People Before Profit blog

Bush’s Plan Against Venezuela

Thu, 31 Jul 2008 02:05:00 +0000

7-30-08, 10:05 am

Original source: The Guardian (Australia)

Venezuela does not only represent a political and a sovereignty problem to the United States of America, but additionally Venezuela owns the energy resources from which the American economy of tomorrow depends. For this reason, after trying all possible and thinkable coups d’état, and having failed each time, Washington tries indirect military action using Colombia. With this perspective the Bush’s administration begins to intoxicate media information to justify a conflict.

The hostility of Bush’s administration toward the Venezuelan government has marked a new milestone, with the 'Anti-Drug Czar,' John P. Walters’ declarations on January 19, 2008. In fact, during a visit to Colombia, he accused President Hugo Chávez of 'having turned into a great facilitator of the cocaine traffic towards Europe and other parts of the hemisphere.'

This new attack against the most popular Latin American leader, far from being gratuitous, is part of the demonization strategy of the Bolivarian administration orchestrated by the White House to justify a more radical action against Venezuela. Now, Washington and Bogotá try to relate Caracas with the international narco-traffic in order to stain President Chávez’s image.

Attacks on Venezuela

Some days later, on January 24, 2008, the Colombian Defense Minister, Juan Manuel Santos stated that at least three of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) leaders live in Venezuela, and did not give any more details. At the same time, the Colombian Vice-President, Francisco Santos, accused the Maracaibo Mayor, Gian Carlo Di Martino, of supplying weapons to the Colombian guerrilla and specifically to the National Liberation Army (ELN), based on a video that was later revealed as false.

Far from stepping back from his false claim, he even confirmed that the Venezuelan mayor would be captured and taken to Colombia.

Di Martino on his side denounced 'A montage revealing the US … and the Colombian government plan to unchain a destabilizing process at the Venezuelan borders.' The Colombian intelligence services along with the US Defense Department declarations also accused Venezuela of supplying ammunitions to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and ELN. The Venezuelan opposition followed the Washington and Bogotá line. Mildred Camero, formerly of the National Anti-Drugs Agency (ONA), stated that the supposed drug dealers were 'protected by Venezuelan authorities and operate with total freedom.'

The common point of all these accusations is the absolute lack of proof or concrete facts supporting the diverse statements. President Chávez denounced the Colombian and American maneuvers: 'I alert the world about the following: the American empire is creating the conditions to generate an armed conflict between Colombia and Venezuela,' he underlined. 'In less than a week the chief of the empire armed forces came to Colombia, [followed by] the Anti-Drug Czar, to say that I am 'narcotraffic’s great facilitator,' he added, criticizing at the same time the Colombian Defense Minister statements.

The President of Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega, also warned the international community about the danger of the current campaign to relate Venezuela to narco-traffic. 'The United States of America is using the Colombian, a country currently occupied by the US, to break this space which is being opened in Latin America,' he stated. 'We hope that the Colombian people may be able to restrain their government and do not commit the mistake of instigating a confrontation.'

Álvaro Uribe and the Drug Enforcement Agency

Actually, the only top leader who is implicated in drug dealing is the Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, as it is demonstrated by a source free of any suspicion: an intelligence report from the Defense Department of the United States of America, issued in September 1991 which details the relationships of Uribe with the Medellín cartel and the paramilitaries. According to this confidential document, which gives a list of 104 'criminals, murderers, drug dealers and suspicious lawyers', among which is 'Alvaro Uribe, a Colombian politician and senator who cooperate with the Medellín cartel.' The report adds that 'Uribe was related to a business involved in narcotraffic activities in the USA, has worked for the Medellín cartel and is personal friend of Pablo Escobar Gaviria.'

A memo issued by the US Department of Justice attorney, Thomas M Kent, also reveals that the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), part of the Department of Justice, has regularly cooperated with the Colombian drug dealers and paramilitaries, and that its officers are 'corrupt agents of the war against drugs.'

This document is an inexorable accusation against the DEA and confirms, among other things, that numerous officials are on the Colombian drug-traffickers’ payrolls, complicit in the murders of informants, and directly involved in death squad operations, including money laundering. The memo adds that the corrupt agents have the protection of the highest governmental levels.

Kent’s memo of December 19, 2004, is based on the declarations of DEA agents in Florida, removed from service after denouncing corruption cases. According to the American attorney, said agents have faced 'enormous risks to their careers and families safety' upon revealing 'the names of those directly involved in criminal activity in Bogotá and the United States of America.'

According to Kent, one DEA agent was involved in a criminal activity related to the death squads of the paramilitary group known as the United Self-defense Forces of Colombia (AUC in its Spanish initials), responsible for murdering thousands of Colombians. The memo exposes 'his complicity in money laundering for AUC.'

Far from being taken to face justice, this agent was promoted and 'now is in charge of numerous narcotics and money laundering investigations.' The attorney states that the Department of Justice officers filed the compromising case. 'In June 2004, the Office of Professional Responsibility, OPR, (branch of DEA) and DEA asked the agent in charge of the case to submit all the information. One week later, the money laundering investigation was shut down.'

Kent’s memo gives also details about three cases implicating DEA agents in Colombia. Said officers took part in a conspiracy to kill informants who confessed. 'They gave amazing revelations about DEA agents in Bogotá. They stated that the agents helped them with their drug-traffic activities. Specifically they stated that the agents provided them with information about the investigations and other activities in Colombia,' the attorney wrote. Later the Bogotá agents had a meeting with the informant author of the confession, 'After the meeting, he was murdered,' the memo states. 'Other informants, who worked with the DEA group in Florida, also were killed. Each murder was preceded by an identification request from a DEA agent.'

The DEA agents in Bogotá also hinted that several informants travelled to the United States to testify. While they were busy with their travel arrangements, the Bogotá agents proceeded with their detention. The memo emphasizes that 'the informants were imprisoned during nine months while many accusations were arising. Once it was demonstrated that the Bogotá agents were lying, the informants were released. One of them was kidnapped and murdered in Bogotá, where he was hiding.'

On the other hand, the DEA agents in Colombia impeded one informant from meeting with agents who came from Florida to follow up on an investigation. 'A Bogotá agent travelled to Washington and claimed this time that the informant was a pedophile. The investigation was halted. The agent was required to prove his information, but he could not provide any evidence.'

Washington and Bogotá dubious legitimacy

Attorney Kent’s revelations are overwhelming for Colombia as well as for the United States, and show their dubious legitimacy. In relation to Uribe, the Department of Defense report is implacable against him and shows his involvement in international organized crime and narcotraffic.

Uribe is not the only official involved in narco-traffic in Colombia. A retired Colombian army general, Pauselino Latorre, former chief of the intelligence services, as well as his nephew Leonardo Latorre, previous treasurer of the prosecutor’s office anti-drugs unit, were arrested in January this year for money laundering of US$1 million, and association with the drug mafias. They had created a system to send cocaine (ten tons monthly) not only to the United States but also to Europe and Africa.

A different reality

It is important to remember some essential elements about the narco-traffic problem and the campaign to to discredit Venezuela launched by Washington and Bogotá. In fact, the major producer and most important consumer of cocaine in the world is not Venezuela, but Colombia and that the US is the biggest consumer of drugs on the planet and has never taken action against the financial institutions involved in laundering money from narco-traffic.

Bush’s administration tries to convince the world that Venezuela is turning into the world centre of narco-traffic. For three consecutive years the State Department placed Venezuela on the list of the countries that have failed in their fight against drug dealing. However, the 2007 world report of the United Nations on drugs, contradicts these affirmations, saying:

'Frequently it is reported that the shipments with destination to Spain pass by Venezuela, Brazil and certain number of other countries, including Ecuador, Dominican Republic, Argentina, and in a new trend, Mexico. Nevertheless, the main tendency in the last two or three years has been to send cocaine to Western Africa, generally to waters located in the coast lines of Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau and the Canary Islands, as well as to different countries in the Guinea Gulf, such as Ghana, Ivory Coast, Togo, Nigeria and more to the West to Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia to later be delivered in Europe.'

On the other hand, Venezuela is acknowledged by its active struggle against narco-traffic. Since cooperation with DEA stopped in 2005, the Bolivarian authorities’ records moved from 43.25 tons seized in 2004 to 77.52 tons in 2005.

In Venezuela the DEA was responsible for the conspiracy and espionage activities in favor of the coup d’état. The DEA also thwarted the Venezuelan legislation several times, arresting several individuals. Caracas had denounced 'a flagrant violation of the national sovereignty and the nation safety and defense jeopardy.'

Finally, accusing the Venezuelan authorities of laxity or immobility in the fight against narco-traffic is difficult. In fact, according to the National Anti-Drugs Agency, in 2007 57 tons of drugs and 53 aircraft were seized on the sovereign territory. Thirteen laboratories producing cocaine were destroyed near the Colombian border as well as 60 clandestine landing strips.

Additionally, another 126 strips are being dismantled. More than 178 tons of chemical substances were seized, also 23 properties, 25 boats, 18 airplanes, 53 farms and 106 vehicles used in this criminal activity. Venezuela extradited three individuals to Colombia in March and April 2007 as well, responding favorably to a petition from that country’s Administrative Department of Security (DAS). One American citizen was also deported after a petition from Washington.

Venezuela has invested US$480 million (AU$504 million) in the installation of radars to control national air space and especially the borders with Colombia. More than 380 officers of the State Security Services devote their time to tracking and investigating illegal trafficking and to analyze satellite images to detect illegal plantations. In December 2007, at least 14 inspection flights were performed along the border area.

International institutions, such as the United Nations and the Organization of American States, praised Venezuelan efforts in the struggle against narco-traffic, particularly in relation to the use of the Inter-American System of Uniform Data on Consumption of Drugs (SIDUC), the application of prevention programs, the carrying out of national researches, the creation of a national record of chemical substances that require control, the promulgation of the laws against organized crime, the systematic eradication of drug plantations and the ratification of several international agreements to fight drug trafficking.

In addition, the 2007 report of the Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission (CICAD) acknowledges the efforts of Venezuela. Caracas also signed 50 bilateral agreements on the struggle against narco-traffic with 37 countries. The National Anti-Drugs Agency received decorations for its efficacy from most of the region countries and from nations such as Spain, the United Kingdom or the Netherlands.

The Bolivarian government has also worked out a national strategy to fight against narcotraffic by building three airports in Maracaibo, Margarita and La Guaira which will the only places for private aircraft to enter and leave, allowing in this way a better control of air traffic. An identification system (IFF) has been created to allow the control of the aircraft that illegally enter the country’s air space. Also, a national anti-drugs net has been created. Finally, Caracas has launched an innovative five-year plan (2008-2013) to improve the struggle against organized crime with a more adequate control of the sea and air ways.

It is also important to remember that the United States, which claims to be carrying out a world-wide war against narco-trafficking and which accuses Venezuela for its lack of cooperation in this field, hindered the Bolivarian government’s purchase of Spanish aircrafts – indispensable for the border surveillance – because they contained US parts. Washington also prohibited, for the same reason, Brazil from selling 24 Tucanos planes to Caracas, which were going to be used in the fight against narco-traffic. Finally, Bush’s administration decided to remove two surveillance radars that were in Venezuela territory.

Washington’s double morality

The White House does not have any moral authority to stigmatize Venezuela in the anti-drugs matters. Washington’s credibility falls short of expectations and therefore the calls from the State Department to resume dialogue about this matter, can not be taken seriously.

Additionally, Caracas has never been ambiguous in relation to this matter – on the contrary, has been very clear: 'The narco-traffic is a criminal activity with immoral and tragic consequences. It contributes millions of dollars to the drug cartels, but destroys physically and morally millions of human beings on earth. The struggle against narco-traffic is an ethical obligation.'

President Hugo Chávez restated his warning in the case of a Colombian offensive against Venezuela. The intelligence services of the region confirmed his suspicions. The President announced that the armed forces are on alert because 'it is possible that Colombia may take military action against Venezuela, but would repent it for hundred years.

'I accuse the Colombian government of conspiring and acting as a puppet of American imperialism, and of planning a military instigation against Venezuela.'

--Carolus Wimmer is member of the Politburo of the Communist Party of Venezuela and Vice-President of the Latin American Parliament.

