The specter of socialism is again haunting the minds of the corporate elite, from the Americas to Europe and beyond. This, after decades of pro-capitalist campaigning from the corporate media, which has always confused “capitalism” with “freedom.” But of course freedom and democracy cannot exist alongside tremendous inequalities of wealth — or next to corporations wielding absolute power over elections and governments.

These facts helped form the social movements in Latin America that now advocate 21st Century Socialism, a name that implies the prior century’s experiments needed either updating or improving, while also implying that the general socialist “project” was progressive.

What are the progressive aspects of last century’s socialism? And from where did the original ideas come? These are extremely relevant questions in light of the international economic and political upheavals.

Modern socialism was born alongside capitalism and in opposition to it. When the basic features of industrial capitalism first came into existence — in the early 1800’s — people instantly recognized that drastic changes needed to be made: the large industries that emerged created dehumanizing conditions for the majority of people — forcing people to work twelve and fourteen hours a day for starvation wages — while a tiny minority were becoming fabulously wealthy. This is not what most people had fought for in the English, American, and French revolutions.

The “utopian socialists” in the early 1800s tried to correct these social inequities by proposing grand schemes that, if adopted by governments, would help harmonize society. These reformers, however, soon learned that those in power wanted little to do with their ideas. They also learned that “alternative economic models” set up next to the large capitalist enterprises were soon crushed by these corporations, due to the superior wealth encapsulated in the giant machines the capitalists owned, as well as the state machinery that the corporate elite controlled.

The Utopian’s failure was partially due to a lack of understanding. At the time, people were attempting to grasp what was happening to society; capitalist industrialization was happening at a lightning pace, with little preparedness or understanding from the majority of people. Blind economic forces seemed to be advancing uncontrollably.

Karl Marx was the first person to really study and dissect the capitalist system. His greatest work, Capital, is an extremely thorough analysis and critique of the capitalist economic system. He was the first to diagnose “what was happening,” and through his assessment a “solution” logically emerged.

In fact, modern socialism can be theoretically reduced to correcting the economic contradictions that inherently exist in capitalism. Marx listed these contradictions in his Capital; the “socialist solution” is merely the correction of these fundamental problems of capitalism.

For example, in capitalism’s embryonic stage, the capitalist ran a small shop, where perhaps he sold wagon wheels. But as capitalism evolved, a thousand times more goods were produced after the whole town was organized to make wagon wheels, each person performing a different, very small task, but all working cooperatively to produce the final product. The profit, however, went to one person — the owner, or owners. The result was that wagon wheels were immensely cheaper, and those who could not afford the high cost of the factory-approach of production — machines, labor costs, and raw materials — were pushed out of the market.

Eventually, those capitalists unable to compete evolved into workers, while more and more money was needed to purchase the giant machinery and infrastructure needed to stay a competitive capitalist; through this dynamic wealth increased at one pole and decreased at the other.

This shows a fundamental contradiction of capitalism: all of society is organized to produce goods and services; workers work “collectively” to build products, i.e., they work “socialistically,” but the vast majority of the wealth produced goes to a small minority of non-working, very wealthy shareholders. Thus, to correct this problem, the wealth produced by society should be distributed to those who create it, not funneled into the pockets of the rich. This would require transferring the vast majority of the productive machinery from private ownership of a few to the control of vast majority.

But the capitalists may argue that, without these wealthy capitalists, there would be no wealth-producing enterprises, and everybody would be consequently poorer. This argument may have been true 250 years ago, but no longer.

To out-compete their rivals, capitalists — organized in corporations — invested hordes of money in labor-saving technology, which produced greater and greater amounts of goods, in turn creating more and more wealth. But despite the capacity to produce more and more goods, unintended consequences emerged.

Capitalist competition naturally evolved into monopoly capitalism, as the winners of the free-market took over their competitors’ businesses and machinery. The free market soon became the private property of the mega-corporations, which no longer left the production of their goods to blind market-forces.

After all their competitors were defeated, and the market was dominated, the capitalists were better able to plan out their production to the finest detail: how much raw material they would use, how many products they would produce, what prices to sell the goods at, never knowing how much could actually be consumed by the workers in the marketplace, especially since corporations were constantly driving down workers’ wages to boost profits.

So another contradiction emerges: large corporations produce a massive amount of goods according to a plan, but leave the distribution of these goods to a very limited, un-planned market, which shrinks as workers get paid less and are laid off, due to the introduction of machinery.

Inevitably, this dynamic produces recessions, some small, others larger. The obvious, socialist answer is thus: distribute the produced goods according to a plan as well! But doing this would take the “market” out of the picture, and thus the capitalist too.

When recessions happen and corporations fail, the capitalist state intervenes and may temporarily take over these companies (as in the case of GM, Fanny and Freddie, etc.), but these takeovers are not done with the general social interest in mind. Instead, they are a form of socialism for the rich — the bank and corporate bailouts used public money to save the rich from themselves, at the expense of everybody else. These bailouts imply that the market economy (capitalism) needs socialist measures to ensure its further existence, meaning that an element of planning needed to be injected into the unplanned, chaotic market economy to help stabilize it.

Indeed, John M. Keynes and others realized long ago that capitalism was too unstable a system for it to be run entirely by market forces. This is why, in most capitalist countries, the state is responsible for planning the more fundamental parts of the economy: mail, communication, energy, central banks, education, military, highways, bridges, welfare, etc. These fundamental parts of the economy are planned “socialistically” in an attempt to give the commodity-producing companies more stability, i.e., allow them to make more consistent profits.

Finally, it must be noted that modern capitalists — shareholders/investors — serve absolutely no social function. Unlike their capitalist ancestors, modern capitalists neither work for nor run the companies they own — they hire managers instead (CEO’s and VPs). But these parasitic capitalists still hold a virtual trump card over society as a whole: they have all the money, and companies are not built unless these investors are assured stable and large profits.

When large recessions happen, the investors pull their money from the market, and demand that wages drop drastically before they allow jobs to reappear. This type of social extortion is on international display for all to see; the mainstream media says that we cannot raise taxes on the wealthy or corporations because they will simply leave, and there will be no jobs for anybody.

The socialist solution? If there are businesses unwilling to produce jobs, we must be willing to take them over. If there are billions of dollars in bank accounts not being lent, the money should be managed by the people, and run as a public utility.

The final, logical outcome of Marx’s Capital is that, under capitalism, nothing happens unless the rich allow it to happen. The corporations wield an undemocratic death grip over society. For any social progress to be made, this grip must be smashed, requiring a social revolution.

Marx lists other important contradictions of capitalism in his books. They are as relevant today as ever, as the Venezuelan revolution is discovering the more it matures. There, a government attempted to distribute society’s wealth to the workers and poor, and the rich fled to Miami, sabotaged the economy, and continue plotting to re-take “their” country (with the help of the U.S. military).

President Hugo Chavez first tried to bargain with this group, but soon learned that they would only accept absolute power. Now, the Venezuelan revolution is in the process of taking over enterprises the rich have purposely shut down (due to low profits), while taking over part of the parasitic banking sector, to be used instead as a community development bank.

But the revolution in Venezuela is not the brainchild of only Hugo Chavez. Like all revolutions, masses of formerly passive workers have become directly engaged in politics: many have taken over their workplaces or land, in the attempt to run them democratically; neighborhood “communal councils” have been formed to decide how local funding is to be distributed; community media have blossomed all over the country to educate the people about local and national politics, etc.

This democratic aspect of the Venezuelan revolution is the key to the potential success of 21st century socialism. If the above contradictions of capitalism are resolved by the active, democratic participation of the working class in Venezuela and beyond, then a viable alternative to capitalism would be visible to the international working class, which would instantly recognize it as a superior form of social organization.

Shamus Cooke is a social service worker, trade unionist, and writer for Workers Action (www.workerscompass.org). He can be reached at shamuscook@yahoo.com

Holocaust is the destruction of a large number of people. The term was first applied to a WW2 atrocity by Jog in 1944 ( Jog, N.G. (1944), Churchill's Blind-Spot: India (New Book Company, Bombay ) ) in relation to the ?forgotten? man-made Bengal Famine (6-7 million Indians deliberately starved to death by the British, 1943-1945). It was subsequently applied to the Jewish Holocaust (5-6 million killed, 1 in 6 dying from deprivation) which was part of a horrendous WW2 European Holocaust (30 million Slavs, Jews and Gypsies killed in the Nazi German Lebensraum genocide).

Unfortunately the racist Zionists (RZs) (who were complicit in the Jewish Holocaust by collaboration with the Nazis, opposing placement of Jewish refugees anywhere but Palestine and persuading Churchill to oppose the Brand scheme to save 0.7 million Hungarian Jews) have appropriated the term Holocaust to mean only the WW2 Jewish Holocaust to the exclusion of all other holocausts.

Genocide is very precisely defined in International Law as ? acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group? as set out by Article 2 of the 1948 UN Genocide Convention : ?In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such: a) Killing members of the group; b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.?

Key to this internationally agreed, legal definition of genocide is ?intent?. Thus the ?intent' of a serial killer is not abolished by his refusal to confess or otherwise explicitly declare ?intent? ? it can be clearly established simply by the evidence of sustained, remorseless actions leading to serial deaths. Likewise, for example, the sustained, remorseless actions (and inactions) of the British caused the deaths of 6-7 million Indians in 1943-1945 (see the transcript of the 2008 BBC broadcast involving myself, Economics Nobel Laureate Professor Amartya Sen and other scholars: http://www.open2.net/thingsweforgot/
bengalfamine_programme.html ).

In the interests of Humanity I have created a series of detailed, documented websites that set out documented, authoritative data and opinions about current, ongoing holocausts and genocides that are overwhelmingly ignored  by academics, journalists, politicians  and media in the lying, holocaust complicit, holocaust ignoring, genocide complicit, genocide ignoring,  Zionist-beholden, neocon-beholden, US imperialism-beholden   Western Murdochracies.

Palestinian Holocaust, Palestinian Genocide (0.3 million post-invasion violent and non-violent excess deaths, 0.2 million post-invasion under-5 infant deaths, 7 million refugees):   http://sites.google.com/site/palestiniangenocide/ ;

Afghan Holocaust, Afghan Genocide (4.5 million post-invasion violent and non-violent excess deaths, 2.4 million post-invasion under-5 infant deaths, 3-4 million refugees plus 2.5 million NW Pakistan Pashtun refugees): http://sites.google.com/site/afghanholocaustafghangenocide/ .

Iraqi Holocaust, Iraqi Genocide (2.5 million post-invasion violent and non-violent excess deaths, 0.9 million post-invasion under-5 infant deaths, 5-6 million refugees; 1990-2009, 4.4 million violent and non-violent excess deaths,  2.1 million under-5 infant deaths): http://sites.google.com/site/iraqiholocaustiraqigenocide/ .

Climate Holocaust, Climate Genocide (man-made global warming increasingly impacts the current 22 million annual avoidable deaths from deprivation and deprivation-exacerbated disease; estimates from top UK climate scientists Dr James Lovelock and Professor Kevin Anderson point to 10 billion avoidable deaths this century due to unaddressed global warming, this including 6 billion infants, 3 billion Muslims, 2 billion Indians, 1.3 billion non-Arab Africans,  0.5 billion Bengalis, 0.3 billion Pakistanis and 0.3 billion Bangladeshis): http://sites.google.com/site/climategenocide/

Aboriginal Holocaust, Aboriginal Genocide (the Australian Indigenous population dropped from circa 1 million to 0.1 million in the first century post-invasion; currently 9,000 Aborigines die avoidably each year, mostly from horrendous neglect, out of an Indigenous population of 0.5 million; Apartheid Australia is involved in all the above ongoing holocausts and genocides, has an appalling secret genocide history: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/22128/42/ , is the world's worst annual per capita greenhouse gas polluter, and helped the US sabotage the vital Copenhagen Climate Conference ): http://sites.google.com/site/aboriginalgenocide/ .

