2nd PART OF PLUTOCRACY OR DIRECT DEMOCRACY ?

2008-08-13T17:01:00.000-07:00

The Victories and Failures of the People's Revolution in China, and its Lessons for Humanity
by Benjamin Merhav

The article below is a useful account of the people's revolution in China, and of Mao Tsetung as its leader. However, for humanity now to draw the correct lessons for humanity's future the analysis of the ideology, and of the policies and of the consequences of that revolution, must go far more deeper and wider.

As a guide for such a correct analysis we need to reconsider the following points :

1. The role of the ideology : should it be considered a faultless dogma, as if it is a religion, rather than subjected to fearless questioning and criticism by the rank and file ?

2. The role of leader/leadership : is there any need for it - and in particular for the cult of personality (as the leader is like a God) which inevitably results - rather than direct and participatory democracy of the rank and file in the running of society/country ?

3. The role of the revolutionary party : if it is to be the vanguard of the revolution, should it be directed by a leadership group, rather than by rotating functionaries, so as to allow the full participation of the entire rank and file ?

4. The role of production and the control over it - particularly in the context of the planet's ecosystem - should it be left for "experts" to decide, rather than by the rank and file ?

5. The role and shape of human relations - personal, national and international - and the application of various freedoms, should they be decided from above rather by the rank and file, and subjected to a full public debate ?

As is well known, Mao Tsetung strongly supported the initiation and application of the Great Prolertarian Cultural Revolution in China(1966 - 1976). So much so, that he called on the revolutionary youth to "bombard the headquarters (of the Communist Party)", thus considering his own colleagues in the party leadership as enemies of the people ("capitalist roaders") ! However, it seems that he had got himself entangled in the complex of power relationship, as a result of dogmatic application of the Marxist-Leninist ideology to which he himself contributed rather heavily. Thus, for example, his relationship with his long time colleague, Cho Enlai, proved very troublesome in the end, as Cho Enlai was vehemantly opposed to the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, and he actually paved the way for Deng Xiaping to succeed in the counter revolutionary capture of power over the People's Republic of China.

Here is the article :

The True Story Of Mao Tsetung
And The Communist Revolution
In China - Part 1

By Li Onesto

13 August, 2008
Countercurrents.org

In the 1960s and 1970s Mao Tsetung was one of the most famous people in the world. He had led the Chinese people, against all odds, to make a revolution. For the many millions who passionately fought for justice and liberation in those days, the Chinese Revolution stood out like a beacon. And Mao himself was most famous for restlessly refusing to stop the revolution halfway—for never settling in, never ceasing to fight for a world without any division into classes, into nations, into oppressor and oppressed. A lot of people—teachers, workers, doctors, scientists, students, and revolutionaries—from many different countries, went to China to witness the socialist society being built under Mao’s leadership. And many returned home, inspired and hopeful about the possibility of a truly liberating society.

In China itself, the masses revered Mao—as leader of the revolutionary vanguard in China, the Communist Party of China, he had led the victory in a 22-year war of liberation against both foreign invaders and domestic reactionaries. Following that epic struggle, he led the people to construct a new society and new lives in socialist China, and to go further in defending the revolution and transforming society during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. But there were those who opposed Mao, right in the leadership of the Communist Party of China. Like Mao, they had come into the revolution, and the Communist Party, burning with anger over China’s treatment by imperialism. Like Mao, they fought in the revolution for liberation. But unlike Mao their sights did not go all the way to communism; in fact, their aims really went no further than building China into a powerful nation. And in the name of building a strong and modern China they adopted programs and policies that essentially reinforced capitalist relations and thinking. After Mao died in 1976, these “capitalist roaders” in the Chinese Communist Party seized power and overthrew socialism and restored capitalism, arresting hundreds of thousands and killing thousands in the process. And even though the Chinese government has continued to call itself socialist and communist, China has been a capitalist country ever since. Mao’s principles—what he stood for—have been gutted, while China’s new rulers have turned Mao into a nationalist icon.

Today two whole generations of people have grown up in the U.S. where in large part what they know about Mao and China is the official storyline of the U.S. ruling class and mainstream media. And what they know, in large part, is ALL WRONG. People are told that Mao was a heartless, “power-hungry dictator,” who committed great crimes against people. But the TRUTH is that Mao Tsetung was a great revolutionary communist who led a quarter of the planet’s people to liberate China out from under the thumb of imperialist oppressors—and then move on to build a socialist, liberating society for over 25 years. Understanding the truth about Mao is important for everyone—the revolution he led was a major milestone in human history and everyone should know the truth about such a revolution and such a figure. For those who truly want to change the world, there is even more at stake—for Mao’s revolutionary thinking and practice form a critical part of the foundation and the point of departure for rebuilding a revolutionary movement today.

This is the TRUE story of Mao Tsetung and the world historic revolution he led in China.

Growing up in the “Sick Man of Asia”

Mao was born December 26, 1893 and grew up in a China that had been invaded, and divided up by Britain, France, the U.S., Russia, Germany and Japan. These colonial powers controlled the economics and politics of China. They treated the Chinese people like dogs and rounded them up to be used as “coolie labor” on plantations and in mines all over the world. Foreign troops were in every main city. British and American gunboats patrolled the waters and foreign countries controlled the ports, postal system, shipping, railroads and telegraph. A sign posted in a park in the big city of Shanghai read: “No Dogs or Chinese Allowed.” China was so oppressed that it was known as “the sick man of Asia.”

In the China where Mao grew up, most people were poor peasants suffering under the system of feudalism. Big landlords owned most of the land and landless peasants were forced to work for them, getting barely enough to survive. The peasants lived in constant debt, subjected to the tyranny of the landlords and conditions of poverty, hunger and disease. Families sold their children because they couldn’t feed them. Hundreds of thousands starved to death. And life for common people in the cities wasn’t much better. In Shanghai as many as 25,000 dead bodies were picked up off the streets each year. The British flooded China with opium, turning over 60 million Chinese people into addicts—while British and American capitalists got rich off this drug trade. Take a minute and think about the people behind those numbers—the degree of human misery and suffering this represented, year in and year out.

Mao also grew up in a time of peasant uprisings. From 1901 to 1910 there were nearly 1,000 such spontaneous struggles, involving tens of millions of people. As a student, Mao studied the Taiping Rebellion, where peasants took up arms and set up a revolutionary government (from 1850 to 1864). Mao learned how some 20 million people died when the Chinese government, along with the U.S, Britain and France, sent in troops to put the rebellion down. Again, think about the people behind that number.

In 1906, when Mao was 12 years old, all of China was hit by war, famine and flood. When the “Hunan Insurrection” happened, Mao said this influenced his whole life. Thousands of miners and peasants marched through the provincial capital and raided the grain stores of the landlords. Soldiers put the rebellion down and the heads of slaughtered rebels were stuck on the city gates as a warning to the people. Mao said: “This incident was discussed in my school for many days. It made a deep impression on me. Most of the other students sympathized with the ‘insurrectionists’ but only from an observer’s point of view. They did not understand that it had any relation to their own lives. They were merely interested in it as an exciting incident. I never forgot it. I felt that the rebels were ordinary people like my own family and I deeply resented the injustice of the treatment given to them.”

But despite their heroism and sacrifice, these rebellions had proven incapable of truly solving the problem and changing the society in a fundamental way. Mao, like many in his generation, was determined to find the way forward. In 1909, at the age of 16, Mao left home to go to school to become a teacher. He said, “For the first time I saw and studied with great interest a map of the world.” Mao studied the history of other nations and philosophers from many countries. He scanned newspapers from all over China. And for the first time, he read Marx’s “Communist Manifesto.” In 1917, Mao founded the “New People’s Study Society.” This group of young activists opposed opium smoking, gambling, drinking, prostitution and corruption and opposed the oppression of women. Mao argued that women should be “independent persons”—that men could not be free unless women were also liberated. The group started evening classes for workers where Mao taught history, discussed “current affairs,” and read newspapers to the workers. A poster announcing his classes read: “Come and listen to some plain speech¼ you can wear any clothes you want.”

Salvos from Russia

In 1917 the Bolsheviks seized power in Russia and established a new socialist state. This revolution led by Lenin sent shock waves around the world. It spread communism to other countries and connected with anti-colonial, anti-imperialist struggles that were going on. For so many generations the masses of Chinese people had fought back, but had no theory, no leadership and no plan for how to achieve liberation. But now, as Mao put it, “the salvos of the October Revolution brought Marxism-Leninism to China.”

After World War 1, the imperialist powers that won the war transferred Germany’s colonial rights and privileges in China to Japan. On May 4, 1919, 3,000 students in the capital city of Beijing demonstrated against this decision. Martial law was declared and the police and army started arresting people. The students called for a general strike in the schools. Soon after this a strike centered in Shanghai, involving 90,000 workers, shut down more than 100 companies and factories. When Mao and other members of the New People’s Study Society heard about this “May 4th Movement,” they called for a strike and formed a students’ union in Hunan. And throughout 1919 this anti-imperialist movement gained widespread support all over China and politicized millions.

From early on Mao spoke out against the way women were oppressed by feudal tradition. On November 14, 1919, a woman cut her throat as she was being carried in a bridal sedan-chair to an arranged marriage. When Mao heard about this he published a series of 10 articles blaming the existing social conditions for this tragedy. He said women were “a tremendous potential revolutionary force” because “women have more oppression on their backs than men, for whereas men have three mountains of exploitation, women have four, for man also exploits her.” This fundamental stance of Mao’s—his burning desire to get rid of every chain upon humanity—would stay with him his whole life.

In 1921, Mao joined with a small group of Chinese Marxists and together they formed the Chinese Communist Party. By taking up the ideology of Marxism-Leninism they could now begin to effectively tackle the theoretical and practical problems of making revolution in a country like China.

