Thursday, January 31, 2013

A Miami Clinic Supplies Drugs to Sports' Biggest Names

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Then check out the main column, where their real names flash like an all-star roster of professional athletes with Miami ties: San Francisco Giants outfielder Melky Cabrera, Oakland A's hurler Bartolo Colón, pro tennis player Wayne Odesnik, budding Cuban superstar boxer Yuriorkis Gamboa, and Texas Rangers slugger Nelson Cruz. There's even the New York Yankees' $275 million man himself, Alex Rodriguez, who has sworn he stopped juicing a decade ago.
See also: "The A Rod Files: Every Mention of the Yankees Slugger in Tony Bosch's Records"
Read further and you'll find more than a dozen other baseball pros, from former University of Miami ace Cesar Carrillo to Padres catcher Yasmani Grandal to Washington Nationals star Gio Gonzalez. Notable coaches are there too, including UM baseball conditioning guru Jimmy Goins.
The names are all included in an extraordinary batch of records from Biogenesis, an anti-aging clinic tucked into a two-story office building just a hard line drive's distance from the UM campus. They were given to New Times by an employee who worked at Biogenesis before it closed last month and its owner abruptly disappeared. The records are clear in describing the firm's real business: selling performance-enhancing drugs, from human growth hormone (HGH) to testosterone to anabolic steroids.
Interviews with six customers and two former employees corroborate the tale told by the patient files, the payment records, and the handwritten notebooks kept by the clinic's chief, 49-year-old Anthony Bosch.
Bosch's history with steroids also adds credence to the paperwork. The son of a prominent Coral Gables physician named Pedro Publio Bosch, he was connected with banned substances when slugger Manny Ramirez was suspended for violating Major League Baseball's drug policy in 2009. At the time, MLB confirmed the Drug Enforcement Administration was probing the father and son for allegedly providing Ramirez with HCG, a compound often used at the tail end of steroid cycles.
The Bosches were never charged with a crime. Both Pedro and Anthony Bosch failed to respond to a hand-delivered letter and then, reached on their cell phones, declined to speak with New Times. The nine athletes and one coach named in this article didn't respond to emails and phone calls seeking comment, but when New Times began asking questions last week, sources leaked information to the New York Daily News and ESPN to soften the blow.
MLB issued this statement responding to questions about the Bosches: "We are always extremely disappointed to learn of potential links between players and the use of performance-enhancing substances and have been active in the issues that have emerged in South Florida... [B]anned substances... have no place in our game."
Taken as a whole, New Times' three-month investigation into Biogenesis adds fuel to the raging national debate over the role of steroids and HGH in sports. It follows an embarrassing Hall of Fame election that saw no steroid-era stars enshrined and comes just weeks after cycling star Lance Armstrong described to the Oprah Network his own chemical cheating. Now, as baseball teams head to spring training under a tougher new policy, the Biogenesis records affirm that the war on doping has been as futile as the War on Drugs.
"In general, almost every drug these records describe coming from this clinic is well-known in the world of illegal doping," says Dr. Gary Wadler, a past chairman of World Anti-Doping Agency's Prohibited List and Methods Sub-Committee, after listening to a description of the records.
The story of how Anthony Bosch built the East Coast version of BALCO — the notorious California lab that provided baseball greats such as Jason Giambi and Barry Bonds with steroids — doesn't just shine a harsh light on America's drug-addled pro sports. It also makes clear that federal crackdowns have done little to police anti-aging clinics, which earn millions annually from average citizens wanting to look younger and from elite athletes seeking an edge.
"Anti-aging clinics contend their services are legal because they are treating aging as a disease. Therefore, they'll tell you, testosterone is a medical necessity for aging adults, as is human growth hormone in some cases," says Shaun Assael, author of Steroid Nation, a book about the history of performance-enhancing drugs in competition. "But that's an argument that's already been litigated in sports."
(After publication, Alex Rodriguez and Gio Gonzalez denied use of performance-enhancing drugs and involvement with Biogenesis. Wayne Odesnik and Jimmy Goins also issued denials. And through an attorney, Anthony Bosch denied being "associated" with Major League Baseball players.)

Anthony Bosch was born in September 1963 and grew up in a spacious, red-brick home nestled at the end of a quiet, leafy block in Coral Gables.
His father, a Cuban native named Pedro Publio, had earned a degree at the University of Havana in 1961 before studying medicine at Madrid's Universidad Complutense, according to state records. After completing his studies, rather than return to his homeland, he and his wife, Stella, moved to Dade County in 1969, when he won a residency at the University of Miami.
After an internship at Coral Gables Hospital and a residency at North Shore Hospital that lasted until 1976, Bosch — a stocky man with a friendly, open face and round glasses — opened a practice called Coral Way Medical Center in an office just south of their home. Stella worked as the firm's director and secretary, and in 1971, Anthony's younger brother, Ashley, was born.
Bosch was a good physician by all accounts; neither he nor his clinic was ever sued for malpractice. His real-estate timing was fortuitous as well. In 1982, he sold the office space to an investor for twice the amount he'd paid five years earlier. He eventually opened a new clinic under his own name on Douglas Road at SW 26th Street, where he still practices today.
Anthony, whose friends have always called him Tony, attended nearby Columbus High School. He inherited from his father a charming, guileless smile, even-featured good looks, and an interest in medicine.
But his first efforts to find a niche in the medical field hinted at the problems that would later drive him into the HGH business. He began with two friends, Roger De Armas and Federico Dumenigo (whose father was also a successful local physician), when they opened a series of medical supply companies. The trio started with Cardio-Respiratory Lab in 1987 and then opened Medical Patient Care in 1989. None of the operations lasted more than a couple of years, but Tony's energy and charisma were enough to attract investors.
"They were small operations, just two or three people in an office off Bird Road," says Richard Del Forn, who worked for Bosch at Cardio-Respiratory Lab. "But everyone seemed to get along fine with Tony."
Amid these early business attempts, Tony started his own family, marrying a woman named Tiki Rodriguez in 1984. The couple had their first child, a girl, and bought a small house in Coral Gables.
In 1990, he and his cohorts met Tonie Lanza, their biggest investor yet. She had sold her own successful medical supply firm a few years earlier. Lanza was charmed, and after hearing the young men's pitch, she agreed to take out a mortgage on her house to invest in Miami Med Management Consultants, their latest venture.
"They were very aggressive young kids, and from the outside, it looked like they were working really hard to be successful," Lanza says. "I saw an opportunity to get back into the business."
The firm would set a blueprint for Bosch, though: big promises and buckets of charm quickly followed by financial ruin and a disappearing act.
For a few months, Lanza thought she'd made a good bet. The plan was sound — the firm bought high-end medical equipment straight from manufacturers and rented it to doctors' clinics. But Lanza soon noticed something was amiss.
"I quickly realized they were not good businesspeople. They were too young, and their interest was not focused on running a successful business," she says.
Within two years, Miami Med Management Consultants had closed shop and the bank had sued the company's owners. In 1992, a Dade Circuit Court judge ordered the business partners to repay $65,000 to Terrabank, which held Lanza's mortgage.
"I never got a dime back," says Lanza, who repaid the bank herself. "It was a bad, bad experience. I don't think they were too remorseful about it."
Then, in 1992, soon after the couple's second child was born, Tiki filed for divorce. That same year, their Coral Gables home went into foreclosure with more than $184,000 unpaid on the mortgage.
Bosch eventually sold the house to repay the bank, but his wife had the same experience as Lanza in trying to get her ex-husband to pay his debts.
Two and half years after the divorce, Tiki sued for $17,250 in unpaid child support. A judge ordered $496 withheld weekly from Bosch, who was then working as a technician for DMG Health Care, a company owned by his brother, Ashley. Two years after that, his deadbeat bill topped $20,000.
In the meantime, Bosch remarried in 1997 to Aliette Baro, a health and fitness buff. They moved into a condo on Key Biscayne and soon had two kids.
But that marriage ended the same as his first. Aliette filed for divorce from Bosch in 2007 and within months had filed the first of many lawsuits for unpaid child support. By 2009, those debts had ballooned to more than $32,000.
As the bills piled up and legal notices flooded his mailbox, the would-be entrepreneur formulated a plan that could solve all of his financial problems and finally put him on equal terms with his dad in the medical world.
It began with a trip to Belize and ended with a foothold in America's hottest new industry.

