Are Chemtrails & Disease Pandemics linked to Pharmaceutical Companies and their Economic Growth?

Photo By: Stewart Brennan - 2010 Montreal, Canada

By: Stewart Brennan
World United News
http://worldunitednews.blogspot.com/
 

There are a lot of unanswered questions when the subject of Chemtrails comes up, especially when the government of Canada remains elusive on the topic. Government's are supposed to answer to the people, but of course this has not been the case in Canada. So, what is it that is being sprayed in our skies, why are they doing it, and why is there so much secrecy in what appears to be a massive operation taking place right in front of our eyes?

I’ve personally been watching Chemtrails since just after 911 in 2001. At that time I lived in Ayer’s Cliff Quebec near the Vermont border. Back then the US air force seemed to come out of nowhere to patrol the skies in our region. A sleeping giant had awoken after 911 and we in Ayer’s Cliff just figured it would go back to sleep after a couple of months of drills and that would be the end of it.

The presence of the US air force was not a welcome sight for me and nor were the grid styled chemtrails that descended over the country by high flying military aircraft. What could I do...

It wasn’t until 2005 – 2006 when I picked up photography that I began to notice Chemtrails again. They appeared in a number of my photo’s but I still had not put much thought into them. At the time, they were just interesting targets to take pictures of.

Photo By: Stewart Brennan - 2006 Ayer's Cliff Quebec, Canada

 

Later, when I moved to Winnipeg Manitoba (2007 – 2009), I began to notice a major increase in the number of chemtrails in the sky, as did a number of others witnesses that I had met on YouTube. There was a lot of speculation floating around then and a lot of government denial of chemtrails at the same time. But one thing was for sure, this was not an isolated phenomenon as reports from all over Western Europe and North America made their way onto YouTube.

 

 

Photo By: Stewart Brennan - August 2009 Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

It was not localized to one area of Manitoba either, and still we had no answers from the government as to what they were doing and why they were allowing it to happen.

 

Photo By: Stewart Brennan - August 2009 Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

During the month of August 2009 there was a lot of spraying going on in Manitoba, but just as people were taking notice of these massive sprayings the government and the World Health Organization (W.H.O.) began ramping up their fears on avian and Swine flu.

I moved to the West Island of Montreal late in September 2009 only to find the same Chemtrail spraying was happening there.

 

But here, I witnessed chemtrails unravel to cast large blankets across the sky...and they descended. Often, when looking up, you could see just how alien they were by the wind-strewn shapes, zigs and zags that came from what the planes left behind. What was contained in those clouds can only be speculated on by those watching. I sure had no clue at the time but the Canadian government must have known because the planes that spray these things fly right over the Air traffic control towers, and since 911, NOTHING unidentified goes by without a security lockdown.

 

 

Photo's By: Stewart Brennan - August 2010, Montreal, Quebec Canada 

Over the past year or two, I’ve noticed that the spraying increases when the sky is clear or increases 24 hours before it is to rain. Watching these chemtrails unfold and then descend on the population below is really sickening…pardon the pun.

One of the most bizarre things I have experienced is the droplets of rain that come from a sky filled with these poisonous clouds when there are no rain clouds anywhere…this happened to me in Winnipeg just before we moved back to Montreal in September 2009. Of course right after that we all got sick with swine flu…well, doctors said it was swine flu…good thing they had new medicines on the shelf just in time to treat the symptoms of this NEW disease eh!

 

Photo By: Stewart Brennan - 2009 New Medication for Swine Flu side effects

 

I found it strange that the Pharmaceutical companies had already manufactured new products to combat brand new virus strains and their symptoms. The products were on the shelves before the flu symptoms were known by the public. Of course doctors at the clinics and hospitals were aware of these new products. Coincidentally or not…the new products had a 30% mark up price from the older medication that they claimed no longer worked. How do you get a new product out to the stores so quickly such as the two in the picture above unless the flu was a planned release to establish corporate growth and increased share holder profits?