The Economic Crisis: Greed is the Cause

Thu, 31 Jul 2008 01:51:00 +0000

7-30-08, 9:50 am

Everyone is now accustomed to hearing that the financial crisis in the United States and in Britain was caused by American financial institutions lending money to unsafe borrowers for buying houses, thereby breaking with the long-established rule of lending only to those with a steady income and a good credit rating. So it was all the fault of irresponsible borrowers!

While it is true that the bubble burst because of those borrowers being unable to repay their loans, the truth is more complex and it lies at the heart of advanced capitalism. Greed is the real cause, within an unscrupulous system that causes mass murder by slow degrees of poverty, starvation and lack of health care all over the world. Capitalists operate by exploiting the workers of the world, paying us as little as possible for our labor and accumulating the surplus value in private profit. This system is facilitated by a lending structure refined over the last two hundred years.

From the 1930s until about 20 years ago, banks and other lending institutions, as well as central banks, operated a lending system that was based on the ability to repay, having learned from the Wall Street crash, the Great Depression and other banking failures that trust must be established or the system will collapse. The policy was one of encouraging savings by the well-off (how the not-well-off were to manage does not enter into capitalist ideology) by offering high interest rates and encouraging people to save. This gave the banks the resources they needed so as to have a reliable reserve in case of a crisis.

Governments offered secure savings bonds that could be relied on. Companies that were relatively secure because of the reliability of their profits over time were also considered safe for careful borrowers. Government bonds, and to a lesser extent these reliable shares, were taken up by local government bodies, pension funds and trade unions and also by smaller companies and well-off individuals. This was the everyday world of that section of society that could have any savings or borrowings at all.

Because of capitalism’s inherent instability, several things were happening at the same time that radically changed this way of operating. Stock exchanges, which exist wherever there is private ownership, became more and more volatile; and as more and more brokers, financial investment companies, private equity companies and dealers came into existence and were relatively unregulated, more and more unscrupulous practices grew up. Increasingly, trading meant trading in other financial services and loans, not in industry, in manufacturing or production companies. When available money becomes divorced from its real value – land and natural resources, agriculture, industry and manufacturing, infrastructure, and housing – the system is inevitably going to collapse.

Central banks are the cushions for private banking. They avert financial chaos when things go wrong, at the expense of the taxpayer, the unemployed, and the poorest people. This monetary policy regulates the economy, in so far as it is in their control.

This type of economy requires the constant consumption of commodities; and as manufacturing companies were moving out of the United States to avail of cheaper labor in Asia, and later to the former socialist countries, unemployment was rising; wages were contracting, and money was not being spent. The Federal Reserve System (the US central bank) lowered the interest rate to one percent, allowing for cheaper credit for purchasing consumer goods and housing.

This was not enough, and the interest rate continues to be lowered. And now the Federal Reserve is giving out a rebate of more than $150 billion to people on lower incomes, who will receive a check for $600 per individual (a family could receive $1,200 or more), for the sole purpose of spending it on consumer goods. There is no question of helping evicted occupiers get back their homes, or of helping those about to be evicted, as the whole shocking scheme is to give the money to capitalists so that they can continue to prop up a disintegrating system.

At the same time vast amounts of money were available from the world’s largest suppliers of capital in the globalized economy – from Asia (including China, now the biggest exporter of capital), Europe, Russia, and the Middle East. The United States uses up about 85 percent of total global capital lending. These funds are used to pay for the US government debt and for a massive expansion of American personal debt. This availability of funds sent the United States on a debt-madness spiral that has repercussions all over the world. As more and more money went into financial services and property markets, less and less was available for investment in industry, new technology, or better training of the work force. In the United States and Britain 30 percent of the national product is derived from returns in the financial services market.

The sharks make a killing

The sharks of the investment world could not wait to get their hands on this money and make a killing. The financial world is full of investment companies, financiers and private operators who are experts in making massive profits out of betting on the movement of other people’s money. One such group are the hedge fund companies and managers, who gather a group together and approach wealthy investors and suggest a portfolio of funds that will bring much higher profits than can be got from buying shares or government securities. (There are also some individuals who are so wealthy that they can operate alone: about a dozen such people are so wealthy that they own more individually than the total wealth of whole countries.) Such people have made billions with single transactions.

Other investment companies make profits by “leverage” and “derivatives.” Leverage entails a finance company using borrowed money above its equity or share ownership and betting on the future price variations of loans. This is done to a greater extent in times of expected low risk but is very dangerous in times of high risk. Derivatives arise when an investor sells debts and mortgages of mixed value and does it many times over; the purchaser bets on the rise in value of the debts and mortgages in the future.

The large banks and finance companies borrowed huge sums from foreign investors. But the big problem was, how were they going to pay them back? Reserves were low, because of excessive consumption nationally and low savings. They did several things: they relied heavily on selling “prime” or reliable mortgage debts to other investment companies and hedge-fund groups; and they offered mortgages and credit to people who never hoped to own a house or get any credit. “Teaser” loans offered credit with low repayments or much-delayed repayment terms – but the complicated small print imposed punitive repayments later. One woman described her loan repayment rising by 75 percent in one year.

Mortgage brokers swarmed on these vulnerable people, and even followed them to their work-place. People were offered deals that must be signed at once or the offer would be withdrawn.

The banks were not worried, as the price of housing was rising so fast that if they foreclosed they would make huge profits by reselling; or the purchaser could let or resell the house themselves and still be able to repay their loan. People on the look-out for a quick profit began buying several houses, with no backing.

The traditional criteria for lending with security were gone out the window. What was worse, the banks began reselling these “sub-prime” mortgages to other financial groups; they in turn were selling them on to other investment groups. At first they all sold the mortgages of prime (low-risk) borrowers; but as they became more greedy they began selling the high-risk mortgages as well.

All groups were now putting batches of low-risk, medium-risk and high-risk loans and mortgages together and reselling them as structured loans. The hedge-fund managers were selling them on to foreign banks and financial institutions as safe investments, disguising their risk. They would assemble institutions or individuals who were willing to take different levels of risk. The one willing to take the least risk – usually a pension fund – would be guaranteed that they would get first claim in case of any default. The medium-risk taker was promised the next available funds; and the highest-risk taker – usually a hedge fund – would get the remainder.

The risk was supposed to be small, as only a certain proportion of the total debt was high-risk, and a high profit could be expected generally. However, this was not really the case. Sub-prime (high-risk) borrowing as a proportion of all mortgage borrowing went from one in every thirteen in 2001 to one in every four in 2006.

Credit agencies employed by the banks and lending institutions to evaluate risk did not rigorously evaluate the real risk but were willing to take the word of those who engaged them – and they knowingly supplied figures that were based on historical data: that defaulters in this market were between one and two percent. But at the time of giving this figure it was already climbing to five and six percent; it has continued to rise and is now at 15 percent, and still rising.

Bonuses for the profiteers

Senior employees of banks were receiving huge bonuses (often one or two billion dollars annually, as well as commission), because the banks were afraid they would lose them to hedge-fund operators and investment companies. Lawyers were also well aware of the real situation, but they were also getting huge fees, as were the accountants. They were all on the make.

Banks then went to insurance companies and insured the debts, on the grounds that as house prices were rising the risks were small. The insurance companies then went to the buyers of the debt and charged them premiums on the mortgage debt sold by the bank.

In the meantime the banks were lending to each other in the usual way, and nobody seemed to be aware that the lending banks were using fictitious money, based on unreliable loans. But as the banks making the loans were selling them on, they had no more responsibility or care for what happened to the debt. It seemed that money was more plentiful than it had ever been since the beginning of capitalism. But disaster was just around the corner.

In 2005 things began to change drastically, as rising oil and food prices caused a huge rise in inflation, and the Federal Reserve had to raise interest rates, which went from one percent to 5¼ percent by the end of 2006. Mortgage rates began rising sharply.

House prices rose so far above the average wage that no-one could afford the new houses coming onto the market. Builders tried to sell at a discount but found they couldn’t sell at all. The poorest borrowers could no longer pay their mortgages, and a massive spate of evictions began. Large sections of American towns, sometimes whole streets, were boarded up, and misery was visited on the most vulnerable people in the country.

The banks and other lenders began to run short of funds to repay debts, and confidence was lost, with the resulting massive losses. In August 2007 the French bank BNP Paribas announced that it could no longer discern which of its loans were safe. One by one other banks realized that they had bought fictitious money. Nobody could trust funds from another bank, as they were afraid they would be buying bad money. Inter-bank lending just stopped.

Other foreign investors who had funds in American institutions do not know how much bad debt they have financed. We now know that the biggest American banks and financial companies—Citibank, HSBC, Bear Sterne, and Merrill Lynch—have had massive losses, amounting to almost $100 billion. In Britain, Northern Rock, Royal Bank of Scotland and Barclay’s Bank lost millions.

All these institutions have been bailed out by their central banks. The Federal Reserve continues to bail out financial institutions and to cut interest rates to keep the financial system from collapsing. The Bank of England continues to offer emergency funds to commercial banks, with longer repayment terms, and also continually cuts interest rates. This was supposed to allow the banks to start lending again, but instead they have just kept the money themselves.

This is all happening while the number of evictions is the highest ever. There has been an increase of 32 percent in Britain since the beginning of 2007, expected to rise to 50 percent by the end of 2008, which means 45,000 evictions or repossessions by the end of this year.

Germany and Switzerland are also badly hit. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, the International Monetary Fund and private banks give different estimates, ranging from €440 billion to €960 billion, so nobody really knows.

Around the world, smaller banks and financial institutions have gone bust. Hedge-fund groups and private equity firms have bought up companies all over the world, destroying any local control, redirecting company policies into even worse exploitation and ruthlessness.

Leaving aside any other criticism of how a capitalist economy works (or doesn’t work), the madness and illogicality of the wealth of countries being decided by stock-market traders and smart operators is the most incredible fact of this destructive system. They have become so powerful that they influence whole countries’ financial markets. It is reliably claimed that such speculators deliberately interfered with the Hongkong Stock Exchange in 1998, to attack its currency and its stock market and thereby make huge gains by buying and selling at massive profits. This was stopped only when the Hongkong government bought up a large proportion of the stock market to stabilize the market.

The governor of the Central Bank of Iceland claims that a similar move was attempted by a group of hedge-fund cartels, which attempted to devalue the Icelandic currency and make a killing by buying up the devalued loans and shares to sell later at a huge profit and cause a run on the banks.

Whole towns are destroyed

Four Norwegian towns have also suffered by reckless trading. They bought securities based on American bonds that had been packaged by Citigroup and purchased by Terra Securities, and they have now lost most of their investment of more than €60 million. Pension funds around the world have been affected similarly; the full extent will not be known for some time.

Exporters to the United States have also been affected as the becomes weaker, and their products are much dearer by comparison. The German government complains bitterly about this, and it will affect at least one million German workers.

Ireland, where the economy is dangerously skewed in its dependence on the housing market, is badly hit, as lending for mortgages has become very tight, large deposits are required, and houses are not selling. Builders are laying off workers, and economic growth goes down by one percent for every ten thousand houses not built. This will further exacerbate the housing shortage. Credit for people already in debt will become much dearer, inflation will rise, and the poorest will suffer most – as usual with rising prices.

Spain, like Ireland, is over-reliant on the housing market, selling its housing to foreign buyers (including Irish speculators), who are not simply buying a second home but buying and selling to make a profit and also for rental income, while whole communities and their culture are destroyed.

And what has happened to the perpetrators of this debacle? They have escaped scot-free. A few lost their jobs but got hundreds of millions in severance money, apart from the killing they had already made personally. And what of the rest of these monsters? They can’t be touched, as the system would come crashing down if they were not rescued – and they know it. Individuals are enjoying huge wealth, paying little or no tax and laughing at the rest of the world.

Fun for the super-rich

As reported recently on the BBC2 television program “Super-rich: The greed game,” these people do not know what to do with their money. Companies specializing in supplying their needs without question say they have been asked, among other mad requests, for a jet fighter as an ornament in one woman’s garden; a Premier League footballer was hired to play with a man’s son; cars costing several million dollars have a waiting-list of two years; there is a waiting-list for watches costing a million dollars; personal submarines are made to order. Prizes of an island or a jet airliner were offered recently in the Irish Times for investing in property in Dubai.

