Permalink: http://www.revcom.us/a/189/shawn_zee-en.html
Revolution #189, January 17, 2010
| Current Issue | Previous Issues | Bob Avakian | RCP | Topics | Contact Us |
Successful Fundraiser for Revolution Books:
"After 'Change You Can Believe In,' Wally Shawn reads from his Essays and discusses human nature with a communist."
I thought it was refreshing to hear people so articulately express what I've always felt and what I sometimes have trouble expressing. I thought they raised a lot of really good points. Especially the questions about human nature...
Woman in her 20s, NYU alumnus
On Friday night, January 8, 285+ people packed into Friends Meeting House in New York City for an evening titled "After 'Change You Can Believe In,' Wally Shawn reads from his Essays and discusses human nature with a communist."
After reading his essay "The Quest for Superiority," playwright and actor Wally Shawn sat down for a probing conversation with Andy Zee, spokesperson for Revolution Books. The audience, which included people in theater, publishing, film, and academia, as well as activists and students, really welcomed and listened intently to what was a serious discussion of deep and urgent questions facing humanity. Significantly, Wallace Shawn took part in the evening in order to help save Revolution Books, and the event raised several thousand dollars towards the store's $100,000 Fund Drive. Look to Revolution newspaper (revcom.us) for future coverage.
Permalink: http://www.revcom.us/a/187/obama_speeches-en.html
Revolution #189, January 17, 2010
| Current Issue | Previous Issues | Bob Avakian | RCP | Topics | Contact Us |
Obama Speeches at West Point and Oslo:
More Troops in Afghanistan and Preserving U.S. Nuclear Dominance... Is This the Path to Ending the Horrors of War?
At West Point on December 1, one of President Barack Obama's key arguments for escalating the war in Afghanistan was the danger that Islamic fundamentalists like al Qaeda or the Taliban might seize power in Pakistan and/or get hold of Pakistan's nuclear weapons.
"The people and governments of both Afghanistan and Pakistan are endangered," Obama stated. "And the stakes are even higher within a nuclear-armed Pakistan, because we know that al Qaeda and other extremists seek nuclear weapons, and we have every reason to believe that they would use them."
This justification for escalation in Afghanistan is part of a broader argument by Obama about the continued need for U.S. global "leadership" on the danger of nuclear weapons. It goes like this: whatever mistakes the U.S. has made, it has preserved global peace for the past 60-plus years and helped advance the interests of humanity. Now today, in the face of new threats from terrorists—who are far less rational and concerned about human life than the U.S. and its allies, but instead are driven by "rage"—the U.S. should continue in its role as guarantor of world security. Other countries should follow its lead in Afghanistan and on nuclear proliferation overall (especially in regard to Iran and North Korea) because this is the best and most realistic way to prevent the use of nuclear weapons and ultimately eliminate all nuclear weapons.
Obama articulated these themes at West Point and again in Oslo, Norway, when he received the Nobel Peace Prize on December 10.
"We will have to take away the tools of mass destruction," Obama declared at West Point. "And that's why I've made it a central pillar of my foreign policy to secure loose nuclear materials from terrorists, to stop the spread of nuclear weapons, and to pursue the goal of a world without them, because every nation must understand that true security will never come from an endless race for ever more destructive weapons. True security will come for those who reject them... But more than any other nation, the United States of America has underwritten global security for over six decades."
At Oslo, Obama argued that in the wake of the "destruction" of World War 2 and "with the advent of the nuclear age":
"America led the world in constructing an architecture to keep the peace: a Marshall Plan and a United Nations, mechanisms to govern the waging of war, treaties to protect human rights, prevent genocide, and restrict the most dangerous weapons. In many ways, these efforts succeeded. Yes, terrible wars have been fought, and atrocities committed. But there has been no Third World War."
But, he argued, "this old architecture is buckling under the weight of new threats. The world may no longer shudder at the prospect of war between two nuclear superpowers, but proliferation may increase the risk of catastrophe. Terrorism has long been a tactic, but modern technology allows a few small men with outsized rage to murder innocents on a horrific scale."
Obama is amplifying the core post-September 11 narrative repeated over and over by government and the media: Islamic fundamentalists are unconstrained crazies who think "god" has ordained them to strike their enemies, including with nuclear weapons, without regard for human life or world opinion. And that's why people should back the U.S. in its efforts to defeat them and keep nuclear weapons out of their hands.
But before jumping on this bandwagon, people need to stop and think, and examine this logic and where it leads.
First, are nuclear weapons a horror? Yes. Would their use—anywhere by anyone—engulf thousands if not millions in an inferno of death and suffering? Yes. Is Islamic fundamentalism a reactionary political movement and outlook, whose tactics reflect its reactionary nature? Yes.
But does it automatically follow that people's best or only choice is fighting with and for the U.S.?
In this article we're going to walk through Obama's claims and arguments—are they true, or not? And where do they lead?
Is it true that the rulers of the U.S. are more rational and less murderous than the Islamic fundamentalists—especially concerning nuclear weapons? Is their stewardship the best way to prevent nuclear conflict and eventually eliminate nuclear weapons? Who actually unleashed the "nuclear genie" on the world, and is most responsible for nuclear proliferation? Who is most likely to use nuclear weapons today? And what is driving the nuclear danger? And, looking honestly at all the facts, who is it today that actually fits Obama's description of how "modern technology allows a few small men with outsized rage to murder innocents on a horrific scale" without regard for world opinion, and justifies this in the name of "god"?
Looking at Afghanistan and Pakistan specifically, what gave rise to the possibility that Islamic fundamentalists could gain access to Pakistan's nuclear weapons? And what impact will it actually have for the U.S. to continue—and be allowed to continue by lack of resistance in the U.S.—to play this role overall and to escalate the war in Afghanistan? (Obama's argument is a package deal—supporting Obama's Afghanistan escalation also means supporting the U.S.'s "right" to be the "guarantor of global security" and supporting U.S. efforts to enforce or impose that.)
Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Who Uncorked the Nuclear Genie?
Obama's narrative of the positive role the U.S. has played in the world regarding nuclear weapons focused on the post World War 2 period and is rooted in the concept of a "just war." According to Obama, one criteria for a "just war" is one in which "the force used is proportional, and if, whenever possible, civilians are spared from violence." World War 2 was a just war, he argued, yet acknowledged it "was a conflict in which the total number of civilians who died exceeded the number of soldiers who perished." Obama then argued that "In the wake of such destruction, and with the advent of the nuclear age, it became clear to victor and vanquished alike that the world needed institutions to prevent another World War"—an effort in which "America led the world in constructing an architecture to keep the peace."
Here Obama "forgets" to mention the key and central fact—who actually ushered in the "nuclear age": in fact, it was the United States by developing and then dropping two nuclear bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Those horrific bombings epitomize the other point Obama forgot to mention: that during World War 2, the United States was guilty of the massive slaughter of civilians. By the end of 1945, between 140,000 and 150,000 people had perished in Hiroshima and another 75,000-80,000 in Nagasaki. The victims—overwhelmingly civilians—died from direct injuries— flash burns, trauma, radiation burns—illness, malnutrition and radiation sickness. In the years that followed, more died from various cancers caused by radiation.
The U.S. rulers have long claimed that they were forced to drop "the bomb" because otherwise they would have had to directly invade Japan, and many more lives would have been lost. This is a narrative that fits one of Obama's key criteria for a just war: that such violence be only used "as a last resort or in self-defense."
But historians have unearthed abundant evidence disproving this imperialist mythology (which continues to be the dominant narrative about Hiroshima and Nagasaki today). Japan was reeling and its rulers had secretly communicated their desire to end the war—before the bombs dropped. According to historian Gar Alperovitz, "A critical message of July 12, 1945—just before Potsdam [and some 3 weeks before Hiroshima was bombed]—showed that the Japanese emperor himself had decided to intervene to attempt to end the war." In his private journal, President Harry Truman called it a "telegram from [the] Jap Emperor asking for peace," at once exposing both his racism and that his administration consciously lied about their reasons for nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
"The consensus among scholars is that the bomb was not needed to avoid an invasion of Japan and to end the war within a relatively short time," according to J. Samuel Walker, chief historian of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. "It is clear that alternatives to the bomb existed and that Truman and his advisers knew it." (Emphasis added)
So Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not obliterated for self-defense. So then: why were these cities obliterated and over 200,000 people incinerated?