I am currently using the above compilations to generate an updated  2010 formal complaint to the International Criminal Court (see Dr Gideon Polya, Formal complaint to the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court re Australian Government involvement in Aboriginal Genocide, Iraqi Genocide, Afghan Genocide and Climate Genocide, March 2008: http://climateemergency.blogspot.com/
2008_02_01_archive.html ).

Peace is the only way but silence kills and silence is complicity. Please use this holocaust and genocide terminology and please inform everyone you can.

Dr Gideon Polya published some 130 works in a 4 decade scientific career, most recently a huge pharmacological reference text "Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds" (CRC Press/Taylor & Francis, New York & London, 2003:
http://www.amazon.com/Biochemical-Targets-Plant-Bioactive-Compounds/dp/0415308291 ). He has recently published ?Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950? (G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/ and http://mwcnews.net/Gideon-Polya ) and an updated 2008 version of his 1998 book ?Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History, Colonial rapacity, holocaust denial and the crisis in biological sustainability? (G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2008: http://janeaustenand.blogspot.com/ ). He is currently teaching Biochemistry theory and practical courses to second year university agricultural science students at a very good Australian university. Words having failed, he also paints huge Paintings for Peace, Planet, Mother and Child: http://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/ (anyone is free to reproduce these images with attribution in the interests of Humanity).

As a US military veteran—USMC, 1969-73, who turned around while on active duty—I have been incredibly frustrated at the impotence of the anti-war movement in the United States to stop the wars in particularly Iraq, Afghanistan and, increasingly, Pakistan. I am, obviously, not alone. Many other people—veterans, as well as many more civilians—also share this frustration.

Barry Sanders’ new book, The Green Zone, takes a different angle than any I’ve seen before, and I believe it’s an approach I believe we all need to consider: Sanders focuses on the environmental costs of militarism, particularly those from the US military.

Sanders recognizes the incredible threat by greenhouse gases to the worlds’ peoples well-being and, in fact, to our very survival. [Percentage of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has risen from 280 parts per million (ppm) before the industrial revolution started in 1750 to where the latest readings are 392 ppm—should it reach 450, the accompanying temperature rise would lead to uncontrollable melting of the tundra across Russia and Canada, and the release of untold amounts of methane: methane has 20 times greater impact on the atmosphere than carbon dioxide. James Hansen of NASA believes we must go below 350 ppm to prevent serious environmental damage worldwide—KS.] Sanders also knows the environment is not just threatened by greenhouse gasses, but recognizes pollution of the water, air and soil as joining with greenhouse gases to imperil us all.

Yet he makes an incredibly important point, trying to put things into perspective and to focus our attention: “… here’s the awful truth: even if every person, every automobile, and every factory suddenly emitted zero emissions, the Earth would still be headed head first and at full speed toward total disaster for one major reason. The [US] military—that voracious vampire—produces enough greenhouse gases, by itself, to place the entire globe, with all its inhabitants large and small, in the most immanent danger of extinction” (p, 22). To put it plain language, that social institution that is said to protect Americans is, in fact, hastening our very extermination along with all the other people of the planet.

Sanders addresses the military’s affects on the environment in many ways. He starts off with trying to figure out how much (fossil) fuel the military uses, with their resulting greenhouse emissions there from. Despite diligent efforts, he cannot find out specific numbers, so he is forced to estimate. After carefully working through different categories, he comes to what he calls a conservative estimate of 1 million barrels of oil a day, which translates to almost 20 million gallons each and every day! He puts this number into international perspective: “If that indeed turns out to be the case, the United States military would then rank in fuel consumption with countries like Iran, Indonesia and Spain. It is truly an astonishing accomplishment, especially when one considers … that the military has only about 1.5 million troops on active duty, and Iran has a population of 66 million, Indonesia a whopping 235 million” (54)

The cost, incidentally, is also quite high. He quotes a US Army General as estimating that the cost of this fuel averages $300 a gallon! (55)

Yet, how does this contribute to global warming? He reports that the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that “each gallon of gasoline produces 19.4 pounds of CO 2” (carbon dioxide). If his estimate of 1 million barrels of oil a day is correct, he writes, “then the combined armed forces sends into the atmosphere about 400 million pounds of greenhouse gases a day, or 200,000 tons. That totals 146 billion pounds a year—or 73 million tons of carbon a year” (67-68). And that’s just regarding fuel use.

Sanders further discusses the military’s impact on the environment. He talks about the impact of exploding bombs, cluster bombs, napalm, cannon rounds, depleted uranium, etc. He points out that the US military estimates they need about 1.5 billion rounds for their M-16 rifles a year. He talks about the impact of US military bases around the world, including in the Philippines and Puerto Rico.

To me, the most sickening chapter was the one on depleted uranium or DU. He explains, “Depleted uranium is essentially U-238, the isotope after the fissionable isotope, U-235, has been extracted from uranium ore.” DU has a half-life of 4.7 billion years. He continues:

“… a good deal of the country of Iraq, both its deserts and cities, hums with radioactivity. For since 1991, the US has been manufacturing ‘just about all [of its] bullets, tank shells, missiles, dumb bombs, smart bombs, and 500- and 2000-pound bombs, and everything else engineered to help our side in the war of Us against Them, [with] depleted uranium in it. Lots of depleted uranium. A single cruise missile, which weighs 3,000 pounds, carries within its casing 800 pounds of depleted uranium.’ Recall that the Air Force dropped 800 of these bombs in just the first two days of the war. The math: 800 bombs multiplied by 800 pounds of depleted uranium equal 640,000 pounds, or 320 tons of radioactive waste dumped on that country in just the first two days of devastation” (83).

The impact is devastating. When DU hits something, it ignites, reaching temperatures between 3,000-5,000 degrees Celsius (5,432-9,032 degrees F). It goes through metal like a hot knife through butter, making it a superb military weapon. But is also releases radiation upon impact, poisoning all around it. Its tiny particles can be inhaled—people don’t have to touch irradiated materials. Thus, Iraqis are being poisoned by simply breathing the air! And, once inhaled, DU hardens, turning into insoluble pellets than cannot be excreted. DU poisoning is a literal death sentence. It not only kills, however, but it can damage human DNA—it’s the gift that keeps on giving, to generations and generations.

Yet, radiation is an equal opportunity destroyer: it also poisons those in occupying armies. Evidence from the Gulf War I (“Desert Storm”) shows the impact on American troops. Sanders quotes Arthur Bernklau, who has extensively studied the problem: “Of the 580,400 soldiers who served in Gulf War I, 11,000 are now dead. By the year 2000, there were 325,000 on permanent medical disability. More than a decade later, more than half (56 percent) who served in Gulf War I have permanent medical problems.” Bernklau then points out that the disability rate for soldiers in Vietnam was 10 percent (87).

Yet the impact is not just on Iraqis, or the soldiers who fought there. Sanders points out that, according to the London Sunday Times, radiation sensors in Britain reported a four-fold increase in airborne uranium just a few days after George W. Bush launched the March 19, 2003 attack on Iraq. That sounds bad enough, that the uranium can travel the approximately 2500 miles from Baghdad to London. But what Sanders does not note is that global weather does not travel east to west: it travels west to east. In other words, this uranium had to cross North America to get from Iraq to Britain!

There is much more detailed information included in this small, highly accessible book. AK Press deserves our respect and support for publishing such a worthy volume: and this is one we each should purchase and urge others to do so as well.

The biggest strength of this book is Sanders’ clarity: this man is, if you will permit, “on target.” He sees the problem being not just the illegal and immoral wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. He sees the US military as being an essential part of the US Empire, along with the major multinational corporations. He sees the military as an institution as a threat to global environmental survival. He recognizes that politicians won’t address the problem; they are too incorporated in the US Empire. It says it is up to us, individually and collectively, in the US (primarily) and together with people around the world.

Basically, his argument is this: the US military can continue to launch wars and continue killing people (including Americans) around the world, or we can end war, and devote resources to the well-being of people in this country and others around the world. The choice is our’s. But we also need to realize that if we let the US military continue on its path of continual war with its on-going quest for global domination, it will destroy all the humans, animals and vegetation on the planet. Your move, good people.

Kim Scipes, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Purdue University North Central in Westville, Indiana. Among other courses, he teaches Sociology of the Environment. His web site is http://faculty.pnc.edu/kscipes.

Climate change is already causing enormous damage and hundreds of millions of poor people are enduring the consequences.

The most advanced research centers have claimed that there is little time to avoid an irreversible catastrophe. James Hansen, from the NASA Goddard Institute, has said that a proportion of 350 parts of carbon dioxide by million is still tolerable; however, the figure today is 390 and growing at a pace of 2 parts by million every year exceeding the levels of 600 thousand years ago. Each one of the past two decades has been the warmest since the first records were taken while carbon dioxide increased 80 parts by million in the past 150 years.

The meltdown of ice in the Artic Sea and of the huge two-kilometer thick icecap covering Greenland; of the South American glaciers feeding its main fresh water sources and the enormous volume covering the Antarctic; of the remaining icecap on the Kilimanjaro, the ice on the Himalayan and the large frozen area of Siberia are visible. Outstanding scientists fear abrupt quantitative changes in these natural phenomena that bring about the change.

Humanity entertained high hopes in the Copenhagen Summit after the Kyoto Protocol signed in 1997 entered into force in 2005. The resounding failure of the Summit gave rise to shameful episodes that call for due clarification.

The United States, with less than 5% of the world population releases 25% of the carbon dioxide. The new US President had promised to cooperate with the international effort to tackle a new problem that afflicts that country as much as the rest of the world. In the meetings leading to the Summit, it became clear that the leaders of that nation and of the wealthiest countries were maneuvering to place the burden of sacrifices on the emergent and poor countries.

A great number of leaders and thousands of representatives of social movements and scientific institutions, determined to fight for the preservation of humanity from the greatest risk in history, converged in Copenhagen on the invitation of the organizers of the Summit. I’d rather avoid reference to details of the brutality of the Danish police force against thousands of protesters and invitees from social and scientific movements who traveled to the Danish capital. I’ll focus on the political features of the Summit.

Actually, chaos prevailed in Copenhagen where incredible things happened. The social movements and scientific institutions were not allowed to attend the debates. There were heads of State and Government who could not even express their views on crucial issues. Obama and the leaders of the wealthiest nations took over the conference, with the complicity of the Danish government. The United Nations agencies were pushed to the background.

Barack Obama, the last to arrive on the day of the Summit for a 12-hours stay, met with two groups of invitees carefully chosen by him and his staff, and in the company of one of them met at the plenary hall with the rest of the high-level delegations. He made his remarks and left right away trough the back door. Except for the small group chosen by him, the other representatives of countries were prevented from taking the floor during that plenary session. The presidents of Bolivia and the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela were allowed to speak because the Chairman of the Summit had no choice but to give them the floor in light of the strong pressures of those present.

In an adjacent room, Obama brought together the leaders of the wealthiest nations, some of the most important emerging States and two very poor countries. He then introduced a document, negotiated with two or three of the most important countries, ignored the UN General Assembly, gave a press conference and left like Julius Caesar after one of his victorious wars in Asia Minor that led him to say: “I came, I saw, I conquered.”

