My Blog

2011-10-16T10:33:00.000-07:00

The Age of Robber Barons

The plutocracy in the US and in the rest of the world is facing unprecedented tremors against its superstructure which it so carefully built on the backs of the common people robbing them of as much wealth as they could in past several decades. The epicenter of these tremors lies in New York City where over 100,000 people have come together for ‘Occupy Wall Street’ (OWS) protest. The people have camped themselves in Zuccotti park in lower Manhattan, only blocks away from Wall Street and have continued to occupy Wall Street, Times Square and other part of wealthy Manhattan on a daily basis since over four weeks. The protesters who claim to represent 99% of the population, essentially the working class, are demanding their fair share from the top 1% who have gotten super-rich in the past few decades by the most blatant money-grab ever experienced in the American history. The OWS protest, which was started mainly by poor whites comprising mainly unemployed youth and students has now attracted support of labor unions, people of color and suppressed classes who commonly see themselves as victims of Wall Street with the US government not only an accomplice but aiding in the loot. As Ralph Nader put it, “It carries the moral outrage and the moral authority of the vast majority of Americans who are excluded, disrespected, defrauded, unrepresented, underpaid and unemployed. The American dream has turned into a nightmare.” It is by far the biggest struggle against corporate greed and gross concentration of wealth the US has ever witnessed in its history. The OWS protests have gone viral and have spread not only to more than two dozen cities in the US including major cities like Chicago, Oakland Portland, San Francisco, Boston, Los Angeles and Washington DC but also over 1000 cities around the world. The movement world over is now being called ‘Occupy Together’ and is turning out to be a major class struggle against corporate elites.

The protesters have organized themselves peacefully and have sustained themselves week after week with thousands of supporters bringing food and other supplies. The spontaneous, leaderless movement is now widely supported and people speak, sing, dance, live, share and protest together. It is remarkable how a few thousand people are rattling corporate supremacists and their oligarchic servants in Congress. This big group of people is a motley crowd of all colors, races, cultures strung together by the common thread of victimization by corporations and Wall Street oligarchs. The protest, which was dismissed by ‘pundits’ as outlandish, incoherent and lacking direction has metamorphosed into a representative struggle of the working class and the message for anybody who wants to see and is not affected by intellectual bias of perfect ‘wordings’ is pretty clear. The message is for equality and fair share. CNBC tried to dismiss the protests as ‘aligned with Lenin,’ incongruous in the American context. The protesters, mainly youth who see no future for themselves in the current system may not know what Leninism is but are doing exactly what Lenin proposed. The long recession brought on by the financial sector and their extremely fraudulent and ponzi schemes actually ultimately benefited the super-rich and the corporations and have pushed major population into unemployment, uncertainty and homelessness.

To see it in economic perspective, it is worthwhile to glance over some numbers. According to a report by Joint Economic Committee of Congress, the total income of top 10% of the wealthiest households jumped from 34.6% in 1980 to 48.2% in 2008. The sharpest increase was in top 1% whose share rose from 10% in 1980 to 21% in 2008. But that is just income. The fraction of wealth now owned by top 1% is 40% of the nation’s wealth. That is a staggering number, making America one of the most unequal countries in the world. The wealth has concentrated in the hands of business tycoons, CEOs and financial sector. The financial sector managed to pull the greatest scam in financial history but still managed to get the bailout money from the US government. The rich were helped on the backs of the poor; it was a bailout of the rich from the poor. This is a legacy of Reganism in 1980s when he started cutting taxes on the rich and made policy changes to benefit only the rich. Clinton did away with welfare and with Bush-era tax cuts for the rich and Obama endorsing it, the policies favoring the rich further entrenched. This was too blatant for anybody not to see but still the working class in the US, heavily propagandized took some time to respond. But now we see the response in form of OWS and political pundits are irked as they are aligned to no political party. The Wall Street elites are hysterical. As Noam Chomsky puts it, “The US business class is highly class conscious, and their members have long seen themselves as fighting a bitter class war, except they don’t want anybody else to know about it.” Now that the war has come out in open, plutocrats have panicked.

Despite being a beacon of capitalist society, modern American history is fraught with class wars. It has been dormant since the 1930s but the current turmoils in the US (labor protests in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania etc.), especially the protests around Wall Street show clear signs of brewing class struggle. Class warfares are manifested in many rebellions and mutinies that started occurring in the colonial America before the American Revolution in 1776. This is excluding the struggles between American Indians and English colonists and rebellions against slavery which was quite systematically crushed. It was the poor whites who emigrated from Europe to escape economic hardships that often revolted against rich land owners and propertied class. Among the many examples that can be cited, one of the major ones was Bacon uprising of Virginia in 1676, where the poor whites rose up against rich colonists who had grabbed and controlled most of the land and resources. This rebellion later attracted blacks and other groups. Class lines were deeply drawn in colonial America which often resulted in violent clashes between rich and poor. This gave the founding fathers of America who were extremely wealthy land owners a lesson in protecting their property and subverting class warfare which could have been ultimately detrimental to their interests. They invented a clever tool of liberty, equality and democracy which could unite just enough poor whites to fight England but maintain the status quo of slavery and inequality. With this tool, the ruling elites allowed a middle business class to develop which acted as a buffer between them and the very poor. The tool has worked wonderfully over two hundred years since the founding of the United States.

It was this business middle class which expanded and grew over decades, though social injustice, slavery and inequality was maintained and guarded quite carefully. Any uprising since the American Revolution was more or less deemed unlawful and was brutally crushed. In the words of Samuel Adams, “treason against a king might be pardoned but the man who dares rebel against the laws of the republic ought to suffer death.” The Revolution led to a Republic in which revolution was banned. The protection of business class by the ruling elites ushered the Age of Robber Barons in early 19th century when the American business and finance gained wealth and power through most unethical means. It has continued till date. The fear that the poor would demand a share from the rich was the basis on which the constitution was written. The constitution was crafted to protect property which about a third of the population had, little or excess. The gap between rich and poor was maintained and hence the class wars. The rebellious energy of people had to be absorbed to continue a class based society which was projected by its leaders as classless society with ‘equal’ rights and freedom. The rebellious energy came to be partially absorbed by ‘wars.’ “I should welcome any war, for I think this country needs one,” wrote Theodore Roosevelt in 1897 who went on to became the President of the United States. A heady mix of nationalism and capitalism gave rise to a ‘War Nation,’ which sealed imperialism as a policy with Monroe Doctrine of continuous expansion and ‘natural right’ to western hemisphere.

The ‘war nation’ profited the elite, who reaped profits from foreign markets, filled their coffers, but allowed the poor to toil and barely survive. The revenue from taxes went into war, leading the country into cycles of recessions, also inherent in capitalism which so much relies on militarism. The innumerable wars the US waged can be directly linked to recessions. Major troubles were witnessed in 1890s when the labor clashed with the rich. The Great Depression of 1930s brought forth class riots and growth of strong labor unions which ultimately led to the ‘New Deal,’ literally forced by people. The communist movement played a crucial role in organizing and galvanizing labor movements. It saw its crescendo in 1960s in the wake of Vietnam War when some benefits and welfare was extracted from the ruling elites. Post-war period was calm, when due to progressive policies wealth was shared in the middle class. However, Reagan, in 1980s, set on a path of reversing a welfare society. Bill Clinton took away welfare and Obama has gone after social security and medicare while waging three major wars and several small skirmishes. The ‘war nation’ remains in force benefitting the rich and the corporations, while the country reels under recession.

What we see in the OWS protests is a continuation of the trajectory of class struggles which has been a historical driving force in the US polity. Seeing this struggle in historical perspective brings out similarities to earlier struggles that are quite striking. The intellectuals like Cornel West, Slavoj Zizek, Naomi Klein and others have now thrown their weight behind these protesters who at the moment don’t seem to budge unless some systemic change is initiated. Nobody knows where it will go but the protests have been welcomed all over the world especially in Europe where similar struggles like against austerity measures have been going on since quite some time. The rage of the ruling elites over these protests is reflected in the police brutality when peaceful protesters were corralled, shoved to the ground and pepper-sprayed without any imaginable provocation. JP Morgan gave over 4 million dollars to a New York Police Department charity fund. The police have been constantly looking for some sign of riot, but the protesters have been tenaciously non-violent and peaceful denying them any opportunity of foul play. Still, over 700 protesters were arrested in one day in a march on Brooklyn Bridge in New York. More were arrested in Chicago, Boston and San Francisco. The arrests, harassment by police has continued but the still people are traveling from all over the country and joining in the protest. The disenchanted youth has laid bare the ugly face of corporate America who have displayed their sole interest in accruing profits with minimal or no regard for human life and misery.

The corporations are sitting on over three trillion dollars in cash and the profits of many, especially oil and financial sector have been unprecedented. This really cuts through the charade of the country being broke and downgraded by S&P over debt payments. The US is definitely not broke as the ‘eminent economists’ have pointed out, but the money and wealth have become so highly concentrated that even champions of ‘free market’ like Milton Friedman might wonder to the extent, the oligarchic, crony-capitalist and imperialist system has gone to rob the people. The difference between the rich and poor today is unprecedented and unparalleled in the American history. In 1960s, when the rich paid around 90% in highest marginal tax rates; today they pay less than 30% in highest marginal tax rates. The focused and blatant robbery, especially for past 30 years has finally roused the working class. One of the placards on Wall Street says, “It’s not recession, it’s robbery;” which quite sums up the tone and basic character of this struggle. The age of Robber Barons has not passed; the robber barons have only changed their masks.

Cornel West loosely likens the struggles and the protests that have engulfed the US to Arab Spring, calling them as the US Autumn. This is right after about a month of labor protests in Wisconsin where the state employees fought tooth and nail for their collective bargaining rights. The disillusion with the two party system has never been so stark than now. As the Democrats resolutely refuse to be progressive on any issue, the line between them and the Republicans has blurred to a non-distinguishable degree. Both have proved themselves to be servers of corporate interests and as a consequence of it, people are left with no choice but to take to streets. Whether it is Arab Spring, or the US Autumn, or the turmoils in Europe, or the uprisings in Greece, Yemen or wider Middle East; this rebellious energy needs direction to establish people-centric societies. It can only be done with concerted communist movements which can lead the world towards a more just and egalitarian society. The first part of the twenty-first century is providing opportunities very similar to the ones in the first part of twentieth century, it’s déjà vu, a second chance, to re-build a better world, which the progressive and left forces should not miss at any cost. The grounds are increasingly becoming ripe worldwide for social transformation and it provides a definite window to get past the age of Robber Barons to more equitable and just societies.

2011-08-21T21:44:00.000-07:00

Underlying Dissensions

The color of Europe has changed; it is no more pale white but has many more hues now. The demographics has changed. The erstwhile colonial countries like Britain, France, Spain and Portugal were one of the first to experience this change in demographics as people from their colonies started settling down there. Northern Europe, especially the Scandinavian countries were slow in experiencing such change. Though the diversity was recognized, the process of assimilation of immigrant population never really took place. Different races, culture, ethnic groups co-existed but never truly integrated with each other. That is one of the primary reasons why Europe sees separatist movements all over and so many countries including the former Soviet Union broke down into many smaller countries. India, where a multitude of races, castes, cultures and religions have co-existed is still rife with rampant racism, casteism, communalism, regionalism, bloated cultural identities, class differences, which are all evidences that despite living together for centuries, we are not truly integrated. Creation of different states in India can be seen as a local parallel to the creation of countries in Europe. The dominant race and class was always able to suppress and subjugate the weaker class and separatist movements sprouted as a reaction to that reinforcing their own identities. But we have learnt to exist together, exist with people who might be different from us, accepting different cultures as part of our own existence and in the process becoming multicultural societies. We have gained this wisdom after many wars, in-fighting, occupations, colonialism, and human catastrophe. With the world shrunk with technology, most societies are multicultural with disparate groups existing within its folds.

This multiculturalism is seen as a threat by people like Anders Behring Breivik for whom ‘homogeneity’ is at stake. This is more true for Scandinavian countries who have been tolerant but ‘homogeneous’ societies. Breivik, who went on a killing spree, gunned down 76 people in Norway (68 on an island in Norway and 8 in Oslo) mostly in a youth camp of the ruling Labor party. Breivik wrote a 1500 page manifesto which he calls “A European Declaration of Independence.” It is filled with right wing hate rhetoric and blames Muslims, Marxists, multiculturalists and feminist women for the decline of the ‘old Europe.’ Conservatives condemned the violence but came out to defend Breivik’s manifesto and his basic philosophy of hate. In his manifesto, Breivik draws inspiration from several right wing groups in the US and Europe, refers to the right wing Hindu nationalists and actually praises the extreme anti-Muslim Hindutva ideology of RSS/BJP. The undertone is of fascism which rides on false fears and preys on economic deprivation and hardship when people are desperate to survive. People like Breivik fear Muslim takeover of Norway when Muslim population in Norway is only 3% and most of them speak fluent Norwegian. It is instructive to reflect on Nazi Germany where economic hardships led to the success of extreme demagoguery resulting in irrational hatred against Jews. Breivik by no means is alone or isolated in this extreme ideology. The far right nationalist and anti-immigrant parties in Norway receive more than 22 percent of votes. The figure is 29 percent in Switzerland and 19 percent in Finland with countries like Belgium, France, Italy, Denmark and Austria around 10 percent. Similar to the US, the far right, ultra-nationalist, fascist groups are on the rise in Europe. The myth of ‘white Christian nation’ is under threat; it is a reflection of deep seated resentment against non-white cultures and races. One of the more famous Norwegians, Stieg Larsson, of ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’ fame spent his lifetime researching right-wing groups in Norway and Europe and expressed deep concerns for this trend. He edited ‘Expo’ that routinely published his findings.

The fawning corporate media immediately jumped at the conclusion that the attacks must have been carried out by Al-Qaeda or other extremist Islamist groups and was another heinous terrorist attack. Among others, Jennifer Rubin of ‘Washington Post’ wrote that “it’s a sobering reminder for those who think it’s too expensive to wage a war against jihadists.” It is important to note that according to Europol, between 2006 and 2008, only 0.4 percent of terrorist attacks in Europe were from the Islamist groups. The lion’s share (85 percent) of such attacks goes to the separatist groups. However, when Breivik’s identity was discovered, the entire episode fell off their radars. Had Breivik turned out to be a Muslim, he would have been ‘unanimously’ accepted as a terrorist. But for a Christian like Breivik, the attacks were no longer terrorist attacks but the attacks of a madman (a Hindu terrorist likewise is unthinkable). Though Breivik had fantasies of being a Knights Templar crusader who along with other anti-immigrant groups would seize power in Europe through coups d'etat; Breivik, by no standards is a madman. This is only a manifestation of his ultra-religious, medieval, right wing ideology and is particularly a vile strain of that trend. If he is a madman, then everybody on the extreme right must be put in asylum and should not be allowed any public space in any form, let alone practicing active politics. The kingpin is always more responsible than his hit man and so is the case here. Breivik was just a hit man who got deeply affected with the flagrant hate rhetoric of right wing groups and parties. People like Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, Robert Spencer, Pat Buchanan of ‘The American Conservative;’ and organizations like ‘The Family,’ an American Christian Right group with the idea of founding a Christian government and a Christian nation critically affected Breivik’s thought process.

If Breivik is no longer a terrorist, then the question arises as to who is a terrorist? Is the definition come to be attached to the religious, racial identity of a person? Is indiscriminate killing of innocent civilians not an act of terrorism? A stray rocket fired by Hamas which often misses its target is considered an act of terrorism but not targeted bombing of Palestinians by Israelis. More than half million civilians dead in Iraq is not considered an act of terrorism; nor are the night raids and incessant killing of civilians in Afghanistan and Pakistan. When propped dictators in African continent brutalize their own populations, slaughtering people at will; that is not terrorism. The acts of violence by state against its own citizens, India being one of the shining examples with its record in Kashmir, Gujarat or against tribals, where thousands have died at the hands of armed forces and law enforcement agencies is again not an act of terrorism. When people are terrorized by genocide to vote for their own tormentor, is that not an act of terrorism and the tormentor a terrorist? The term ‘terrorist’ has come to be selective, conveniently employed in perspective and distorted by the powerful class to meet propagandist ends.

With such growing trends, a society must not succumb to misrepresentations and demagoguery. We must ensure that the economic depression worldwide does not result in repeating of the worst times of human history and any such trend must be nipped in the bud.

2011-05-18T18:33:00.000-07:00

The Empire Strikes Back

The lust for blood is partially satiated. Osama-bin-Laden was shot at point blank range by the US Special Forces called Navy Seals in his mansion in Abbottabad, Pakistan in front of his young daughter and one of his many wives. He was sick and almost immobile. The news sent many Americans in frenzy who poured on streets heady with vicarious feeling of power and dominance. Ground zero swelled with people with many flexing their muscles and chanting U-S-A, it was a revenge justified. The mainstream media covered the event with great enthusiasm and euphoria with ‘experts’ elated at the unique feat of killing one unarmed man. You can run but you cannot hide, the Empire sooner or later will hunt you down. Justice is now an eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, blood for blood and lives for lives. We have receded into dark Middle Ages. The rule of law is only for the weak and powerless, it does not apply to the all powerful, highly militarized Empire and its cronies. The Empire can invade your land, kill people at will, take all resources and occupy as it pleases. In our unprecedented unipolar world, the Empire has assumed the role of world police whose aim is not to apprehend and bring the guilty to justice but to kill. As Chris Hedges, in his latest book The World As It Is: Dispatches on the Myth of Human Progress that explores the problems of a crumbling Empire, writes, “we have become the monsters that we fight." The blood is going to continue to spill.

It was an ideal moment for proponents of torture to resurface trying to redeem themselves by linking enhanced interrogation techniques to assassination of Osama-bin-Laden. This view is however widely discredited not only by some former and current FBI interrogators but also war mongers like John McCain who was himself tortured during Vietnam War. His personal experience only made him see the other side, a common syndrome with people on the right. In fact many in the intelligence community argued that it took so long because torture is counter-productive and hardens people psychologically to not reveal any information or at best to give false information. It was only through conventional psychological techniques of interrogation that led to Osama-bin-Laden. The hawks however never relent; with amazing persistence they propagate their fascist agendas. The result of all this ‘intelligence’ was targeted assassination and not a fair court of trial. Though mainstream America saw killing of Osama-bin-Laden as justice delivered, most of the Muslim and Arab world saw it as another instance of deep atrocity and felt deeply offended when Osama’s body was dumped in the ocean and was called a ‘deep sea burial.’