Here's how then-Secretary of State James Byrnes' personal assistant put it in his private journal. Byrnes was "hoping for time, believing [that] after [the] atomic bomb Japan will surrender and Russia will not get in so much on the kill, thereby being in a position to press claims against China." Alperovitz writes, "I also believe the evidence is strong, but not conclusive, that American leaders saw the bomb above all as a way to impress the Russians and also as a way to end the war before the Red Army got very far into Manchuria [in northern China]."
In sum, the record shows that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were obliterated for coldly-calculated imperialist geopolitical objectives, including weakening the Soviet Union's post-war influence and making a statement to the world that America would henceforth rule the planet and would brook no challenge. (Quotes re Hiroshima/Nagasaki above from Gar Alperovitz, "Hiroshima: Historians Reassess," Foreign Policy, Summer 1995, ncesa.org/html/hiroshima.html; Gar Alperovitz, "Hiroshima After Sixty Years: The Debate Continues," CommonDreams.org, August 3, 2005)
Sparing Civilians from Violence? The March 1945 Firebombing of Tokyo
U.S. savagery and wanton slaughter of civilians wasn't confined to the dropping of "Fat Man" and "Little Boy"—the codenames turned nicknames for America's first two atomic bombs. These bombings came in the wake of the U.S. bombings of Tokyo and other Japanese cities (where most homes were made of wood) using incendiary bombs designed to burn the cities down. On March 9-10, 1945 alone, the firestorm over 16 square miles of Tokyo killed over 100,000 people and injured many more. At the time, former Secretary of Defense and architect of the Vietnam War Robert McNamara was doing statistical analysis for Gen. Curtis E. LeMay of the Army's Air Forces.
"We burned to death 100,000 Japanese civilians in Tokyo—men, women and children," Mr. McNamara recalled; some 900,000 Japanese civilians died in all. "LeMay said, 'If we'd lost the war, we'd all have been prosecuted as war criminals.' And I think he's right. He—and I'd say I—were behaving as war criminals. What makes it immoral if you lose and not immoral if you win?" ("Robert S. McNamara, Architect of a Futile War, Dies at 93," New York Times, July 7, 2009. McNamara quotes taken from the Errol Morris film, The Fog of War.)
Did such actions meet Obama's criteria that force be "proportional," and "whenever possible, civilians are spared from violence"?
No. The real history of World War 2 gives the lie to any notion that those who run the system base any of their key decisions on concern for civilian life, or that they're bound by any precepts of "just war."
Why should such a power be entrusted with "constructing an architecture to keep the peace"?
Post-World War 2—Leaving Nukes Behind? Hardly.
This is quintessential Obama: rewriting history in the service of imperialism and its current objectives—by acknowledging wrongdoing in a general way, while omitting any specific mention or accounting of the record of towering U.S. crimes and carnage.
What, in fact, was the U.S. record after World War 2? Did the U.S. come to its senses after Hiroshima and Nagasaki and do all it could to "prevent another World War," as Obama implied, or halt the use and spread of nuclear weapons?
No. The U.S. accelerated its production and development of nuclear weapons (at its peak in the mid-1960s, the U.S. arsenal was comprised of over 30,000 nuclear warheads), it fueled the nuclear arms race, it facilitated nuclear proliferation, it repeatedly threatened the use of nuclear weapons, and took the world to the brink of nuclear war more than once.
The U.S.'s development—and use—of nuclear weapons and then its nuclear war threats against the Soviet Union and China, helped spark a nuclear arms race. After World War 2, the U.S. threatened to use nuclear weapons against China during the Korean war (1951-53), and threats of nuclear war against the Soviet Union also hung in the air during the late 1940's and early 1950's. Then the U.S. had secret plans to turn the Soviet Union into a "smoking radiating ruin at the end of two hours." (David Alan Rosenberg and W.B. Moore, "Smoking Radiating Ruin at the End of Two Hours": Documents on American Plans for Nuclear War with the Soviet Union, 1954-55, The MIT Press, 1981.)
As part of its "Cold War" struggle against the Soviet Union, the U.S. also helped its allies Britain and France develop nuclear weapons. And it has continued to refine and develop its own nuclear arsenal, both in pursuit of nuclear supremacy and to make its nukes more usable.
Iraq 1958: Threatening—and Deploying—Nuclear Weapons Against a Revolution
Nuclear weapons were—and continue to be—central to U.S. military strategy, operations and global actions and posture (and a key way the U.S. imperialists, with but 3% of the world's population, planned to dominate the whole planet). The U.S. has never renounced the first use of nuclear weapons, and threatened—either overtly or covertly—or seriously considered the use of nuclear weapons dozens of times in the post-World War 2 period against many different countries. According to one tabulation, the U.S. threatened the use of nuclear weapons at least 15 times after World War 2, in the Middle East, Asia, Latin America and Europe. (academic.evergreen.edu/g/grossmaz/interventions.html)
For instance, in the Middle East, in 1958 the U.S. threatened to use nuclear weapons after the Iraqi monarchy—a staunch U.S. ally—was overthrown and a more nationalist regime took power. The U.S. threatened war against the new republic, and U.S. forces—including the Strategic Air Command—were put on worldwide alert. Shortly before Iraq's revolution, 70 naval vessels, hundreds of aircraft and 14,000 Marines had been dispatched to Lebanon. They arrived in mid-July in position to intervene in Iraq. Micah Sifry, formerly Middle East editor at The Nation, notes that these forces reportedly included an "atomic unit" with artillery capable of firing nuclear shells. Eisenhower had in fact issued a secret directive to the Joint Chiefs of Staff ordering them to prepare to use nuclear weapons to prevent an Iraqi takeover of Kuwait's oil fields.
In response to U.S. threats and deployments, the Soviet Union began large-scale maneuvers on its borders with Turkey and Iran. Sifry concluded, "Until the makeup and intentions of the new Republic of Iraq became clear, 'general war' was a real possibility." In April 1959, CIA Director Allen Dulles told Congress that the situation in Iraq was "the most dangerous in the world today." (Micah L. Sifry, "U.S. Intervention in the Middle East: A Case Study," The Gulf War Reader, pp. 27-30; William Blum, Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower, pp. 133-134)
Iran 1980: "Plunging Headlong into World War 3."
The Iranian revolution of 1979 overthrew the Shah who was a key pillar of U.S. dominance in the Middle East. This came at a time of escalating rivalry between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, and there was enormous concern in Washington that the Soviets might gain ground in the region in the wake of the Shah's fall and the ongoing turmoil in Iran after the seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in November 1979.
Soviet fears of U.S. military action against Iran were sparked on August 16, 1980 when columnist Jack Anderson published an article reporting that, "A startling, top-secret plan to invade Iran with powerful military forces has been prepared for President Carter. The ostensible purpose is to rescue the hostages, but the operation also would exact military retribution." Anderson reported that the assault, tentatively scheduled for October, called for seizing and holding Kharg Island, through which 90 percent of Iran's oil flowed, and possibly other oil fields in southern Iran. Anderson called it a "desperate political gamble.... There already have been ominous rumblings out of the Kremlin, warning of retaliation if Iran should be attacked. A Soviet-U.S. clash over Iran, of course, could become the opening skirmish of World War 3."
The Carter administration claimed it had no such plans, but the Soviets seem to have responded to Anderson's exposé by placing their forces near Iran in a higher state of readiness, perhaps as a warning. In late August, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Carter's National Security Advisor, writes that Washington detected Soviet forces deployed "in a mode suited for intervention in Iran" and decided to warn the Soviets that any move into Iran "would lead to a direct military confrontation" and to "develop military options both for the defense of Iran itself and for retaliatory military responses elsewhere, in the event of a Soviet move." Those options included the use of tactical nuclear weapons.