That’s the type of sick world we live in, "for Profit corporations”, lobby groups, and Government in a collusion of theft, deceit, greed, and murder. Banks are doing it, oil companies are doing it, military equipment manufacturers are doing it, so why not big Pharma?

These same Pharmaceutical companies work with the military on biological weapons; which brings up the 2009 Swine Flu scare. Natives from Isolated reserves in Northern Manitoba were flown to Winnipeg with the same sickness that native people from the US and Mexico had months earlier. The only way to get it was by human contact...unless…unless it was dispersed in the air over the isolated communities or dropped in their water supply. I was in Winnipeg at the time to witness this story unfold, and lived a block away from the St Boniface Hospital where the Native people were brought in from up north.

The Natives NORTH of Winnipeg had no contact with people from the outside. The only thing they had in common with everyone else was the chemical spraying of the skies. Later the story unfolded in BC as well where a Reserve North of Tofino BC had over 100 cases reported with swine flu.

Then in a shocking announcement the Canadian government sent 100's of body bags to Native Reserve's in Northern Manitoba during this outbreak. How revealing can you get without giving information that the government was in collusion with this pandemic operation? The Canadian Government had to be AWARE of the potential of this lab made virus! The virus was made up of Bird Flu, Swine Flu and Spanish Flu, and that concoction could only be made in a military biological weapons lab! 

CBC Report: Ottawa sends body bags to Manitoba reserves

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/story/2009/09/16/mb-ottawa-body-bags-manitoba.html

I had also wondered why the native community was more susceptible to the ill effects of this flu virus, until I came across an article that stated how the 1918 Influenza Virus was exhumed from natives that had succumbed to the disease in 1918 that were buried in the permafrost.

Scientists Describe How 1918 Influenza Virus Sample Was Exhumed In Alaska

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/07/070702145610.htm

There was another story linked back to 1998 in the NY Times where it was reported that they had indeed extracted Virus samples from people who died of the virus in Alaska.

Alaskan Victim of 1918 Flu Yields Sample of Killer Virus

http://www.nytimes.com/1998/02/08/us/alaskan-victim-of-1918-flu-yields-sample-of-killer-virus.html

Considering that the US military and government labs cultivated the 1918 influenza strain from tissue samples from a native woman found in the permafrost who died of the 1918 Spanish flu…well it truly opens up a LOT of questions.

One other thing I would like to say about this is that my step daughter who is part native became extremely sick to the point of pneumonia with this flu…the rest of us were not as sick but were treated with NEW over the counter drugs by the pharmaceutical companies.

Video - H1N1 FROZEN BODY EXHUMED to RESURRECT 1918 Swine Flu by U.S. Armed Institute of Pathology in

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqdBcudO5dY

CDC – Centres for Disease Control and Prevention link

http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/content/12/1/contents.htm

Wikipedia - Swine Influenza

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swine_influenza

Swine Flu Infects Seven; Genetic Make-Up Has Scientists Stymied

http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2009/04/swine-flu-infec.html

UC Davis explains Swine Flu make-up

http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/health&id=6785813

Conclusion:

My thoughts could write a book on this topic, but who would ever publish it. It is my belief that the corporate military establishment are using the global population as lab animals...and that most of these tests come from the pharmaceutical companies who can no longer grow by ordinary business means, so they spray lab made flu viruses over the sky to make people sick so that they can cash in on the already made solutions that combat the new virus of their own design. But I also think it goes much deeper than that. Considering that the ruling establishment such as the Royal Family in England, The Rockefeller's and many others such as media mogul Ted Turner believe in population reduction…more so since the secrets of the criminal banking system have been revealed to the public…I think these lunatics are crazy enough to decide that the test is no longer one for profit. The next phase in their plan seems to be coming if the current 2012 Pharmaceutical stock value is any indication. The Pharmaceutical companies need to stimunate growth because they are losing money...how do you bailout a Pharma company... 