In 1921, Mao married Yang Kaihui, who had joined the communist party. She remained a revolutionary until 1927 when she was captured by the KMT and killed after refusing to renounce her marriage to Mao and her revolutionary politics. Later, in 1961, Mao wrote a poem to commemorate Yang Kaihui—which is among his most famous poems, titled “Ode to the Plum Blossom.”

The Revolution Begins

During this period, peasants were spontaneously rising up. They were confiscating land and attacking landlords and corrupt officials. In 1925 Mao walked from village to village in Hunan Province. He stayed with peasants and worked with them for his meals and lodging. He sat and listened to them, investigating firsthand what their lives were like. He helped set up peasant unions and recruited many peasants into the party.

Some leaders in the Chinese communist party wanted to write off the peasants as “too backward and conservative.” But Mao struggled against this view and argued that, “Without the poor peasants there would be no revolution.” And speaking of the peasant uprisings, he said: “Every revolutionary party and every revolutionary comrade will be put to the test, to be accepted or rejected as they decide. There are three alternatives. To march at their head and lead them? To trail behind them, gesticulating and criticizing? Or to stand in their way and oppose them?”

The Kuomintang (KMT) was a party in China that had originally been nationalist—organized to fight for an independent China and against foreign domination. But in the 1920s it had been taken over by Chiang Kai-shek and turned into a vehicle for the imperialists and the big bourgeoisie and landlords in China. It especially had the backing of the U.S. and Britain, which wanted to maintain the semi-colonial status of China. In 1927, the KMT launched many campaigns aimed at decimating the Communist Party and the revolutionary movement. In the cities the KMT restricted political meetings, the press, workers’ organizations and the right to strike. Thousands of workers were killed, and communists and communist sympathizers were rounded up and publicly executed. At this point there was not a stable, unitary national government in China. In some parts of the country warlords (militarist-landlord cliques) were running things and in other places the KMT had control (and the KMT itself had different factions). Off of all this bloodshed, Chiang Kai-shek set up a KMT government in the city of Nanking and was immediately recognized by the Western imperialist powers as the sole and legal government of China.

Meanwhile in the countryside warlords were carrying out the slaughter of peasants. Rebellious women were singled out—cut into pieces and burned alive. In one area, in just five months, 4,700 peasants, including 500 women, were murdered—they were beheaded, buried alive, strangled, burned and cut into pieces. Land that had been seized by the peasants was returned to landlords. Peasant and worker leaders were rounded up and shot. In Hunan province alone, in one year, over 100,000 peasants and workers were killed. The party lost at least 15,000 members.

Revolution in the Countryside

By 1928 four-fifths of the Communist Party had been exterminated and the party was forced to go underground in the cities. This big defeat required a further analysis and breakthrough in revolutionary theory.

The strategy for proletarian revolution in the Soviet Union had been insurrection in the cities, followed by civil war. Some argued that the revolution in China should follow this model. But with the defeats they had suffered in the cities in trying insurrections, Mao saw this would not work in an oppressed country like China. He recognized that the counter-revolution was too strong in the cities and no matter how heroic, attempts by the workers to seize and hold cities were bound to fail.

Mao argued the revolution had to start in the countryside and build and expand base areas where the revolution could establish political power. The military struggle against the enemy had to be linked with and bound up with the process of carrying out agrarian revolution and creating the seeds of a new liberated society. This meant that the communists had to politically mobilize and lead the masses to carry out land reform, establish new local forms of people’s power, wage struggle against the oppression of national minorities and women and establish a new revolutionary culture among the people. In this way, the base areas could serve as a magnet and growing centers of support among the people. And the revolution could eventually encircle and seize the cities and establish nationwide power. With this strategy and goal, Mao said: “Without a people’s army the people have nothing.” And a new Red Army was formed.

Mao developed principles to build a politically conscious, disciplined army. When the Red Army marched into a town, Mao would immediately call for a meeting with the residents. But this was not always so easy. In one town, the people fled to the mountains and hid in the bushes. This was routine. Everyone fled when armies came by because they had suffered from the ways in which ordinary soldiers in the armies of the warlords and imperialists had been trained to loot and rape. But Mao ordered his soldiers to never enter a house or take anything and he struggled very hard against any thinking in the Red Army that echoed the rape-and-plunder mentality of the bourgeois and feudal armies, or the bandit gangs. So the courteous behavior of the Red Army soldiers was very unusual! By the third day the local people, watching from their hide-outs on the slopes, came back. Mao talked to them, urging them to return. He distributed money and cloth that had been taken from the landlords. He told the people that this army with its red flag was their own army, devoted to their own interests and dedicated to their liberation. The peasants fed and housed the Red Army soldiers and some of them joined the revolutionary army. This scene was repeated over and over as the Red Army under Mao’s leadership marched through the countryside.

All this time, Mao was also studying military theory in its own right, and the history of revolutionary war in the Soviet Union, as well as that of other wars—including in China. By the end of the decade of the 1930s, Mao would become the first to develop a comprehensive Marxist military line and system of thought on military affairs. This doctrine was rooted in the understanding that a revolutionary war depends on the masses and can only succeed on the basis that it enjoys their support and actively enlists them in the struggle.

Mao’s military thinking was extremely scientific. He argued that since the Red Army started out much weaker than the government troops, a quick victory was impossible. And engaging in all-out military battles would only lead to getting crushed. But by avoiding decisive tests of strength and waging guerrilla warfare, the revolutionary forces in China could defeat and weaken the enemy in smaller battles and, through a protracted process, gain popular support, increase in strength and numbers and extend their control. Mao said it was necessary to pursue a strategic policy of protracted warfare in the countryside to gradually bring about a change in the unfavorable balance of strength. And to carry this out Mao developed many different principles of guerrilla warfare like: “When the enemy advances, we retreat; when the enemy halts, we harass; when the enemy tires, we attack; when the enemy retreats, we pursue.”

The Long March

In 1932 Japan invaded China. The Japanese launched a “kill all, burn all” campaign in which, over the years, 30 million Chinese people were killed. In December of 1937, Japanese troops entered Nanking and 50,000 Japanese troops were let loose in an orgy of rape, murder and looting. In four weeks 300,000 people were killed. Japanese soldiers beheaded babies and raped thousands of females, including young girls and old women. Thousands of men were lined up and machine-gunned. Groups of Chinese were used for bayonet practice. Others were doused with kerosene and burned alive. This was a mad, brutal war aimed at totally subjugating the Chinese people and breaking their will to resist.

The communists led the people to fight the Japanese, while Chiang Kai-shek refused to mobilize his troops—except to attack the communists. Chiang’s imperialist-backed KMT troops launched massive attacks against the Red Army. In 1933 a million KMT troops, tanks and airplanes were mobilized against the Red Army. On October 16, 1934, Mao and the Red Army were forced to make a strategic retreat from Kiangsi and embark on the amazing LONG MARCH.

The Red Army, with Mao leading, marched over 6,000 miles through some of the most hazardous terrain on earth. They went through 12 provinces in which 200 million people lived. They crossed 18 mountain ranges and 24 rivers and occupied 62 cities and towns. They fought and beat one million KMT soldiers, averaged nearly one skirmish a day and made 235 day marches and 18 night marches. Mao called the Long March a manifesto, a propaganda force and a seeding machine. He said, “It has sown many seeds which will sprout, leaf, blossom and bear fruit, and will yield a harvest in the future.”

Three months into the Long March, in January 1935, the Red Army reached Tsunyi, in Kweichow Province. Here, the leaders of the Communist Party held a very important conference that turned out to be a crucial turning point. For the first time, the Party united around Mao’s line on political and military strategy, and his overall leadership. When the Red Army left Tsunyi, almost 4,000 peasants from the area joined the march.

On October 20, 1935, a year after leaving Kiangsi, the Long March ended in the North Shensi area. Some 100,000 started the Long March and only about 20,000 finished. While the Long March was a strategic retreat, it was not a defeat. The Red Army reached its new base area with its leadership intact and its political will as strong as ever.

The communists proved to be the best fighters against the Japanese invaders. In 1936, Mao had argued that the KMT and the Communists should form a united front against the Japanese invaders. But while Chiang Kai-shek, head of the KMT, was saving his weapons and soldiers to fight the communists, the Red Army fought 75 percent of the battles with the Japanese between 1937 and 1945. Red armies fought 92,000 battles, killed a million enemy troops, and captured 150,000 prisoners.

Developing Communist Theory

But none of this could have happened spontaneously. Mao developed theory to solve the problems of the revolution, and guide its course. Through all this, he made important and necessary new contributions to the science of communism. During this period Mao tackled the problems of the strategy to make revolution in a nation oppressed by imperialism, military affairs, and philosophy. Such works as “On Contradiction,” “On Practice,” “On New Democracy,” and many others made important contributions to the understanding of revolutionaries all over the world—and continue to be relevant today. Moreover, Mao’s method and approach in tackling these problems is itself an important thing to learn from. In all these arenas Mao both thoroughly rooted himself in Marxist theory but also found it necessary to break with convention in certain important respects.

At the end of 1939, Mao wrote the path-breaking essay, “On New Democracy.” Dealing with the specific question of China, he showed that because it had been dominated by imperialist powers for decades, China had never been able to develop as an independent nation and its economy was distorted and dependent. Imperialist development had led to the transformation of some of China’s more backward production relations. But feudal and semi-feudal economic relations—like landlords owning land and oppressing peasants—existed alongside of, and were incorporated into, capitalist relations; the backward political institutions and ideas that went along with this continued in force, while the Chinese nation overall was dominated by the imperialist powers.

Mao conceived of the revolution in China and other oppressed nations as a two-stage process. The first stage is the new-democratic revolution. This revolution unites all who can be united to kick out imperialism and overthrow feudalism and semi-feudalism, and the bureaucrat-capitalist class and the state system dependent on and serving imperialism. There are important democratic tasks that have to be carried out in this first stage—most especially agrarian land reform based on “land to the tiller,” as well as other democratic demands like an end to the oppression of national minorities and women. While these demands typically arise in the context of the bourgeois-democratic revolution,* and have the potential to open the door to capitalist development, Mao argued that if this struggle were waged as part of the world communist revolution—and specifically if the new state brought into being by the revolution was a form of revolutionary political power led by the proletariat while uniting with the peasantry, with a perspective and program of moving relatively quickly to socialism—then such a revolution could also open up the door to the socialist transition to communism. And Mao analyzed that such a revolution can and must unite in its first stage with sections of capitalists as well as enlightened strata that oppose imperialist domination.