The moment Juan Garcia first walked into Biogenesis, he was sold.
He had visited the Coral Gables clinic on a friend's recommendation for the same reason so many others did: He'd recently hit his late 40s, felt his energy and libido sagging, and wanted to see what Bosch could do for him.
Bosch, his thick hair graying at the edges, strode in wearing a white lab coat with "Dr. Tony Bosch" embroidered over the pocket. Hanging on the wall was a dark-framed, ornately printed medical degree from the Belize City-based Central America Health Sciences University.
"He gave me this pill to take before I go to the gym and said, 'This is the stuff Lance Armstrong takes,'" recalls Garcia, who asked New Times not to use his real name but whose story is confirmed by Bosch's patient records. "I said, 'Whoa, this stuff isn't going to make my balls shrivel up, is it?' He said, 'No, it's fine, don't worry about it.'"
It was the same pitch Bosch gave to many others at his clinic, despite not being licensed to practice medicine in Florida. Garcia was so taken with the place that he soon became an investor and part-owner. His story — along with interviews with more than a half-dozen other patients and ex-employees confirming key information such as the drugs they were prescribed and the business methods at Biogenesis — casts light on the clinic's questionable business.
Biogenesis's history really begins in 2009, when Bosch started a firm, called Colonial Services, based in Key Biscayne.
That same year, on May 7, Major League Baseball suspended L.A. Dodgers slugger Manny Ramirez after he tested positive for HCG — a women's fertility drug often used at the end of a steroid cycle to restart testosterone production. Ramirez, who lives in Weston, issued a statement that a "personal doctor" had prescribed a medication he didn't realize would violate the drug code.
Reporters at ESPN quickly identified that doctor: Pedro Bosch, whose son, Anthony, was "well known in Latin American baseball circles," the network reported. "His relationships with players date at least from the earlier part of the decade, when he was seen attending parties with players and known to procure tickets to big-league ballparks, especially in Boston and New York," ESPN wrote.
The DEA was "probing" both Bosches for their role in getting Ramirez the medication, ESPN reported. MLB President Bob DuPuy also confirmed he was "aware" of the investigation and cooperating.
Tony Bosch never responded to the allegations, but in a letter to ESPN, Pedro lashed back two weeks later, claiming that Ramirez was never his patient, that he'd "never prescribed" anyone HCG, and that there was no federal investigation. No charges were ever filed.
(Pedro Bosch was a defendant in an unrelated federal civil case that same year. The U.S. attorney accused him, along with more than two dozen other doctors and a similar number of lab owners, of running a kickback scheme to inflate drug costs. The government withdrew the claims two months later.)
A year after the Ramirez affair, Tony Bosch rented out the space that would become Biogenesis on the ground floor of a white-paneled building on Stanford Drive at South Dixie Highway, just across from UM. A quiet canal burbles behind the building.
The clinic, which started under the name Biokem, built a client list from dozens to hundreds. By 2012, Bosch changed the name again, to Biogenesis. He also began writing new, glowing biographies of himself in his personal notebooks, presumably for use in the clinic's promotional materials.
"Dr. Tony Bosch is recognized as an international educator and world-class leader in bio-identical hormone replacement therapy," reads one description, which also praises him as a "pioneer in orthomolecular medicine" and calls him a "molecular biochemist."
New clients continued flowing in by referral. Jan, a Miami saleswoman who had recently turned 40, went to Bosch in early 2012 as she struggled to keep up her workout regimen while traveling for work. She wasn't charmed by the faux doctor.
"He seemed really edgy and talked to me for only a few minutes," says Jan, whose name New Times also agreed to change but whose story is confirmed by patient records. Bosch hooked her anyway. On the first visit, a nurse gave Jan a vitamin B12 shot, and she "felt like a million bucks," she says. "I couldn't believe how much energy I had. But there [were] diminishing returns. The next time, I asked for another one and it didn't have nearly the same effect. So I wanted to see what else I could get."
Within a month, Bosch had sold her an East German Olympics-worthy regimen: daily shots of B12 mixed with Winstrol, an anabolic steroid; furosemide, an industrial-strength diuretic that forces the body to shed water weight; and regular doses of Anavar, a popular and potent anabolic steroid.
Jan says she was initially freaked out by the regimen — especially the B12/Winstrol mix, which she had to inject straight into her stomach. But she couldn't deny the results. "I felt so good. It was addictive," she says. "Within a month, my arms were hard as a rock, my shoulders were built up — and not in a masculine way. I just felt really good."
Juan Garcia had the same experience. Though he wasn't totally comfortable taking Anavar and Winstrol — having checked online and realized they were in fact anabolic steroids — he couldn't deny the results. "It is addictive as shit," he says. "As a man, you go from blah to 'Whoa, look at that.'"
What's more, Garcia quickly saw profit potential. So when he had some money, he approached Bosch about investing.
The boss's eyes lit up, and he signed Garcia on right away, giving him a key to the clinic and setting him loose to find new clients. The Miami native began working up advertising ideas but soon realized something was amiss. "Tony started being really squirrelly about my money," he says. "And I started hearing that employees weren't being paid. That's when I started asking Tony for a payback plan."
Though records show the operation was pulling in more than $25,000 per month, Bosch reacted as he had in the past. "I worked there for two months and never got a single paycheck," says a former secretary, who asked not to be named. "I was mostly there as a hobby, because my husband works and I wanted the workout drugs. But other people were depending on those paychecks."