It has never been credibly proven that al Qaeda carried the 9/11 attacks, neither did al Qaeda ever own responsibility. A year later after 9/11, the FBI even after most intensive investigation had no hard evidence that the plot was hatched in Afghanistan; there was only a ‘belief.’ Noam Chomsky in his article on bin Laden’s death notes that, “What they only believed in April 2002, they obviously didn’t know eight months earlier, when Washington dismissed tentative offers by the Taliban (how serious, we do not know, because they were instantly dismissed) to extradite bin Laden if they were presented with evidence—which, as we soon learned, Washington didn’t have.” After the killing, Obama in his White House address proudly owned the event and mentioned how al Qaeda was behind 9/11 and justice was duly served. The Master of Deception was again at his rhetorical best, presenting a lie as truth. Obama has embraced Bush's doctrine that nations that harbor terrorists open themselves to invasion and destruction. Following the logic, the U.S. is one of those nations. If bin Laden was a criminal and “inspired attacks of 9/11” as the right wing columnist Thomas Friedman put it in his NYT column, then by that standards Bush and Obama overshadow bin Laden in criminality by huge proportions. Osama-bin-Laden was at best a ‘suspect,’ whereas the former are directly responsible for over a million lives in Iraq and Afghanistan combined. Should they be dealt in the same way? Or probably in some way worse, given their magnitude of criminality? Noam Chomsky quotes in his article The Nuremberg Tribunal for Nazis that “the ‘decider’ who gave the orders to commit the supreme international crime differs only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.” If bin Laden radicalized a small part of Muslim population, these two Presidents have radicalized and pushed American population to far right. Even Nazis were brought to the court of law and tried. There was more civility after World War II. Although this just adds to the long list of political assassinations done by US in other countries (e.g. El Salvador, Chile, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Argentina etc.), it needs to be pointed out every time how international law is a puppet in the hands of the Empire.

The goodwill and empathy the US gained after heinous 9/11 attacks was lost in the unjust and monstrous wars it waged in Iraq and Afghanistan that killed civilians many times more than 9/11 and relegated these countries several decades back with destruction of their infrastructure. Now the war has expanded to Pakistan where before killing of Osama-bin-Laden, hundreds of civilians were killed by drone attacks on north-west border of Pakistan on mere suspicion. The Pakistani government as revealed by WikiLeaks remained fully complicit and allowed the US to infringe its sovereignty and operate and invade its lands. The ruling political class in Pakistan however maintained the anti-US and sovereignty rhetoric. The military and intelligence establishment of Pakistan must have known about bin Laden’s whereabouts but they did not let Americans know of it. They play their own double game and cherry pick people to protect who can serve their interest. Anti-American sentiments already run quite high in Pakistan especially after loss of civilian lives in continuous drone attacks and such incidents are only going to exacerbate the already explosive situation. But that is hardly of concern. As far as the corrupt governments and brutal dictators serve the US interest they are fine and are not interfered with dealing with their own population. It is only when the situation gets out of hand that the democracy rhetoric is parroted. Egypt is the most recent example, where the US supported Hosni Mubarak till the very end until things got out of hand. In Afghanistan after supporting a very corrupt Karzai, the US is now in talks with Taliban leaders. People and their will are obviously never on the agenda.

Al Qaeda has already been a spent force. Even according to CIA there were not more than hundred al Qaeda operatives in Afghanistan. Still Obama escalated the war in Afghanistan and deployed more than hundred thousand troops and expanded the war. He wanted to wear the crown of a War president; that shows how tough he is! Targeted assassination has become the bottom line of Obama’s war policies. Extremely unpopular night raids by the US and NATO forces in Afghanistan have killed hundreds of innocent civilians. The assassinations, killings and occupation are only going to radicalize more of Muslim population and increase the cycle of violence. Obama has scaled Bush’s policies to new heights. He has donned the role of the accuser, judge, jury, and executioner all at the same time without any due process. Cornel West, an African American University Professor of African American Studies and Religion at Princeton University and moral philosopher who campaigned for Obama but now nurses the betrayal, bitterly describes Obama as “a black mascot of Wall Street oligarchs and a black puppet of corporate plutocrats. And now he has become head of the American killing machine and is proud of it.” The cultural degradation has touched new lows.

Even if Osama-bin-Laden was captured and brought to trial, there was hardly any chance that he would have been allowed to live, evidence or no evidence. Saddam Hussein, the favored dictator of Iraq when turned rogue was captured and punished with death penalty. The ICC (International Criminal Court) is a partisan court run mainly on the diktats of the Empire. The international laws are again for weak and disfavored rulers and dictators. The ICC recently issued an arrest warrant for Gaddaffi and two others in Libya but they do not possibly have balls to issue such a warrant for Bush or Obama who are much bigger and worse war criminals. The hypocrisy is nauseating. Diplomacy is just a euphemism for bullying that goes on in international politics. Bullies are tyrants only to the weak and so weak nations suffer at the hands of the powerful nations. The reflections of the pattern can be seen locally, e.g. Russia vs Chechnya, India dealing with Maoists, Pakistan dealing with Baluchistan etc. Only popular revolutions everywhere can save us from this oligarchic-corporate-imperial-military juggernaut.

2011-02-06T09:51:00.000-08:00

Hopes and Prospects

This is what Noam Chomsky calls his latest book on Palestine. It seems quite pertinent to extend this characterization to the entire world as we enter into the second decade of the 21st century. As we march forward, it is instructive to reflect upon the bygone first decade and learn lessons from its events if there are any. The world in the 21st century has not been particularly peaceful or prosperous. It has been marred by wars, deprivation, unemployment, homelessness, famine like conditions, accelerated climate change, increasing gap between rich and poor and an increasing dystopia in many parts of the world. The bloody first decade has seen hundreds of thousands of lives lost on the altar of Iraq and Afghanistan wars and thousands of Palestinians killed by Israel. This is not counting lives lost in skirmishes in other parts of the world like Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe. While America transcends from Huxley’s ‘Brave New World’ to Orwellian ‘1984,’ societal conditions in other parts of the world have deteriorated as well.

France and England saw major steps towards erosion of a welfare state despite massive popular protests, Scandinavian countries that used to pride on their social infrastructure are slowly following suit. Countries like Iceland too have been severely affected by economic crises. Many of the erstwhile USSR states have receded into third world status and are ruled by most corrupt governments. The fall of the socialist state has brought more misery and impoverishment than prosperity which has become concentrated only to a few. The torture of Western Saharan population in Africa by its neighbor Morocco supported by the US continues unabated. An aerial view over Western Sahara will show miles and miles of camps where Western Saharan people live with no housing, food or medicine. Moroccan army has used rape as a tool to subdue and torment Western Saharan population. In some ways, their condition is worse than Palestinians who too have a refugee like status in their own land. The latest revelations show the Palestinian population has been deceived by its own leaders in dealing with Israel and how they capitulated under US and Israeli pressures. Conditions in Middle Eastern countries have not been uplifting at all with propped dictators and regimes ruling with iron hands. Populations in Middle Eastern countries like Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan, Yemen, Syria are now out on streets demanding regime changes. It started from Iran when people came on streets demanding Ahmadinejad to step down. Sudan, the largest country in Africa is on the brink of partition due to severe repression of South Sudanese by their Northern ‘brothers’ since decades now. The referendum in South Sudan was overwhelmingly in favor of secession. Uganda’s anti-gay stance of its media and establishment led to the slaying of its prominent LGBT activist. Zimbabwe has no respite from inflation running into several thousand percentage points.

The Indian subcontinent has its own significant act in the world play of human drama. It starts from repression and killing of Tamil Tigers by Sri Lankan authorities which also cost thousands of civilian lives caught in cross-fire to Pakistan, whose one-fifth of the land was under floods and its leaders were conniving and indirectly supporting the drone attacks in their own territory. Baluchistan’s struggles have increased to get freedom from Pakistan. Bangladeshi activist Moshrefa Mushi remains behind bars as does Aun Suu Kyi of Myanmar. In our own country India, the conviction of Binayak Sen has made a mockery of democracy and human rights. Maoists in India through armed insurrection have raised the acute problem of tribals and their livelihood to the highest level where the Indian state and the mainstream media are in no position to ignore or shove it under the carpet. Repression in Kashmir has now reached a flash point and Kashmiris now demand nothing less than secession from the Indian state. It is important to note that Kashmiris have nothing against Indian people from whom they in fact seek support to address their long standing grievances and brutal atrocities by Indian army.

These are troubling but promising times. To see the significance of present times, the turmoil in different parts of the world needs to be seen in perspective. However gloomy our current times might seem, there is a very strong silver lining to it. If we compare this first decade of 21st century and the usher into second decade to the beginning of the 20th century, these troubled times in fact represent significant progress in human terms. While in early 20th century, most part of the world was struggling to throw away the yoke of colonialism, the struggles now are for human rights, dignity of life and better conditions of living. While 20th century saw people rising against foreign rule and getting rid of them, 21st century is seeing people rise against their own despotic regimes, seeking regime change and sweeping democratic reforms with their say in governance. The start of 2011 is remarkable for culmination of popular protest in the Middle East. As people poured on streets in Tunisia and forced its dictator to flee, it triggered a domino effect in other countries of the region. Egypt has followed suit with Yemen on close heels with these countries. Tunisia by many is dubbed as the first WikiLeaks revolution. Hosni Mubarak of Egypt is almost at the brink of ouster unless the US comes to its rescue with massive military repression. Jordan, Algeria, Syria have followed suit. Popular protest in Algeria resulted in the end of 30 year old emergency rule in the country. Tens of thousands of workers protested in Turkey for labor reforms. The significance of these uprisings can be seen from the comment of John McCain who dubbed these uprisings as ‘virus’ that needed to be stopped. This more or less sums up the response of the imperial America who wants to maintain status quo and dictatorship in the region. Their fear resembles 1960s when the US attacked Vietnam on false pretext of preventing communism from spreading to other countries.

This is what that gives hope. The character of the unipolar world is changing. The cracks and fissures in the unipolar world are becoming visible through people’s protest and unrest. Two other major factors changing the landscape of unipolar world are resurgent Russia and the phenomenon of WikiLeaks. The subverting of secrecy regime by WikiLeaks that exposed thousands of diplomatic cables and secret documents has eroded the US’s so-called moral authority and has laid bare its ugly, imperial, anti-democratic and anti-human face. Its propped dictators are facing music from their own populations and the US is not in a position to do anything but to conform to the turn of the events. So are erstwhile imperial powers. The recognition of Palestine as a state by several Latin American countries is another strong signal of eroding US authority and rising liberal, socialist base in the world. Latin America is under the wave of socialist reform and seems determined to break away from the shackles of US influence. Bolivia, Venezuela, Brazil, Chile are leading examples. France, England, Spain, Germany (old Europe) have already seen massive protests over war and several social issues like education, employment and degrading social services. Only through turmoil human society can and has transcended to a better, humane and more just world. Unfortunately, it has never been possible without sacrifice of scores of selfless people who have dedicated their lives for the cause. These popular protests are largely leaderless and are forcing significant changes in the power structure of their countries. This is a marked departure from 20th century rebellions and protests when leadership was crucial to organize and lead protests. Had John Lennon been alive, he would have been happy to see his song ‘Power to the People’ being realized in so many countries.

The financial crisis that triggered in the middle of the first decade not only reached its crescendo towards the end of the decade resulting in massive job losses, homelessness and general decline of standard of living in the Western world but has also showed the destructive and unsustainable nature of capitalism. The prosperity of nineties now appears like a far-fetched dream in Western hemisphere. The myth of capitalist prosperity is fast evaporating. This is heartening as undermining of capitalistic society means we are moving forward towards a better and more people-oriented human society where people can have precedence over immoral profits. It is still a far cry from Marx’s call to the workers of the world to unite. Today, the call is more relevant than ever when world has shrunk due to technology and people can stand in support of each other across national boundaries. The call has widened now to include farmers, artisans and other workers outside of conventional heavy industry. As in Egypt and wider Middle East, where people cut across class, religion and ethnic lines to come together to demand regime change and some real reforms, it is not only a victory of the universal brotherhood and rejection of far right and hardline religious ideology but also manifests the most real prospect for development human society can ever see.

2010-12-14T20:48:00.000-08:00

The Sham of Democracy

Truth is potent, truth is dangerous. Truth is what most governments fear and over times they have shrouded it from the masses in the cloak of secrecy. Under the garb of secrecy, they have committed most heinous crimes against humanity with an utter disrespect for human life, values and dignity. WikiLeaks, a four year old online non-profit media organization undertook to subvert the secrecy regime that spawn all kinds of evils and expose all such ‘secret’ documents of the governments all over the world. More specifically, it undertook to disclose a trove of secret US diplomatic cables about 400,000 in number, highest ever released in the US history, and that has won it international praise and condemnation. WikiLeaks call themselves ‘transparency activists,’ and in the words of its founder Julian Assange, its Editor-in-Chief, only transparent governments can be just governments. Julian Assange, to shield its employees became the face of WikiLeaks and today faces one of the most vicious and malicious campaign against himself for publishing leaked secret diplomatic cables and documents which have put the most powerful governments to shameful embarrassment. WikiLeaks calls it “scientific journalism” where all their articles have proof alongside. While WikiLeaks has riled some powerful governments who want nothing less than Julian Assange’s head, many other governments have come out to openly defend Assange and have made a case for freedom of speech. Vladimir Putin ridiculed the US administration for its false pretense of upholding democracy and freedom of speech on one hand and filing a criminal case against Assange on the other. Ecuador offered an unconditional asylum to Assange. WikiLeaks exposed how the US staged an unsuccessful coup in Ecuador. It is interesting to note that though whistle-blowing is encouraged around the world, only three countries in the world have laws to protect whistle-blowers, rest all prosecute whistle-blowers.

The gaping hole between what the political leaders and governments say in private and in public has sent a wave of disbelief, anger, frustration, disgust and a deep feeling of deception among general public especially in Europe and Middle East. The US, which comes out as the biggest culprit and a pathological liar in the leaks has not seen as much of mass or media reaction as Europe and Middle East has seen. Instead, the mainstream media in the US (except NYT, that published the leaks) quietly deferred to and stood by the official line and made its contribution in demonizing Julian Assange and WikiLeaks. All major news channels have shown several American leaders (including Canadian) who have in not so subtle terms proposed and demanded assassination of Julian Assange. The US and other West European governments scrambled to implicate Julian Assange by bringing some false charge against him and what they could come up with in Sweden (under intense US pressure) was the issue of use of protection in consensual sex! It was not even a sex crime and Interpol was alerted for it with an international arrest warrant issued! Swedish law should become a laughing stock for the entire world. This is nothing but an extremely vicious smear campaign against Julian Assange. According to Daniel Ellsberg (of Pentagon Papers fame), it’s déjà vu; in one of his recent interviews he said that he was the target of a very similar smear campaign when he released Pentagon Papers which also included false sex charges and vilification. The moral and intellectual bankruptcy of the ruling elites and administration is obscenely displayed by their extremely perverse strategy to frame Julian Assange. They could not come up with anything decent or engage him in any meaningful debate. Assange was finally arrested in Britain but then got bail. Sweden challenged the bail.

The online community vowed to take it to the next level and declared cyber war on organizations that aimed to harm WikiLeaks. “Operation Payback,” as the hactivists (hacker-activist) called these cyber wars have already managed to stall the PayPal and MasterCard websites when these financial firms dropped WikiLeaks from their services. However, an executive of PayPal said in an interview that a US state Department circular intimated PayPal that activities of WikiLeaks were deemed illegal and consequently PayPal was forced to drop WikiLeaks. Amazon was forced to drop WikiLeaks in a similar fashion. The hactivists are setting up and alternative portal to transfer money to WikiLeaks from personal accounts; WikiLeaks runs only on donation. Christine Assange, Julian Assange's mother, was quoted as saying she was worried for her son because ''massive forces'' were ranged against him. Supporters of Julian Assange have been demonstrating for his release. As Reuters reported, WikiLeaks supporters wore masks of the "Anonymous" internet activists and an Assange mask, at a rally in Malaga, Spain. The hactivists have taken to strongly defend the freedom of speech and have changed the rules of engagement in this cyber war.

The leaks are so sweeping that the focus and the propaganda has been to kill the messenger than pay any attention on the message. It reminds of "The Emperor's New Clothes." The leaked cables show how disconnected is the opinion of ruling elite from what masses think. In the Middle East leaders of Saudi region have repeatedly asked the US for waging a war against Iran as they hawkishly see Iran as a threat. This is quite removed from the public opinion in the Middle East where Iran and also Ahmadinejad enjoys support of more than 80% of the population in the region. It is also revealing how some governments like Yemen’s, openly invited the US to bomb their own populations while calling the airstrikes as their own in public. Pakistan falls in the same category where Pakistani authorities supported drone attacks in private saying they did not care much about ‘collateral’ damage but they need to oppose the attacks in their National Assembly. The British government assured the US administration that no case for war crimes would be brought against George Bush or any of his cohorts. The war crimes were constantly shielded whereas the public stance was exactly opposite to assuage huge anti-war sentiment in Britain. If it was not for WikiLeaks we would have never known the death of additional 15,000 Iraqis in the Iraq War. The Iraq and Afghanistan ‘War Logs’ released by WikiLeaks have put in black and white how hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians were killed in these wars; how many times, civilians were targeted under the false pretext of catching extremists. The ‘night raids’ in Afghanistan have been the deadliest attacks on the civilian population of Afghanistan where innocent civilians have been killed in the name of combating Taliban leaders. The torture memos of the US administration are out which are illegal under international law. The revelations have riled the powerful governments to no end especially the US. Its nasty, covert activities in Latin America are well known where it has tried to overthrow every democratically elected government but the leaks also point to its operations in African continent where the US discussed ways to oust Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe. The leaked diplomatic cables also show how the US supports extremely corrupt Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan (a former Soviet state which now has medieval conditions of living with rampant corruption, indentured servitude and organized crime) because he allows a crucial military line to Afghanistan. It extends to climate talks; the recent WikiLeaks expose’ shows how the US pressured poor countries to accept weak and flawed climate deals in return for miniscule aid.

Barack Obama condemned WikiLeaks in a call to the Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, where he expressed “his regrets for the deplorable action by WikiLeaks.” He was trying to mend diplomatic ties with Turkey which was mentioned in the diplomatic cables of US as not a reliable partner despite Turkey’s almost unconditional support to US for decades. It is instructive to remember that Turkey had declined the US request of providing its territories as a base to attack Iraq, under the pressure of its own population. Obama expressed similar sentiments in a call to his Mexican counterpart, Felipe Calderon, where he was most forceful yet again against the website. It was President Obama who during his election campaign had said, "For a long time now, there's been too much secrecy in this city,” and had promised end of the secrecy regime. But the charade, a mere political theater to distract and placate the masses wore off under the light of leaks. This is what WikiLeaks has done, to uncover the charade and expose the truth. The diplomatic cables leaked by WikiLeaks show unequivocally that the new administration began lying to the public almost immediately after Obama assumed office, and withheld important information that the US public (and many nations around the world) had the right to know and the need to know.