The atmosphere was so fraught with tension that when the Carter team was debating whether to move AWACS planes to Saudi Arabia following the September 1980 outbreak of the Iran-Iraq war (thus directly inserting advanced U.S. weapons in the region), Brzezinski writes that then-Secretary of State Muskie "exploded and said that we are plunging headlong into World War 3."
Journalist and author Dilip Hiro concluded, "In short, when it came to keeping the Soviets out of Iran the Reagan administration (like the Carter administration before it) was prepared to go to the furthest limit, including nuclear warfare."
(Sources re Iran crisis: Jack Anderson, "Iran invasion plan reported, denied," Chicago Sun-Times, Aug.16, 1980; Gary Sick, October Surprise: America's Hostages in Iran and the Election of Ronald Reagan, pp. 25-26; Zbigniew Brzezinski, Power and Principle, pp. 451-453; Richard Halloran, New York Times, September 2, 1986; Benjamin F. Schemmer, "Was the U.S. Ready to Resort to Nuclear Weapons for the Persian Gulf in 1980?" Armed Forces Journal International, September 1986, Halloran and Schemmer cited in an unpublished paper by Daniel Ellsberg; Dilip Hiro, Iran Under the Ayatollahs, pp. 325-6)
Vietnam 1969: Nuclear "Madmen"... In the White House
These and many other examples demonstrate that U.S. threats were not empty bluffs. The U.S. often put its nuclear forces on alert or moved nuclear weapons into position for use; and all the while the U.S. were risking setting in motion events which the U.S. couldn't control which could lead to the use of nuclear weapons. In short—the U.S. was gambling with the future of humanity in order to advance its imperial objectives.
The U.S. rulers paint the Islamic fundamentalists as insane, while they themselves are worthy stewards of the planet. In fact, the imperialists practiced "brinksmanship," pushing things to the brink—and even acting as if they were irrational—in order to get opponents to back down.
President Richard Nixon called it "the madman theory," and in 1969, he put it into practice and nearly plunged the world into nuclear war. "I want the North Vietnamese to believe that I've reached the point that I might do anything to stop the war," Nixon told his top advisor. At the time the Vietnam War had turned into a major debacle for the U.S. and Nixon wanted to force the North Vietnamese to sue for peace on U.S. terms—but Hanoi was refusing. "We'll just slip the word to them that for God's sake, you know Nixon is obsessed about communism. We can't restrain him when he's angry, and he has his hand on the nuclear button, and Ho Chi Minh himself will be in Paris in two days begging for peace."
Nixon soon unleashed his "madman" strategy. "From Oct. 10, 1969, through the rest of the month the U.S. military was ordered to full global war readiness alert, without any provocation, and with no explanation to U.S. commanders as to the alert's purpose," writes James Carroll. "Nuclear armed fighter planes were dispersed to civilian airports, missile countdown procedures were initiated, missile-bearing submarines were dispersed, long-range bombers were launched, targeting was begun. On October 27, in the climactic action designed to make it seem the madman was loose, the Strategic Air Command was ordered to dispatch B-52 bombers, loaded with thermonuclear weapons, toward the Soviet Union."
Unbeknownst to Nixon, he put his plan into effect at a moment of escalating threats by the imperialist Soviet Union against revolutionary China, then a socialist country led by Mao Tsetung, with both countries approaching a war footing. "Thus, when signals of an American nuclear countdown were picked up," Carroll continues, "Moscow would have had every reason to assume that the United States was preparing to attack in support of Beijing, perhaps launching a preemption of Moscow's own contemplated attack against China."
"If Leonid Brezhnev [the Soviet leader], that is, behaved as Richard Nixon did in October of 1969," Carroll concludes, "the world would have been plunged into nuclear horror." ("Nixon's Madman Strategy", Boston Globe, June 14, 2005)
Pentagon whistle-blower Daniel Ellsberg, who has also analyzed these developments, writes that at the time, Nixon was seriously considering using nuclear weapons against North Vietnam, but was forced to reconsider after two million people took to the streets for the October 15, 1969 Moratorium against the war. ("Daniel Ellsberg: Time to Drive Out the Bush Regime," Truthdig.org, September 16, 2006, truthdig.com/report/item/20060916_daniel_ellsberg_drive_out_bush)
In the first installment of his personal memoir of the nuclear era, Ellsberg paints a bone-chilling picture of overall U.S. plans to wage nuclear war which would have obliterated "most cities and people in the Northern Hemisphere." Ellsberg writes, "The total death toll as calculated by the Joint Chiefs, from a U.S. first strike aimed primarily at the Soviet Union and China, would be roughly 600 million dead. A hundred Holocausts." ("A Hundred Holocausts: An Insider's Window Into U.S. Nuclear Policy," Truthdig.org, September 10, 2009, truthdig.com/report/item/20090910_a_hundred_holocausts_an_insiders_window_into_us_nuclear_policy)
The record of U.S. actions shows that in reality, the Islamic fundamentalists are no more irrational or callous toward human life than the imperialists—who are driven by necessities beyond their understanding and control—and the US imperialists have far, far, far more destructive power at their command. The main reason the U.S. hasn't again used nuclear weapons wasn't revulsion at the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It was the simple fact that their rivals possessed nuclear weapons as well.
"But There Has Been No Third World War"
OK, someone might argue, the U.S. has done bad things, but what Obama said is true: "there has been no Third World War." Isn't that reason to trust the U.S. rulers and feel they're the best option for preserving the peace?
Here's the reality; true, there has been no World War 3. But it wasn't because the U.S. wasn't preparing for the possibility of waging a third World War; it wasn't because the rulers never risked world war; and it wasn't because the imperialists felt that nuclear war was just too horrible to contemplate and should not be considered under any circumstances.
As their rivalry with the Soviet Union intensified over the 1970's and 1980's, the U.S. rulers and their military establishment seriously prepared for the possibility of nuclear war—debating its pros and cons, incorporating nuclear war fighting in U.S. strategy and force posture, and building new weapons systems, and overall working to gain nuclear superiority over the Soviets. "For the first time," former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski wrote concerning the late 1970s and early 1980s, "the United States deliberately sought for itself the capability to manage a protracted nuclear conflict."
Rather than an unbreakable taboo, nuclear war was something the U.S. rulers actually joked about—most infamously when Ronald Reagan "joked" "we begin bombing in 5 minutes." And during the 1980s—whether over Iran or after the September 1, 1983 Soviet shootdown of Korean Air Lines (KAL) Flight 007, the U.S. imperialists were willing to escalate tensions to weaken the Soviets and/or force them to back down—with no guarantee that would happen and knowing the possibility that events could spin out of control in ways catastrophic for the planet.
In short, the rulers were compelled by the underlying dynamics of the capitalist-imperialist system they represent and serve to pursue global power and supremacy—which is foundational and essential to the functioning and continuation of their system. The interests of humanity and the lives of billions of people were secondary to those considerations.
In the final analysis, World War 3 did not happen primarily because the Soviet Union under Gorbachev "blinked" first—backing down in nuclear negotiations in 1986—and ultimately because it collapsed (in no small measure due to the strains placed on the Soviet empire as a result of the U.S. "full court press" and its threats of nuclear war.)
Did the U.S. Change Its Nuclear Ways When The Cold War Ended....Or When Obama Took Office?
The end of the Cold War in 1991 did not bring fundamental change—much less an end—to the U.S. imperialists' reliance on nuclear weapons. Neither did Obama's election.
Today, the U.S. still maintains one of the world's two largest and most lethal nuclear arsenals (along with Russia)—an estimated 9,960 warheads, some 5,735 of which are operational and 3,696 of which are strategic (long range).