Governments representing these capitalists, and now the European Union, keep telling us that public services are wasteful and inefficient, that the public are best served by privatization and competition; and this has become the mantra of people who are dissatisfied with public services that are crippled by lack of funding. They have swallowed the lie of the protectors of these crooks who have knowingly destroyed the lives of millions of people and don’t care. As Bill Gates said, “That’s capitalism!” Bandits control the world, and they are destroying it.

We can look only to the working class, now regrouping and reorganizing its fight against abuse and waste. There is hope too in the alliance emerging in Latin America between Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, and Nicaragua, who together are showing that there are alternatives to this iniquitous system.

Original source: Socialist Voice (Dublin)

Capitalism's Open Secret

Thu, 31 Jul 2008 01:47:00 +0000

7-30-08, 9:38 am

Original source: People's Democracy (India)

As the deadline for the next election nears, one question that needs addressing is whether it would serve as a much needed second referendum on the kind of economic policies that the previous NDA and the current UPA governments have followed. At the moment political debate in the country is focused on issues like the nuclear deal and signs of heightening communal polarization. But underlying these trends is a clear rightward shift in the agenda of the leading political formations, epitomized by the neo-liberal policies that have been pushed by them for close to two decades now. The damage wrought by those neo-liberal economic policies are reflected in a crisis in agriculture, a high rate of inflation, a volatile exchange rate, increasingly fragile financial markets, and the likely return to much slower growth. Unfortunately these issues are not being debated adequately as yet in the run up to the election in a country whose strength lies in its vibrant democracy. One reason is the concerted effort by the government, the media and sections of the elite that benefit from neo-liberalism to hush up those outcomes.

State of Denial

This deficit in India's political democracy is in keeping with the larger effort of the elite in capitalist democracies across the world to keep the inequalizing and destabilizing effects of the new capitalism dominated by finance under a shroud. Contemporary capitalism is in a perennial state of denial. Increasing inequalities associated with higher growth are attributed to institutional changes that are reincentivizing production. Persisting poverty is dismissed as being a statistical quirk rather than a reality. And speculative stock or real estate market bubbles are justified by reference to strong fundamentals. On the other hand, any downturn in growth or the markets is characterized as a correction. Buoyant indices or markets are always a sign of strength. Depressed markets or stock market downturns are presented either as necessary but minor corrections or as problems governments must resolve without hurting private incentive.

This blinded vision partly results from the need to legitimize a system that weighs in heavily on the side of capital and profit, at the expense of workers, petty producers and the self-employed. It also signifies the ideology that dominates the new 'ownership' economy in which it is not what you earn but what you own that defines your economic status and sense of well-being. If the speculative route to expanding ownership is closed, then the legitimacy of such a system would be under challenge. Public policy aimed at regulating financial and real estate markets that constitute the fulcrum of the ownership economy must be delegitimized, so that these markets themselves are legitimized.

Even if taken for granted by many today, the notion of the ownership economy is relatively new. Its coming can be dated to the rise of finance and the simultaneous boom in real estate markets. This raised the possibility that even those with relatively small savings, who could not make lumpy investments in acquiring capital assets, could through the mediation of stock and real estate markets make acquisitions that grow rapidly in size because of high rates of appreciation in value.

But if this route to wealth is to be popular enough to make financial and real estate markets the symbols of the new capitalism, it must not be seen as endangered by 'collateral damage' like rising inequality or persisting or worsening poverty that threatens to destabilize the trajectory. What is more, active stock and real estate markets require that there must be enough people who are convinced that high rates of appreciation are not just based on speculation that would soon be reversed, but on fundamentals that would prevail over any corrections that may result in downturns. The perennial state of denial referred to above is therefore the ideology that sustains and legitimizes neo-liberal growth strategies dominated by the requirements of finance capital. Until of course a crisis forces a partial or complete course correction.

SENSEX Example Consider for example India's stock markets whose performance was being unambiguously celebrated when it was experiencing a boom. The Sensex which closed at just above 10,000 on June 21, 2006 rose rapidly thereafter, and despite fluctuations, closed at above 20,000 on December 11, 2007. This doubling of the index over a period of less than 18 months was obviously symptomatic of a surge in speculation, driven in part by FII inflows consisting largely of capital from entities like hedge funds exploiting the participatory notes route to speculate in the Indian market. However, the flavour of the reporting at that time was to claim that the stock market was riding on strong fundamentals, ostensibly reflected in the close to 9 per cent growth the economy had been registering over a four-year period.

Moreover, wealth as measured by market values or market capitalization was not seen as just that much paper money, but as an indicator of true economic strength. The newspapers were filled with stories of the rise to maturity of the Indian stock market as reflected in figures on aggregate market capitalization, of the billionaires that India was adding to various league tables of the global rich and of the rapidly increasing 'size' of leading Indian firms that were now borrowing money abroad to finance new acquisitions. India's arrival was not heralded so much by the presence of Indian goods in world markets, but by the participation of Indians in the global ownership economy and by the sharp increase in the paper wealth being accumulated by individuals and firms from India.

It has not taken long for all these illusions to be dashed by the market. Between January 8 and July 8, 2008, the market fell from a peak of 20873 to 13454 or by 35 percent. Measured in dollar terms the market capitalization of Indian stocks is reported to have fallen by 46 percent between January 1 and July 4, 2008, as compared with 25 percent in the case of South Korea, 24 percent in the case of Hong Kong, 3 per cent in the case of Brazil and just 0.5 percent in the case of Mexico (Business Line, July 6, 2008). Vietnam is the only country in Asia that fared worse than India, and China followed close behind India with a 42 percent decline.

It is important to remember that China, Vietnam and India are the currently celebrated growth miracles in Asia, having displaced the East Asian NICs from that pedestal in the years that followed the 1997 financial crisis. Financial markets in these new growth miracles are the ones that have been talked up by international finance and the international media, leading to an unprecedented boom, especially in the years since 2003 when there has been a surge in cross-border capital flows. And it is the financial markets in these growth miracles that are now floundering the most, even though real economic growth in these countries is still better than elsewhere in the developing world.

Collapse of Stock Prices The impact of the market's decline on the personal wealth of India's super-rich has been along expected lines. On January 8, there were reportedly 522 billionaires in India, many of them among the Forbes' listing of the world's richest. By July 4, the Business Standard (July 5, 2008) reported, that the number had fallen to 421, with 101 erstwhile billionaires having experienced a 20 to 65 percent erosion in their net worth that had reduced them to millionaires. All because of the 35 percent fall in the Sensex. Those who have been worst affected (even if not damaged because their real wealth is large enough) include some of the most celebrated 'new capitalists' of India. Anil Ambani 'suffered' a loss that more than halved his wealth from Rs. 253,567 crore to Rs. 115,878 crore [Ed. – A crore equals 10 million. Rupees exchange for$.02.]. His estranged brother Mukesh lost more than 30 percent. Gautam Adani took a beating that ripped 58 percent off the value of his assets. And G M Rao saw as much as 65 percent of his net worth vanish into thin air.

For those who celebrated the rapid rise in the Sensex in the 18 months prior to January 2008, this collapse of stock prices, market capitalization and paper wealth must have given cause enough to sit back and take stock. The decline in all three was not only large but extremely sharp by historical standards. What should have accompanied that fall is a sense of disquiet that was as intense as the euphoria that accompanied the bubble. This would have forced a reassessment of the so-called boom, a rethink of the policies that facilitated the speculative surge which created the bubble, and the adoption of corrective measures that can prevent similar trends in future.

But that does not seem to be the outcome. In fact, other than aggregative assessments of the kind noted above, there has been little reporting of the losses that have been incurred in this period when financial markets have been rendered more complex by liberalization. An occasional report of provisions being made by certain banks to account for exposure to sub-prime losses or a rare and unclear description of losses made in foreign exchange hedging by an exporting firm is all we get. But when the association of chartered accountants demands more transparent reporting of derivatives exposure to keep shareholders and accountants informed or when exporters from Tirupur demand the intervention of the RBI to get banks to share with them losses from trading in derivatives that they claim they never understood and whose risks they were never informed of, it becomes clear that there is much that is being kept out of the public eye.

This is not because these issues are too complex to write about or explain. It is because those who can and should do the explaining are part of the unspoken consensus to keep these maladies that afflict the ownership economy dominated by finance away from the public eye. If they are reported, explained and understood, the legitimacy of the system would be under challenge. More importantly, it would force a rethink of the neo-liberal policies that work unceasingly to expand profit while keeping much of India's wage, salary and petty income earners at the same or even lower levels of real income.

But when the crisis turns intense, as it did in many Latin American countries during the last two decades, policy reversal is a real possibility. The persisting evidence of agrarian distress, the more than 11 percent rate of inflation, reports of declining profits and slowing sales, the widening trade and current account deficits, and the collapse in the markets that symbolize shining India, suggest that India may be nearing one such turning point. The elections, therefore, may still tip the scales against neoliberalism.

Mexico City Residents Reject Oil Privatization

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 08:33:00 +0000

7-29-08, 4:33 pm

Mexico, Jul 29 (Prensa Latina) The overwhelming rejection of the Mexican Calderon administration's energy reform, which included the privatization of Mexico's oil industry, expressed by referendum on Sunday July 27, continued to hold the country's political attention this week.

According to Federal District (DF) Government Head Marcelo Ebrard, the will of the people freely expressed in the consultation discredits any attempt at privatization of the state-controlled oil company PEMEX.

Ebrard stated that once the counting of the votes on the referendum is concluded, the results will be delivered to Mexico's Congress and the several parties that comprise the national political spectrum.

He agreed with former presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who warned against the dangers of Congress ignoring the will of the people on the country's energy sovereignty.

Only 87 percent of voters in the capital voted NO on participation of private companies in PEMEX, while 84 percent disapproved the Calderon administration's initiative presented to Congress.

Voters from nine other Mexican states will also cast votes on the oil privatization referendum, boosted by the Broad Progressive Front made up of the PRD (Partido de la Revolucion Democratica), the Work Party and the Convergence Party.

Retirees to McCain: Social Security not a 'Disgrace'

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 03:08:00 +0000

7-29-08, 11:07 am

Last week, media reports revealed that presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain gets almost $2,000 per month in Social Security checks, a system, he told an audience at a campaign stop earlier this month, which he finds to be an 'absolute disgraceful.'

These revelations prompted the Alliance for Retired Americans (ARA) to launch a campaign to educate its members and voters generally about McCain's anti-Social Security views and to get the Arizona Republican to return his Social Security checks.

Speaking at a July 7 town hall meeting in Denver, McCain said, “Americans have got to understand that we are paying present-day retirees with the taxes paid by young workers in America today. And that's a disgrace. It's an absolute disgrace, and it's got to be fixed.”

McCain favors privatizing Social Security and cutting benefits for retirees, the disabled, and their dependents.

Despite McCain’s views on Social Security, public records show that he received $23,157 in Social Security benefits in 2007, an average of $1,929.75 each month, according to an e-mail alert from the ARA.

“Forty-two million Americans receive Social Security benefits – these are our nation’s elderly, our widows and widowers, and our young children who have seen a parent die. Helping them is not a disgrace,” said ARA Executive Director Edward F. Coyle in a telephone press conference with labor and other progressive groups to discuss McCain’s statement.

“Social Security has kept millions out of poverty, and is one our nation’s greatest success stories,” Coyle added.

The ARA, last week, launched a TV ad campaign responding to McCain's comments, which ran in Pennsylvania to coincide with McCain's visit to that state. ARA members also organized events in Florida, Ohio, Arizona, Nevada, and Oregon to protest McCain's apparent hypocrisy.

Coyle stated, “The Alliance intends to make McCain’s comments a major issue for every elected official in 2008. We will keep you updated as more events are planned, and we encourage members everywhere to join us in standing up for Social Security.”

The Three Crises

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 02:04:00 +0000

7-29-08, 10:03 am

It has never happened before. For the first time in modern economic times, three major crises – affecting finances, energy and food – are coinciding, coming together and merging. Each interacts with the others, exponentially worsening the deterioration of the real economy.