WikiLeaks has eroded the (so called) moral authority of the US in the world and that has caused the strongest reaction from the corridors of power in the US. Ironically the Attorney General of the US, Eric Holder, filed a criminal case of “spying” against Assange when the leaked cables show that the US itself has been involved in extensive spying of international leaders including UN’s General Secretary Ban-Ki Moon. The US embassies have not only spied to get crucial diplomatic information but also have indulged in collecting most personal information going to the extent of getting DNA samples. The cables reveal that the Secretary of State for the US, Hillary Clinton and her predecessor Condoleezza Rice, both ordered for extensive spying beyond any diplomatic norms. Fortunately, some of the extremely ludicrous demands like of “treason” were not pursued as Assange is not even a US citizen. The cables show in the words of Noam Chomsky “utter contempt of our leaders for anything democratic.” Chomsky along with others has signed an appeal to the Prime Minister of Australia Julia Gillard to give protection to Julian Assange who is an Australian citizen and not shamelessly follow US dictates. She now faces terrible opposition within her own party for towing the US line.

Some other countries and regions where massive corruption and injustices were exposed include Peru, Spain, Australia, Kenya, Germany, Western Africa and Iceland among others. Oil magnates of Peru were exposed, the false Australian law to control websites was exposed, Spanish government’s capitulation to US pressure for not prosecuting torture of its own citizen and death of its own journalist was exposed, capture and torture of a German grocer by CIA was exposed, and the list goes on. The leaks led to investigations and prosecutions of bankers in Iceland who caused biggest financial meltdown in Iceland. It is interesting to note that Assange’s arrest process sped up when WikiLeaks declared that their next big target was to expose financial institutions and big banks in the US. WikiLeaks has committed some minor mistakes and has taken some missteps in its short life span but overall the amount of injustice and corruption that it has exposed around the world in such short period of time is extremely commendable and shows its deep commitment and courage to stand up against powerful factions of the world alone.

The Indian administration in its medieval imperialistic style followed the US line and condemned WikiLeaks. Shashi Tharoor, former minister of state for external affairs, called the leaks "unethical and wrong. The confidentiality of government communications is the lifeblood of diplomatic comfort," Tharoor told a local reporter. He also added, "You do not effectively run a government if your own diplomats cannot report to their own capitals in utter candor." Other commentators however have called for an Indian version of the leak, arguing that the Indian bureaucracy was one of the most opaque in the world and could only benefit from public scrutiny. India was portrayed as a reliable country in the leaked cables.

The WikiLeaks expose’ has laid bare the sham of democracy we live in. Subconsciously, it is quite disheartening and deeply depressing to discover that what we knew all along now has written proof. It is maddening and revolting to know that we have been outraged all along, the oligarchs and plutocrats have replaced the erstwhile monarchies with a clever device of ‘democracy.’ The history and material realities have led the world to evolve in a way where few have ruled over many. Despite stupendous efforts in the last century by masses to achieve some semblance of democracy, the world still seems to be quite far from it. From monarchies to dictatorship to ‘democratic’ governments, the ruling elites have basically treated the teeming populations as ‘rabble’ that they have controlled with a whip. And that’s what WikiLeaks is exposing by publishing hundreds of thousands of “secret” government cables and documents all around the world. It is also important to note that WikiLeaks is just publishing the documents whereas the unsung heroes are those who are leaking these documents also at great personal risk. Bradley Manning, a soldier in the US army who first leaked all the secret cables is now facing trial in the US and credit must go to such conscientious objectors who are doing all in their power to stop their powerful governments and keep the flame of democracy from extinguishing.

2010-10-31T15:59:00.000-07:00

The Modern Occupation

The Middle-East is burning; it is one of the few regions of the world including some parts of Africa that has not seen peace since decades. War, violence, impoverishment, lack of any semblance of justice has become a part of the daily lives of the people in the Middle-East. The core issue that has cast its shadow over the peace in the region is the Israel-Palestine ‘conflict’ which involves Arab population living in Palestine, Israel and neighboring countries. The ‘conflict’ is a euphemism for land grab by Israelis that started mainly in 1967 has continued till date. Palestinians have lost virtually all their land to Israel, they now live on segregated isolated dots of land completely surrounded by Israeli territories. The kind of aggression, occupation and mass-murder that Israel has perpetrated in the region is matched and preceded only by land grab and genocide that occurred in the Americas after Columbus landed on its shores. It is déjà vu in human history, where, now in today’s modern world, several centuries later, a similar story of dehumanization and dispossession of an entire indigenous population is being repeated and the US is now its major sponsor. It is compounded by the fact that it has elements of apartheid that existed in South Africa, which was for decades, again supported by the US. A non-militarized Palestinian population completely dispossessed from most of their lands, living as refugees in their own country and completely dependent on foreign aid for their survival are fighting this impossible war for their rights, dignity and sovereignty. There have been a few advances but mostly setbacks for the Palestinian cause in the last four decades and the world has effectively been a mute spectator. In the heart of the Israel-Palestine conflict is the issue of settlement of Israelis in the occupied Palestinian lands, now majorly going on in the occupied West bank. West bank and Gaza are the only places where majority of Palestinian population is now cramped and that too is being eroded each passing day. A freeze on settlements is the only way to a dialog for any peaceful and meaningful solution but in the long history of the region, settlements have just expanded. A recent UN human rights report by Richard Falk states that continued settlement construction has gone to such an extent that it will probably make Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land quite irreversible. The occupation tantamounts to de-facto annexation of Palestinian land. Richard Falk also said that this undercuts the assumption behind the UN Security Council that the Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory in 1967 was temporary and reversible. An earlier UN report says that Israel forcibly denies Palestinians access to nearly one-fifth of Gaza Strip land and 85 percent of its naval territory. In 1980, Israel declared occupied Jerusalem as its capital, which has not been recognized by any other country including the US. The historic city has many holy places for Jews as well as Muslims, the latter much larger in number and it includes the third holiest place for Muslims, the al-Aqsa mosque. Israel has steadfastly resisted division of Jerusalem and continues to occupy East Jerusalem. With the far right party led by the extremist Benjamin Netanyahu now in power in Israel, hopes of peace and justice for Palestinians have further been dashed with evictions of Palestinians from the occupied East Jerusalem and demolition of their homes.

In mid-October, Netanyahu offered to ‘partially’ freeze settlements if the Palestinian Authority (PA) were to accept Israel (now most part of the region) as a Jewish state. The Palestinians rejected the offer, pointing that recognition of Israel as a Jewish state was irrelevant and detrimental to the peace process. They instead reiterated their long standing demand that the US administration set the 1967 lines as the starting point for negotiations about final borders. The Palestinians recognized Israel through PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization) in 1993 but have adamantly refused to recognize it as a Jewish state for fear that doing so would prejudge the fate of Palestinian refugees from the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. They also note that Arabs make up around 20 percent of Israel's population. This is significant in the light of a recent law passed in Israel that requires all non-Jews to take the ‘oath of loyalty’ if they wanted to stay in Israel. This is also in-line with the constant denial of Israel of the ‘right of return’ of the Palestinian refugees of the 1967 war to their former homes. It sees it as a threat to destroy the state of Israel by sheer demographics. For that reason, Netanyahu is hell-bent on recognition of Israel as Jewish state which will serve the demographics by ignoring the Israeli-Arab citizens of Israel. Replying to Yasser Abed Rabbo, a senior Palestinian official’s objections, senior Israeli cabinet minister Silvan Shalom commented that "it was unacceptable to return to the lines of June 1967. There is a very large consensus in Israel on this point." The ‘consensus’ is now routinely flaunted by the Israeli administration shutting off and suppressing alternative voices of peace like that of left-leaning Israeli newspaper Haaretz who calls this a "major diversionary ploy" and the mass-selling Yediot Aharonot accusing Netanyahu of trying to "torpedo" the talks. The peace voices from non-Jews are nearly intolerable for Israeli administration. In September, Israel deported peace activist and Nobel Laureate Mairead Maguire (she won Nobel Prize in 1976 for her extraordinary actions to end sectarian violence in her native Northern Ireland) for her ride on a humanitarian boat to Gaza. In her words, “There will be peace in this country, I believe it, but only when Israel ends apartheid and the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people."

Netanyahu’s belligerence has continuously increased since Obama’s speech in Cairo when Obama addressed the Arab world right after his election as the President and showed a conciliatory gesture. Israel took great exception to the speech and since then has snubbed the US administration more than once following its own path and aggressively and openly flouting any recommendations for restraint from its protector (the US). Netanyahu in 2001 had openly said that “the US cannot come in the way of Israeli expansionism.” This attitude has proven to be quite a sore in Obama administration’s eyes. Still when President Obama made the Israel-Palestine conflict the centerpiece of his address to the UN General Assembly, it was only filled with hollow words and rhetoric like “vows to end settlements.” After a ten month long moratorium on settlement construction ended in September, the settlers in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem resumed building new homes with bulldozers in action in the settlement of Oranit. The Israeli military reportedly also destroyed hundreds of gravestones in a centuries-old Muslim cemetery in Jerusalem. The settlements have aggressively continued in the occupied West Bank including East Jerusalem in last 17 years since the Oslo Agreement. In this time there has been a 300 percent increase in the number of settlers and the settlements have nearly doubled. The settlers in West Bank oppose any freeze in expansion of settlements and resort to violence and terror if any such proposal surfaces. In early October the Jewish settlers in the West Bank set a Palestinian mosque on fire in the village of Beit Fajjar, south of Bethlehem opposing a call for freeze on settlements damaging parts of the mosque and destroying about a dozen copies of the Quran. The Palestinian Authority condemned the arson but unfortunately, such acts of aggressions are no exception and have become a part and parcel of Palestinian lives. These acts connived by Israeli administration have routinely halted talks between the Palestinian Authority and the Israeli administration. Any efforts by Obama administration to appease Netanyahu and provide incentives for settlement freeze have been completely ineffective. The International Court of Justice and endless United Nations resolutions have ruled that settlements are illegal and should be removed but the settlements have continually expanded. The settlements are only the facade of a complex and profitable system that includes checkpoints, road segregation, security zones, the ‘apartheid wall’ and ‘natural reserves.’ Palestine remains divided, segregated and deprived of most basic living conditions. The Israeli blockade in Gaza and West Bank has prevented flow of basic necessities like food, medicines and water. One of the casual activities of Israeli troops is to target practice at water tanks at the top of Palestinian buildings.

This maze of blockades and check points has for years gobbled the land, water resources and the economic space of the independent Palestinian state supposedly being negotiated in this same period. Nearly 60 percent of the West Bank and 80 percent of water resources have been consumed this way leaving Palestinians cramped and miserable in their own homeland. Any attempt to bring aid to the suffering Palestinians have been foiled by the Israeli forces with hardly any exception. This year is remarkable in the number of attacks on boats, ships and flotilla carrying aid to Gaza. Despite signs of peace and aid on these vessels, the Israeli forces intercepted such convoys and took people on board as prisoners thereby preventing any aid to reach the Palestinian shores. It is notable that even peaceful ‘Jews’ are not allowed to bring aid to Gaza. Jews supporting the right of Palestinian people are now labeled as ‘self-hating Jews.’ Palestinian activists are obviously beyond redemption. Israeli military court routinely convicts peace activists, a recent conviction was of Abdallah Abu Rahma, a prominent Palestinian peace activist who heads a group opposing Israel's separation wall through the West Bank. In late September, nine passengers on board a Jewish aid boat Irene that was prevented from reaching Gaza were apprehended by Israeli forces miles off the shores of Gaza. The passengers accused the Israeli military of excessive force in seizing their ship and the Israeli activist and former Israel Air Force pilot Yonatan Shapira said he was beaten and shocked with a taser gun. They were attempting to deliver a symbolic load of humanitarian aid to break the Israeli siege of the Gaza Strip. The Jewish Boat to Gaza was the latest attempt to break the blockade since Israel’s deadly attack on an aid flotilla in May. The attack on flotilla motivated British activist Patrick Audai to take part in a convoy of some forty-five vehicles carrying aid to Gaza via Turkey. The convoy, dubbed Viva Palestina, was also stopped and was allowed to pass through only in October end. President Obama had personally warned Turkey in August that unless it shifts its position on Israel and Iran, it could be cut off from future US arms deals.

The stories of aggression and brutality are endless and chronicling them and the misery and impoverishment of Palestinians requires volumes. However, just looking at the recent incidents as mentioned above can give some perspective to the unsuspecting reader, not to mention the carpet bombing of Lebanon in 2006 and massacre of over 1300 Palestinians in December 2008 for which Israel was seriously reprimanded in the Goldstone report, Goldstone himself being a staunch Jew. The Obama administration had vehemently discredited the report as being one-sided; the US was the only country protecting Israel. The so-called “peace negotiations” between Israel and Palestine brokered by the United States have been instruments of continuing and complete subjugation of Palestinians. Israel has never refrained from attacking occupied West Bank and Gaza strip even in the midst of ‘peace talks.’ Negotiations between two unequal parties cannot succeed. On one side there is Israeli government that controls the land, roads, airspace, borders, water, electricity, trade and economy of the Palestinian side, while possessing a powerful military establishment and on the other side is Palestinian Authority that has no military or any perceivable power and exists as a sort of fiefdom within the Israeli matrix of control. Then there is general public in Israel with a ‘consensus’ that has dramatically shifted towards right and on the other hand there is divided Palestinian population with total dependence on foreign aid and declining democracy and human rights. To top it, the Palestinian Authority is continuously pressured to provide security for its aggressor while leaving its own people completely vulnerable to any attack. A stray rocket by Palestinians or Hamas has always been responded with brute and disproportionate Israeli force costing hundreds of lives.

For a casual observer it might appear puzzling as to why the US would support a tiny, parasitical country very much dependent on its massive military, technology and economic aid when the whole world condemns Israeli actions in unison. The curiosity might lead to believe the role of a strong Jewish lobby in US administration, academia and public sphere which exercises this incredible control over the foreign policy of the United States. This however would be a case of the tail wagging the dog. It is a careful and well crafted propaganda that perpetrates the view that the unwavering support of Israel by the US administration is due to the influence of Jews in the US, Jews being in powerful positions and generally a moneyed class in the US. Contrary to the propagandist perception, the US has used Israel as a ‘wedge’ in the middle-east to serve its interest of exploiting the region’s resources (oil). Imperial powers like the US have no ‘permanent friends’ but only ‘permanent interests’ and the US is only pursuing its interests through Israel. Although highly unlikely, the policy may shift against Israel at any point of time. The apartheid in South Africa is a good example which flourished with the US support and aid but ended as soon as the US made a policy shift against it. Israel has served as a watchdog for the US in the middle-east as it was for the French and British imperialist powers in the first half of the twentieth century. It has re-paid the benevolence of the US in kind by performing most nasty acts and covert operations for the US in the middle-east and around the world. In 70s and 80s Israel provided critical support to apartheid when it was inconvenient to Washington. With South Africa, Israel built an electric fence along the Namibian-Angolan border; Namibia was a colony of South Africa and Angola had SWAPO guerillas. During 80s, Israel trained Guatemalan army when it was carrying out genocide against the indigenous population. The Israeli police joined hands with CIA to train Chilean torturers and other Latin American countries. It helped in proxy wars in El Salvador and Nicaragua; gave military aid to Taiwan; undermined Algerian revolution; the list goes on. In the middle-east it has been most beneficial to its sponsors; it has served to check the Arab nationalist movements. Israeli bombers destroyed an Iraqi nuclear plant when Iran-Iraq war was raging and the US was against Iran as the US installed Shah had been overthrown in 1979. In a myriad different ways existence of Israel in the heart of the Arab world has distorted regional development for the benefit of imperial powers. Most leaders in the US view the aid to Israel as money well spent.

The history of inception of Israel can give further perspective to the current nature of the state of Israel. Israel started as a colonial project with political Zionism at its roots, that took shape in the late-19th century Europe under Theodor Herzl, an Austro-Hungarian journalist. In 1896, Herzl published Der Judenstaat (The State of the Jews), offering his vision of a future state; the following year he presided over the first World Zionist Congress. The first large wave of "modern" immigration, known as the ‘First Aliyah,’ however had taken place much earlier in 1881, as Jews fled pogroms in Europe including Russia. The Palestinians helped them settle in the region and mingle with Arab population. The Jews settling were not all Zionists and many were quite progressive and considered Zionism as a fringe movement. The early Zionists had considered several sites as their future homeland like Uganda, Argentina and Palestine but they soon settled on Palestine basing their claims on existence of Jewish kingdoms 25 centuries before! In the words of Jewish writer Erich Fromm, “If all nations would suddenly claim territory in which their forefathers had lived two thousand years ago, this world would be a madhouse.” The two Austrian rabbis who came to investigate Palestine wrote to the first World Zionist Congress that “the bride is beautiful but married to another man;” in other words, another people already inhabited Palestine. Undeterred by this the Zionists indulged in the racist propaganda that Palestine was “a land without people for people without a land.” It had striking similarity to Spanish conquistadors and European settlers in the Americas who claimed America was a vast ‘wilderness’ but at the same time mercilessly slaughtered the natives. A British diplomat at the time had surveyed Palestine and had reported that every piece of arable land in the region was under cultivation. Herzl and other Zionist leaders were aware that settlements alone cannot bring their colonial project to fruition. They actively sought sponsorship and protection of the then imperial powers promising them to support their interests. It was the British who played the key role in giving material shape to Zionist ambitions.

At the start of the twentieth century much of what is middle-east today was part of Ottoman Empire based in Turkey. The shameful World War I which was fought mainly to divide the territories for exploitation had imperial nations Britain, France and Russia secretly signing Sykes-Picot agreement for dividing the Ottoman Empire in the aftermath of war. After Russian Revolution of 1917, Russia renounced its territorial designs and made the despicable Sykes-Picot agreement public. This however did not prevent Britain and France to divide the Ottoman Empire after World War I and as a result the French occupied Lebanon and Syria and the British occupied Palestine, Transjordan and modern day Iraq. In November 1917, came the infamous Balfour Declaration in which the British ‘legitimized’ the existence of a Jewish state in the heart of Palestine declaring that the ‘non-Jewish’ people had a right to co-exist. These ‘non-Jewish’ people comprised 92% of the population and were Arabs. After back-stabbing the Arab Hashemite King Hussein with whose critical help, the Ottoman Empire was defeated, the Arab aspirations of having independent state were buried and instead the region was divided into several statelets like Kuwait, Jordan etc. As compensation British made Hussein’s sons Kings of two of its colonies Iraq and Jordan. Thus, the British conquest of most of middle-east in 1918 and Balfour Declaration in 1917 set the stage for the Zionist project to take off. With the help of French, in 1920 Greater Syria was dismembered and Arab nationalism was completely crushed. The British saw establishment of a Jewish state in the heart of Arab lands of immense benefits to them strategically and economically with a means to control Suez Canal. It was under these ‘auspices’ that the project of Israel took roots.

