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Welcome to my Cyber living room.

Posts tagged with "politics"

China wins and wins..and wins..and wins......As the West cries the tears of jealousy and envy...

,

Jianping Fan - China


Stephane Peray - Thailand


Angel Boligan - Mexico


Pavel Constantin - Romania


Ares - Cuba




Book(s) recommendation and some interesting articles

, , , ...

Notice:
UNDER THE LAW NUMBER 5651
I will NOT include links with the articles, news items, etc...etc... because I will be held responsible(as all Turkish internet users)for all the content and links to and out of the site(s).
tkm
p.s. Please click the link bellow to read in full for the legal resons.
http://my.opera.com/talatkm/blog/2007/05/24/intent-of-the-censors-mind
-----------------------------------

Hi Folks,
Some good weekend reading and some interesting books.
Enjoy
tkm
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Supercapitalism: The Transformation of Business, Democracy, and Everyday Life (Hardcover)
by Robert B. Reich
------------------
info from Amazon

Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
In this compelling and important analysis of the triumph of capitalism and the decline of democracy, former labor secretary Reich urges us to rebalance the roles of business and government. Power, he writes, has shifted away from us in our capacities as citizens and toward us as consumers and investors. While praising the spread of global capitalism, he laments that supercapitalism has brought with it alienation from politics and community. The solution: to separate capitalism from democracy, and guard the border between them. Plainspoken and forceful, if somewhat repetitious, the book urges new and strengthened laws and regulations to restore authority to the citizens in us. Reich's proposals are anything but knee-jerk liberal: he calls for abolishing the corporate income tax and labels the corporate social responsibility movement distracting and even counterproductive. As in 2004's Reason, Reich exhibits perhaps too much confidence in Americans' ability to think and act in their own best interests. But he refuses to shift blame for corporations' dominance to the usual suspects, instead pointing a finger at consumers like you and me who want better deals, and from investors like us who want better returns, he writes. Provocatively argued, this book could help begin a necessary national conversation. (Sept. 6)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Book Description
From the greatly admired author of The Work of Nations and The Future of Success, one of America's greatest economic and political thinkers as well as a distinguished public servant in three national administrations, a breakthrough book on the clash between capitalism and democracy.

Mid-twentieth-century capitalism has turned into global capitalism, and global capitalism—turbocharged, Web-based, and able to find and make almost anything just about anywhere—has turned into supercapitalism. But as Robert B. Reich makes clear in this eye-opening book, while supercapitalism is working wonderfully well to enlarge the economic pie, democracy—charged with caring for all citizens—is becoming less and less effective under its influence.

Reich explains how widening inequalities of income and wealth, heightened job insecurity, and the spreading effects of global warming are the logical outcomes of supercapitalism. He shows us why companies, fighting harder than ever to maintain their competitive positions, have become even more deeply involved in politics; and how average citizens, seeking great deals and invested in the stock market to an unprecedented degree, are increasingly loath to stand by their values if it means biting the hands that feed them. He makes clear how the tools traditionally used to temper America's societal problems—fair taxation, well-funded public education, trade unions—have withered as supercapitalism has burgeoned.

Reich sets out a clear course to a vibrant capitalism and a concurrent, equally vibrant democracy. He argues forcefully that the spheres of business and politics must be kept distinct. He calls for an end to the legal fiction that corporations are citizens, as well as the illusion that corporations can be "socially responsible" until laws define social needs. Reich explains why we must stop treating companies as if they were people—and must therefore abolish the corporate income tax and levy it on shareholders instead, hold individuals rather than corporations guilty of criminal conduct, and not expect companies to be "patriotic." For, as Reich says, only people can be citizens, and only citizens should be allowed to participate in democratic decision making.

Hardcover: 288 pages
Publisher: Knopf (September 4, 2007)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0307265617
ISBN-13: 978-0307265616
******************************************************

Five Minds for the Future (Hardcover)

Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Psychologist, author and Harvard professor Gardner (Multiple Intelligences: New Horizons) has put together a thought-provoking, visionary attempt to delineate the kinds of mental abilities ("minds") that will be critical to success in a 21st century landscape of accelerating change and information overload. Gardner's five minds-disciplined, synthesizing, creating, respectful and ethical-are not personality types, but ways of thinking available to anyone who invests the time and effort to cultivate them: "how we should use our minds." In presenting his "values enterprise," Gardner uses a variety of explanatory models, from developmental psychology to group dynamics, demonstrating their utility not just for individual development, but for tangible success in a full range of human endeavors, including education, business, science, art, politics and engineering. A tall order for a single work, Gardner avoids overly-technical arguments as well as breezy generalizations, putting to fine use his twenty years experience as a cognitive science researcher, author and educator, and proving his world-class reputation well-earned. Though specialists might wish Gardner dug a bit more into the research, most readers will find the book lively and engaging, like the fascinating lectures of a seasoned, beloved prof.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

# Hardcover: 196 pages
# Publisher: Harvard Business School Press; 1 edition (April 3, 2007)
# Language: English
# ISBN-10: 1591399122
# ISBN-13: 978-1591399124
----------------------------
Multiple Intelligences: New Horizons (Paperback)
by Howard Gardner

Editorial Reviews
Book Description
Gardner's seminal 1993 account of the practical applications of Multiple Intelligences theory is now completely updated and expanded to reflect the latest developments in the field

Howard Gardner's brilliant conception of individual competence has changed the face of education in the twenty-three years since the publication of his classic work, Frames of Mind. Since then thousands of educators, parents, and researchers have explored the practical implications and applications of Multiple Intelligences theory--the powerful notion that there are separate human capacities, ranging from musical intelligence to the intelligence involved in self-understanding.

The first decade of research on MI theory and practice was reported in the 1993 edition of Multiple Intelligences. This new edition covers all developments since then and stands as the most thorough and up-to-date account of MI available anywhere. Completely revised throughout, it features new material on global applications and on MI in the workplace, an assessment of MI practice in the current conservative educational climate, new evidence about brain functioning, and much more.

About the Author
Howard Gardner is the John H. and Elisabeth A. Hobbs Professor in Cognition and Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Among numerous honors, Gardner received a MacArthur Prize Fellowship in 1981. In 1990, he was the first American to receive the University of Louisville's Grawemeyer Award in education. In 2000, he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

# Paperback: 300 pages
# Publisher: Perseus Books Group (August 31, 2006)
# Language: English
# ISBN-10: 0465047688
# ISBN-13: 978-0465047680
-------------------------------------
Incirlik proves efficient for supply missions
By Kent Harris, Stars and Stripes
European edition, Monday, September 3, 2007

INCIRLIK AIR BASE, Turkey — The faces may change after a few weeks or months. But the missions remain the same: Deliver tons of supplies downrange.

The 385th Air Expeditionary Group — composed of C-17 Globemasters, KC-135 Stratotankers and all the airmen it takes to fly them and keep them operating — has been operating out of Incirlik for a little more than two years.

Active-duty, Reserve and National Guard elements from bases around the States rotate in on tours that range from a few weeks to four months. They support two missions: the 817th Expeditionary Airlift Squadron (C-17s) and 90th Expeditionary Air Refueling Squadron (KC-135s).

For the C-17s, it’s about an hour to the Iraq border from Incirlik.

“It’s really a great place to sustain from,” said Lt. Col. Brian Newberry, commander of the 817th. He and his squadron — the 7th Airlift Squadron when it’s operating out of McChord Air Force Base in the state of Washington — arrived in July. They’ve moved about 20 million pounds a month since then.

McChord supplies all the mission’s personnel based at Incirlik and Manas Air Base in Kyrgyzstan. Charleston Air Force Base supplies the planes and personnel for the 816th Expeditionary Airlift Squadron at Al Udeid, Qatar. Planes and personnel from McGuire Air Force Base soon will join the rotation.

Col. Joe Mancy, the 385th commander, said the C-17 operation started a 16-month rotation about a year ago. A squadron’s worth of planes and most of its personnel deploy for four months, then head back to the States for other missions until it’s their turn again 12 months later.

“That’s proved to be an extremely efficient way to do it,” he said.

Crews fly about every other day on missions that take about 16 hours. Commercial aircraft start the process by bringing their loads into Incirlik. The pallets are then transferred and flown into Iraq on the C-17s. Similar operations at Manas and Al Udeid, which fall under Mancy’s command, carry more cargo into Afghanistan and Iraq.

But not all the military cargo planes coming into theater come through Incirlik. So KC-135s from Incirlik and other locations around the theater fly out to provide fuel in air before they fly to their final destinations.

Lt. Col. Mary Aldrin said most missions from Incirlik take about three hours, with the actual refueling occurring over the Black Sea. She and the rest of her squadron hail from March Air Force Base and are all reservists. Airmen in the 90th EARS generally stay for a month or less and volunteer for the assignment.

Aldrin said her squadron has pumped about 5 million pounds of fuel during its stay in Incirlik. It’s due to be replaced soon by a National Guard unit.

Mancy said though the airmen in his group serve only short tours at Incirlik, they’re welcomed by the rest of the base.

“They’re terrific,” he said. “We’re treated just like tenants.”
-----------------------------------


Le Monde diplomatique

August 2007

US: overt and covert destabilisation

By Hernando Calvo Ospina

The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) was created in 1983, ostensibly as a non-profit-making organisation to promote human rights and democracy. In 1991 its first president, the historian Allen Weinstein, confessed to The Washington Post: “A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA” (1).

Long before the NED was created, the same newspaper had revealed in 1967 how the CIA funded foreign trade unions, cultural organisations, media, and prominent intellectuals. As Philip Agee, a former operative with the Company told me in an interview in 2005: “The CIA used known American foundations, as well as other custom-made entities that existed only on paper.”

Under pressure, President Lyndon Johnson ordered an investigation, although he was aware that the CIA had been mandated to carry out such activities since its creation in 1947. Agee said: “In the aftermath of World War II, faced with threats to our democratic allies and without any mechanism to channel political assistance, US policy makers resorted to covert means, secretly sending advisers, equipment and funds to support newspapers and parties under siege in Europe” (2). They had to counter the Soviet Union’s ideological influence at the start of the cold war.

The funded organisations sometimes managed to weaken and even eliminate opposition to friendly governments, while creating a climate favourable to US interests. There were coups, such as the one in Brazil in 1964 that overthrew President João Goulart. The coup against Chilean president Salvador Allende in 1973 showed that the US government had not abandoned such methods. Agee claimed: “To prepare the ground for the military, we funded and channelled the forces of leading organisations in civil society and the media. It was an improved version of the coup in Brazil.”
The battle of ideas

In 1975 the CIA was investigated by the Senate, particularly its involvement in plots against political leaders throughout the world, including Patrice Lumumba, Allende and Fidel Castro. The success of revolutionary movements in Africa and Latin America forced the US to recognise that although the strategy of infiltrating social organisations remained crucial, the tactics were counter-productive. So, “to wage the battle of ideas, the Johnson administration recommended the establishment of a public-private mechanism to fund overseas activities openly” (3).