As much as the authorities try to minimize the seriousness of the moment, the truth is that we're facing an economic cataclysm of unprecedented magnitude, whose social effects are just beginning to be felt and will explode with total brutality in the next several months.

Disaster is never certain and numerology is not an exact science, but the year 2009 could very well turn out like the grim 1929.

As feared, the financial crisis continues to worsen. To the problems suffered by prestigious US banks – such as Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch and the giant Citigroup – add the recent disaster afflicting Lehman Brothers, the world's fourth-largest bank, which on June 9 announced a loss of 1.7 billion euros. Because this is Lehman's first deficit since being listed in the Exchange in 1994, the loss had the effect of an earthquake in a financial America that was already violently traumatized.

Every day there are new reports of banks going under. So far, the most affected entities have admitted losses totaling almost 250 billion euros. And the International Monetary Fund estimates that, to emerge from the disaster, the system will need about 610 billion euros – the equivalent of twice the French budget!

The crisis began in the United States in August 2007 with subprime mortgages falling in arrears and has extended throughout the world.

The crisis' ability to transform and spread, through the proliferation of complex financial mechanisms, likens it to a lightning epidemic that's impossible to stop.

Banking entities no longer lend money. They all mistrust the financial health of their rivals. Despite the massive injections of liquidity made by the major central banks, the drought of money in the markets has been unprecedented. And what some people fear most is a systemic crisis, in other words, a collapse of the world's entire economic system.

From the financial sphere, the crisis has moved to the whole of the economic activity. Suddenly, the economies of the developed countries have cooled. Europe (particularly Spain) is in full deceleration and the United States is on the brink of recession.

The harshness of this adjustment is most noticeable in the real-estate sector. During the first quarter of 2008, home sales in Spain dropped 29 percent! Nearly 2 million apartments and homes could not find a buyer. The price of land continues to fall. And the rise in mortgage interests and the fears of recession plunge the sector into an infernal spiral, with ferocious effects on all fronts of the huge construction industry. All the construction businesses are now in the eye of the hurricane and witness with impotence the destruction of tens of thousands of jobs.

From financial crisis we have gone on to a social crisis. And the authoritarian policies emerge again. The European Parliament on June 18 approved the infamous 'directive of return,' and the Spanish authorities have announced their willingness to arrange for the eviction from Spain of one million foreign workers.

On top of this awful situation comes the third oil shock, as the price of a barrel of crude rises to about US$140. That's an irrational increase (in 1998, a barrel cost less than US$10), due not only to an excessive demand but, above all, to the action of many speculators who are betting on the continuing rise of a fuel on its way to extinction.

Investors flee the real-estate bubble and shift colossal sums of money because they are now betting on the price of oil rising to US$200 a barrel. Oil is now financialized, with the consequences we see: a formidable rise in the prices at the pumps and explosions of anger on the part of fishermen, truckers, farmers, taxi drivers and all the professionals who are most affected. In many countries, by staging demonstrations and confrontations, those professionals demand help, subsidies or tax breaks from their governments.

As if this whole context weren't gloomy enough, the food crisis has suddenly worsened, reminding us that the specter of hunger continues to threaten almost 1 billion people. In about 40 countries, the high cost of food has provoked uprisings and general revolts. The summit of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), held June 5 in Rome to consider alimentary security, could not reach an agreement to relaunch worldwide food production. Here, too, speculators fleeing from the financial disaster are partly responsible, because they're betting on a high price of future harvests. So even agriculture is being financialized.

This is the deplorable balance left by a quarter-century of neoliberalism: three venomous intertwined crises. The time has come for the citizens to say 'Enough!'

From Prensa Latina

--Jose Ignacio Ramonet, author of 'A Hundred Hours with Fidel' and many more essays, is Editor in Chief of Le Monde Diplomatique.

Heath Ledger Takes Joker in Dark Direction in New Batman Flick

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 01:59:00 +0000

7-29-08, 9:58 am

Review: The Dark Knight Directed by Christopher Nolan

Original source: Morning Star

Given that the US appears to have abandoned any notion of truth and justice in its pursuit of the American way, it appears that Hollywood has decided to follow its political precedent and provide another court jester.

Not any old joker, mind you, but a truly terrifying incarnation whose only mission in life appears to be to create chaos – the ideal state our free-market mandarins claim necessary for creative capitalism.

In short, Christopher Nolan's sequel to Batman Begins is a brilliant, bombastic blitzkrieg designed to reflect the policy doctrine of shock and awe so crudely championed by President Bush.

Shown in IMAX 3D, it is even more spectacular, with Heath Ledger's characterization of the Joker as a demonic psychotic being underscored by the cosmetics of a crazed clown.

His mouth, a smear of lipstick that strikes across his disfigured face, looks like a knife slash, a fact that this sadist keeps recalling as he carves his victims from ear to ear.

Ledger conjures up Caesar Romero's crazed make-up in the Batman TV series (1966), Jack Nicholson's mad ways in Tim Burton's Batman (1989) and Johnny Depp's charisma in Pirates of the Caribbean.

The difference is that this is no camp characterization, it is a caricature of pure cruelty. It's mesmerizing stuff.

As you may know, Ledger died of an accidental overdose of prescribed drugs and this film was his swan song.

According to some critics, he should be awarded with a posthumous Academy award. The question is, would it be for the ultimate act of corpsing?

It comes as something of a jolt when Batman (Christian Bale) arrives on the scene as a conflicted character, now struggling with the fact that his alter ego is contrary to notions of law and order.

Personally, I have never been a fan of Batman, since Bruce Wayne's essentially a billionaire businessman who created his avenging character to protect private property from the criminal fraternity.

The Dark Knight takes it to its logical conclusion. Having got rid of the Chicago-style crooks, he's faced by an adversary who ups the ante, simply because his hubris demands that he unmask this self-styled hero.

However, Batman is offered a solution in the arrival of Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart), a straight arrow who is standing for district attorney and doesn't believe in vigilante law.

The problem is, he's dating Wayne's former girlfriend Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal), a factor that will inevitably lead to the conflict of interests experienced by every superhero.

With Michael Caine as his cockney butler, Gary Oldman as Lieutenant Jim Gordon and Morgan Freeman acting like James Bond's Q, the cast list looks as if it's been designed to spot the star.

Thus, with a script designed to reflect the current post-September 11 climate, it engages the audience at the most visceral level before confronting us with a contemporary conundrum.

Faced with such evil, is it right to dispense with the usual constrictions of democracy and resort to vigilantism?

Obviously, such questions are rhetorical when faced with frightening fiction.

Whether Nolan intended the metaphors is irrelevant, the parallels are obvious. Reality is much more complex.

Wilfred Sellars and Marxism

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 01:56:00 +0000

7-29-08, 9:55 am

Remarks on Tim Crane's 'Fraught with Ought' London Review of Books, 19 June 2008

'Fraught with Ought' reviews two new books concerning the American philosopher Wilfred Sellars (1912-1989). These are a collection of papers about Sellars by Jay Rosenberg (Wilfred Sellers: Fusing the Images, Oxford, 2007) and an anthology (In the Space of Reasons: Selected Essays of Wilfred Sellars, Harvard, 2007). Why all this interest in an academic philosopher, unknown to the general public, and dead for almost twenty years? And what has any of this to do with Marxism?

Briefly, Sellars was an analytic philosopher, a member of a school stemming back over a hundred years, that grew out of the rejection of the European philosophical tradition growing out of German Idealism, especially Kant and Hegel. Marxism also grew out of this German tradition.

Recently some analytic philosophers have come to believe that the wholesale rejection of Hegel and others in the classical tradition has been a mistake and was based on a faulty understanding of their works by some of the founders of the analytic movement, especially Bertrand Russell.

Sellars' philosophy is being examined in this light and is taken by some to be useful in reclaiming Kant and Hegel, for example, and using them as part of the program of analytic philosophy-- viz., of using the analysis of ordinary language usage and the philosophy of language to find the solution to philosophical problems. Rehabilitating the thinkers from whom Marx and Engels learned so much and whose ideas they grappled with in forming their own is also a way of reminding the contemporary world of the continuing relevance of Marxism.

One of Sellars' most important works was his 1956 paper 'Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind.' Although not in this work, Sellars gives an interesting definition of the aim of philosophy:'The aim of philosophy, abstractly formulated, is to understand how things in the broadest possible sense of the term hang together in the broadest possible sense of the term.'

This really is quite general and could be said of the natural and social sciences as well. The aim of Marxism could be said to be to bring about the end of human exploitation in the broadest possible sense by the most effective means, considered in the broadest possible sense, of eliminating capitalism and abolishing classes.

Marxists also share a common aim with Sellars. He wanted, in his own words. 'to formulate a scientifically oriented, naturalistic realism which would 'save the appearances.'' The last expression refers to a desire not to stray too far from common sense. His love of science is the same as that of all true Marxists and is very clearly expressed by him when he writes, 'in the dimension of describing and explaining the world, science is the measure of all things, of what is that it is, and of what is not that it is not.'

In other words, he shares with Marxists the idea, as Crane says, that philosophy's 'fundamental task' is 'to explain how things seem (in the broadest sense of that term) consistent with what science has told us about the world.' The term 'scientia mensura' is used by Sellarsians (it could be adopted by Marxists as well)to sum up this view. The job of philosophy is to bridge what Sellars called the 'manifest image' of the world [i.e., common sense]and the 'scientific image' [we are just a bunch of vibrating strings or atoms, etc.] Crane says Sellars developed his own 'systematic philosophy' to deal with this problem. Let us see how far it agrees with Marxism.

Many philosophers such as Sellars have been bothered by three things about the manifest image of the world, according to Crane, namely intentionality or meaning, value, and consciousness. All bourgeois realists, just as all Marxist materialists, accept 'that there is a world independent of thought.' Bourgeois realists are in fact materialists. Sellars, however, has a problem with how we become aware of the world and how we use language to describe it.

Marxist and non-Marxist realists alike tend to see language as somehow reflecting or referring to the objects of the world. We learn what 'cat' means by referring to a real cat. 'According to this view,' Crane says, 'things in the world cause our minds to form certain representations, which is why they represent what they do.' This is what Lenin thought when he said consciousness or sensation is a picture of reality. Crane says it is the view of the early Wittgenstein (of the 'Tractatus'). But Sellars doesn't buy this. He has his own theory by which he replaces 'reference' with 'inference.' As Crane puts it, 'To talk about the meaning of a word is not to talk about the relation it bears to the object it stands for. Rather, it is to talk about what inferences-- what legitimate patterns of thought and reasoning-- that word can be used in.'

This is a very dicey development. It seems to grow out of the later Wittgenstein (the 'Philosophical Investigations') and his notion of a 'language game.' Whether this view can be reconciled with materialism is still being debated. What is really distinctive in this view is, Crane says, the role that normativity comes to play in the system. Sellars refers to words as 'natural-linguistic objects' and we have to learn the rules (norms) for their use: 'they tell us,' Crane points out, 'how words should and should not be used. Signification and meaning are normative matters.' This leads us to a very important key concept of his philosophy-- namely, 'the myth of the given.' I'm not sure this 'myth' is really a myth.

Sellars thinks of thought as 'inner speech', as Crane says, 'as employing the concepts one has learned in the course of acquiring a language to make inferences which result in dispositions to make 'outer' verbal judgments.' So thinking, just as speaking, is subject to rules and norms.

Crane uses the example of a fig tree to clarify Sellars' views. An old fashioned materialist ( such as Lenin ) might say that we have the notion of a fig tree as a result of having learned how to use the words 'fig tree' as a result of our early education. Our senses were presented with a particular object, our parents say 'fig tree' and we learn that this 'given' is to be referred to as a 'fig tree.'

This is an example (but not a good one) of 'the myth of the given.' Sellars says 'all awareness is a linguistic affair.' As crane puts it 'the perceptually given' is not 'a mental episode which is prior to thought and language.' This has the smell of idealism clinging to it.

Lets try to be clearer. Crane says Sellars holds, 'Every episode of taking something in is really a case of conceptualizing it, and conceptualizing requires being subject to the norms which can only come with the acquisition of a language.' Sellars is really saying it is wrong to think there was a 'concept of x' in the mind of the child just waiting to be given the name 'fig tree'. It was only by learning a language that a fig tree could present itself to the child as a fig tree and not just some kind of perceptual static.