Eli Lilly & Company Chart: Revenue Growth

http://ycharts.com/companies/LLY/chart#series=calc:revenue_growth,type:company,id:LLY&maxPoints=550&zoom=5&format=real

Pfizer Chart: Revenue Growth
http://ycharts.com/companies/PFE/chart#series=calc:revenue_growth,type:company,id:PFE&maxPoints=550&zoom=5&format=real

Merck Frost Chart: Revenue Growth
http://ycharts.com/companies/MRK/chart#series=calc:revenue_growth,type:company,id:MRK&maxPoints=550&zoom=5&format=real

Novo Nordisk Chart: Revenue Growth
http://ycharts.com/companies/NVO/chart#series=calc:revenue_growth,type:company,id:NVO&maxPoints=550&zoom=5&format=real

The Great Revealing – US Marshals Expose Biggest Scandal in History

http://divinecosmos.com/start-here/davids-blog/1066-great-revealing

How far will they go this time now that the World is experiencing global economic turmoil and revolution? People are no longer asleep and are linking up together on the Internet while speaking out against their governments.

The establishment’s response has been one of complete ignorance and denial when pressed about chemtrails or anything that involves money. They evade the issues and then call for more austerity with deep cuts to social programs and then collude with other western leaders for more wars…I think they are crazy enough to unleash a deadly virus in the air this time. Then again, maybe the swine flu scare of 2009 was a test? Maybe a different strain was dropped on different people…it sure seemed that way in North America and in the Ukraine in 2009 – 2010.
 

How far will they go this time? Those making the decisions in the World have lost their morality. Will they unleash a virulent strain on the public for profit as their stocks dip once again?

Maybe it’s a far reach to suspect foul play, but then again the World has gone completely insane these days…and I do not trust my government, my bank or a boardroom decision that puts profit and shareholders before the life of my community…

The 47 Billion Hole in Pharma's Near Term Future

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ycharts/2012/09/01/the-47-billion-hole-in-pharmas-near-term-future/

Pharmaceutical Company Whistle Blower tells of “Illegal Tactics”

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=5870

The 6 top drug companies – Thugs of the medical world

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/11/18/drug-companies-are-ranked-in-the-top-100-corporate-criminals-of-the-1990s.aspx

Drug groups to reap Swine flu billions

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/375dde06-7559-11de-9ed5-00144feabdc0.html

The False Pandemic: Drug firms cashed in on scare over Swine flu

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1242147/The-false-pandemic-Drug-firms-cashed-scare-swine-flu-claims-Euro-health-chief.html

Drug companies face European inquiry over Swine-flu vaccine stockpiles

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/11/swine-flu-h1n1-vaccine-europe

List of Pharmaceutical Businesses in Canada

http://www.manta.com/world/North+America/Canada/pharmaceuticals--D2/

Final Thought:

 

I'm reminded of a line from the "Lord of the Rings" movie, where starving Orks asked their leaders an insane question about what to do with the 2 hobbits they had captured, “What about their legs? They don’t need those?”…their master replied with the execution of one of those asking and offered the dead remains to the group who then proceeded to cannibalize its remains.

Corporate Business 101 - The Master shareholder calls all the shots and dictates to the board members what direction or decisions are to be made in a company...remember, there are no morals in a Board room...there is only profit and they call it capitalism.

 

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France warns of massive response if Syria uses chemical weapons

Syria's army tank (AFP Photo / STR)

Source: Russia Today

http://rt.com/news/france-syria-chemical-threat-273/

The West will retaliate harshly if the Syrian army deploys chemical weapons, France’s foreign minister said Monday. Damascus vowed not to use its chemical arsenal against its own people, but left the option open in the event of a foreign invasion.

­The Syrian army is believed to possess stockpiles of nerve agents and mustard gas, and the Scud missiles capable of delivering them.

If Damascus chose to use their biological or chemical weapons, “our response … would be massive and blistering,” French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said on Monday during an interview with RMC radio.

Western countries are monitoring the movement of chemical weapons in Syria and are prepared to “step in” immediately, Fabius said: “We are discussing this notably with our American and English partners.”

