against working class, low income, community based supporters of a 'moral economy' in which usury and profiteering are limited by religious precepts. The open attacks by opposition economists of the government welfare spending, easy credit and heavy subsidies of basic food staples did little to ingratiate them with the majority of Iranians benefiting from those programs. The state was seen as the protector and benefactor of the poor workers against the 'market', which represented wealth, power, privilege and corruption. The Opposition's attack on the regime's 'intransigent' foreign policy and positions 'alienating' the West only resonated with the liberal university students and import-export business groups. To many Iranians, the regime's military buildup was seen as having prevented a US or Israeli attack.

The scale of the opposition's electoral deficit should tell us is how out of touch it is with its own people's vital concerns. It should remind them that by moving closer to Western opinion, they removed themselves from the everyday interests of security, housing, jobs and subsidized food prices that make life tolerable for those living below the middle class and outside the privileged gates of Tehran University.

Amhadinejad's electoral success, seen in historical comparative perspective should not be a surprise. In similar electoral contests between nationalist-populists against pro-Western liberals, the populists have won. Past examples include Peron in Argentina and, most recently, Chavez of Venezuela, Evo Morales in Bolivia and even Lula da Silva in Brazil, all of whom have demonstrated an ability to secure close to or even greater than 60% of the vote in free elections. The voting majorities in these countries prefer social welfare over unrestrained markets, national security over alignments with military empires.

The consequences of the electoral victory of Ahmadinejad are open to debate. The US may conclude that continuing to back a vocal, but badly defeated, minority has few prospects for securing concessions on nuclear enrichment and an abandonment of Iran's support for Hezbollah and Hamas. A realistic approach would be to open a wide-ranging discussion with Iran, and acknowledging, as Senator Kerry recently pointed out, that enriching uranium is not an existential threat to anyone. This approach would sharply differ from the approach of American Zionists, embedded in the Obama regime, who follow Israel's lead of pushing for a preemptive war with Iran and use the specious argument that no negotiations are possible with an 'illegitimate' government in Tehran which 'stole an election'.

Recent events suggest that political leaders in Europe, and even some in Washington, do not accept the Zionist-mass media line of 'stolen elections'. The White House has not suspended its offer of negotiations with the newly re-elected government but has focused rather on the repression of the opposition protesters (and not the vote count). Likewise, the 27 nation European Union expressed 'serious concern about violence' and called for the "aspirations of the Iranian people to be achieved through peaceful means and that freedom of expression be respected" (Financial Times June 16, 2009 p.4). Except for Sarkozy of France, no EU leader has questioned the outcome of the voting.

The wild card in the aftermath of the elections is the Israeli response: Netanyahu has signaled to his American Zionist followers that they should use the hoax of 'electoral fraud' to exert maximum pressure on the Obama regime to end all plans to meet with the newly re-elected Ahmadinejad regime.

Paradoxically, US commentators (left, right and center) who bought into the electoral fraud hoax are inadvertently providing Netanyahu and his American followers with the arguments and fabrications: Where they see religious wars, we see class wars; where they see electoral fraud, we see imperial destabilization.

Prof. James Petras is a regular contributor to Ziopedia.
_____________________________________________________________
DRANT #329- IRAN HOAX

U been duped bro.
This is a CIA op.
You can tell easy- nice new green headbands, and pre printed three foot high banners.
Can you say 1953 ?
Please take a step back, and look at this scenario--
The Orange was nice in Ukraine, and the Rose in Georgia was really cool too, but I think its so groovy that the CIA picked green this time.
Please turn your bullshit detector up a few notches.
Why would some pro Ahmadinjad agent kill a protestor, if they, as obviously they do- know full well that it would cause a funeral and another demo ?
Kermit Roosevelt would fit right in here.....
Its obvious that the CIA, as in 1953, as in Ukraine and Georgia, are fomenting and aiding and abetting this, with their Tontoesque pimp media. The media is not "getting it wrong", they are - once again, the puppet partners of the CIA and US interests.
Shucks, I guess we'll just have to go there and restore democracy, goshdarnit.
Maybe Israel will help ?
Ubetcha they will.
===

The CIA's Iranian Plan?
Video
Is the CIA involved in Iran's recent election unrest.
===

In case you missed it Effects of ill-advised CIA plot in Iran still haunts U.S.