In opposition to some in the Chinese Communist Party, Mao firmly maintained that the whole revolutionary process had to be led by the proletariat and carried out from the very beginning with a clear strategic perspective of socialism and communism. So while the revolution passes through distinct stages, it must be seen and led as a unified process with a red thread running throughout, guided by the outlook, ideology and politics of the proletariat and its goal of a communist world.

War and Victory

After the Long March, Mao and his troops set up a base area in Yenan where they rebuilt the Red Army and the Party with the aim of not only driving out Japan, but defeating the KMT and seizing nationwide power.

Thousands of peasants, workers and intellectuals came to Yenan where the seeds of a new socialist society were being planted and revolutionary groups were formed around all aspects of life. There were associations of women, youth, peasants, workers, school children, and old people. There was even an association of “loafers” who met to talk about how they could become productive members of a new society.

The masses were mobilized to uproot the brutality and poverty of feudalism. Arranged marriages, opium smoking, infanticide, child slavery, and prostitution were eliminated. And religion and superstition started to be replaced with scientific and revolutionary knowledge. Brutal landowners were no longer allowed to savagely exploit the people (and, with the defeat of the Japanese in 1945 and the onset once again of civil war, land was broadly redistributed to the peasants who worked it).

Among the artists and intellectuals from the big cities who came to Yenan was Chiang Ching, who joined the Party in 1933 and came to Yenan in 1937. Chiang Ching taught dramatic art at the Art Academy that had been formed in Yenan and joined the propaganda teams that were sent out to the countryside to put on plays for the peasants. Mao had an intense interest in writers, poets and artists and appreciated the role culture plays in molding public opinion in society. He attended plays, concerts and dances at the academy. He met Chiang Ching, the two fell in love and were married in 1939.

Western journalists like Edgar Snow and Anna Louise Strong who visited Yenan were struck by Mao’s connection with the people, his energy and his philosophical loftiness. One historian wrote: “There are many photographs of Mao, in patched trousers, worn and baggy jackets, pockets always deformed by books and papers. There are also many reminiscences of interviews with him of their length—sometimes lasting all night, of Mao’s untiring passion for explanation down to the last detail. He would join in the fun of parties, laugh at theatricals, in photographs he has a habit of not trying to occupy the center of the picture. Anna Louise Strong has left us a charming word picture of Mao dancing to a timing of his own—he is not a good dancer—of children running in and out of his cave while he worked. There is a kind of childish, impish gaiety about Mao, but it can change into deadly seriousness in a second.... In speaking, he has a way of presenting a most complicated subject so that even the uneducated man can understand it. He never talks above the heads of his audience but he never talks down to them either. There is a real flow of intimacy between him and the people. He always seems to be in contact.” (Han Suyin in Morning Deluge)

Yenan became the center of a movement to fan out and expand the liberated areas throughout China. And by 1945, there were 19 Red bases in nine provinces, and the population under communist administration was around 100 million people.

In 1945 the Japanese invaders were finally defeated. At that point, the U.S.—which had not attacked the communists while the communists fought Japan—immediately changed its tactics. It did everything it could to help the KMT defeat the communists. 90,000 U.S. Marines were sent in to occupy key cities, protect ports, airports, communications centers, coal mines and railways for the KMT. American advisers trained KMT officers and the U.S. gave Chiang modern weapons and vehicles. In the next two years Chiang would get 1.5 billion dollars in equipment and loans from the United States (which in today’s dollars would be roughly 13 billion dollars). But the People’s Liberation Army prevailed and in the first half of 1949, nearly half a million KMT troops were defeated. Chiang Kai-shek’s government fell in April and the People’s Liberation Army captured major cities in the following months.

A New Socialist China

On October 1, 1949, Mao stood in Tiananmen Square in the capital city of Beijing to announce the formation of the People’s Republic of China. He spoke to a crowd of millions and declared: “The Chinese people have stood up!”

Mao had led the Chinese people in 20 years of armed struggle to overthrow their oppressors and drive out foreign imperialism. Now the people had the power to build socialism—as a transitional society with the goal of a communist world free of classes, and all the oppressive relations and ideas that go along with class society.

On this historic day, Mao shared in the people’s joy and celebration, but he also understood, as he had pointed out, that: “The Chinese revolution is great, but the road after revolution will be longer, the work greater and more arduous...”

Next—Part 2: The tremendous achievements of the Chinese revolution once in power—and why and how it was defeated, and capitalism restored.

Li Onesto is a writer for Revolution and author of the book, Dispatches from the People's War in Nepal, (Pluto Press and Insight Press, 2004). This article is available at revcom.us

2008-08-10T18:11:00.000-07:00

OUR PLANET CANNOT SUSTAIN LIFE MUCH LONGER UNDER THE RULE OF BIG BUSINESS, THEREFORE GENUINE DEMOCRACY MUST REPLACE PLUTOCRACY NOW !
by Benjamin Merhav

The following article was downloaded from an Australian website. It is telling the truth about the horrendous dangers of global warming, and it correctly predicts the extinction of life on Earth if adequate and necessary action is not taken now, but it fails to mention the very reason for the present dangerous situation, namely, the rule of big business.

Moreover, global warming is only one of a number of imminent dangers to life on our planet, and all are the direct result of the rule of big business over our planet. Not only does the author fail to mention those dangers nor their common cause, he actually misleads his readers into trusting the system under which we live, as we shall see later below.

Here is first the article :

http://www.planetextinction.com/index.html

"Extinction of life on Earth through Global Warming

For the proofs of our situation (all fully referenced) read this file.
Also look at my talk on "Global Warming, National Security and Ethics" to the Independent Scholars of Australia in Canberra, October 2007. It can be viewed here.

Scientists have become increasingly anxious about global warming and our future on this planet. Since late 2005 fear of global warming has made them increasingly concerned. The evidence is now overwhelming - we have glimpsed what the future may portend.

It is urgent because only a slight increase in temperature is needed to trigger tipping points that cannot then be reversed. This will release vast quantities of greenhouse gas that will have a catastrophic effect on life. Temperatures could rise by 5 degrees in a decade, so how much time do we have?

The question for humanity is: can global warming be prevented?

There is now enough CO2 already in the air, so were we to STOP all burning of fossil fuels immediately, STOP driving all cars and trucks and STOP devastating our forests - and did so NOW - temperatures would still continue to rise for at least another two decades!

We wont be doing that - will we? Nor will Big-Oil nor will Big-Coal nor will our governments!
Then watch out!! For by the time we get around to it - and convince China and India etc etc to do the same - the earth's mean temperature could have increased by at least 2 degrees centigrade. This may not seem a lot, but when the whole globe gets close to this temperature we now know from recent scientific evidence that the following consequences are more than plausible, and these tipping points could happen abruptly:-

There are vast stores of CO2 and methane held in forests, in the oceans and in the soil. Before 2 degrees is reached these greenhouse gases will start to seep into the atmosphere. This will increase temperatures further, triggering the emission of more carbon dioxide and methane - and a dangerous and unstoppable feedback loop will have started. The warming of permafrost in Siberia is a major concern.

The affect of global warming on Arctic and Antarctic ice sheets, especially Greenland and the Western Antarctic, will be devastating. The process of disintegration has already started, and will soon be irreversible. Complete collapse of these two areas would raise sea levels by more than 14 metres.

Trees will be under considerable stress, and whole species may be wiped out either by the heat or by insect pests that flourish in a warmer climate. This is already happening in north America. Bush fires will be more frequent and larger, each time releasing more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

The great tropical forests of the Amazon, Borneo and the Congo are being over-logged and tests have shown they are likely to collapse if drought lasts more than three years. These forests are the major CO2 sinks.

As a result, supplies of food and water will be greatly diminished from flooding, sea level rise, drought and chaotic weather.

Close to a billion people will be forced to search for new homes. This unwanted immigration will force nations to resort to extreme measures including nuclear war.

Continued global warming will turn our lovely planet into a greenhouse of hell for all living things as habitats are threatened. It has happened before in the Eocene Warming and can again.
Therefore we have to prepare. Government must galvanise now to protect our children from imminent danger.

Everywhere, everyone, must STOP using fossil fuels, PLANT trees whiles till PREPARING for the worst ... within the next 8 years.

We cannot allow our world to be destroyed. Failure is not an option .

Every MOTHER knows that even a ten percent possibility that we could DAMAGE OUR CHILDREN is unacceptable.

WOMEN EVERYWHERE - urge your men to read this and start running their lives differently.
YOU can prevent further warming NOWPersonally and Politically."

There are, of course, additional deadly imminent dangers to life on Earth resulting from the continued rule of big business on our planet such as the following :

1. Nuclear war on a world scale, with the zionist apartheid regime of Israel pushing and prodding daily the world's politicians to start it now ! And as an ultimatum that rogue and pariah regime threatens to provoke a world nuclear war by using its own WMD arsenal.

2. The increasing dangers and consequences of the use of DU weapons by Israel and the USA .Added to this DU menace is the spread of nuclear power stations around the world, with each nuclear power station being a potential Chernobyl disaster, and each of them producing very dangerous radio-active waste for which there is no safe storage place on our planet.

3. The mortally dangerous chemicals produced by the chemical and pharmaceutical transnational corporations and forced on the world's people, along with the increasing starvation of millions as a result of the activities of Monsanto and other corporations to the detriment of the entire humanity.

4 . The increasingly contaminated drinking water sources, lands and oceans.

Once more then : it is imperative to replace the political system of plutocracy rule by direct and participatory democracy, and it should be done now, before it is too late !