Even Gordon Brown, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, had said on October 19: “If we do not reach a deal over the next few months, let us be in no doubt, since once the damage from unchecked emissions growth is done, no retrospective global agreement in some future period can undo that choice. By then it will be irretrievably too late...”

Brown concluded his speech with these dramatic words: “We cannot afford to fail. If we fail now we will pay a heavy price. If we act now, if we act together, if we act with vision and resolve, success at Copenhagen is still within our reach, but, if we falter, the Earth will itself be at risk and, for the planet, there is no Plan B.”

But later he arrogantly said that the United Nations could not be taken hostage by a group of countries like Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua and Tuvalu. At the same time, he accused China, India, Brazil, South Africa and other emerging countries of being lured by the United States into signing a document that throws the Kyoto Protocol in the wastebasket without a binding agreement involving the United States and its wealthy allies.

I find it necessary to recall that the United Nations Organization was born hardly six decades ago, after the last World War, when there were no more than fifty independent countries. Today, after the hateful colonial system ceased to exist thanks to the resolute struggle of the peoples, it has a membership of over 190 independent nations. For many years, even the People’s Republic of China was denied admission to the UN while a puppet regime was its representative in that institution and in the privileged Security Council.

The tenacious support of the growing number of Third World nations would prove indispensable to China’s international recognition and become an extremely significant element for the acceptance of that country’s rights at the UN by the United States and its NATO allies.

It was the Soviet Union that made the greatest contribution to the heroic fight against fascism. More than 25 million of its people perished while the country was terribly devastated. It was from that struggle that it emerged as a superpower with the capacity to partly balance the absolute domination of the US imperial system and the former colonial powers to plunder the Third World countries unrestrictedly. Following the demise of the USSR, the United States extended its political and military power to the East, --up to Russia’s heart-- and enhanced its influence on the rest of Europe. Therefore, what happened in Copenhagen came as no surprise.

I want to insist on how unfair and outrageous were the remarks of the Prime Minister of the UK and the Yankee attempt to impose as the Summit Accord a document that was at no time discussed with the attending countries.

During his press conference of December 21, Cuba’s Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez made a statement that cannot be disproved. I will quote from some of its paragraphs: “I would like to emphasize that no agreement of the Conference of the Parties was reached in Copenhagen, that no decision was made as to binding or nonbinding commitments or pertaining to International Law; that simply did not happen. There was no agreement in Copenhagen.”

“The Summit was a failure and a deception for the world […] the lack of political will was left in the open…”

“…it was a step backward in the actions of the international community to prevent or mitigate the effects of climate change…”

“…the average world temperature could rise by 5 degrees…”

Right then our Foreign Minister adds other interesting data on the likely consequences of climate change according to the latest scientific research.

“…from the Kyoto Protocol until today the developed countries’ emissions rose by 12.8%... and 55% of that volume corresponds to the United States.”

“The average annual oil consumption is 25 barrels for an American, 11 barrels for a European, less than 2 barrels for a Chinese and less than 1 barrel for a Latin American or Caribbean citizen.”

“Thirty countries, including those of the European Union, are consuming 80% of the fuel produced.”

The fact is that the developed countries signatories of the Kyoto Protocol increased their emissions dramatically. Now, they want to replace the adopted bases of the emissions from 1990 with those of 2005. This means that the United States, which is the main source of emissions, would be reducing its emissions of 25 years ago in only 3%. It is a shameful mockery of the world public opinion.

The Cuban foreign minister, speaking on behalf of a group of ALBA member countries, defended China, India, Brazil, South Africa and other important emerging-economies states. He stressed the concept adopted in Kyoto that “common but differentiated responsibilities mean that the responsibility of the historical accumulators and the developed countries, who are the culprits of this catastrophe, differs from that of the small island states and the South countries, above all the least developed…”

“Responsibility means financing; responsibility means technology transfer on adequate terms. But, at this point, Obama resorts to a game of words and instead of talking of common but differentiated responsibilities, he speaks of ‘common but differentiated responses.’”

“…he then leaves the plenary hall without taking the trouble of listening to anybody; he had neither listened to anybody before taking the floor.”

In a subsequent press conference, before departing from the Danish capital, Obama had said: “There has been a meaningful and unprecedented breakthrough here in Copenhagen. For the first time in history, the largest economies have come to jointly accept responsibilities.”

In his clear and irrefutable presentation, our Foreign Minister said: “What does it mean that ‘the largest economies have come to jointly accept responsibilities’? It means that they are placing a large part of the burden of financing the relief and adaptation of countries, mostly the South countries, to climate change on China, Brazil, India and South Africa. Because it must be said that in Copenhagen we witnessed an assault, a holdup against China, Brazil, India and South Africa, and against every other euphemistically called developing country.”

These were the resounding and undeniable words used by our Foreign Minister to describe what happened in Copenhagen.

I must add that, when at 10:00 a.m. on December 19 our Vicepresident Esteban Lazo and the Cuban Foreign Minister had already left, a belated attempt was made to resurrect the Copenhagen cadaver as a Summit Accord. At that moment, practically every head of State had left and there was hardly any minister around. Again, the denunciation by the remaining members of the delegations from Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua and other countries could defeat the maneuver. That was the end of the inglorious Summit.

Another fact that should not be overlooked is that at the most critical moment of that day, in the wee small hours, the Cuban Foreign Minister, together with the delegations waging the honorable battle, offered UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon their cooperation in the ever harder struggle being fought as well as in future efforts necessary to preserve the life of our species.

The environmental group Wild World Fund has warned that if emissions are not drastically reduced climate change will go unchecked in the next 5 to 10 years.

But there is no need to prove the substance of what is said here that Obama did.

The US President stated on Wednesday, December 23, that people are justified in being disappointed about the outcome of the Summit on Climate Change. In an interview with the CBS television network, the President said that “instead of a total collapse if nothing had been done, which would have been a huge step backward; at least we could remain more or less where we were…”

According to the press dispatch, Obama is the target of most criticism from the countries that nearly unanimously feel that the result of the Summit was disastrous.

Now, the UN is in a quandary since many countries would find it humiliating to ask others to adhere to the arrogant and antidemocratic accord.

To carry on with the battle and to claim in every meeting, particularly in those of Bonn and Mexico, humanity’s right to life, with the morale and the strength that truth provides, is in my opinion the only way to proceed.

”How do we make non-violent activism sexy?” asked a friend in a letter to me recently.

His question was posed in the context of the ongoing debate in the national media and elsewhere about the supposed threat to national security from Maoists who are mobilising tribals in central and eastern India for a protracted war to overthrow the Indian State. The State on its part is marshalling its paramilitary and other troops to ‘flush out’ the Maoists, unfazed by the collateral damage this civil war is likely to cause among the already severely exploited tribal population.

My friend’s point was really that peaceful, democratic social movements never seem to get the same kind of publicity or government attention given to bloodshed by dissident groups of various hues. For example, the reason why the Maoists get so much play from the government and national media is precisely because of their regular use and explicit promotion of armed action as a means to further their cause. The same national political elite and media that calls on the Maoists to enter the mainstream, abjure violence and work within the framework of the Indian Constitution, would not pay any attention to their demands at all if the latter really give up the gun.

Just look around India right now and there are dozens, maybe even hundreds, of social activists and groups working peacefully and democratically on a range of important issues for many years. There are movements against forced displacement, struggles for land and forest rights, education and health facilities or the rights of oppressed castes and ethnic minorities- some of them successful, many of them not so. All are dismissed by those in power as not ‘threatening enough’ to be taken seriously. Ironically or deliberately, for all its official abhorrence of violent means, the Indian State and its bulldog media are promoting the perverse idea that if you want to be heard, you have to use the gun.

One good example is that of the Manipuri poet and activist Sharmila Irom, who on 2 November 2009 entered her tenth straight year of fasting demanding the repeal of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) in Manipur- a world record if there is one for hunger fasts anywhere. The AFSPA is one of the most draconian laws anywhere in the world and allows even foot soldiers of the Indian army to shoot ‘suspected’ militants, a privilege they abuse with frightening abandon. Sharmila’s marathon fast though is not the kind of stuff that makes the Indian government even think, leave alone blink. Instead the soft-bellied but hard-nosed politicos who run this country must be simply laughing their guts out at her non-violently starving herself for democratic rights.

Violence Vs Non-Violence

I personally don’t have any absolute position on the issue of violence versus non-violence because both terms are in my view impossible to define with precision and no meaningful debate is possible around them.

For example, do not the speculative flows of global capital that leave in their wake thousands upon thousands destitute, driving many to commit suicide, constitute a clear form of violence? Nobody puts a gun to the heads of the 2.5 million Indian children who die every year due to malnutrition- so are these supposed to be ‘non-violent’ deaths?

Further the ethical and moral dimension of any action depends on the specific context and cannot be pre-judged or prescribed in a cast-in-iron manner. The Muslims who died in Gujarat’s 2002 pogrom for example surely had the right- if they had got the chance at all- to shoot the fascist mobs that managed to lynch them because they found them unarmed.

In many ways the concept of ‘non-violence’ also depends crucially on how ‘violence’ is defined and by looking at the kind of ‘violence’ that is perpetrated. In other words, the notion of proportionality is very crucial to understanding what is ‘non-violence’ and what is not. For instance, if I am threatened by a regime that merely sends me to jail for dissent then the corresponding ‘non-violent’ strategy will different than if my oppressor tries to bomb me and my entire neighbourhood out of existence, a la Iraq or Afghanistan.

On a purely theoretical plane my own answer to the question ‘Gandhi or Guevara?’ is ‘fifty-fifty’. Both had their spectacular successes and abject failures in different contexts.

Gandhi for example after leading a non-violent struggle for India’s freedom could do little to prevent the Partition of the sub-continent that led to the deaths of over 2 million people and displacement of 14 million more within the space of just a few months. This was violence on a scale shocking even for a planet just emerging from two successive World Wars and showed the limitations of Gandhi’s politics of non-violence, that could not take into account the machinations of various other forces operating around him.

Che on the other hand after participating in the violent overthrow of Cuba’s Batista dictatorship got murdered in Bolivia, after failing to get local peasants and workers to join his attempts to spark off an armed rebellion. Four decades later, in the same Bolivia, a revolutionary new government has been elected to power under the leadership of Evo Morales, who successfully mobilised the country’s much oppressed indigenous population through militant but unarmed movements.

The Indian Context

In the Indian context, unfortunately, the language of physical force and bloodshed has been preferred by the Indian ruling elites over that of peace and persuasion not just in modern times but for millennia. One has simply to delve into Indian mythology to easily recognise the horrific militarism that permeates every ancient epic and the routine valorisation of intrigue, bloodshed and the murderous mindset it represents.

So in the famous sermon on the battlefield, the Bhagvat Gita, the Hindu deity Krishna exhorts Arjuna to drop his qualms about killing his close relatives, his guru and all those he loves and respects in the ‘enemy’ camp as his ‘karma’ or ‘duty’ to kill is more important than human values. Almost every Hindu god is further depicted carrying war weapons meant to exterminate ‘asuras’ and ‘rakshasas’- obvious euphemisms for some tribal character or the other whose resources were being taken over by the ever expanding Aryan ‘deva’ population. Even the gods are insecure in this country of ours.

Since Independence the Indian ruling class has simply reverted to such age old traditions of using naked force to deal with social sections considered ‘inferior’- like ethnic or religious minorities, Dalits, Adivasis, workers or peasants. Forget about actual civil conflict of which this country has seen plenty since 1947 in Nagaland, Mizoram, Kashmir, Punjab and so on – just look at the figures of deaths in police custody around the country, the highest in the world, and you can understand how violence is an integral part of the Indian State’s day to day functioning.