Sellars' ideas about sense perception are weak, I think, and I agree with Crane when he says he thinks them 'unconvincing.' I think, for example, that consciousness and consciousness of objects have evolved from organisms that were precursors of H. sapiens. Other animals certainly have awareness and can even think yet are without 'language' – or least without what we humans think of as 'language'. Sellars appears to believe that only humans have language. If we grant this and restrict ourselves to 'human language' then Crane thinks Sellars' ideas are 'clearer and more tractable' if we confine the inferentialist theory to thought and language and leave sense perception out of it.

Now thought, language, meaning, and inference are the result of brain processes that can be studied by science. This is the case even if meaning, thought, and knowledge will not themselves be, as Crane says, part of 'the scientific image as such.' Why is this so? Sellars writes that it is because 'in characterizing an episode or a state as that of KNOWING, we are not giving an empirical description of that episode or state; we are placing it in the logical space of reasons, of justifying and being able to justify what one says.' And Crane reminds us, this also goes for saying and thinking. If I say, think or know that e.g., my redeemer liveth, or that workers by uniting will only lose their chains I must give reasons that logically lead to a justification for these statements. I am not just referring to some chemical or neurological activity in my brain.

What is important about this part of Sellars' theory is, according to Crane, that questions dealing with 'meaning and significance' are not about facts – 'questions about what is the case' – they are questions concerning 'what ought to be.' They are not questions for science. Sellars thinks they are normative because we have to follow rules for justification which are located in 'the logical space of reasons.' Sellars says. 'If they are thinking THIS, then they OUGHT to think THAT too.'

What is going on here? It seems natural to distinguish between factual (scientific) statements and value (moral, un- or non- scientific) statements. But, says Crane, Sellars has gone beyond this dichotomy: 'not only moral value, but also thought and consciousness, are (in his words) 'fraught with ought.'' There are problems with this I think. If I give justifications for my belief that united workers have only their chains to lose those justifications are intended by me to be true factual statements about the world and thus subject to scientific scrutiny. It is scientific socialism to which I appeal. It is another question, indeed fraught with ought, whether that commitment logically forces me to embrace the dictatorship of the proletariat as well.

Some have come to think that Sellars' views would cause a 'sea change' in philosophy. Crain disagrees and thinks Sellars' 'inferentialism' with respect to 'meaning and thought' can be weaned away from other elements in his system and adopted by those with 'more traditional' attitudes towards 'the self and the mind.' I think that there is no need for Sellarsian extremism on the question of the 'scientia mensura.' To save the appearances, the 'manifest world', we don't have to divorce it so completely from the 'scientific world' as Sellars maintains. We only need show there is no manifest contradiction between the two worlds. There is no contradiction between our being human beings running about with 'minds' on the one hand, and being ultimately vibrating strings or atoms on the other.

Marxists view the human world of consciousness as a higher level organization of matter (that stuff existing independently of the human mind from which the universe and everything in it derives) and what science ultimately discovers this stuff to be will not be in contradiction to the view that the manifest world is part of the continuum logically derived from the knowledge of the scientific world. Thus, Marxists can adopt some portions of Sellars' inferentialism, especially with regard to the consistency of their thoughts with respect to what they ought to believe and do given what they say they believe and do.

--Thomas Riggins is associate editor of Political Affairs.

Art and Politics: Things Need to Be Said

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 01:51:00 +0000

7-29-08, 9:51 am

A friend of mine called me a few days ago to comment on a scene he didn’t like on the Cuban soap opera presently being aired on television (Polvo en el Viento) in which some criminals hired by a dishonest female cashier beat up a couple as revenge for having reported her.

'This is incredible! What will people think of us, that we have people of that sort?'

My friend, committed for life to build a fairer world, had become frozen in the twisted road of projecting, in public, only the good side of a society for which he has offered his existence. Only the good, and, in any case, only a little bit of 'the other,' for fear of what other people might say.

Although art is neither sociology nor politics or an ideological textbook, it can have a lot of all that as long as proselytism or propaganda doesn’t ooze from the creative endeavor. It can, even though some defenders of 'pure art' persist in denying it.

So lets talk about a social function of art, with so many definitions and controversial points that not even a simple sketch could fit in these lines. Let’s just say that there’s a desire to make art to improve things and in this process a description of our problems plays an essential role. Its about an account in a progressive sense, aimed at prompting reflection, debate, and the interrelation between what we’re watching on the screen and aspects of what’s happening on that other big scene: daily life.

And that said without demanding portrayals faithful to reality, or without forgetting that old recommendation of Charles Chaplin that the true meaning of things is often found while trying to say things in another way.

Can artistic expression also become a way to improve the social situation?

If we analyze that in Polvo en el Viento there’s some critical content mixed in its love plots or of other nuances, I believe it can.

The soap opera shows young people who study, but also other people —young and not so young— that come up against reality in a different way and make corruption, theft, and illegal 'deals' the easiest way to 'triumph in life.'

Non-laudatory behavior assumed with verisimilitude, both in the literary conception of those involved and in the performance of actors.

It’s done without prejudices, demonstrating concepts of the lifestyle of these characters who, like it or not, exist as part of the dynamics of a society under attack and that with mistakes of its own, and that develops —do we need to say it?—, not precisely inside a bubble.

All that’s creative and progressive needs to be reflected in critical opinions that prompt in television viewers what they see in the soap opera. Seeing them not only as elements of fiction, but also as part of social problems worth thinking about and discussing, beyond the artistic act of this soap that, not in vain, is enjoying a large audience.

From Granma International

Venezuela’s Chavez Approves $566 Million in Infrastructure Projects

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 01:47:00 +0000

7-29-08, 9:46 am

Original source:

July 28, 2008 (venezuelanalysis.com)-- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez approved funds for the construction of a series of new infrastructure projects on his Sunday talk show Aló Presidente yesterday. The new projects are extensions to the nation-wide mass transit systems already in progress. President Chavez called on his ministers to carry out the projects with “socialist values” and insisted on only giving contracts to companies that will transfer technology to Venezuela.

The Venezuelan president opened the show at the construction site of a new system of Austrian-made cable cars known as MetroCable. The cable car system is being constructed as a solution for the thousands of families who live in the hill-side shanty towns of Caracas and whose houses are not accessible by road. The MetroCable will carry residents up and down the steep hills to and from various subway stations, relieving them of the long and many times dangerous walk up hundreds of cement stairs.

“The MetroCable will have an impact on people’s safety, and their standard of living,” said Chavez.

Work began on this project in March of 2007, and the first line is to be completed by October or November of this year. It will run a distance of 1.8 kilometers and will have a total of 5 stations and 52 cars. The cable car technology comes from Austria, and is being installed by a Brazilian construction company.

Chavez called on his government ministers to make sure that these kinds of projects include agreements to transfer the technology so that Venezuela can manufacture the goods inside the country, and become independent of imports.

“We should see if the Austrian company will set up a factory for this equipment in Venezuela and transfer the technology,” he said.

Chavez went on to demand that his ministers require technology transfer as a condition for all government contracts.

“What I am saying is this: foreign companies that don’t want to transfer technology, okay, then there’s no contract for them. Let’s bring other companies that will [transfer the technology]. We have all the raw materials here to produce them.” he said.

President Chavez discussed his recent trip to Europe, and pointed out that many firms from Russia and Belarus have agreed to transfer technology for the construction of trains, tractors, and other goods. Chavez also stressed that Venezuela obtain not only the technology necessary to manufacture the goods, but also the capacity to produce the capital goods needed by the factories, and therefore break dependence on imported technology.

The President approved funds for a number of other projects, including several additions to the Caracas subway system, for a total of $566 million. At the same time, he denounced government bureaucracy that has caused significant delay in many projects

Upon hearing from his ministers the completion dates for some of the projects, Chavez complained that these projects were going too slowly.

“That’s too much time,” he said to one minister. “We have to move faster on these. We can’t let the time go by. It’s now or never. We have to make these projects a priority.”

Chavez also called on his ministers to use “socialist values” in the construction of the various projects, and to include social aspects to improve the quality of life for surrounding communities.

Chavez recalled a project he was involved with to construct a new highway in rural Venezuela where surrounding communities did not benefit, and were left without basic necessities. He called on his ministers to make sure this doesn’t happen with future projects.

“This is where you have to put your socialist values to the test. If I were an engineer I would refuse to do such a big project while at the same time leaving a nearby community without water, for example. We have to have a holistic view, otherwise it doesn’t make sense.”

The various projects announced on Sunday make up part of a nation-wide transport system being constructed by the Venezuelan government, including a national rail system to connect various cities, and subway systems in Maracaibo, Valencia, and Barquisimeto.

Chavez urged those involved in the projects to work hard to have them mostly completed for the bicentennial independence celebration in April, 2010.

“We have to accelerate the plans for the urban transformation of Caracas, here where the first cries for independence rose up 200 years ago,” he said.

President Lula Underlines Good Performance of the Brazilian Economy

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 01:44:00 +0000

7-29-08, 9:44 am

Original source:

Brazilian president Lula da Silva underscored the good indicators of the Brazilian economy in spite of the world crisis and soaring food prices and said his administration’s policy is to increase production to combat inflation.

“The Brazilian economy is showing strength and sustainability and I think we are going to continue growing even when this inflation caused by food prices, world wide, which is most fluid”, said the president during his weekly broadcast.

“In Brazil we have decided that the best remedy to combat inflation is increasing production. That is why we will continue to promote agriculture”, he added.

Brazil is one of the world’s leading suppliers of food but international prices have hit the domestic market forcing the Brazilian Central Bank to tighten credit with higher interest rates. Possibly the highest in the world with the basic rate at 13 percent and inflation estimated in 7 percent. Compare this with the US where the Fed rate stands at 2 percent and retail inflation is close to 5 percent.

Private economists in Brazil expect inflation in the range of plus 6.7 percent, higher than the latest target of the Central Bank, 6.5 percent.

Lula da Silva in his broadcast pointed out that Brazil has record numbers in job creation and in certain sectors of the economy such as agriculture and construction. In the first six months of the year Brazil generated 1.3 million new formal jobs which represent a 5 percent increase over the same period a year ago. He also pointed out most of the jobs were created outside the main urban areas given the very intense expansion of farming and investments in infrastructure and construction.

But in spite of Lula da Silva optimism, Brazil posted a wider-than-expected current account deficit in June as companies nearly doubled profit remittances abroad because of a strong domestic currency, according to data released by the Central bank on Monday.

The deficit reached US $2.6 billion in June compared with a $539 million surplus in the same month of 2007. In May, Brazil posted a current account deficit of $649 million, according to previously reported central bank data.

The deficit should widen to $2.8 billion in July, said Altamir Lopes, head of the central bank's economics department.

Multinational companies in the country sent $3.4 billion in profit and dividends abroad, compared with $1.75 billion in June 2007, as gains in Brazil's currency made it cheaper to buy dollars.

Brazil's currency Real has gained nearly 13 percent against the US dollar so far this year after surging more than 20 percent last year. The strong real has fueled a surge in imports, cutting the country's trade surplus and affecting Brazil's external accounts.

Foreign direct investment in Brazil fell to $2.72 billion in June from $10.3 billion in the same month in 2007. FDI is forecast to reach $3.2 billion in July, Lopes said.

Peace Movement Thwarts Iran Blockade

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 07:53:00 +0000

7-28-08, 3:49 am

A measure that would impose a naval blockade on Iran stalled in Congress this week after grassroots opponents of a new war with Iran spoke out against it.

House Resolution 362, authored by Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-NY), would have mandated a prohibition on 'the export to Iran of all refined petroleum products; imposing stringent inspection requirements on all persons, vehicles, ships, planes, trains, and cargo entering or departing Iran.'

These sanctions establishing a naval blockade sounded to many people like the first step towards war with Iran.

The bill also emphasized Iran's past efforts at gaining nuclear technology and implied that such technology would be used to make nuclear weapons. The evidence for such a conclusion is weak at best and counters a 2007 National Intelligence Estimate that noted that the best evidence indicates Iran closed down its nuclear operations in 2003.