In August, US President Barack Obama said that if Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad used or transported chemical weapons, it would be “a red line” for Washington. This position was widely echoed by the UK and France, with French and British politicians urging the UN to investigate Syria’s chemical strike threats.

France has intensified its hawkish rhetoric since Washington’s declaration. "What's at stake goes beyond Syria. It concerns the security of the Middle East and especially Lebanon," French President Francois Hollande said a week ago.

Fabius declined to comment on Friday over whether Paris or Washington would intervene first if Syria were discovered to have moved its arsenal. “I shall keep it secret,” he told radio station Europe-1.

The possibility of the Assad regime using chemical weapons has stirred international concerns, even among nations that have taken a moderate stance the Syrian conflict. Russia held several urgent negotiations with Damascus requesting assurance that the country’s chemical and biological stockpiles are properly guarded, and will not be moved or deployed.

On Monday, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton declared that “the risk of a chemical weapons deployment today remains high.” Though the remarks were supposedly a statement about the use of the weapons worldwide, she was referencing the ongoing Syrian crisis.

Following numerous unsuccessful negotiations between the country’s warring factions, Moscow reiterated its noninterventionist stance concerning the Syrian conflict: “We hope nobody would resort to any kind of foolishness,” Russia’s Foreign Ministry said, adding that military intervention is unacceptable.

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Egypt declares 70 army generals retired: Report

 

Egyptian Defense Minister Major General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi meets with Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi at the presidential palace in Cairo, Egypt, August 22, 2012

Source: Press TV

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/09/04/259756/egypt-declares-70-army-generals-retired/

A report says the Egyptian government has announced the retirement of 70 army generals, weeks after President Mohamed Morsi replaced Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi as defense minister with Major General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

The new defense minister made the announcement, adding that six members of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) have also been dismissed, according to a report by the Egyptian daily al-Shorouk.

The six SCAF members will however remain in the armed forces, the paper said.

On August 12, Morsi dismissed Tantawi from his post, canceling a constitutional declaration issued by the military that restricted presidential powers.

Tantawi was Egypt’s defense minister for nearly two decades under former dictator Hosni Mubarak. He headed Egypt’s SCAF, which took power in February 2011 after Egyptians launched a revolution against Mubarak’s regime in January, which eventually brought an end to the dictatorship.

Morsi also ordered the retirement of the military chief of staff, Sami Anan, replacing him with Sedqi Sobhi Sayyid Ahmed.

On August 22, Egyptian lawyer Assem Kandil filed the first legal complaint against several officials in the African state including Tantawi.

“I did so because I accuse them all of killing protesters during the series of bloody protests in Egypt following last year’s uprising along with wasting public money in the state’s spending on the parliamentary election,” the lawyer said.

 

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Moody’s cuts EU outlook to negative

 

Source: Russia Today

http://rt.com/news/moodys-eu-outlook-negative-293/

Moody’s ratings agency has downgraded its outlook on the Aaa rating of the European Union from ‘stable’ to ‘negative,’ linking the decision to a recent outlook downgrade of the bloc’s major economies.

"The negative outlook on the EU's long-term ratings reflects the negative outlook on the Aaa ratings of the member states with large contributions to the EU budget: Germany, France, the UK and the Netherlands, which together account for around 45 per cent of the EU's budget revenue," Moody’s said in a statement on Monday.

The agency also cut its outlook on the provisional (P)Aaa rating of the EU's medium-term note (MTN) program from ‘stable’ to ‘negative.’

The outlook downgrade comes after the agency changed to negative its outlook for Germany and Holland's Aaa ratings on July 23. Moody’s explained that it was reasonable to assume that the EU's creditworthiness should move in line with the creditworthiness of its strongest key member states. The outlook on France and the UK are also negative.

Moody’s warned that it may downgrade the European Union's rating if it decides to cut the ratings of Germany, France, the UK and the Netherlands.

The agency also added that the outlook for the EU could go back to 'stable' if the outlooks on the four major European economies are first.