And why blame the formal Indian State alone, why not take a closer look at the sheer amount of violence that exists in every nook and corner of Indian society itself- where even disputes over parking of cars in the capital city often result in murder. Between dowry deaths, honour killings, female foeticide, infanticide, caste related massacres and jealousies aroused by simple boy-girl romances India is more a Super-Slaughterhouse than the Superpower it wants to be or the Land of Ahimsa it claims to have been in the past.

As for Indian political organizations today, it is not just radical sections like the Maoists but all mainstream national level parties, like the Congress, BJP and CPI(M), that use violent means routinely to establish their hegemony as evident from their respective roles in the 1984 anti-Sikh pogrom, the Gujarat genocide and the Nandigram massacre. While operating within the democratic spaces offered by the Indian polity, contesting parliamentary elections and claiming allegiance to the Indian Constitution, they show little respect in actual practice for democratic rights, norms or processes. As far as they are concerned such spaces are to be merely exploited till such a time they are in complete command and the pretence of democracy itself can be cast off like a dispensable cover over their quest for raw power.

Modernity and Violence

There is yet another source of great violence in the world we live in that comes from the notions of modernity that have been in vogue since the nineteenth century. It is violence born out of blind belief in the concepts of the fortified nation state, industrialisation, urbanisation and ever-increasing production and consumption as being synonymous with progress and development.

During the last fifty-two years, some 3.300 big dams have been constructed in India and another 1,000 are under construction leading to the displacement of anywhere between 21 to 33 million people. Over 55 percent of those displaced are from tribal communities who constitute only 8 percent of India’s population but pay a disproportionately heavy price for national ‘growth’.

Further the skewed policies in favour of urbanization and industrialization has pauperized India’s rural folk, whose survival depends on the callously neglected agricultural sector. Over 180,000 farmers have committed suicide between 1997 and 2007 while millions of villagers are forced to migrate to the cities as economic refugees to live in miserable slums that do not offer even the most basic of amenities leave alone a life of dignity. The urban centers of India are sucking the resources of the countryside dry and with it the very basis of existence of 70 percent of the country’s population.

If one adds to all this the annual toll of human lives extracted by the indiscriminate use of pesticides, industrial accidents, pollution of water by toxic wastes, loss of soil fertility due to Green Revolution agriculture and so on the costs of modern progress are exceedingly high indeed.

Reform or Revolution?

So given all these multiple sources of violence what are the brave but increasingly lonely activists advocating ‘non-violence’ as a means of social action and political change supposed to do?

I would argue that it is precisely because of all the violence around us that there is an even greater need for non-violent approaches to solving social problems. There is in fact an urgent need to lower the levels of violence not just in India but all over the South Asian sub-continent that is home to two nuclear powers and has already seen several wars and the horrific massacres of the Partition.

Armed actions do produce results sometimes and are highly attractive therefore to impatient youth or groups for whom it is part of ideological faith. However, hard experience tells the victories are very often ephemeral and only lay the foundation for yet another bout of bloodshed and the cycle keeps spinning out of control well beyond the original objectives with which the violence started. The examples of such violence begetting violence without end are strewn all over the planet from the killing fields of Cambodia to the tropical forests of Colombia.

Armed actions are also elitist in nature and do not allow mass participation thereby depriving an opportunity to politicise the greatest number and build the basis for a genuinely democratic movement or a democratic future. A handful of Robin Hoods do not a Revolution make and it is ultimately the political experience of millions of ordinary citizens that can ensure one dictatorship is not merely replaced by another.

Talking about revolution, political parties that describe themselves as revolutionary and which have the integrity and even perhaps the right social vision should also stop looking down on unarmed movements as ‘reformist’ or conflating all ‘revolutionary’ work with armed action alone. ‘Reform or Revolution?’ is in fact a trick question - like ‘food or freedom’, ‘love or money’, ‘democracy or development’? As if any of these two terms are mutually exclusive and as if anybody really knows where one ends and the other begins. Is it not simply absurd for some of the most sincere and committed political activists we have to be willing to give up their lives for a cause because this is ‘revolutionary’ but not give a glass of water to someone dying of thirst because this is seen as ‘reformist’?

Finally, the reason why armed actions should be avoided as much as possible in the current Indian context is simply because a hell of a lot of problems in the country like the caste system, religious bigotry, honour killings, female foeticide, patriarchy or environmental destruction are extremely complex and cannot be solved by merely shooting bullets or setting off bombs. They require intelligent long-term interventions with a lot of care and perseverance and the involvement of millions in a country as large as India. The weapons of choice are really that of knowledge and courage combined with creative ways or organising the diverse people of this land. The objectives should be to achieve tangible goals such as ensuring basic standards of nutrition, health, education and the infrastructure needed to lead a decent life of dignity.

In that sense they are more like the challenges faced by the farmer trying to grow his crop on hostile soil and battling the vagaries of the weather than that of an engineer trying get a mountain out of his way for a project. The latter can use dynamite but for the former this would be suicidal. Ironically, many advocates of agrarian revolution in the subcontinent seem to be in a tearing hurry to capture the land without doing the hard work of cultivating the soil, waiting for the first rains or planting the seeds of a future society all around. It may be time to learn from the humble Indian peasant and show a little more patience and wisdom instead of ending up harvesting an imaginary crop and cooking a non-existent meal.

Satya Sagar is a journalist, writer and videomaker based in New Delhi. He can be reached at sagarnama@gmail.com

The outcome of the UN climate meeting in Copenhagen was “a gross violation of the tradition of the United Nations”. We have been asked “to sign a suicide pact, an incineration pact, in order to maintain the economic dominance of a few countries. It's a solution based on values that funnelled six million people in Europe into furnaces”, said Lumumba Di-Aping, the Sudanese negotiator for the group of 132 developing countries, known as the G77. Copenhagen was exposed as a complicity to accelerate the threat of ecocide.

According to the Guardian newspaper, the leaked ‘Danish text’ “was intended by Denmark and rich countries to be a working framework, which would be adapted by countries ... It is particularly inflammatory because it sidelines the UN negotiating process and suggests that rich countries are desperate for world leaders to have a text to work from when they arrive [to the meeting in Copenhagen]”. It proposes that developing countries be forced to agree to specific emission cuts and measures, and for rich countries to emit nearly double that of poorer ones.

Sweden’s Environment Minister, Mr. Andreas Carlgren described the Copenhagen meeting a disaster that needed rescuing. Minister Carlgren blamed the U.S. and China for hijacking the meeting and agreeing to a “deal” without the support of the rest of the world. “The great powers, they are always able to live without an international system ... We expect them also to make sure that we can create an international common system with common rules and common tools to fight climate change”, said Minister Carlgren.

James Hansen, the world’s leading climate scientist, the director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and professor of Atmospheric Science at Columbia University in New York, was pleased that the talk at Copenhagen ended in failure. He told Amy Goodman: “They [Western politicians] were talking about having a cap-and-trade-with-offsets agreement, which is analogous to the Kyoto Protocol, which was disastrous. Before the Kyoto Protocol, global emissions of carbon dioxide were going up one-and-a-half percent per year. After the accord, they went up three percent per year. That approach simply won’t work”, said “We need an honest agreement which addresses the fossil fuels problem. And unless we address that and put a price on [greenhouse gas] emissions, we can’t solve the problem”, he said (See: Dr. Hansen interviewed by Amy Goodman on Democracynow.org, 22 December 2009).

The U.S. contribution to the Copenhagen meeting was what everyone expected; a setback to avert serious climate disaster. It is best summarised by Bill McKibben of Mother Jones magazine: “The President of the United States did several things today with China, India, Brazil and South Africa:

(1) He blew up the United Nations. The idea that there is a world community that means something has disappeared tonight.

(2) He formed a league of super-polluters, and would-be super polluters. China, the US, and India don't want anyone controlling their use of coal in any meaningful way. It is a coalition of foxes who will together govern the henhouse.

(3) He demonstrated the kind of firmness and resolve that Americans like to see. It will play [brainwashing] well politically at home and that will be the worst part of the deal”.

“Just as George Bush did in the approach to the Iraq war, Obama went behind the backs of the UN and most of its member states and assembled a coalition of the willing to strike a deal that outraged the rest of the world. This was then presented to poorer nations without negotiation. Either they signed it, or they lost the adaptation funds required to help them survive the first few decades of climate breakdown”, writes the Guardian columnist George Monbiot.

Obama’s unilateral announcement of a “deal” has been rejected by the majority of world’s nations. The deal locks developing countries, particularly the poor of developing countries “into a cycle of poverty forever”. “Obama has today eliminated his differences with [George W.] Bush”, said Di-Aping. “What is Obama going to tell his daughters? That their [Kenyan] relatives’ lives are not worth anything? It is unfortunate that after 500 years-plus of interaction with the West we [Africans] are still considered ‘disposables’ “. “My good friends … we’ve got to get together and fight the fight”, he added.

To produce a flawed deal, the U.S. and its allies played their “divide and coerce” card well, manipulating and buying off fewer nations to back their detrimental action. With South African stooges and Ethiopia’s dictator Meles Zenawi at hand, unity among African nations proved to be fragile to stop the few who are willing to participate in Western-orchestrated ecocide. Even the Philippines, among the most vulnerable to the effects of climate change, succumbed to Western demand and money. “What we actually have to do is solve the problem, not pay people off. And that requires reducing emissions”, said James Hansen. In other words, all nations have to mutually agree to a binding treaty to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The U.S. with 5 per cent of the world’s population consumes 25 per cent of the world’s energy. So, the U.S. as the second largest polluter doesn’t add up. The U.S. military is the worst polluter of CO2 and other highly toxic and radioactive pollutants in the air, water and soil (See: Sara Flounders, Pentagon's role in global catastrophe, International Action Centre, 18 December 2009). The U.S. military is the most destructive ecocidal/genocidal war machine on the planet, destroying ecosystems on massive scale the world over.

Meanwhile, China which is considered the world’s largest emitter of CO2 despite more than 25 per cent of China’s emissions are generated by Western-owned sweatshops manufacturing cheap goods for Western markets, has been used to provide Western politicians with a scapegoat. China is doing far more to reduce emissions than any other polluter. For example, in November 2009, China announced that it would decrease its carbon emissions by 40-45% by 2020 from 2005 levels. In contrast, the U.S. announced in November 2009 that it would reduce its carbon emissions by 17% by 2020 from 2005 levels (Euromonitor International, 14 December 2009).

The poor and least developed countries, which will carry the burden of climate change, demanded that the maximum global temperature rise to be limited to but to 1.5°C (Celsius) not to 2°C. Because a 2°C increase in global temperature, which requires an emission cap of no more than 1 trillion tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere, means a 3°C to 3.5°C increase in African temperature. This will be a disaster for millions of people in Africa alone. However, according to leaked document, the plan put forward by rich nations is to increase the temperature not by 2°C, but actually by 3°C.

For Small Island nations, like Tuvalu and the Maldives, “[t]hat would mean that we won’t be around. That would mean the death of us. And that’s really not acceptable for us. We cannot survive with that kind of temperature rise. Sea levels would rise. We are just 1.5 meters above the water. And if we have sea levels rising to seventy, eighty centimetres, that’s going to eat up most of our country. So we won’t be around”, said President Mohamed Nasheed of the Maldives.