Nuclear weapons have remained a core element in U.S. military strategy. In 2002 under George W. Bush, the U.S. made ominous changes in nuclear strategy including scrapping arms control treaties, developing a new generation of nuclear weapons—including more "usable" tactical warheads—more fully integrating nuclear weapons into U.S. war fighting strategies, and planning for the possible preemptive use of nuclear weapons. For the first time, the U.S. stated it would contemplate nuclear strikes on non-nuclear powers—which effectively undermines the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
In September 2002, Bush signed Presidential Directive 17, a document which states, "The United States will continue to make clear that it reserves the right to respond with overwhelming force—including potentially nuclear weapons—to the use of [weapons of mass destruction] against the United States, our forces abroad, and friends and allies."
Three months later, in December 2002, a new "National Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction" was issued which threatened first strikes, possibly with nuclear weapons, against countries thought to be developing chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons.
It is not widely known, but during its 2003 invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration never took the nuclear option off the table. Two months before the war, the Los Angeles Times reported that the Pentagon was "quietly preparing for the possible use of nuclear weapons in a war against Iraq...including the possible use of so-called bunker-buster nuclear weapons against deeply buried military targets." (See endnotes for sources)
During his time in office, Obama has stated that a central component of his foreign policy is strengthening treaties to reduce nuclear weapons, including U.S.-Russian agreements, and he has talked generally about working for a world without nuclear weapons. The U.S. and Russia recently concluded an agreement to cut their arsenals of deployed strategic nuclear warheads by one-quarter to 1,600 each. This does not count each side's thousands of stored strategic warheads and tactical nuclear weapons, and still leaves them with an arsenal capable of wreaking unimaginable destruction over the planet. (New York Times, December 18 & 19, 2009)
There is no evidence that Obama has fundamentally changed U.S. nuclear strategy, rolled back the decisions of the Bush years, or has any serious plan to actually eliminate the U.S. nuclear stockpile.
There is, however, evidence, that Obama is continuing to upgrade and modernize U.S. nukes. Democracy Now! (October 1, 2009) reports that the Obama administration is "going ahead with a Bush administration program increasing nuclear weapons production... The administration is proposing to build new plutonium pits at the Los Alamos Lab in New Mexico and expand enriched uranium processing at the Y-12 facility in Oak Ridge, Tennessee." (See Matthew Cardinale, "Nukes Agency Pushes New Bomb Production," Inter Press Service [IPS], September 30, 2009)
As discussed below, the actual purpose and impact of Obama's rhetoric and his diplomatic steps are not to eliminate nuclear weapons, but to put the U.S. in a stronger position to keep its own arsenal—while imposing its own diktat on those it seeks to prevent having nuclear weapons. In short, to maintain the nuclear monopoly—largely in the hands of the U.S. and its allies.
"A Few... Men... Murder Innocents On A Horrific Scale"
At Oslo, Obama condemned Islamic fundamentalists for their wanton disregard for human life: "Terrorism has long been a tactic," he said, "but modern technology allows a few small men with outsized rage to murder innocents on a horrific scale."
But who was it—repeatedly and massively over the 60 plus years following World War 2 that wantonly snuffed out millions and millions of lives—overwhelmingly civilians—often to terrorize and crush whole populations? None other than Barack Obama's United States of America: whether killing some 3 million with conventional weapons in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War, or by killing over 500,000 through its backing and organizing of death squads in Central America in the 1980s, or by killing over 500,000 Iraqis—mainly children—during the 1990s via the imposition of crippling economic sanctions.
The U.S. rulers were perfectly clear about what they were doing—and occasionally they blurted out some of that truth. In 1996, then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright was asked during a CBS 60 Minutes interview about the impact of sanctions on Iraq. Leslie Stahl asked: "We have heard that half a million Iraqi children have died. I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And—and you know, is the price worth it?" Albright's answer: "I think this is a very hard choice, but the price—we think the price is worth it."
The World's Leading Nuclear Enabler
Earlier in the year Obama stressed that when it comes to nuclear treaties: "Rules must be binding. Violations must be punished. Words must mean something."
In Oslo, he focused on the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), "whose bargain is clear," as he put it: "all will have access to peaceful nuclear power; those without nuclear weapons will forsake them; and those with nuclear weapons will work toward disarmament."
Obama then insisted, "it is also incumbent upon all of us to insist that nations like Iran and North Korea do not game the system."
There is so much lying and hypocrisy here it's hard to know where to begin.
First, the NPT was signed in 1968. Since then the major nuclear powers—especially the U.S. and Russia—have refused to "work toward disarmament" in any kind of real way, but instead as we have described, maintained huge stockpiles of devastating and potentially planet-killing weapons—even as the numbers of those have fluctuated—and continued to hold humanity hostage, and continued to threaten to use nuclear weapons, most recently in U.S. threats against Iraq in 2003 and recent Israeli threats against Iran.
Second, the U.S. has been "gaming the system" since day one. When it has suited U.S. imperialist purposes, it has aided, abetted, and allied with countries who have refused to even sign the NPT, and instead developed nuclear weapons, reactionary countries which pose grave nuclear threats to the people: Israel, Pakistan, and India. Meanwhile, it has threatened sanctions and even war against a country like Iran for pursuing the development of nuclear energy, a right under the NPT. (Iran may in fact seek nuclear weapons or the ability to make them; however this has not been proven, and in any event, the U.S. has made clear that it considers even Iran's mastery of the enrichment cycle needed to process uranium for nuclear power intolerable.)
Israel: The U.S.'s Nuclear Armed Attack Dog in the Middle East
Compare the U.S. attitude toward Iran—a country with no nuclear weapons which has signed the NPT—with its attitude toward Israel—a state with a stockpile of 150 to 200 nuclear weapons, which has not signed the NPT, whose facilities are never inspected, which has waged one war after another against its neighbors and which is committing war crimes and crimes against humanity against the Palestinian people as part of its campaign of ethnic cleansing.
Israel's nuclear arsenal is treated as untouchable, even though Israel has repeatedly threatened to attack Iran (and other countries). There are no calls by any U.S. establishment political figures—Democrat or Republican—for Israel to sign the NPT or submit to international inspections.
Instead, as Noam Chomsky has recently written, in the weeks before Obama's Oslo speech, "Amid the furor over Iranian duplicity, the IAEA passed a resolution calling on Israel to join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and open its nuclear facilities to inspection. The United States and Europe tried to block the IAEA resolution, but it passed anyway. The media virtually ignored the event. The United States assured Israel that it would support Israel's rejection of the resolution—reaffirming a secret understanding that has allowed Israel to maintain a nuclear arsenal closed to international inspections, according to officials familiar with the arrangements. Again, the media were silent." (Noam Chomsky, "War, Peace, and Obama's Nobel," In These Times, November. 5, 2009)
Israel has also been a nuclear proliferator—helping the racist apartheid regime of South Africa to obtain nuclear weapons in the 1970's.
So today, one of the greatest dangers of nuclear attack—a conflict that could engulf the whole Middle East and spread to the whole world—does not come from Iran. It comes from the U.S. and Israel and their efforts to maintain their nuclear monopoly in the Middle East and prevent Iran from even acquiring the know-how for enriching uranium.
Why Is There a Nuclear Danger in Pakistan? And Who Continues to Fuel It?
The first question is—why does Pakistan even have nuclear weapons, which Islamists could potentially get hold of, in the first place? Pakistan's nuclear program has its roots in its 60-plus year rivalry with India, but also in American support for Pakistan's reactionary rulers, and its tacit support of Pakistan's nuclear program. Pakistan is ruled by big capitalists and landlords, and has one of the world's deepest chasms between rich and poor. It has been ruled by military juntas for much of its existence, juntas which fostered Islamization as a foundation of legitimacy, a tool of state, and a means of suffocating the masses.
For decades, the U.S. supported Pakistan as a counterweight to India—which was then allied with the Soviet Union—in the region, despite Pakistan's refusal to sign the NPT. This included billions in military aid and close military collaboration. India exploded its first nuclear weapon in 1974. Two years earlier Pakistan had decided to embark on a nuclear program of its own. By 1986 it had the capability of assembling a nuclear bomb, and in 1998 it carried out its first test explosions of its nuclear weapons.