The boxes were stuffed mostly with file folders full of patient questionnaires about fitness routines and sales records for HGH, testosterone, and steroids.
But Garcia also found four unremarkable-looking composition books filled with legible, all-caps handwriting. They were, he came to believe, the personal files of Tony Bosch. His name was written in block letters on the front of each one with the year it represented. Through hundreds of pages of business plans, self-aggrandizing bios, inspirational phrases, and line after line of patient names and prescriptions, Bosch also noted the information he didn't dare detail elsewhere.
In these notebooks, he spelled out all the athletes — from baseball to tennis to high school players — buying his products. The name that really made Garcia's jaw drop was hometown hero Alex Rodriguez.
See also: "The A Rod Files: Every Mention of the Yankees Sluggers in Tony Bosch's Records"
Born and raised in Miami and starring on the diamond since he was 18 years old, A-Rod admitted in 2009 that he had used steroids, claiming in an ESPN interview that his doping was limited to a three-year window — 2001 through 2003 — while he played under a record contract for the Texas Rangers. Ever since then, A-Rod claimed, he'd been playing clean. He'd never failed an MLB drug test since penalties were put into place.
Yet there was his name, over and over again, logged as either "Alex Rodriguez," "Alex Rod," or his nickname at the clinic, "Cacique," a pre-Columbian Caribbean chief. Rodriguez's name appears 16 times throughout the records New Times reviewed.
Take, for instance, one patient list from Bosch's 2009 personal notebook. It charts more than 50 clients and notes whether they received their drugs by delivery or in the office, how much they paid, and what they were taking.
There, at number seven on the list, is Alex Rodriguez. He paid $3,500, Bosch notes. Below that, he writes, "1.5/1.5 HGH (sports perf.) creams test., glut., MIC, supplement, sports perf. Diet." HGH, of course, is banned in baseball, as are testosterone creams.
That's not the only damning evidence against A-Rod, though. Another document from the files, a loose sheet with a header from the 19th Annual World Congress on Anti-Aging and Aesthetic Medicine, lays out a full regimen under the name Cacique: "Test. cream... troches prior to workout... and GHRP... IGF-1... pink cream."
IGF-1 is a banned substance in baseball that stimulates insulin production and muscle growth. Elsewhere in his notebook, Bosch spells out that his "troches," a type of drug lozenge, include 15 percent testosterone; pink cream, he writes, is a complex formula that also includes testosterone. GHRP is a substance that releases growth hormones.
There's more evidence. On a 2009 client list, near A-Rod's name, is that of Yuri Sucart, who paid Bosch $500 for a weeklong supply of HGH. Sucart is famous to anyone who has followed baseball's steroid scandal. Soon after A-Rod's admission, the slugger admitted that Sucart — his cousin and close friend — was the mule who provided the superstar his drugs. In 2009, the same year this notebook was written, Sucart (who lives in South Miami and didn't respond to a message left at his home) was banned from all Yankees facilities.
The mentions of Rodriguez begin in 2009 and continue all the way through last season. Take a page in another notebook, which is labeled "2012" and looks to have been written last spring. Under the heading "A-Rod/Cacique," Bosch writes, "He is paid through April 30th. He will owe May 1 $4,000... I need to see him between April 13-19, deliver troches, pink cream, and... May meds. Has three weeks of Sub-Q (as of April)."
Elsewhere in his notebooks, Bosch writes that "Sub-Q" refers to his mixture of HGH, IGF-1, and other drugs.
The notebooks and client lists aren't the only evidence linking Rodriguez to Bosch. Former employees say Bosch would openly brag about selling drugs to Rodriguez.
"He was always talking about A-Rod," says one former employee who asked not to be named. "We never saw any athletes in the office, so we didn't know if he was just talking bullshit or not. But he would brag about how tight they were."
Although A-Rod is the biggest name in Tony Bosch's records, he's far from alone. Melky Cabrera is mentioned 14 times throughout. A switch-hitting outfielder from the Dominican Republic, Cabrera had enjoyed a steady but fairly middle-of-the-road career until signing with the San Francisco Giants last year. Suddenly, he began pounding the baseball, whacking a team record 51 hits in May alone. Three months later, he nabbed more votes than any outfielder for the All-Star Game and won the game MVP after going two for three at the dish.
Cabrera's dream season screeched to a halt in August, though, when MLB announced a 50-game suspension after his blood tested positive for elevated levels of testosterone. Cabrera quickly admitted he'd used a banned substance and didn't fight the suspension. But what substance did he take?
It might be what's listed in a 2012 notebook from Bosch's office. Under a heading labeled "Melkys/Mostro," Bosch writes, "April 4th drop off, has enough meds until May 4... next visit deliver and infuse $9,000 to RPO and $900 exp. and charges. Call him for expense. Missing this mo. troches and pink cream."
Another document in the files, labeled simply "Mostro" — his nickname for Cabrera — and dated December 21, 2011, lists his regimen: a cocktail of drugs including IGF-1.
(There's also an odd, handwritten letter by Bosch in his notebook that seems to refer to Cabrera's suspension for elevated testosterone. Addressed to a "Juan," Bosch rails against Cabrera, writing that "in helping him, I put my business and all my doctors at risk by fabricating patient charts and phony prescriptions." He adds that the slugger should "man-up" and pay $9,000 he owes, adding, "I am on the 'line' here!!")
Just below Cabrera in the 2012 notebook is a baseball player whom Bosch calls "Josmany," with the nickname of "Springs." On a separate client list from June 2012, he writes that "Springs" is Josmany Grandal.
Although the first name is misspelled, the notations likely refer to Yasmani Grandal, the former star catcher for the University of Miami Hurricanes who once tore up the high school leagues playing for Miami Springs.
Grandal had a terrific rookie season for the San Diego Padres last year, batting .297 with eight home runs, but then — just like Cabrera — he was caught with elevated testosterone levels in November and banned for 50 games. In his notebook, Bosch says of Grandal: "Deliver April 4 (in person or by mail). He is in Tucson. Waiting for his call to see if he can drive to Phoenix. Payment will be made by his [illegible], $500 of expenses."
(Tucson is about three hours from the Padres' spring training complex in Peoria, Arizona, where the team would have been holed up at the time.)
On another page, beneath a phone number for "Josmany's girlfriend," is a lengthy regimen for morning and evening HGH injections, for "six days on and one day off," with testosterone and IGF-1 treatments as well. "Pink cream prior to game," he writes, later adding a troche with 15 to 20 percent testosterone "prior to game."
Indeed, there are two patterns to the names of athletes in Bosch's records: (1) Most have direct ties to Miami and often to the UM Hurricanes baseball program, and (2) a number have already been caught doping — which suggests that either Bosch isn't particularly gifted at crafting drugs that can beat performance tests or his clients aren't careful.
In the recently busted category, there's also the tubby but proficient pitcher Bartolo Colón, who was having a comeback year last season for the Oakland A's before getting hit with a 50-game ban when his samples showed a synthetic testosterone. In his notes, Bosch calls him "DUI" and writes that the fastballer's monthly fee was $3,000 as of June 2012.
Or take Wayne Odesnik, who appears under the heading of "Tennis" in five handwritten lists of clients. He was billed $500 a month by the clinic. Odesnik, a left-handed, South African-born professional tennis player, lives and trains in Weston and rose as high as number 77 in the world rankings three years ago. But in 2010, he was caught trying to bring HGH into Australia before a tournament and was banned from the tour for two years.
Other pro clients have substantial ties to UM. Take Cesar Carrillo, who is nicknamed "Al Capone" by Bosch. Carrillo, a hard-throwing starting pitcher, compiled a 24-0 mark to begin his career at UM and was drafted 18th overall in 2005 by the Padres. Carrillo, who is named six times throughout the books, was receiving HGH, MIC, and a testosterone cream as of last year, Bosch writes.
At least one UM coach makes an appearance as well: Jimmy Goins, the strength and conditioning coach for the Hurricanes baseball team for the past nine seasons. Goins is recorded in multiple client lists; in one detailed page dated December 14, 2011, Bosch writes he's selling him Anavar, testosterone, and a Winstrol/B-12 mix and charging him $400 a month. Another, from this past December, includes sales of HGH and testosterone.
But there are also several prominent professionals in Bosch's records who have never before been linked to steroid use. According to his July 2012 client sheet, Bosch sold $4,000 of product to Nelson Cruz, whom he nicknames "Mohamad." Cruz, the power-hitting Dominican outfielder for the Texas Rangers, has whacked 130 bombs in his eight-year career without any links to performance-enhancing drugs. Until now. Bosch writes in his 2012 book: "Need to call him, go Thur to Texas, take meds from April 5-May 5, will owe him troches and... and will infuse them in May."
There's also the curious case of Gio Gonzalez, the 27-year-old, Hialeah-native, left-handed hurler who won 21 games last year for the Washington Nationals. Gonzalez's name appears five times in Bosch's notebooks, including a specific note in the 2012 book reading, "Order 1.c.1 with Zinc/MIC/... and Aminorip. For Gio and charge $1,000." (Aminorip is a muscle-building protein.)
Gonzalez's father, Max, also appears on Bosch's client lists and is often listed in conjunction with the pitcher. But reached by phone, the Hialeah resident insists his son has had no contact with Bosch.
"My son works very, very hard, and he's as clean as apple pie," the elder Gonzalez says. "I went to Tony because I needed to lose weight. A friend recommended him, and he did great work for me. But that's it. He never met my son. Never. And if I knew he was doing these things with steroids, do you think I'd be dumb enough to go there?"
Or consider Yuriorkis Gamboa, a rising boxing star who won a gold medal for Cuba in the 2004 Athens Olympics before defecting to Miami two years later. Gamboa has compiled a 22-0 record and has won WBA and IBF featherweight titles since coming to the States.
In the notebook, Bosch outlines an extensive program he was shipping to Gamboa. In addition to protein powders and calcium/magnesium/zinc compounds, he included a six-day-a-week HGH regime, IGF-1, and a cream with 20 percent testosterone.
What's more, Bosch even notes that Gamboa's next bout is scheduled against Brandon Rios the following April and writes, "Start clean-up Dec. 1" — presumably giving the boxer enough time to pass doping tests.
Last week, New Times sent detailed letters outlining the information in Bosch's files to Rodriguez, Cabrera, Cruz, Carrillo, Gonzalez, Colón, and Grandal through their teams. None of the players responded. Odesnik reviewed his mentions in Bosch's files but didn't offer a comment before presstime. Gamboa didn't respond to multiple messages left with his trainer. New Times also sent a letter to Goins with all the details from Bosch's records through the UM media department; he did not respond.
What does it all add up to? Former Biogenesis employees say there's no mystery why these athletes appear in Bosch's records. "He sold HGH and steroids," says the clinic's former secretary. "Everyone who worked there knew that was what our business was."