The island nation of Tuvalu, which is the most threatened by global warming, and most of the South American countries have already rejected the accord. Tuvalu representative Ian Fry said the agreement amounted to Biblical betrayal. “Our future is not for sale. I regret to inform you that Tuvalu cannot accept this document”.

Most civil societies and environmental groups were unhappy with the deal. Greenpeace International Executive Director Kumi Naidoo said: “World leaders failed to avert catastrophic climate change. People everywhere demanded a real deal before the summit began and they are still demanding it. We can still save hundreds of millions of people from the devastation of a warming world, but it has just become a whole lot harder.”

Friends of the Earth International chair, Nnimmo Bassey, has called the outcome of the Copenhagen meeting: “an abject failure”. He said: “By delaying action [and ignoring global warming destructive impact on the Earth life support systems], rich countries have condemned millions of the world's poorest people to hunger, suffering and loss of life as climate change accelerates”.

Meanwhile, in Australia – the OECD's biggest per-capita polluter –, Australia’s everything “scientist” and the establishment mouthpiece, Dr. Tim Flannery was in exiting mood: “[I]f I was to sum it up in a single phrase I'd say this has been a good, successful meeting. I think that our prime minister has played an outstanding role. He has been working very hard for the last few months ... and he has just been fantastic all the way”. Flannery, who studied English and Kangaroos at university, rose to fame in 1994 by blaming Aborigines (as “The Future Eaters”) for the destruction of Australia’s flora and megafauna. His “research” is descriptive and lacks any empirical data.

The Australian Greens Deputy Leader, the Tasmanian Senator Christine Milne, a passionate advocate of the environment, described the deal agreed by few politicians at the Copenhagen meeting, a “superficial last-minute statement … with no substantive progress made on any of the critical issues”. She said: "Kevin Rudd should be held personally responsible, as he said he would be, not only for refusing to do what everyone knows is necessary, but also for trying to bully those who wanted real deal into accepting his greenwash”. The Australian delegation, the world’s largest, went to Copenhagen without a coherent policy on climate change, but with access baggage full of empty rhetoric.

Greenpeace's Steve Campbell said the ‘deal falls far short of what scientists say needs to be achieved to arrest climate change’. "This deal fails on both tests. So really it's a deal that's worse than no deal and it's certainly not the outcome that we expected from our political leaders this week", he said.

On the last day of the Copenhagen meeting, a disappointed Lumumba Di-Aping said: “This deal will definitely result in massive devastation in Africa and Small Island nations. It has the lowest level of ambition you can imagine. It’s nothing short of climate change scepticism in action”. “The architecture of this deal is extraordinarily flawed. What has happened today has confirmed what we have been suspicious of – that a deal will be superimposed by the United States ... on all nations of the world.” And “I am absolutely convinced that what Western governments are doing is NOT acceptable to Western civil society”, he added.

COP15 Copenhagen has failed because the intransigence of few rich polluters to commit to an honest and science-based goal to reduce global temperature in an international binding treaty. It was self-serving ignorance that will condemn the entire planet to climatic oblivion.

The only way to avert the threat of ecocide is for the rich and developed countries to recognise that reduction in greenhouse gas emissions based on economic development and protection of the environment is of paramount importance for the future of humanity.

Ghali Hassan is an independent writer living in Australia.

Obamacare Plans to Ration Healthcare and Enrich Big Providers

After House passage in November, the Senate is now about to pass a stealth scheme to ration care and enrich insurers, the drug cartel, and large hospital chains, the way Washington always works.

It plans market-based solutions, featuring cost-containing measures, mostly affecting working Americans, the poor, elderly, and chronically ill to make a dysfunctional system worse, under the guise of reform, the most dangerous and deceptive word in the language to take cover from when announced.

Besides enriching providers, Obamacare will force millions to pay more, get less, with millions still uninsured and left out. Employers will be able to opt out of providing coverage, but since insurance for most will be mandated, those without it will have to buy it or face hundreds of dollars in penalties, whether or not they can afford it. Even with a public option, looking less likely, insurers will get to skim off the cream, charge what they wish, profit handsomely at low risk, and leave Washington stuck with ones industry doesn't want. For providers, it's a win-win under any version being considered.

Most disturbing are planned Medicare cuts, around $400 - $570 billion, depending on which numbers are most accurate, and these are for starters, a foot in the door if enacted, toward the long-term aim ending Medicare, then Medicaid and Social Security because, at $106 trillion in unfunded liabilities, budget constraints can't sustain them.

The Congressional Budget Office's June 2009 "Long-Term Budget Outlook" suggests a nation in decline, eventual hyperinflation, possible bankruptcy because of a greater national debt than during the Great Depression and near-surpassing WW II. The administration's solution - end entitlements over 100 million Americans rely on, but it still may be too little, too late given an overstretched budget, a weakening dollar, and foreign investors looking for safer returns on their capital, so are less willing to fund Washington's excesses.

In Obama's America, the least advantaged will carry the load, not privileged elites, but don't expect congressional opposition to stop him or news reports to explain it.

Obama's Permanent War Agenda

As president, he heads an imperial enterprise presided over by a war cabinet engaged in lawless militarism, aggressive wars, the permanent occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, the planned conquest of Eurasia, and world dominance overall, with a defense budget exceeding the rest of the world combined at a time America has no enemies.

Yet, as a candidate, he opposed imperial militarism, promised limited escalation only, and pledged to remove all combat troops from Iraq by August 31, 2010. Then on February 27, he said:

"As a candidate for president, I made clear my support for a timeline of 16 months to carry out this drawdown, while pledging to consult closely with our military commanders upon taking office to ensure that we preserve the gains we've made and protect our troops. Those consultations are now complete, and I have chosen a timeline that will remove our combat brigades over the next 18 months. Let me say this as plainly as I can: by August 31, 2010, our combat mission in Iraq will end."

Not so fast according to Defense Secretary Robert Gates who told reporters that up to 50,000 will remain, and Obama himself then suggested year end 2011 and maybe later - as always, depending on conditions on the ground to provide an out for the real agenda, permanent occupation with a reduced force if possible.

He also promised two more brigades maximum for Afghanistan, or 10,000 troops. Instead, he ordered 17,000 sent initially, then after his December 1 announcement, the number reached five-fold his original pledge, likely heading higher in the new year as political promises are made to be broken.

Besides the Afghan escalation, he's also destabilizing Pakistan to balkanize both countries, weakening them to control the Caspian Sea's oil and gas riches and their energy routes to secured ports for export. The strategy includes encircling Russia, China, and Iran, obstructing their solidarity and cohesion, defusing a feared geopolitical alliance, toppling the Iranian government, perhaps attacking its nuclear sites, eliminating Israel's main regional rival, and securing unchallenged Eurasian dominance over this resource rich part of the world that includes China, Russia, the Middle East, and Indian subcontinent.

Like his predecessor, Obama also plans more - unchallengeable global control, the strategy first revealed in the 1998 US Space Command document, Vision for 2020. Later released in 2000 as DOD Joint Vision 2020, it called for "full spectrum dominance" over all land, surface and sub-surface sea, air, space, electromagnetic spectrum and information systems with enough overwhelming power to wage and win global wars against any adversary, including preemptively with nuclear weapons.

With other means as well, including propaganda, compromised NGOs, Color Revolutions for regime change, expanding NATO eastward, and various other ways for unchallengeable control - including over resource rich parts of Africa like Nigeria, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Africa, and Somalia on its strategic Horn adjacent to the Red Sea, Suez Canal, and vital commercial waterways. War rages there with America backing Transitional Federal Government (TFG)/African Union forces to keep the Islamist resistance from regaining power - the same forces under which Somalia had its only stability in the last two decades or more.

Closer to home, the June 28 Honduran coup deposing democratically elected Manuel Zelaya was a coordinated State Department - Pentagon project working closely with Honduran commanders and top opposition political figures to establish a de facto dictatorship. The staged November 29 presidential election was meant for closure with a new president/oligarch taking over on January 27 as Zelaya can't succeed himself.

According to Council on Hemispheric Affairs (COHA) Director Larry Birns, the episode represents Obama's "First Latin American Waterloo" as Washington's "solution" remains a "profound problem for much of the rest of the hemisphere, as well as for long-term ties with such major regional actors as Brazil, Argentina, and the Venezuelan-led ALBA nations." They won't recognize an illegitimately elected leader, so for now, call it stalemate with round two to come, involving a determined popular resistance against fascist coup plotters they want removed and out of power.

Obama's overall Latin American policy is just as troubling. It allocated half a billion dollars in military and related aid to Mexico's right-wing Calderon regime and to militarize the nation's border. Plan Colombia supplies more, billions for new weapons and technology on the pretext of fighting drugs trafficking and protecting regional security. Not so. It's about lawless imperialism and raw power, not drugs or other subterfuge.

During his late June White House visit, Colombian president Alvaro Uribe gave the Pentagon access to seven new military bases, plus nine others currently stationing US forces supplemented by the April 2008 Fourth Fleet reactivation after a 60 year hiatus.

Meant to militarize the continent and intimidate Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, and other center-left governments, the move sparked outrage and concern with Hugo Chavez saying:

"They are surrounding Venezuela (and regional nations) with military bases (and may) soon start sending thousands of North American soldiers to Colombia. (They're) contract soldiers who are nothing more than paramilitary mercenaries and assassins. Airplanes, radar, sophisticated weapons, bombs - and, of course, they say it's to fight drug trafficking."

Given past coup attempts against Chavez and the June Honduran one, perhaps also to topple leaders not firmly in Washington's camp to give America regional dominance, not diplomatically but with raw power under a rogue leader like the others.

Travesty in Oslo - Peace Prize to a War Criminal

In choosing Obama, the Nobel Committee's October 9 announcement followed its long, ignoble tradition by anointing another war criminal, a man heading an imperial war machine, disdainful of peace, and currently escalating America's global dominance agenda, potentially threatening planetary survival.

Yet, the corporate media defended the award and practically gushed over Obama's acceptance speech. On December 10, New York Times writer Jeff Zeleny highlighted his claim that "some wars (are) necessary and just....in the fight against oppression."

The Washington Post's Eugene Robinson said "President Obama accepted the Nobel for peacemaking
by delivering an eloquent, often grim treatise on the nature and necessity of warfare (and) drew a clear distinction between the world as we would like it to be and the world as it is."

Unsurprising, the Nation magazine concurred on National Public Radio's "All Things Considered" with editor Katrina vanden Heuvel (a notorious Obama and Democrat party flack masquerading as a progressive) praising the speech's "humility and grace."

According to the magazine's political writer, John Nichols:

"The president's frankness about the controversies and concerns regarding the award of a Peace Prize to a man who just last week ordered 30,000 US new troops into the Afghanistan quagmire, and the humility he displayed....offered a glimpse of Obama at his best. As such, the speech was important and, dare we say, hopeful."

For what, more war?

In Oslo, Obama's message was clear - expect permanent wars in the wake of his Afghan escalation, widening it to Pakistan, threatening Iran, destabilizing Eurasia, militarizing South America, claiming "all responsible nations must embrace the role that militaries with a clear mandate can play to keep the peace," then saying warriors should be honored "not as makers of war, but as wagers of peace."

"War is peace," Orwell's message and why the award legitimizes wars and the leaders who wage them.

Torture as Official US Policy Under Obama

Given a year of betrayal and failure, continuing the Bush torture policy is unsurprising despite Obama's January 22 Executive Order (EO) directing the CIA to shut its secret prisons network and close Guantanamo "as soon as practicable, and no later than 1 year from the date of this order." That was then. This is now with a new president as lawless and ruthless as George Bush, and in some respects much worse.