The American Political Foundation (APF), established in 1979, was a coalition of the Democratic and Republican parties, union leaders and employers, conservative academics and institutions relating to foreign policy. It was based on a model developed in West Germany, where the four major political parties had set up government-funded foundations as a response to the cold war. The most important of these was the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, linked to the Christian Democratic Union (4).

In January 1983 President Ronald Reagan signed the secret directive NSDD-77 (5), the result of what he described in a speech to the British parliament as a process designed “to foster the infrastructure of democracy” and “to determine how the United States can best contribute… to the global campaign for democracy” (6). The directive called for “close collaboration with foreign policy efforts – diplomatic, economic, military – as well as a close relationship with sectors of the American society – labour, business, universities, philanthropy, political parties, press.”

Reagan kept quiet about the directive when he presented an APF proposal, the Democracy Programme, to Congress. An act of 23 November 1983 ratified the creation of the NED. At a ceremony at the White House in December he announced: “This programme will not be hidden in shadows. It’ll stand proudly in the spotlight. And, of course, it will be consistent with our own national interests” (7).
Anti-Sandinista dollars

The NED consisted of four core organisations responsible for its management. One already existed: the Free Trade Union Institute was a branch of the AFL-CIO trade union federation and was later incorporated into the American Centre for International Labour Solidarity. The others were the Centre for International Private Enterprise, an affiliate of the US Chamber of Commerce; the National Republican Institute for International Affairs; and the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs.

Although legally an NGO, the NED was funded from the State Department budget, subject to congressional approval. As well as allowing the government to disclaim any formal responsibility, this offered a further strategic advantage. As former State Department official William Blum said: “Notice the non-governmental – this helps to maintain a certain credibility abroad that an official US government agency might not have.”

In October 1986 the Reagan administration was shaken by the revelation that it had illegally funded the insurgency against the Sandinista government in Nicaragua, using money from cocaine trafficking. By coincidence, the operation, coordinated by Colonel Oliver North and authorised by the National Security Council (NSC), was called the Democracy Programme. The NED played a key role. But the investigation was more interested in the funding of the Nicaraguan counter-revolutionaries, the Contras, than in the involvement of this “NGO”, although the NED was supervised from its creation until 1987 by Walter Raymond, a senior CIA officer and a member of the NSC’s intelligence directorate.

The Cuban American National Foundation (CANF) was an extremist anti-Castro organisation set up by the NSC at the same time as the NED. The foundation’s president, Jorge Mas Canosa, said: “The NED inherited Ronald Reagan’s Democracy Programme and provided funding to many Latin-American groups, including the CANF.” Convinced that the road to Cuban freedom lay through Nicaragua, the CANF committed itself to the anti-Sandinista struggle. Mas Canosa said: “This collaboration began when Theodore Shackley, the CIA’s former deputy director of operations and head of its covert operations section, asked members of the foundation to support Central American policy.”

In 1987, during the Contra scandal, the NED funded a front of anti-Sandinista organisations, including the permanent human rights commission of Nicaragua. This support helped Violeta Chamorro, Washington’s preferred candidate and the owner of the “independent” newspaper La Prensa, to win the presidency in 1990.
A non-governmental crusade

The NED’s talent for channelling money, establishing NGOs, electoral manipulation and media brainwashing owed much to the long experience of the CIA, the State Department’s foreign aid agency USAID, and members of the conservative elite associated with US foreign policy (including John Negroponte, Jeane Kirkpatrick and Francis Fukuyama). Terrorism apart, the Reagan administration used the same methods in eastern Europe, where it conducted “a non-governmental crusade for human rights and democracy which avoided accusations of imperialism by presenting itself as a direct response to the needs of dissidents and reformers worldwide” (8). Here the gap between rulers and ruled made it easier for the NED and its network of organisations to use money and advertising to manufacture thousands of supposed dissidents. After regime change, most of these individuals and the groups to which they had belonged evaporated.

One of the most historic victories was in Poland. As early as 1984 the NED was distributing direct aid to set up trade unions, newspapers and human rights groups, all “independent”. For the 1989 parliamentary elections, the NED handed $2.5m to the Solidarity movement, whose leader Lech Walesa, a powerful ally of the US, was elected president in 1990.

The collapse of the Soviet Union was a prelude to the NED’s global expansion. It mobilised its money and expertise to intervene in the social, economic and political affairs of 90 countries in Africa, Latin America, Asia and eastern Europe. As Gerald Sussman pointed out, “electoral interventions are critically important to US global policy objectives”. “Democracy building” by the NED and other US organisations has been refined: “Compared to the surreptitious and nakedly aggressive manner in which the CIA typically carried out its destabilising forays from the late 1940s through to the mid-1970s, current forms of electoral manipulation are conducted largely as spectacles of spin and moral drama” (9).

During the 1990 elections in Haiti, the NED invested $36m in the candidacy of Marc Bazin, a former World Bank official. Despite this, Jean-Bertrand Aristide was elected, only to be overthrown in 1991 after a media campaign funded by the NED and USAID.

In its first 10 years, the NED distributed $200m among 1,500 projects to support friends of the US (10). Since 1988 it has taken a significant interest in Venezuela. Philip Agee said: “There was a quiet operation against the Bolivarian revolution. It began under President Clinton and intensified under George Bush Jr. It’s like the campaign against the Sandinistas, but so far without the terrorism or the economic embargo: promote democracy, keep an eye on elections and support public life.” The US lawyer Eva Golinger discovered from official documents that between 2001 and 2006 the NED and USAID gave more than $20m to Venezuelan opposition groups and private media (11). On 25 April 2002 The New York Times revealed that Congress had ordered a quadrupling of the NED budget for Venezuela just a few months before the failed coup against President Hugo Chávez.
The campaign against Cuba

But the NED’s most consistent campaign has been against the government of Cuba, where it is believed to have invested some $20m over 20 years in an attempt to promote a “democratic transition”; $65m more has been contributed by USAID since 1996. Despite continued insistence upon the supreme necessity of democratic elections, official documents clearly specify that those elected must be to US governmental liking. Almost all the funds are in the hands of organisations based in the US and Europe. The governments of Poland, Romania and the Czech Republic receive a significant proportion of it in return for leading international pressure on Cuba. According to Laura Wides-Munoz (Associated Press, 29 December 2006), the NED paid them $2.4m in 2005.

Washington’s idea of democracy is elections and business walking hand in hand. In his January 2004 State of the Union address, President Bush announced that he would be asking Congress “to double the budget of the National Endowment for Democracy, and to focus its new work on the development of free elections, and free markets, free press, and free labour unions in the Middle East”; ideological work would accompany military action. Hitherto the NED’s involvement in the region had been minimal. It moved into Afghanistan in 2003. According to its website, it decided “to establish and strengthen business associations inside Afghanistan to ensure a more sustained and diversified effort to build democracy and market economy”. It funded emerging NGOs.

NGOs in occupied Iraq were funded with similar objectives, particularly in the north. Local organisations were supported by – and quickly became dependent upon – the NED. Under the banner of the struggle for democracy, they worked for a system whose interests seldom coincided with those of local people.

Uniquely for an NGO, the NED’s president must appear before the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee every year to account for its activities. In June 2006 Carl Gershman (president of the NED since April 1984) made an emergency appeal for more funds to support democracy. He claimed that NGOs in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Venezuela and Egypt needed more to confront “semi-authoritarian” governments. He later made an identical speech to the European parliament during the conference, “Democracy Promotion: the European Way”.

According to William Blum, the NED’s basic philosophy is that societies “are best served under a system of free enterprise, class cooperation… [and] minimal government intervention in the economy. A free-market economy is equated with democracy, reform and growth, and the merits of foreign investment are emphasised. NED’s reports carry on endlessly about democracy, but at best it’s a modest measure of mechanical political democracy they have in mind, not economic democracy; nothing that aims to threaten the powers that be.”
A weapon of global war

Addressing the UN General Assembly in September 1989, President George Bush Sr asserted that the challenge facing the world of freedom was to consolidate the foundations of freedom. In 1988, the Canadian parliament, encouraged by the US, had set up an NED clone, Rights and Democracy. In 1992 the British parliament established the Westminster Foundation for Democracy. Sweden followed with the Swedish International Liberal Centre, the Netherlands with the Alfred Mozer Foundation, and France with the Robert Schuman Foundation and the Jean Jaurès Foundation (linked to the Socialist Party).

As its network spread, the NED set up the Democracy Projects Database to coordinate 6,000 projects worldwide. It also created the Network of Democracy Research Institutes to bring together “independent institutions, university-based study centres, and research programs affiliated with political parties, labour unions, and democracy and human rights movements to facilitate contacts among democracy scholars and activists” (12). The NED hosts the Centre for International Media Assistance, which “brings together a broad range of media experts with the objective of strengthening support of free and independent media throughout the world” (13).

On the State Department’s official website, Carl Gershman declared that all these foundations, people and organisations were contributing to “building a worldwide movement for democracy”, a network of networks with the NED at its centre. Other foundations fell into step: the Friedrich Ebert Foundation in Germany; the Olof Palme International Centre in Sweden; the Renner Institute in Austria; and the Pablo Iglesias Foundation, linked to the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party.

In 1996, to justify increasing the NED’s budget, an enlightening report was submitted to Congress: “The US cannot afford to discard such an effective instrument of foreign policy at a time when American interests and values are under sustained ideological attack from a wide variety of anti-democratic forces around the world… [They] remain threatened by deeply entrenched communist regimes, neo-communists, aggressive dictatorships, radical nationalists, and Islamic fundamentalists. Given this reality, the US cannot afford to surrender the ideological battlefield to these enemies of a free and open society.” (14). Three years later, Benjamin Gilman, the president of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, took the same line.

As Blum put it: “What was done was to shift many of the awful things [done by the CIA] to a new organisation, with a nice sounding name. The creation of the NED was a masterpiece. Of politics, of public relations, and of cynicism.”
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turk internet
04-09-2007
Türk Is Dünyasini Etik Bulmayanlarin Orani %49,4.

Türkiye Etik Degerler Merkezi, (TEDMER), Türk isgücünün is etigine yaklasimi ve genelde kurumsal etik uygulamalarinin etkinligini tespit etmek amaciyla Etik Barometre Arastirmasi 2007 1. Dönem Raporunu açikladi.

Çalisma kapsaminda ISO 500 ve ERA Research ve Tedmer’in sagladigi diger listelerdeki sirketlerin üst düzey yöneticileri (CEO, Genel Müdür, Yönetim Kurulu Baskani, Üyesi, Genel Müdür Yardimcisi vb.), Kurumsal Iletisim, Insan Kaynaklari ve Pazarlama bölümleri yöneticileri ile görüsüldü. Sorular Era Research ve TEDMER isbirligi ile hazirlandi.

Online anket uygulamasinin yapildigi 84 kisiden %78,6’i Türkiye’de is etiginin tartisilmasinin erken oldugunu düsünürken %49,4’i Türk is dünyasinin etik olmadigina inaniyor. Avrupa Birligi'ne uyum sürecinin is etiginin gelisimini olumlu yönde etkileyecegine inananlarin orani % 90,5, is etigine uymanin firmalarin karlilik durumunu uzun vadede olumlu etkileyecegini düsünenlerin orani ise % 96,4.