The U.S. has at various times chastised Pakistan for developing nuclear weapons, and temporarily imposed sanctions and cut off aid. But these cuts have been short-lived and never trumped U.S. strategic objectives in the region. For instance, in 1979, the U.S. cut off all military aid to Pakistan over concerns its nuclear program was not strictly peaceful. Yet as soon as the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, the U.S. pledged military and economic support and by 1982 had lifted its embargo and resumed military and economic aid. The Reagan administration in particular turned a blind eye to Pakistan's efforts to develop nuclear weapons.
India and Pakistan have nearly gone to all-out war, potentially including nuclear weapons, twice, most recently in 2002. In addition to helping Pakistan develop nuclear weapons, U.S. actions in the region have helped fuel the India-Pakistan rivalry and thus poured fuel on this potential nuclear fire. For instance, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the U.S. began trying to cultivate India as its main ally in the region (and recently agreed to aid India's nuclear program). Then, in 2001, it overthrew the pro-Pakistan Taliban in Afghanistan and thus opened Afghanistan up to further Indian influence. (And the U.S. has refused to work for any just resolution of the Kashmir issue, which is a key fault line between India and Pakistan.) All of this has stoked the regional India-Pakistan rivalry—and this is one reason that Pakistan has continued to support the Taliban in Afghanistan—and contributed to the danger of war between these reactionary, nuclear-armed states.
Having helped pile up combustible nuclear tinder in South Asia, the U.S. imperialists have also fueled reactionary Islamic fundamentalism and in that way as well contributed to the possibility of fundamentalists getting the bomb. The U.S. has fanned the flames of fundamentalism by, among other things, supporting the Pakistan's reactionary and quasi-fundamentalist military rulers, arming and training jihadists in Pakistan and Afghanistan during the 1980s, driving the Taliban and other Islamists out of Afghanistan and into Pakistan with its 2001 invasion and occupation, and then poured gasoline on this tinder in both Afghanistan and Pakistan by its mass bombings of civilians and overall brutality of its occupation—including illegally detaining, holding, and torturing both Pakistanis and Afghanis.
All this has created enormous rage, tension, and instability in Pakistan. And Obama's latest surge—which includes more drone strikes and other military operations in Pakistan (reportedly including in major cities)—may well intensify these hatreds and increase the fragility of the Pakistani state.
Obama, like his predecessors in the Oval Office, justifies U.S. actions by claiming "god" is on America's side: "God bless you, and God bless the United States of America," he concluded at West Point, after announcing the escalation of the war in Afghanistan and the deployment of 30,000 more troops.
What is this clash between imperialism and Islamic fundamentalism—both reactionary and "outmoded" social forces—leading to? In Bringing Forward Another Way, Bob Avakian writes, "I have pointed out before that, sooner or later if things keep going the way they are—and in particular if these ′two historically outmodeds′ continue to drive much of the dynamics of things and reinforce each other even while opposing each other—then things could get to the point where some of these Islamic fundamentalist forces will get some real weapons of mass destruction, maybe even nuclear ones, and then the shit's going to really fly on a whole other level."
This is looming larger today in Pakistan.
The Realities That Must Be Faced, The Choices We Confront
So any honest accounting of the history of U.S. actions around the world in the last 60 years—and today—shows a wanton disregard for human life, a ruling class repeatedly driven to murder millions and risk even greater slaughter, whose actions have not only spawned enormous suffering but also sharpened rivalries, accelerated the nuclear arms race, and fueled Islamic fundamentalism.
So given all this, you can't make an honest argument that the U.S. rulers are any more guided by concerns of humanity, avoiding civilian deaths, and protecting the planet from a nuclear holocaust than the Islamic fundamentalists they condemn. In fact, the imperialists are the primary authors of these horrors, with far, far more power to inflict damage than the Islamists.
Today, Obama is arguing—and demanding—that this same ruling class be strengthened and followed. At Oslo it wasn't simply or even mainly that his speech was hypocritical in a general way (War = Peace). The deeper reality was that he was using the Peace Prize platform to advance and legitimize a U.S. imperialist agenda of escalating war, bullying and bloodshed. Obama's talk of a world without nuclear weapons, in particular, is an effort to legitimize the continued U.S. possession (and possible use) of nuclear weapons and its role in policing who has and doesn't have them—and its use of military force (including nuclear weapons) if need be, in pursuit of its own interests—as if this is somehow part of a plan to get rid of nuclear weapons.
In short, now that the imperialists have created an explosive and nightmarish hell on earth—with the potential to engulf whole regions and the planet in ongoing and possibly nuclear war, they demand that only they be allowed to solve the crisis—with the very means that have helped create it in the first place and when history has shown that their "solutions" only pave the way and prepare the ground for the next horror and the next emergency.
On the deepest level, capitalism is an economic and social system whose core nature and functioning rests on ruthless competition—economically, politically and militarily—between rival powers and blocs of capital. And this expresses itself in military rivalry, clashes and horrific wars for dominance over vast swaths of the earth and efforts to prevent other powers from doing likewise. And it means these powers will never give up their military forces and advantages—including nuclear weapons.
In sum, Obama is demanding that we protect and preserve this system and the deadly dynamics it spawns for our "safety." The only thing these imperialists are concerned about keeping "safe" is their right and ability to dominate, exploit, and threaten the planet. This is a choice anyone who faces reality and has a conscience should vehemently reject.
He's telling us we should ignore everything the U.S. has done to the people of the world, to forget how 80% of the world's population is forced to live and the threats and death they endure at U.S. hands—instead we should just focus on "us," and the possible danger to "us." And to give the U.S. rulers a blank check to continue to do what they will to defend the interests of empire. In short, let however many be slaughtered or tortured for our "safety" and the American way of life.
Supporting Obama and the wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan is signing on to ALL this. This is sickening and unconscionable for anyone with a shred of basic morality or concern for humanity.
And we should vehemently reject their entire system. Can there be any insanity as monumental and criminal as repeatedly risking all human life on the planet for the strategic concerns of a handful of exploiters and oppressors? Can there be anything as monstrous as the repeated murder of hundreds of thousands and even millions in the horrific wars they fight—whether by conventional or nuclear weapons? Can there be anything as perverse as the biggest practitioners of nuclear terror and risk-taking and mass slaughter posing as the guarantors of "peace"??
And that's not all. As we speak, these same monsters are also plunging the planet into ecological catastrophe (while arresting and beating those who protest on the planet's behalf) and consigning billions to a "way of life" that, as the Manifesto, Communism: The Beginning of a New Stage says, "drains away—or in an instant blows away—life for the great majority of humanity."
Well... isn't that argument enough for revolution? And the possibility exists to eliminate the roots of these kinds of wars and conflicts, through revolution to get to—again, as laid out in the Manifesto—"a whole different way of life... in which human beings, individually and above all in their mutual interaction with each other, can throw off the heavy chains of traditions and rise to their full height and thrive in ways never before experienced, or even fully imagined."
And when that revolution includes the elimination of destructive conflicts between nations and indeed the whole existence of antagonistic nation-states oppressing the people and fighting each other, well, isn't that worth putting everything you have into making that happen?