Guantanamo is still open. "Black site" torture-prisons remain active globally, and the practice continues virulently as official US policy, despite international and US laws prohibiting it at all times, under all conditions with no allowed exceptions.

The Geneva Conventions Common Article 3 bans:

-- "violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture;

-- carrying out sentences or executions "without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples;" and

-- caring for the wounded and sick, including by an impartial body like the ICRC "offer(ing) its services to the Parties to the conflict."

At least two US laws are also explicit - the 1996 War Crimes Act and 1994 Torture Statute. The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court Explanatory Memorandum calls torture a crime against humanity - a "particularly odious (offense and) a serious attack on human dignity," (the result of) government policy (or) condoned by a government or a de facto authority." For decades and under Obama, America is a serial abuser in defiance of the law and civilized human behavior.

Gutting Constitutional Cruel and Unusual Punishments Prohibition and Due Process Protection

The Fifth Amendment says no person shall "be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." The Fourteenth Amendment holds government subservient to the law and guarantees due process respect for everyone's legal right to judicial fairness on matters relating to life, liberty, or property. The Eighth Amendment prohibits cruel and unusual punishments.

No longer after the Supreme Court in mid-December, at the behest of the Obama administration, upheld a lower court decision declaring torture an ordinary, expected consequence of military detention and directing future courts, by presidential order, to treat "suspected enemy combatant(s)" as non-persons with no rights or judicial standing.

Henceforth, torture-extracted confessions will be admissible in civil or military commission trials, despite earlier High Courts ruling them unconstitutional. In Brown v. Mississippi (February 1936), the Court ruled that:

"The rack and torture chamber may not be substituted for the witness stand" in citing Fisher v. State (November 1926) stating:

"Coercing the supposed state's criminals into confessions and using such confessions so coerced from them against them in trials has been the curse of all countries. It was the chief iniquity, the crowing infamy of the Star Chamber (the notorious 15th - 17th century English court), and the Inquisition, and other similar institutions. The Constitution recognized the evils that lay behind these practices and prohibited them in this country....wherever the court is clearly satisfied that such violations exist, it will refuse to sanction such violation and will apply the corrective."

The Constitution also affirms judicial fairness for everyone under the law. No longer after the High Court acquiesced to Obama's request to deny it to administration-declared non-persons.

Obama's War on Labor

On March 30, Obama told Detroit's auto giants: "We cannot....must not (and) will not let (this) industry vanish," then laid down a clear marker that labor, not business, must take the pain through:

-- fewer jobs;

-- less pay;

-- reduced benefits, including lost pensions and free retiree healthcare; and

-- gutted work rules, including health and safety on-the-job protections, on top of everything sacrificed in 2007 negotiations when the UAW leadership sold out to management, then muscled the rank and file to go along.

The fate of the nation's auto workers is spreading nationally as low-pay/few or no benefits jobs replace once solid manufacturing ones, increasingly offshored to low-wage countries leaving fewer opportunities for skilled workers at home.

For decades, America's organized labor has been in decline, especially since the 1980s, but the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) offers hope. After failing in the 108th, 109th, and 110th Congresses, March 2009 House and Senate bills aim to restore worker rights at a time they're seriously eroded, given that 90% of employers oppose unions with government on their side. If pressured to offer more, nearly half threaten to close plants and other work sites. Many coerce, threaten and/or bribe workers to be union-free, and around 30% illegally fire pro-union employees and get away with it.

EFCA offers hope by creating a level playing field. If enacted, it will enforce fair collective bargaining and let workers freely decide, by majority vote, whether or not to form a union, without fear of employer retribution. It's the first pro-labor bill since the 1935 Wagner Act let workers bargain on equal terms with management, and a reversal of decades of lost rights.

Thus far, House and Senate bills are stalled in committees, and despite earlier administration support, getting the required 60 Senate votes won't come without as much Obama pressure as he's applying on healthcare. His silence shows non-support and the likelihood that EFCA is dead in 2009, perhaps in the 111th Congress, and the 112th one to follow.

Targeting Public Education for Destruction - Reinventing No Child Left Behind (NCLB)

Enacted in January 2002, NCLB claimed it would close the achievement gap between inner city and rural schools and more affluent ones by setting high reading and math standards, then testing to assure they're achieved. However, the law's real aim is to commodify education, end government's responsibility for it, and make it another business profit center, thereby depriving millions of the nation's youths (mostly disadvantaged ones) of the education they deserve.

Reauthorizing NCLB stalled in Congress for good reason. It's long on testing, school choice, and market-based reforms, but short on real achievement. It's built around rote learning, standardized test, requiring teachers to teach to the test, assessing results by Average Yearly Progress (AYP) scores, and punishing failure by firing teachers and principals, closing schools, and transforming them from public to charter or for-profit ones.

Obama plans to invent a failed policy, rename it, claim NCLB's shortcomings are fixed, and have his education secretary, Arne Duncan, do for the nation what he did to Chicago as CEO of the city's public schools - deny their students real education as repeated underperformance results showed, and no wonder. During his tenure and continuing today, privatization schemes continue, inner city schools are being closed, remaining ones are neglected and decrepit, classroom sizes are increasing, and children, as a result, are sacrificed on the alter of marketplace triumphalism.

Obama-ed promises more of the same:

-- favoring charter or for-profit schools over public ones;

-- running them by marketplace rules;

-- requiring state laws conform to federal ones, in violation of the 10th Amendment mandating "powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States, or to the people;" education isn't mentioned in the Constitution;

-- linking teacher pay to student performance as determined by standardized tests that measure rote memory, not real learning;

-- putting Washington bureaucrats in charge of undermining states, local school boards, and the right of parents to decide what's best for their children;

-- requiring federal mandates be followed to qualify for funding;

-- creating a two-tiered, class and income-based system favoring affluent school districts over inner-city ones; and

-- effectively destroying public education in Obama's America.

Promoting Dangerous Vaccines for a Non-Existent Threat

For months, Obama officials and the complicit media hyped a fake Swine Flu threat. Then on June 11, the WHO declared its highest Level 6 influenza pandemic alert followed by its Director-General, Dr. Margaret Chan, warning that H1N1 is "unstoppable" while admitting that most cases are mild, no different than seasonal flu, and many people recover unaided.

Many experts, including the world's foremost authority, Dr. Viera Scheibner, in her writings and on The Lendman News Hour, warn that all vaccines are ineffective, dangerous, and often cause the illnesses they're designed to prevent, and no wonder. Their harmful toxins include mercury, aluminum, formaldehyde, phenoxyethanol (antifreeze), and squalene adjuvants known to weaken the human immune system, making it vulnerable to serious auto-immune diseases like paralysis, diabetes, multiple sclerosis, ALS, severe allergies, arthritis, encephalitis, and many others.

Disturbing evidence suggests that Swine Flu vaccines were bioengineered, are extremely dangerous, potentially lethal, and must be avoided. So why did Obama declare a public health emergency in October, and why are his officials stoking fear to encourage, then perhaps mandate, that everyone take them - ones rushed to market without safety testing that are already causing troublesome problems and reported deaths.

It's no coincidence that a declared emergency coincides with an economic crisis causing millions to lose jobs, homes, savings, and better futures. Or that drug giants see a profit bonanza from the global vaccination campaign. Perhaps a diabolical depopulation scheme also, based on the flawed assumption that global economic sustainability depends on reducing world numbers drastically because available resources are inadequate for 6.8 billion people (by US Census Bureau estimates), and they're taking up space anyway so get rid of them, including millions of Americans. Obama may be heading a global cabal to do it.

Denying Budget-Strapped States Financial Help

At a time 48 of the 50 states have growing budget shortfalls, and a new Pew Center on the States (PCS) report shows 10 in fiscal peril, the Obama administration is denying needed aid, forcing them to freeze hiring, cut jobs, lower wages, and impose austerity by gutting welfare programs, education, health care for the poor, and other vital services at a time they're most needed. Ahead expect extended hard times that will impact the disadvantaged most while official Washington steps up imperial madness and more handouts to the rich.

Growing Poverty, Hunger, Homelessness, and Numbers of Uninsured

Under Obama, like his predecessor, America helps the rich at the expense of all others, especially the least advantaged. The data are alarming and growing worse:

-- state budget deficits are in free fall due to the worst decline in tax receipts in decades, and conditions in 2010 and 2011 may get worse;

-- revised 2008 US census data show 47.4 million Americans (one in six) below the poverty line - a conservative estimate compared to others placing it much higher based on a more accurate definition of poverty;

-- USDA data show food stamp use at record highs at a time 49 million Americans (again one in six) experience hunger, including 17 million children;

-- up to three million experience homelessness, including many low-wage earners and others at risk in case of an unexpected financial burden like a missed paycheck or health emergency;

-- a 2008 OECD report on inequality and poverty ranked America highest among its 30 members, only ahead of Mexico and Turkey;

-- a 2008 Working Poor Families Project study shows these households keep getting poorer as the wealth disparity between rich and all others widens;

-- other reports show disturbing evidence of economic duress affecting growing millions of Americans while officials and media reports hail recession's end and credit Obama for achieving it - at a time the true picture is dire for a growing majority;

-- at least 50 million are uninsured; thousands more join them weekly; and

-- unemployment tops 20% with all excluded categories included.

Overall, it's America's dark side that politicians and media pundits suppress at a time Wall Street is having a party, courtesy of bailout billions, licensed fraud, manipulated markets, and Washington turning a blind eye while millions struggle to get by and many more can't.

Legislation to License Pollution, Fraud, and Unbridled Speculation

Introduced in May, HR 2454: American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (ACESA) lets corporate polluters reap huge windfall profits by charging consumers more for energy and fuel, yet does nothing to address environmental issues. On June 26, the House narrowly passed it, then sent it to the Senate where it remains stalled.

Ahead of the House vote, Obama lied in hailing the "historic proportions (of this) legislation that will open the door to a new, clean energy economy." Polluters love it and with good reason. So does Wall Street lobbying hard for passage.

If enacted, it will increase speculation through a new carbon trading derivatives bonanza with a potential market value of up to $10 trillion annually according to some estimates - so watch out for the mother of all bubbles Wall Street is lobbying hard to get passed.

It's a scam that, according to Catherine Austin Fitts, will "make the housing and derivatives bubbles look like target practice" as well as license pollution and fraud. More evidence of official corruption under a crime boss president, who promised UN Climate Change Conference (COP 15 Copenhagen) participants that America plans substantial greenhouse gas cuts over the next decade while concealing his real commitment and that of the conference.

Purportedly for a draft treaty replacing Kyoto's expiration in 2012, it's a power grab, according to some, including former Margaret Thatcher advisor, Lord Christopher Monckton. He warns of an unprecedented transnational government scheme under an unnamed, unelected UN body, empowered to intervene in the financial, economic, tax, and environmental affairs of all signatories and thus violate their sovereignty. He warned Americans that "unless you stop it, your president will sign your freedom, your democracy and your prosperity away forever."

It will also further a global carbon trading derivatives scheme huge enough to "make the housing and derivatives bubbles look like target practice," and be another betrayal by a president promising change.

On December 7, AP reported that:

"The Environmental Protection Agency took a major step (today) toward regulating greenhouse gases, concluding that climate changing pollution threatens the public health and the environment," and that carbon dioxide should be regulated under the Clean Air Act.

According to some, this ruling may let Obama bypass Congress, and effectively pass the cap and trade bill without the consent of the Senate. According to others, however, doing so would be a lawless impeachable act. At issue is whether he'll risk it.

