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Judi Lynn Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-14-11 10:14 PM
Original message
Brazil has a “North Sea of oil” along its Atlantic coast, says Petrobras
Thursday, July 14th 2011 - 22:09 UTC
Brazil has a “North Sea of oil” along its Atlantic coast, says Petrobras

The UK and Norway held about 62 billion barrels of reserves in the North Sea before the deposits were developed, Francisco Nepomuceno Filho, Petrobras’s London head of exploration and production said.

“Brazil as a whole could have a potential of the same size of the North Sea, including Norway and the UK,” Nepomuceno Filho said. “Those two countries grew a lot and had huge development.”

Brazilian reserves that sit miles below the floor of the Atlantic Ocean trapped under layers of rock and salt hold an estimated 50 billion barrels of oil, according to the country’s oil regulator.

Lula, the largest discovery in the Americas in over three decades, had the country’s most productive well in May, yielding 36,322 barrels a day of oil and natural gas.

More:
http://en.mercopress.com/2011/07/14/brazil-has-a-north-sea-of-oil-along-its-atlantic-coast-says-petrobras
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rabs Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-15-11 12:27 AM
Response to Original message
1. The Brazilian viewpoint ...

... that never made the news in the United States.

Carlos Latuff is one of Brazil's most reknown cartoonists.

Obama arrives in Rio.

"Which way to the Pre-Salt.


U.S. is seen as greedy, oil-thirsty and domineering.



---------------------

The hair-blown reporters who accompanied Obama on his trip to Brazil were clueless about the undertones.




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Peace Patriot Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-15-11 10:00 AM
Response to Reply #1
2. Thanks for the pictorials!
Even at this distance, and through layers of translation, I got the undertones, maybe because I follow LatAm news as closely as I can. Seemed obvious to me that Dilma Rousseff laid down the New Rules (no more coups, no more U.S. corps/banksters' ravaging of LatAm economies, new "level playing field" in world trade and LatAms now have each others' backs on this). But if an ordinary U.S. citizen like me--monoglot but with curiosity--can figure this out, why can't the "hair-blown reporters" of the corpo-fascist press figure it out?

This. Is. The. Biggest. News. Of. The. Century.

Not to mention the best news--the most positive news--from a human rights/social justice perspective.

And it tells you something about the state of the U.S./"global north" business world: they don't want--or, in any case, aren't getting--good information. Accurate, truthful, real, practical, useful information.

This has puzzled me for a lo-o-o-o-ng time: How can you base a business on false information--profound lies, spin, distortion, such as we've seen in the corpo-fascist press about LatAm?

Murdoch taking over the Wall Street Journal is symptomatic. It used to be that the WSJ kept its fascist views to the editorial page and actually provided good, in-depth information on its news pages--because, presumably, businesspeople must have accurate information on which to base business decisions. Now the whole publication stinks of fascist propaganda. How is this useful to the business world?

Well, one of the conclusions I've come to is that U.S./"global north" corporations are relying on SOMETHING ELSE to make their decisions, and the Iraq War is emblematic of what that "something else" is--U.S. violence, the U.S. war machine, U.S. bullying, U.S. 'black ops,' and U.S. government enforcement of IMF/World Bank policies of looting "the commons," robbing the poor, enriching the super-rich and stealing resources of every kind. In other words, the bulk of the U.S./"global north" business world is NOT doing business; it is doing war. And war always and ever depends on propaganda. Much of the propaganda is aimed at the U.S. people themselves, to keep us stupid about what these fuckers are doing with our money and our military. This conclusion may exclude small and medium-sized businesses, which still need real information (and aren't getting it). They are actually "doing business," in the traditional sense--producing something--goods, services, ideas that are useful--and they and their workers are the real "engines" of whatever vestiges of a real economy remain here (as well as being the "engines" of democracy). The predatory capitalist war/propaganda machine ill serves them--and they, too, are being vastly exploited and swallowed up in the monstrous maw of this horrible corporate war machine.

And where the U.S. corporate/war machine is not "forging markets" and stealing resources for the monster corps (such as Exxon Mobil, Chevron, BP, Monsanto...), it is creating looting opportunities for all sorts of non-business businesses, such as the many 'contractors' sucking off the U.S. taxpayer tit and producing nothing. Again, Iraq is emblematic: billions and billions of dollars simply 'disappeared' into the non-redevelopment of Iraq. Multiply this all over the world--billions and billions wasted on attempts at propagandizing, destabilizing and gaining control of Cuba, Venezuela, Honduras, Haiti, Libya, Iran, the Afghanistan pipeline corridor--a few examples of many. These are USAID 'contracts.' What are they producing? Nada! They are non-businesses. Their purposes are propaganda or sheer looting of U.S. taxpayers. And what is the purpose of the propaganda? Gaining U.S./"global north" control of the oil or other resources; creating slave labor markets; gaining strategic positions for war and domination--and FOOLING first of all the people HERE about what is really going on, and what their taxes and their government are being used for, and propagandizing the target countries and the world in so far as that is possible.