Arastirmanin bir baska çarpici sonucu ise etik konusunda en fazla yol kat etmis sektörler olarak bankacilik ve finans % 63,0 oranla ilk sirada yer alirken insaat ve tekstil gibi sektörlerde bu oranin % 1,2’lerde kalmasi.

Öte yandan etik konusunda yerli ve yabanci firmalarin karsilastirilmasinda yabanci firmalari daha ileri noktada bulanlarin orani % 81,3’lerde yer aliyor.

Türkiye Etik Degerler Merkezi (TEDMER)

2002 yilinda faaliyetine baslamis olan vakif kurumlar için is etigi yönetmeni yetistiriyor.

TEDMER'in amaci, tüm is sektörleri ve meslekleriyle ilgili etik degerlerin arastirilmasi, degerlendirilmesi, etik standartlarinin ve ilkelerinin belirlenmesi, yurt sathinda duyurulmasi, egitiminin yapilmasi, etik degerlerle ilgili her türlü bilimsel çalismanin yapilmasi, uluslararasi isbirliklerinin kurulmasi ve bu konularda her türlü sirket, oda, dernek, vakif, birlik, meclis, enstitü, kurum, kurulus ve egitim ve arastirma kurumlarina hizmet verilmesi.

Bagimsiz bir sivil toplum kurulusu olan TEDMER toplumun tüm kesimlerinden destek alarak üniversite, özel sektör, devlet kurumlari ve uluslararasi etik merkezleri ile isbirligi halinde sürdürmeyi hedefliyor. TEDMER etikle ilgili her türlü konuda Türk insanina hizmet vermeye, bilgilendirmeye ve bilinçlendirmeye çalisiyor.


IS THERE A POPULATION PROBLEM?

, , , ...

Notice:
UNDER THE LAW NUMBER 5651
I will NOT include links with the articles, news items, etc...etc... because I will be held responsible(as all Turkish internet users)for all the content and links to and out of the site(s).
tkm
p.s. Please click the link bellow to read in full for the legal resons.
http://my.opera.com/talatkm/blog/2007/05/24/intent-of-the-censors-mind
-----------------------------------


Dear Readers,
Human population is one of those subjects that is very unpopular
to discuss. The subject has great impact on us all.
Unfortunately due to "Politically Correct" thinking which is sort of a cancer of the mind and somehow the near genocide of the European Jews by there fellow countrymen(Germans, French, Italians, Austrians....the list is to long, has made the subject tabu.
Hence making very clear this is NOT, NOT aimed to any minorities both ethnic and religious.
As the saying goes "We are all in the same boat".
Also the subject is to important to be left to the politicians.
We(the collective WE) will have to engage our scientists and
other experts in this topic.
Otherwise the generations that will proceed use will be left with a barren Earth.
Bellow are well throughout starter ideas.
k. talat muskara



--------------------------------------------------------------
IS THERE A POPULATION PROBLEM?

by Albert A. Bartlett


My answer to the question is “YES” there is a problem. The scale of human
activities is now so large that we are appreciably affecting the climate
and ecosystems in the U.S. and the world.

The total impact of people on the environment is proportional to each of
two factors:

A) The number of people, and

B) The average impact of each person.

If we are to reduce the total impact of people on the global environment,
we must address the first, or preferably both, of these factors.

There are many strong forces that will cause continued growth of the
average impact of each person on the global environment. To the extent
that people in underdeveloped countries seek to increase their material
standard of living to levels more like ours, material consumption per
capita will grow. So we are left with the imperative of halting population
growth, and then of studying the question, “Can this stable population be
sustained?”

To gain a better appreciation of the seriousness of the problem, let us
review some very elementary arithmetic. Let us consider a quantity that is
experiencing steady growth at a rate such as 5% per year.

First we note that this growing quantity will double in size in a fixed
time. This doubling time is found by dividing 70 by the percent growth
per year. For example, the doubling time for a steady growth rate of 5%
per year is 70 / 5 = 14 years.

Second, we note that a few doublings can give enormous numbers. It is
convenient to remember that ten doublings causes the growing quantity to
increase in size by a factor of approximately 1000: twenty doublings will
cause an increase by a factor of 1,000,000, etc.
Let us look at some current approximate, data (1997).

United States World

Population 270 million 5700 million

Annual increase 3 million 90 million

Annual growth rate 1 % per year 1.6 % per year

Doubling Time 70 years 44 years


The smallness of the annual growth rates is both deceiving and disarming.
We might initially think that surely nothing bad could happen at growth
rates as small as 1 % or 1.6 % per year. A study of the doubling times
brings us back to reality. If the world population continues to grow at
its present rate, it will double before today’s (1997) college students are
my age (74)! Think what this means in terms of food and resource consumption.

Population growth rates do not remain constant; they change in response to
physical and social factors. The world population growth rate was close to
zero through most of human history, and it started to increase
significantly a few centuries ago. Around 1970 it reached a high of about
2 % per year, from which it has recently declined to the estimated 1.6 %
per year. Detailed social studies and more elegant mathematical models can
give us insight into the mechanisms that affect these rates of growth.

Why, then, do we need to look at the simple models of constant growth rates?

First, they are a useful, though approximate, representation of the facts.

Second, we in the United States are in a culture that worships growth.
Steady growth of populations of our towns and cities is the goal toward
which the powerful promotional groups in our communities continuously
aspire. If a town’s population is growing, the town is said to be
“healthy,” or “vibrant,” and if the population is not growing the town is
said to be “stagnant.” Something that is not growing should properly be
called “stable.” Yet, the promoters of growth universally use the word
“stagnant” to describe the condition of stability, because “stagnant”
suggests something unpleasant while “stable” would suggest something
worthwhile, pleasant and desirable.

Since continued growth is the goal of the promoters in our communities, we
should understand the arithmetic of steady growth.

Now let’s look at some global aspects of our population problem.

1) Global Warming.
There is a growing scientific concensus that the early phases of global
warming may be upon us now. With each passing year, our knowledge of the
situation will increase so that we will know better if the earth is
warming, and if so, how rapidly change may occur. Whether or not the earth
is warming, it is clear that by pouring increasing quantities of greenhouse
gases into the earth’s atmosphere each year, we are embarked on a global
experiment whose outcome we don’t know. We don’t know if the effects of
increasing the greenhouse gases in the earth’s atmosphere are reversible.
We don’t know if the atmosphere go back to its pre-industrial condition if
we stopped all emissions of greenhouse gases, and if it would go back, we
don’t know how long it would take.

On the scale of a human lifetime, these changes happen very slowly. So
the burden of dealing with the unknown outcome of the present global
experiment, will not fall on today’s political decision makers: it will
fall on our children and grandchildren. Present population growth, so
ardently advocated by the many in the older generations, is putting our
children and grandchildren at risk. For centuries, parents have worked so
their children could have better lives and opportunities than they had. We
may now be doing just the reverse. We may be guaranteeing that our
children will not have the resources, opportunities and environment that we
have enjoyed.

2) The Ozone Hole
The destruction of ozone in the high atmosphere allows more ultra-violet
light to reach the surface of the earth where it can have serious
biological effects on plants and animals, including humans.

3) Food Grain
The Worldwatch Institute reports that global annual per capita production
of grain dropped from 346 kilograms per person in 1984 to 313 kilograms per
person in 1996. This is a drop of 9.5 % in just 8 years.

We’ve all heard it said that per capita food production has been growing
ever since the time of Thomas Malthus, and that this growth has proven him
wrong. Since the late 1980s grain production has leveled off, so the
continuing growth of populations means that the per capita production of
food is declining. Perhaps Malthus was right after all.

4) World Oceanic Fisheries
Growth in the annual oceanic fish catch stopped in 1989, and since then
the available fish per capita has been declining. For many of the world’s
people, fish is a major source of protein. Most of the world’s major
fishing areas are seriously depleted. The Grand Banks off of Newfoundland
was one of the world’s major fisheries, with stocks of fish once thought to
be unlimited. Now, these fish stocks are apparently almost gone.

5) Fresh Water
A report in January of 1997 from Stockholm indicated that by the year
2025, two-thirds of the world’s people will suffer from water shortages,
and the report noted that the rate of use of fresh water was growing at
twice the rate of world population.

All of these problems are caused by population growth, and none of these
problems can be “solved” if population growth continues.

Today we hear many people talking about “Sustainability,” as though we
can accomodate continued population growth with something vague and
ill-defined that is called “sustainable development.” The thought seems to
be that there is no need to worry about population: all we need to do is
to make minor modifications of our way of life, (conserve, recycle, etc.)
and this will suffice to make our society “sustainable.” Please remember
the First Law of Sustainability:

It is not possible to sustain population growth or growth in the rates of
consumption of resources.

We now must address two questions:

1) Where on Earth is the population problem the worst?

It is my opinion that the world’s worst population problem is right here
in the United States. This is because of our high per capita resource
consumption. It has been estimated that a person added to the population
of the United States will have 30 or more times the impact on world
resources as will a person added to the population of an underdeveloped
nation. Indeed, resource consumption in North America is roughly the same
as resource consumption in the entire rest of the world.

2) Where should we apply our efforts to have the most beneficial effect
in helping to solve the population problem?

The answer is, right here in the U.S.

For many people, the population problem is a problem of “those people,” in
distant undeveloped countries. In early 1997, many people succesfully
lobbied Congress to restore family planning assistance in the U.S. foreign
aid programs. This was a great victory, but it treats “those people” as
though they were the big problem. As one member of Congress said,

Unchecked population growth in the Third World means depletion of water
resources. It means famine. It means suffering. It pushes populations to
clear rainforests. It pushes populations to go out and graze on land that
cannot sustain cattle, and that leads to expansion of deserts worldwide.
We all have a stake in the global environment.

It is so easy to blame the problem on others and to identify what other
people should do to solve the problem, while we ignore our own
responsibilities and avoid doing anything to reduce the population problem
in the U.S. We need to work to stop population growth in the U.S.

There are two sources that contribute approximately equally to population
growth in the U.S.: the excess of births over deaths, and immigration.
Both of these must be addressed.

Let’s compare three aspects of efforts to stop population growth in other
countries with efforts to stop population growth in the United States.

1) When we give family planning assistance to other countries, we are
dealing with countries over which we have no legal jurisdiction and where
we have little or no immediate political responsibility.

When we confront population growth in the United States, we are dealing
with a country where we as citizens have full and complete jurisdiction,
and where we have political and family responsibilities. It should be much
easier to solve our problem than it is to solve other peoples’ problems.

2) The negative effects of runaway population growth in an underdeveloped
country are generally felt only in that country and in its immediate
neighbors.

The negative effects of population growth in the U.S. are felt throughout
the entire world, because of our enormous per capita consumption of
resources. Indeed, one of the aims of the many free-trade agreements about
which we currently hear so much, is to open up the world’s resources for
consumption by consumers in the U.S.