However, the author of the article ignores that (instead, he offers to lobby the politicians who are the stooges of big business, see his article
http://www.planetextinction.com/planet_extinction_action_government.htm)
and thus he himself is contributing to the colossal dangers humanity is facing now and in the near future !

2008-07-23T16:25:00.000-07:00

https://secure.aclu.org/site/Advocacy?page=SplashPage&id=993
Reject Endless War & Torture Cover-Up

After years of litigation, the Supreme Court recently ruled in Boumediene v. Bush that detainees held at Guantánamo have a right to challenge their detention through habeas corpus -- the ancient freedom that protects people from being thrown in prison illegally, with no help, no end in sight and no due process.

Habeas proceedings could allow detainees to bring up the fact that the evidence that the government has against them came from hearsay, or even torture and abuse. Courts could also release people who are detained indefinitely without charge. Attorney General Michael Mukasey wants to make sure neither of these things happen.

That’s why he’s calling on Congress to authorize indefinite detention through a new declaration of armed conflict. He is also proposing that Congress subvert the right of habeas corpus with a new scheme to hide the Bush administration’s past wrongdoing -- an action that would undermine the constitutional guarantee of due process and conceal systemic torture and abuse of detainees.

Tell Congress to demand the truth on torture and abuse and reject the Bush system of injustice!

Mukasey is asking Congress to expand and extend the war on terror forever. Anyone whom this president or the next one declares to be an "enemy combatant" could then be held indefinitely without a trial. And, the attorney general’s proposal would hide the torture and abuse conducted since 9/11.

At the same time that the House Judiciary Committee is investigating whether high-level Bush White House officials may have committed torture and abuse crimes, Mukasey should know better than to ask Congress to give him the power to detain people without a trial and hide torture and abuse from the courts.

Tell Congress to reject the dangerous Bush/Mukasey plan.

2008-07-22T15:36:00.000-07:00

WAR FOR THE INTERNET: "Death of Free Internet is Imminent - Canada Will Become Test Case"

from

CAMPAIGN

reply-to

peace@peaceinspace.org

CAMPAIGN

date

Wed, Jul 23, 2008 at 7:36 AM

WAR FOR THE INTERNET: "Death of Free Internet is Imminent - Canada Will Become Test Case"

Death of Free Internet is Imminent

Canada Will Become Test Case

By Kevin Parkinson

21/07/08 "Global Research" -- - In the last 15 years or so, as a society we have had access to more information than ever before in modern history because of the Internet. There are approximately 1 billion Internet users in the world B and any one of these users can theoretically communicate in real time with any other on the planet. The Internet has been the greatest technological achievement of the 20th century by far, and has been recognized as such by the global community.

The free transfer of information, uncensored, unlimited and untainted, still seems to be a dream when you think about it. Whatever field that is mentioned- education, commerce, government, news, entertainment, politics and countless other areas- have been radically affected by the introduction of the Internet. And mostly, it's good news, except when poor judgements are made and people are taken advantage of. Scrutiny and oversight are needed, especially where children are involved.

However, when there are potential profits open to a corporation, the needs of society don't count. Take the recent case in Canada with the behemoths, Telus and Rogers rolling out a charge for text messaging without any warning to the public. It was an arrogant and risky move for the telecommunications giants because it backfired. People actually used Internet technology to deliver a loud and clear message to these companies and that was to scrap the extra charge. The people used the power of the Internet against the big boys and the little guys won.

However, the issue of text messaging is just a tiny blip on the radar screens of Telus and another company, Bell Canada, the two largest Internet Service Providers (ISP'S) in Canada. Our country is being used as a test case to drastically change the delivery of Internet service forever. The change will be so radical that it has the potential to send us back to the horse and buggy days of information sharing and access.

In the upcoming weeks watch for a report in Time Magazine that will attempt to smooth over the rough edges of a diabolical plot by Bell Canada and Telus, to begin charging per site fees on most Internet sites. The plan is to convert the Internet into a cable-like system, where customers sign up for specific web sites, and then pay to visit sites beyond a cutoff point.

From my browsing (on the currently free Internet) I have discovered that the 'demise' of the free Internet is slated for 2010 in Canada, and two years later around the world. Canada is seen a good choice to implement such shameful and sinister changes, since Canadians are viewed as being laissez fair, politically uninformed and an easy target. The corporate marauders will iron out the wrinkles in Canada and then spring the new, castrated version of the Internet on the rest of the world, probably with little fanfare, except for some dire warnings about the 'evil' of the Internet (free) and the CEO's spouting about 'safety and security'. These buzzwords usually work pretty well.

What will the Internet look like in Canada in 2010? I suspect that the ISP's will provide a "package" program as companies like Cogeco currently do. Customers will pay for a series of websites as they do now for their television stations. Television stations will be available on-line as part of these packages, which will make the networks happy since they have lost much of the younger market which are surfing and chatting on their computers in the evening. However, as is the case with cable television now, if you choose something that is not part of the package, you know what happens. You pay extra.

And this is where the Internet (free) as we know it will suffer almost immediate, economic strangulation. Thousands and thousands of Internet sites will not be part of the package so users will have to pay extra to visit those sites! In just an hour or two it is possible to easily visit 20-30 sites or more while looking for information. Just imagine how high these costs will be.

At present, the world condemns China because that country restricts certain websites. "They are undemocratic; they are removing people's freedom; they don't respect individual rights; they are censoring information," are some of the comments we hear. But what Bell Canada and Telus have planned for Canadians is much worse than that. They are planning the death of the Internet (free) as we know it, and I expect they'll be hardly a whimper from Canadians. It's all part of the corporate plan for a New World Order and virtually a masterstroke that will lead to the creation of billions and billions of dollars of corporate profit at the expense of the working and middle classes.

There are so many other implications as a result of these changes, far too many to elaborate on here. Be aware that we will all lose our privacy because all websites will be tracked as part of the billing procedure, and we will be literally cut off from 90% of the information that we can access today. The little guys on the Net will fall likes flies; Bloggers and small website operators will die a quick death because people will not pay to go to their sites and read their pages.

Ironically, the only medium that can save us is the one we are trying to save- the Internet (free). This article will be posted on my Blog, www.realitycheck.typepad.com and I encourage people and groups to learn more about this issue. Canadians can keep the Internet free just as they kept text messaging free. Don't wait for the federal politicians. They will do nothing to help us.

I would welcome a letter to the editor of the Standard Freeholder from a spokesperson from Bell Canada or Telus telling me that I am absolutely wrong in what I have written, and that no such changes to the Internet are being planned, and that access to Internet sites will remain FREE in the years to come. In the meantime, I encourage all of you to write to the media, ask questions, phone the radio station, phone a friend, or think of something else to prevent what appears to me to be inevitable.

Maintaining Internet (free) access is the only way we have a chance at combatting the global corporate takeover, the North American Union, and a long list of other deadly deeds that the elite in society have planned for us. Yesterday was too late in trying to protect our rights and freedoms. We must now redouble our efforts in order to give our children and grandchildren a fighting chance in the future.

Author's website: http://realitycheck.typepad.com/

2008-07-09T12:25:00.000-07:00

http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_27427.shtml
Fidel Castro and the FARC: Eight Mistaken Thesis of Fidel Castro
By James Petras
Jul 8, 2008

Introduction

July 2008 Introduction I have been a supporter of the Cuban Revolution for exactly fifty years and recognize Fidel Castro as one of the great revolutionary leaders of our time. But I have never been an uncritical apologist: On several crucial occasions I have expressed my disagreements in print, in public and in discussions with Cuban leaders, writers and militants. Fidel Castro’s articles and commentaries on the recent events in Colombia, namely his discussion of the Colombian regime’s freeing of several FARC prisoners (including three CIA operatives and Ingrid Betancourt) and his critical comments on the politics, structure, practices, tactics and strategy of the FARC and its world-renowned leader, Manuel Marulanda, merit serious consideration.

Castro’s remarks demand analysis and refutation, not only because his opinions are widely read and influence millions of militants and admirers in the world, especially in Cuba and Latin America, but because he purports to provide a ‘moral’ basis for opposition to imperialism today. Equally important Castro’s unfortunate diatribe and critique against the FARC, Marulanda and the entire peasant-based guerrilla movement, has been welcomed, published and broadcast by the entire pro-imperialist mass media on five continents. Fidel Castro, with few caveats, has uncritically joined the chorus condemning the FARC and, as I will demonstrate, without reason or logic.

Eight Erroneous Theses of Fidel Castro

Castro claims that the ‘liberation’ of the FARC political prisoners “opens a chapter for peace in Colombia, a process which Cuba has been supporting for 20 years as the most appropriate for the unity and liberation of the peoples of our America, utilizing new approaches in the complex and special present day circumstances after the collapse of the USSR…” (Reflections of Fidel Castro, July 4, 2008) .

What is astonishing about this thesis (and the entire essay) is Castro’s total omission of any discussion of the mass terror unleashed by Colombia’s President Uribe against trade unionists, political critics, peasant communities and documented by every human rights group in and out of Colombia in both of his recent essays.

In fact, Castro exculpates the current Uribe regime, the most murderous regime, and puts the entire blame on ‘US Imperialism’. Since the “collapse of the Soviet Union”, and under the US-led military offensive, a multitude of armed revolutionary movements have emerged in Lebanon, Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Nepal, and other pre-existing armed groups in Colombia and the Philippines, have continued to engage in struggle. In Latin America, the “new approaches” to revolution were anything but peaceful – massive popular uprisings overthrowing corrupt electoral politicians in Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, Venezuela…costing many hundreds of lives.

Fidel Castro denigrates the recently deceased leader of the FARC, Manuel Marulanda, as a “peasant, communist militant, principle leader of the guerrilla” (Reflections). In his text of July 5, 2008 (Reflections II), Castro condescendingly refers to:“Marulanda of notable natural intelligence and leadership qualities, on the other hand never had opportunities to study when he was an adolescent. It is said he only finished the fifth grade. He conceived (of the revolution) as a long and prolonged struggle, a point of view which I never shared.”