 

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US debt eclipses economy, reaching $16 trillion this week

Source: Russia Today

http://rt.com/usa/news/us-debt-eclipses-economy-295/

The US government is about to announce its $16 trillion debt, a landmark number that has more than tripled during the last two presidencies. At 104 per cent of the nation’s gross domestic product, the debt is now larger than the US economy itself.

The federal government closed Thursday with $15.99 trillion in debt – but some budget analysts think it most likely reached $16 trillion by the end of the day, the Washington Examiner reported. The news comes as Republicans and Democrats formally nominate their presidential candidates, and the official announcement will likely come on the first day of the Democratic National Convention on Tuesday.

“This is a grim landmark for the United States. Yet the president seems strangely unconcerned,” said Sen. Jeff Sessions of the Senate Budget Committee.

Each day, the debt grows by roughly $3.5 billion, or about $2 million per minute.

Twelve years ago, before the election of George Bush, the debt stood at $5.6 trillion. In the months before President Obama took office, the debt was $9.6 trillion. During the last presidency, it has increased by $6.4 trillion – two-thirds of its 2008 amount. The current president has overseen the largest debt explosion in US history.

This year marks the fourth consecutive year with a $1 trillion budget shortfall.

A top adviser to President Obama said the commander in chief had a “plausible plan” to stabilize the debt – without reducing it.

“You can’t balance the budget in the short term because to do that would be to ratchet down the economy,” adviser David Axelrod told Fox News on Sunday.

About 30 per cent of the total public debt is intragovernmental holdings, including money borrowed from Social Security’s trust fund.

“The national debt is certainly a ticking time bomb. There’s no question that if we don’t do something about it, it’s going off,” said Robert Bixby, the executive director of the Concord Coalition, an NGO promoting a balanced budget. “We’re spending about $200 billion on interest now. That’s much more than we’re spending on operations in Afghanistan, more than we’re spending on Medicaid.”

As the US debt makes history, the first group of baby boomers is now retiring and relying on government entitlements to get by.

While presidential candidate Mitt Romney, gave his speech at the RNC last week, a national debt clock ticked behind him to fill the convention's attendees with fear of a looming financial catastrophe.

The DNC is unlikely to feature a similar exhibit – but the federal government will likely announce its $16 trillion debt during the heat of the convention in North Carolina

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Poverty and Rising Social Inequality in India

 

By: Colin Todhunter

Source: Global Research
http://www.globalresearch.ca/poverty-and-rising-social-inequality-in-india/

The issue of poverty keeps rearing its inconvenient head in India. The Planning Commission tends to keep on shifting the poverty line, but it is always at a ludicrously low level, which underestimates the numbers actually living in poverty. But playing fast and loose with India’s poverty line has almost become a trendy pastime.

The truth is that poverty is an embarrassment. It is an embarrassment to many of India’s rich and to a good number of politicians, who like to portray the country as an emerging superpower, with its space program, sophisticated weaponry, sports towns, growth figures, Formula 1 race track and gleaming malls.

Apart from such headline-grabbing trappings, India also houses the second largest number of affluent people in the world, with three million households having over $100,000 of investable funds. While this represents just 1.25 per cent of households, it is again the kind of phenomenon that some love to promote as part the myth of India sitting at the top table of nations.

Reality check. One in four people in India is hungry and every second child is underweight and stunted. In 2011, India was 73rd out of 88 countries listed in the annual Global Hunger Index, six places down from the previous year. The 2010 Multidimensional Poverty Index indicated that eight Indian states account for more poor people than in the 26 poorest African countries combined. According to this measure, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal have 421 million poor people. This is more than the 410 million poor in the poorest African countries.

Instead of concentrating on GDP growth figures, how about we focus on the annual poverty alleviation figure? The former fluctuates between eight and nine per cent, while the latter is 0.8 per cent, virtually the same as it was 20 years ago. The sacred scripture of free market ‘trickle-down’ dogma has not delivered.