The land for settlement was initially purchased from absentee landlords who mainly lived in Jerusalem, and with the British sponsorship and US funding, the settlements rapidly grew. The Zionist movement had a lot of elements common to reactionary, nationalist and fascist movements in Europe after World War I and it was amenable to British. Though Palestine was a British colony, a de-facto Jewish government was established in Zionist controlled areas. While there were inevitable clashes between Zionist leaders and British (as we see today between Israel and the US) but their essential relationship was of two colonizers, one big and the other small. Ben Gurion who became the major Zionist leader, proudly called the settlers ‘the conquistadors.’ The dispossession of an entire people was not possible without violence and Palestine was no exception. The Palestinians resisted the occupation. The most famous and protracted uprising (Intifada) of Palestinians during 1936-1939 that occurred mostly in rural areas against British colonialism and Zionist settlements was finally crushed with a massive British military force. The defeat and repressive laws post revolt left Palestinians largely eroded of their militancy. On the other hand, World War II greatly strengthened Zionist forces. The US and other western imperial powers hardly paid any attention to genocide of Jews at the hands of Nazis and in fact favored Hitler for their own anti-Semitism and smashing of labor unions in Germany. The mass murder and persecution of Jews made almost 400,000 Jews want to immigrate to the US but the US closed its doors to them fearing they would bring with themselves radical ideas of socialism and communism. As Winston Churchill wrote in one of his articles that there were ‘good Jews’ who were Zionists and then there were ‘bad Jews’ who were socialists. Supporting establishment of Israel as a land of Jews was a more convenient solution and though the US itself being anti-Semitic at the time along with other powers greatly supported the cause of Israel. It deflected the progressive Jews. The World War II left British bankrupt and they handed their colony of Palestine to the UN and the UN without consulting with Palestinians passed a resolution for its partition in 1947. Intense US pressure played key role in voting in UN. The Soviet Union supported this UN resolution 181 mistakenly thinking that Israel would be a friend, most of its population being pro-socialism. The basic colonial character of establishment of Israel and its leaders was overlooked.

The Soviet support of Israel was a death blow to Arab, Palestinian national movements and communist parties in the region. Despite owning only 6% of land and 35% population Israel was awarded 55% of the Palestinian land. 44% of the land was given to Arab Palestinians with 1% being “international zone” which included Jerusalem. It was the most humiliating and debilitating non-military attack on Palestinian identity and sovereignty and the declaration of partition meant war. The armed militia Haganah had already formed by the Second World War under Ben Gurion who came to be the first Prime Minister of Israel. The news of Partition delighted Ben Gurion immensely and from then on the uprooting and expelling of Palestinians continued with full force. For Israel, 55% of the land was not enough, and it immediately began military expeditions to seize as much land as possible. The trained Israeli forces defeated poorly equipped and mostly spent Palestinian forces in the 1948 war and “declared” their independence. The ethnic cleansing and massacre of Palestinians had begun and this was to continue for decades to come. Much emboldened by the UN’s decision of partition, Israeli raids into Palestinian territories resulted in villages being wiped out with unspeakable atrocities. The horror stories of raids of Israeli forces are well documented. The slang terms of “Iron Wall”, i.e. brute force and “transfers” meaning expelling of Palestinians became corner stones of Israeli policy. The colonial project was in place and the modern occupation had entrenched its roots firmly in Palestinian soil with pro-active support of Britain and the United States. India was among the first nations to recognize the state of Israel.

By 1955 France had become a major state ally and supplier of arms to Israel. With the US and France support in 1950s-60s, Israel developed nuclear weapons which Israel to this date refuses to acknowledge (The International Atomic Energy Agency has remarkably succeeded in rejecting resolutions calling on Israel to join the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty every time). When Nasser of Egypt nationalized Suez Canal in 1955, Israel with the help of British and French launched an attack on Egypt under the false pretext of ‘retaliation’ for a fabricated Egyptian attack. By this time, new and much stronger imperial powers in the US and USSR had emerged on the world scene and their stern threats forced Britain, France and Israel to withdraw their forces in a humiliating defeat. The 1956 Suez War led to bringing of Israel completely to the US camp, Israel recognized its new master. By its next war in 1967 against Arabs, Israel was closely allied and supplied by the US military. In a lightning strike in 1967, famously called the Six Day War, Israel captured the remaining 22% of historic Palestine. It was a coordinated strike against Egypt, Syria and Jordan with full backing of the US forces and its navy. This was another watershed event in the history of the Middle East. Ten years earlier, Gen. Mattiyahu Peled who took part in Six Day War told Haaretz that “the thesis that the danger of genocide was hanging over us in June 1967 and that Israel was fighting for its physical existence is only a bluff which was born and developed after the war.” The Prime Minister of Israel of the time, Menachem Begin, an extreme right winger also later exposed the utter falsity of the claim of retaliation. The Six Day War convinced the US that Israel could be a highly effective weapon against the Arab liberation and nationalist movements. Israel proved to be a loyal watch dog of US interests (oil) in the region when the US was pre-occupied with Vietnam War. Israeli forces withdrew from Gaza only in 2005 facing intense criticism and pressure from international community. However, Gaza still remains militarily surrounded and cut-off from the rest of the world. The free movement of Palestinians is almost impossible and it remains as the British Prime Minister David Cameron described as Gaza the biggest ‘prison’ camp in the world condemning the Israeli attack on Gaza aid flotilla. Israel defended the attack.

The resistance to occupation however continued in forms of PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organization) formed in 1964 and much active after 1967 War, Fatah, PFLP, DFLP and other women’s and youth organizations along with armed resistance. The battle of Karameh, Jordan in 1968 saw about 200 Palestinian backed by some sections of Jordanian army fighting a much powerful and equipped Israeli force. The Battle of Karameh had an electrifying effect on renewing armed struggle and wiping out the memory of defeat in Six Day War. Later Jordan under the regime of King Hussein, a puppet at the hands of the British and the US bombed Palestinian refugee camps in Jordan; the Palestinian refugees comprise two-thirds of Jordanian population. The left-wing Syrian government hesitated to intervene for the fear of air-strikes of Israel and as a result over 15,000 PLO fighters were killed by Jordanian army. Following this defeat the epicenter of struggle of Palestinian resistance shifted to Lebanon. The 1973 Arab-Israeli War was the only one not initiated by Israel in which Egypt and Syria launched coordinated attacks on Israel to regain lost territories and gained some initial victories. They were finally repulsed by Israel owing to massive military and arsenal aid by the US. This war led to a nuclear flashpoint which was prevented only when USSR threatened retaliation. It greatly enhanced the Palestinian cause. The captured Sinai Peninsula was finally returned to Egypt in 1979. The 1973 war finally led to Camp David accord brokered by Jimmy Carter and was a disaster for the Arab world. Though hailed in the West, it led to Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and an occupation of Lebanon for 18 years costing thousands of Lebanese and Palestinian lives. No Arab country had the resources to challenge the Israeli army funded and supplied by the US. Later 1987 ‘Intifada’ began in Palestinian refugee camps and became a big movement, in 1991 Oslo accord had to be signed which was to determine status of all parties and regions involved. However, nothing happened. Relentless repression led to al-Aqsa Intifada in 2000 and the struggle has continued since then. The US has seen several anti-war movements since then and the ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) coalition has spearheaded the movement against occupation.

The Israel-Palestine issue is striking by the fact that when countries were overthrowing the yoke of colonialism in the first half of the twentieth century and gaining independence, Palestine was surreptitiously and insidiously being colonized. It was a calculated and pre-meditated project that kept most of the world population blinded by its false propaganda while the colony grew in the meantime. This colonization and occupation is a deep regression in modern human history where against all odds and supreme difficulties people have stumbled towards a relatively more democratic world. When colonies seem a thing of distant past, here we have live and bleeding Palestinian colony. The difference between Palestinian situation and of Iraq and Afghanistan is that in Iraq and Afghanistan American civilian population is not occupying lands and settling down there. It is a military occupation, which we might hope against all hopes to end in the future. But for Palestine, there is no reverting back to its own free country, the best it can now get is a fractured two state solution carved out from its own lands. It is shameful what has undergone and what is going on, a most demeaning legacy of imperialism thrust on the proud Arab population. The conditions have been created such that the Palestinians accept the second class and slavish status in their own country and subject themselves to the mercy of Israeli troops, who would continue with their unabated atrocities.

Being protégé of the US, Israel has not cared about any international law, treaty or convention and has played its role exactly as the US wanted, being a wedge and a base of the US in the Arab world. Any peace proposal has been consistently and vehemently vetoed by the US in the United Nations and has allowed Israel to indulge into unspeakable atrocities with impunity. It is now impossible to go back to a single state of Palestine which could have been the true justice for the Palestinian people. Still Palestinians want to make peace with Israelis; the wars, aggression, mass-murders and refugee like status have made Palestinians wish for peace and normalcy sooner than later. There is almost a consensus among Palestinians (Norwegian-based group FAFO findings) and in the Arab world for a two-state solution with pre-1967 borders. But the occupation and settlements have gone so far that the two-state solution itself is in jeopardy and this has always been the ulterior motive of Israel. The Israeli establishment is aware of the fact that beating their hard-line positions on issues like Jerusalem and borders mean transforming the idea of Palestinian statehood into something much less: a client state with isolated clusters of land in a system of segregation. The Road Map issued by the so-called Quartet (the United States, the United Nations, the European Union and Russia) in 2003 said that all settlement activities must stop but neither the United States nor the Quartet could exert serious pressure on Israel to stop settlements. The only way to save the two-state solution is for the Palestinians to declare the establishment of an independent Palestinian state on the territories occupied by Israel in 1967, including East Jerusalem, and to demand that the world community recognize it and its borders as it did in the case of Kosovo. That would also mean supporting the right of Palestinians to struggle nonviolently to end the occupation of their state. Any future negotiations, therefore, would not be about the right of the Palestinians to have their own sovereign independent state, but rather about how to apply and implement that right. This would be a true test of the state-building strategy of the United States and the donor community and would demarcate the difference between support for free Palestinian institutions in a sovereign and viable state, or footing the bill of occupation to maintain the apartheid system denying Palestinians their human and national rights.

2010-09-14T10:37:00.000-07:00

On Islamic Center and Burning of Quran

In Gainesville, Florida a pastor Terry Jones of a small insignificant church with hardly any following called for the “International Burn a Quran Day" on September 11th to mark 9/11. He threatened to burn 50 copies of the Quran, which is also his maximum number of following. His purported action was a manifestation of his hatred towards Islam which culminated in this threat over the proposed building of an Islamic Center near Ground Zero. This extremely communal and demagogue preacher wrote a book “Islam is of the Devil” and last year distributed coffee mugs and t-shirts featuring this vicious message. He however could not carry his threat as a result of national and international outcry from media and people but most importantly due to the message from the Obama administration. As the news leaked through the mainstream media, hundreds of Afghans, Indonesians came out on streets to protest against the proposed burning of Quran. Taking lead from this, General David Petraeus warned that burning of Quran may escalate security hazards for American troops in Afghanistan. The Obama administration toed the line and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Press secretary Robert Gibbs and Defense Secretary Robert Gates condemned the proposed act and urged the pastor to refrain from any such action in the interest of national security. President Obama urged for religious tolerance and reiterated American values of religious freedom. More importantly however, along with this, he put national security as a top concern and warned that threats to burn the Quran are a sure and effective way to swell the ranks of al-Qaeda. The FBI finally intervened and spoke to the pastor after which the pastor vowed to not undertake any such adventure in the future. The details of the conversation were not divulged to the general public. Other religious whackos that had joined the hate parade have been silenced for now. One such person who drew significant attention is the evangelist Bill Keller, who has declared Muslims will "burn in hell" along with Mormons and other undesirables. He planned his first "sermon" for a proposed 9/11 Christian Center at Ground Zero but could not execute it.

Before putting this incident more in context, let us first examine how all this came about. It started with the growing ruckus in the US over building of an Islamic center and a mosque near ground zero in New York City. The site already has a building which has been a center of cultural activity for Muslim population in the city for decades. The proposed building of this mosque has now become a rallying point for the political right in the US, trumpeted by the Tea Party. However, only eight months back there was no controversy on building of this mosque. One year back, the New York Times carried a front page article over this and there was hardly a murmur. The City administration seeing the building of the Islamic Center as a private property right never objected to it, Mayor Bloomberg supported it. In fact the Jewish center in the New York City actively helped in laying out the plan for the Islamic Center. The Imam of the mosque Feisal Abdul Rauf hoped for spreading peaceful message through this Islamic Center. His own niece served in Iraq war. He and others involved are mainstream American Muslims. Even the right wing conservatives did not see anything wrong in building of this mosque a few months back.

However things changed diametrically, when a far right conservative blogger Pamela Geller who has devoted herself in demonizing Islam raised this issue through her blog characterizing the proposed mosque as Monster Mosque to be built at Ground Zero and painted it as a victory symbol for Muslims. The site however is two blocks away from Ground Zero where the Twin Towers once stood. Pamela Geller is the founder, editor and publisher of AtlasShrugs.com, a person so unhinged that she once suggested that Obama was a love child of Malcom X (a prominent and fiery civil rights activist from 60s). She is also the executive director of Stop Islamization of America (SIOA) and of the Freedom Defense Initiative (FDI), and is a regular columnist for Andrew Breitbart's blog, another right wing blogger whose edited video post was the primary reason behind firing of Shirley Sharrod. She also promoted an extremely offensive advertising campaign carried on buses in the New York City urging Muslims to leave Islam and constantly hammered on the mosque issue. Her demagoguery with the undertone that Muslims are going to take over the US (very similar to the right wing Hindu propaganda in India) got the conservative newspaper Washington Examiner following and publicizing the issue and then it spread like wildfire. Her blatantly communal and offensive tirade against Islam was given space in the mainstream media. CNN conducted an initial opinion poll according to which 70 percent independents, 54 percent Democrats and 82 percent Republicans opposed the mosque plan. Suddenly something which was a non-issue a few months back snowballed into a national issue with media playing it over and over and giving ‘fair’ space to opponents of the construction of mosque.

The Islamic Center in question has been a center of peaceful cultural activities and its Imam and his wife have resolutely and routinely condemned terrorist activity of any kind. Still, even with the peaceful history and affiliations, the construction of the proposed mosque became so fiercely debated that President Obama issued a statement quoting the US constitution for religious freedom for one and all in the country. However the following day, bowing to the political backlash, in a typical gesture, President Obama rephrased his statement saying that he was commenting on religious freedom, and not the exact location of the mosque. Apologist Obama continues to pander false right wing hysteria on issue after issue and this turns out to be no exception. His political calculations have prevented him from taking clear stand on any issue. What he did take stand on was national security! With looming elections for Congress this year, he is too cautious to take any stand on issues which the right wing portrays as offensive to ‘mass’ sentiments. He is unwittingly digging his own political grave by giving in to crass conservative propagandists whose bigotry have now led more than sixty percent of Americans to think an Islamic cultural center should not be built on "hallowed ground." It is an astounding victory of the propaganda perpetrated by the right wing bloggers.

This extreme propaganda led to the events in Gainesville, Florida and needs to be seen in this context of trumped up Islamophobia. Having lived and worked closely with "a deeply religious Muslim population," a group of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans has written an open letter decrying the rising tide of Islamophobia, which "goes against the values we risked our lives to protect." The timidity of Obama and his administration to deal with this issue head on and massive right wing propaganda and fear mongering has resulted in a spurt of hate crimes against Muslims. A Muslim taxi driver Ahmed Sharif was attacked by a passenger after being asked if he was a Muslim in New York City. The taxi driver survived the wounds but the incident sent shock waves in New York City. In another incident, a mosque was vandalized in Queens in New York City. In Tennessee, Muslims are afraid of venturing out of their homes. Incidents of vandalization of mosques have increased considerably. The right wing Christian groups are constantly demanding shifting the location of the Islamic Center to somewhere else, which by law is infringement of individual property rights, a value deeply entrenched in American system, constitution and psyche.

The Gainesville, Florida incident though rooted in the Islamic Center, however, has other ramifications. The mainstream media came out in full force in lynching pastor Terry Jones in a self-glorifying, moralizing cheap media stunt. The pastor’s miniscule group obviously has very little power or prestige even in Florida, leave alone Washington and thus became an easy target for royal court journalists. Media figures who treat actual blood-spillers with great reverence thus suddenly found within themselves oh-so-profound concern over "blood-spilling" which this pastor’s act could possibly bring about. The whole media and establishment circus is in such a deep denial of recognizing the fact that the act of war itself is a far more radicalizing catalyst in the Muslim world. The sickening fact is that these people are portraying that burning Qurans is worse than drone attacks, rocket attacks, carpet bombings, mass rape, and so on and so forth. One of the most disgusted appearances on MSNBC (a respected news channel) was of establishment-serving, power-worshipping Newsweek (a respected magazine) editor Jon Meacham among others who proudly flaunted his Christian faith and urged the pastor in the name of Christian principles to avoid being the cause of blood spilling. He would never ever use language like that to condemn American officials who have actually spilled enormous amounts of blood. The self-gratifying moralizing continued on all mainstream news channels with different experts and panelists. CNN invited a panel of war-mongers to discuss if America was safer. In the words of Kathy Kelly, an American peace activist who is currently facing trial for 'trespassing' in a drone-manufacturing plant during an anti-war protest, the mainstream media "does little to help ordinary [Americans] ... understand that the drones which hover over potential targets in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen create small "ground zeroes" in multiple locales on an everyday basis."

There was also no mention in the mainstream media of the religious groups and people of Gainesville who came out strongly against this bigotry and expressed solidarity and support for Muslim community. National Association of Evangelicals, the nation's largest umbrella evangelical group, issued a statement urging the church to cancel the event, warning it could cause worldwide tension between the two religions. Various Islamic groups started a campaign to sensitize people about Islam and counter the distorted versions through meetings, open sessions in mosques and distribution of copies of Quran etc. This is other than tremendous support of Islamic Center in the progressive section in the American society. The focus was Pastor Terry Jones who is considered insane by many including his own daughter. He was more or less used as a pawn for the fawning media to clean their conscience over ‘blood-spilling.’ The first amendment to the United States constitution gives freedom of speech to anybody and Terry Jones falls well within it no matter how hateful his intents were. He was however not allowed to speak except in the far right news channels. The bigger crime however is sensationalizing such non-incidents and competing against one another as to who can more flamboyantly express contempt for an inconsequential, powerless, joke of a figure like Terry Jones. The Media Figures never comment (leave alone condemn) on blood-thirsty war mongers like Rumsfeld who said “We don’t do body counts” and the official reference to any casualty (running into several hundred thousands of civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan) other than US casualties as “collateral damage.”

The burning of the Quran has all the makings of classic psy-ops where people will be brain-washed to believe in the benevolence of the US administration and respect for human life while at the same time carrying the impression that the Muslims are so "irrational" that they would kill people over the burning of a book. This is the impression General Petraeus, President Obama, Hillary Clinton and Robert Gates have been trying to project that this one action of Quran burning will put their troops in ”harm’s way”, as if years of war, destruction and devastation in these countries is inconsequential in the context. It is as if when US soldiers go on a shooting rampage on innocent civilians in Afghanistan “just for fun” in the night and collect ‘fingers’ of victims as trophies is not horrendous, barbarian or blood-boiling enough for the entire population to radicalize against the US. The American exceptionalism, a delusional faith in benevolence of intentions of the US has given the imperial war machine the false legitimacy to kill over a million in the name of 3000 killed in 9/11 attacks. The administration’s message was mainly to prevent a possible snag in their rolling war machine and not on increasing religious tolerance in the country. Fascism in America is wrapped in the flag, carrying a cross.