Castro was the son of a plantation owner and educated in private Jesuit colleges and trained as a lawyer. He implies that education credentials and higher status prepares the revolutionary leadership to lead the peasants lacking formal education, but with ‘natural leadership qualities’ apparently sufficient to allow them to follow the intellectuals and professionals better suited to lead the revolution. The test of history however refutes Castro’s claims.

Marulanda built, over a period of 40 years, a bigger guerrilla army with a wider mass base than any Castro-inspired guerrilla force from the 1960’s to 2000.Castro promoted a theory of ‘guerrilla focos’ between 1963-1980, in which small groups of intellectuals would organize an armed nucleus in the countryside, engage in combat and attract mass peasant support. Every Castro-ite guerrilla foco was quickly defeated – wiped out – in Peru, Venezuela, Brazil, (urban focos), Bolivia, Argentina. In contrast, Marulanda’s prolonged guerrilla war strategy relied on mass grass roots organizing based on close peasant ties with guerrillas, based on community, family and class solidarity, building slowly and methodically a national political-military people’s army.

In fact, a serious re-examination of the Cuban revolution reveals that Castro’s guerrillas were recruited from the mass of urban mass organizations, methodically organized prior to and during the formation of the guerrilla foco in 1956-1958.Although reliable figures on the FARC are available, Castro underestimated by half the number of FARC guerrillas, relying on the propaganda of Uribe’s publicists.

Castro condemns the ‘cruelty’ of the FACR tactics “of capturing and holding prisoners in the jungle.” With this logic, Castro should condemn every revolutionary movement in the 20th century beginning with the Russian, Chinese and Vietnamese revolutions. Revolutions are cruel but Fidel forgets that counter-revolutions are even crueler. Uribe established local spy networks involving local officials, as was done in Vietnam during that war. And the Vietnamese revolutionaries eliminated the collaborators because they were responsible for the execution of tens of thousands of village militants.

Castro fails to comment on the fact that Ms. Betancourt, upon her celebrated ‘liberation’ embraced and thanked General Mario Montoya. According to a declassified US embassy document, Montoya organized a clandestine terrorist unit (‘American Anti-Communist Alliance’), which murdered thousands of Colombian dissidents, almost all of them ferociously tortured beforehand. The ‘cruelty’ of FACR captivity did not show up in Betancourt’s medical exam: She was in good health!

Fidel claims “Cuba is for peace in Colombia but not US military intervention”. It is the Colombian oligarchy and Uribe regime, which has invited and collaborated with the US military intervention in Colombia. Castro implies that US military intervention is imposed from the outside, rather than seeing it as part of the class struggle within Colombia, in which Colombia’s rulers, landowners and narco-traffickers play a major role in financing and training the death squads. In the first 6 months of 2008, 24 trade union leaders have been murdered by the Uribe regime, over 2,562 killed over the past twenty years since what Castro describes as the “new roads of complex and special circumstances.” Fidel totally ignores the continuities of death squad murders of unarmed social movement activists, the lack of solidarity from Cuba toward all the Colombian movements since Havana developed diplomatic and commercial ties with the Uribe regime.

Castro calls for the immediate release of all FARC-held prisoners, without the minimum consideration of the 500 guerrillas tortured and dehumanized in Uribe’s and Bush’s horrendous high security ‘special prisons’. Castro boasts that Cuba released its prisoners captured during the anti-Batista struggle and calls for the FARC to follow Cuba’s example, rather than the Vietnamese and Chinese revolutionary approach. Castro’s attempt to impose and universalize his tactics, based on Cuban experience, on Colombia lacks the minimum effort to understand, let alone analyze, the specificities of Colombia, its military, the political context of the class struggle and the social and political context of humanitarian negotiations in Colombia.

Castro claims the FARC should end the guerrilla struggle but not give up their arms because in the past guerrillas who disarmed were slaughtered by the regime. Instead, he suggests they should accept France’s offer to abandon their country or accept Chavez’ (Uribe’s ‘brother’ and ‘friend’) proposal to negotiate and secure a commission made up Latin American notables to oversee their integration into Colombian politics. What are ‘armed’ guerillas going to do when thousands of Uribe’s soldiers and death squads ravage the countryside? Flee to the mountains and shoot wild pigs? France means abandoning millions of starving vulnerable peasant supporters and the class struggle.

Fidel Castro totally omits from his discussion the manner in which every political leader involved in the ‘humanitarian mission’ used the celebration of Betancourt’s ‘liberation’ to cover up and distract from their serious political difficulties. First and foremost, Uribe’s re-election was ruled illegal by the Colombian Supreme Court because he was accused and convicted of bribing members of Congress to vote for the constitutional amendment allowing his running for a second term. Uribe’s presidency is de facto illegal. Betancourt’s release and delirious embrace of Uribe undermines the judicial verdict and eliminates the court injunction for a new Congressional vote or national election.

Sarkozy’s popularity in France was in a vertical free fall, his highly publicized intervention in the negotiations with the FARC were a total failure, his militarist policies in the Middle East and virulent anti-immigrant policies alienated substantial sectors of the French public (as did rising prices and economic stagnation). The release of Betancourt and her effusive praise and embrace of Sarkozy revived his tarnished image and gave him a temporary respite from the burgeoning political and economic discontent with his domestic and foreign policies.

Chavez used the release of Betancourt to embrace his ‘enemy’, Uribe, and to put further distance from the FARC, in particular, and the popular movements in Colombia, as well as to build bridges with a post-Bush US President. Chavez also returned to the good graces of the entire pro-imperialist mass media and favorable comments from the right-wing US Presidential candidate, John McCain, who “hoped the FARC would follow Chavez demands to disarm.”

Cuba, or at least Fidel Castro, used the ‘liberation’ of Betancourt to display his long-term hostility to the FARC (dating at least from 1990) for embarrassing his policy of reconciliation with the Colombian regime.

Striking a humanitarian and quasi-electoral posture in celebrating Betancourt’s release, Castro lambasted the FARC for its ‘cruelty’ and armed resistance to the terrorist Uribe regime. Castro attacked the FARC’s”authoritarian structure and dogmatic leadership”, ignoring FARC’s endorsement of electoral politics between 1984-90 (when over 5,000 disarmed activists and political candidates were slaughtered), and the free and open debate over policy alternative in the demilitarized zone (1999-2002) with all sectors of Colombian society. In contrast, Castro never permitted free and open debate and elections, even among communist candidates in any legislative process – at least until he was replaced by Raul Castro.

The abovementioned political leaders were serving their own personal political interests by bashing the FARC and celebrating Betancourt at the expense of the people of Colombia.

Conclusion

Has Castro clearly thought through the disastrous consequences for millions of impoverished Colombians or is he thinking only of Cuba’s possible improvement of relations with Colombia once the FARC is liquidated?

The effect of Castro’s anti-FARC articles has been to provide ammunition for the imperial mass media to discredit the FARC and armed resistance to tyranny and to bolster the image of death squad President Uribe.

When the world’s premier revolutionary leader denies the revolutionary history and practice of an ongoing popular movement and its brilliant leader who built that movement, he is denying the movements of the future a rich heritage of successful resistance and construction. History will not absolve him.

(Emphasis added - B.M.)

2008-06-24T11:58:00.000-07:00

ONCE MORE : THE URGENCY OF REPLACING PLUTOCRACY WITH DIRECT DEMOCRACY NOW TO SAVE HUMANITY AND ALL LIFE ON EARTH

by Benjamin Merhav

The following two articles implicitly rely on the common sense of the rulers' politicians, but the rulers' politicians are the stooges of the huge transnational corporations' owners and chieftains who rule the world . However, they have no other "common sense" than make ever more profits and gain ever more control over the planet's people and resources.

If humanity and all life on earth are to be saved then plutocracy must be replaced now by democracy, and nothing less will do !

http://countercurrents.org/lynas240608.htm

Climate Chaos Is Inevitable. We Can Only Avert Oblivion
By Mark Lynas

24June,2008

The Guardian

Sometimes we need to think the unthinkable, particularly when dealing with a problem as dangerous as climate change - there is no room for dogma when considering the future habitability of our planet. It was in this spirit that I and a panel of other specialists in climate, economics and policy-making met under the aegis of the Stockholm Network thinktank to map out future scenarios for how international policy might evolve - and what the eventual impact might be on the earth's climate.

We came up with three alternative visions of the future, and asked experts at the Met Office Hadley Centre to run them through its climate models to give each a projected temperature rise. The results were both surprising, and profoundly disturbing.

We gave each scenario a name. The most pessimistic was labelled "agree and ignore" - a world where governments meet to make commitments on climate change, but then backtrack or fail to comply with them. Sound familiar? It should: this scenario most closely resembles the past 10 years, and it projects emissions on an upward trend until 2045. A more optimistic scenario was termed "Kyoto plus": here governments make a strong agreement in Copenhagen in 2009, binding industrialised countries into a new round of Kyoto-style targets, with developing countries joining successively as they achieve "first world" status. This scenario represents the best outcome that can plausibly result from the current process - but ominously, it still sees emissions rising until 2030.

The third scenario - called "step change" - is worth a closer look. Here we envisaged massive climate disasters around the world in 2010 and 2011 causing a sudden increase in the sense of urgency surrounding global warming. Energised, world leaders ditch Kyoto, abandoning efforts to regulate emissions at a national level. Instead, they focus on the companies that produce fossil fuels in the first place - from oil and gas wells and coal mines - with the UN setting a global "upstream" production cap and auctioning tradable permits to carbon producers. Instead of all the complexity of regulating squabbling nations and billions of people, the price mechanism does the work: companies simply pass on their increased costs to consumers, and demand for carbon-intensive products begins to fall. The auctioning of permits raises trillions of dollars to be spent smoothing the transition to a low-carbon economy and offsetting the impact of price rises on the poor. A clear long-term framework puts a price on carbon, giving business a strong incentive to shift investment into renewable energy and low-carbon manufacturing. Most importantly, a strong carbon cap means that global emissions peak as early as 2017.