**************************
** Excerpts from Oil, Power & Empire: Iraq and the U.S. Global Agenda on changes in U.S. nuclear posture during the George W. Bush administration (Chapter 1, pp. 22, 23)
Ominous changes are also taking place in U.S. nuclear strategy. The latest U.S. "Nuclear Posture Review," leaked to the Los Angeles Times in February 2002, advocates scrapping arms control treaties, developing a new generation of nuclear weapons—including more "usable" tactical warheads—more fully integrating nuclear weapons into U.S. war fighting strategies, and planning for the possible preemptive use of nuclear weapons. For the first time, the U.S. stated it would contemplate nuclear strikes on non-nuclear powers. This latter move effectively undermines the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The Los Angeles Times reported:
The Bush administration has directed the military to prepare contingency plans to use nuclear weapons against at least seven countries and to build smaller nuclear weapons for use in certain battlefield situations, according to a classified Pentagon report obtained by the Los Angeles Times. The secret report, which was provided to Congress on Jan. 8, says the Pentagon needs to be prepared to use nuclear weapons against China, Russia, Iraq, North Korea, Iran, Libya and Syria. It says the weapons could be used in three types of situations: against targets able to withstand nonnuclear attack; in retaliation for attack with nuclear, biological or chemical weapons; or 'in the event of surprising military developments.'1
In September 2002, Bush signed Presidential Directive 17, a secret document which states, "The United States will continue to make clear that it reserves the right to respond with overwhelming force—including potentially nuclear weapons—to the use of [weapons of mass destruction] against the United States, our forces abroad, and friends and allies."2
Three months later, in December 2002, a new "National Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction" was issued which threatened first strikes, possibly with nuclear weapons, against countries thought to be developing chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons.3
Top Bush officials radiate, as it were, a vicious eagerness to use military power, including nuclear weapons. "Rule nothing out," Rumsfeld wrote in the May/June 2002 issue of Foreign Affairs. "The enemy must understand that we will use every means at our disposal to defeat them, and that we are prepared to make whatever sacrifices are necessary to achieve victory."4
It is not widely known that the Bush administration never took the nuclear option off the table in Iraq. Two months before the war, the Los Angeles Times reported that the Pentagon was "quietly preparing for the possible use of nuclear weapons in a war against Iraq...including the possible use of so-called bunker-buster nuclear weapons against deeply buried military targets."5
1. The review had been underway since September 2000, and was made public after it was leaked to the Los Angeles Times in February 2002. Paul Richter, "U.S. Works Up Plan for Using Nuclear Arms," Los Angeles Times, March 9, 2002. [back]
2. Jonathan Schell, "The Case Against the War," The Nation, March 3, 2003. [back]
3. "National Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction," December 2002; David E. Sanger, "U.S. Issues Warning to Foes in Arms Plan," New York Times, December 11, 2002; Mike Allen and Barton Gellman, "Preemptive Strikes Part Of U.S. Strategic Doctrine," Washington Post, December 11, 2002, A1. [back]
4. Rumsfeld, Foreign Affairs, May/June 2002, p. 31. [back]
5. Paul Richter, "U.S. Weighs Tactical Nuclear Strike on Iraq" Los Angeles Times, January 25, 2003. [back]
Permalink: http://www.revcom.us/a/189/dennis_brutus-en.html
Revolution #189, January 17, 2010
| Current Issue | Previous Issues | Bob Avakian | RCP | Topics | Contact Us |
Dennis Brutus (1924-2009): "A Star of Freedom"
"I went to prison on Robben Island. I was arrested for protesting against apartheid. I was willing to make that sacrifice for the struggle. And I will continue as long as I am alive."
Dennis Brutus in an interview, 2008
Dennis Brutus—who fought fearlessly for many years against South Africa's notorious apartheid regime; who in the following decades stood front and center in struggles for economic and social justice across the globe; and who penned sublime, engaged poems available today in more than a dozen collections—died on December 26 at his home in Cape Town, at age 85.
As a young man Brutus spoke out against the racist system of apartheid, especially in the arena of sports. He formed the South African Sports Association (an umbrella organization of Black sports groups that demanded official recognition in South Africa and internationally) as a form of protest and as an alternative to the country's all-white sports association. Brutus was also at the forefront of an effort that led to Olympic officials banning South Africa from international competition from 1964 until apartheid ended some 30 years later.
In the early 1960s Dennis Brutus was "banned" because of his activism—which meant he was forbidden to publish his poetry, essays and journalism, and barred from meeting with more than two non-family members at a time. In 1963, after he broke this ban, Brutus was arrested and sentenced to prison. He fled to Mozambique when released on bail, but was captured and taken to Johannesburg. Attempting there to escape police custody, he was shot in the back and nearly died while waiting for an ambulance that would accept Black people. After recovering, Brutus was sentenced to 18 months on Robben Island, where his cell was next to Nelson Mandela's.
Forced to leave South Africa in 1966, Brutus emigrated in 1971 to the U.S., where he taught literature and African studies at Northwestern University and the University of Pittsburgh and continued his activism against apartheid. He published many volumes of poetry but his work was banned in South Africa, except for one book that slipped through under the name John Bruin. In the U.S., Brutus was persecuted by the Reagan administration, which tried to deport him in the early 1980s. But he won a political asylum case in a U.S. court and throughout the following decades Brutus lived in the U.S., continuing to stand with the people in many just causes, including the fight against apartheid.
In February 2000, Brutus was one of 185 people arrested at the U.S. Supreme Court demanding a new trial for framed death-row political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal. Before being arrested, he told the Revolutionary Worker newspaper (now Revolution): "I went to prison for my opposition to racism and I'm right here opposing racism and injustice.... We want a new political and legal order where there is justice." (Revolutionary Worker #1046, March 12, 2000, at revcom.us)
After apartheid was officially ended, Brutus returned to South Africa. But the change he expected to see, including a better life for the people, did not come—and Brutus became highly critical of the leading African National Congress. In a 2005 interview with Amy Goodman he said, "[W]e come out of apartheid into global apartheid. We're in a world now where, in fact, wealth is concentrated in the hands of a few; the mass of the people are still poor. ... And this is quite striking in South Africa ... a society which is geared to protect the rich and the corporations and actually is hammering the poor, increasing their burden, this is the reverse of what we thought was going to happen under the ANC government."
Dennis Brutus was part of a movement of African artists who wrestled with the legacy of colonialism and a colonized education. And his writing passed through different phases as he struggled to speak to the common people. In 1973 he was invited to an international friendship table tennis tournament in revolutionary China. He had been reading Mao Tsetung's poetry and was impressed by the spare power of Chinese verse to convey much, with few words. In 1975 he published a book, China Poems, influenced by Chinese chueh chu, a forerunner of haiku.
Brutus stayed active and committed all his life. From apartheid to the environment he spoke out, took risks, and stood with the people. In October 2005 and January 2006, Brutus served as one of the distinguished jurists on the International Commission of Inquiry on Crimes Against Humanity Committed by the Bush Administration, held in New York City.
He was also one of the honorary hosts for an evening of reading on December 7, 2005 in New York of Bob Avakian's memoir, From Ike to Mao and Beyond. In a message issued in building for the reading, the hosts said: "Coming from diverse outlooks and perspectives, we are proud to serve as honorary hosts for this celebration. At a very dangerous time in this country it is crucial that voices like Bob Avakian's must be heard, his work and ongoing story of his life be engaged with."
In December 2009, shortly before he died, he urged people to protest the Copenhagen UN summit on climate change, recording interviews punctuated with poetry from his sickbed.
Over the years, Dennis Brutus completed more than a dozen collections of poetry, including Sirens Knuckles Boots and Letters to Martha while imprisoned at Robben Island.
There will come a time
There will come a time we believe
When the shape of the planet
and the divisions of the land
Will be less important;
We will be caught in the glow of friendship
a red star of hope
will illuminate our lives
A star of hope
A star of joy
A star of freedom—Dennis Brutus,
Caracas, Venezuela, October 18, 2008
Dennis Brutus will be greatly missed.
Permalink: http://www.revcom.us/a/189/oscar_grant-en.html
Revolution #189, January 17, 2010
| Current Issue | Previous Issues | Bob Avakian | RCP | Topics | Contact Us |
Protests at LA Court Appearance for Killer of Oscar Grant
LA Students: "We Are All Oscar Grant..." Students in a club at Locke High School in Watts staged an inspiring rally in the senior quad at their lunch hour. They had made signs and stood together chanting, "No Justice, No Peace, Don't Trust the Police." At first only about a dozen students stood together chanting. Then one student organizer got on the bullhorn. He said, "We are all Oscar Grant. I am, you are, we all are. What happened to him could happen to you or any one of us. We need unity. Enough is enough. ... This isn't the first time someone has been killed by cops and it won't be the last unless we get together to stop it. This is about humanity. This is our struggle." More students grabbed signs. Another student got on the bullhorn and also called on people to stand with them and join in. She said, "You always talk about how your friends were beat by police, or your cousin was shot. Well this is your opportunity. It's time to take a stand." At the end many were standing together, their chant: "Stop police brutality, stand up for humanity." |
On Friday, January 8, a significant protest was held at the county courthouse in downtown Los Angeles at the first LA court date for Johannes Mehserle—the cop who shot Oscar Grant in the back, killing him on New Year's Eve 2009 in Oakland.