The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement's (ACTA) Assault on Net Neutrality, Consumer Privacy, and Civil Liberties

Launched in October 2007, secret negotiations continue for a new intellectual property enforcement treaty that if adopted will subvert Net Neutrality, privacy, and personal freedom, and pressure all nations to comply under universally binding top-down rules overriding national sovereignty.

What's been leaked so far includes:

-- a proposed top-down enforcement regime requiring ISPs to disclose customer information;

-- mandating ISPs cooperate with right holders to remove infringing content;

-- new anti-camcording rules; and

-- network-level filtering to enforce a three-strikes-and-you're-out rule against consumers found three times to have infringed copyrighted content; the penalty - Internet connection termination.

These provisions way exceed current treaty obligations by imposing binding copyright demands requiring that:

-- ISPs police copyrighted material and deter unauthorized storage and transmission of alleged infringed content;

-- ISPs terminate Internet access of alleged repeat offenders or be liable;

-- alleged infringed material be removed;

-- digital rights management (DRM) rules be enforced relating to systems that identify, track, authorize, and restrict access to digital media - purportedly to protect and enforce copyrights, patents, trademarks, and other intellectual property forms; and

-- global Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) rules be imposed relating to intellectual property that will effectively censor online content, subvert free expression, invade privacy, deny due process, and undermine innovation.

If ACTA is adopted, consumer Internet communications and content will be monitored, threatening privacy, civil liberties, and a free and open Internet.

Empowering Agribusiness Under the Guise of Enhancing Food Safety

In July, the House passed the 2009 Food Safety Enhancement Act (FSEA) and referred it to the Senate, where the 2009 FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) is being considered. It's been passed out of committee for debate by the full body, perhaps before year end or sometime in January.

If enacted, it will empower agribusiness and adversely impact small farmers and food producers. While omitting effective food safety reforms, both House and Senate versions impose costly, burdensome regulations that will put many small growers and producers out of business for greater industry consolidation.

Included will be new standards based only on a "reason to believe" food may be adulterated, misbranded or otherwise in violation of the new law. In other words, suspicion alone, without proof, will prohibit food sales or recalls as well as force area quarantines if ordered, not applicable to food giants because their officials staff the FDA, the enforcing body they control. In addition, imprisonment and/or heavy fines may be imposed for failing to register a facility, misbranding, not conducting a hazard analysis, or failing to fill out the required paperwork - all of which greatly burdens small operators without staff enough to comply.

For effective food safety, measures should target agribusiness and imports, not the nation's safe local food system. Obama's plan does the opposite.

Obama Endorses Preventive Detention

On May 21, Obama addressed national security and civil liberties issues, including the Guantanamo detainees, military commissions, and torture. Saying his "single most important responsibility as president is to keep the American people safe," he claimed Al Qaeda "is actively planning to attack us again (and) this threat will be with us for a long time...." He then announced the following:

-- prohibiting "enhanced interrogation techniques" that continue unchanged to the present;

-- closing Guantanamo that's still open with no progress on his "order;"

-- trying "detainees who violate the laws of war (by) military commissions" that assure no possibility of due process or judicial fairness; and

-- including detainees ordered released, prevention detention of those at Guantanamo "who cannot be prosecuted yet who pose a clear danger to the American people," without seeking statutory power to institutionalize it.

These men, about four or five dozen, will be held without charges or trials indefinitely on the dubious post-9/11 power authorizing the president to use force against Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

No civilized state does this, uses military commissions in lieu of civil courts, practices torture, then uses evidence from it to convict.

Following Obama's speech, Michael Ratner, President of the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) said:

"The president wrapped himself in the Constitution and then proceeded to violate it by announcing he would send people before irredeemably flawed military commissions and seek to create a preventive detention scheme that only serves to move Guantanamo to a new location and give it a new name." Or perhaps keep it operating as now appears likely.

CCR's Guantanamo project Managing Attorney, Shayana Kadidal added:

"Preventive detention goes against every principle our nation was founded on. We have courts and laws in place that we respect and rely on because we have been a nation of laws for hundreds of years; we should not simply discard them when they are inconvenient.
The new president is looking a lot like the old one." The nation looks increasingly despotic, no different from history's worst under a rogue leader waging global imperial wars and destroying at home civil liberties.

Obama's Discrimination Against Haitian Immigrants

It's a familiar story for the hemisphere's poorest, least wanted, and most abused people at home and in America. Currently, about 35,000 undocumented Haitians reside in US cities, the result of deplorable conditions at home, including deep poverty and a repressive UN paramilitary Blue Helmet occupation after the Bush administration's 2004 coup d'etat against Jean-Bertrand Aristide, democratically elected and now deposed into forced exile.

For months, they've sought but not received Temporary Protected Status (TPS) after the Bush administration denied it, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials ordered forced deportations to the worst of conditions at home.

Immigration lawyer and long-time TPS advocate, Steve Forester, represents them in South Florida for the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti. After months into the new Obama administration, he expressed surprise and anger that:

"we have not yet gotten a response to our request to at least give people the dignity of the right to work while the administration continues, month after month, to review the propriety of granting TPS, which to us and every objective observer is a no-brainer, based on the four hurricanes and storms that hit Haiti in a one-month period a year ago," and devastation from them remains.

After Congress established TPS in 1990, Washington granted 260,000 Salvadorans, 82,000 Hondurans, and 5,000 Nicaraguans protection, then extended it as deadlines expired. It grants temporary immigration status to undocumented residents unable to return home due to armed conflict, environmental disasters, or other "extraordinary temporary conditions." Nationals from numerous other nations got it, but not Haitians, most in need, least helped, and thus far scorned by America's first black president, no different than the rest.

S. 1261: Pass ID Act

Introduced in the Senate in June, now in committee awaiting debate by the full body, it's a measure to revive the enacted Real ID Act of 2005 that if enforced would mandate every US citizen and legal resident have a national identity card that in most cases will be a driver's license. It requires it to contain personal information to open a bank account, board an airplane, be able to vote, or conduct virtually any other essential business.

If embedded, as some fear, with an RFID chip, universal monitoring will be possible of everyone, everywhere at all times, a ghoulish nightmare civil libertarians stress must be avoided as well as mandating national ID cards. So do many states.

Many derailed it, some with statutes prohibiting its implementation, others from a resolution denouncing it. Now it's revived in Senate committee awaiting a full debate in 2010 under an administration seeking new police state powers beyond the many he inherited.

Obama Opposes Whisleblowers and Journalists Who Protect Their Anonymity

In February, the 2009 Free Flow of Information Act was introduced in the House and Senate. In March, the lower body overwhelmingly passed it, and it's now in Senate committee awaiting floor debate for a measure "to maintain the free flow of information to the public...."

Yet Obama worked to weaken it in opposition to strong congressional support. The House measure lets judges weigh the public's right to know against national security considerations in cases where prosecutors judicially challenge reporters to reveal their sources. Obama wants them revealed whenever the White House says national security issues are at stake and got its way in a late October compromise.

Not yet passed in the Senate, spokesman Ben LaBolt said the president expects to sign the measure in weakened form that excludes cases of leaked classified information or if the administration claims sources must be revealed to prevent or mitigate terrorism or any acts harmful to national security that can include almost anything with no substantiating corroboration.

Other Anti-Democratic Measures

Providing continuity, not progressive change, Obama also:

-- continues extraordinary renditions to hellhole prisons and torture as official US policy;

-- opposes detainee habeas lawsuits in them;

-- won't prosecute Bush administration high-level officials involved in torturing and killing detainees;

-- withholds evidence proving their culpability;

-- invoked the state secrets privilege to prevent lawsuits by victims of rendition, torture, abuse, and by those opposing warrantless wiretapping; and

-- governs with lawless police state authority as extreme, and in some cases, worse than George Bush.

Final Comments

After less than one year in office, Obama:

-- presides over a bogus democracy under a homeland police state apparatus;

-- embraces militarism, imperial wars, and lawlessness like his predecessor;

-- erodes human rights, civil liberties, and constitutional freedoms;

-- keeps looting the federal Treasury for Wall Street;

-- plans new global monetary measures to control the world's money;

-- targets whistleblowers, dissenters, Muslims, Latino immigrants, environmental and animal rights activists, and lawyers who defend them too vigorously;

-- illegally spies on Americans as aggressively as George Bush;

-- destroyed decades of hard won labor rights;

-- wants public education privatized as another business profit center to destroy a 375 year tradition;

-- disdains the public interest in times of growing economic duress;

-- wants everyone inoculated with dangerous, toxic vaccines for a non-existent health threat;

-- backs so-called reform that will ration care and enrich insurers, the drug cartel, and large hospital chains;

-- wants legislation passed to let corporate polluters reap huge windfall profits by raising energy costs and create a speculative bonanza with a new carbon trading derivatives scheme;

-- other legislation to empower agribusiness; and

-- a mandated national ID card for all citizens and legal residents to be able to monitor them everywhere at all times.

Obama wants to do George Bush one better by continuing the worst of his policies, enact more of his own, and destroy the middle class to turn America into Guatamala with ruling elites governing a nation of serfs. Well on his way, he's got three more years to succeed unless mass public outrage stops him.

Stephen Lendman is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization. He lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to the Lendman News Hour on RepublicBroadcasting.org Monday - Friday at 10AM US Central time for cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on world and national issues. All programs are archived for easy listening.

Crunch times call for desperate measures. This time round, it demanded trusting politicians for reaching a deal on climate change. Well, they did reach a deal but not one on saving the climate but on betrayal of climate justice. The clinically depressing document has reaffirmed that none of the political leaders landed at Copenhagen with a heart to do good.

After burning midnight oil, some hung-over from feasting at the Danish Queen’s do, and some sober heads produced a please-the-rich-countries draft. It allows these countries to continue polluting, ensures that some, if not all, vulnerable island nations will submerge, and postpones a deal by a year till a meeting at Mexico happens next November. By that time, citizens of Tuvalu, Kiribati and Maldives, among others, would be on their knees desperately seeking rehabilitation and citizenship in distant nations.

The deal is a document drafted by developed countries in consultation with India, China, Brazil and South Africa – the BASIC bloc. It is a reflection of how farcical norms rule the roost at multilateral negotiations, be it the WTO, WIPO or, in this case, UNFCCC. The UN has completely failed to uphold democratic norms and has instead allowed itself to be dictated by countries that control its purse strings.

The UN Secretary General said that the “finishing line is in sight”. For the island nations and billions of farmers in the developing world, this finishing line translates to an endgame for their livelihood and culture. President Obama calls it a “meaningful” agreement that will serve as a roadmap to future wherein all countries will have to figure out how best to serve the cause of the planet. Sorry Mr. President, what the deal does is to uphold the right of the mighty United States to continue polluting the planet.

But then President Obama presides over a nation that is unwilling to pay heed to his personal calls to reduce emissions. The US Congress and Senate have steadfastly blocked all attempts to put in place a climate change and emission control regime, so he might be a bit hamstrung. Nothing similar of this nature prevails in the case of the EU where, barring Poland, most nations were open to undertake deeper emission cuts. But then, once the US set the trend, why would the EU volunteer to shoulder the burden of its transatlantic brethren?

What about the other major polluters – China and India? Both can vie with each other when it comes to flaunting weak environmental norms – some of the so-called banana republics have a better record of protecting the environment than these two. Here’s a rain check on what the Indian delegation is peddling as a pyrrhic victory engineered by the BASIC bloc:

Emission Cuts: The US gets away with 14-17% reduction on 2005 levels i.e. 3-4% of the 1990 levels; EU, Japan and Russia agree to predetermined 1990 level cuts (Europeans now are the only binding carbon regime in the world). Target for 2050 suddenly goes missing from the text! Further, these emission cuts are not binding.