3) In countries receiving family planning assistance from the U.S. there
will always be individuals who will claim that this assistance is a form of
“genocide.” They will be strengthened in this belief if we in the U.S.
fail to take steps to halt our own population growth. As Tim Wirth of the
U.S. Department of State has said, the best thing that we in the U.S. can
do to help other countries stop their population growth, is to set an
example and stop our own population growth.

As you think about addressing the problem of population growth in the
U.S., please ponder this challenge:

Can you think of any problem, on any scale, from microscopic to global,
Whose long-term solution is in any demonstrable way,
Aided, assisted, or advanced, by having continued population growth
At the local level, the state level, the national level, or globally?

So we can see that Pogo was right:

“We’ve met the enemy, and they’s us!”
-------------------------------------------------------------------

“DEMOCRACY CANNOT SURVIVE OVERPOPULATION”
Albert A. Bartlett

Professor Emeritus
Department of Physics
University of Colorado at Boulder,


INTRODUCTION
We sometimes read the angry statements of citizens who claim that democracy in the United States is being willfully destroyed by evil and sinister public servants. It is easy to share the frustration that these citizens feel, because our lives each year are becoming more regulated and more crowded, our individual freedoms are diminishing, and individually, we seem to be less and less able to affect the flow of the events that diminish our freedoms.

But is this loss of freedom the result of willful actions of our public servants? Probably not. But the loss of freedoms is due in part to negligence of public officials, and this negligence may or may not be willful.

One can see two main causes of this diminution of our freedoms: technology and overpopulation.

TECHNOLOGY AND REGULATION
Technology has given us amazing new ways to annoy each other. These technological “aids to annoyance” range from cans of spray paint, to automobiles, to electronic megaphones, to high speed jet aircraft. One person with a can of spray paint can vandalize buildings; an act that annoys a few people. One careless person driving a car at high speed on a freeway can trigger a chain-reaction collision that involves dozens of cars. Electronic megaphones allow one person to annoy hundreds of people, and a high speed jet aircraft in supersonic flight over the crowded eastern seaboard of the U.S. can generate a sonic boom that affects millions of people.

It is necessary to regulate each new technology that enhances our ability to annoy others. Since science and technology have been characterized as the “endless frontier,” (Bush 1960) we can expect that we will see an endless progression of new regulations which become necessary to permit society to cope with the consequences of an unending series of annoying new technologies.

OVERPOPULATION AND THE LOSS OF DEMOCRACY
Let’s look at the loss of democracy that results from overpopulation. Here is a portion of an interview that the prominent journalist Bill Moyers conducted with the eminent scientist and science writer, Isaac Asimov: (Moyers 1989)

Bill Moyers: “What happens to the idea of the dignity of the human species
if this population growth continues at its present rate?”

Isaac Asimov: “It will be completely destroyed.
I like to use what I call my bathroom metaphor:
If two people live in an apartment, and there are two bathrooms,
Then both have freedom of the bathroom.
You can go to the bathroom anytime you want,
Stay as long as you want, for whatever you need.
And everyone believes in Freedom of the Bathroom;
It should be right there in the Constitution.

But if you have twenty people in the apartment and two bathrooms,
Then no matter how much every person
Believes in Freedom of the Bathroom, there’s no such thing.
You have to set up times for each person,
You have to bang on the door, ‘Aren’t you through yet?’
And so on.”

Asimov continues with what could be one of the most profound observations of the 20th Century:

“In the same way, democracy cannot survive overpopulation;
Human dignity cannot survive [overpopulation];
Convenience and decency cannot survive [overpopulation];
As you put more and more people into the world,
The value of life not only declines, it disappears.
It doesn’t matter if someone dies,
The more people there are, the less one individual matters.”

EXAMPLES
Here are two examples to illustrate the point that Asimov makes so eloquently, namely that democracy cannot survive overpopulation.

Article I of the Constitution of the United States, (1790) describes the House of Representatives, and says that “The number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty thousand...” In the year 2000 there are over 600,000 persons per member of the U.S. House of Representatives. Thus in 210 years we have seen democracy at the national level being diluted by a factor of approximately 600,000 / 30,000 = 20. From these figures one can estimate (Bartlett 1993) that since the founding of the United States, the average rate of loss of democracy at the national level has been about 1.4 % per year.

Indeed, in the year 2000, the population of the United States is growing at a rate of about 1 % per year, but the number of members of the U.S. House of Representatives remains constant at 435. Thus one can say that, as we start the 21st Century, the rate of loss of democracy at the national level in the United States is about 1 % per year.

A similar loss also occurs at the local level. In 1950 , the population of Boulder, Colorado was approximately 20,000 . In the year 2000 the population of Boulder is approximately 100,000 . Throughout this period from 1950 to 2000 , the size of the elected Boulder City Council has remained constant at 9 persons. So in 50 years, democracy in Boulder has been diluted by about a factor of five. This corresponds to an annual loss of democracy at the local level of approximately 3.2 % per year averaged over the last 50 years. (Bartlett 1993)

We can generalize and state a fundamental law:
In a political subdivision that is governed by an elected representative body of unchanging size, the rate of decline of democracy is approximately equal to the rate of growth of the population of the subdivision.

CAN YOU SPEAK TO YOUR ELECTED REPRESENTATIVES?
The ideal democracy is perhaps the New England Town Meeting, where every citizen is expected to participate in the debates and decisions. As towns become larger, elected representatives carry out many of the functions of governance, and citizens can usually address the governing body. As the towns become cities, citizens who want to address the governing body must sign up in advance of the meeting and then confine their comments to a three-minute period whose end is signaled by a loud buzzer or a flashing light. For the largest domestic governing body, the U.S. Congress, citizens can testify before a committee if they are invited, and addressing the whole Congress is an honor reserved for a few visiting heads of state. At the global level, a powerful governing organization such as the World Trade Organization (WTO), is so large and so remote that ordinary citizens have no input. The objectionable actions of the WTO and the complete absence of participatory democracy in the WTO led to the recent “Battle of Seattle” in early December 1999.

POPULATION GROWTH AND REGULATIONS
The actions of local public bodies to establish zoning and land-use regulations such as urban growth boundaries, are driven by population growth, yet these actions, which are made necessary by population growth, are clear infringments of individual freedoms. People, angered by these losses of freedoms, advocate passage of “Takings Laws” in an attempt to stem the loss of freedoms, but unfortunately neither the takings laws nor their advocates make any recognition of the fact that it is population growth which triggers the actions that take away our treasured freedoms. Ironically, the persons who complain most loudly about these losses of freedom are often those who advocate continued population growth for the self-serving reason that they profit personally from it. People’s eagerness to profit from population growth is beautifully explained in Garrett Hardin’s essay, “The Tragedy of the Commons.” (Hardin 1968)

LOSS OF FREEDOM BY BOTH TECHNOLOGY AND POPULATION GROWTH
The loss of freedom that follows gun control is a hotly debated issue. We can see that both technology and population growth play roles in this loss of freedom.

Two hundred years ago one could have had an artillery piece at the site that is now downtown Boulder, Colorado, and one could have fired it in any direction at any time as often as one wished. The range of the gun was so small, the time required to reload it was so long, and the population density here was then so low, that there was little chance that random repeated firings of the gun in any direction would hurt anyone.

But now technology has given us guns with greater range, which can be reloaded and refired automatically in a fraction of a second. The population density in Boulder is now so high that there are always lots of people within the range of a gun. Consequently we have to have regulations to the effect that it is illegal for individuals to fire artillery in Boulder. Another freedom has fallen victim to population growth and to advances in technology.

Because of the present high population density, the gun situation is one where people lose freedoms no matter what happens in terms of gun control. If guns are controlled, those who oppose control have lost their freedom to have unrestricted access to artillery. If guns are not controlled, those who wish to live safely in a non-violent society have lost this freedom.

The total cost of the present lack of gun control is enormous. The headline said, “America ‘in trouble’ Violence Panel Warns.” (Lichtblau 1999) The article said that a new report:
“...issued by the Milton S. Eisenhower Foundation... said violence is much more prevalent today than 30 years ago, and the odds of dying in a violent crime remain much higher in the United States than in almost any other industrialized nation. In part, the report suggested, this is because the number of firearms has doubled to nearly 200 million - many of them high-powered easily concealed models ‘with no other logical function than to kill humans.’”
Bearing on Asimov’s observation that:
“... human dignity cannot survive overpopulation;
convenience and decency cannot survive overpopulation...”
is the statement in the report:
“Prisons have become our nation’s substitute for effective policies on crime, drugs, mental illness, housing, poverty, and employment of the hardest to employ.”

OVERPOPULATION AND CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM
The widespread concern about campaign finance reform is a reaction to the perceived decline of democracy, in which power is shifted from the many to the powerful few who use their wealth to buy influence in the halls of our “democratic” government. One of the reasons for the increased role of money in politics is the dilution of democracy which results from overpopulation. As has been shown, overpopulation causes a decline in the role of the individual in participatory democracy. The consequent partial political vacuum leaves the way open for an increase in the role of dollars in democracy. Politicians like to talk to people, but because of overpopulation, they can’t talk to everyone. So they talk to a few, a self-selecting small group of wealthy and influential people. Because of this dilution, the old statement, “One person, one vote,” is now being replaced by “One dollar, one vote.”

DESTRUCTION OF DEMOCRACY BY THE PRIVATE SECTOR
Powerful forces in the private sector in our communities use population growth as an excuse to find more effective ways to destroy our democracy. In an article, “Western Cities Grapple with Rapid Growth,” (Parker 1999) we read that “In Scenic Colorado Springs, Groups Battle Builders to Preserve Lifestyle.” The story tells how the real estate developers are battling “community groups [that are] concerned about preserving the natural beauty of their surroundings.” The second paragraph of the story in the Wall Street Journal quotes one of the Colorado Springs builders as follows:
“...local officials have allowed community groups to hijack the development process. Neighborhood groups ‘shouldn’t be in control of what happens,’ he says. ‘You can’t be an elected official and let people dictate the law of the land.’”
Wealthy influential developers are good at getting pretty much what they want from public officials, so when citizens organize to protect themselves from the rapid degradation of the environment that is the consequence of the continued population growth and development, it is said that the citizens are “hijacking” the development process. In Colorado Springs, the pressure for continued population growth is so intense that a local leader in the private sector is saying that we can no longer “let people dictate the law of the land.”

LIBERALS vs. CONSERVATIVES
The liberal philosophy of government suggests that the government, under the guidance of “experts,” should do more to control the flow of events, while the conservative philosophy suggests that government should do less. Although the person who said it would probably claim to be a conservative, the suggestion that we can’t “let people dictate the law of the land” presents a profoundly liberal point of view, both from the advocacy of governance by an elite few, but also as an implied expression of the belief that population growth is no problem, that resources are so enormous that there is no need to reduce consumption or to conserve. In contrast, true conservatives (who are usually called liberals) worry about the effects of population growth, they practice conservation, and they advocate a reduction of our consumption of resources so that some resources are saved for our children and grandchildren.

It should not be surprising that the traditional political labels of “liberal” and “conservative” are reversed in a world where powerful people seem to be happy with continued population growth and the resulting overpopulation.