This "upstream cap" approach is not a new idea, and our approach draws in particular on a forthcoming book by the environmental writer Oliver Tickell. However, conventional wisdom from governments and environmental groups alike insists that "Kyoto is the only game in town", and that proposing any alternative is dangerous heresy.

But let's look at the modelled temperature increases associated with each scenario. "Agree and ignore" sees temperatures rise by 4.85C by 2100 (with a 90% probability); for "Kyoto plus", it's 3.31C; and "step change" 2.89C. This is the depressing bit: no politically plausible scenario we could envisage will now keep the world below the danger threshold of two degrees, the official target of both the EU and UK. This means that all scenarios see the total disappearance of Arctic sea ice; spreading deserts and water stress in the sub-tropics; extreme weather and floods; and melting glaciers in the Andes and Himalayas. Hence the need to focus far more on adaptation: these are impacts that humanity is going to have to deal with whatever now happens at the policy level.

But the other great lesson is that sticking with current policy is actually a very risky option, rather than a safe bet. Betting on Kyoto could mean triggering the collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet and crossing thresholds that involve massive methane release from melting Siberian permafrost. If current policy continues to fail - along the lines of the "agree and ignore" scenario - then 50% to 80% of all species on earth could be driven to extinction by the magnitude and rapidity of warming, and much of the planet's surface left uninhabitable to humans. Billions, not millions, of people would be displaced.

So which way will it go? Ultimately the difference between the scenarios is one of political will: the question now is whether humanity can summon up the courage and foresight to save itself, or whether business as usual - on climate policy as much as economics - will condemn us all to climatic oblivion.

· Mark Lynas is the author of Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet

=================================

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5i3NLY5naFMJIsbKHNeiWIKMTsEiQD91G3IBG0

NASA warming scientist: 'This is the last chance'
By SETH BORENSTEIN

WASHINGTON (AP) — Exactly 20 years after warning America about global warming, a top NASA scientist said the situation has gotten so bad that the world's only hope is drastic action.
James Hansen told Congress on Monday that the world has long passed the "dangerous level" for greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and needs to get back to 1988 levels. He said Earth's atmosphere can only stay this loaded with man-made carbon dioxide for a couple more decades without changes such as mass extinction, ecosystem collapse and dramatic sea level rises.
"We're toast if we don't get on a very different path," Hansen, director of the Goddard Institute of Space Sciences who is sometimes called the godfather of global warming science, told The Associated Press. "This is the last chance."

Hansen brought global warming home to the public in June 1988 during a Washington heat wave, telling a Senate hearing that global warming was already here. To mark the anniversary, he testified before the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming where he was called a prophet, and addressed a luncheon at the National Press Club where he was called a hero by former Sen. Tim Wirth, D-Colo., who headed the 1988 hearing.
To cut emissions, Hansen said coal-fired power plants that don't capture carbon dioxide emissions shouldn't be used in the United States after 2025, and should be eliminated in the rest of the world by 2030. That carbon capture technology is still being developed and not yet cost efficient for power plants.

Burning fossil fuels like coal is the chief cause of man-made greenhouse gases. Hansen said the Earth's atmosphere has got to get back to a level of 350 parts of carbon dioxide per million. Last month, it was 10 percent higher: 386.7 parts per million.

Hansen said he'll testify on behalf of British protesters against new coal-fired power plants. Protesters have chained themselves to gates and equipment at sites of several proposed coal plants in England.

"The thing that I think is most important is to block coal-fired power plants," Hansen told the luncheon. "I'm not yet at the point of chaining myself but we somehow have to draw attention to this."

Frank Maisano, a spokesman for many U.S. utilities, including those trying to build new coal plants, said while Hansen has shown foresight as a scientist, his "stop them all approach is very simplistic" and shows that he is beyond his level of expertise.

The year of Hansen's original testimony was the world's hottest year on record. Since then, 14 years have been hotter, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Two decades later, Hansen spent his time on the question of whether it's too late to do anything about it. His answer: There's still time to stop the worst, but not much time.

"We see a tipping point occurring right before our eyes," Hansen told the AP before the luncheon. "The Arctic is the first tipping point and it's occurring exactly the way we said it would."

Hansen, echoing work by other scientists, said that in five to 10 years, the Arctic will be free of sea ice in the summer.

Longtime global warming skeptic Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., citing a recent poll, said in a statement, "Hansen, (former Vice President) Gore and the media have been trumpeting man-made climate doom since the 1980s. But Americans are not buying it."

But Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., committee chairman, said, "Dr. Hansen was right. Twenty years later, we recognize him as a climate prophet."

On the Net:
Hansen's speech: http://www.google.com/url?
===========
FAIR USE NOTICE: This may contain copyrighted (C ) material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Suchmaterial is made available for educational purposes, to advanceunderstanding of human rights, democracy, scientific, moral, ethical, andsocial justice issues, etc. It is believed that this constitutes a 'fairuse' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 U.S.C.section 107 of the US Copyright Law. This material is distributed without profit.

2008-06-21T13:36:00.001-07:00

More on the Imminence of the Ultimate Ecological Catastrophe on Our Planet
by Benjamin Merhav

As we have mentioned before in this series, and as the menace on all life forms is accelerated by the day, with all previous predictions and alarms changed to the worse - such as the melting of the Ice Cap; the poisoning and rising level of the oceans; the extermination rate of species; the misuse and destruction of precious arable lands leading to starvation; the pollution of air land and water; the spread of nuclear power ( with the promise of more radioactive waste, more radioactive weapons, and more Chernobyl type disasters ); the enormous force and frequency of storms, floods and mudslides etc. - the reality proves that our planet cannot sustain life much longer under the rule of big business.

Almost our entire planet is now under direct or indirect rule of plutocracy,hence the imminence of the ultimate ecological catastrophe. It follows, therefore, that unless plutocracy is replaced by genuine democracy in the near future, the huge transnational corporations would bring about the ultimate ecological catastrophe on humanity, and on most other living creatures.

The following Last Call might prove to be the last call in reality, simply because it is not adequate as it relies on the expectation of logic and common sense of big business owners and their politician stooges. Consequently it is not genuine and cannot be so,because the only logic which drives big business is making ever more money and accumulate ever more power, and nothing else matters. This has been the logic of the capitalist system since its inception. In Australia, perhaps more than anywhere else capitalism, since the invasion of the continent 220 years ago, and the genocide of its indigenous people, is still on the rampage. In no other country the local comprador ruling class has been so loyal to the British empire first and to the USA empire now (with Australian troops fighting for the British wars first and then for USA imperialism after the 2nd WW), thereby help bring about the menace of the ultimate ecological disaster on our planet.

Here is that last call :

http://www.governmentnews.com.au/2008/06/16/article/YMGAROAJKX.html

A last call on global warming

A group of Australia’s leading scientists and politicians has made “a last call” for an effective response to global warming.

The group, which consists of over 200 climate scientists, population experts, politicians and environmental lawyers, has released a joint statement described as “call to arms” following a climate change conference recently held in Canberra.

Global warming tipping points are imminent, they say, and the need for action is “extremely urgent” as “our window of opportunity for avoiding severe impacts is rapidly closing”.

"The first key message is we really haven't got much longer to go before the problem is taken out of our hands,” Climate scientist Professor Barry Brook from the Adelaide University told the ABC.

According to the statement, the speed of global warming is greater than previously predicted with the Arctic summer sea ice projected to melt entirely within the next five years.

The statement says, without much tightened greenhouse gas reductions targets, beyond 2ºC of warming would be unavoidable, engendering “huge human and societal costs and perhaps even the effective end of industrial civilisation”.

Prof Brook told the ABC that the technologies to tackle climate change are already available, and it is about time to implement them.

He said: “The technologies to implement energy efficiency and also to really scale up rapidly our use for renewable energy such as solar and wind [are available]...There is no reason why we need to continue to stall.”

Backing the statement, Prof Brook said the nature of the argument is not technical or economic, but social and political.

"It's about people understanding and recognising the problem and seeing what an advantage it is,” he said.

"And it's also political because it requires some decisions from our political leaders to lead the way, and implement polices - such as the mandatory renewable target, and the emissions trading scheme.”

[Mon 16/06/2008 04:44:52]

2008-06-10T13:37:00.001-07:00

June 10, 2008

"Obama And McCain:
Two Sides Of The Same Coin

By Timothy V. Gatto

10 June, 2008
Countercurrents.org

I’ve waited to write this article for a while now. I used to be a loyal die-hard Democrat for 54 years of my life. I no longer know what a “Democrat” is anymore; I don’t know what a “Progressive” is either. I once thought that a “Progressive” was words that people who were too shy to say they were “liberals” used in its place. I don’t feel that way anymore. These so called “Progressives” aren’t liberals, they are something else completely. They are not people that have liberal values that put the welfare of the people of our country first. There are mass-media believers that can’t think past the last “sound-bite” they heard on a campaign video from the DNC.

The current state of the Democratic Party is about as close to an “opposition party” as Eli Lilly is to Searle. They are just different brands of the same product. The product in this case is the Military-Corporate-Industrial-Complex that owns America, owns the media, owns the banking system and owns just about every main-stream politician in this whole damn country. Don’t think I’m telling the truth? It’s easy to see the truth if you want to take the time to look at it. Just find out where the money is coming from for these campaigns that buy the hopes and dreams of the American people. The candidates have spent a quarter of a billion dollars on their primary campaigns just in the Democratic Party. That’s a half Billion Dollars between Hillary Clinton and the “sainted” Barack Obama. Where did they get this money, from ordinary people that are loosing their homes to foreclosure that are working two jobs because their good job was outsourced by corporations that wanted to cut costs? Are they getting donations from people that can’t make the minimum on their credit card bills? You tell me.