But, hold on a minute. The eight or nine per cent GDP economic growth figures tell us that India is thriving. Right? Wrong. The rich in India are thriving, but the poor, and these days given the inflationary pressures, many of the middle classes too, are struggling to get by. If the growth figures tell us anything, it is that they – the poor and large sections of the middle class – can be said to be paying for the lifestyles of India’s rich.

The logic of ‘development’

Step inside the gated communities or a plush 27-storey one billion dollar plus Mumbai house and arrive in a Forbes nightmare world of privilege and wealth. Step inside the brand spanking new shopping malls, and you could be forgiven for thinking that you were in London or New York, with the plastic food joints, bland international chains and an air-conditioned macburger world of cola dens and coffee bars. These swish temples of modernity are a statement of perhaps where India wanted to be, of where part of India thinks it now is.

But India is capitalism’s success story, isn’t it? Or so the media like to tell us. Despite the logic of capitalism being to drive down costs and increase profits, politicians in the West are trying to change perceptions of India among their own populations. They are attempting to eradicate the notion of it being a land of call centres and back offices that takes jobs from the West and replace it with the idea that trade between India and the West is a two-way relationship that is creating jobs, growth and higher living standards for all concerned.

The reality is somewhat different. For example, a deal struck between India and the US for Harley-Davidsons a couple of years ago will not benefit plants in the US because a new assembly unit in India is to be built. Setting up shop in India not only often leads to the use of cheap exploited labour that works long hours with few if any rights, but also puts downward pressure on existing labour costs in the West. This is the whole logic behind ‘outsourcing’. It’s a win-win situation for CEOs and shareholders alike.

Servicing the well-to-do by providing them with Harleys, overpriced coffee and i-phones is what ‘development’ is all about for those who will financially profit. On his visit to India in 2010, it was noticeable that Barak Obama and his entourage had little to say about the 75 per cent of the population that lives on less than two dollars a day. Not much was said about India’s warped development that creates rich-list billionaires while maintaining so many in poverty or merely hovering above it. There seems to be no invite, no reservation at the top table, no impending arrival at destination corporate-driven-nirvana for those people and others like them.

In the West, workers’ jobs and wages are heading one way – downwards. In large parts of India, especially with increasing food, worklessness and petrol costs, things are just as tough. Listening to political leaders you’d be hard pressed to notice though. They and the media are adept in twisting the truth and passing off such things to their respective populations as necessary blips in the journey towards to some cheap con-trick notion of the promised-land.

There is a shift in power occurring across the world – from the poor and less well off to the rich, boosted by an economic system that ensures the flow of wealth goes upwards via what academic David Harvey calls ‘accumulation by dispossession’ and these days reflected in massive handouts to bankers, public services cutbacks or wages that continue to fall in real terms. When politicians speak of ‘inclusive growth’, it is nice talk. But that’s all it is. How could it be anything else, especially in India as the government continues to sell the country to western financial and corporate interests?

The new colonial masters

India has been moving increasingly closer to the US in recent years and, by implication, complying with its geo-political and economic hegemony. In return for the US sanctioning, supplying and facilitating the development of India’s nuclear industry (despite India not being a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty and having developed a nuclear bomb – contrast its treatment to that of Iran, which is a signatory and cannot be proved to be pursing a nuclear weapons programme), the Indian economy is being prized open on behalf of western retail, agribusiness, pharmaceutical and various other concerns.

On August 15, India celebrated Independence Day. Some 65 years earlier, Nehru stood in Delhi and spoke about a tryst with destiny. Free from the shackles of British colonialism, India was on course for a bright new future.

But appealing to base instincts, greed and narcissism has become the priority value of ‘modern’ India. Shopping and consumerism have become the concerns and priorities of India’s misinformed and misled creamy layer. Misinformed by news outlets that pass off infotainment for news. Misinformed by a government that cosies up to western multi-nationals with secretive ‘Memorandums of Understanding’ and then proceeds to target some of the poorest people in the country as ‘the enemy within’.