Additionally, the bill accused Iran of funding militias in Iraq and Afghanistan that are attacking US allies or interests, ignoring recent revelations about US military provocations in Iran.

Introduced in late June, the bill garnered over 200 co-sponsors quickly. But grassroots and online organizations also responded speedily. Groups like J Street, MoveOn.org, and United for Peace and Justice sent out e-mail alerts to their members and tens of thousands of emails and telephone calls poured into congressional offices.

Some members of Congress subsequently apologized for not reading the bill more carefully, and within the past two weeks, key congressional Democrats backed away from supporting the bill.

One such member of Congress was House Committee on Foreign Affairs Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.), who has insisted on amending the bill to extract the blockade language before passage in his committee.

The peace group J Street, which describes itself as 'the political arm of the pro-Israel, pro-peace movement,' circulated a second e-mail this past week to supporters urging renewed opposition to the bill.

In a column last week at Huffington Post, Rep. Robert Wexler (D-Fla.), another co-sponsor of the measure, urged amending it. Wexler argued that the language that called for a naval blockade be removed, and provisions calling for direct American involvement in the negotiations with Iran, with the goal of stopping Iranian pursuit of nuclear weapons and its sponsorship of terror, be inserted.

Suggesting that the author of the bill did not intend for the bill's sanctions to lead to a war, Wexler further stated, 'I fully understand and share the American public's mistrust of President Bush and his administration, which has abused its executive powers, willfully misled this nation into a disastrous war in Iraq and disturbingly continues to beat the Iran war drum.'

The J Street e-mail alert stated: 'Let's be clear: we recognize the threat Iran poses to regional stability, to US interests, and to Israel. But Resolution 362 in its current form undermines diplomatic efforts to address that threat. What better way to convince Iranian hardliners to pursue a nuclear weapon than to provoke them with a blockade?'

But this rhetoric may need to be scaled back, too, suggests Jamshid Ahmadi, assistant general secretary of the Committee for the Defense of the Iranian People's Rights, an organization both sharply critical of the Iranian regime and the Bush administration's Middle East policy.

In a recent op-ed posted at the organization's web site, Ahmadi wrote, 'An increase in tension could serve the Republican presidential campaign based on the assessment that the ruling party is better placed to deal with a crisis.'

Ahmadi felt that heightening the tension and sense of crisis with Iran, which the Ackerman resolution, by any account, would certainly have caused, might itself provoke an attack ordered by the Bush administration just to force the next administration into a military engagement it might otherwise have sought to avoid.

'[T]he hawks [in the administration] could argue that action now could tie an incoming Democratic president to a course of action they would be unable to influence,' Ahmadi wrote.

--Joel Wendland can be reached at

Bush Tries to Push Failed Sex Ed. Policy onto Next Presidency

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 03:32:00 +0000

7-28-08, 11:32 am

The Bush administration's ideologically motivated abstinence-only sex education programs don't work and may endanger young people, say opponents of the administration's latest effort to convince states to spend federal dollars on those programs.

Less than two weeks ago, the Bush administration, through the Administration for Children and Families, sent an e-mail to states touting the extension of the State Abstinence Education Grant Program. The e-mail informed states that they may now apply for funding for five years, until 2013. The new policy would change the previous one-year application process.

Calling the new policy a scheme to extend a failed Bush administration policy into the next presidential administration, a press statement from Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) late last week said, it 'is a gimmick aimed directly at countering states’ rejection of failed abstinence-only programs.'

'On the way out the door, the Bush administration is once again caught misrepresenting the facts to push its own agenda,' said PPFA President Cecile Richards.

'This latest announcement is nothing more than a gimmick and offers nothing new or different for states that want to provide effective programs to protect teens’ health and safety,' she added.

PPFA says it is Congress' role to oversee whether such a policy change should be put into effect.

Opponents of the policy note that the overwhelming evidence shows that abstinence-only programs simply don't work and may, in fact, endanger young people.

Two recent studies by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy (NCPTUP) indicate the failure of the program. The CDC study showed that 2006 saw the first rise in teen pregnancies in 14 years. The NCPTUP study showed that abstinence-only programs do not reduce the number of teen pregnancies or sexually transmitted diseases.

All these programs do is deny teenagers medically accurate information about birth control and sexually transmitted infections, says Planned Parenthood. Abstinence-only programs do not distribute or teach youth to use condoms, for example, and so many young people who end up breaking their pledge to abstain from sexual activity do so without using condoms.

“The facts are clear: abstinence only programs do not work,” Richards said. “The government’s own evaluation of Title V found that these programs did nothing to increase abstinence or delay sexual initiation among participating youth.”

So far, 25 states have declined federal abstinence-only dollars, says Planned Parenthood. Officials in many of those states have called for real solutions that give teens the information they need to be healthy and safe.

More than 1.5 billion taxpayer dollars have been used to fund such programs.

Cuba Reforms its Food Production Process

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 02:33:00 +0000

7-28-08, 10:32 am

 Since coming to power, and even before, the Cuban revolution has been characterized by its pragmatism within the context of very firm ethical principles. Undoubtedly this ability to correct errors and negative tendencies, without losing sight of the fundamental path, has been a big factor in the survival of the Cuban vision of social revolution, which for a half century has faced very complex tests, in the midst of great dangers. 

 We know that market economies always resort to centralization to correct their deficiencies. Similarly, centralized economies must adopt elements of the market into their systems when adjustments are needed. 

 In political economy this dichotomy has served both as a critique of capitalism for its blind dependence on the market and a critique of socialism for ignoring the market’s stubborn persistence. 

 Recently, under the guidance of its new president Raul Castro, Cuba has begun to implement a reform in food production that could be compared, in terms of its far-reaching economic and social scope, to the agrarian reforms of the early years of the revolutionary process. 

 One of the most significant changes has been to turn over idle land, under the terms of Decree Law 259, for use by state entities, cooperatives, and any Cuban citizen physically fit for agricultural labor. 

 The decree’s aim is to reverse the decline in the acreage of land being cultivated on the island, which fell some 33 percent between 1998 and 2007. After the decree went into effect, farmers were brought together through their local organizations to describe their needs in terms of machinery, spare parts, irrigation equipment, ploughs, wind mills, and other inputs needed to make the best possible use of the land. 

 A short time earlier there had been a reorganization of the agricultural sector, aimed at moving decision-making as close to the fields as possible by eliminating many intermediary layers. The municipal delegations of the Ministry of Agriculture took over many functions that had been carried out centrally or in the provincial headquarters, including servicing the private farmers and those organized in cooperatives. 

 In addition, the state food-purchasing companies, which buy between 70 and 80 percent of the crops harvested by the private farmers, increased the prices they pay. (Private farmers sell the rest of their produce directly to the public.) The state farms and farmers’ cooperatives will see similar improvements in price. 

 More than a few people have objected to the prominence that the measure cedes to private property within the context of a socialist project which theoretically is wedded to social property and that therefore would assign a minor role to individual property and market production. Factors based on or relating to the survival of the revolutionary process have made a convincing case in favor of the measure, which, in effect, borrows elements of the market economy to use to serve a pressing socialist objective. 

 More than 15 years ago, General Raul Castro, who was Minister of the Revolutionary Armed Forces, had warned that, in regard to national security and the continuation of the revolution, the availability of food for the population is as important as the weapons that the country requires for its defense and is sometimes even more important. 

 From his new post, Raul -- having been named chief of state when the leader of the revolution Fidel Castro had to retire on doctor's orders -- has stressed that securing the country’s food supply is a high-priority for the nation’s security, at a time when the world situation makes the food question more pressing, serious, and urgent. 

 The reform in food production (with shades of a revolution within the revolution) has barely begun. One immediate objective will be to reduce the bleeding caused by food imports, which cost the country $1.6 billion in 2007. This figure will rise some 20 percent in 2008, with the country spending a total of $1.9 billion to import the same tonnage of food as in 2007. To this end, work is being done to improve the retail and wholesale sectors, with measures that include its sale's price depending on the quality of the product in order to increase the availability of foodstuffs to replace imports. 

 In this new test, Cuba can draw on the experiences of the efforts the island had to make in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the European socialist camp, which left the country virtually without trading partners willing to challenge the criminal blockade imposed by the United States government with the aim of wiping the revolution out, a blockade that dates back almost to the victory of the revolution in January 1959 and that was enacted into law in 1962. 

 Cuba’s advantage in this stage of its confrontation with the United States is that, although extreme rightwing forces govern the superpower, the world context is now different and it is the empire that is more isolated.

--A CubaNews translation by Will Reissner. Edited by Walter Lippmann. 

Recycling CDs and DVDs

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 02:12:00 +0000

7-28-08, 10:12 am

EarthTalk From the Editors of E/The Environmental Magazine

Dear EarthTalk: What’s going on in the music industry with all the CDs and plastic CD holders undoubtedly generating a lot of plastic waste? -- John S., via email

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), CDs and DVDs are typically manufactured by combining various mined metals (aluminum, gold, silver and nickel) with petroleum-derived plastics, lacquers and dyes. Given what complicated beasts CDs and DVDs are—products with thin layers of different materials mixed together are nearly impossible to recycle—most municipal recycling program won’t accept them, leaving consumers to fend for themselves in figuring out how to dispose of them. As a result, most discarded discs end up in the trash.

These difficult-to-recycle materials can pollute groundwater and, in turn, contribute to a whole host of human health problems. But the low cost of producing such top-selling consumer items means that replacing them with something greener is not likely anytime soon.

Research has shown that polylactic acid (PLA), a biodegradable plastic-substitute derived from corn and other agricultural wastes, could replace plastic polycarbonate as a disc’s main substrate, but the present high cost of using such a material makes it unlikely to catch on any time soon with those paying to produce mass volumes of CDs and DVDs.

As for jewel cases, most are made out of Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC), an inexpensive petrochemical-based plastic that is notoriously difficult to recycle and has been linked to elevated cancer rates among workers and neighbors where it’s manufactured. Furthermore, when PVC is thrown in with regular recyclables it can contaminate entire batches, ruin equipment and cause human health problems. While cardboard and paper jewel cases may be all the rage among a few record labels—Warner Music Group’s U.S. division, for example, has been using 30 percent post-recycled paper for the packaging in all of its CDs and DVDs since 2005—the high cost and low durability of such alternatives have kept them largely out of the mainstream.

So what’s a conscientious consumer to do? Those willing to pay a small processing fee can send old CDs and DVDs to one of a handful of private companies (such as Washington-based GreenDisk) set up to recycle them into high-quality plastics used in auto parts, office equipment, alarm panels, street lights, electrical cable insulation, jewel cases and other specialized items.

A shift in consumer preferences already underway may be just the thing that will make everyone’s personal collections of music and movies greener. Consumers are already able to download some six million individual digital songs via the 500 or so legal online music services now up and running on the Internet. According to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, digital sales now account for some 30 percent of all U.S. music sales and 15 percent globally. And most consumer analysts expect these percentages to grow steadily in the coming years, which is good news for the environment.

CONTACTS: EPA’s “Lifecycle of a CD or DVD,” www.epa.gov/osw/students/finalposter.pdf; GreenDisk, www.greendisk.com; International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, www.ifpi.org.

GOT AN ENVIRONMENTAL QUESTION? Send it to: EarthTalk, c/o E/The Environmental Magazine, P.O. Box 5098, Westport, CT 06881; submit it at: www.emagazine.com/earthtalk/thisweek/, or e-mail: earthtalk@emagazine.com. Read past columns at: www.emagazine.com/earthtalk/archives.php.

China, Climate Crisis, and Sustainable Development

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 01:54:00 +0000

7-28-08, 9:54 am

Conference: Marxism and Scientific Sustainable Development, May 2008, Langfang City, China

From May 22 to June 5, 2008, I took part in a study/tour sponsored by the Marxist studies journal Nature, Society, and Thought (NST). Embedded in the study tour on May 24–25 was a conference in Langfang City (near Beijing) with the title “Marxism and Scientific Sustainable Development.” The conference was the Third Forum of the World Association for Political Economy and was cosponsored by the Academy of Marxism of the Chinese Academy of Social Science, Tsinghua University (considered the MIT of China), and NST. The World Association for Political Economy (WAPE), organized in 2006 on the initiative of Chinese economists, is an international organization of Marxist economists. It president is Professor Cheng Enfu of the Academy of Marxism and its two vice presidents are Professor David Kotz of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and Professor Hiroshi Ohnishi of Kyoto University, Japan.