An exception to this reversal of labels is Fred C. Ikle, who is a bona fide political conservative, having served as an undersecretary in the Reagan administration. Ikle argues (Ikle 1994) that “It is the unintended consequences that these conservatives ignore [when they argue for more population growth],” and he points out that more growth results in more government and more governmental regulations. Writing as a political conservative, Ikle summarizes his arguments with these words:
“Population growth is the paramount, the most elemental anti-conservative force. It unleashes a flood of social change that will cascade onto every level of society. It creates irresistible pressures for farflung, and usually irreversible government interventions, allegedly to cope with all the social changes that rapid population growth has unleashed. It thus helps the radical left to garner political support for its social engineering schemes. It dilutes the reach of religious institutions that seek to preserve society’s moral fiber. It empowers the unprincipled and the rootless to tear down vastly more civilizing tradition and riches of culture than they will ever create.”

POPULATION GROWTH AND TECHNOLOGY
The main things that are robbing us of our democratic freedoms are continued population growth and the advancement of technology. The advance of technology has redeeming features: it contributes to higher quality of life for those who are able to afford the latest technological devices. In contrast, population growth has no redeeming features, yet, as our political leaders struggle to find solutions to the problems caused by population growth, they neglect to identify population growth as the cause of the problems. Even more distressing is the fact that the watchdogs of the Free Press seem never to speak out about this neglect.

The lack of redeeming features in population growth is illustrated by the following challenge: (Bartlett 1997)

Can you think of any problem
On any scale, from microscopic to global,
Whose long-term solution is in any demonstrable way,
Aided, assisted, or advanced,
By having larger populations at the local, state, national, or global levels?

Even more important, population growth is not sustainable, (Bartlett 1994) yet the sustainability gurus provide glib recipes for sustainability that talk about everything except overpopulation.

CONCLUSION
It is a shame that those who are most vocal about their loss of freedom almost invariably blame the loss on alleged conspiracies of persons in government. Our loss of freedoms are probably not the result of actions of evil people who are plotting the demise of democracy, but rather are due to negligent people in government (and it’s nearly all of them) who willfully ignore the problem of overpopulation and the destructive consequences of this negligence. When people are denied their rights to participate in the decisions that affect their lives, they are predictably unpredictable, and history is full of examples of violence that has been precipitated by those who feel they have been disenfranchised. Such are some of the costs of overpopulation.

Thus, several lines of evidence point to population growth as being a major causal factor in the decline of democracy in the United States, yet, as Garrett Hardin observes: (Hardin 1993)
“No one ever blames it on overpopulation.”

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
I no longer remember who it was that called my attention to Bill Moyers’ interview with Isaac Asimov, but I am deeply grateful for his calling this important text to my attention.

ooooo

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bartlett, A.A., 1993: For a tutorial on the calculation of these average growth rates, see:
A.A. Bartlett, “The Arithmetic of Growth, Methods of Calculation”
Population & Environment, Vol. 14, March 1993, Pgs. 359-387

Bartlett, A.A., 1994 “Reflections on Sustainability, Population Growth and the Environment”
Population & Environment, Vol. 16, No. 1, September 1994, Pgs. 5-35
Reprinted in:
Renewable Resources Journal, Vol. 15, No. 4, Winter 1997-1998, Pgs. 6-23

Bartlett, A.A., 1997, “Is There a Population Problem?”
Wild Earth, Vol. 7, No. 3, Fall 1997, Pgs. 88-90

Bush, Vannevar, 1960, “Science, the Endless Frontier: A Report to the President on a Program for Postwar Scientific Research”
United States: Office of Scientific Research and Development


Hardin, Garrett, 1968, “The Tragedy of the Commons”
Science, Vol. 162, Pages 1243-1248

Hardin, Garrett, 1993, “Living Within Limits”, Oxford University Press
Much of this book is devoted to documenting the lengths to which people go to deny that overpopulation is a problem.

Ikle, Fred Charles, 1994, “Our Perpetual Growth Utopia,”
National Review, (Cover Story) Vol. 46, March 7, 1994, Pages 36-44
Reprinted in Focus, (Carrying Capacity Network, Washington, D.C.)
Vol. 4, No. 2, 1994, Pages 13-17

Lichtblau, Eric, “America ‘In Trouble’ Violence Panel Warns”
Denver Post, December 6, 1999, Page 1A
The byline identified the author as writing for the Los Angeles Times

Moyers, Bill, 1989: “A World of Ideas” Doubleday, New York City 1989, Page 276

Parker, V.L. 1989, “Western Cities Grapple With Rapid Growth”
Wall Street Journal, September 22, 1999, Page B14

Simon, J., ( 1995 ) Cato Policy Report, The State of Humanity: Steadily Improving Vol. 17, No. 5, p. 131, September / October 1995 The Cato Institute in Washington, D.C. is a think tank that advises government leaders on policy questions.

Sitarz, D., Editor, ( 1993 ) Agenda 21; The Earth Summit Strategy to Save our Planet Earth Press, Boulder, CO, 1993

Task Force ( 1996 ) “Population and Consumption: Task Force Report” President’s Council on Sustainable Development 730 Jackson Place, NW, Washington, D.C., 20503

Wattenberg, B.J., ( 1997 ) Boulder Daily Camera, Nov. 30, 1997. This editorial piece was reprinted from the New York Times Magazine, Nov. 23, 1997

Wilson, E.O., ( 1995 ), From “The Diversity of Life,” quoted in The Social Contract, Fall 1995, p. 65
ZPG ( 1996a ) The old statement of principle last appeared in The ZPG Reporter, March / April 1996

ZPG ( 1996b ) The new statement of principle first appeared in The ZPG Reporter, May / June 1996

ZPG ( 1998 ) ZPG Policy Statement on U.S. Immigration The ZPG Reporter, Vol. 30, # 1, February 1998, p. 2
---------------------------------
Thoughts on Long-Term Energy Supplies: Scientists and the Silent Lie

The world's population continues to grow. Shouldn't physicists care?
Albert A. Bartlett
July 2004,

The most sacred icon in the "religion" of the US economic scene is steady growth of the gross national product, enterprises, sales, and profits. Many people believe that such economic growth requires steady population growth. Although physicists address the problems that result from a ballooning population—such as energy shortages, congestion, pollution, and dwindling resources—their solutions are starkly deficient. Often, they fail to recognize that the solutions must involve stopping population growth.

Physicists understand the arithmetic of steady, exponential growth.1 Yet they ignore its consequences, including the first law of sustainability: "Population growth or growth in the rate of consumption of resources cannot be [indefinitely] sustained."2 (See Ben Zuckerman's letter to the editor, Physics Today, July 1992, page 14.) Sustainability requires solutions that will be effective over time periods much longer than a human lifespan. Indeed, Paul Weisz makes a case on page 47 of this issue that many time-honored 20th-century energy sources, such as petroleum, natural gas, and coal, have been reduced to the point that their longevities are now expected to be of the order of a human lifespan.

Physicists and energy

Among physicists, there is a growing recognition that we have a responsibility to become more directly involved in the scientific aspects of problems facing society. As an example, consider the April 2002 special issue of Physics Today, which addressed specific energy problems. Let's focus on two of the articles in that issue: Stephen Benka's introductory essay, "The Energy Challenge" (page 38), and Ernest J. Moniz and Melanie A. Kenderdine's lead article, "Meeting Energy Challenges: Technology and Policy" (page 40). The titles alone convey a common commitment to society.

In his essay, Benka outlined the magnitude of the challenge by citing projections from the US Department of Energy: Between 1999 and 2020, the world's total annual energy consumption will rise 59% and the annual carbon dioxide emissions will rise by 60%, while the world population increases from 6.0 to 7.5 billion people. But here's the rub: Scientists may call for solutions to meet the rising demands of population growth, but as long as we postulate the continuation of that growth, the attendant problems of energy consumption and increasing CO2 emissions cannot have long-range solutions. The two articles in Physics Today fail to identify stopping growth as a necessary condition for the success of any proposed long-range solutions to the problems caused by population growth.

Scientists have occasionally acknowledged that population growth is the major cause of our problems. But I wonder whether their general reticence stems from the fact that it is politically incorrect or unpopular to argue for stabilization of population—at least in the US. Or perhaps scientists are simply uncomfortable stepping outside their specialized areas of expertise.

Unchecked population growth as a source of problems is not news. More than 200 years ago, mathematician Robert Malthus (1766­1834) addressed the issue in his famous essay.3 He understood that populations had the biological potential for steady growth and that food production did not. Today, energy production does not have the capability of steady growth.

Nevertheless, we are all aware of nonscientists with academic credentials who proclaim that our modern technology has proven Malthus wrong. The most egregious of the high priests of endless growth was the late Julian Simon, professor of economics and business administration at the University of Illinois and later at the University of Maryland. In 1995, he wrote:

Technology exists now to produce in virtually inexhaustible quantities just about all the products made by nature. . . . We have in our hands now . . . the technology to feed, clothe and supply energy to an ever-growing population for the next seven billion years.4

In the eyes of the general public, the silence of scientists on the problems of population growth seems to validate the messages of the politically appealing and influential Julian Simons of the world.

Supply shortages

In addressing the problems, Benka noted that "most of the growth in all three areas [energy consumption, CO2, and population] will take place in rapidly developing parts of the world." It is expedient to blame others, but because the US consumes so large a fraction of the world's energy resources, we Americans are effectively the worst offenders in those areas. Our population growth rate of more than 1% per year is the highest of any industrial nation. The US can't preach that other countries should limit their population growth unless we are willing to set an example and do so first.

Benka later argued, "It seems certain that the world will continue to rely heavily on hydrocarbon combustion for the foreseeable future. . . . However we must develop alternative energy sources." To be fair, Benka was not sanguine about the problem of energy shortages. His essay is partly a call to arms. But the evidence (see Weisz's article) indicates that some fossil-fuel resources may be in trouble within the next few decades. When physicists suggest that the US has resources and technological potential to meet the needs of an ever-growing economy, it's like inviting the public to dinner without having checked to see if there is sufficient food in the cupboard.

Most educated people understand that populations can't grow forever. But forever isn't really the issue. Already, population increases and consumer demand are taking big bites out of our energy resources. Of natural gas, Moniz and Kenderdine wrote that "US consumption represents roughly half of that for the industrialized world. . . . Developing Asia, Central America, and South America . . . are each expected to triple their demand over the next twenty years." A geological study published in 2003 reports that per capita annual production of natural gas is decreasing in Canada, Mexico, and the US.5 Production of natural gas in North America may be near the start of its terminal decline.

Of petroleum, Moniz and Kenderdine reported that world oil consumption is expected to grow by 60% in the first two decades of the 21st century and that China expects a five-fold increase in vehicles by 2020. Some optimistic researchers include in their tabulation of world reserves the oil shales of western Colorado (about 500 billion barrels); the Athabasca Oil Sands of Alberta, Canada (about 300 billion barrels, potentially); and the heavy oil under Venezuela (about 2 trillion barrels).6 Those quantities are huge compared to the US annual consumption of approximately 6 billion barrels, but the important question to ask is, What is the net energy gained after investing the energy it would take to recover those very hard-to-extract resources? Physicists must include the net energy in any recommendations that we make to use those fuels in the future.