Today, the blinds are closed at Biogenesis, and although a small printout with the clinic's orange-and-white logo is still taped to the door, fliers from nearby fast-food joints are hung three deep from the doorknob.
Last month, Tony Bosch's partners changed the locks and shut him out over yet another dispute over money.
Bosch didn't respond to multiple emails from New Times, and his cell phone for weeks went directly to a full voicemail box not accepting new messages. Finally, on January 27, he answered but declined to talk about his clinic. "I can't really say anything to you," he said, adding his attorney would be in touch.
Pedro Bosch also failed to respond to multiple emails and to a letter hand-delivered to his home in Coral Gables. Like his son, he briefly answered a call on January 27 but refused to talk. "I saw your questions, but I don't have anything to say," he said.
There's a larger question than simply whether Tony Bosch was helping baseball players juice: Was he breaking the law in the process?
It's not really clear. The FDA has authorized HGH only for a handful of extremely rare conditions and banned it for all other uses, yet a booming anti-aging industry — built almost exclusively on selling HGH to anyone who wants it — has emerged nationwide in the past decade.
Law enforcement has delved into the matter a few times, most notably in a 2007 sting called "Operation Which Doctor" that targeted the Palm Beach Rejuvenation Center and several Florida doctors for auto-signing for HGH and testosterone prescriptions without ever seeing patients. That raid ensnared a few ballplayers as well, most famously then-St. Louis Cardinals star Rick Ankiel.
But the raid, led by an Albany, New York district attorney named David Soares, ended up with fewer convictions than expected. The message to the industry was clear: Avoid internet sales and law enforcement will leave you alone.
Besides, doctors have a privilege called "off-label prescribing," which allows them to prescribe drugs for non-FDA-approved purposes in most cases. As long as the docs actually see the patients, they're often in the clear.
Did that happen at Bosch's clinic? None of the employees New Times interviewed ever saw Dr. Pedro Bosch or any other physician in the clinic (several other doctors' names appear in the records). But Tony Bosch did employ a phlebotomist who drew blood from clients that was then sent for analysis. That practice might be enough to put the doctors on the right side of the law.
An Associated Press investigation this past December found another reason why there hasn't been much federal action to crack down on clinics such as Biogenesis. Big Pharma has been reaping a bonanza off HGH as civilian sales have skyrocketed. Last year, U.S. sales of HGH topped $1.4 billion, the AP found — more than drug companies made off penicillin or prescription allergy meds. This despite the fact that endocrinologists estimate fewer than 45,000 people in the nation actually suffer from FDA-approved maladies for the drug. The reason is simple: The feds have stopped prosecuting anti-aging clinics, and many people believe the drug is a fountain of youth despite a lack of medical evidence and warnings it might lead to cancerous growths and diabetes.
"It's an easy ruse. People equate hormones with youth," Dr. Tom Perls, an HGH critic and Boston University researcher, told the AP. "It's a marketing dream come true."
But in the end, that might not be the point. There's no question that virtually every drug Biogenesis sold has been banned by every professional sport in America.
For the first time this year, baseball will check for HGH during the regular season; in the past, only a few offseason tests were employed.
"In the vast majority of leagues, you need therapeutic-use exemptions to even get near testosterone," Assael says. "And HGH is universally banned."
As long as America has elite athletes looking for an edge — a situation that seems unlikely to change in this lifetime — there will be someone like Tony Bosch in the shadows, buying the drugs and concocting the creams and injections to help those athletes try.

photo via Wikimedia Commons by Keith Allison

This week, New Times takes you inside Biogenesis, an anti-aging clinic in Coral Gables run by Miami entrepreneur Anthony Bosch. His name is familiar to sports fans because he and his father, Dr. Pedro Bosch, were probed by authorities in 2009 when Manny Ramirez was suspended for violating baseball's drug rules.

An extraordinary cache of Bosch's records suggests that Bosch has been supplying performance-enhancing drugs to some of the biggest names in sports, including Yankees slugger Alex Rodriguez. Click through for a full look at all of A-Rod's appearances in Bosch's files.

See also:
-- A Miami Clinic Supplies Drugs to Sports' Biggest Names

Update: A-Rod has responded to our story, sending a statement to the New York Post's Joel Sherman: "The news report about a purported relationship between Alex Rodriguez and Anthony Bosch are not true. Alex Rodriguez was not Mr. Bosch's patient, he was never treated by him and he was never advised by him. The purported documents referenced in the story -- at least as they relate to Alex Rodriguez -- are not legitimate."

Gio Gonzalez has also issued a denial via Twitter: "I've never used performance enhancing drugs of any kind and I never will ,I've never met or spoken with tony Bosch or used any substance."

First, a word about the records. New Times reviewed a wide range of Biogenesis files, from a neatly kept spreadsheet of patients dated June 2012 to folders of loose documents. There are also daily logs of visitors and, most important, Tony Bosch's personal notebooks from 2009 through 2012.

In all, we reviewed 256 pages of handwritten notes from Bosch, a half-dozen full patient files, and more than 100 pages of other business documents from Biogenesis.

How did we authenticate the records? New Times called dozens of numbers from client lists and Bosch's personal notebooks. Virtually everyone we spoke with acknowledged their involvement with the clinic or politely declined to comment. There wasn't a single denial. We also spoke to six clients who confirmed that their information -- as recorded in the records -- was accurate. Two former Biogenesis employees described intimate details of the clinic and its business.

Bosch's personal notebooks also check out in every other respect. Scrawled numbers to diagnostic clinics reach diagnostic clinics. Details about Bosch's family life, business plans, and debts match public records.

Alex Rodriguez appears 16 times in the documents we reviewed. His name is recorded as "Alex Rod" or "Alex R." or by his nickname at the clinic, "Cacique." This is particularly interesting because on ESPN, he acknowledged using PEDs but said he stopped in 2003.

It's also important to note that Rodriguez's cousin, Miami resident Yuri Sucart, frequently appears in the same records on the same days as Rodriguez. Sucart has been identified in the past as Rodriguez's source for performance-enhancing drugs.

Now, to the records. We have redacted names that don't appear multiple times in the records or who couldn't be confirmed outside the records in some way. Also left out are regular clients whose names we did not believe to be newsworthy. More records will be posted on Riptide over the next few days.

First, Biogenesis's client list as of June 2012 includes a number of ballplayers, as well as their nicknames used by Bosch in his personal notebooks. A-Rod was "Cacique":

This entry is from a Bosch notebook labeled "2009":

As is this:

And this:

This comes from Bosch's notebook labeled "2010":

As does this:

This comes from Bosch's "2011" notebook:

As does this:

This is from the "2012" notebook:

As is this:

This is also from the "2012" notebook:

As is this:

This comes from a file of documents from the office:

As does this:

And finally, this as well:

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Countering the Corporate-Insurgency

We have the info ! & People sure as shit ,are just waiting / looking to just START .

Countering the Corporate-Insurgency

A guide to how the war for control is waged upon us, and 4 ways to fight back.

by Tony Cartalucci

October 26, 2012 - The terms insurgency and counterinsurgency can quickly become confusing in a politically motivated context. However, generally speaking, an insurgency seeks to overthrow an established institution or political order, while a counterinsurgency seeks to maintain that order.

In the United States, and around much of the world where the nation-state still prevails, the established order is one of national sovereignty based on constitutions and charters produced by each respective nation, with an infrastructure built and improved upon over generations by each nation's respective cultures, economic activites, and innovations. There is an insurgency to subvert all of this. A global corporate-financier insurgency, or simply a "corporate-insurgency."

The corporate-insurgency seeks to subvert our institutions, starting with the family, extending to our schools, universities, churches, temples and mosques, our local sheriff, and even reaching into our national governments, rewriting or eradicating altogether our national constitutions and charters. It has, to a great extent, already subverted our independent local infrastructure, while implementing laws and regulations to prevent us from restoring it. We have the very tactics described in a vast library of government and military counterinsurgency documents being employed against us, where ever we are and to a profound effect.

"Insurgency is the organized use of subversion and violence to seize, nullify or challenge political control of a region. As such, it is primarily a political struggle, in which both sides use armed force to create space for their political, economic and influence activities to be effective. Insurgency is not always conducted by a single group with a centralized, military-style command structure, but may involve a complex matrix of different actors with various aims, loosely connected in dynamic and non-hierarchical networks. To be successful, insurgencies require charismatic leadership, supporters, recruits, supplies, safe havens and funding (often from illicit activities). They only need the active support of a few enabling individuals, but the passive acquiescence of a large proportion of the contested population will give a higher probability of success. This is best achieved when the political cause of the insurgency has strong appeal, manipulating religious, tribal or local identity to exploit common societal grievances or needs. Insurgents seek to gain control of populations through a combination of persuasion, subversion and coercion while using guerrilla tactics to offset the strengths of government security forces. Their intent is usually to protract the struggle, exhaust the government and win sufficient popular support to force capitulation or political accommodation. Consequently, insurgencies evolve through a series of stages, though the progression and outcome will be different in almost every case." - page 7 U.S. Government Counterinsurgency Guide, 2009

While this above quote is a most accurate description of an insurgency, as one reads the US Government Counterinsurgency Guide (2009), they will realize that the opposing methods of counterinsurgency itself involve all of these same factors, simply mirrored and reflecting the interests of the US versus the interests of targeted "insurgencies."

Image: The cover of the US Government Counterinsurgency Guide (2009) features the signatures representing the trifecta of modern day empire, covert operations (USAID), military force (Department of Defense), and system administration (the State Department). COIN describes the methods by which empire is implemented at a grassroots level.

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As a matter of fact, what is described by the 2009 counterinsurgency (COIN) guide, is an accurate description of how political control has been achieved and maintained by all governments throughout the entirety of human history - it also forms the foundation of modern empire. Understanding this is key to finding solutions when one finds themselves under the subjugation of an unfavorable political ideology or system. The tactics the guide describes can, and often are, used by either side in any political struggle, not necessarily only in an armed "insurgency."