Part of India’s own self proclaimed ‘war on terror’ is taking place in the highly mineral rich mountains and jungles of Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Jharkhand and Andhra Pradesh. State governments have already signed hundreds of agreements with companies to begin mining and build steel and aluminum plants and other industries. How easy it was for the Indian government to discredit any legitimate protestor in those regions as a Maoist or Naxalite insurgent. How easy it was for it to then attempt to secure those areas for rich foreign companies by killing thousands and forcing nearly 50,000 adivasis (tribal people) into camps in order to control dissent.

Some 300,000 people have been forcibly displaced. Hundreds of thousands of security personnel have poured into the region with sophisticated military hardware.

Despite Nehru’s misty eyed views, the Indian and western elites are now the new colonial masters in India. Is this the bright new future he had in mind?

But imagine for a moment a world where India pursued a more independent path that would be strident in its rejection of predatory capitalism and US-led militarism increasingly aimed at China, India’s neighbour.

Imagine a model of development that would in fact be inspired by particular policies adopted by the likes of Cuba, Bhutan, Venezuela, Costa Rica and Bolivia, which place strong emphasis on health, ‘happiness’, education or bio-diverse agriculture and not least on the rights of indigenous peoples, sustainability, respect for the environment and/or common ownership.

Unfortunately, imagination does not match the reality.

For many foreigners who visit India, it is the land of the great philosophies. It is the land of spirituality, morality and enlightenment. Many view India through this distorted prism. It is this rose-tinted perception that brings them here. For other foreigners, however, it is a land ripe for the taking. And Washington knows it.

India threw off the shackles of colonialism in 1947. And long ago it threw off the shackles of any moral philosophy. There’s a new game in town. And it’s based on selling anything you can get your hands on to the highest bidder, even the soul of the country. Now there is a new colonial master on the block.

Whether it’s the waging of war on its poorest people or the collusion with foreign governments and corporations to loot the economy for profit, successive Indian administrations have conspired to deceive their own people as they work hand in glove with Wall Street and proponents of ‘free trade’ and neo-liberalism to sell the lie of freedom and independence to an affluent section of the population eager to believe it and willing to regard the oppression of the country’s poorest folk as ‘collateral damage’ in the drive to secure ‘necessary economic infrastructure’.

With 75 per cent of the population living on less than two dollars a day, the influence of western agribusiness leading to well over 200,000 farmers’ suicides and large parts of the country under military law, politicians and the media abroad still talk of India as capitalism’s miracle, as democracy’s great success story. The old clichés and convenient lies are often trotted out about a land of enterprise and growth, Bollywood and glitz, millionaires and cyber parks.

But there’s always Bollywood novacaine, the infotainment obsessed media or the latest Forbes rich list to distract or dull the pain, isn’t there? Better still – the stroke of a bureaucrat’s pen in drawing a new poverty line will do just fine.

 

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Quebec provincial elections to begin

Major candidates for Quebec provincial elections, Coalition Avenir Québec party leader Francois Legault (L) Parti Quebecois leader Pauline Marois, incumbent premier Jean Charest (R)

Source: Press TV

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/09/04/259746/quebec-provincial-elections-to-begin/

Voters in Canada’s French-speaking province of Quebec will cast their ballots in provincial elections, with a separatist party looking to return to power.

Voters in Quebec will head to the polls on Tuesday, amid rising frustration with the current government led by Liberal leader Jean Charest, who has been in power for about a decade.

According to the latest opinion polls conducted by Forum Research, the pro-independence opposition party, Parti Quebecois, was in the lead with 36 percent of the votes and the incumbent Liberal party stood at second place with 29 percent. The polls also showed that the Coalition Avenir Quebec Party (CAQ) received 25 percent of the votes.

Parti Quebecois leader Pauline Marois earlier said that if she won the elections for a new Quebec government, she would call for a referendum on the separation of Quebec from Canada.

Marois also pledged that she would roll back the government’s proposed tuition fee rises, if her party won the elections.

Since February, students have been protesting against the hikes and the provincial government’s controversial anti-protest Bill 78. The protests later turned into a larger movement dubbed as the “maple revolution,” which reveals deeper social unrest.

 

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