Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
Editorials & Other Articles
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Obama calls critics of TPP secrecy 'Conspiracy Theorists' [View all]Octafish
(55,745 posts)192. Like using government position to enrich cronies.
Mineral extraction industries, as the Congo has learned since Belgium left in 1960, are one lucrative industry.
It must be a coincidence that in his last days as president, George Herbert Walker Bush, aka Poppy, helped his future friends at Barrick Gold.
Poppy Strikes Gold
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Originally Posted July 9, 2003
By Greg Palast
EXCERPT...
And while the Bush family steadfastly believes that ex-felons should not have the right to vote for president, they have no objection to ex-cons putting presidents on their payroll. In 1996, despite pleas by U.S. church leaders, Poppy Bush gave several speeches (he charges $100,000 per talk) sponsored by organizations run by Rev. Sun Myung Moon, cult leader, tax cheatand formerly the guest of the U.S. federal prison system. Some of the loot for the Republican effort in the 19972000 election cycles came from an outfit called Barrick Corporation.
The sum, while over $100,000, is comparatively small change for the GOP, yet it seemed quite a gesture for a corporation based in Canada. Technically, the funds came from those associated with the Canadian's U.S. unit, Barrick Gold Strike.
They could well afford it. [font color="green"]In the final days of the Bush (Senior) administration, the Interior Department made an extraordinary but little noticed change in procedures under the 1872 Mining Law, the gold rushera act that permitted those whiskered small-time prospectors with their tin pans and mules to stake claims on their tiny plots. The department initiated an expedited procedure for mining companies that allowed Barrick to swiftly lay claim to the largest gold find in America. In the terminology of the law, Barrick could "perfect its patent" on the estimated $10 billion in orefor which Barrick paid the U.S. Treasury a little under $10,000. Eureka![/font color]
Barrick, of course, had to put up cash for the initial property rights and the cost of digging out the booty (and the cost of donations, in smaller amounts, to support Nevada's Democratic senator, Harry Reid). Still, the shift in rules paid off big time: According to experts at the Mineral Policy Center of Washington, DC, Barrick savedand the U.S. taxpayer losta cool billion or so. Upon taking office, Bill Clinton's new interior secretary, Bruce Babbitt, called Barrick's claim the "biggest gold heist since the days of Butch Cassidy." Nevertheless, because the company followed the fast-track process laid out for them under Bush, this corporate Goldfinger had Babbitt by the legal nuggets. Clinton had no choice but to give them the gold mine while the public got the shaft.
Barrick says it had no contact whatsoever with the president at the time of the rules change.(1) There was always a place in Barrick's heart for the older Bushand a place on its payroll. In 1995, Barrick hired the former president as Honorary Senior Advisor to the Toronto company's International Advisory Board. Bush joined at the suggestion of former Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney, who, like Bush, had been ignominiously booted from office. I was a bit surprised that the president had signed on. When Bush was voted out of the White House, he vowed never to lobby or join a corporate board. The chairman of Barrick openly boasts that granting the title "Senior Advisor" was a sly maneuver to help Bush tiptoe around this promise.
CONTINUED...
http://www.gregpalast.com/poppy-strikes-gold/
Wow. So his flock of supporters in the media and elsewhere wanted it known: George Herbert Walker Bush did do something nice when he was President. It just happened to be that it was for a rich, powerful corporation.
The story continues, in which Mr. Palast details how said gold mining company employed fascist tactics to take over the mine, part of which involved bulldozing the miners homes and mines, some with the miners still inside. Let that, uh, sink in. For his trouble in reporting the story, Barrick threatened to sue.
The Truth Buried Alive
By Greg Palast, From The Best Democracy Money Can Buy (Penguin/Plume, 2003)
Source: UTNE Reader
April 2003 Issue
EXCERPT...
Bad news. In July 2001, in the middle of trying to get out the word of the theft of the election in Florida, [font color="red"]I was about to become the guinea pig, the test case, for an attempt by a multinational corporation to suppress free speech in the USA using British libel law. I have a U.S.-based Web site for Americans who cant otherwise read my columns or view my BBC television reports. The gold-mining company held my English newspaper liable for aggravated damages for my publishing the story in the USA. If I did not pull the Bush-Barrick story off my U.S. Web site, my paper would face a ruinously costly fight.(1)[/font color]
Panicked, the Guardian legal department begged me to delete not just the English versions of the story but also my Spanish translation, printed in Bolivia. (Caramba!)
The Goldfingers didnt stop there. [font color="green"]Barricks lawyers told our papers that I personally would be sued in the United Kingdom over Web publications of my story in America, because the Web could be accessed in Britain. The success of this legal strategy would effectively annul the U.S. Bill of Rights.[/font color] Speak freely in the USA, but if your words are carried on a U.S. Web site, you may be sued in Britain. The Declaration of Independence would be null and void, at least for libel law. Suddenly, instead of the Internet becoming a means of spreading press freedom, the means to break through censorship, it would become the electronic highway for delivering repression.
And repression was winning. InterPress Services (IPS) of Washington, DC, sent a reporter to Tanzania with Lissu. They received a note from Barrick that said if the wire service ran a story that repeated the allegations, the company would sue. IPS did not run the story.