COIN is a socioeconomic-tactical synthesis, an interdisciplinary strategy based on an understanding of how a society functions, how to organize human resources to multiple force, and what needs and desires motivate individuals, as well as how these can be manipulated and controlled to collectively motivate a society. These more technical concepts are generally absent from everyday political discourse, and equally absent or incomplete in regards to finding solutions for a failing or unfavorable system.

Insurgency and Counterinsurgency: How to Fight Back

While the US Government COIN guide gives us a clear picture over the governmental-military interdisciplinary aspects of COIN, the Marine Corps Field Manual 3-24 (FM 3-24) provides us with a complete picture of the actual components of an insurgency and all the relating factors that affect it. This includes an enumerated list of services, institutions, organizations, and processes that must be controlled in order to establish political, tactical, and economic primacy. Without these, counterinsurgency fails. Without these, any political movement seeking to assert itself over a flawed or failing system, fails.

USMC Counterinsurgency FM 3-24.

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While FM 3-24 deals with an armed insurgency, presumably in a foreign country, the basic concepts can and are applied to the execution of real political power throughout the world. The reason why so many well-intentioned political solutions fall short, is because they are tailored without understanding these basic concepts.

1. Establishing Essential Services

When attempting to establish political primacy - essential services, basic infrastructure, economic development and administration must all be controlled by the counterinsurgency. It is upon these basic aspects of modern society that people depend, and from which popular support is sustainably derived. Strength in arms alone will fail utterly unless these aspects are secured, controlled, and developed properly.

Upon page 117, the manual discusses the establishment or restoration of essential services. It states specifically:

Essential services address the life support needs of the HN [host-nation] population. The U.S. military’s primary task is normally to provide a safe and secure environment. HN or interagency organizations can then develop the services or infrastructure needed. In an unstable environment, the military may initially have the leading role. Other agencies may not be present or might not have enough capability or capacity to meet HN needs. Therefore, COIN military planning includes preparing to perform these tasks for an extended period.

Any goal, no matter how well-planned, noble, or progressive, cannot be achieved before these basic services are established and capable of being sustainably maintained. The military is a highly trained, disciplined, well organized institution capable of developing, maintaining, as well as protecting these services. In our local communities around the world, we have to ask ourselves how we can similarly develop and maintain these services sustainably.

The task is not entirely as daunting as it may seem. Local communities around the world accomplish this through a combination of traditional and newly created local institutions. Most local communities around the world operate with the added advantage that the corporate-insurgency they face is low-intensity and generally not armed. For prospective activists, auditing what their communities already possess, and how to develop it to be more organized and effective would be a good first step.

Some other initial priorities identified by the manual include the following taken from page 122:

Many communities already possess the ability to do these activities on their own. Points such as "building an indigenous local security force" might translate into efforts to empower local sheriff offices to negate intrusive, unconstitutional federal government control. It might also include the establishment of professional neighborhood watches and shooting clubs where responsible gun ownership is taught. Building and improving schools might translate into expanding and improving local home schooling networks, leveraging freely available open-courseware online, and opening after-school tutoring centers giving remedial classes or teaching trades and skills not taught at existing educational institutions.

Ultimately, most communities are not faced with absolute destitution. For the most part, basic services exist. The problem really is that these services are carried out in some cases by corporate-insurgents and play an essential role in building legitimacy and a support base dependent on the corporate-insurgency for these services. Therefore, the goal should be to take ownership over the execution of these basic services which can be done as a community effort or as a local, small business. The precept of "boycott and replace" is the equivalent of the "take, hold, and rebuild" doctrine in military "nation-building" and counterinsurgency.

2. Economic Development

On page 119 of the report, it states the importance of expanding on basic services and supporting economic development. It states specifically:

The short-term aspect concerns immediate problems, such as large-scale unemployment and reestablishing an economy at all levels. The long-term aspect involves stimulating indigenous, robust, and broad economic activity. The stability a nation enjoys is often related to its people’s economic situation and its adherence to the rule of law. However, a nation’s economic health also depends on its government’s ability to continuously secure its population.

Planning economic development requires understanding the society, culture, and operational environment. For example, in a rural society, land ownership and the availability of agricultural equipment, feed, and fertilizer may be the chief parts of any economic development plan. In an urban, diversified society, the availability of jobs and the infrastructure to support commercial activities may be more important. Except for completely socialist economies, governments do not create jobs other than in the public bureaucracy. However, the micro economy can be positively stimulated by encouraging small businesses development. Jump-starting small businesses requires micro finance in the form of some sort of banking activities. So then, supporting economic development requires attention to both the macro economy and the
micro economy.

Without a viable economy and employment opportunities, the public is likely to pursue false promises offered by insurgents. Sometimes insurgents foster the conditions keeping the economy stagnant. Insurgencies attempt to exploit a lack of employment or job opportunities to gain active and passive support for their cause and ultimately undermine the government’s legitimacy. Unemployed males of military age may join the insurgency to provide for their families. Hiring these people for public works projects or a local civil defense corps can remove the economic incentive to join the insurgency.

The report then goes on to list the major categories of economic activity that it implies are essential for the counterinsurgency to control:

Clearly all of these industries are dominated by the corporate-financier oligarchs and their corporate-insurgency. One need not stretch their imagination here to see how the economic crisis created by corporate-financier interests across the West and spreading around the world is comparable to the sort of economic challenges facing a post-war nation fighting an armed insurgency. The description and redresses described on page 119 are particularly relevant, and if we consider the corporate-financier interests who have overtaken our government and institutions as the insurgency, we must see it within ourselves and our communities to search for the energy and initiative to begin local economic development.

And again, where the military possesses the ability and the resources to do this on their own, or with other government institutions assisting - local communities must develop their own institutions to accomplish these same goals themselves. Hackerspaces and farmers' markets represent two organized efforts to develop economic opportunities locally, and present viable models that can be expanded into other industries.

3. Logistics

An entire section of the counterinsurgency field manual is dedicated to logistics. The importance of managing logistical lines not only enable an army to conduct counterinsurgency operations efficiently, but deny the insurgency supplies to conduct their operations. As it is pointed out, throughout history, insurgencies many times supply themselves off of carelessly protected counterinsurgency supply lines.

The report states on page 169:

Insurgents have a long history of exploiting their enemies’ lines of communications as sources of supply. During the Revolutionary War, American forces significantly provisioned themselves from the British Army’s overindulgent and carelessly defended logistic tail. In the 1930s, Mao Zedong codified a doctrine for insurgency logistics during the fight against the Japanese occupation of China. Without exaggerating, Mao stated, “We have a claim on the output of the arsenals of [our enemies],…and, what is more, it is delivered to us by the enemy’s transport corps. This is the sober truth, it is not a jest.” For Mao’s forces, his enemy’s supply trains provided a valuable source of supply. Mao believed the enemy’s rear was the guerrillas’ front; the guerrillas’ advantage was that they had no discernable logistic rear.

This relative lack of logistic capacity was not an insurmountable problem for Mao or one of his logistic theorists, Ming Fan. According to Ming, “Weapons are not difficult to obtain. They can be purchased from the people’s ‘self-preservation corps.’ Almost every home has some sort of weapon that can be put to use.… Ammunition can be obtained in the following ways: (1) From supplies given by friendly troops and headquarters on higher echelons. (2) Purchased or appropriated from the people. (3) Captured by ambushing enemy supply columns. (4) Purchased undercover from the enemy army. (5) From salvage in combat areas. (6) From the field of battle. (7) Self-made. (8) Manufactured by guerrilla organizations. (Such items as hand grenades, ammunition, etc.)” Beyond these specifics, this doctrine prescribes a mindset of actively seeking parasitic logistic relationships with not only the conventional enemy forces that the insurgents seek to co-opt and defeat but also active linkages to local black market activities and the cultivation of host-nation sympathizers.

For these reasons, forces conducting counterinsurgency operations must protect all potential supplies. Forces must also vigorously protect their lines of communications, scrupulously collect and positively control dud munitions and access to other convertible materiel, and actively seek ways to separate insurgents from black market activities.

The corporate-insurgency's logistical lines are particularly easily to compromise - that is because we the people are their logistical lines. The corporate-financier oligarchy sustains itself from the collective patronage of communities around the world failing to develop local institutions, services, and economies, and instead pay into centralized, monopolizing multinational corporations. By boycotting and replacing these multinational corporations, we cut the corporate-insurgency off entirely from its logistical lines, starving it into submission.