Moniz and Kenderdine also wrote about "products derived from gas-to-liquid conversion [meaning natural gas], gasification of coal, and biomass." But if natural gas in North America is near the start of its terminal decline, there won't be much left to convert into other potential uses. They argued that CO2 emissions can be reduced by switching to "less carbon-intensive fossil fuels—for example, natural gas instead of coal for electricity generation—[this is an] economical way to reduce carbon intensity and meet growing demand." But the switch from coal to natural gas to generate electricity in the US was made a decade or so ago and the predictable effects are now evident: declining production, imminent shortages, and the rapid price increases of natural gas.

Researchers continue to debate when the peak of world petroleum production will be reached. Analytical estimates range from 20047,8 to about 2025.9 But from a per capita perspective, world petroleum production reached a peak in the 1970s (see the figure). I believe future historians may identify this peak as one of the most important events in all of human history.

The silent lie

In the Physics Today essay and article, population growth is given as a cause of the problems identified, but eliminating the cause is not mentioned as a solution. We are prescribing aspirin for cancer. Indeed, the solutions outlined in the articles would only make the problems worse. To appreciate what I mean, consider the "theorems" of economist Kenneth Boulding.10

The Dismal Theorem:

If the only ultimate check on the growth of populations is misery, then the population will grow until it is miserable enough to stop its growth.

The Utterly Dismal Theorem:

Any technical improvement can only relieve misery for a while, for so long as misery is the only check on population, the [technical] improvement will enable the population to grow, and will soon enable more people to live in misery than before. The final result of [technical] improvements, therefore, is to increase the equilibrium population, which is to increase the sum total of human misery.

The Moderately Cheerful Form of the Dismal Theorem:

If something else, other than misery and starvation, can be found which will keep a prosperous population in check, the population does not have to grow until it is miserable or starves; it can be stably prosperous.

In 1970, the CBS broadcaster Eric Sevareid rephrased the theorems even more bluntly: "The chief source of problems is solutions."11

Physicists develop solutions to problems, but when the underlying cause of those problems remains neglected, we are effectively perpetuating a lie—what Mark Twain has called the silent lie:

Almost all lies are acts, and speech has no part in them. . . . I am speaking of the lie of silent assertion; we can tell it without saying a word. . . .

For instance: It would not be possible for a humane and intelligent person to invent a rational excuse for slavery; yet you will remember that in the early days of emancipation agitation in the North, the agitators got but small help or countenance from any one. Argue and plead and pray as they might, they could not break the universal stillness that reigned, from pulpit and press all the way down to the bottom of society—the clammy stillness created and maintained by the lie of silent assertion—the silent assertion that there wasn't anything going on in which humane and intelligent people were interested.

The universal conspiracy of the silent-assertion lie is hard at work always and everywhere, and always in the interest of a stupidity or a sham, never in the interest of a thing fine or respectable. It is the most timid and shabby of all lies . . . the silent assertion that nothing is going on which fair and intelligent men [and women] are aware of and are engaged by their duty to try to stop.12

What do we do?

Here is a list with which to start:

* Acknowledge population growth as a major cause of societal problems.

* Debate the question, Which approach leads to greater general good: working to stabilize populations or working to spread ever-dwindling resources among ever-growing populations?

* Research, speak, and write about energy consumption, CO2 emissions, and populations, with an understanding that stabilizing population is a necessary condition for solving these problems.

* Alter the message given to students in the classroom and to the public. It is important they recognize that these energy and related problems cannot be solved without stopping population growth.

The physics community cannot launch a major campaign aimed at stabilizing the US population. That's not physics. But when physicists assume authoritative roles to solve the societal problems caused by population growth, professional responsibility requires that we stress the importance of stopping population growth as a central part of all solutions. We are not telling lies of silent assertion in the interest of the tyrannies and shams that Twain cites. Rather, we are tiptoeing around the issue in the name of political correctness. We can't be proud of that. As Mark Twain wrote, "[It] is the most timid and shabby of all lies."12

Albert A. Bartlett is an emeritus professor of physics at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

References
1. A. A. Bartlett, Am. J. Phys. 46, 876 (1978).
2. A. A. Bartlett, Population and Environment 16, 5 (1994). Reprinted in Renewable Resour. J. 15, 6 (Winter 1997­98).
3. See T. R. Malthus, in An Essay on the Principle of Population: Text, Sources and Background, Criticism" P. Appleman, ed., W. W. Norton, New York (1976).
4. J. M. Simon, The State of Humanity: Steadily Improving, CATO Policy Rep. vol. 17, no. 5, Cato Institute, Washington, DC (Sept.­Oct. 1995), p. 131. For a critique, see A. A. Bartlett, Phys. Teach. 34, 342 (1996).
5. W. Youngquist, R. C. Duncan, Nat. Resour. Res. 12, 229 (2003).
6. W. L. Youngquist, GeoDestinies: The Inevitable Control of Earth Resources Over Nations and Individuals, National Book, Portland, OR (1997), p. 215.
7. A. A. Bartlett, Math. Geol. 32, 1 (2000).
8. K. S. Deffeyes, Hubbert's Peak: The Impending World Oil Shortage, Princeton U. Press, Princeton, NJ (2001).
9. J. D. Edwards, Am. Assoc. Pet. Geol. Bull. 81, 1292 (1997).
10. K. Boulding, in Collected Papers [by] Kenneth E. Boulding, Vol. 2, Colorado Associated U. Press, Boulder, CO (1971), p. 137.
11. E. Sevareid, CBS News, 29 December 1970, quoted in T. L. Martin, Malice in Blunderland, McGraw-Hill, New York (1973), p. 23.
12. M. Twain, The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg and Other Short Works, Prometheus Books, Amherst, NY (2002), p. 159.

Ethnic cleansing of Turkmens in north Iraq by the puppets of U.S. & U.K.

, , , ...




Dear Readers,
The whole world is witnessing multiple ethnic cleansing by the puppets of the U.S. and U.K.(having used this method throughout the past 400 years).
We ordinary Turks can NOT do anything because we do not have a government(for the people) and our Armed Forces are busy playing politics(the higher ranks)!
We do not know how many people are killed in the former Iraq(much more then reported from the mainstream media).
We the Turkish citizens are not informed on the number of Turkish businessmen and companies, that are doing business in the area(I heard Billions of USD).
Questions:
How many companies?
A detailed list should be provided by T.C. Sanayi ve Ticaret Bakanligi, MIT, etc... and be publicly available....
How many foreign companies using Turkiye as there base of operations?
A detailed list should be provided by T.C. Sanayi ve Ticaret Bakanligi, MIT, etc... and be publicly available....
What is the National Security implications of said activities?
How much of these monies are going to the PKK?
Are these companies being taxed?
I do not expect these questions to be answered but reporters (if any are left)should ask....
K. Talat Muskara
Info on the Turkmens:

http://www.unpo.org/member_profile.php?id=27


Iraqi Turkmen

1991-08-06
Geography

The Turkmen of Iraq are concentrated in the northern Iraqi provinces of Mosul, Erbil, Kerkuk, Salahaddin and Diyala. There are also significant numbers of Turkmens in the central provinces of Baghdad, Wasit.

Population:

The Turkmens are the third largest ethnic group in Iraq after the Kurds and Arabs. The number of Turkmens is estimated at 3 million or 13%(see note by tkm) of the Iraqi population. They form a cultural buffer zone between Arabs and Kurds. The Turkmen region has large natural resources such as Oil, gas and Sulphur. In addition, there is an abundant production of wheat and cotton.

Language:

A dialect of the Turkish language.

Turkmen Reality:

The Turkmens are a distinct society and the third largest nationality in Iraq.

They are distinct in language and culture from both their neighbours, the Arabs and Kurds. Yet, the Turkmens are continuously denied political rights and systematically faced assimilation.

Historical background:

The Turkmens, originally came from central Asia. They are descendants of the Turkic speaking Oghuz tribes who began settling in Iraq about 1500 years ago where they inhabited all of Iraq.

They had a significant role in the administration of Iraq and established 6 states, The Seljuks, Atabegs, Ilkhanids, Jalairids, Qara Qoyunlus and Aq Qoyunlus.

Brief Recent History:

October 30, 1918, at the end of First World War, the Mosul province was still within the borders of the Ottoman Empire. The British troops occupied the territory after the cease-fire on November 11, 1918. Turkey refused to accept this act and demanded the return of Mosul province.

The Turkmens and Kurds resisted British authority by participating in the popular 1920 Iraqi revolution and refused the British installed Hejazi Hashemite monarchy in 1921.
Turkmens were attacked on May 4, 1924 by the British army mercenaries (Levies) in Kerkuk, where many civilians were killed.
1925, Under the Constitution, the Kurds and the Turkmens had the right to use their own languages in schools, government offices and to have their own language press.
June 5, 1926, Turkey, under British pressure, accepted the integration of Mosul into Iraq.

1932, Entering the League of Nations, the Iraqi government declared that it will respect all minority rights. But in 1933 began closing Turkmen schools and sent activists into exile.
1940 Arab tribes were settled west of Kerkuk.

July 14th 1959, Communists and separatist militias massacred Turkmen leaders along with hundreds of Turkmens in Kerkuk in an attempt to ethnically cleanse the city.

Revised census of 1957, showed the Turkmens as 9% of the Iraqi population.

January 24th 1970, The Baathist government granted cultural rights to the Turkmens.
But in 1972 prohibited the study in the Turkish language and restricted the Turkish media in Iraq to one weekly journal and one monthly magazine promoting Baath propaganda.
1973, In the Interim Constitution, no reference was made to the Turkmen population in Iraq.
January 16th 1980, Four Turkmen leaders were executed by the Baath regime and prohibited the public use of the Turkish language. In the eighties, Turkmen activists were arrested, tortured and executed. Hundreds of thousands of Arabs were brought from central and southern Iraq and settled by the Baath government in Kerkuk and other Turkmen towns.

1990, the new Constitution states that “Iraqi people consist of Arabs and Kurds” only.

1991, the creation of the Safe Haven by the UN after the Gulf War, Included Erbil. This, divided the Turkmens into two separate communities, a minority (15%) in the Safe Haven and the rest under Iraqi administration.
The same year, Iraqi Turkmens became member of UNPO.

April 24th 1995, The Iraqi Turkmen Front (ITF) was formed in Erbil as an umbrella organization to include all Turkmen parties and movements such as INTP, Turkmeneli Party, Independents Movement and 2 non political organizations.
1996, Assault on the Safe Haven” by the Iraqi army, the headquarters of the INTP was attacked and destroyed. Tens of Turkmen leaders were executed.

2003 April 10th, U.S. forces entered Kerkuk and all Turkmen towns.

Assimilation Campaigns:

Turkmens suffered from various degrees of suppression and assimilation that ranged from political persecution and exile to terror, massacres and ethnic cleansing.
During the British and monarchy era, despite 1925 constitution and 1932 League of Nations declaration, cultural rights were gradually taken away, activists were sent to exile.