I was worried about Lissu. On July 19, 2001, a group of Tanzanian police interest lawyers wrote the nations president asking for an investigationinstead, Lissus law partner in Dar es Salaam was arrested. The police were hunting for Lissu. They broke into his home and office and turned them upside down looking for the names of Lissus sources, his whereabouts and the evidence he gathered on the mine site clearance. This was more than a legal skirmish. Over the next months, demonstrations by vicims families were broken up by police thugs. A member of Parliament joining protesters was beaten and hospitalized. I had to raise cash quick to get Lissu out, and with him, his copies of police files with more evidence of the killings. I called Maude Barlow, the Ralph Nader of Canada, head of the Council of Canadians. Without hesitation, she teamed up with Friends of the Earth in Holland, raised funds and prepared a press conferenceand in August tipped the story to the Globe & Mail, Canadas national paper.
CONTINUED...
http://www.mapcruzin.com/palast-2.htm
And for writing about this, Greg Palast did something very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very bad from the BFEE perspective: He told the truth, including the bits about the buried alive gold miners, as it happens. So, the Big Corporation sued and sued and sued. With their deep pockets, they can buy justice, judges, prime ministers, presidents and whoever and whatever else they need to turn a buck.
TPP is a Globalist dream come true. Odd to see so many act like the destruction of democracy is no big deal.
Edit history
Please sign in to view edit histories.
Recommendations
0 members have recommended this reply (displayed in chronological order):
239 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight:
NoneDon't highlight anything
5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
RecommendedHighlight replies with 5 or more recommendations

Looks like the world is filled with them, no? But then, otoh, we have seen some of what is in that
sabrina 1
May 2014
#11
But is that a bad thing? Throughout history many Conspiracy Theories turned out
rhett o rick
May 2014
#21
I wonder why there's a "lack of knowledge of what is going on in the negotiations"
arcane1
May 2014
#2
Good on you. So, why do TPP negotiators get multi-million dollar bonuses from Wall Street?
Octafish
May 2014
#15
conspiracy: the act of secretly planning to do something that is harmful or illegal
Tierra_y_Libertad
May 2014
#7
Stellar post. I wish you would break this down and make an OP, or several.
woo me with science
May 2014
#19
I knew he was a corporatist from the beginning, and wasn't even in my Top 3 to vote for, but he
Ghost in the Machine
May 2014
#42
debbie was-shultz said the same thing about people claiming the gop was rigging elections
leftyohiolib
May 2014
#26
He should have directed that to the tea party and its New World Order conspiracy theorists.
pampango
May 2014
#30
Oh, they all strung those three words together. I think that tea partiers take those words to mean
pampango
May 2014
#51
But you can't criticize Republicans, you have to reach across the aisle and work together!
Scootaloo
May 2014
#40
Yeah, got to be 'bipartisan', I guess. But it causes much consternation among liberals who
pampango
May 2014
#55
What makes you say that? Conservatives rely on conspiracy theories much more than liberals.
pampango
May 2014
#209
Just because there's a conspiracy theory doesn't mean there's no conspiracy... nt
backscatter712
May 2014
#34
For the side show of irrelevance: He also indicated the Democratic Party has conspiracy theories.
Octafish
May 2014
#48
You are right, nothing we say matters in DC. That is obvious, and that paragraph is amazing.
sabrina 1
May 2014
#90
Okay, put in corporatism where I said capitalism. Same deal for the rest of the post. n/t
Tobin S.
May 2014
#70
Boy, you can really tell when a Third Way type doesn't need your vote anymore. /nt
Marr
May 2014
#45
What was that about being more free to pursue his agenda during the second term?
woo me with science
May 2014
#68
Setting aside conspiracy theories, the reality in these trade agreements is that they
JDPriestly
May 2014
#46
Maintaining jobs is also important in a global market. Like I said, things could be worse doin nutin
Hoyt
May 2014
#233
Wages were flat for 20 years (fell for 7 years right) before NAFTA, rose from 1994-2000 then
pampango
May 2014
#226
Doesn't really matter what is going on in negotiations. Congress must approve any proposed agreement
Hoyt
May 2014
#111
So you're OK using far-rightwing sources to support your criticisms of the Obama administration?..nt
SidDithers
May 2014
#206
I don't agree with the TPP, but I disagree that the US Government criminal or evil
davidpdx
May 2014
#123
Nothing theoretical about it. It is harmful, and they are trying like hell to ram it through.
GoneFishin
May 2014
#126
And, that might be overly kind. It's amazing he remains so cool with some of this criticism.
Hoyt
May 2014
#139
Of course people have a "lack of knowledge" -- BECAUSE HE AND HIS F'n CRONIES WONT REVEAL ANYTHING
Armstead
May 2014
#136
What was wrong in NAFTA? It preceded the only increase in real wages in the past 40 years.
Recursion
May 2014
#138
My 3D game job got shipped to India or China. There was an operation in our company
Phlem
May 2014
#147
They started offshoring in the 1960's. How did NAFTA signal that 30 years before?
Recursion
May 2014
#155
Wow, he just called anyone who believes it is correct to question our leaders an "N" word.
fleabiscuit
May 2014
#159
One reason, it's not finished. I don't think any of it has been presented to Congress.
Hoyt
May 2014
#182
So all the Unions who worked so hard to get him in office are now conspiracy nuts ?
classykaren
May 2014
#179
Nobel Prize went to the fired economist who pointed out the real issues in global finance.
Octafish
May 2014
#185
People, you really need to read the actual quote instead of slurping the spin of this 'article'.
brett_jv
May 2014
#193
When a group conspires to keep and enact something in secret - that is a conspiracy
on point
May 2014
#202