But just as the USMC COIN manual implores counterinsurgency planners to secure their logistical lines from pilfering insurgents, the corporate-insurgency uses laws and regulations to protect their lines.

Laws and regulations are designed to prevent independent local institutions, services, and economies from springing up and competing directly with the corporate-insurgency. Farmers in America have been fighting laws seeking to disrupt and regulate out of business, local farmer's markets. Similar laws in regards to "intellectual property rights" seek to stifle the emergence of independent technological innovation and personal manufacturing. Understanding the greater implications of these laws should provide us a greater impetus to organize and find the means of circumventing them.

For local communities organizing against the corporate-insurgency, our "supplies" consist of our food and water, our electricity, our means of communication, and many others. To secure these, we must assume ownership over them, maintaining them as a collective common or a small, local business. To organize against the corporate-insurgency when we are still dependent on them for even simple things like food and water, is a recipe for instant and repeated failure.

4. Communications

In a very literal sense, a local community's communications include telephone networks, the Internet, and radio. Like many other aspects of fighting the corporate-insurgency, the low-intensity nature of it affords us the ability to piecemeal boycott and replace various aspects of its power structure without disrupting the lives of people in our local community. In terms of communication infrastructure, ad hoc wireless networks could be constructed to connect a local Internet. This is already being done by the US State Department to infiltrate and overthrow sovereign nation-states - they already recognize it as an essential strategy of the corporate-insurgency.

In New York Times' article, "U.S. Underwrites Internet Detour Around Censors," it states:

The Obama administration is leading a global effort to deploy “shadow” Internet and mobile phone systems that dissidents can use to undermine repressive governments that seek to silence them by censoring or shutting down telecommunications networks.

The effort includes secretive projects to create independent cellphone networks inside foreign countries, as well as one operation out of a spy novel in a fifth-floor shop on L Street in Washington, where a group of young entrepreneurs who look as if they could be in a garage band are fitting deceptively innocent-looking hardware into a prototype “Internet in a suitcase.”

With a well developed community Hackerspace, a similar network can be created for a local community to simply circumvent and replace corporate-financier monopolies, providing custom tailored services for a community its creators already know, and spreading the profits of communication monopolies across local communities worldwide - a redistribution of wealth done not through socialist handouts, but through innovative local entrepreneurship. A larger international Internet could be made by simply providing links between communities.

Community broadband initiatives are already popping up around the world built around a similar premise. In Syracuse, New York, just such an initiative headed by Seth Rutledge, is working on this very project. In this letter to his local paper, Rutledge explains the benefits and necessity of taking ownership over the means of communication:

The Syracuse Community Broadband Initiative (SCBI) has received a $15,000 grant to explore the economic viability of building a state-of-the-art, fiber-optic broadband network for Syracuse.

The SCBI seeks to provide cable, Internet and phone service to residents and businesses. The network would operate like a public utility committed to the best service at the least cost, and would operate from subscriber revenue independent of taxpayer subsidies.

The network could provide a much higher connection speed than is currently available. It would have the capability to deliver an unlimited number of on-demand channels, including high-definition broadcasting and video conferencing for every subscriber via Internet Protocol television (IPTV) technology. It could deliver a vastly superior product at a much lower price.

Our local communications infrastructure is crucial to the social, economic and democratic health of our community. It is equal in importance to our public roads, schools and utility services. We are foolish if we, as a community, do not take the lead in securing public control of, and access to, our communications network.

It is not only possible and beneficial to develop local communication alternatives, but an absolute necessity in order for people to reassert themselves in a failing and unfavorable political system.

Communication also includes the media. In this regard, the corporate-insurgency is already suffering serious defeat. It is finding it increasingly difficult to maintain primacy over the political narrative, or maintain popular support.

When countering the corporate-insurgency, every bit makes a difference, and starting a blog, Twitter, or Facebook account with the expressed purpose of informing others of what is going on locally, nationally, and internationally is both free and easy to do. Even if the goal is to simply repost articles others write - these efforts combined with others already active will make a significant difference.

How far a media project goes depends solely on the amount of time and effort one spends investing in it and the standards of objectivity and intellectual honesty one holds themselves to. The alternative media is a perfect example of a new "institution" and form of activism that has already successfully begun to counter the corporate-insurgency, and it does so by leveraging technology that allows us to do as individuals what was once only possible with large, capital intensive organizations.

The alternative media also reflects some of the tactical considerations expressed by the USMC COIN field manual in regards to logistics. By using large corporate-owned, free services like Blogger, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and others to spread a constructive message aimed at developing our local communities, and against the corporate-insurgency, we are essentially exploiting their own logistical trails for our cause.

Conclusion

It must be understood that while, without taking these basic aspects into consideration a political movement is sure to fail, this does not by any means negate the work of activists focused in other areas. A synergy must be created between all efforts aimed at unwarranted corporate-financier influence - but these fundamentals must be understood by all involved.

It must also be understood that not everyone employed or involved in a large corporate-financier, multinational corporation is a bad person. In fact, many people who work for corporations like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Halliburton, Exxon, and even Monsanto or Cargill are hardworking and incredibly talented. Like many military who leave the service and join the cause of humanity, these people can become some of our most valued allies if and when they realize the greater implications of what they are involved in and what, for their own best interests and those of humanity, they must next do.

For our part, we must work hard to develop our local communities, to create tangible solutions to the problems we face, superior local alternatives to replace the dependency that empowers our opposition, and produce a viable model that is self-evidently a system people will want to join and help build.

Of all the aspects discussed in the voluminous collection of counterinsurgency manuals the US government has produced, possessing a morally superior cause and instilling a sense of legitimacy within a population ranks toward the top in importance. Building a local community with the people's best interests addressed by the people's own two hands themselves, exhibits just such a cause, featuring just such legitimacy. It would be a movement very difficult for the corporate-insurgency to prevail against, and is the key reason why their doctrine has failed them overseas in pursuit of their empire.

Self-Sufficiency: A Local Solution to a Global Problem

Reposted & edited for new site: Alternative Thai News Network (ATNN).

Tony Cartalucci
ATNN - LD
October 28, 2012

For an extreme in-depth look at Thailand's "Sufficiency Economy" and "New Theory" economics, please see, "Wisdom from the Orient: Self-Sufficiency."

ฝันร้ายของนายทุนข้ามชาติ: เศรษฐกิจพอเพียงคือคำตอบปัญหาการเมืองทั่วโลก (ภาษาไทย)

Introduction

When thinking about "solutions" many are quick to cite organizing a protest and taking to the streets. Let's for a moment consider the mechanics of a protest, what it might accomplish, and what it may leave to be desired.

Take Glenn Beck's disingenuous 2010 "Restoring Honor" event in Washington D.C. It drew thousands of honest, well-intentioned people from all over the United States. Indeed, thousands of people filled up their Fortune 500 made cars with gas from Fortune 500 oil companies, drove countless miles, stopping along the way at Fortune 500 fast food restaurants, stayed at Fortune 500 run hotels, and stocked up on supplies purchased at Fortune 500 Walmart. They slaked their thirst under the hot August sun with cans of Fortune 500 Pepsi and Coke, and at the end of the day, they drove home, paid their Fortune 500 cable subscriptions to watch their Fortune 500 media reports, most likely on News Corporation's Fox News, a Council on Foreign Relations corporate member.

At best, all a protest will lead to, while we are so hopelessly dependent on this system, is a round of musical chairs inside the political arena, with perhaps superficial concessions made to the people. The vector sum however, will still be decidedly in favor of the global corporate-financier oligarchy.

If we understand that the fundamental problem facing not only America, but the entire world, is a global corporate-financier oligarchy that has criminally consolidated their wealth by "liberalizing" their own activities while strangling ours through regulations, taxes, and laws, we should then understand why events like Beck's "Restoring Honor" are not only fruitless, but in fact, counterproductive. We should also realize that any activity we commit ourselves to must be directed at this corporate-financier oligarchy rather than the governments they have co-opted and positioned as buffers between themselves and the masses.

While people understand something is wrong and recognize the necessity to do "something," figuring out what that "something" should be becomes incredibly difficult when so few understand how power really works and how to strip it away from the oligarchs that have criminally consolidated it.

Understanding Globalization

As of late, the expansion of this global oligarchical empire has taken a more extreme, perhaps desperate form involving staged revolutions as seen in Egypt and Tunisia, and in Libya's case, armed rebellion and foreign military intervention. However, worldwide coup d'etats have occurred before - for example, in the late 1990's under the guise of a "financial collapse" and IMF "restructuring."