LEECHES. The "business community" has become monopolistic, propagandistic LEECHES--dependent on the U.S. war machine and U.S. taxpayers for their egregiously unfair advantage in the world. They don't need reliable, accurate, practical information. They need tanks, bombers, 'cannon fodder,' "black ops"! And to keep getting that support for their unfair advantage, they have to FOOL the people who are paying for it.

They, of course, have been "killing the golden goose" (the great American middle class), so now they want to loot our Social Security, our Medicare, our educational system, etc., to pay for their goddamn wars and their thefts and their egregiously unfair advantages.

This propaganda machine--this 'Big Lie' machine--this creation of unreal, non-useful 'information'--has largely FAILED in LatAm, where democracy has undergone one of its miraculous historical eruptions. And, of course, democracy--real democracy--goes hand in hand with real business--a real marketplace--an honest exchange of goods, services and ideas--the matrix of prosperity. Our system in the "global north" has become almost incapable of real business and real democracy. The lies in the corporate press about LatAm's remarkable leftist democracy revolution indicate how fearful these corporate rulers and war profiteers are, that we may recognize real democracy when we see it, and some of their "spin" indicates how baffled they are, as to how to regain control of LatAm.

The "spin" that most amuses me is their fantasy that their "divide and conquer" tactic, of Venezuela vs Brazil, has been successful. The exact opposite is true. It has been hugely UN-successful. Lula da Silva wouldn't put up with it, nor will Dilma Rousseff. They understand, in the deepest way, that unity is essential to LatAm independence, democracy, social justice and prosperity. They have made this very clear to U.S. corporate/war profiteer representatives (Bush/Rice, et al, Obama/Clinton, et al). I just saw this "spin" spun again, in an El Universal (corpo/fascist) 'news' article, re Humala/Peru. They state as fact that Humala "used to be" an ally of Hugo Chavez but has now changed into an ally of Lula da Silva. But they LEAVE OUT the fact that Chavez and da Silva are the closest and strongest of allies with each other! There is no breach. There is no divide. Chavez, da Silva and Humala are just very clever people. They knew how best to get a leftist elected in a U.S. client state without triggering a Honduras-type coup d'etat.

I've thought long and hard about this. At first, I thought Humala was making a mistake--one that cost him a big mandate (cuz the very poorest 10% stayed home, didn't vote). But the clue to what really went down can be found in El Universal's repetition of their "talking point"--their insistence that their "divide and conquer" tactic has succeeded. This is so typical of corporate manufactured 'news.' It's THEIR OWN "talking point." They cite no source; they provide no quotation, no reference, nothing. They ASSERT that Humala "used to be" a Chavez ally--i.e., he is no longer a Chavez ally, which is bullshit.

What we are seeing in LatAm is a revolution designed by Hugo Chavez and Lula da Silva! Their alliance has been the key to it all. Their development of the "raise all boats" philosophy is why it is succeeding--politically and economically. It is why there are now leftist governments in charge in most of South America and half of Central America. And while Chavez backed off, and Lula stepped forward, as to Peru's election, they did so not on the basis of any corpo-fascist press manufactured "divide," they did to DENY the corpo-fascist press the propaganda weapon that was going to be used against Humala: "bogeyman Chavez"!

It's NOT that the corpo-fascist 'news' purveyors are clueless as to what is really going on; it's that they want us to be clueless--so that they can keep looting us, so they can keeping making war in our name and so that we will not rebel as LatAm has done.

The practical upshot of this--if you posit a real U.S. business community--is that business people here would find themselves clueless, when they went down to Peru, for instance, and made anti-Chavez jokes in business meetings, thinking to ingratiate themselves with Peruvians; or made bad business decisions, regarding, say, Brazil's big markets, based on wrong notions of Brazil's relations with Venezuela.

REAL businesspeople would be handicapped by such disinformation. Phony businesspeople--corporate monopolists and war profiteers--operate on an entirely different plane whereon the U.S. government's threats, bribes, bullying, "dirty ops" and other machinations (including coups, arms to rightwing terrorists, funds to rightwing groups) pave the way for their unfair advantage. And this can get very bloody, indeed. In Colombia, we've seen $7 BILLION in U.S. military aid used to decapitate the trade union movement and other advocates of workers and the poor majority. These are the conditions that corporations like Exxon Mobil or Drummond Coal or Chiquita have come to expect--U.S. taxpayers funding the murder of labor union leaders. This is what they use the U.S. government for. It's not business. It's war.