Starting at 7 a.m., people began to gather until there were more than 150 who showed up for a protest and press conference. After the case was moved to Los Angeles, activists including the October 22nd Coalition against Police Brutality, Repression & the Criminalization of a Generation brought together different groups and individuals and formed the L.A. Coalition for Justice for Oscar Grant. They spread the word through flyers, Facebook and email. Students from different schools, including UCLA and high school students from the FREE LA High School, came.
At UCLA, 40 or 50 students signed a banner, "UCLA students say: 'We are all Oscar Grant. The whole damn system is guilty," and eight students from UCLA went to the demo and carried the banner.
A woman and her son drove in from the San Fernando Valley—they wanted to be there to show their outrage about the murder and oppose any attempt by the system to bury this case by moving it from Oakland to LA. About two dozen activists came from the San Francisco Bay Area, in addition to many members of Oscar Grant's family who went inside to attend the hearing.
A highlight of the rally was a solidarity statement from Keisha Brunston, whose nephew was shot 80 times by police, and the mother of Carlos Rivera, who was also killed by cops. Many of the speakers noted that Mehserle would not have been going to trial on murder charges if not for the resistance, including the rebellions by people in Oakland.
People chanted "Justice for Oscar Grant," "We are all Oscar Grant," and "The Whole Damn System is Guilty." People coming from their own court dates joined the rally and listened to the statements, taking up fliers and telling their own stories of abuse at the hands of the police.
Inside the courtroom the judge ruled on three issues: continuing the gag order forbidding the attorneys from making public statements about the case, turning down TV station KTVU's request for allowing cameras in the courtroom, and requiring the continued presence of Mehserle at every court date. In his rulings Judge Robert Perry talked about the "violence" of the protests in Oakland, warning that he had the power to put the case off for years, if he thought it was warranted.
The next court date will be February 19, when the defense will argue a motion to recuse the district attorney and a motion to reduce the bail amount. The trial is expected to last two weeks and to begin in mid-May.
Permalink: http://www.revcom.us/a/189/rockford-en.html
Revolution #189, January 17, 2010
| Current Issue | Previous Issues | Bob Avakian | RCP | Topics | Contact Us |
Emergency Action Alert!
Send Emails to the State's Attorney in Rockford, Illinois:
Demand that the Criminal Contempt Charges against Eyewitnesses Shelia and Marissa Brown be Dropped and that their Testimony be Heard!
Grand jury let killer cops off in police murder of Mark Barmore!
Shelia and Marissa Brown are facing charges in retaliation for speaking the truth about the cold blooded assassination of Mark Anthony Barmore by the police. Mark Barmore was shot to death August 24, 2009 in the House of Grace daycare center, in front of a dozen children, in the basement of the church where Shelia and her husband Melvin are pastors. Shelia and her daughter Marissa were there, with the children, watching as Mark surrendered to the police and was shot down in cold blood.
Pastor Melvin Brown himself has played a key role in getting the community to stand up in the face of this outrage and demand justice for Mark Barmore. He has also continued to fight the official attempts to cover up the crime and to cool out the resistance of the people to it.
At 10 pm on December 23 the grand jury found the police were "justified" in the shooting of Mark Barmore. Their decision was made without hearing the testimony of the eyewitnesses.The investigation was delayed for four months before even starting to hear evidence in the case. Authorities twice cancelled appointments to hear the Browns' testimony. Finally, at the last minute, they subpoenaed the Browns, right before Christmas, at a time they were to be in Mississippi visiting the grandmother. When the Browns petitioned the court for a brief continuance so that they could tell the facts—after a four-month delay—this request for a few brief days by the eyewitnesses was summarily denied by Judge Joseph McGraw!
And this, in turn, meant that the grand jury never heard these eyewitnesses' testimony—and the two cops walked!
Now, heaping outrage on top of outrage, and in a blatant retaliation against the Browns for speaking the truth, officials have brought charges of contempt of court against Marissa and Shelia.
The way it stands now, police killed this unarmed youth, in a church in front of the pastor's wife, daughter, and a dozen children. The courts let the cops walk and then brought contempt of court charges against the pastor's wife and daughter. The message is: "We can kill Black people anytime, anywhere and there's nothing you can do about it. And if people dare to stand up and resist this, we'll come after you too!"
We can't let them get away with this attack on the Browns! Take action now!
What you can do:
1. Post this email to your list serves. Spread the word everywhere!
2. Flood the authorities with emails from around the country!
Send emails to State's Attorney Joseph Bruscato: jbruscato@co.winnebago.il.us
Demand that the criminal contempt charges against Shelia and Marissa Brown be dropped and their testimony in the police murder of Barmore be heard.Send a copy of your letter to: (And for more information, and your ideas)
Revolutionary Communist Party, USA, Chicago Branch
c/o Revolution Books
1103 N. Ashland
Chicago, Illinois 60622
revbookschi@pobox.com
3. Call the State's Attorney at 815-319-4700
Demand that the criminal contempt charges against Shelia and Marissa Brown be dropped and their testimony in the police murder of Barmore be heard.
4. Attend the court hearing and show your support for the Browns:
Wednesday, January 20, 2010 at 2:30 pm
Courtroom A, Winnebago County Criminal Justice Center
650 West State St., Rockford, Illinois
5. Read and spread Revolution newspaper coverage of the Rockford police murder of Mark Anthony Barmore: Rockford, Illinois: Outrage as Grand Jury Approves Police Murder; Reactionary Counter-Attack in Rockford, Illinois; Masses Rise Up Against Police Murder in Rockford, Illinois
6. Post comments at the Rockford Register Star to counter the many racist, hate-filled messages and lies! Go to www.rrstar.com
— Revolutionary Communist Party, USA, Chicago Branch
c/o Revolution Books, 1103 N. Ashland, Chicago, IL 60622
Revolution newspaper: revcom.us
Permalink: http://www.revcom.us/a/189/professor_letter-en.html
Revolution #189, January 17, 2010
| Current Issue | Previous Issues | Bob Avakian | RCP | Topics | Contact Us |
Revolution received the following correspondence:
Campus Book Sales for Libros Revolución
I am a professor who is a reader of the paper and a supporter for the local bookstore, Libros Revolución. We have been raising funds for the bookstore through book sales on campus where I teach. I'd like to share our experience in doing this as a way to spur on other professors and students who are supporters to do some similar fundraising.
I think we've done about 10 tables in the last two years. Initially, the books came from boxes that had been donated to Libros Revolución and probably 250 books donated by a friend of a bookstore supporter. Those books included things like What Happened To the Stars of the 50's? and art deco and crafts books. Since then, another supporter of the bookstore donated at least 250 books, with a lot of good children's books and a lot of dime-store novels. A faculty member in Pan African Studies that I know from the union donated another 150 that someone had given to her. She sees us out there and thought of us when she got them and she has read Revolution newspaper. In addition, I've taken at least 200 used books from the shelves at Libros. I've donated some; some have come from various supporters of the bookstore, and some students have donated small numbers. I have a place in a room adjoining my office where I keep the books and add as they come in. I have 4-5 tables and some rolling carts and a grocery basket I've either bought or borrowed. We need at least 600 books to have a good sale.
The last time we did a table two days in a row from 10am to 7pm. On the second day, we finally separated books into categories that really helped key people into what they were looking for. Before that they were all on a long table and people had to search. The first day, before we had it organized, we made $400 and even though the second day we had many less books, they were organized, and we made another $400. We had fiction, non-fiction, children's books, ethnic studies, cookbooks and self-help and crafts books. We also had some Play-station video games that were donated. We sold some of the old photos from a couple years ago fund-raising for the paper and the Sir No Sir DVD (about GI protest during the Vietnam War), which we sold for $10 each. The first day a couple students also baked cookies and another brought Filipino empanadas to sell. We made a total of $800 in the two days. This is the best we've done.