Many nations fell beholden to the IMF and its regiment of "reforms" which amounted to neo-colonialism packaged under the euphemism of "economic liberalization." To illustrate how this works, it may help to understand what real colonialism looked like.

Image: Thailand's geopolitical surroundings 1800-1900. Thailand was the only Southeast Asian country to avoid European colonization.

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Thailand in the 1800's, then the Kingdom of Siam, was surrounded on all sides by colonized nations and in turn was made to concede to the British 1855 Bowring Treaty. See how many of these "gunboat policy" imposed concessions sound like today's "economic liberalization:"

1. Siam granted extraterritoriality to British subjects.
2. British could trade freely in all seaports and reside permanently in Bangkok.
3. British could buy and rent property in Bangkok.
4. British subjects could travel freely in the interior with passes provided by the consul.
5. Import and export duties were capped at 3%, except the duty-free opium and bullion.
6. British merchants were to be allowed to buy and sell directly with individual Siamese.

A more contemporary example for comparison would be the outright military conquest of Iraq and Paul Bremer's (CFR) economic reformation. The Economist gleefully enumerates the neo-colonial "economic liberalization" of Iraq in a piece titled "Let's all go to the yard sale: If it all works out, Iraq will be a capitalist's dream:"

1. 100% ownership of Iraqi assets.
2. Full repatriation of profits.
3. Equal legal standing with local firms.
4. Foreign banks allowed to operate or buy into local banks.
5. Income and corporate taxes capped at 15%.
6. Universal tariffs slashed to 5%.

Read more: Egypt Today, Thailand Tomorrow

And few could argue that the IMF's rehabilitation regiments being forced upon nations all over the world after the late 90's financial crash are any different than economic colonialism both past and present. In fact, the IMF itself publishes reports at great length concerning the "necessity" of economic liberalization.

To be sure, the governments that come to power in the wake of the current Middle East destabilizations will be more servile and will undoubtedly be committed to similar economic liberalization. Brookings Institute's Kenneth Pollack already made it quite clear that "The struggle in the new Middle East must be defined as one between nations that are moving in the right direction and nations that are not; between those that are embracing economic liberalization, educational reform, democracy, the rule of law and civil liberties, and those that are not."

Siam eventually rolled back the terms of the 1855 Bowring Treaty as the British Empire waned, but as of 1997, Thailand was once again faced with similar terms, dictated this time by the bankers of the IMF.

Thailand's Answer to Globalization

Thailand's answer to the IMF, and globalization in general was profound in both implications as well as in its understanding of globalization's end game. Fiercely independent and nationalistic, and being the only nation in Southeast Asia to avoid colonization, Thailand's sovereignty has been protected for over 800 years by its revered monarchy. The current dynasty, the House of Chakri, has reigned nearly as long as America has existed as a nation and the current king is regarded as the equivalent of a living "Founding Father." And just as it has for 800 years, the Thai Monarchy today provides the most provocative and meaningful answer to the threats facing the Kingdom.

The answer of course is self-sufficiency. Self-sufficiency as a nation, as a province, as a community and as a household. This concept is enshrined in the Thai King's "New Theory" or "self-sufficiency economy" and mirrors similar efforts found throughout the world to break the back of the oppression and exploitation that results from dependence on an interdependent globalized system.

Image: A vision of self-sufficiency in Thailand. Agrarian values and the self-reliance they engender are the hallmarks of real freedom.

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The foundation of the self-sufficiency economy is simply growing your own garden and providing yourself with your own food. This is portrayed on the back right-hand side of every 1,000 baht Thai banknote as a picture of a woman tending her garden. The next step is producing surplus that can be traded for income, which in turn can be used to purchase technology to further enhance your ability to sustain yourself and improve your life-style.

Image: The Thai 1000 baht banknote. Left is one of the many dams controlling floods and producing electricity throughout the Kingdom. Center is the current King of Thailand. Right is a depiction of a local garden providing food in a self-sufficient manner.

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The New Theory aims at preserving traditional agrarian values in the hands of the people. It also aims at preventing a migration from the countryside into the cities. Preventing such migrations would prevent big agricultural cartels from moving in, swallowing up farming land, corrupting and even jeopardizing entire national food supplies (see Monsanto). Those familiar with the UN's Agenda 21, and the more recent UN "Climate Change Program," may understand the deeper implications and dangers of such a migration and why it needs to be stopped.

By moving to the city, people give up private property, cease pursuing productive occupations, and end up being folded into a consumerist paradigm. Within such a paradigm, problems like overpopulation, pollution, crime, and economic crises can only be handled by a centralized government and generally yield political solutions such as quotas, taxes, micromanagement, and regulations rather than meaningful technical solutions.

Also, such problems inevitably lead to a centralized government increasing its own power, always at the expense of the people and their freedom. The effects of economic catastrophe are also greater in a centralized, interdependent society, where everyone is subject to the overall health of the economy for even simple necessities like food, water, and electricity.

Image: A slide presenting the "New Theory" depicting a manifestation of greed leading the people from their rural private property and into a "city of extravagance." If Agenda 21 had an illustrated cover, this could be it.

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Image: The goal of the "New Theory" is to have people return to the countryside from the cities and develop their communities in a self-reliant manner. It is, in other words, Agenda 21 in reverse.

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Under the "New Theory," demonstration stations all across Thailand have been created promoting education in matters of agriculture and self-sufficient living. The program is competing against the contemporary globalization system, which as of now, is mired in many parts of the world with economic meltdown. The relatively self-sufficient nature of Thais in general has weathered this economic chaos fairly well. In 10 years, a plate of food still costs the same amount of money, as do many everyday commodities. This only further vindicates the value of being self-sufficient and now more than ever, in both Thailand, and abroad, it is a good time to get involved and get self-sufficient.

The West Strikes Back

Of course the head-of-state of a nation almost 70 million strong promoting a lifestyle that cuts the legs out from under the Western corporate-financier agenda does not sit well with the oligarchical establishment. Their response to this, as it has been with all of Thailand's habitual displays of defiance is something to behold.

Perhaps the most vocal Western corporate-financier critic of Thailand is the Economist. It openly criticizes the King's self-sufficiency economy in an article titled "Rebranding Thaksinomics." It states that the economic plan is "a partial retreat from Thailand's hitherto liberal economic stance." The Economist muddles the debate by side-stepping the self-sufficient aspects of the"self-sufficiency economy." It claims that socialist handouts under deposed Prime Minister and documented Western proxy Thaksin Shinawatra somehow accomplished the exact same goals. The Economist also claims the concept of self-sufficiency is merely a "rebranding" of such socialist handouts.

The Economist article then breaks down into a pro-Thaksin rant, decrying his ousting from power and continued claims that somehow encouraging people to grow their own food is a theft of Thaksin's socialist/populist policies.

It should be noted that permanent socialism is not self-sufficiency. It is complete dependency on the state and on people who pay their ever increasing taxes. Socialism is not about growing your own garden, using technology to enhance your independence or solving your problems with your own resources. It is about taking from the collective storehouses of the state, and when you are again hungry, taking again. Socialism could only be very useful as a stop-gap measure between current problems and the active pursuit of permanent technical solutions. However, the goal of globalization is to create interdependency between states, and total dependency on global institutions, therefore, perpetuating problems, not solving them becomes the equation.

Another Western pro-corporate-financier point-of-view comes from Australia's National University's "New Mandala" blog written by academic wonk Andrew Walker. The blog itself is a clearinghouse for corporate subsidized talking points regarding Southeast Asia and is tied to the corporate-financier funded Lowy Institute. Some "contributing writers" even include Thaksin Shinawatra's hired lobbyist, Robert Amsterdam.

Walker's entire perception of Thailand seems to be derived from his time spent in a single village in Northern Thailand. From his myopic point-of-view in the minute village of "Baan Tian," he condemns entirely Thailand's self-sufficiency economy in his article "Royal misrepresentation of rural livelihoods." He suggests that "the sufficiency economy prescriptions for rural development are inappropriate and disempowering."

As with the Economist, the article breaks down into a pro-Thaksin rant claiming the entire plan is meant to keep the rural population of Thailand in their place, out of the cities, and thus out of the debate of national issues.

Of course, becoming self-sufficient is one step on the road to real empowerment. Academic wonks like Andrew Walker presume the height of empowerment is feeding a paper voting stub into a box, on your way home from a service sector job, and then relaxing behind the glow of a new plasma screen TV bought on credit. A more likely argument would be that sustaining your own existence, wrought from the land beneath your feet, and the ability to shape the world around you with an understanding of science and the mastery of multiple trades is the height of empowerment and the truest form of human freedom.