Arab tribes were settled west of Kerkuk. During the early republican era, Communist and separatist groups committed the Kerkuk Massacre of July 14.th, 1959 which aimed at terrorizing and ethnically cleansing the Turkmens from the city.

During the Baathist era, the Iraqi administration granted some cultural rights to the Turkmens on January 24.th, 1970, including education in the Turkish language in primary schools, daily radio broadcasting for two hours and TV broadcasting for half an hour in the Turkish language, these rights were gradually taken away by the authorities and by 1972, all Turkish schools were closed.

The assimilation of the Turkmens already became a state policy in 1971 when the General Assembly of the Baath Party decided to complete the Arabization of Kerkuk by 1980. Administrative boundaries were changed in 1974 to divide Turkmen concentrations. Since the mid 70s, Arabs enjoyed special incentives and rights encouraging them to move to historically Turkmen areas including the oil-rich city of Kerkuk. In the latter half of the 1970s, the names of several villages and plac.
Organizations

Organizations:
The Iraqi Turkmens are represented in the UNPO by Dr. Muzaffer Arslan the founder of the Iraqi National Turkmen Party (INTP). Turkmens have the following political organizations:

1- Iraqi Turkmen Front (ITF) which is an umbrella organizations of several parties: INTP, Turkmeneli Party (TP), Adalet part (AP), Islamic Movement of Iraqi Turkmens (IMIT) and the Independents Movement.
2- Turkmen Nationalist Movement (TNM),
3- Turkmen Wafa Movement,
4- Islamic Union of Iraqi Turkmens(IUIT).

Non political organizations are: Turkmeneli Cooperation and Cultural Foundation (TCCF) in Turkey, Turkmen Brotherhood Center (TBC) in Iraq and Iraqi Turks Culture and Solidarity Association in Turkey. Several other civil society organizations.

On October 7.th 1997, Turkmen organizations arranged a "Turkmen Assembly" in Erbil, northern Iraq. The assembly gathered most of the Turkmen organizations, and determined the cultural, educational, information and social policies for the Turkmen people. The groups who attended the assembly have adopted the "Declaration of Fundamental Principles. A 30 member council was created from various Turkmen organizations.


http://www.kerkuk.net/eng/index.asp?id=3059&katagori=1&s=detay

Assimilation and Massacres applied against the Turkmen in Iraq
kerkuk.net - 18.07.2006


As will be described in more depth, the Turkmen people of Iraq have been undergoing decades of assimilation campaigns in their region and have been the targets of several wide-scale massacres since the 1920s. The first massacre occurred on May 4, 1924 and resulted in more than 100 Turkmen being killed and approximately 2,000 fleeing into exile....

http://www.kerkuk.net/eng/index.asp?id=3059&katagori=1&s=detay
(please click on the above link to read the story in full)

------------
http://www.kerkuk.net/eng/index.asp?id=386&katagori=23&s=detay

Iraqi Turkmen Front
ITF Press 05.02.2005
ELECTIONS

Iraqi Turkmen Front ( ITF ) issued an official protest to the Independent Electoral Commission ( IEC ) in Iraq on 31st January 2005 complaining about widespread irregularities committed by the Kurds in the Turkmen region.

To the High Commission for the Elections in Iraq C/O The Kerkuk Bureau of the High Commission for the Elections in Iraq.

Ref: Contestation of irregularities during the voting process.

According to the legal rights that were granted to the political parties and organizations in order to contest any irregularity during the election process of 30th January 2005 which began in the morning and ended by closing the voting centers at 5 p.m, and in accordance with our conviction and belief that these elections must be clean and fair in order to establish a true democracy in Iraq, we are sorry and deeply concerned to inform you that too many irregularities have been committed during these elections which no doubt will affect its results. Despite your declarations to the the press and to the television news networks that the elections have been `almost' clean and fair, we have encountered numerous problems to vote, have observed multiple irregularities in voting centers and have been subjected to illegal behaviour and unfair treatments in polling centers in our region, in the provinces of Kerkuk, Mosul, Salahaddin and Erbil. These voting problems, voting irregularities, illegal behaviour from election officials, and unfair treatment of Turkmen voters in voting centers are intolerable and are contrary to the rules and regulations issued by your Commission, they are also against the basic laws of the country and must be denounced and the perpetrators must be condemned. We present to you hereunder, a series of irregularities and illegal acts which we have observed and witnessed. They are clearly contrary to the election laws that you have issued and based on them. We contest the results of these elections and convinced that they have been hugely flawded. Legal reasons for contesting the results of these elections:-

A – Irregularities concerning the eligible electors for voting and frauds of votes

1 – Illegal electorate registration and voting.

A huge number of Kurds from the provinces of Erbil and Sulaymaniyah have been brought to Kerkuk, at the initiative and under the supervision of the local branch of the "PUK" the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan party, where they have been given accommodation in the schools of Rahim Awa district and in numerous private Kurdish family homes in this district. All these people have been allowed to register and vote in Kerkuk where they are irregulars and have no right to vote.

2 - Multiple vote casting by numerous voters.

A great number of voters in Rahim Awa district have voted more than once, some have voted at least five times without inking their fingers at all. These irregularities have been committed in the open and under the eyes of election supervisors and assessors of the district.

3 - Allowing youths under 18 years of age to vote.

A considerable number of youths under 18 years of age have been accepted to register in electors' lists and admitted to vote in Rahim Awa district at the initiative of the district's Kurdish political leaders with the complicity of election supervisors and assessors in contradiction with the election rules and laws. This kind of illegal and irregular voting took place in the election center at Majouli school situated behind the old Al Karama security building and at the Arafa election center.

4 - Allowing votes of dead people !!!

A number of relatives of deceased people have been allowed to cast votes in the name of their relatives who died more than one year ago. This kind of illegal and irregular voting took place in the election center at Assiri school situated behind the Andalus police station of Rahim Awa district where a voter called Mr. Hussain Saber voted on behalf of his father called Saber Abu Al Dajaj who passed away a long time ago!

5 - Allowing voting of some people in two different election centers.

About 2000 members of the National Guard of Kurdish origin have been allowed to vote twice, the first time at the election center close to their place of duty and the second time at the election center of their residency.

6 - Unequal and unfair treatment for Turkmen voters in Erbil.

Tens of thousands of Turkmen voters in Erbil province have been forbidden from using marker pens or ballpoint pens to cast their votes they were obliged to use lead pencils only. It is easy to guess the reason behind such unacceptable restrictions! which were imposed to the Turkmen voters of this province in the absence of any international election observers or any other independant observers.

7 - Characterised frauds In two villages namely Maftul Al Saghir and Maftul Al Kabir of Tuz Khurmatu region the inhabitants of which are all Arabs, none of them took part in these elections but it has been announced that the inhabitants of these two villages have voted 100% for list (130) which is the list of the Kurdish coalition! It is hard not to believe in miracles after such unbelievable performance!

8 - National Guards of Kurdish origin take control of election centers of Sulayman Bek town.

Sulayman Bek, a town in the Tuz Khurmatu region, where the inhabitants are Turkmen and Arabs. The voting centers of this town have been infested by some Kurdish members of the National Guards, consequently it was found that the inhabitants of this town have voted for the Kurdish coalition list! This is another proof of manipulation of election results.

B – Election centers:-

1 - Eight new and improvised voting centres have been opened in Kerkuk on the day of the elections, 30th of January 2005. National Guard members from Sulaymaniya province were brought to Kerkuk in order to guard these new and improvised voting centers. They have used their power and weapons to prevent Kerkuk police forces from approaching these improvised voting centers which were of course not listed in the official list of voting centers issued by the Election Commission in Kerkuk. These new voting centres have been installed in the following schools:-

a- Goran School

b- Alaa School

c- Imam Qasim Industrial School

d- Mamusta Rashad martyr School

e- Mahabad school

f- Imam Qasim school

g- Iskan school

h- 11th of April school

2 – Numerous election centers in the Turkmen region have been opened but there were no ballot papers, this has prevented a great number of Turkmen electors from voting, other voting centers have closed earlier, before 5 p.m the normal closing time, because of lack of ballot papers. The only explanation given for the lack of ballot papers was that they had been stolen from these centers by some political group's activists in order to prevent Turkmen voters from voting. This effectively has occurred in the election center installed in `The 1st March' school in Atabagler district of Kerkuk.

3 – Modification of the location of some election centers in Turkmen districts in Kerkuk and their relocation to predominantly Kurdish districts one day only before the elections day! As an example we mention the relocation of election center of the district of Al Wakeel Muhammed Ali Sadiq that was supposed to be installed in Marrakesh school in this district which has been moved to Assiri school located in a predominantly Kurdish area pretexting the over crowding in the original location.

4 – At Rahim Awa district which is a district with majority of Kurdish inhabitants, the election centers have opened at 6 am (one hour earlier than the official opening time) in order to allow voting in quiet for "The Irregular Inhabitants of Kerkuk", for those Kurds who have lately been brought to Kerkuk as `supposedly original inhabitans' while they have never lived in this city.

5 - Two ballot boxes belonging to the election center located at Abi Tammam school have been stolen, most probably by members of the National Guards.

6 – Intrusion of groups of people affiliated with some Kurdish associations and organizations to several election centers in order to disturb voting process and intimidate Turkmen voters. We can mention as an example the name of one of these Kurdish associations known as "Koma Lei 63 Kerkuk" who's members have participated in the intrusions and acted in the manner mentionned above.

7 – Manipulations of votes counting in the election center of Arafa by some groups as mentionned in detail in the attached report.

8 – In Telafar city with a population of 400.000 inhabitants predominantly Turkmen, only two election centers have been opened! The insufficent and inadequate number of election centers opened in this city has prevented a great number of Turkmen electors from voting because of the long distance to walk between the election centers and their homes and because of the military operations and the bombing of the city that particular day which discouraged and prevented many of its inhabitants from going out for voting.

9 – In the towns of Iyadhiya and Muhallabiyya and the villages surrounding them which are situated in the Telafer region, at least 20.000 Turkmen inhabitants of these towns and villages could not vote because of the absence of ballot boxes in these towns and villages. It is very strange that not a single ballot box has been allocated or provided to these towns and villages.

10 – More than 3000 Turkmen electors in the town of Mansuriya have been prevented from voting because of theft of the balloting box of its election center by unknown thiefs.

11 – In the Turkmen village of Bir Ahmed, the polling center has opened at 10 am (two hours later than the official opening time) and was closed earlier at 3.30 pm by the Kurdish Militia who took the balloting boxes with them to a secret location pretending that American forces wanted the boxes. These balloting boxes were only returned to the Election Commission the next day!

12 – Voting in Kurdish regions in Kerkuk province and in Tuz Khurmatu continued for hours after 5 pm the official closing time. Observers from non Kurdish parties who objected to these irregularities have been badly treated and insulted by the members of the National Guards, and have been kicked out of the election centers under machine gun threats.

C – Elections employees and observers

1 – The unfair selection and hiring of the employees and observers for these elections was very clear and very noticable, few Turkmens were selected or have been hired for this election of utmost importance and those who were selected as election employees and observers have been forced out of the election centers before the official closing time and before the closing and sealing of the ballot boxes.