The conference title, “Marxism and Scientific Sustainable Development,” although formulated in 2006 when the plans for the conference were first discussed, turned out to be the general orientation for China’s future development set out by the leader of the Communist Party of China, Hu Jintao, in his report to the Seventeenth Congress of the Communist Party of China in October 2007. The large turnout of Chinese economists to the May conference is a reflection of the seriousness with which this path of scientific development is being received.

The conference ended with the adoption by the WAPE of the following document; Statement on Marxism and Sustainable Development

Third Forum of the World Association for Political Economy (WAPE)

Marx identified many potential sources of contradiction in the expansionary dynamic of capitalism. In examining the sources of crisis in capitalism, Marx did not ignore the pressures economic expansion could place on the natural environment. Nevertheless, the full scale of this potential contradiction was not yet visible in the 19th Century. A vibrant environmental movement emerged during the 1960's to address the growing damage being done by careless industrial practices in both the West and the East. Nevertheless, concern for the environment in this period remained a minority interest concentrated in the metropolitan regions of the world. In both the developed and less developed world, the environmental movement was often regarded as merely another special interest.

This situation has changed dramatically with the advent of neoliberal globalization. As capitalist industrial practices spread throughout the globe, the associated environmental problems were similarly dispersed and environment questions were actively posed for an increasing number of nations and an increasing portion of the global population. It has always been understood that environmental impacts had a strong global dimension and that many problems, like acid rain and water pollution, crossed national borders. Nevertheless, attention focused on local and national effects, and responses were generally national in character. All of this has changed with the emergence of an unassailable scientific consensus about the existence and serious consequences of human-made climate change.

It is not a coincidence that the present global environmental crisis has emerged in the context of a dramatic globalization of capitalist social relations. After centuries of relentless capitalist accumulation, the global environmental crisis has now developed to the point that the very survival of human civilization and perhaps humanity itself is at stake. The current global crisis cannot be fully resolved within the historical framework of capitalism, and global ecological sustainability will be possible only with fundamental social transformations and a new global economic system organized on the principles of social ownership of land and other major means of production, democratic and rational planning, and production for people's needs.

While standard economic theory has begun to discuss environmental and natural resource issues, it is incapable of incorporating the fundamental interdependence of the human economy and the natural environment into its world view. All production in the economy ultimately depends on the use of materials drawn from the natural world, and all waste from production and consumption eventually finds its way into the environment. These essential material realities and constraints are absent from standard economic theory. Just as crucially, standard economic theory is unable to envision alternative ways of organizing economic and social life.

The principles of ecological sustainability require that human society minimize the use of nonrenewable resources, maintain limited and steady flows of consumption of renewable resources, and maintain limited and steady releases of material wastes within the absorptive capacity of the environment. Market-driven decision-making, which tends to ignore 'externalities,' makes the achievement of this necessary state especially difficult. While it has not to date made the environment a central part of its analysis, Marxist political economy is better suited than the neoclassical tradition for dealing with environmental concerns. Its materialist tradition and its recognition that economic outcomes are not inevitable and instead are the concrete result of social relations prepare the Marxist tradition to grapple constructively with the current crisis.

The climate crisis makes the realization of the practice of sustainability especially urgent. Among all aspects of global environmental crisis, climate change is the most urgent and potentially has the most devastating consequences. Now it is nearly certain that the Arctic summer sea ice will disappear in a few years, suggesting that the processes of climate change have passed an important tipping point. With more tipping points being passed, global climate change could develop into a self-sustaining process beyond human control, leading to unprecedented catastrophes and leaving much of the earth no longer suitable for human habitation.

To alleviate the global climate crisis and prevent the worst catastrophes, it is necessary to begin immediately to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases. The developed economies must begin to realize concrete reductions while the less developed economies must begin to moderate their increases and then follow the developed economies in making reductions. All countries must begin to move away from a development and production strategy based on the unrestrained consumption of fossil fuels. This will not only pose daunting challenges in the fields of energy and transportation but it will also require the rebuilding of world agriculture on a more organic and sustainable basis.

In addition, the scale of the climate crisis must not detract from a commitment to realize immediate gains on a number of other environmental fronts. These include, among others, water pollution, other forms of air pollution, the release of toxic wastes, species extinction, demographic problems, unsustainable resource exploitation, soil erosion, and desertification. It is necessary to take effective measures, from institutional, policy, technological, and psychological perspectives, to address the root causes of the ecological problems facing humankind as well as their surface manifestations.

Whatever the urgency of immediate actions, the scale of the changes needed will eventually clash with the expansionary needs of capitalism. Capitalism is an economic system based on production for profit and the universal dominance of market relations. Under the constant and pervasive pressure of market competition and driven by the insatiable pursuit of profit, individual capitalists, capitalist corporations, and capitalist states are constantly pursuing accumulation of capital on increasingly larger scales, leading to exponential growth of material consumption and material wastes. The capitalist system is thus fundamentally incompatible with the requirements of ecological sustainability. Neither technological change nor government regulations, without changing the basic framework of capitalism, can permanently overcome this insurmountable contradiction.

Fundamental global changes required for global ecological sustainability cannot be accomplished without a massive mobilization of the world's working classes and all oppressed peoples. The global struggle for ecological sustainability, therefore, must join forces with the global struggle against all forms of oppression and exploitation.

Only socialism and the global solidarity of all working peoples can free both humanity and the earth from the fatal threat of global capitalism.

--Erwin Marquit is a contributing editor of PoliticalAffairs.net

Obama – The Greener Candidate

Mon, 28 Jul 2008 03:20:00 +0000

7-27-08, 11:20 am

A recent commentary from The Environmental Magazine (E) describes presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama as the greener of the two candidates for president.

Asserting that global warming is the 'most pressing environmental issue,' the E commentary stated that the approaches of Obama and Republican John McCain to resolving the problem 'differ in significant ways.'

The life of the planet and of humans are at stake in the very near future because of the global climate crisis, putting this question, by necessity, at or near the top of any list of priorities for the country.

In recent weeks, John McCain has attempted to appeal to moderate voters by talking about the issue, but has undermined his own positions by calling for new offshore and ANWR oil drilling, refusing to make caps on carbon emissions mandatory, and in his voluntary cap program, targets emissions cuts far below what scientists tell us are needed to turn the tide against climate change. McCain is also weak on promoting investment in safe renewable alternative energy resources.

Obama, according to the E article, proposes reducing greenhouse gas emission that cause global warming by 80 percent over the next four decades, using a mandatory cap and trade system. He has also proposed sizeable investments in alternative energy research and development, increasing fuel economy standards, and new mass transit.

The differences between the policies of the candidates is also reflected in their voting records.

Relying on voting statistics compiled by the League of Conservation Voters (LCV), E reports that McCain's voting record over his career stands at 24 percent, and zero for 2007. 'McCain missed all 15 critical environmental votes last year.' LCV characterized McCain's record and his stated positions as 'outdated,' and said that McCain 'flip-flops on core environmental issues.”

The record shows that despite his recent statements, McCain is new to the environmental debate and has yet to use his leadership in the Republican Party and his Senate vote to commit to changing environmental policy.

By contrast, Obama has a lifetime score of 86 percent, and his 2006 score stood at 100 percent. He did miss four votes in 2007 due to campaigning, but by no means showed the systematic refusal to go on the record on the environment as McCain's voting record indicates.

The E Magazine article also pointed to differences between the two on nuclear energy. McCain, the article noted, wants to greatly expand the role of nuclear power in the economy, but has yet to address the urgent question of safety, health, and contamination.

Obama has indicated that safe nuclear energy should be part of the picture, but 'would rather bolster alternative energy sources like wind and solar power that do not have the nasty side effect of radioactive waste in need of storage and disposal.'

The E Magazine article further pointed to protection of water resources, wetlands, public land, and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, as well as a US commitment to including strong environmental standards in international trade agreements as key points on which the candidates differ.

--Reach Joel Wendland at

Talking About Capitalism, the Left, and Global Solidarity

Mon, 28 Jul 2008 02:25:00 +0000

Editor's Note: Gregory Esteven, the interviewee here, is a contributing writer for Political Affairs.

PA: Recently PA carried online an article by you entitled 'How the Left Saved Capitalism.' Since it is such a provocative title, could you begin by explaining what you mean by it?

GREGORY ESTEVEN: I have been doing a lot of thinking about the classic question of why the socialist revolution didn't take off in the Western capitalist countries as predicted by the early proponents of Marxism. What I am saying in my article, basically, is that it is not enough to just look back at the obvious failures of the Left to explain this situation. I suggest that it is possible that the successes of the Left and progressive forces, the labor movement, Marxist parties, etc., helped preserve capitalism from its own contradictions. This is because, by nature, capitalism needs contradictions such as inequality, because the ultimate logic of the system is to generate profit – but if those contradictions become too great, the system itself is jeopardized. We saw this in the Great Depression, and in today's economic crisis we are seeing something like that again, although maybe on a smaller scale. Hopefully it won't get to the point of the Depression of the 1930s.

Marx and Engels were writing at a time when capitalism was in its most inhuman phase, when most workers did not have even the basic rights that we in the core countries take for granted now, such as the right to organize, bans on child labor, and things like that – and in their day the gap between the rich and the poor was very, very stark. However, by the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, the Left, and I think organized labor in particular, were winning many battles, battles which greatly reduced some of capitalism's worst contradictions and perhaps lessened the pressing need for revolution that Marx and Engel's saw. In other words, capitalism became somewhat reformed. I think that these victories were quite significant and greatly lessened the plight of workers, so we should not take them lightly.

This reform trend continued for a while, with the birth of the New Deal in the United States and the welfare state in Europe. Thus, we had what amounted to a sort of 'capitalism with a human face.' Wealth was being distributed more equally among the population, because there were all these high-paying union jobs, particularly in manufacturing, as well as decent pensions, benefits, quality public education and increased access to healthcare. That is why I think it is safe to say that the Left temporarily saved capitalism from its own self-destructive contradictions, by lessening those contradictions somewhat. I don't think I am putting forward a new idea here. I think this is really implicit in a lot of analysis. For instance, in PA's recent print edition, there was an article by Norman Markowitz where he talks about the New Deal and Lyndon Johnson's Great Society. I think that essentially he was emphasizing some of the same things I am talking about here.

PA: A couple of questions occur to me from what you are saying. One is – just to clarify – you're not arguing that the Left, the organized labor movement, and the civil rights movement should have sat on their hands and not done what they did? You're not trying to suggest that, are you?

ESTEVEN: Absolutely not! I think the worst thing we could imagine would be to just let capitalism self-destruct – and when it did there would be no movement to take its place, providing the initiative and the organizational strength to create a society that is more just. We need to have these constant struggles for democracy and equality, which broadly speaking we can call left and progressive. Obviously I am partisan, and I think that we should be fighting for socialism – but how long that will actually take to achieve is uncertain. In the meantime, many of the fights we engage in do lessen some of the problems of capitalism and help it assume a more human face to some extent, but there is no question that we have to keep fighting against it.

PA: The second question that arises is that if capitalism relies on inequalities and contradictions you are describing here, and if the Left has helped assuage some of those contradictions, don't we still cause capitalism problems, in that it needs inequality, as you said, in order to maximize profits and expand and grow. Don't the left and progressive movements, and the movement for socialism, even though we have helped to preserve capitalism, if you are right, still push it along on its contradictory path?

ESTEVEN: I think that is accurate. The question for me is how resilient is capitalism in the long run? We need to keep putting pressure on it, but it has shown that it can make minimal adjustments that help it preserve itself. But these reforms go against the logic of capitalism, which is about accumulating wealth in fewer and fewer hands – and this does not end. What I am arguing basically is that the logic of capitalism was somewhat minimized during a certain period of time in the early-to-mid 20th century. Over the past few decades, however, we have seen capitalism revert back to an older stage. I think we are now seeing the end of capitalism with a human face: the logic of amelioration may have run its course.