The Islamic Center issue brought into controversy by a right wing blogger has now captured the imagination of average Americans who now overwhelmingly oppose its construction there; something which would have gone unnoticed or in best scenario praised for enlightening people about Islam. But it led to a series of unfortunate incidents and we see its repercussions in New York, Florida, Tennessee and other states. The Imam has finally given in to the tremendous pressure to move the mosque and has declared that he is open to any option including delaying construction or changing its location. This is quite shameful and makes a mockery of religious freedom in the country. It has been portrayed as victory symbol for Muslims and a ‘clash of religions,’ and as a result, misguided protests in Muslim parts of the world are seen along with attacks on churches. The demagoguery has played to its fullest extent. It is however worth noting that Saudis are best friends of American ruling elites and corporations and this ‘clash’ never seems to occur with them. Only recently the US administration is in the process of signing the biggest arms deal ever with Saudi Arabia amounting to a whopping $60 billion. Never before had the right wing blogosphere exercised such an influence over administration’s actions and national debates. The timidity of Obama who had one rare historical opportunity of pushing the progressive agenda (as in 30s) given the material conditions in the country has proven to be a serendipity for the far right who were quick to fill this political vacuum of inaction and reneged promises.

2010-09-03T16:34:00.000-07:00

Liberal vs. Leftist

I don't know who wrote it but I guess this is one of the best posts I have ever read on any progressive website. Here it goes:

I offer this a starting point.

A Leftist says that the fundamental organization of our society is intolerable because it leads directly to war, poverty, oppression, and environmental destruction. The Leftist argues that a new and different framework is necessary.

A Liberal says that the basic organization of our society is reasonably good, and should therefore be accepted, and that any efforts at further improving society should come from working within the already-established framework. IOW, the liberal wants slight modifications to what already exists, believing that its basic structure is reasonably sound.
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Liberal- will blithely be assimilated.
Leftist- will promptly be assassinated.
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Liberal- possesses a quaint notion that one can Re-Form Capitalist power structures.
Leftist- desires to completely unravel and eliminate the functions and forms of Capitalism.
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Liberal- wishes to turn The Bank into The People's Credit Union.
Leftist- sees the need to turn the tables of the moneychangers and smash the marketplace.
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Liberal- feels a warm fuzzy feeling inside while intoning "Share the Wealth", "Dissent is Patriotic", "Save Tibet", "Restore Our Democracy" without addressing what any of that means and on and on...
Leftist- avoids slogans opting for deep historical analysis examining economic forces and social context.
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Liberal- says "Living Wage".
Leftist- says "Solidarity".
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Liberal- willingly shells out $3 for a glass of carrot juice.
Leftist- sees Root Vegetables as sustenance and metaphor.
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Liberal- outside the coffee shop talks daily about the need for the Cappuccino Revolution but balks at acting out for fear this would endanger his/her daily cappuccino.
Leftist- reuses the same coffee filter, paper towels or odd socks when all other options have been exhausted in an attempt to squeeze one more cup from yesterday's grounds.
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Liberal- wants to 'get out the vote'.
Leftist- recognizes voting as a nominal form of political activity meant to validate the Democratic State and convince the political consumer that they are a participant in governance.
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Liberal- can often be seen mouthing the "education is the answer" mantra particularly in the rarified atmosphere of the Citadels of Expertise. Revels in being near theory or people 'doing theory' in the academy.
Leftist- sees education as social engineering and cultural imperialism. Education Academies seen as the proving grounds for the future ruling class.
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Liberal- users of 'all natural' deodorant. The armpits are fresh particularly during commercial breaks.
Leftists- recognize deodorant as one of the essential pillars of Empire. Will often raise their armpit in tight quarters due to quixotic impulses.
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Liberal- write lengthy position papers on the plusses of developing more efficient killing machines (See Amory Lovins for more details).
Leftist- sees the Techno Warfare State as one of the great life destroying mechanisms in the history of Mankind and understands the relationship between war and oppression. The "Health of the State" being that which kills everything else.
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Liberal- true believers in the New Economy and Seattle (the city) home of Microsoft, Boeing and Starbucks.
Leftist- true believers in a different Seattle (the Amerindian prophet)
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Liberal- incessantly complaining about their leftist rentors.
Leftist- incessantly complaining about their liberal landlords.
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Liberals- have recently been experiencing a population explosion which seems to have been caused by a grey form of technocratic inbreeding. Liberalism is now a major growth industry much like Cancer. Much of this exponential proliferation of this well-groomed disease seems to emanate directly from Academia.
Leftists- an endangered species. Said to be only 723 remaining in the contiguous 48 states of the United States of America. For years they have been scooped up and exiled to the Periphery. To date all efforts to exhume the spirit of Eugene Debs have fallen on deaf ears.
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Both liberals and socialists empathize with the suffering of society's weaker members, and are sensitive to "man's inhumanity to man." However, the liberal is basically at peace with the socio-economic system that produces this suffering, while the socialist recognizes that the system itself is a core cause of the suffering.

A liberal might get upset by militarism, but happily invests in Martin Marietta Corp, and rejoices when it increases its dividend. Liberals are also often susceptible to nationalist propaganda appeals, & thus can easily be persuaded to support wars like the NATO war in Kosovo, simply because it was cleverly marketed as a "humanitarian intervention." A socialist would never fall for this sort of ploy.

A liberal might be properly horrified by pollution, waste, hypercommercialism, and many of the ills of modern society, but pays little conscious attention to the underlying issue of corporate power that allows such things to dominate our lives. A liberal will vote for Democrats, despite the obvious fact that these contemptible worms are nothing but bought servants of corporate monopolies or oligopolies. The liberal sleeps easily, figuring, "Well, at least the Dems are better than Bush!" as though this really implies some sort of resistance to rampant corporatism. Basically, the liberal tut-tuts disapprovingly at some of the blatantly horrible end-effects of policies, politicians, and economic philosophies that, for the most part, he accepts. A socialist, on the other hand, is conscious of where the roots of these disasters lie....
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"...While all the empires that have committed great crimes -- the British, French, Belgians, Japanese, Russians and then the Soviets -- have justified their exploitation of others by the alleged benefits it brought to the people being exploited, there is no power so convinced of its own benevolence as the United States. The culture is delusional in its commitment to this mythology, which is why today one can find on the other side of the world peasant farmers with no formal education who understand better the nature of U.S. power than many faculty members at elite U.S. universities. This national fundamentalism rooted in the assumption of the benevolence of U.S. foreign and military policy works to trump critical inquiry. As long as a significant component of the U.S. public -- and virtually the entire elite -- accept this national fundamentalism, the world is at risk...."

2010-08-21T10:36:00.001-07:00

Mosque at Ground Zero

There is a growing ruckus in the US over building of an Islamic center and mosque near ground zero in New York City. The site already has a building which has been a center of cultural activity for Muslim population in the city for decades. The proposed building of this mosque has now become a rallying point for the political right in the US, trumpeted by the Tea Party. Only eight months back there was no controversy on building of this mosque. Even the right wing conservatives did not see anything wrong in building of this mosque. However things changed diametrically, when a far right conservative blogger Pamela Geller who has devoted herself in demonizing Islam raised this issue through her blog characterizing the proposed mosque as Monster Mosque to be built at Ground Zero and painted it as a victory symbol for Muslims. The site however is two blocks away from Ground Zero where the Twin Towers once stood. Pamela Geller is the founder, editor and publisher of AtlasShrugs.com, a person so unhinged that she once suggested that Obama was a love child of Malcom X (a prominent and fiery civil rights activist from 60s). She is also the executive director of Stop Islamization of America (SIOA) and of the Freedom Defense Initiative (FDI), and is a regular columnist for Andrew Breitbart's blog, another right wing blogger whose edited video post was the primary reason behind firing of Shirley Sharrod. She also promoted an extremely offensive advertising campaign carried on buses in the New York City urging Muslims to leave Islam and constantly hammered on the mosque issue. Her demagoguery with the undertone that Muslims are going to take over the US (very similar to the right wing Hindu propaganda in India) got the conservative newspaper Washington Examiner following and publicizing the issue and then it spread like wildfire. Her blatantly communal and offensive tirade against Islam was given space in the mainstream media. CNN conducted an opinion poll according to which 70 percent independents, 54 percent Democrats and 82 percent Republicans opposed the mosque plan. Suddenly something which was a non-issue a few months back snowballed into a national issue with media playing it over and over and giving ‘fair’ space to opponents of the construction of mosque.

The Islamic Center in question has been a center of peaceful cultural activities and its Imam and his wife have resolutely and routinely condemned terrorist activity of any kind. Still, even with the peaceful history and affiliations, the construction of the proposed mosque became so fiercely debated that President Obama issued a statement quoting the US constitution for religious freedom for one and all in the country. However the following day, bowing to the political backlash, in a typical gesture, President Obama rephrased his statement saying that he was commenting on religious freedom, and not the exact location of the mosque. Apologist Obama continues to pander false right wing hysteria on issue after issue and this turns out to be no exception. His political calculations have prevented him from taking clear stand on any issue. With looming elections for Congress this year, he is too cautious to take any stand on issues which the right wing portrays as offensive to ‘mass’ sentiments. He is unwittingly digging his own political grave by giving in to crass conservative propagandists whose bigotry have now led more than fifty percent of Americans to think an Islamic cultural center should not be built on "hallowed ground." It is an astounding victory of the propaganda perpetrated by the right wing bloggers. Never before had the right wing blogosphere exercised such an influence over administration’s actions and national debates. The timidity of Obama who had one rare historical opportunity of pushing the progressive agenda (as in 30s) given the material conditions in the country has proven to be a serendipity for the far right who were quick to fill this political vacuum of inaction and reneged promises.

2010-07-30T15:27:00.001-07:00

The Rise of the Far Right in the US

Shirley Sharrod was forced to resign in July on charges of racism from her USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) job where she was the Director of Rural Development in Georgia. She is an African American woman. The decision to let her go came overnight on the basis of an edited video played by the right wing news channel FOX News. The video was originally posted on the internet by a right wing blogger Andrew Breitbart. The edited video showed part of her speech where she said “she did not help a white farmer to the fullest extent.” The Democrats and the Republicans joined the chorus of slander against her which abruptly came to an end the very next day when the video of the full speech came out. Eloise Spooner, 82-year-old wife of the white farmer in question Roger Spooner, came out in support of Sherrod and said that without Sharrod’s help they would have been devastated. Sharrod had indeed helped the white farmer to the fullest extent. The Obama administration realized the gross mistake it had committed by its sudden foolhardy decision, based on incomplete and distorted facts, and retracted. President Obama himself called Shirley Sharrod, apologized to her and offered her another job in the administration.

This recent incident widely covered in the media is quite reflective of the ‘post-racial’ society as painted by President Obama, where African Americans are supposed to be almost apologetic for being black. Any reference to the historical and current injustices to the African Americans is now projected by the far right as reverse racism, i.e. racism against Caucasian whites. Unfortunately, Obama is giving in to this right wing ploy and is falling victim to it repeatedly. Another of Andrew Breitbart’s edited video on ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) resulted in the Congress cutting its federal funding to the organization that has for decades worked among poor and underprivileged sections of the society, mainly African Americans and has conducted large scale voter registration drives. It is remarkable how the administration is reacting to false and doctored information from a highly racist white person, who is just a blogger and has no credibility whatsoever. This is the new trend. Under Bush this would not have happened, the conservative whites were secure and the blacks were in their place in the social ladder. This culture of apology was in fact set by President Obama himself when he apologized for his comments, to a white police officer, who had harassed an African American Harvard professor in his own home. In Obama’s ‘post-racial’ society, Obama is trying to be ‘fair’ to the white people; he is entertaining any absurdity coming from conservative whites and is inadvertently pandering to the reverse-racism theory. The fancy of new race-relations in his mind have prevented his administration to address the race question in this new context.

The Obama presidency has not only deeply disillusioned the progressive forces in the United States who mistakenly saw him as a radical symbol of change and not as a regular corporate democrat, but has also given a fresh and reviving impetus to the far right in the country. Having a black president who is becoming increasingly unpopular has given space for the white supremacist groups to raise their ugly head and has allowed parties like Tea Party to come into being and increase their grounds. With Tea Party led by far right Sarah Palin, once John McCain’s running mate for Vice President, extreme conservatism with white nationalism has found a voice in mainstream American politics. The Tea party rallies are filled with most conservative, irrational and fascist elements who have deep hatred for anything that is progressive, multi-cultural and humane. The rallies have gun toting right wing radicals who oppose any social welfare program, even the social security program for retirement and indulge in virulent racist, nationalist and anti-immigrant rhetoric. The demagoguery has led poor conservative whites to act against their own interest by opposing social welfare or job creation programs which could benefit them. The deep rooted racial fault lines seem to be erupting as discernible cracks in the ‘post-racial’ American society and the far right is riding this wave.

In 2009 the most vicious and violent white supremacist group KKK (Ku Klux Klan) tripled in membership. Other white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups have sprung all over the country especially in the south and claim that their membership is increasing. From Aryan skinheads, White Knights in Arizona to Council of Conservative Citizens in Mississippi to dozens of other splinter groups, the white nationalism in America is resurgent. These groups have portrayed Obama’s election and economic meltdown as a wakeup call for white America and impending racial war. They also see this time with a black man as President as the biggest opportunity to enter the mainstream politics exploiting the new platform provided by Tea party. White pride, fascist slogans, swastika signs and tattoos typically characterize members of such groups. According to watch dog groups, there are over 250,000 declared white nationalists with party affiliations but the actual number could be far greater. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a prominent civil rights organization that was founded to ensure that the promises and laws of racial equality become a reality for all (read African Americans) listed 932 active hate groups in 2009 alone. Leonard Zeskind, author of ‘Blood and Politics’ has studied white nationalist groups for decades and says that they may appear marginalized today but their influence is far greater than understood and may become a mainstream phenomenon soon. The year 2009 witnessed most high profile racial killings in last several decades. Racially motivated threats against Obama peaked in 2009.

White nationalists see anti-immigrant movement as a bridge to mainstream politics and actively try to use it to inflame the racial undercurrent in American society. The ‘National Socialist Movement’ (a misnomer), one of the largest groups in America carried out anti-immigration rallies in Phoenix, Arizona wearing swastika signs. Arizona has become the hotbed of such fascist movements. Arizona recently passed a most hateful anti-immigrant law in which police officers could stop anybody on mere suspicion and ask for legal documents. This gives police a free hand for racial profiling and hundreds of Latinos since then have left the state. The outcry in the entire country could not stop Arizona’s woman governor to sign the legislation into law. This is one manifestation of the growing extreme right wing and white nationalist movement which for long has appeared to be on the fringe. At least nine other states have followed suit proposing similar anti-immigrant legislations. It’s déjà vu in American history.

The economic downturn triggered by financial industry has also been a major catalyst in increasing the influence of the far right. The bad economy has not only led to increasing impoverishment and rising unemployment, but it has also provided feeding grounds for the far right to poach on average people’s sentiments and turn their anger and frustration due to economy to racial hatred, intolerance and social insecurity. Conservative media and its hosts have indulged in promoting the theory of reverse racism, targeting Obama as a hater of white people and ‘white culture.’ As a backlash Black Panthers have urged black population to be again united in its fight for rights and equality as it was during civil rights movement. Noam Chomsky considers the societal conditions loosely comparable to that of Nazi Germany that led to the rise of a Hitler like leader. Although Republican Party distances itself from extreme right wing groups, just like BJP in India tries to superficially distance itself from Shiv Sena and its ilk, still the basic philosophy of ‘white Christian nation’ of white supremacist groups is appealing to a large majority of Republicans.

This is profound in terms of future elections in the US and what future US administration could be. If the trend continues, it can have far-reaching implications on India and the rest of the world. One consolation is that there is widespread opposition to such movements and the blurred gap between left and right is increasingly becoming clearer. Over 100,000 people rallied in Washington DC in March to press for immigration reforms. This however goes quite unreported in mainstream media which enthusiastically covers any minor event of Tea Party. The events also present a rare opportunity for the left to unite and come out stronger as it did in 1930s. The absence of collegiality and cohesiveness among left forces has largely left them as a force not to reckon with. Left forces need to come together to face and exterminate this challenge from the right; it is more of an opportunity for the left than the right to push for transformational changes. It remains to be seen how these fissures will shape American society in the coming times.

2010-05-18T00:19:00.000-07:00

Cochabamba: People’s Fight for Climate Justice

On April 22nd over 35,000 delegates representing different social movements from 140 countries converged to Cochabamba in Bolivia for World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth. In its schedule of one week, the conference put forth the idea of the rights of Mother Earth, very much in line with the indigenous traditions where humans lived in harmony with planet earth for centuries, preserving and protecting it by sustainable means of livelihood. It emphasized that an interdependent eco-system system in which human beings are only one component, it is not possible to recognize rights only to the human part without provoking an imbalance in the system as a whole. To guarantee human rights and to restore harmony with nature, it is necessary to effectively recognize and apply the rights of Mother Earth.

The conference was a response to the corporations and governments of the “developed” countries in Copenhagen, who in complicity with a segment of the scientific community discussed climate change as a problem limited to the rise in temperature without questioning the cause. The cause, which the Conference most unequivocally declared, was the capitalist system. The Conference was people’s voice which was largely shut out in Copenhagen. President Evo Morales of Bolivia, host of this People’s Conference presented Ban Ki Moon on May 10th the People’s Agreement, and stressed that the voice of the civil societies and indigenous people around the world must be heard and any climate talk is incomplete and soulless without it. The Conference shred apart the exclusivity of ‘Copenhagen Accord’ where deals were cut behind closed doors and civil societies and many smaller countries were not included in the negotiations on the premise that ‘too much democracy will not get us anywhere.’ In Cochabamba on the contrary, the participatory process including voices of civil societies and indigenous people all over the world came out with a draft with most transformative and radical vision so far. Seventeen working groups were formed, and after weeks of online discussion, they met for a week in Cochabamba with the goal of presenting their final recommendations at the summit's end. It demanded for a global referendum on crucial issues like climate change and rejected the notion of decision by a few elite representatives.

Bolivia's enthusiastic commitment to participatory democracy may well prove the summit's most important contribution. This is in line with the spirit of how Bolivia is run now and deserves a mention. During bloody Water Wars against privatization of water by Bechtel, Bolivia got its transformative leader in Evo Morales who comes from its indigenous population. He is leading a radical political transformation in the country where key industries are being nationalized and workers are being encouraged to form unions and people’s voices are being heard. Morales with his deep connection to grassroots movements has encouraged an open participatory democracy for running the country, which till now has proven to be an incredible exception in the usual power hungry and corrupt ruling class around the globe. It is with this background, Bolivia hosted the summit, and was an ideal forum for people’s voices to be heard; in a giant football stadium with Morales marshalling the event. The attendees of the Conference admitted that it was a pleasant and surprising experience to see the police actually helping people and not thrashing and locking them up like in Copenhagen. Bolivia is proving to be an answer to the bourgeois argument that capitalism (so dependent on police and military) is the ultimate answer for humanity.