2 – Collision of the election employees and observers in most election centers located in the Kurdish region with some political parties which resulted in frauds and irregularities that could be resumed as follows:-

a – In the Rahim Awa election centers, the election employees have opposed voters and prevented them from voting for other than Kurdish lists, pretending that the law forbids Kurds from voting for a non Kurdish list!

b – Election employees in several election centers in the Kurdish region have given more than one balloting paper for each Kurdish voter as this was witnessed and noted by some election observers in these centers.

c - Election employees in several election centers in Kurdish region have accepted balloting papers that were not the official ones which were distributed to all voters listed in the food rationing lists which were established by the former regime during UN economic sanctions. In fact, they accepted the use of any piece of paper as balloting paper which they validated by simply putting an stamp on them. As an example for this particular type of election irregularity, we mention the Wasiti election center where such irregular balloting papers have been used extensively.

d – Irregularites of un-observance of rules and regulations issued specifically for this elections. Despite the total ban which has been declared and imposed by the security authorities to all private cars and other vehicles circulation in Iraq the day of the elections, we have witnessed a great number of private cars and other vehicles forming long columns, exhibiting Kurdish flags, and people using them shouting provocative propaganda slogans circulating in Rahim Awa district, without any objection or intervention from the police forces or from the National Guards!

E – Irregularities concerning the ban to circulate between towns and localities the day of the elections. Despite the ban declared by the Iraqi authorities on circulation between towns and localities in Iraq on the election day and the daybefore it, we have witnessed and seen that this ban was not in application in Kerkuk province where the road between Kerkuk and Erbil as well as the road between Kerkuk and Sulaymaniya have been kept open, which allowed tens of thousands of Kurds to circulate freely and come to Kerkuk without any restrictions or problems, which facilitated their participation to voting in Kerkuk then their returning to their own provinces to vote there one more time! All these irregularities and law infringements have been organized at the initiative and under the supervision of General Sherko Shakir, the police chief in Kerkuk, and of General Anwar, the Commander of National Guards in this province who are both Kurds.

F - Irregularities in the distribution of badges to election officials and their vehicles. It has been decided to distribute 150 badges as well as circulation permits for the

vehicles of officials from Election Commission and to elections observers exclusively; unfortunately, most of these badges and permits have been distributed to the wrong individuals who had no official role to play during these elections. These individuals have abusively used these badges to interfere and to intervene in several election centers that they infested irregularily. We can report from Mr Ibrahim the director of the Election Commission in Kerkuk, who declared that only 50 badges have been handed over to him by Mr Ismail Al Hadidi the Deputy Governor of Kerkuk, and most of the badges and circulation permits have been given to individuals circulating in vehicles belonging to the security department of Sulaymaniya province (known as ASAYISH).

G – Irregularities committed by some members from the police and the National Guards in Kerkuk. Members from the National Guards of Kurdish origin have intervened in the election process by preventing the Turkmen electors of Laylan town to reach their election centers and vote, contributing to election process failure instead of contributing to its success by accomplishing their duty with professionalism and fairness. We are terribly disappointed with the behaviour of the National Guards and with that of some members of the police force in Kerkuk who acted in an irresponsible manner during the elections in our region. They have created problems for Turkmen electors instead of solving them during the day of the elections.

H – Irregularities committed by the Kurdish militias "Peshmerga" disguised as National Guards, acting in their name and using their authority. In the mainly Turkmen towns of Yengija and Bastamli, Kurdish militia members wearing National Guards uniforms arrived at the election centers of these two towns after the end of the voting period and pretended that they were send by the American occupation forces to collect the ballot boxes which were wanted by the Americans. They have confiscated all ballot boxes in a hurry and took them to an unknown location following the instructions supposedly given to them by the Americans. There were 18 ballot boxes in Yengija town alone and while they were in a hurry and rush to take them away, they dropped one of these boxes in the street where it broke open and all its ballot papers were dispersed in the street which they abandoned without any remorse or regret! These boxes finally were brought back to the Election Commission after many hours during which it is legitimate to think that they have manipulated the ballot papers for their own advantage, frauding elections ballots and affecting its results in these two mainly Turkmen towns.

I – Irregularities and last minute nomination of some individuals as officials for the elections An officer of the security department of Sulaymaniya known as " Kak TARIQ" has been appointed as deputy director of the Election Commission at Tuz Khurmatu the day of the election.

J – Irregularities, physical assault and aggression against election officials, illegal segregation, manipulation of ballot papers, confiscation of ballot boxes etc....! Mr Mumtaz AHMAD the director of the election center of Ibn Khaldoon has been

attacked by members from the so-called "Asayish", the security department forces of the Iraqi Kurdistan. He has also been arrested and segregated in a room in his election center. His attackers have stolen the ballot boxes of his election center, taking them to an unknown location, keeping them all the night that followed the election day and bringing them back the next morning with one ballot box missing and the ballot papers of others surely manipulated and modified without the shadow of a doubt!

Iraqi Turkmen Front, Headquarters: Kerkuk.

Freedoms Stolen.......

, , , ...

Dear Readers,
Today while reading the international news
on the internet, a news item saying that Turkiye
had banned Turks access to the web site youtube(see fig. 1)



The reason was and is movies against Ataturk.
I can't defend these types of material(clips, stories, articles, etc..), one can only use there mental filters.

The internet does not belong to only Turks or our idealogy.
This would be like putting blinders and ear plugs to Turkish travelers, in order not to hear, read or see anything anti-Turkish!

The judge did not access these offensive movies using the internet but was given a CD with the said content...

The Youtube site is a huge and very open to anyone,
my nephews use the site to share with friends and family.

The more shocking aspect is that Dogan Holding's tabloids
had a campaign a few days ago against the site(the irony is
the tabloid is using Youtube content on it's sites). There is something very fishy here.

Or is this a part of a bigger game to change article 301?

There are thousands of anti-Turkish sites on the net, will
the courts censor these to?

The internet is full of offensive material, it is a mirror of the 3 dimensional world we live in.

If we, the Turkish people give-up our constitutional rights,
we can NOT expect to live and compete among the free.

I also expect more censorship from the oligarchy, as the presidential and national elections gathers steam...

K. Talat Muskara






The state of the Turkish media...2007

, , , ...

Dear Readers,
These two massive Holdings are responsible for 80% of "news", other information and entertainment.
The fact that these are in most every aspect of national
economics and when they flex there muscles, the regular citizen pays a very high price.
In no other "democratic" nation would these kinds of holdings be allowed to exist!
The bellow info was collected from there own web pages and I have provided the links to these pages, I encourage the reader to see for themselves.
I hope some reporters will investigate there own professions
before it is to late....
K. Talat Muskara
-------------------------------------------------------------
From: http://www.doganholding.com.tr/enmenu201.html

Dogan Holding:
Energy:
Petrol Ofisi (PO), Turkey's leading fuel-distribution and lubricants company

Erk Petrol Yatirimlari

The Company was established to engage in the procurement and sale of fuel-oil, petroleum products, LPG and other similar products within and outside of Turkey

Petrol Ofisi International Oil Trading

Imports of refined oil products are carried out by Petrol Ofisi International Oil Trading Limited, established in Bahamas. The Company uses various standard hedging techniques in order to prevent and reduce pricing risks.

Petrol Ofisi Oil Financing

The Company was established in mid-2004 in the Cayman Islands to act as a private financial organization to issue bonds for investors in international markets.

PO Petrofinance

The Company was established in 2002 in the Netherlands to develop financing opportunities in international financial markets.

Cyprus Turkish Oil (Kipet)

The Company was established in the Turkish republic of Northern Cyprus to sell and distribute fuel products.

Petrol Ofisi Alternatif Yak?tlar Toptan Sat?? (POAY)

The Company was established to undertake commercial activities in the natural gas market within and outside Turkey; to actively promote the use of natural gas and similar products; to engage in the sale and marketing thereof within and/or outside Turkey; to arrange for the distribution, storage and modulation of such products.

Petrol Ofisi Gaz ?letim (POG?)

The Company was established to undertake commercial activities in the natural gas market within and/or outside Turkey; to actively promote the use of natural gas; to undertake the transmission, filling, transportation, and delivery of liquefied natural gas, compressed natural gas and natural gas within and/or outside Turkey; to prepare projects for, construct and operate carrying devices and facilities for the performance of these activities; to conclude delivery and transportation agreements with other companies engaged in the natural gas market in Turkey; to transport the natural gas it receives with transportation vehicles; to make the necessary arrangements for the storage and modulation of such products.

Petrol Ofisi (UK)

Established in Bahamas in 2001, LYSA has been in operation under the name POINT since 2003. The Company supplies fuel products to Petrol Ofisi from international markets.

------------------------
http://www.doganholding.com.tr/enmenu203.html


Industry:
Çelik Halat and Tel Sanayii A.S
company manufactures steel wire products and steel wire rope. Sold in domestic and international markets these products are used in a wide range of areas like fishing, mining, construction, automotive, telecommunication and energy.

Ditas - production of rod ends, ball joints, tie rods, track control arms, drag links, stabilizer links and V drag links.

Dogan Organic Products - organic dairy livestock and milk.
------------------------------
http://www.doganholding.com.tr/enmenu204.html

Trade:
Milpa pioneered the marketing and retail sales of merchandise through intense promotional campaigns starting with the sale of Tofas - Fiat passenger cars. Between 1980 and 1994, an impressive 10% of all Tofas - Fiat cars were sold through Milpa campaigns. This sales figure decreased to 5% between 1994 and 1997. In 1998, special delivery terms helped return this figure to the 10% level, in the year 2000 it maintained at the same level.


Hürriyet Marketing has been managing sales campaigns for passenger cars since it started operations late in 1995. The Company mostly markets Renault automobiles and has sold more of this vehicle than any other firm in the country.

In addition to Renault, the company also markets Hyundai, Mitsubishi, Suzuki and Peugeot automobile brands along with computers, mobile telephones and VCRs.

Automotive Sales

The Dogan Group is actively involved in the sales of passenger cars, commercial vehicles and automotive spare parts produced by the Koç Group. Dogan Otomobilcilik, Ortadogu Automotive and Anadolu Automotive sell Fiat, Ford and Land Rover off-road vehicles and Magirus midi-buses.
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Insurance
Ray Sigorta - chartered in 1958 in participation with predominantly state-owned transportation enterprises. The Company operated primarily within the transportation industry and gained valuable experience in that area. Dogan Holding acquired the majority of Ray Sigorta's shares from the Privatization Administration in 1992.
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Milta - a leading company in Turkey with wide-ranging activities, is involved in tourism services that include a hotel, two holiday villages and a marina as well as travel agency operations. It is the parent company of Milta Bodrum Marina, Isiltur Travel Agency, the owner of the Kemer Holiday Village and manager of Club Milta Bodrum.


Milta Kemer -Located in Antalya - holiday village.
Isil Club - Bodrum- five star hotel.
Milta Bodrum Marina.
Isil Tur - travel agency offering a variety of travel services such as congress organizations, airline ticket sales and car