By John M. Crisp
I suspect that the average American has never heard of Mohammad Mossadegh and Operation Ajax.
===





























































Wishful thinking from Tehran

Since the revolution, academics and pundits have predicted the collapse
of the Iranian regime. This week, they did no better



















Abbas Barzegar


guardian.co.uk,
Saturday 13 June 2009 11.40 BST
===
Charting Western Omniscience
In Post-Elections Iran
By Ali Jawad

Come the Iranian elections and the unexpected landslide victory in favour of Ahmedinejad, and once again rushing to enlighten the world are the normatively 'All-Knowing' Western capitals and media pundits. Swarming the airwaves, one and all cried out 'fraud', 'stolen elections' and a 'nation's will silenced'
===


Read more!!

DRANT # 329: IRAN HOAX


U been duped bro.
This is a CIA op.
You can tell easy- nice new green headbands, and pre printed three foot high banners.
Can you say 1953 ?
Please take a step back, and look at this scenario--
The Orange was nice in Ukraine, and the Rose in Georgia was really cool too, but I think its so groovy that the CIA picked green this time.
Please turn your bullshit detector up a few notches.
Why would some pro Ahmadinjad agent kill a protestor, if they, as obviously they do- know full well that it would cause a funeral and another demo ?
Kermit Roosevelt would fit right in here.....
Its obvious that the CIA, as in 1953, as in Ukraine and Georgia, are fomenting and aiding and abetting this, with their Tontoesque pimp media. The media is not "getting it wrong", they are - once again, the puppet partners of the CIA and US interests.
Shucks, I guess we'll just have to go there and restore democracy, goshdarnit.
Maybe Israel will help ?
Ubetcha they will.
===

The CIA's Iranian Plan?
Video
Is the CIA involved in Iran's recent election unrest.
===

In case you missed it Effects of ill-advised CIA plot in Iran still haunts U.S.

By John M. Crisp
I suspect that the average American has never heard of Mohammad Mossadegh and Operation Ajax.
===





























































Wishful thinking from Tehran

Since the revolution, academics and pundits have predicted the collapse
of the Iranian regime. This week, they did no better



















Abbas Barzegar


guardian.co.uk,
Saturday 13 June 2009 11.40 BST
===
Charting Western Omniscience
In Post-Elections Iran
By Ali Jawad

Come the Iranian elections and the unexpected landslide victory in favour of Ahmedinejad, and once again rushing to enlighten the world are the normatively 'All-Knowing' Western capitals and media pundits. Swarming the airwaves, one and all cried out 'fraud', 'stolen elections' and a 'nation's will silenced'
===
Iran: Election Clashes Mount As West Escalates Pressure
By Bill Van Auken

Mousavi's so-called reforms were pitched largely to a relatively privileged and narrow social base. The reforms themselves consisted essentially of a toning down of the rhetoric employed by Ahmadinejad in order to smooth the way to improved relations with Washington, an easing of US-backed sanctions and the opening up of the country to foreign capital
===
Are You Ready For War With Demonized Iran?

By Paul Craig Roberts
How much attention do elections in Japan, India, Argentina, or any other country, get from the US media? How many Americans and American journalists even know who is in political office in other countries besides England, France, and Germany? Who can name the political leaders of Switzerland, Holland, Brazil, Japan, or even China? Yet, many know of Iran's President Ahmadinejad. The reason is obvious. He is daily demonized in the US media.
===

The "Bomb Iran" Contingent's Newfound Concern for The Iranian People

By Glenn Greenwald

Much of the same faction now claiming such concern for the welfare of The Iranian People are the same people who have long been advocating a military attack on Iran and the dropping of large numbers of bombs on their country -- actions which would result in the slaughter of many of those very same Iranian People.
===
Ahmadinejad Won. Get Over It

By FLYNT LEVERETT AND HILLARY MANN LEVERETT

The shock of the "Iran experts" over Friday's results is entirely self-generated, based on their preferred assumptions and wishful thinking.
===
Rafsanjani's Gambit Backfires

By M K Bhadrakumar

Who is Mir Hossein Mousavi, Ahmedinejad's main opponent in the election? He is an enigma wrapped in mystery. He impressed the Iranian youth and the urban middle class as a reformer and a modernist. Yet, as Iran's prime minister during 1981-89, Mousavi was an unvarnished hardliner.
===

The Larger Context of the 2009 Iranian Elections

By Reza Fiyouzat

The presidential elections of June 12 were held within a theocratic system. In this system, in order to run for a political office, candidates must swear allegiance to the theocratic setup. From its inception, therefore, the theocracy has divided the entire population into two major political groups.

===


Read more!!