LatAm has become unified against it. And, so, the propagandists of this corporate war manufactured disunity--call it, "Disunity, the Movie"--try to impose their movie on reality. I think Chavez, da Silva and Humala outfoxed them.

As for Obama's visit to Brazil--and what was going on behind the scenes between Rousseff and Obama--they "missed" everything, not because their reporters are "hair-blown" but because they must keep a lid on the story of LatAm's leftist revolution, independence, unity and real democracy. How do they get billions of dollars for the Pentagon and the USAID and the CIA and the U.S. "war on drugs" in LatAm, and retain the Pentagon's "circle the wagons" area, in Central America/the Caribbean, on behalf of U.S./"global north" corporations, banksters and war profiteers--how do they continue all this looting and failure and seeking of unfair advantage--if we learn the truth that Latin Americans can plainly see, despite the corpo-fascist propaganda machine there?

Well, they've got the corporate-controlled 'TRADE SECRET' voting machines, here, to keep the billions in filthy lucre flowing, and to keep their war plans on the Big Dartboard, but the edifice is teetering, and thus, the propaganda becomes ever more screeching and hysterical--a "Big Lie" balloon that may be popping as we speak, if Murdoch goes down.
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rabs Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-15-11 06:40 PM
Response to Reply #2
3. I am impressed again


Only you can take three political cartoons and turn them into a thoughtful analysis that covers several crucial bases of U.S./Latin American relations. Tip of the hat and :toast:

While on the subject of Obama's visit to Brazil, there is another very important episode that you may have not seen because it did not get media attention (or little if any) in the MSM.

At a meeting with Dilma at the presidential palace in Brasilia, Obama told her that he would announce his declaration of war on Libya that same day.

That pissed off Dilma and Itamaraty (Foreign Ministry) no end.

A Brazilian blogger named Rodolfo Vasconcellos put it this way. (Translation below mine.)
-------------------------------------------
Sábado, Março 19, 2011

Obama Insulta o Brasil ao Declarar Guerra à Líbia de Dentro do Palácio do Planalto

Posando de cowboy e malandro, Obama tomou atitude que viola as regras da hospitalidade, constrangendo o anfitrião. Simplesmente desonrou o Brasil, ao fazer uma declaração de guerra no país que por princípio constitucional e tradição, advoga a solução pacífica dos conflitos internacionais, e ainda mais durante audiência fechada com nossa presidenta Dilma Roussef. O Xerife do mundo ignorou o fato de que o Brasil se absteve na votação da resolução do Conselho de Segurança da ONU que forjou uma via legal para a agressão, “por não estar seguro de que o uso da força é o melhor caminho”, conforme explicou a embaixadora Viotti, representante do Brasil no órgão das Nações Unidas.

Saturday, March 19, 2001

Obama Insults Brazil in Declaring War on Libya from Inside the Planalto Palace

Posing as a cowboy and bad guy, Obama adopted an attitude that violated the rules of hospitality, constraining the host (Dilma). He simply dishonored Brazil in announcing a declaration of war in a nation that by constitutional principal and tradition advocates for a peaceful solution to international conflicts, and even more during a meeting with our president, Dilma Rousseff.

The sheriff of the world ignored the fact that Brazil abstained in the U.N. Security Council vote on the resolution that forged a legal way for aggression, "(Brazil) not being certain that use of force is the best route," explained Ambassador Viotti, Brazilian ambassador to the United Nations.

----------------

Brazilians are a polite people. So Dilma and Itamaraty waited, then took a a parting shot at Obama.

The moment Obama's plane left Brazilian airspace, Itamaraty issued a communique saying Brazil flatly rejected the U.N. resolution authorizing the bombing of Libya.

Just another episode the MSM missed.




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Peace Patriot Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jul-17-11 05:33 AM
Response to Reply #3
6. No, I didn't know about the Libya thing in Brazil. Thanks for the info!
What bloody arrogance on the part of the U.S./Obama! And I can't for the life of me understand why they did it.

It is a very bad sign in some respects--although it is heartening that Rousseff & co. didn't allow themselves to be bullied. The bad part is that it may mean that Obama/Clinton have not found any way to serve U.S. corps and war profiteers on a "level playing field," so they are apparently resorting to mere nastiness, anger and insult. What ever happened to Obama's initially stated policy of "peace, respect and cooperation" in Latin America? It's been replaced with war, disrespect and temper tantrums? I thought something else was afoot--a gradual--almost glacially slow--change for the better, signaled by Panetta's jettisoning of Uribe (albeit with a silk cushion for Uribe to land on), then, more recently, epitomized by the Colombia/Venezuela peace accord and by the negotiations on Honduras (Zelaya's return; startup of constitutional reform). I didn't think it was substantive; rather a change of style, i.e., Obama/Clinton/Panetta facing reality in Latin America, but still....