Morales is single-handedly taking on the farce of the rich countries of the global north with their pseudo solutions like carbon trading etc. It is to oppose such non-effective solutions and highlight the cause of the climate crisis that Bolivia along with Venezuela refused to sign the Copenhagen accord which resulted in cutting of the ‘climate aid’ by the US to these countries. Bolivia is a land locked country with its primary source of water being its age old glaciers which are fast melting as a result of climate change. Very soon, Bolivia might face threat of survival of its population. It stands along with island nations and other African countries, which are facing severe consequences of climate change without contributing one bit to its cause. The Copenhagen accord, which could very well lead to an increase of global warming by more than 2 degrees Celsius, can be catastrophic for the people in these countries. Africa already has climate refugees and it can further suffer an increase in temperature of more than 3 degrees Celsius in the current Copenhagen framework. The pattern will extend to South America and Asia where deserts can expand and droughts, floods would affect different regions due to melting of glaciers. India is already witnessing flash floods in Himalayan regions, which has led to displaced populations and destruction of agriculture. The production of food would diminish in the world, causing catastrophic impact on the survival of inhabitants from vast regions in the planet, and the number of people in the world suffering from hunger would increase dramatically, a figure that already exceeds 1.02 billion people. The Conference outlined that there is a 50% probability that the damages caused to our Mother Earth will be completely irreversible. Between 20% and 30% of species would be in danger of disappearing. Recognizing the roots of these drastic consequences, the Conference called for ‘decolonizing’ of atmosphere and recognizing Mother Earth as the source of life.

The concept of the Rights of Mother Earth may prove to be novel for capitalistic industrialized societies which have taken earth for granted and have exploited it for pursuit of profit and amassing wealth. The Conference in its final analysis clearly stated that the “capitalist system has imposed on us logic of competition, progress and limitless growth. This regime of production and consumption seeks profit without limits, separating human beings from nature and imposing logic of domination upon nature, transforming everything into commodities: water, earth, the human genome, ancestral cultures, biodiversity, justice, ethics, the rights of peoples, and life itself. Under capitalism, Mother Earth is converted into a source of raw materials, and human beings into consumers and a means of production, into people that are seen as valuable only for what they own, and not for what they are.”

The People’s Agreement that came out of Cochabamba proposed to forge a new system that restores harmony with nature and human beings and based itself on the principles of:
harmony and balance among all and with all things;
1. complementarity, solidarity, and equality;
2. collective well-being and the satisfaction of the basic necessities of all;
3. people in harmony with nature;
4. recognition of human beings for what they are, not what they own;
5. elimination of all forms of colonialism, imperialism and interventionism;
6. peace among the peoples and with Mother Earth

The Conference posed a profound question for future of mankind: “humanity confronts a great dilemma; to continue on the path of capitalism, depredation, and death, or to choose the path of harmony with nature and respect for life.” In this looming crisis, which threats entire humanity, it is of crucial importance to see people of the world as world citizens and not differentiate them by political, social, racial and cultural boundaries. The Conference represents one of the biggest culminations of efforts of the civil societies and grassroots movements into a formal declaration. However, the declaration did not address how to deal with the recalcitrant US, the single biggest polluter and the primary cause of the failure of the Copenhagen climate talks. It could also not come up with a credible mechanism for a reliable global referendum; the Conference was at times mired and bogged down with ideological debates for subtle differences in the final wording of the declaration. Still, it is a big step forward in voicing the critical concerns of the civil societies and indigenous people and emphasizing a need to reconcile with nature and adopt age-old indigenous philosophy of living in harmony with nature. More than that, it presents an alternative to the UN, which has almost reduced to a forum of imperial deliberations. It’s a firmer imprint on the world’s dominant imperial political landscape for the struggle between global north and global south, to end the exploitation of people and resources, to save the planet and prevent countries from disappearing from the face of the earth.

2010-03-21T21:51:00.000-07:00

Hey hey, ho ho…

…the occupation got to go! This was one of the many spirited slogans chanted by people in the anti-war rally in San Francisco held on March 20th. The rally was part of a coordinated protest all over the United States to mark the 7th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. More than 5,000 demonstrators marched through the streets of downtown San Francisco calling for an immediate end to the occupations of Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine. The march had protesters beating drums, blowing trumpets and full bands playing anti-war music all along the way. The protesters carried a big flag showing flags of the US and 7 other countries (Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Palestine, Lebanon) where it is directly involved. The peaceful but radical nature of the rally can be gauged by the slogans people shouted: ‘The people united, will never be defeated’; ‘They say cut back, we say fight back’; ‘US-Israel you will see, Palestine will be free’; ‘What do we want – US out, when do we want – Now!’; ‘Money for jobs & education, not for war & occupation’; ‘Working people are under attack - what do we do – stand up fight back’. The rally included many children (mostly 4th graders) who along with their teachers demanded funding for schools than for wars and banks. Many onlookers cheered the march while some waved their shirts from the building windows in support of the cause. This was against the backdrop of police cordons and a police surveillance chopper continuously flying overhead. The mainstream media was conspicuous by its absence; they carried a blackout campaign.

The speakers at the rally eloquently linked the US imperialism to racism, colonialism, injustice, economic and social inequality and labor and human rights issues. A speaker from the ‘Blackest of Black Coalition’ accurately described the imperial forces were now hiding behind a black face (of a lighter shade though) and demanded reparations for historical and current atrocities against blacks than spending on imperial and colonial wars. A call was made to release the ‘Cuban Five’, unjustly imprisoned in the U.S. for defending the Cuban people against terrorist acts. The $1 trillion war spending was highlighted by many speakers including Daniel Ellsberg (of Pentagon Papers fame) who said that the spending will continuously increase if people don’t protest strike now. The understanding and recognition that the issues are intricately intertwined, symbiotic but are subsets of a bigger cause were key to the success of the rally. It was in this spirit that the protesters expressed solidarity with the striking hotel workers of the city by raising slogans in front of the Hilton hotel en route.

A remarkable feature of the rally was coming together of private citizens, splinter anti-war and social organizations, trade unions and radical left parties; all shedding their ideological differences to make the protest successful and send a strong anti-war message. The rally saw support from groups ranging from LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, trans-gender, queer), Veterans for Peace, Code Pink, AFL (American Federation of Labor) to parties like RCP (Revolutionary Communist Party). Parties like HWRS (Humanist Workers for Revolutionary Socialism) who believe direct labor action (strikes) as the only way of stopping the imperialist war machine still participated recognizing the value of protests. Still other parties like Party for Socialism and Liberation who support all mass movements, bourgeois or radical against US occupation also showed their solidarity.

In other parts of the country, over 10,000 marched in the national mall in Washington DC and over 6,000 in Los Angeles. There were smaller protests in several other cities like Minneapolis, Orlando, Anaheim, Knoxville, Bloomberg etc. Those arrested at the rallies included activist Cindy Sheehan, who has been a vocal critic of the invasion of Iraq since her 21-year-old son Casey was killed in 2004. The rallies were organized by ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) Coalition which is increasingly becoming an umbrella organization to mobilize other organizations to act in concert for major causes with particular emphasis on ending US aggression on foreign soils. Some of the other endorsers included: National Council of Arab Americans; Ron Kovic, author of “Born on the 4th of July”; US Labor Against War; Palestinian American Women Association; Alliance for a Just and Lasting Peace in the Philippines; National Assembly to End the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and Occupations; Coalition for Peace and Democracy in Honduras; Free Palestine Alliance; National Coalition to Free the Angola 3; Malcolm X Center for Self-Determination and many more.

2010-02-05T10:57:00.000-08:00

Howard Zinn

There is a constrained jubilation in the right wing intelligentsia in the United States and one might think the reason is President Obama, who is turning out more and more like President Bush. The true reason however is that the legendary historian and activist, playwright and an iconic leftist intellectual Howard Zinn passed away. A perpetual source of trouble for the right, Howard Zinn rallied against the conservative agenda in the US all through his life. Even at the age of 87, when he died, he was constantly traveling, speaking and inspiring people (with his remarkable humor) to organize and be agents of change. His voice was sharp, mind alert but the body had become frail and it could not sustain the massive heart attack he suffered in Santa Monica, California leading to his demise on January 27th 2010. During his lifetime (1922-2010) he witnessed major upheavals of the twentieth century and actively participated and pioneered grassroot and people’s movements. He called himself a ‘radical’ and believed that change can only come from bottom.

Howard Zinn came from a working class family and grew up in slums in Brooklyn, New York. Though from working class, through his parents he got an opportunity to read writers like Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens and others at a very young age. In his formative years, he not only suffered poverty but also read about it; it was the beginning of his class consciousness. He worked at the Brooklyn Navy Yard for 3 years where he was involved in organizing an apprentices’ union and discussed socialism with his fellow workers. His first police beating while participating in a peace rally radicalized him. He then went on to become a bombardier in World War II in 1943. It was a ‘good’ war for the US, where the soldiers like him fought thinking they were fighting fascism. However, interacting with allies from other countries made him see that the war was not as holy as he and his compatriots thought. The war changed his life irreversibly. It lay in his mind seeds of understanding imperialism and as later he recounted several times, both World War I and World War II were imperial wars; defeating Germany had more economic reasons than fighting or containing the Nazis. The dropping of nuclear bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was not only to make Japan surrender to the US but was also the first diplomatic cold war step against Russia. Zinn discusses this bombing and Royan’s in his book ‘The Bomb’. The loss of lives and the intent of war appalled Zinn leading to his absolute opposition to wars. He said, “War is by definition the indiscriminate killing of huge numbers of people for ends that are uncertain. The means are horrible, certainly; the ends, uncertain. That alone should make you hesitate. Surely, we should be able to understand that in between war and passivity, there are a thousand possibilities.” He never equated a ‘just cause’ to a ‘just war’.

After World War II, through the GI (Government Inductees) bill of rights, he went to college and finally obtained doctorate in history from Columbia University. In 1956 he was hired by Spelman College, a conservative black women’s college in Georgia to teach History. His activism against segregation in use of libraries and encouraging women to fight against antiquated restrictions and finishing-school atmosphere in the college cost him his job in 1963. He then joined Boston University in Boston, Massachusetts from where he continued his activism academically and in person for the rest of his life. He became a pioneer against the Vietnam War and his participation, speeches in rallies against the Vietnam War led to his beatings and arrests. He would openly address the intelligence people in plain clothes in rallies and would appeal to them to not do their jobs as it was against people and democracy. He wrote in 1971, the first book on the Vietnam war, ‘Vietnam, The Logic of Withdrawal’, in which he demanded the US to withdraw immediately and unconditionally. In the same year, he helped his life time friend Daniel Ellsberg, who worked at Pentagon at the time leak the secret Pentagon Papers in the press that eventually led to the end of the Vietnam War. In his obituary, Daniel Ellsberg wrote, “in my opinion, the best human being I've ever known. The best example of what a human can be, and can do with their life.”

Zinn dethroned kings and presidents and brought to fore the true heroes from common people. He turned the way we read, understand history upside down. He repeatedly enlightened people not to believe in kings, presidents and the great men for change; but to build common mass movements for change. According to Associated Press, Schlesinger, a mainstream Harvard historian dismissed Zinn as ‘polemicist and not a historian’; Zinn however never cared about the elite intelligentsia. Far right stooped to belittling Zinn immediately after his death, trashing his work in a most indecent way. A far-right activist David Horowitz on NPR (National Public Radio) declared, “There is absolutely nothing in Howard Zinn's intellectual output that is worthy of any kind of respect. Zinn represents a fringe mentality which has unfortunately seduced millions of people at this point in time.” He was referring to Zinn’s book ‘A People’s History of the United States’ which has sold over two million copies. This posthumous diatribe against Zinn actually affirms Zinn’s giant intellectual stature. The iconic book has transformed millions of American minds about their history and has inspired them to act against government repression and the military-industrial complex juggernaut. The book is very much a subaltern view of the American history where the class struggles of the common people [instead of the exploits of the presidents and the capitalist class] to change their conditions, lives, society is chronicled and emphasized. In the book, he quotes Karl Marx many times citing the conditions existing in 19th century America.

Howard Zinn used to write for ‘The Nation’ and ‘The Progressive’ magazines, widely read among left intellectuals in the US. In his most recent piece in ‘The Nation’, "The Nobel's Feeble Gesture," he expressed his dismay about President Obama getting the Nobel Peace Prize. He denounced the ongoing Iraq and AfPak wars and reminded the people that it was unwise to search for saviors (like President Obama) among ruling elites and be disappointed with them. His belief in popular mass movements to change the course of events came from a deep understanding of human history. He always said, ‘Agitate, Agitate, Agitate’; he very clearly understood that the ruling class by itself will never concede anything for the people unless people protested, demanded and forced their rights. His piece "Election Madness" in The Progressive’s March 2008 issue says, "Voting is easy and marginally useful, but it is a poor substitute for democracy, which requires direct action by concerned citizens." He was disillusioned by Soviet Union’s socialism and democracy of the US but never lost faith in the ideas of socialism and democracy. He believed in democratic socialism in which the world would be without national boundaries and tyrannical governments, where the economic system would be for the welfare of the people and not for corporate profit and where there would be equitable distribution of wealth leading people to live in peace and harmony.

His belief in educating young people correctly made him write ‘A Young People’s History of the United States’ which is a shorter version of his original ‘People’s History’. He got a fitting tribute towards the end of his life when his ‘People’s History’ book was translated to a mini television series ‘The People Speak’ for a wider audience. In his autobiographical work, You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train (1994), he says, “I wanted more than ‘objectivity'; I wanted students to leave my classes not just better informed, but more prepared to relinquish the safety of silence, more prepared to speak up, to act against injustice wherever they saw it.” In one of his last interviews he said he would like to be remembered as someone who introduced a different way of thinking about the world, about war, about human rights, about equality and for getting more and more people to think that way. And that’s the legacy of Howard Zinn, who continues to be the inspirational and transformational figure for millions around the world.

2010-01-28T14:01:00.000-08:00

Haiti, the Aftermath

It has been more than two weeks since the massive earthquake measuring 7.0 on Richter scale hit Port au Prince, the capital city of Haiti. Still, the situation is not under control; relief has still not reached people, the rubble is still not removed, there is no food, electricity or communications and people are still dying. Unofficial sources estimate that the number of people dead may finally top over 300,000. Because there are hardly any earth moving equipments/machinery, people remained under the rubble for days (as long as 15) before they were pulled out by other people by hand, most of them dying. The survivors many times kept themselves alive by drinking blood of the corpses around them. People are still removing the rubble with their hand. There are tents everywhere in the city and the place looks like a massive refugee camp. It looks nothing less than a war-ravaged country. This unbelievable destruction occurred in large parts due to very poor infrastructure, poorly constructed buildings and lack of any government support. Contrast it with Loma Prieta earthquake that struck San Francisco in 1989, which was also about a 7.0-magnitude quake. Although it killed scores of people and caused millions of dollars in property damage, the relatively high construction standards in the city kept the devastation much lower than what will be in Haiti.

‘Doctors without Borders’ say the number of amputations that had to be performed was massive and it has created a generation of amputees. The doctors say that if the relief material, medicines, first aid equipment (which was lying in the Port-au-Prince airport) had reached them even 5 days after the earthquake they would have been able to save a lot of amputations. But the UN, the western agencies were worried about ‘security’ and ‘riots’ that ‘might’ occur if they went in with aid to people. The UN aid workers said there were several parts of the city designated as ‘red zones’ and they had to get special security clearance and an escort to go to those places. The US sent in troops in thousands to control any ‘unforeseen’ event instead of relief workers and specialists who can handle such situation. President Barack Obama promised a paltry aid of 100 million; compare it with 30 billion he proposed just to escalate the troop level in Afghanistan. The relief effort has been completely militarized with the complicity of the UN. It is not hard to figure out that under these dire situations what is more needed; escalation of troops or more relief workers and infrastructural support. The UN refused to interact with common suffering people creating an acute problem of aid distribution thereby letting people die in need of aid and relief. Even the buildings that stand have cracks and can collapse any time. The devastation caused by these so-called ‘relief agencies’ is heart-wrenching.

Port-au-Prince is a dismal sight one would ever see but not far from there, in Léogâne, just 10 miles away from Port-au-Prince, the epicenter of the quake, the situation is even more pathetic. Léogâne, suffered as much destruction on its own scale as Port-au-Prince. But unlike Port-au-Prince, there was hardly any sign of foreign relief workers or relief agencies in Léogâne. People with their own camaraderie were helping each other, removing the rubble with hand, pulling out people under the rubble and providing whatever aid they could to injured and dying people. The relief workers were again afraid of coming here due to possibility of ‘food riots’. Here, the aid was air-dropped sporadically at some places. This treatment incited a very just fury and indignation among people who screamed at choppers to not treat them like dogs. The so-called ‘relief’ in Haiti has proven to be a display of most inhuman and apathetic racism. No visual or print media covered Léogâne except the alternative media ‘democracynow’. The sympathy on the faces of mainstream western media is not only appalling but nauseating. They do not make even the slightest reference to the recent past which shows how Bill Clinton and George Bush are respectively responsible for destroying Haitian economy and democracy in modern times. This is a perverted, spineless and pliant media that is largely pro-establishment and has either no sense of history, or purposefully doesn’t refer to it or is filled with the morons of highest order.

Foreigners who have lived in Haiti describe Haitians as the most non-violent, peace-loving and generous people in the world. Despite rampant poverty, Haitians are always willing to share whatever they have. It is this character of Haitians that has shown tremendous restraint, will to survive, camaraderie and patience in the face of this tremendous calamity. The essential public services, hospitals, communication, transportation, water, electricity, sewage and other basic amenities are still not functioning despite all kinds of governmental non-governmental agencies there. Haiti has the highest concentration of non-governmental agencies per capita but there is hardly any action that is required. The aid still largely remains dumped at the airport. The people are still languishing on the streets and dying, now due to lack of the most basic human necessities like food, drinking water and hygiene. Red Cross fears the outbreak of disease causing even further problems because of the stench and the squalor that exists in affected cities.

The country will take decades now to recover from this destruction and loss of lives. This opens doors to ‘disaster capitalism’ where business hawks swoop in to take as much advantage as possible and force most destructive contracts for reconstruction. Recently, it was only due to large-scale protest that the IMF dropped the conditions of loan to Haiti, which included laying off workers, privatizing natural resources and other destructive measures. The aid from these institutions come not as grants but as loans with strings attached, designed to cripple the countries further economically. The US has already moved thousands of troops in Haiti and if history is any indication the troops are there to stay thus controlling Haiti in coming decades. As Kim Ives of Haiti Liberté says, the epicenter of this disaster was in Washington. He also reports that the public sector industries for flour, cement and communications among others were systematically destroyed under Washington’s influence and support of corrupt dictators. Now, Haiti imports flour and currently has food crisis. It’s déjà vu in Haiti.