I’ll save you the trouble of looking on your own. Go to WWW.Opensecrets.org, a website that was made so everyday people like you and I could find these things out. The Center for Responsive politics tell you who gave and who got from whom. Check it out, or are you afraid of being disillusioned? If you care about the truth, take your look and see who’s behind the campaigns. You’ll see who corporate America is betting on to keep the status Quo. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the same Military-Industrial-Corporate-Complex is behind both candidates of the two major parties.

A few days ago, Senator John McCain spoke to AIPAC. Maybe you don’t know it, but AIPAC does not speak for the majority of Jews living in America. The truth is that AIPAC represents the right wing of the Israeli Government and the right wing Jews in America. The other 80% of Jews living in America are the most part liberal Democrats. They don’t subscribe to AIPAC. AIPAC also has fundamentalist Christians that are betting on the “Rapture”. AIPAC is a right wing, predominantly Republican organization that takes a hard line against and concession to peace that Israel might be asked to make in the interests of peace in the Middle-East. Another thing you might ask these people, why hasn’t Israel signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty? The answer is that America has colluded with the Jewish State to allow them to produce from 150-to 300 nuclear weapons. Nice trick. We rant about Iran building reactors while Israel stocks nukes. Isn’t that rather one-sided? We are a country that claims we are non-judgmental and want only to keep peace and stop future nuclear wars? The American people have been deceived.

When McCain spoke to AIPAC, he warned about Iran. He said that Israel should not negotiate with Hamas. He said that the US is Israel’s #1 ally. That’s just great. What do they need us for when they can wipe Iran of the face of the Earth? It’s because we give them legitimacy. Not only that, AIPAC donates over $110,000,000 to Congressmen ands Senators in our government. McCain was predictably for the cause of AIPAC. What was surprising was the speech given by the presumptive nominee, the so-called anti-war Democratic Presumptive nominee, Barack Obama when he spoke to AIPAC inured him to the right-wing AIPAC. Wasn’t this the anti-war candidate?

Senator Barack Obama, with his two years in Washington politics, wanted to win the hearts and minds of AIPAC. So he too brought up the fact that Israel should not negotiate with Hamas. He even went so far to say that they never should have been able to be on the ballot, because there was evidence before the elections that they would win. How’s that for a “believer in Democracy”. Don’t let the people’s choice get a chance to run. The truth is that 64% of Israelis citizen’s want to negotiate with Hamas. Obama says that unless Hamas recognizes Israel’s right to exist, that they should not be talked to. Does he realize that if Hamas agrees to Israel’s right to exist that the wording in the phrase means that they also must disavow the right of return or compensation to Palestinian lands usurped by the Jewish State and to give up reparations for the land, businesses a property taken by Israel since 1946? To all Americans, think about it. If people took these things from us, would you let it slide?

At one time Barack Obama was outraged about what was happening in Gaza. Time and attitude change quickly when you clinch the Democratic nomination. He calls for a Palestine that is united contiguously, that doesn’t bode well for the surrounded ghetto that once was the Gaza strip. What’s to become of them? More ethnic cleansing and killing of women and children as Israeli jets and Tanks keep blowing the city to hell? Its accepted genocide in Gaza and the majority of the world is turning a deaf ear to the plight of these people. We hear of “terrorist” attacks against Israel. But the truth is that more Israeli citizens have died in automobile accidents than in terrorist incidents. Think about this.

Obama had some hard words for Iran. This is a nation that knows that America looks to that country as its next victim of “regime change”. That’s a catchword for overthrowing their government and putting in American puppets that will sell their resourses for pennies on the dollar. We have been doing this as a nation since 1951, in all of Latin America and Central America. The American people know this, but as long as they can maintain their standard of living, it seems unimportant how many people die from CIA operations that install strong-Arm governments that oppress their people and sell off their resources to this “American Empire” we seem to have developed.

People reading this know the truth, they know what I’m writing is the truth. We are backing people that support our world-wide agenda, whether it is right or wrong. Obama showed his true colors when he spoke to AIPAC. He is too young to realize that this world is being manipulated by moneyed interests that are after power and control. I’m sure they did a good job of convincing him that with words they stuck in his mouth that he believes are proper and for the good of all. He doesn’t understand the reality of how the world works. The right-wing government wants no peace as long as they are playing with a full deck, and that deck has the total blind support of the American people. Senator Obama might truly believe he’s going to bring change; I want to make it clear to him that as long as he listens to the ultra capitalists’ that run his campaign and the people that he uses as advisors, that he will be no different that the MICP wants him to be. There will be no change. Let him talk about giving the American people our civil liberties back. Let him talk about overturning the Military Commissions Act that scrapped Habeas Corpus and the John Warner Defense Act of 2006 that totally eliminated posse comitatus so that the Federal Government could not use Federal troops without the permission of Congress for law enforcement in the United States that brings America closer to martial law, let his talk about “Extraordinary Rendition” flights where we pick up “suspects” and bring them to other countries so that they may be tortured. Let’s talk about Guantanamo and the presidential signing statements. Let him talk about PD 51 and the North American Union. Let him talk about the right of nations to determine their own destiny. Let him speak about dismantling the “Unitary Presidency” and making Congress perform their oversight duties. These are the issues. Our jobs in this country are the issues. Freedoms of the Press are our issues. The “Good Ole Boy” system is rife with entrenched Congressman and Senators who work for their own best’s interests and not for their constituents. ”Professional Politicians who work to make a career out of looking after themselves, not constitutes at home, they come last. Some of these Congressman and Senators have been there for decades! The time for Corporate Government must come to an end. Government by the people and for the people must be re-instituted. Government for the sake of profiting the Military-Industrial-Complex must be stopped. The corporate policymakers should be damned. They have damned themselves by promoting this travesty.

When the 10% of American families own 71% of this nation’s wealth, something went terribly wrong in this country. The “Robber Barons” have returned. When the 90% of us have to share to remaining 29% of this countries’ wealth when we are the ones that give our blood and sweat to make the money that goes in the bank accounts of the “Privileged Few” while we lose benefits and heath care and CEO’s make seven figure salaries on companies that are running at deficits, the government is not looking after the interests of the majority of our people. Let me say this, Americans are too proud to be your serfs. We want change. Not the phony change of the corporate controlled Democrats, but real change. I hope this brings some kind of enlightenment to Americans. Regime change and world domination is not what Americans want. Your multi-national corporations don’t care about the American people anymore. The politicians just want to stay in power.

We Americans, or a majority were born with our eyes closed and they have been closed for a long time. They are open now. Let this be a warning to all you global industrialists and your military industrial complex. In the words of President John F. Kennedy:

We do not want a PAX Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war. Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living, the kind that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and to build a better life for their children -- not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women -- not merely peace in our time but peace for all time." John F. Kennedy (1963)

The American people are fooled into thinking “Progressivism” is something different. There are many Progressives that are real; the majority uses the word to hide behind. I am an American that does not want to conquer or control the world for the sake of greed. You may not realize this now, but my name is legion. Americans are peaceful people that want to live with the world, and be a part of the world. PAX Americana is not our goal. You industrialists’ are leading this country into run with your own insatiable greed. Wake up and smell the coffee. Your political parties are not offering us anything new except strife at the price of American sacrifice. We will not stand for this much longer. You will bankrupt our once proud nation, and lead us into the dustbin of history. Most Americans realize this but are at a loss of what to do, so they embrace a junior Senator that promises “change”. He will bring no change, jus a softer continuation of what is in the interests of the people that dominate this nation. That my friends are not you and me, it could be, if we would all wake up and smell the coffee. That coffee must be strong, we must be strong, or we will give our children a nation that is run by people that are not anything like the average citizen. We will be their chattel, if we are not already. I for one think that American will never stand for it. The Mainstream Media did a remarkable job in their propaganda and their debates and articles that never asked the important questions that I have asked in this article. Let this article see the light of day, it asks the questions that we as Americans want answers too. Do we want never-ending war and saber-rattling as the defense industries make huge profits, or do we want a return to peace and a chance to rebuild America for our children?"

timgatto@hotmail.com
www.liberalpro.com
==============================================================

Only Nader Has Pointed Out the Danger

"Deadly Fallout From Obama's Groveling Before Israel Lobby

By JAMES G. ABOUREZK

(counterpunch.org)

Like a Moslem undertaking the Hajj, the once in a lifetime trip to Mecca, or a Catholic chancing to see the Pope speak from his Vatican window, presidential candidates seemingly long to trudge to the annual AIPAC conference to pay fealty to Israel and its Lobby.

This year we were fortunate enough to witness John McCain, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton taking turns losing their dignity before the AIPAC crowd. At one point in his parody on The Daily Show , Jon Stewart spoke of John McCain taking with him Senator Joe Lieberman on a visit to Israel, advising McCain that when you visit Israel “you don’t need to bring your own Jew.”

Hillary’s declaration of support for Israel was merely icing on the cake that she earlier baked during the campaign by promising to “obliterate” Iran if it ever attacked Israel. That, without even a declaration of war called for by the U.S. Constitution should we attack another nation. (But see George W. Bush’s attack on Iraq without such a declaration as precedent).

It was left to Barack Obama, a candidate who at one time brought a great deal of hope to many Americans, including this writer, to complete the round robin of pandering to AIPAC, first by wearing not only an American flag pin, but one conjoined with an Israeli flag pin as well. Obama’s nomination has improved America’s image around the world, with the realization that, “everyone has a chance in America,” as the saying used to go. But that is what makes his pandering so painful.

Obama declared Jerusalem indivisible, presumably for the Israelis only, in contrast to the United Nations’ holding that Jerusalem was, and is, an international city, belonging to neither side.

This is all old news, however. Presidential candidates have been kowtowing to the Israeli Lobby for decades, so what else is new? Well, what is new is that the world has come to realize that all such blind, unquestioning support for Israel’s most criminal objectives is a real threat to world peace. Such rhetoric is no longer confined simply to the Jewish vote in America. It has actual impact on the lives of people in the Middle East.