It's hard to think of anything more insulting than the U.S. announcing war on a "global south" country in Brazil! I mean, I guess Obama could have just spit in Rousseff's face. That's how bad this is. He literally broke the code--the diplomatic code on what NOT to do in a basically friendly country that you want something from. You don't announce a war in that country! 'Oh, by the way, we're gonna bomb Libya--ha, ha!'

It's unbelievable! Has Obama lost his mind?

I really don't understand it. What did he think he was going to accomplish by this?

The ominous part is that the fascist operatives that ES&S/Diebold gave Obama to negotiate with, in Congress, and their sponsors, are clearly looking forward to Oil War IV: South America. And if Obama doesn't please his kingmakers, or messes up on any of the deals he made to get into the White House (I'm thinking of the bigger deals, such as immunity from investigation/prosecution for Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Uribe, and effective coverup of anything more threatening to leak out--but there are likely some lesser deals as well), ES&S/Diebold can easily--EASILY!--give him the hook, in favor of an imbecile, or a nazi, or both. He may be too preoccupied to pursue a fourth oil war or may have disapproved of that particular Pentagon plan, but the "anti-Castro" mafia in Congress did not wait to be sworn in, before they were meeting and calling for war on Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua. And if they get a like-minded president, that's what they will do.

Anyway, again, thanks--grim though the news is. It was worse than even I imagined!
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joshcryer Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-15-11 07:42 PM
Response to Reply #2
4. What will be interesting is to see how much better Brazil uses the oil money, if it ever happens.
:hi:
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naaman fletcher Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-15-11 10:30 PM
Response to Reply #2
5. accurate, truthful, real, information:
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Judi Lynn Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jul-17-11 03:33 PM
Response to Reply #2
8. Thanks for mentioning the very real bond between Hugo Chavez and Lula, which has been denied
by the corporate media and the right-wing patrons of message boards.

It doesn't assist their attempts to separate them, to promote Lula, and savage Chavez.

We do know they worked together frequently, and were in constant contact, and met monthly in the flesh to communicate for a very long time. That bond is real, absolutely no doubt about it, no matter how hard the right tries to spin it away.

Since it's hard to imagine people would spend so much time trying to interfere with other people's perception of Latin America, it must be assumed they are being paid to do it.

The bond remains, regardless.
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naaman fletcher Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jul-17-11 04:00 PM
Response to Reply #8
9. WikiLeaks: Lula asks Chavez to 'low tone' against U.S.
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has asked Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to "lower the tone against the United States", published on Wednesday the Spanish newspaper El Pais, citing documents from the U.S. State Department released the site Wikileaks.

The Brazilian president sent his former minister José Dirceu to Caracas to warn Chavez and tell him not to "play with fire."

"The incendiary rhetoric of Hugo Chavez since its first presidential term does not bother only the United States, the main recipient of the statements, but also Brazil, whose president Lula da Silva wanted to placate the virulence of the Bolivarian discourse with private messages calling for restraint," said the El Pais


http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/7691350-wikileaks-lula-asks-chavez-to-low-tone-against-us
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naaman fletcher Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jul-17-11 04:01 PM
Response to Reply #8
10. WikiLeaks: Lula was afraid of Venezuela's purchase of Russian aircrafts
ormer Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (2003-2011), was concerned about the possible purchase of Russian military aircrafts by Venezuela in 2005, as disclosed by whistleblower website WikiLeaks, reported Brazilian newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo.

According to a US secret diplomatic cable leaked by WikiLeaks, Lula told then US President George W. Bush (2001-2009) that he was concerned about a likely "power imbalance in South America," if Caracas purchased military aircrafts from Russia or from other countries rather than from Empresa Brasileña de Aeronáutica (Embraer), DPA reported.

http://english.eluniversal.com/2011/01/19/en_pol_esp_wikileaks:-lula-was_19A5010371.shtml
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naaman fletcher Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jul-17-11 04:03 PM
Response to Reply #10
11. SUBJECT: LULA, CHAVEZ SPAR OVER BRAZILIAN SENATE RESOLUTION
Summary. President Lula and Venezuelan President Chavez sparred in the media over Chavez's criticism of the Brazilian Senate's resolution on the RCTV forced closure on May 28, giving additional stress to an already frayed friendship. What began as a polite refusal by Lula to criticize Chavez's action became a strong repudiation of Bolivarian rhetoric and a diplomatic incident after Chavez insulted the Brazilian Congress.

http://www.cablegatesearch.net/cable.php?id=07BRASILIA1034

I'm sure you appreciate this sharing of information.
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Judi Lynn Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jul-17-11 02:52 PM
Response to Reply #1
7. Thanks for posting those remarkable political cartoons. Carlos Latuff is outstanding. n/t
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