2010-01-19T10:00:00.000-08:00

The Winter Olympics

The Winter Olympics this year start on February 12th in Vancouver-Whistler in British Columbia, Canada. Along with its preparations on a grand scale and massive advertising, the event is increasingly getting marked by protests against it where the protesters are demanding not to hold Olympics on the stolen native land. The peaceful protests against these Winter Olympics are being dealt with the usual police brutality. The protests are however not being reported by the mainstream media. The threat of land-grabbing and displacement of natives is very real and is not only true for the natives but also for the urban-poor who too would get displaced. Historically, all native land in Canada has been acquired by the government (Canadian or colonial British) by some treaty with the natives. British Columbia has a unique position in this regard. The natives in British Columbia historically have no agreement or treaty with the Canadian government (or prior colonial British government) to give away their lands; consequently, the only way to take that land is by force. The natives as a result are being forced out of their lands to create the venue for the Winter Olympics. This is being achieved largely through contracts given to private corporations. The corporations are not only driving indigenous people out of their homes but are also causing considerable damage to the environment. The profit-making goes without saying; the exploitation during sporting events like the Olympics is usually veiled by the fanfare associated with the event and it goes relatively unnoticed in the outside world. "The history of the Olympics is one rooted in displacement, corporate greed, repression, and violence", states the Olympics Resistance Network (ORN), a coalition of native rights and anti-poverty groups. Canada is following the pattern. It was among the four countries (the other three are the US, Australia and New Zealand) that voted against the against the 2007 United Nations resolution to adopt the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Ambassador John McNee of Canada had said his country was disappointed to have to vote against the Declaration, but it had “significant concerns” about the language in the document. Still the UN adopted the historic resolution, which is not binding but is considered as a big leap in restoring ancestral lands, resources and traditional way of life to 370 million indigenous people around the world.

Winter sports are expensive, they usually require a lot of gear, training to play and people who play it usually come from the rich sections of society. The pattern is easily extendable to the tournament of winter sports like the Winter Olympics, where the participation is mostly from rich countries of global north. The club is exclusive; the sports included in the Winter Olympics (like alpine skiing, luge, figure skating, skeleton etc.) are not played by most countries in the world. The participation is mainly from North America and Western Europe. The only exceptions are China and a couple of Eastern European countries like Ukraine, Belarus and Estonia. The very concept of the Olympics of including and spanning all continents as represented by its symbol is absent in spirit from the Winter Olympics. The Olympics promote harmony through sports bringing all races and people of the world together in a single event. The Winter Olympics is pre-dominantly white. It should be called some other sporting event rather than ‘Olympics’; like ‘International Winter Sports Contest’, ‘Winter Games’ or better still ‘NATO Sporting Event’. It has come to be an event for rich nations and a particular race (one would hardly ever see an African American on a ski slope). Holding it at the expense of indigenous people by forcibly taking away their lands makes it even more appalling.

Other than the issue of natives and its exclusive character, the Winter Olympics pose the critical issue of environment. To make it an attractive tourist place, the landscape is being changed dramatically. The expansion and construction of highways, bridges, ski-resorts, hotels and Olympic venues have already destroyed a lot of land and mountains. The untouched mountains are essential to the survival of people, but a sharp increase in the development of ski-resorts has contributed to severe damage of the eco-system. Despite their portrayal as being eco-friendly, ‘low-impact’ tourism ski resorts cause large-scale ecological destruction to the mountain habitat. Most ski-resorts also use fake snow that contaminates the land and nearby water. The provincial government of British Columbia is willingly funding and giving away contracts worth billions of dollars to corporations for developing the infrastructure which essentially means greater resource exploitation, mining, logging, extraction of natural gas etc. All of this is being done on stolen native’s lands, subsidized by the government to attract investments and in turn give the corporations millions in profits.

Meanwhile the funding for social services, healthcare, education etc. is being severely cut down. This is yet another manifestation of misplaced priorities of the governments around the world.

2010-01-16T21:24:00.000-08:00

Haiti, the Disaster

At around 5 pm on January 13th, a massive earthquake measuring 7.0 on Richter scale hit Port au Prince, the capital city of Haiti. Within 3 days more than 60,000 people were reported dead with over one third of the population of Haiti rendered homeless. The city looks like an ancient ruin with the infrastructure of the city and the surrounding areas was completely razed to ground. The essential public services, hospitals, communication, transportation, water, electricity, sewage and other basic amenities totally collapsed. It was reported that there was no means to get the aid from the airport to people. The people languished on the streets and died not only due to the occurrence of natural calamity but also due to lack of most basic human necessities like food, drinking water, hygiene and basic shelter. The catastrophe in human terms is massive and its repercussions incalculable. The Presidential palace collapsed and the President of Haiti went missing for about 3 days, leaving the country rudderless amidst utter chaos and tragedy. It is a rare sight to see the head of a state who usually commands supreme privileges in his country languish on streets. It shows that the disaster caused due to the earthquake have much deeper and profound causes. The scale of devastation and loss of lives is far greater than if an earthquake of a similar intensity had hit an advanced western country. Haiti is repeatedly dubbed as the poorest country in the western hemisphere; but instead of feeling a benign pity for such a country let us pause for a moment and think why it remained so poor in this so called ‘fast-developing’ world? And what consequences a country faces being impoverished and extremely poor like Haiti. Humans till date have no control over natural disasters like an earthquake, but they have certainly mastered and developed technologies to minimize destruction under such calamitous situations. The disaster in Haiti again opens the question of rich and poor, exploiter and exploited and the way the history has shaped the world making some parts of the world extremely poor and some parts extremely rich. An earthquake of similar intensity in the western advanced world would not kill nearly as many people or destroy the place as it did in Haiti.

Haiti is part of the island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean where Christopher Columbus started his first massacre and exploitation of native Indians. With flourishing slave trade and massacre of native population, Haiti soon became dominantly populated with black slaves; but was also the first country to witness a successful slave rebellion against the French colony. The story goes back to 1804 when enslaved Africans expelled their French masters and declared the first black independent republic. The US or any other white country refused to recognize the new republic, until Lincoln finally granted recognition in 1862. When French were forced to leave Haiti, they put a military blockade around Haiti demanding reparations for loss of profits, resources and cheap black labor. Haiti has thus been the victim of colonial exploitation since centuries but its back was broken by the financial doom it suffered when the US invaded and conquered it in 1915 to keep tabs on its ‘investment’ (Citibank took over Haiti’s debts by buying its central bank) and ruled it as its own country till 1934. During this period the US diverted nearly 40% of Haiti’s resources to the US, bringing profits to its banks and financial institutions. The control of Haiti’s finances was maintained until 1947 completely crippling the country. To get a perspective, imagine living on 40% less salary than you currently get. Haiti, being already poor struggled to survive. Since 1957 the US propped and supported corrupt dictators, supplying them with firepower to subdue the common mass while the US corporations had a free run in exploiting and ruining country’s resources. It was only in 1986 that Haiti became free of its corrupt and brutal dictators due to massive popular uprising against it. Still covert operations against Haiti remained in place. As recently as 2004 under President Bush, the popular President Jean-Bertrand Aristide of Haiti (for the second time) was ousted from Haiti.

The poverty of Haiti and the disaster it faced needs to be looked in this perspective. Haiti has survived under such brutal excesses of the ‘advanced nations’ who are now scrambling together to get some token humanitarian help. It is ironic and insulting then to the people of Haiti when President Obama announced President Bush and President Clinton to head Haiti’s relief program. President Clinton pushed for the neo-liberal policies in Haiti which contributed to further impoverishing of Haiti. The neo-liberal policies in Haiti resulted in complete destruction of the agrarian and self-sustaining society. A vast majority of people live on less than $2 a day whereas a tiny, extremely wealthy capitalist class enjoys and controls most of the resources. The country has no public service, equipment, machinery or manpower to pull out its people buried under the rubble. A vast number of deaths occurred not due to tectonic movements but due to the lack of most basic infrastructure of relief and help in the country. The death toll continued to rise even a couple of days after the tectonic shocks hit Haiti. Unlike wealthy countries, good seismic building codes were never enforced in Haiti for strong and durable buildings with which the scale of disaster would have been far less.

The systemic destruction of Haiti’s economy leading to a vast population extremely poor has attracted numerous non-governmental agencies in the country. Haiti is now ridden with non-governmental and UN agencies which perform some basic public services in some parts of the country. The administrative infrastructure is virtually absent; it could never develop under the corrupt regimes and self-serving dictators. However, in the wake of this disaster, the agencies were busy securing the safety of their own personnel and did not get into action till very late. The food, medicines and other humanitarian aid remained at Port-au Prince’s airport with no means to transport it to the suffering people. It is only after a few days that the US choppers started dropping relief material in the affected areas. However, this cannot be taken without skepticism. A very critical danger pointed out by Naomi Klein (author of ‘Shock Doctrine, The Rise of Disaster Capitalism’) is that the US might take it as an opportunity to make ways for its corporations for rebuilding Haiti securing contracts worth billions of dollars. So any relief offered by the US has a potential danger of being seen as an investment by its government and corporations, thereby again bleeding Haiti for recovering the investments and reaping profits out of this tremendous human catastrophe.

As we join hands in aiding Haiti and helping the country stand on its own feet again, we should also try to prevent the ‘disaster capitalism’ from taking its roots in Haiti which would be a more subtle force but can bring destruction far greater than any natural calamity.

2010-01-07T20:13:00.000-08:00

Amendment to Democratic Process

The term ‘democracy’ is derived from the Greek word (dēmokratía) which means “power to the people”. The word was coined around 500 BC when there were popular uprisings in Greek cities demanding freedom, equality and equal access to power. Thus democracy puts power in the hands of the people which they exercise to elect representatives to govern them. The elected representatives in turn are supposed to carry out the ‘will’ of the people and fulfill their demands and aspirations. This correlation to people in governance (unlike other political systems) has led to its wide appeal and acceptance world over. In India democracy is vibrant and firmly entrenched in its socio-political system, with people electing governments at regular intervals. However, this system of representation and election is extremely susceptible to corruption and can soon result into oligarchy if proper tabs are not placed on it and people do not actively monitor it. Unfortunately, democracy has not evolved to be self-correcting and free from corruption. Today, the election which is the core democratic process has largely failed to provide governments that honestly address the basic needs and aspirations of the people. The corruption by money and muscle power in the election process has more often than not relegated people to choosing from candidates who can hardly qualify as representatives of the people. Such candidates who are basically self-serving rarely have any interest in addressing the needs of the people and see the office as a money-minting place. Barring a few exceptions, the Indian polity has largely produced representatives/leaders of this genre. It is not hard to see then why the ground realities for a majority of the people haven’t changed much since independence.

The development has been compartmentalized and concentrated mainly in urban India which proves to be good money-making center for corporate houses and politicians. Despite over 60 years of independence and being the largest democracy in the world, India still reels under terrible corruption, social and economic inequalities, increasing gap between rich and poor and a lack of most basic necessities like healthcare, basic amenities, education etc. for most people. This is rampant in rural India where two-thirds of the population resides. Over the years, the elected representatives of democratic India have made only miniscule efforts to correct these problems. The media which was supposed to keep tabs on the functioning of democracy and inform people about it has degenerated from its role of the fourth state and a pillar of democracy to a mere entertainer and a panderer to sensation. Today mainstream media can be characterized as regressive, corporatized and pliant to government dictates. When ironically ‘revolution’ is not in the offing and left forces and movement seem in shambles what choices do we have? Can we strive for a true democracy free of money and corruption?

In the very least, the government can be pressurized to make the democratic process more representative of the people (what it has ceased to be) and insulate it from the effects of money and social ladder. The process should be made available to people who are genuinely interested in the common welfare irrespective of their economic or social status. Democracy is exercised by the people by casting votes and electing representatives in their constituencies. The process of collecting votes, counting them and declaring a candidate elected is conducted by a body of the administrative machinery, the Election Commission. In India the independence of the Election Commission is crucial for democracy to function and its constitution was a big step forward in fair democratic process. However its role is limited to conducting elections freely and fairly. It is beyond its powers to control the choices, the prejudices and the biases that enter into the process much before the actual casting of votes. The candidates/parties with more money-power usually do aggressive campaigning and sweep the voters with their own agenda. The voters in general are hardly ever able to hear alternate voices or choices they might have. More often than not the parties with money generate their funds through illegal and coercive means. That money is then mostly spent by parties in campaigning for elections and propping their candidates. Quite often business houses contribute to party funds in expectation of a favor when the party or their candidate comes to power. This initiates a cycle of corruption where the elected representative now tries to recover the money through local administration by pressurizing it, and also contributes to passing of laws favorable to businesses. In this entire cycle, people are invisible, absent and nowhere in priority. Their status is reduced to a mere tool that is exploited by the candidates/parties to get to power. It is no surprise that ultimately people bear the brunt of this corruption in the democratic process; as the local administration in turn takes money from the people in form of bribes and through other illegal means to satiate their political masters. This chain and access of money has made political aspirants (and also government bureaucracy) to see politics as a career instead as a service to people.

This vicious cycle of money is seen as an investment by a majority of political candidates and parties. This cycle needs to be disrupted. Party funds should strictly be generated through donations of people supporting the party and its cause, and should be restricted to only maintaining the day to day affairs of the party. The money spent by parties on elections and campaigning distorts the democratic process. To make the process fairer, money needs to be taken out of the equation. For that the role of the Election Commission or an equivalent body needs to be expanded to conducting canvassing for elections in addition to conducting the actual elections. This implies making campaigning through party or personal funds effectively illegal. Instead of taking the whole constituency as hostage during the elections, canvassing should be restricted in venue and time decided by the Election Commission. The time frame for canvassing should be fixed and the place for canvassing should be any pre-designated place in the constituency as decided by the Election Commission. A pre-designated place can be any open place, a play ground, campus ground, parks or other open space in the constituency selected by the Election Commission for canvassing. All canvassing by candidates should be done at this pre-designated place under the purview of the Election Commission which will make all infrastructure arrangements at this venue. Making this structural change, effects of money in the election process can be neutralized and will make candidates, parties on par in real terms.

The fallout of this can be numerous candidates coming out for contesting elections. If at all this happens, where the number of candidates becomes unwieldy (the possibility of having hundreds of candidates is quite unlikely), then too, the Election Commission can step in to screen the candidates by conducting a primary election. The Election Commission can ask for a one page manifesto from candidates, publish it and distribute it among the electorate. The manifestos of candidates/parties can be distributed through local newspaper distribution channels or can be made available at public places, schools, common grounds etc. The voters can then choose top few candidates in the primaries based on the manifesto and agenda of each candidate. Literacy can become an issue in several parts of the country and in such places representative of local administration can read the manifestos to voters at the pre-designated place. Once the final number of candidates is decided after the primaries, the pre-designated places in the constituencies can be used for organizing addresses of candidates to the people. The Election Commission should ensure that each candidate gets equal number of time slots to address the voters. On similar lines, television channels (government or private, national or local) and radio stations should be asked to allot a certain fixed time free of charge for candidates for canvassing. It should be made mandatory for the media to participate constructively this way in the election process.

Preserving democracy is not only the onus of the government but is also the duty of the people to preserve it by actively participating in it. Having primaries will not only give candidates a level playing field but will also allow greater participation of people in the democratic process thereby giving them a greater control over the election process and who they elect. Candidates incarcerated on criminal charges should be barred from elections until they finish their prison terms. The manifesto and primaries should however be able to eliminate such candidates automatically. The relative anonymity in the process of primaries should also prevent election violence and killings of rival candidates. Still, election violence is an extremely critical issue that should be dealt separately, still under the purview of the Election Commission. The final candidates after the primaries should be given adequate police protection until the final elections to prevent them from violence from other parties/candidates. In remote places, where booth capturing is rampant and there is not adequate police force to prevent it, reinforcement should be done from other constituencies or else local people should be empowered and armed by local administration to prevent such incidents from happening.

This amendment can be a step forward to eliminate the flaws in the existing democratic process. The democratic process needs to be reformed in a way such that only most selfless people, committed to common welfare are attracted to politics and work for the betterment of one and all. There is a long way to go but history has taught us that civil and just societies are formed only after continued struggles and rights are obtained slowly and in parts. The crucial thing is to continue working towards the humane and just world and not give up in the face of tremendous hurdles posed by capitalist and bourgeois ruling class.

2010-01-02T15:03:00.000-08:00

The Human Crisis

On December 18th 2009, the most significant and biggest United Nations Climate Change Conference COP15 (15th Conference of Parties) in Copenhagen, Denmark came to a close. The venue of the conference at Bella Center witnessed representatives from government, business and civil societies spanning 192 countries around the world. It was a continuation of the international efforts initiated at the “Earth Summit” in 1992 in Rio, which was attended by 172 countries and resulted in the first international agreement to limit emissions of greenhouse gases: the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). In 1997 the convention was expanded to include the Kyoto Protocol, which for the first time set binding targets for the greenhouse gas emissions of 37 industrialized countries by 2012. These targets amount to an average decrease of 5% against 1990 levels over the five-year period 2008-2012. The Protocol placed a heavier burden on developed nations under the principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities.” For the years following 2012, the 13th annual conference of member countries (COP13) in Bali came out with the Bali Action Plan aimed towards a new agreement to be negotiated at the 15th annual conference COP15 in Copenhagen in 2009. Through COP1 held at Berlin in 1995 to COP 14 held at Ponzan in 2008, technical details were resolved; responsibilities for each country, penalties/sanctions for non-cooperating countries, and modes for further actions were worked out. The meetings were often marked by vehement political discussions triggered by the US stand on climate change and its complete rejection of Kyoto protocol. The US remained the single biggest hindrance in all climate talks, especially since President Bush came to power.

Given this brief background, COP15 was an effort to create common ground to further substantially cut greenhouse gas emissions, explore methods of changing the way the world uses fossil fuels and possibly moving away from them significantly in the coming future. Since the UN adopted its convention on climate change in Rio in 1992, global carbon emissions have risen by 30 percent, a disturbing trend that the UN wants to reverse. COP15 was held to address this dire situation by coming up with some effective and immediate action plans. The goal of the UN is that by 2050, CO2 emissions, the principal greenhouse gas (other greenhouse gases are water vapor, ozone, nitrous oxide, sulphur hexafluoride and methane) should be halved compared to their 1990 levels. It also wants the planet to be no more than two degrees centigrade warmer than it was before the Industrial Revolution (a period between the 18th and 19th century). COP15 was supposed to bring the member countries together into a binding agreement like Kyoto Protocol to achieve these goals.