Temperature: Cap at 2 degrees. So what if more than 100 nations (a majority, if it were ever put to vote at UNFCCC) wanted it capped at 1.5 degrees or the fact that many island nations will go under at this higher level of temperature increase.

Peaking of Carbon Emission: No dates set. This is to please the BASIC bloc at the expense of the rest of the developing economies. Don’t believe it? Well, this is how the text goes: “We should co-operate in achieving the peaking of global and national emissions as soon as possible, recognising that the time frame for peaking will be longer in developing countries”. Can anything get vaguer than this?

Finally, the Moolah! Don’t read much into the $100bn announcement by Hillary Clinton; she herself is not sure how and where from this money will be raised in the first place. While promises of climate adaptation funds have been made in the past and gone undelivered, this deal is offering $30 billion over the next three years. Now, was this not what Gordon Brown was working on for the past few days at Bella Centre? Brown must realise that while he may have achieved partial success in leading the revival of the world banking system, climate change is an entirely different ballgame. A closer look at the annexure reveals that not only the contributions of Japan, EU and US do not add up to $30 billion, the US’ offer is a paltry $3.6 billion!

Ostensibly on Clinton’s announcement, the text says, “Developed countries set a goal of mobilising jointly $100bn a year by 2020 to address needs of developing countries.” Nicely put, but exactly how many US’ corporations will stand to benefit from this?

President Obama along with the BASIC bloc lackeys turned the negotiations into a wrestling bout. Not only will the US be legally allowed to continue polluting the planet, they will not have to pay any significant penalties for it either. The industrial domination of rich countries will continue while the planet will pay the price for it.

December 2010, Mexico City is where this sell-off deal will be granted legitimacy. This is yet another multilateral deal that overlooked the legitimate demands of more than 100 developing countries and muzzled dissent. Democracy was never at play during the two weeks of COP 15 negotiations and a deal brokered between the US and four BASIC bloc nations was thrust on the world as a consensus. Thankfully, even with a fractured coalition, the G77 refused to endorse the deal.

Yet again India played up to the politics of rich nations and deserted the developing countries. It actively participated in allowing an eraser to be run over unresolved issues in square brackets of the text. Today it stands responsible for the cracks in the G77 and at a later date may have to pay a heavy price at other multilateral platforms of negotiations, especially the WTO. While Jairam Ramesh and Mamohan Singh might gloat over their achievement at this disastrous summit, the truth is otherwise and the world knows. By endorsing this deal, India has sleepwalked into a global disaster.

Bhaskar Goswami researches and writes on agriculture and trade related issues. He has worked with several national and international development agencies. Presently he is associated with the Forum for Biotechnology & Food Security, New Delhi.

NASA climate scientist James Hansen never expected the U.N. climate talks in Copenhagen to amount to much. He told the British Guardian newspaper that it would be better if Copenhagen failed. That’s because Hansen is a vocal critic of the economic policies discussed there, and he hopes Copenhagen’s failure gives the public a chance to talk about new options.

Hansen is arguably the world’s best known and most respected climate scientist. Sometimes called the “grandfather of climate change,” he began modeling the effects of warming three decades ago and first testified about climate change before Congress in 1988. He was one of the key figures to blow the whistle on the Bush Administration for censoring science and trying to muzzle warnings about the urgency of the climate crisis.

In the past few years, Hansen has expanded his activities outside the laboratory and into the political fray. In June, he was arrested after marching at a rally against mountaintop removal mining in West Virginia.

More recently, he has become a leading opponent of cap-and-trade, a market approach to greenhouse gas regulation that puts a limit on how much carbon can be emitted and then allows polluters to trade permits to emit. Hansen claims the approach ultimately will not produce the kinds of emissions cuts the world needs to avoid catastrophic climate change. It will simply allow “polluters and Wall Street traders to fleece the public out of billions of dollars,” he says. He is especially critical of the large number of offsets available under the current policy proposals, which allow polluters to pay for emissions reductions elsewhere in the world. He points to some offset schemes that have led to fraud, giving credit for pollution reductions that never actually happened.

Hansen is championing an alternative solution called fee-and-dividend, which would impose a fee on any pollution source (mines, ports of entry) and distribute the revenue back to the public. Both fee-and-dividend and cap-and-trade attempt to reduce carbon emissions by raising the price of fossil fuels, but Hansen insists the former is simpler and less vulnerable to speculation and gaming.

Advocates of cap-and-trade have been dismissive of Hansen’s arguments. David Doniger of the Natural Resources Defense Council says Hansen is simply wrong about cap-and-trade, insists the approach has been effective in the European Union, and maintains that the leading bills now before Congress have enough safeguards to avoid market manipulation. Economist Paul Krugman accuses Hansen of naïve thinking: “hard-science guys tend to assume that [economists are] witch doctors with nothing to tell them.”

Hansen has faced off critics before. He is not alone in his critique. Naomi Klein, author of The Shock Doctrine, says that “carbon-trading represents an unprecedented privatization of the atmosphere, and ... offsets ... threaten to become a resource grab of colonial proportions.” The Indigenous Environmental Network calls cap-and-trade a false solution “that will allow the fossil fuel industry to continue to do what they do—drill, baby, drill.” In November, two longtime U.S. EPA attorneys published a video online calling cap-and-trade “a huge mistake.”

I caught up with Hansen by phone on Monday morning to ask his reaction to Copenhagen and discuss his new book, Storms of My Grandchildren (Bloomsbury, 2009).

Madeline Ostrander: Is the outcome of the talks in Copenhagen better or worse than you imagined?

James Hansen: I think it's a good situation. Now we can step back and look at what is really needed.

The proposals discussed in Copenhagen were like the indulgences of the Middle Ages. The sinners are the developed countries, which are responsible for most of the excess greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. They want to continue business as usual, by buying off the developing countries.

If developing countries can get a hundred billion dollars a year, that's enormously attractive. But both parties are thumbing their noses at young people and future generations.

The hundred billion dollars a year—the money that Secretary of State Clinton claimed the United States would raise to give to developing countries—is vapor money. There's no mechanism for such financing to actually occur, and no expectation that it will.

The leaders can't just make up these greenwash statements and claim that they're dealing with the problem. They're doing the same thing they did with Kyoto. Before the Kyoto Protocol, global emissions had been increasing one and a half percent per year. After Kyoto, the rate accelerated to three percent per year.

Some countries did set goals to reduce their emissions under Kyoto, but when you look at the details, you see that those goals weren’t realized. For example, Japan had a very strong target under Kyoto, but its emissions actually increased substantially, and it bought off the difference using offsets—investing in China and in rainforests. A few countries in Europe reduced their emissions. But that didn't reduce global emissions, because the industry and the emissions just moved overseas. Products were then sent back to European countries on airplanes, which do not have any tax on their fuel.

Madeline: What kinds of solutions should political leaders be discussing?

Jim: You have to recognize that as long as fossil fuels are the cheapest energy, they're going to be used. To change that situation, you have to place a gradually rising price on carbon emissions.

We have to have a very simple system—put a fee on fossil fuels at their origin at the mine or the port of entry. No exceptions.

If the carbon price rises to $115 per ton of carbon dioxide, considering the amount of oil, gas, and coal used last year in the United States, that would generate $670 billion dollars. That’s between $7,500 and $9,000 dollars per family.

That money needs to be given 100 percent to the public so that they have the resources to adjust their lifestyles—such as to buy more efficient vehicles or insulate their homes. As the carbon price rises, it's going to become less and less sensible, for instance, to import food from halfway around the world. The economics would favor a nearby farm, as opposed to agriculture at a great distance.

You cannot have these boondoggles in which we invest billions and billions of dollars in so-called clean coal and give money to polluters.

Madeline: Did you see any signs of progress in Copenhagen?

Jim: There was one. We did have a clear statement from Al Gore. I've been urging him to say that a carbon price is the best way to get emissions to decrease, better than cap-and-trade with offsets. Gore calls it a carbon tax. I don't call it that. Even John Kerry, the cosponsor of the lead bill in the Senate, made a statement admitting that a carbon fee needs to be considered. So I think there's a chance we can have an honest discussion of fee-and-dividend this coming spring in the United States.

The direction that the United States goes determines the direction that the world goes. If we have a sensible approach approved by Congress, then there's still a very good chance we could solve this climate problem.

Madeline: What do you think the public should do to move the United States toward a solution?

Jim: Public involvement is very important. Otherwise politics as usual tends to continue. When I was on the David Letterman show, he asked me that same question. I said people need to understand the difference between cap-and-trade with offsets and fee-and-dividend. Of course. he cut me off at that point [laughs], because that's not a subject for a comedy show. But the concept is not difficult.

For instance, fee-and-dividend will be beneficial for the economy. When you put that amount of money into the public's hands, it's going to stimulate the economy. It's not a net tax but a redistribution of income from the people who are burning a lot of carbon to those who are not. It will tend to discourage the processes that are the most wasteful of fossil fuels. That story has got to be communicated and understood by the public, and we have to put pressure on our politicians to act on behalf of the public, rather than on behalf of their campaign donors.

There are more than 2,000 fossil fuel lobbyists in Washington, and they have written most of the words for the leading climate bills—the Waxman-Markey House bill and the Boxer-Kerry Senate bill.

But we are beginning to see discussion of alternatives. During the campaign last year, Obama advocated for a 100 percent dividend. There was the Larson bill in the House, which had a small, but steadily increasing price on carbon. Now there's the Cantwell-Collins CLEAR Act, which gets rid of the offsets. It is still not exactly fee-and-dividend, but it gets very close. If there is an open discussion in the Senate and House about alternatives, I think it's possible we could get on a sensible path.

Madeline: You’ve said that climate change isn't just a scientific and political issue, but also a personal and moral issue.

Jim: Yeah, that's exactly the point. We're dealing with a planetary crisis. The climate system is in danger of passing tipping points. If we don’t address it, we leave our children with economic and social chaos within this century. Once that situation is understood, it becomes a question of intergenerational justice. It's analogous to the situation that Abraham Lincoln faced with slavery or Winston Churchill faced with Nazism. It is a moral issue, and you can't take a compromise position. You can’t say, "Oh, we'll do a little bit, but we won't solve the problem."

Madeline: You spend so much of time looking at the data and the scale of the problem. What keeps you hopeful?

Jim: Well, if the problem could be understood, there's no question that the public would support action. Look at the sacrifices the public made in World War II. Climate change is harder, because it's less visible. But many of us had hoped that President Obama would help press the world to make the right decisions. Now in the next several months, climate change needs to come to the fore, and people need to understand the actions that are really required.

Madeline: In your book, you describe how your grandchildren have inspired you to push harder to get action on climate change. How has your family influenced your work?

Jim: My grandchildren were the reason that I couldn't just continue to do the science without saying what the implications were. In 2004, I decided I would give one public talk, which I would prepare very carefully with scientific papers to back it up. But then I found that one talk doesn't really have that much effect. So one thing led to another. Finally, I wrote this book. I bring my grandchildren into the story to explain how difficult it is to preserve a climate that will allow humans to continue to exist. The climate of the last 10,000 years has been very stable, and if we don't get on a different path in the next several years, we're going to guarantee that we not only change the climate but destroy a large fraction of the species on the planet.

Madeline Ostrander interviewed James Hansen for YES! Magazine, a national, nonprofit media organization that fuses powerful ideas with practical actions. Madeline is YES! Magazine's senior editor.