The hand wringing within the writings of the Economist and ANU's Andrew Walker is not the full extent of the West's reaction to Thailand and its wandering from foreign dominion. A full fledged "red" color revolution has been brewing within the Kingdom since at least 2009. Reading the "Red Siam Manifesto" penned by "red shirt" intelligentsia Giles Ungpakorn makes it quite clear how they view "self-sufficiency" and the need to "reform" Thailand as a "socialist welfare state."

Ungpakorn's childish and ranting manifesto can be found on "Socialist Worker Online" here. A complete selection of the "red shirt" propaganda used within Thailand can be found here.

It should be noted that the leader of the "red shirt" protest is deposed ex-PM Thaksin Shinawatra. Long before Thaksin Shinwatra would become prime minister in Thailand, he was already working his way up the Wall Street-London ladder of opportunity, while simultaneously working his way up in Thai politics. He was appointed by the Carlyle Group as an adviser, while holding public office, and attempted to use his connections to boost his political image. Thanong Khanthong of Thailand's English newspaper "the Nation," wrote in 2001:

"In April 1998, while Thailand was still mired in a deep economic morass, Thaksin tried to use his American connections to boost his political image just as he was forming his Thai Rak Thai Party. He invited Bush senior to visit Bangkok and his home, saying his own mission was to act as a "national matchmaker" between the US equity fund and Thai businesses. In March, he also played host to James Baker III, the US secretary of state in the senior Bush administration, on his sojourn in Thailand."

Upon becoming prime minister in 2001, Thaksin would begin paying back the support he received from his Western sponsors. In 2003, he would commit Thai troops to the US invasion of Iraq, despite widespread protests from both the Thai military and the public. Thaksin would also allow the CIA to use Thailand for its abhorrent rendition program.

In 2004, Thaksin attempted to ramrod through a US-Thailand Free-Trade Agreement (FTA) without parliamentary approval, backed by the US-ASEAN Business Council who just before last year's 2011elections that saw Thaksin's sister Yingluck Shinawatra brought into power, hosted the leaders of Thaksin’s "red shirt" personality cult.

Image: The US-ASEAN Business Council, a who’s-who of corporate fascism in the US, had been approached by leaders of Thaksin Shinwatra's "red shirt" street mobs. (click image to enlarge)

….

The council in 2004 included 3M, war profiteering Bechtel, Boeing, Cargill, Citigroup, General Electric, IBM, the notorious Monsanto, and currently also includes banking houses Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Chevron, Exxon, BP, Glaxo Smith Kline, Merck, Northrop Grumman, Monsanto’s GMO doppelganger Syngenta, as well as Phillip Morris.

Photo: Deposed autocrat, Thaksin Shinawatra before the CFR on the even of the 2006 military coup that would oust him from power. Since 2006 he has had the full, unflinching support of Washington, Wall Street and their immense propaganda machine in his bid to seize back power.

….

Thaksin would remain in office from 2001 until September of 2006. On the eve of the military coup that ousted him from power, Thaksin was literally standing before the Fortune 500-funded Council on Foreign Relations giving a progress report in New York City.

Since the 2006 coup that toppled his regime, Thaksin has been represented by US corporate-financier elites via their lobbying firms including, Kenneth Adelman of the Edelman PR firm (Freedom House, International Crisis Group, PNAC), James Baker of Baker Botts (CFR), Robert Blackwill of Barbour Griffith & Rogers (CFR), Kobre & Kim, and currently Robert Amsterdam of Amsterdam & Peroff (Chatham House).

To say that Thaksin Shinawatra and his "red shirts" have foreign backing would be a profound understatement.

Thaksin's proxy political party maintains the "red shirt" mobs which in turn are supported by several NGOs including the National Endowment for Democracy funded "Prachatai," an "independent media organization" that coordinates the "red shirt" propaganda efforts. Prachatai was recently nominated for the Deutsche Welle Blog Awards by the "Neo-Con" infested Freedom House, upon which former Thaksin lobbyist Kenneth Adelman sits as a member on the board of directors.

Image: US Neo-Conservative, corporate-financier run Freedom House "tweets" their March 11, 2011 nomination of NEDfunded "red shirt" propaganda clearinghouse, Prachatai.com.

....

Western corporate-financier interests know what's going on already and they are moving against it while the majority of humanity still sleeps in ignorance and apathy. Thailand is but one nation of many, in China's "String of Pearls" that is targeted for destabilization and US State Department sponsored "liberation."

The key to stopping these foreign interests dead in their tracks is seizing back from them the mechanisms of civilization - and we have done that already in terms of the alternative media. Such success is necessary in all aspects of our life, and as the King in Thailand suggests, it can start with something as simple as growing your own garden.

Today and Into the Future

Of course in Thailand, agricultural self-sufficiency is coupled with technology to enhance efficiency and improve the quality of life. Even in the city, small independent businesses are adopting the latest technology to improve their production, increase their profits, and even out-compete larger corporations. Computer controlled machining equipment can be found in small workshops crammed into old shop-houses, automatic embroidering machines allow a single woman to fulfill orders for name tags on new school uniforms - rather than both businesses sending off orders to factories owned by a handful of wealthy investors. A multitude of examples can be seen walking around any city block in Thailand's capital of Bangkok.

Image: MIT's Dr. Neil Gershenfeld inside his "Fab Lab," arguably the birthplace of the personal fabrication revolution.

....

Bringing this sort of technology to rural people, even enabling people to create their own technology rather than just employ it, is not just science fiction but is a reality of today. MIT Professor Dr. Neil Gershenfeld has developed the "fabrication laboratory" or "Fab Lab." The Fab Lab is a microfactory that can "make almost anything." His Fab Lab has since been replicated all over the world in what he calls the personal fabrication revolution. It aims at turning a world of dependent consumers into independent designers and producers.

Neil Gershenfeld: The beckoning promise of personal fabrication http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5n-APFrlXDs&feature=player_embedded

Video: Dr. Neil Gershenfeld presents his Fab Lab at TED.

....

Dr. Gershenfeld in his own words articulates the problem of finding support amongst institutions and governments, stating that individuals are very enthusiastic about this revolution "but it breaks their organizational boundaries. In fact it is illegal for them, in many cases, to equip ordinary people to create rather than consume technology."

This indeed not only encapsulates Dr. Gershenfeld's dilemma, but describes to a "t" the mentality of oligarchs and the fears they harbor about empowering the people, a fear reflected in the "organizational boundaries" of their corporations and governmental institutions. This is a feature of oligarchy described as early as 300 B.C. in ancient Greece in "The Athenian Constitution." In it, a character referred to as "the Old Oligarch" describes his contempt for the social mobility the technology of the Athenian navy affords the lower echelons of Athenian society.

Dr. Gershenfeld goes on to encapsulate the true potential of his Fab Labs by stating, "the other 5 billion people on the planet aren't just technical "sinks," they are "sources." The real opportunity is to harness the inventive power of the world to locally design and produce solutions to local problems." Dr. Gershenfeld concludes by conceding he thought such a possibility was 20 years off, but "it's where we are today," noting the success his Fab Labs are already having around the world.

Image: The interior of a "Fab Lab" in Amsterdam, featuring a array of personal manufacturing technology.

....

Dr. Gershenfeld's message resonates with the current culture of Thailand and the ambitions of the "self-sufficiency economy." In many ways, Thailand's patchwork of micro-businesses, already successfully by-passing capital intensive centralized production, vindicates the work and optimism of Dr. Gershenfeld. It also, however, resonates strongly with the self-reliant traditions that had made America great. The technical possibility for this to change the world is already a reality, but Dr. Gershenfeld himself concedes that the biggest obstacle is overcoming social engineering - in other words - creating a paradigm shift in the minds of the population to meet the technical paradigm shift that has already taken place.

Self-sufficiency and the harnessing of technology in the hands of the people are the greatest fears of the corporate-financier oligarchy - fears that oligarchs throughout the centuries have harbored. Simply boycotting multinational corporations and replacing them with local solutions is something everyone can afford to do starting today. And by simply looking into Dr. Neil Gershenfeld's "Fab Lab," similar ideas such as "hackerspaces," raising awareness of the personal fabrication revolution, and even in the smallest way participating can help overcome the obstacle of social-engineering and spur a profound paradigm shift. We have begun to seize back the media, now it is time to seize back the other levers of power. Now is the time to recognize true freedom as being self-sufficient as a nation, as a community, and as a household, and start living it everyday.

the gipster

Thursday, January 31, 2013

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Countering the Corporate-Insurgency

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Neil Gershenfeld: The beckoning promise of personal fabrication http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5n-APFrlXDs&feature=player_embedded

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