Thus, presidential candidates, one of whom will really become the President of the United States, enabling Israeli aggression can, and has, resulted in the deaths and suffering of tens of thousands of Arabs, in Lebanon, in Palestine, and in Iraq. Such rhetoric allows Israel, with U.S. help, to attempt to starve into submission Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, people who had the temerity to take seriously Bush’s promises of democracy in the Arab world. Despite Israel’s blockade of medicines, food, electricity and other necessities to Gazans, the American government and the American mainstream media have voiced not one word of protest. The U.S. only gives Israel more money and more weapons to continue the attempted starvation.

Obama’s statement of unquestioning and unqualified support for Israel’s objectives will likely embolden Israel to once again try to invade Lebanon to destroy Hizbollah’s fighters, the only force strong enough to resist Israeli aggression in that country. And while the U.S. has no more troops left with which to invade Iran, as Sen. Joe Lieberman and the Israeli government wants us to do, both Israel and the Bush Administration have plans to bomb Iran’s phantom nuclear program. (Whatever happened to the CIA’s National Intelligence Estimate announcing that Iran has no longer pursued a weapons program?)

Over the years U.S. politicians have considered unqualified statements of support for Israel’s objectives to be a throwaway, that is, no political cost and all political benefit for the politician. But those days are forever gone, and the danger of increased violence in the Middle East is much higher than the threat level announced in the nations’ airports close to election time.

One would have hoped that Barack Obama would have taken note of the destruction left in the wake of what George Bush thought would be a benign invasion of Iraq, and not try to repeat this kind of mischief with repercussions so serious that the Middle East is on the verge of destabilization.

One would have thought that Obama would have considered the impact of the divisions created by Bush and by Israel in various Arab countries, all with the objective of giving Israel hegemony over the area. Thus, with Lebanon, Iraq and the Palestinians being urged to fight internally with one another, those countries will be easier targets for eventual Israeli control.

That strategy, to which Obama seems to be acquiescing, will result in more destruction, more loss of innocent life, more internal divisions, and more destabilization than the Arab world can withstand.

That is definitely not the new kind of politics Obama has held out as his reason for being chosen over McCain.

The tragedy of it all is that as a candidate for the presidency only Ralph Nader has recognized the dangers that lie ahead by a continuation of that policy.

Watching the candidates pandering to the AIPAC crew makes one wonder if those in the Israeli Lobby’s audience felt any embarrassment at all by forcing such groveling for support on what were then three potential presidents of the United States. From what I saw on television, at least the leadership of AIPAC seemed to be reveling in the groveling as each of the three willingly handed over their dignity on national television as they bent over to kiss the behinds of the leaders."

James G. Abourezk is a lawyer practicing in South Dakota. He is a former United States senator and the author of two books, Advise and Dissent, and a co-author of Through Different Eyes. This article runs in the current issue of Washington Report For Middle East Affairs and appears here by permission. Abourezk can be reached at georgepatton@alyajames.net

2008-06-08T14:34:00.000-07:00

http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_26875.shtml
The Corporations – Killers of Democracy
By Siv O'Neall
Jun 1, 2008
(axisoflogic.com)

It's way too late at this moment to ask the question: Are we going to lose our democracy? We may not all have noticed it yet, but the Big Corporations stole our democracy a long time ago.

How did they manage? They bought up everything, from the heavy to the light industry, arms, oil, chemical, to the people in Congress who are supposed to protect us from abuse of power by applying the rules set down in the Constitution. But, above all, they bought up the media. There is no objective source for authentic news in the U.S. any more, other than the Internet.

Rupert Murdoch and his equally power-hungry fellow media moguls have seen to it that we just get pre-cooked baby-formula infotainment. People are dumbed down by the non-stop stream of meaningless chatter and unceasing propaganda.

Two major disasters

Among all the outrageous and inhuman crimes that plague the world today, there are two all-consuming current disasters which tie into all the other dictatorial abuses of power, from the executive to the lobbies that have bought up the government in all its forms.

There is first of all world hunger and, on the same level of emergency, the phenomenon of global warming – both those enormous problems having to be seen as the disasters that must be dealt with in the most urgent way possible. And today, there is virtually no urgency displayed in the way those disasters are dealt with – or not dealt with.

And yet, those two huge problems have to be solved if the world is going to continue in a shape even vaguely like the world as we know it.

There is the planetary inequality which has caused the world hunger that finally seems to have attracted wide-spread attention. It is obviously not a recent phenomenon, but it has been enhanced by the rise in food prices, which have multiple causes – the use of food for biofuel, the rise in the price of oil for transport, the droughts in Australia and in Africa, the enormous sham of GMOs that were made out to be capable of saving the world from hunger, but instead are doing the opposite. And let's not forget about the role the speculators and the hedge funds are playing in their roulette game with heavily loaded dice.

The second enormous disaster is climate change, which we don't seem to be able to do anything much about. Or rather, governments are, at their own peril, disregarding the imminent danger of inaction in the face of global warming. It would be perfectly possible to roll back the disastrous situation where we find ourselves today. However, instead of dealing with the problem of over-consumption of oil in a rational way in order to save our lives and the life of the planet, governments are forging ahead in the same old way of splurging on oil consumption as if there was no tomorrow. Oil companies go on making bigger profits than ever before in human history, while the people are paying the price for their obscene profits at the gas pumps.

Why the lack of action?

So, why can't we deal with the two foremost disasters, poverty and climate change? Because the corporations are more interested in making big bucks than saving the planet or saving people from starvation. Once again, it's that short-term profit that outplays all true concern for realism and sound planning. Speculators drive up the prices of commodities without a second thought for the consequences of their short-sighted game of quick profit which produces nothing and benefits nobody.

So the real rulers of the world, the Big Corporations, are condemning us to a life of increased poverty and hunger in third-world countries, a general increase in insecurity and joblessness for middle class people in the western world and increased pollution in the emerging economies in Asia, where the standard of living is actually rising – for the rich. And of course, alongside all these disasters, we are seeing the lives of steadily increasing luxury for the people who are reaping the profits of the plunder. The Corporations see to it that the so-called governments, their obedient front men, cut back the taxes on the top levels of income, on capital gains and on inheritance.

Ethanol is NOT the solution

There is big talk and lots of activity for the production of ethanol, which is exactly the way we should NOT be going in the campaign to lower the rate of release of CO2 gas into the atmosphere. This use of corn, sugar cane and soybeans for biofuel makes for less food for the hungry in the third world and also in Brazil, which is now considered an emerging nation rather than a developing one, increasing food prices in the entire world. It does not make for less emission of CO2 gas since the production of ethanol gives off more CO2 than it saves as an alternative fuel. But corporations and industrial farms are taking advantage of people's ignorance and gullibility and making huge profits. (See Addendum on ethanol*) Rain forests are being cut down to make room for millions of acres of culture for the production of ethanol and biodiesel. And those rain forests are exactly the best protection on the planet against too much CO2 in the atmosphere. [1]

The Corporations make money off ethanol production, so that's the way we are going, even though it increases world hunger and does absolutely nothing to save the world from global warming.

Production of grazing land for cattle

Land is also being taken over for production of grazing land for cattle who are the heaviest consumers of grain and who, when converted to meat offer far less nourishment than they have consumed during their growing process.

One goal for corporations – maximum profit

In other words, the two problems of poverty and hunger and the problem of climate change are deeply intertwined. Both problems could be dealt with rationally, certainly to a somewhat satisfactory extent. But the corporations are not making money off a policy of improving the situation for the starving people in the world or on the urgent need to limit global warming and the disastrous consequences the planet will be undergoing in a near future. We have already begun to see the effects of climate change, but since the corporations own the governments, there is little chance that anything radical will get done very soon.

Renewable energy

There are several ways of producing renewable energy, but who cares? There is no money in it. There is, above all, solar and wind energy waiting to be developed, but no big-scale efforts have been made so far to save the planet using these fabulous non-polluting sources of energy. On a small scale, yes, enough to prove that it works. Even the tidal movements of ocean water can very efficiently be used to make energy. But it wouldn't make any big bucks for the Corporations. And the Corporation is King. So what happens? We have opted for the destruction of the planet.

In short, the world has been taken over by the Big Corporations hand-in-hand with the Main Stream Media and they are all busy shredding our human rights and making our planet into a sterile desert. As long as wildfire capitalism is ruling the world, we are doomed.

*Addendum on Ethanol:

Ethanol And Biodiesel From Crops Not Worth The Energy
ScienceDaily (Jul. 6, 2005) – ITHACA, N.Y. – Turning plants such as corn, soybeans and sunflowers into fuel uses much more energy than the resulting ethanol or biodiesel generates, according to a new Cornell University and University of California-Berkeley study. "There is just no energy benefit to using plant biomass for liquid fuel," says David Pimentel, professor of ecology and agriculture at Cornell. "These strategies are not sustainable."

In terms of energy output compared with energy input for ethanol production, the study found that:
* corn requires 29 percent more fossil energy than the fuel produced;
* switch grass requires 45 percent more fossil energy than the fuel produced; and
* wood biomass requires 57 percent more fossil energy than the fuel produced.
In terms of energy output compared with the energy input for biodiesel production, the study found that:
* soybean plants requires 27 percent more fossil energy than the fuel produced, and
* sunflower plants requires 118 percent more fossil energy than the fuel produced.

Footnote:

[1] "Recent research has shown that the Amazon rain forest is not a stable mature forest with growth and decay in balance but is in fact an expanding forest that is being fertilised by the excess atmospheric CO2. The trees are getting bigger and there is a net take up of 5000 kg of carbon per hectare per year ( 1 hectare = 100 x 100 metres ). The total area of forest is 400 million hectares so the whole forest could be absorbing 2 billion tons of carbon per year."

…

"If the Amazon rainforest burns and releases billions of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere in a short period then this will be a further boost to global warming that will result in significantly higher end of century temperatures."

Siv O’Neall is an Axis of Logic columnist, based in France. She can be reached at siv@axisoflogic.com

(Emphasis added - B.M. )