PA: In your article you note that in the era of globalization, capitalism has taken on a new kind of structure, where those actions that saved it before, spearheaded by the organized labor movement, cannot do the same thing for capitalism now, unless some more fundamental change happens.

ESTEVEN: That's right. I am putting forward the idea that in the late 1970s and early 1980s certain people came to power – Reagan in the United States and Thatcher in Britain, and others elsewhere. Reagan and Thatcher were pushing a very specific neoliberal agenda. What I wonder about all this is whether it represents a fundamental shift in the world capitalist system, or was it just the agenda of a few, so that we can now return to a more social-democratic kind of mindset once those people are out of power. However, the 'capitalism with a human face' that we associate with the pre-neoliberal period was associated with more autonomous national economies that were able to protect workers from blows from foreign markets, providing greater stability and other benefits. Neoliberal globalization is associated with the exact opposite. This is the age of trade deregulation, 'lean and mean' business models and rising inequality. If workers demand living wages and benefits here, corporations can just outsource their jobs. This greatly undermines the gains of the past and subverts new ones. Therefore, I think there is a good chance that this sort of Keynesian logic of amelioration has reached its limit with the advent of the global economy.

PA: In other words, not only does capitalism become more globalized, but the Left and progressive movements also have to take on a more global character?

ESTEVEN: Absolutely. The lesson that we are drawing from today's trend of growing inequality and market liberalization, is that we really do need a new internationalism or a renewed internationalism – I'm not saying that it ever went away entirely. But I think today that it is even more evident that this is what we need – a renewed internationalism of the left and labor, because in the past, as I was saying earlier, national economies were relatively autonomous compared to what they are like today. It was once true, in a sense, that workers in one country might not have the same interests as workers in another country, but now when, for instance, speculation on the stock market in New York has almost real-time consequences for workers around the planet – or when you lose your job here today and a sweatshop is set up in another country tomorrow – I think this really demonstrates how thoroughly connected workers are in this new global system. That is why I think Marx's vision really comes into its own today. Marx is not irrelevant today – I say the exact opposite – it is really today that Marxism is proven to be correct.

ICC and al-Bashir: Ocampo’s Justice

Mon, 28 Jul 2008 02:20:00 +0000

7-26-08, 10:20 am

The crimes committed against innocent people in Darfur represent a shameful episode in the history of Sudan and its neighbors, including Chad, which has played a dubious role in sustaining the seething conflict. Equally disgraceful is the politicizing of the bloody conflict in ways that will ensure its continuation.

The decision of the International Criminal Court's (ICC) prosecutor-general, Luis Moreno- Ocampo, to file an arrest warrant for Sudan's current President Omar Hassan Al-Bashir, and the international responses to his decision, demonstrate both the politicizing of the crisis and the selectiveness of international law.

Consider this bizarre twist. The US Congress passed a resolution, on 22 June 2004, declaring that the violence in Darfur was state-sponsored genocide. The resolution – named the Darfur Peace and Accountability Act – was signed into law by President Bush in October 2006.

Between the vote and Bush's signature the United Nations conducted a sweeping investigation – unlike Congress's rash decision which was based almost entirely on lobby and interest group pressure – declaring, in early 2005, that both the government and militias were systematically abusing civilians in Sudan's western province. It insisted, however, that no genocide had taken place.

The US is not a signatory of the ICC – understandably so, given that many legal experts deem the war crimes of invading and occupying Iraq as the worst since World War II. Although the ICC is, in theory, an independent body, it often investigates or provides legal opinions on cases passed on by the United Nations Security Council which is dominated by the United States, its vetoes and foreign policy interests.

It is anomalous that Moreno-Ocampo's request adhered to Congress's political labeling of the conflict in western Sudan and not that of the United Nations' own comprehensive and less politicized report.

Equally interesting is the response of the US and other governments, as well as regional and international bodies to the decision.

The US, which like Sudan doesn't recognize the jurisdiction of the ICC, was pleased by the court prosecutor-general's move. 'In our view, recognition of the humanitarian disaster and the atrocities that have gone on there is a positive thing,' said US State Department Spokesman Sean McCormack.

China and Russia -- both of which have immense and growing economic interests in Africa -- found the decision unhelpful and called for restraint. It's not only the Sudanese government that they wish to woo but other African states, alarmed by the court's move which is likely to worsen the tribal war and jeopardize the safety of the people of Darfur and the numerous humanitarian missions and workers in the region. (The UN has already declared its intent to pull back staff from a joint UN-African Union mission, one welcomed by the Al-Bashir government and which is credited for contributing to the slight improvement in the situation there).

The African Union, often discounted, if not entirely undermined, by Western political institutions, has called on the ICC to suspend its decision until the crisis in Darfur is resolved. In fact, intense efforts have succeeded in bringing warring parties to the negotiation table and extracting important concessions that, with international support, could bring the crisis to an end. But the call made by AU chairman, Tanzanian Foreign Minister Bernard Membe, is unlikely to be heeded as economic and political interests in Darfur are too significant for Western countries to allow Africa's own leaders to meddle.

While some human rights organizations and many media pundits, largely based in Western capitals, welcomed Moreno-Ocampo's request -- conveniently ignoring the hypocrisy of the decision and the mayhem and instability it will create in the already fractious region -- others in Africa and the Middle East are not impressed. African and Middle Eastern media decried the selectiveness and rigidity of international law when the conflict concerns poor countries, and its blindness and flexibility when the perpetrators of crimes are countries that wield military and economic might, and often the power of veto.

The ICC was established in 2002, immediately before the US aggression against Iraq. Interestingly, the ICC's jurisdiction – for obvious reasons – doesn't include the crime of aggression. Equally telling is that the court has so far investigated just four conflicts – in Northern Uganda, Congo, Darfur and the Central African Republic. One cannot help but wonder if only Africans are capable of committing war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.

It's this selectiveness that makes Moreno-Ocampo's request a textbook example of the inner-workings of international law. It exposes governments like the US and Britain which condemn war crimes and authoritarian regimes in Sudan, Zimbabwe and elsewhere while perpetrating war crimes of their own, aiding and abetting authoritarian regimes in the Middle East, Africa and elsewhere, as hopelessly addicted to double standards.

For Moreno-Ocampo's decision – and the entire international legal apparatus in the West – to be taken seriously, impartiality and fairness are essential. They are qualities, however, that remain conspicuously absent, vetoed, or otherwise shunted, into the sidings of history.

Regardless of whether the ICC judges will honor Moreno- Ocampo's request to issue an arrest warrant for the Sudanese president the Darfur conflict cannot be settled by selective justice, self-serving politics or contract-seeking oil corporations. Justice in Sudan, or anywhere else for that matter, cannot be obtained through such practices which are at best 'unhelpful' and at worse could be used by the international order's self-appointed policemen to further legitimatise their destructive policies of 'intervention' – economic sanctions, war, and the rest.

--Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an author and editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His work has been published in many newspapers and journals worldwide. His latest book is The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle (Pluto Press, London).

Obama in Berlin

Mon, 28 Jul 2008 02:18:00 +0000

7-27-08, 10:17 am

BERLIN – I attended the big rally with Obama in Berlin Thursday evening, not as a press representative but as one of the crowd. And what a giant crowd it was! The news reports counted “over 200,000” but to someone sandwiched in so tight I could hardly lift my hand to scratch my itching nose, much less applaud, it seemed like a million! The predictions had been for “anywhere between 10,000 and 100,000” and the official start was at 7, so I stupidly arrived at 6.30, too late to find anything but a tiny spot to stand on (when the pushing ceased), so far back from the monument where Obama spoke that I couldn’t even see the big screen. I saw only the heads and backs of those in front of me.

The crowd, overwhelmingly friendly, was amazingly international; partly, no doubt, because the speech was only in English with no translation. I saw countless African Americans, African Germans as well as Africans carrying or wearing flags and banners from Kenya, Angola and other countries. Among those sandwiched in next to me were a French-speaking African fellow (just in front of me and very tall), a father and son from Dublin, Ireland, three young women from Italy (one little student too short to see even the heads in front of her), also a Frenchman, two Californians and a young man of possibly Arab background. All the same, I guess the majority were of German background. I would guess that 90 to 95 percent of the crowd could be classified as “youth” under 30. The event resembled a giant pilgrimage.

Most came to cheer and applaud, and cheer they did – and applaud when, unlike me, they could move both hands. Barack Obama is immensely popular in Germany, about 80 percent detest the present president and this is even more intensely true of the young people and the international community so well represented at the rally

Obama spoke as eloquently as ever. He was constantly interrupted by the cheering, but it gradually became apparent that the cheering varied with his message and with the varied views of the listeners. In the first large section of his speech Obama – like so many political orators in Berlin – dealt at length with the Berlin Wall, the western air lift to West Berlin and Berlin’s great victory over tyranny and communism. Probably because so many in his audience were neither originally West Berliners nor even alive during the air lift of 1948-1949 and either unborn or very young when the Berlin Wall came down, their enthusiasm for such sentiments was nothing like what it had been for a Kennedy or Reagan when they spoke in West Berlin years ago. Only a few old-timers like myself will have noted that when Obama spoke of “the bullet-holes in the buildings” still visible not all too far way he ignored their origin, the battle to free Berlin from the Nazis waged by the Soviets at incredibly heavy cost; in fact, he carefully – or tactfully - avoided any mention of Germany’s Nazi past, while his words and sentiments about (West) Berlin’s fight for freedom had been repeated so often they may have become clichés to many.

There was even less enthusiasm when Obama said: “My country and yours have a stake in seeing that NATO’s first mission beyond Europe’s borders is a success…For the people of Afghanistan and for our shared security…the Afghan people need our troops and your troops…We have too much at stake to turn back now.” Despite the positions of all major German parties except The Left, close to 80 percent of the German people oppose sending German troops to that country, and very few clapped at these remarks. All posters and banners had been banned from the rally at the request of the Obama campaign committee, but near me a young woman handed up a banner she had been hiding to three young men who had climbed to the top of a street lantern. When they unfurled it we could read its message, “No troops for Afghanistan”, and on a smaller poster, “End the death penalty”. Not many in the giant crowd saw this, Obama certainly couldn’t, but one TV channel did show it the next day.

And there were more doubtful nods than loud applause when he stated: “In Europe the view that America is part of what has gone wrong in our world rather than a force to help make it right has become all too common.”

A leading member of the right-wing governing Christian Democratic Union summarized the speech by saying: “Except for personal nuances it could have been made or almost made by John McCain.” This certainly applied to many of Obama’s words about the past but also those regarding Iran and free trade.

But it did not apply to some statements, and these were the ones which received the loudest applause and cheers. We must “stop the spread of nuclear weapons', he said, “This is the moment to begin the work of seeking the peace of the world without nuclear weapons.”

He got cheers for “We must support… the Israelis and Palestinians who seek a sure and lasting peace ” and loud approval when he stated: “Let us resolve that all nations – including my own – will act with the same seriousness of purpose as has your nation, and reduce the carbon we send into our atmosphere.”

It was hard to judge, but the cheers seemed loudest to me when he demanded that “we reject torture and stand for the rule of law”, and that we “welcome immigrants from different lands and shun discrimination against those who don’t look like us or worship like we do and keep the promise of equality and opportunity for all of our people.”

I heard varying impressions from those who walked off to find their bicycles or find their way through the wooded Tiergarten, Berlin’s Central Park, to the nearest stations of the el, the subway or bus. I heard no one speak against him; a tiny group of US Republicans had waited uselessly in back of his hotel, but represented almost no one but themselves and a few right wing politicians in leadership positions, possibly including Angela Merkel.

Some of those I heard in the el seemed thoughtful, however, and occasionally disappointed at the many clichés, while others justified their use as required by the campaign for president and his guest status in Berlin. I heard one woman, the American wife of a Berliner, saying that even if Obama wins a lot of pressure will be necessary, not only in policies toward Afghanistan. She would certainly vote for him, she said, explaining to those nearby, “In the USA they used to talk about ‘a Great White Hope.’ After eight years with Bush and the danger of more years with McCain, we think of Obama as our ‘Great Black Hope’.” I think that summed up the feelings of most of the quarter of a million people of Berlin, more or less, who jammed into the park that hot evening to hear the man they hoped would visit again in coming years – as president of the USA.

July 25, 2008