UNFCCC recognizes that the developed countries are principally responsible for the current high levels of green house gases in the atmosphere, as a result of more than 150 years of industrial activity. It also notes that, “Carbon dioxide is responsible for over 60 per cent of the ‘enhanced greenhouse effect’ (warming of earth’s surface and lower atmosphere). Humans are burning coal, oil, and natural gas at a rate that is much, much faster than the speed at which these fossil fuels were created. This is releasing the carbon stored in the fuels into the atmosphere and upsetting the carbon cycle, the millennia-old, precisely balanced system by which carbon is exchanged between the air, the oceans, and the land vegetation. Currently, atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide are rising by over 10 per cent every 20 years.” UNFCCC is essentially saying that we will have to depart from the culture of burning fossil fuels sooner than later. It is not hard to see which country burns the most fossil fuel.

The consequences of a warmer planet can be seen and felt from the melting polar ice caps to the drying sub-Saharan Africa. In countries such as Kenya, as the desert expands, the chances of nomadic farmers finding water for their cattle shrink and hence their main source of sustenance is threatened. In a country where famine threatens up to 10 million lives, crop shortages have devastating effects. In countries like Kenya, Cameroon, Swaziland, Malawi, Benin etc. indigenous people are solely dependent on forests which are quickly disappearing. Famine, drought, scarcity of water and food, and dying livestock constantly threaten these countries. In other countries like Nigeria, Zambia, Uganda etc. many coastal cities will disappear by 2050. Famine can soon be a threat to India too, with its melting Himalayan glaciers and shifting monsoon patterns. As in Africa, the Indian subcontinent can soon have climate refugees with rising hurricanes in coastal areas and flash floods in the Himalayan regions that have already contributed to the migration of a significant percentage of the local population. Further from mainland, Island nations like Tuvalu, Maldives, New Caledonia, Soloman Islands, Samoa and others in the Pacific and Indian oceans will be virtually wiped out from the face of the earth before the turn of this century if the biggest polluters like the US do not pledge to cut down their emissions by 40% from 1990 levels. 80% of Maldives has an elevation less than 3 feet above sea level and the island nation of Tuvalu has a maximum width of only 5km; the threat of extinction for these countries is more real than one can imagine. The same threats exist for the Phillippines, Fiji, islands of Hawaii, many other island nations in the Pacific Ocean and archipelagos north east of Australia. Even the US faced the devastation from Katrina, and recent snowfall in Oklahoma and Dallas, which shows that no country is isolated from climate change. The environmental group Germanwatch issued a report ranking the countries hardest hit by extreme weather based on socioeconomic data. For 2008, Burma topped the list, followed by Yemen and Vietnam. The United States ranked fifth, higher than any other industrial nation.

For the UN, these desperate times called for drastic measures that it had hoped to put in place in Copenhagen. However developed, emerging and under-developed economies did not all agree on targets. The biggest polluter in the world, the US, contributes to 25% of the total emissions with only 5% of the world population. Despite this disproportionate statistic, the US has offered to cut emissions by 17% from 2005 levels which translates to only 4% from 1990 levels, a target matched by Canada. Along similar lines, the EU offered 20% with Russia and Japan offering up to 25% of 2005 levels. The world’s second biggest polluter, China, said it will reduce its “carbon intensity” – or the amount of CO2 emitted per unit of GDP – by between 40-45% compared to 2005 levels by 2020. Similar to China, India says it will reduce its carbon intensity, while Brazil offered a 20% cut from 2005 levels. This shift from 1990 levels to 2005 levels was initiated by the US significantly lowering the bar. Also, the US offer was the least despite being the biggest polluter; China being the second biggest polluter still offered much higher cuts. Then there was the issue of who is going to pay for it. China, India, South Africa and Brazil came together to demand that richer countries share their green technology or pay poorer nations to develop their own. Ecuador which is sitting on a rich gas reserve demanded a compensation to ‘keep the oil in the soil’. Miguel Lovera, the chief negotiator for Paraguay who has played a key role in negotiations over the world’s rainforests, pushed for a deal for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD). African, Latin American and small Island nations had more stringent demands of capping the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees, over 40% cut in emissions from the US from 1990 levels, and reparations for the damage done to their country, environment and people. They said they are suffering the consequences of a problem they did not create; and hence have a just demand for compensation from industrialized rich nations who created this problem for their own unbridled development. Scientific studies which are unanimous in their opinion show that the current goal of capping temperature increase to 2 degrees and the non-binding proposals by each country, will culminate to a 3-3.5 degree temperature rise in Africa, spelling disaster and wreaking havoc in the African continent which already has climate refugees. In the first week of the conference, the developing countries reacted furiously to leaked documents that showed that world leaders were to be asked the following week to sign an agreement that hands more power to rich countries and sidelines the UN’s role in all future climate change negotiations. Lumumba Stanislaus Di-Aping, the Sudanese chair of the group of 132 developing countries known as G77, condemned the leaked document. These are only a few examples of disagreements among nations showing a clear rich-poor nation divide and global north and global south divide. As a result, the countries could not come to an agreement and the talks failed.

The failure to achieve a binding agreement among the nations of the world not only shows a deep crisis to save our planet and ourselves, but it also has very profound implications that need to be carefully considered and acted upon. The Copenhagen talks amply displayed the global feudal order existing in the modern world. The so-called ‘world leaders’ showed extreme apathy and callousness not only towards a dying planet, but also towards fellow human beings whose lives are deeply entangled with the health of our planet. The talks were a tug of war between more than a hundred nations on one side and a few rich ones on the other and the result was quite predictable. It’s almost a consensus that the US single-handedly sabotaged the climate conference by flatly refusing to make any significant contributions. It constantly tried to circumvent, shirk and deny the historical responsibility of putting maximum greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, accepting which translates to justice for several countries especially small island nations whose very survival is on the line if the emissions are not controlled in the near future. There was hope in the international community that President Obama might take a different stand and propose a meaningful cut in emissions, but he brazenly reiterated the stand of his administration and climate negotiation team. In fact, just before leaving the UN climate summit, Barack Obama said to his own small White House press corps, “We will not be legally bound by anything that took place here today.” The ‘hope’ was shattered. President Obama has proved himself to be a “brown sahib” of colonial India.

As the ‘leaders’ of the world converged in Copenhagen, the civil societies, climate activists and hundreds of other dissidents were barred from entering the premises and their voices were shut out by police crackdown on the most peaceful, legitimate and humane demonstrations. Prominent active organizations banned from the conference were Greenpeace, Friends of Earth, Network to Protect Rainforests, League of Island Nations, African Wildlife Foundation etc., organizations that have waged the struggle to reverse climate change for decades. Several protesters were apprehended by Danish police merely on suspicion and were released long after the conference ended. Governments are supposed to represent the people, but in practice they act exactly opposite with hardly any exception. The rich nations stooped to horse-trading and ‘dinner-deals’ in ‘green rooms’ with several developing nations’ leaders to give away as little as they could. A significant example is Ethiopia, which was persuaded by France to reduce their demand from 100 billion in reparations to a meager 1 billion. Australia did everything possible to persuade the island countries around it to cut back their demands. It is rumored that China cut a deal with the US for emissions. The conference was marred with such incidents and the voices of the people largely remained unheard.

To register their presence just across the street from Bella Center, civil societies, climate activists and organizations held their own alternate people’s climate summit called Klimaforum09. Thousands joined and its massive meetings (at times swelling to 100,000) were addressed by veteran climate activists like Vandana Shiva from India who said, “it is time for the US to stop seeing itself as a donor and recognizing itself as a Polluter, a Polluter who must pay”; Koomi Naidu of Greenpeace; Nigerian Environmentalist Nnimmo Bassey of Friends of Earth who said, “the Global North Owes a Climate Debt to Africa” and has campaigned against Shell Oil’s presence in the Niger Delta for nearly two decades; Sarah James, a longtime advocate for the Gwich’in people in Alaska (with the Indian-born photographer Subhankar Banerjee, who has spent years documenting life in the Arctic) said, “erosion, fires, depleting knowledge of land by people as well as animals has generated a tremendous crisis for survival”. Kenyan Nobel Peace Laureate Wangari Maathai who started the Greenbelt Movement in Kenya mobilizing women to plant millions of trees was also present. Activists from the Pacific island of Hawaii (Kwai) see themselves as an illegal part of the US and blamed the US for bringing the island nations to the brink of survival. Rajendra K. Pauchauri, chair of IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, UN) commented that the offer for a cut for emissions is at least some progress from the Bush administration which had completely refused to recognize climate change. He also said that if people could give up eating meat just once a week; that would be a significant contribution (7-8%) to the reduction of greenhouse gases. A group of international climate justice activists are still on a prolonged hunger strike. Even before the conference began, protesters took to the streets in Belfast, Glasgow, Paris, Brussels, Berlin and London. The largest protest was in London, where the organizers of the ‘Stop Climate Chaos’ protest estimated the crowd total to be 50,000. Participants in the march included Britain Climate and Energy Secretary Ed Miliband, actor Peter Capaldi and former BBC weather presenter Michael Fish.

Latin American, African and even Asian countries openly lambasted the US stand and criticized it in strongest terms. Hugo Chavez from Venezuela summed it up by saying that if it were banks in need, President Obama would have very willingly shelled out trillions; but when the lives of people are on the line and countries are on the verge of extinction, it is of least concern to President Obama. Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa commented on President Obama: “He is now a Nobel Laureate—become what you are”. Prime Minister Mohammad Nasheed of Maldives, one of the frontline countries in this conference, made an emphatic and impassioned appeal for climate change promising carbon neutrality for Maldives by 2050. Fifteen-year-old Maldives climate ambassador Mohamed Axam Maumoon on his message to the world said, “On the basis that you know what you are doing is wrong and you can see that the victim is begging for mercy…would you commit murder?” Bolivia’s chief climate negotiator, Angelica Navarro said “Twenty percent of the population has actually emitted more than two-thirds of the emissions. And as a result, they have caused more than 90 percent of the increase in temperatures. We are not begging for aid; we want developed countries to comply with their obligation and pay their debt.” The appeals and cries for help went on and on. The Philippines were so vocal for climate change measures that the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton had to pay a visit to the Philippines to pacify them (the US invaded the Philippines in the last century and established and supported an unpopular dummy government for years). After the conference, the Swedish minister openly lambasted the US as the sole culprit for failed climate talks and a constant hurdle to humane and just climate solutions. The other Scandinavian country Norway also faces intense crisis for its indigenous people and their lands affected due to oil extraction.

It was nearly 25 years ago that Bill McKibben founded 350.org to educate and mobilize people to put pressure on governments to address the issue of climate change. The number 350 represents the amount of safe CO2 in the atmosphere in terms of parts per million (ppm). We are already at 387. If the emissions continue to increase at this rate, we will be at 770 by the turn of the century and the earth will be virtually unlivable. The cooler [and industrialized] global north will obviously be the last to be affected. This shows that the industrialized nations were aware of their wrongdoings and its possible impacts for a long time and still took no action and continued to splurge energy and resources thereby putting more CO2 in the atmosphere. However, the indigenous people of the extreme north (Alaska and Arctic region) put forth their extreme conditions where melting of glaciers has ruined their lives and source of food. The nations suffering the most today (African and Island nations) are not the ones that put such dangerous levels of CO2 in the atmosphere. These nations are therefore perfectly justified in demanding climate reparations from industrialized nations. The EU and other rich countries more or less agree to this concept, but are willing to offer monetary aid and transfer of green technologies only if the US took the lead. As expected, not only did the US not take the lead of any kind, but it also bullied other countries to agree to its terms in which each country (basically the US itself) will conveniently decide upon its own emission cuts [suiting them] and will contribute to a 100 billion dollar fund generated from public and private sources by 2020. It also refused to commit or put anything on the table unless its irrational demand was accepted. The overall offer from rich countries was only 10 billion.

It’s a human crisis. It’s a struggle to survive, a struggle to save populations from going under, a struggle between global north and global south, a struggle to save the planet and prevent countries from going extinct. Bolivian president Evo Morales directly blamed this crisis on capitalism and demanded an end to capitalism which according to him is reckless industrialization and pursuit of a ‘better life’. He advocated living well rather than living ‘better’, which by its very definition and connotation is at the expense of others. The fight for climate justice is a fight for social justice, it’s a fight of poor against rich, it’s a fight for equitable distribution of wealth and resources, it’s a fight for a permanent end to the exploitation of people and resources, it’s a fight to work for the welfare of the people and not industries and adopt green lifestyles irreversibly. Unfortunately, the onus to take the lead in this fight is on the most powerful nation in the world, which happens to be the single biggest contributor to emissions. Such world domination by a single nation i.e. the US has been unprecedented in history and so the task for the rest of the world to force the US to change its ways becomes extremely daunting. It’s a unipolar world now, where the sole superpower is extremely aggressive, hawkish and a threat to humanity.

The unipolar moment dawned with the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989. With the Soviet deterrent gone, the US suddenly acceded to being the only imperialist superpower in the world. Although some might naively think that moment to be the end of the cold war and end of NATO, which was primarily formed to counter USSR during the cold war, nothing of that sort happened. On the contrary, NATO expanded quickly to eastern Europe dishonoring its pledges to Gorbachev for non-expansion. As it is not hard to guess, the key player in this expansion was the US and it extended his hegemony rapidly. With the collusion of the EU, the US can now intervene in other countries’ affairs without fear of any repercussions. In the current unipolar world order, the US is not likely to face situations like the Cuban ‘missile crisis’ that occurred during the Kennedy presidency. As early as ten years ago, the US considered ‘green’ to be the new ‘red’ scare. Jeff Luers, an environmental activist, was arrested in Oregon, US ten years ago on charges of arson in which he and his fellow activist set fire to three trucks without hurting anybody to draw attention to climate change. He was sentenced to twenty-two years in high security prison. The sentence was later cut down to ten years by an appeals court and Jeff Luers was recently released. This shows extreme apathy within the US government and its institutions for the environment and climate change. This is important in the context of climate change. This attitude and apathy gave a free pass to neo-cons operating in the US and its allies (basically rich countries) to expand their operations unhindered into other countries, plunder and exploit resources and people, and thereby bring the world closer to destruction while reaping enormous profits and obscene lifestyles for themselves. The exploitation of resources, people especially in the global south is horrifying. Most delicate eco-systems such as the Amazonian basin, Niger delta, rainforests, and fishing waters have been polluted and destroyed by the corporations of the rich countries in their unbridled extraction of oil and other natural resources. The way for such massive atrocities was paved by wars and proxy wars on fraudulent reasons like security where popular governments were overthrown and proxy governments, hugely unpopular but favorable to the US, were established. It was a suitable condition for ‘businesses’ to grow and expand thereby destroying earth and its indigenous people. Oil companies provide the most chilling and horrendous examples in African and Latin American continents. It is no surprise that Africa with its much of eco-system destroyed bears one of the severest brunt of climate change with no adequate rain, drought, flood, disease and dying livestock.

It is the glaring work of neo-cons that has brought the world and the human race to a near disaster. It’s the neo-cons that control policies in the US and accordingly the US wages wars to gain access to new markets and resources and thereby contributing to destroying our planet. According to Karl Marx, given the material conditions and the plight of the people, especially workers, where survival becomes a daily struggle should have culminated in a world-wide spontaneous revolution. But that did not happen. The workers of the rich countries extracted some benefits from the capitalist class and thereby contributed to the fragmentation of what could have been a plausible world-wide movement. Other than the contribution of the labor movements, the benefits were obtained largely in part due to the destruction of competitive industries in other countries like Japan and Germany during World War II. The workers in the poorer and less privileged countries continued to suffer and re-distribute wealth to capitalist class and workers of the rich countries who became beneficiaries of the imperialist system. However, these benefits don’t last forever. The current economic recession in most industrialized countries especially the US, triggered by the financial sector in their reckless pursuit of profits did not hit the ‘banking and business elites’ but rather the common people. The government quickly stepped in to bail out the rich capitalist and financial class leaving the workers and common people in a lurch with a significant number of them losing their jobs and homes. Wringing benefits from the capitalist class is not a permanent solution for the perpetual welfare of the working class as when the inherently unstable (as Minsky noted in the early 60s) bubble of capitalism bursts as it did now and many times earlier, the working class will be the first to suffer the consequences. The rising unemployment especially in the automobile sector in the US amply demonstrates this. The workers of the auto sector enjoyed decent and comfortable lives in the last century mostly due to protectionism from competition from other countries. This allowed the owners to make bad and risky decisions solely for profit thereby ruining the industry. In the long run the people who suffer are the workers and not the owners and the business and financial class. It is in this retrospective that it becomes crucially important to see beyond immediate benefits. The future of most people in the world is intricately linked through common welfare. It is not possible to sustain perpetually at the expense of other people. It is this stark fact that people world over especially people of rich countries must realize to unite in solidarity to reverse the most ugly profit making juggernaut of the capitalist class. Marx described such a phenomenon as ‘internationalism’ in terms of unity of labor movement around the world where national boundaries are blurred for common and universal good. The current crisis calls for such unity of action and that is the only means to achieve universal and sustained welfare of people and planet.

The solidarity of nations displayed at Copenhagen is the only strong silver lining to this failed conference. This is quite unprecedented on the stage of world affairs and with right efforts can have profound implications. The failed climate conference has once again thrown a rare and tremendous opportunity for people world over to unite and fight for climate justice, which is actually fighting for social and economic justice. It translates to demanding structural changes in the way the economies are run; and making a clear and definite break from the market and capitalistic economy which is essentially exploitative. It is burying the concept of ‘business as usual’ and the ‘free market’ myth which is simply a tool for the rich nations to intrude into other countries to access and exploit their resources. The ‘free market’ historically has never really existed. One need not be an intellectual to comprehend this when one’s daily life is a witness to inhumane and degrading living conditions, worsening day by day and hope for a secure future getting slimmer. The ruling class the world over, whether elected by people or not, by far have given in to the neo-cons and have very rarely represented or fulfilled the aspirations of people. The so-called ‘world leaders’ have again proved this to be true at COP15 where the modern feudal lords prevailed and destroyed the conference.

The progressive left forces in the world remain the only hope for humanity, but they continue to be terribly divided. It is of extreme urgency that they join together with all other progressive and active forces of climate justice and form a world-wide alliance. A lack of unity in purpose among progressive forces has given a stupendous advantage to the neo-cons who were united and clear in their objectives of turning the workforce into serfdom and exploiting the planet for reaping enormous and relentless profits for themselves. The neo-cons instituted a pseudo-democracy with token and farce elections which are meaningless and offer no real choices to people. It’s a momentous point in the history of mankind, for people to join hands and fight together. It is also a great responsibility for people of rich countries, especially the US to pressurize their governments to address climate change and hence social justice; justice for one and all, justice for the citizens of the world. A real democracy, communism and socialism will all converge to a single point if the will of the people and their welfare world-over becomes the primary focus in the socio-political process. That is the only way of achieving climate justice and a means to survive. BRIC nations (Brazil, Russia, India and China) together with G77 need to put economic pressure on the US and the EU to change their ways. Transferring of green technologies has limited relevance; it’s the political will propelled by the people that needs to come into action to stop this catastrophe.