I make sure the students who help at the table have gotten a copy of Revolution newspaper and a Libros Revolución bookstore brochure when they sign up so they know what it's for. We have had both Revolution newspaper and the brochure for Libros Revolución at the book table most of the time. A bookstore supporter was at the table one time and sold the paper, but in the main, we haven't had anyone to sell it except me. For the last two times, we had flyers posted around campus. People have gotten to know us, and we get people saying they got something the last time and will hang around and look. Usually, there are a couple of people who have gone to bookstore events or been involved in other programs we've done. This last time students who are involved in defending abortion and who have been involved in discussions on "A Declaration: For Women's Liberation and the Emancipation of All Humanity" were at the table much of the time. I ran into a Nigerian, who was in my class, at an AIDS march and he signed up and stuck around for hours and helped set up and take down the table and the books. It's a real social scene for the students and some of them have gotten their friends to come along and help too. A student's boyfriend, who is not in my class, sold three International Women's Day t-shirts last summer.
When we first started, we also sold pizza, candy, nuts, soda, etc., but given that we have to pay for them and don't make that much money on them, I've mainly given up on that. One time, a student made cute little 2x2 inch purses to put condoms in and we sold all of them for $5 each. But the books are the main thing, especially since we don't pay anything for them. We have made as low as $60 because there were only two of us at the table and we only stayed about 5 hours. $800 is the most we've made; that was over a two-day period. We made $600 the first sale in October, and before that, I think the most we made was $500, which included the pizza, etc. The other times we have raised between $150-$350.
It takes my being involved for this to come off. I have to oversee the set-up and basically talk to people and sell a lot of books. But, it's not necessary for me to be there the whole time. It does take someone who loves books and has read broadly. I see former students and faculty I know who stop by the table. The initial set-up is the hardest. It takes at least 4-6 people to get the table and books set up. Since I have an office close to where we set up the tables, we are able to use it for storage, which makes the logistics of setting up easier. We sell books from $1-$5 and new things for more than that—like the DVD Sir No Sir. We have a couple of big tubs full of dime-store novels that we sell for $1 each or 10 for $5. One woman whose sister is bedridden got a total of 50 of these books last time.
Permalink: http://www.revcom.us/a/189/189-readers_repond-en.html
Revolution #189, January 17, 2010
| Current Issue | Previous Issues | Bob Avakian | RCP | Topics | Contact Us |
Readers Respond to Revolution's Coverage on the Environment...
| Previous Posts: December 20, 2009 November 15, 2009 September 6, 2009 June 28, 2009 May 24, 2009 February 1, 2009 December 6, 2008 |
The following letters were submitted by readers who read Revolution's coverage on the environment, global warming and the Copenhagen summit on climate change. We are posting these as part of promoting debate and wide-ranging discussion about how to understand and deal with the urgent environmental crisis in the world.
*****
This is my understanding of the economics behind global warming and pollution. Let's first look at the larger contradictions that we are dealing with. When we are talking about capitalism, we are talking about a mode of production that exists within an historic framework where the means of production are huge. And, this issue of global warming, is a great example of how the productive forces needed to be recast into a completely different framework. But more on this later.
Capitalism, as a mode of production has two major aspects that need to be understood in their interpenetrating dynamics 1) The anarchy, organization aspect of capitalist production and social organization, and 2) the contradictions related to the exploitation of the proletariat by capital (and the source of surplus value).
In this paper I will focus on the first aspect of this contradiction: namely the contradictions related to the anarchy of capital on a large scale.
First off, we start with a fundamental aspect of commodity relations: value (what a commodity is worth) can only be understood as a certain approximation of labor time. Marx called this the labor theory of value. In essence, commodity relations are in fact production relations. If something (bread for instance) is produced—that production can be organized in any of several different ways. Production of bread under communism will be production based on a common understanding that bread is needed. In this case—the "value" of bread will be its use value (usefulness) from beginning to end. But under capitalism, bread is produced for exchange as a commodity and thus bread is an exchange value. (Real bread for money bread.) The point is that all value represents a certain quantity and quality of the labor (production) process. And that every society must organize how that production will be organized (the property relations, the division of labor, exchange of what is produced etc.)
A society where production is based on the private production of commodities—is a society lacking a soul that understands overall social need. Under capitalism, there are two aspects to commodity relations. 1) Everything must be put on sale after it has been produced. (All things "enter the market.") 2) Every capitalist enterprise is working within a framework of money accumulation. In this relationship, the capitalist is put into a position of trying to accumulate more money at the end of the day in order to compete with other capitalists. Now, it is the commodity aspect, above, that makes for the anarchy of this society. Why? Because, if production is fundamentally production purely for exchange value (more money), and not use value (a useful social product), any commodities not sold in the market place becomes worthless. For example, if the baker makes a ton of bread, but only half of his bread is sold, then a half a ton of bread is left to rot even as people go hungry around him. So under capitalism—the watch word is sell-ability and not usability*. If it doesn't sell—it is worthless. (Another example of this anarchy in action is in large-scale unemployment. In this example, it is people looking for work, and not bread, that is "oversupplied" in the "labor market" place.) So "market forces easily create both over production and under production because there is little coordinated plan. In commodity relations, planning is secondary to selling and it is at the expense of other commodity producers who are trying to calculate how much to produce.
And it is the constant reproduction of the production process that creates new levels of this anarchy. For example, if a new and better and cheaper form of product [is developed]—cell phones come to mind—then all of the producers of cell phones will have to refit their factories or face failing in the market place. (And, it is precisely through piling up profit that a capitalist can invest and hope to compete in the ever changing world of competitive production.) But where in all this does planning to stop green house gasses come in? - obviously nowhere.
Let us make clear, that this is the real world - the world of an internationalized and monopoly hyperized markets - and not a fictitious "people serving democracy" marketplace. Today, because of the anarchy of competition– sell-ability trumps curbing global warming or any other attempts at making a greener world. Gas cars sell more than electric cars, that is a simple fact, and if you make cars you are constantly watching the bottom line because the next car company over may well drive you out of the race.
Why the reformist "democracy" models don't work.
For now, we will stick to economics and avoid the political class issues involved to get at the deeper systemic nature of the problem Let's ask the question: Why can't capitalism allow a "non- competitive" sector where things like global warming are addressed outside of the commandments of the marketplace? The problem is, schemes that create "non-competitive" sectors either drain capital away from competitive sectors or compete with the competitive sector. Solar power, for example, might someday compete with carbon based fuels, but for now, all development (capital investment) of solar power is development (capital investment) that could go into oil and coal exploration. And because oil and coal are still much cheaper to produce than solar energy, oil and coal are the obvious winners in any economy that is trying to "control its costs."
But beyond this—let's retrace our steps here: 1) All commodities are produced (in today's world) as values. Commodity for commodity, (value for value). 2) Because all commodities face competitive pressures in the market place "externalities" such as pollution—are not a priority compared to facing the bottom line. 3) Any attempt at changing this is a pipe dream until the basic production relationship is addressed (that is communist revolution). If for example, you are trying a "European social democratic" model, commodity relations will remain intact. (Don't the Europeans build cars, watches, cheese and so on AND SELL THEM!) And then if you ask these Europeans if they would be willing to give up the all mighty "value" on their investment for the sake of world climate control—what will be their answer? "Hey, we need to compete with the American's and Chinese!"
Competition ='s Anarchy ='s Disaster.
There is a certain logic to the capitalist "Efficiency" mind set. However, from a global perspective, this is a horror show. Mindless production of gadgets, junk food and endless consumer waste, is destroying the planet. From the destruction of the rain forest for cattle production, to the trillions of watts of electricity that is wasted every night at Las Vegas style casino's around the world—we are killing the only environment we are able to live on. But people need to understand why this is the case at the deepest level. Capitalism cannot stop this—because capitalism is at it's very essence a system out of control.
It is precisely this out of control struggle to "win all" that has spurred on the vastness of the productive forces. But it is these same huge productive forces that now menace the world climate and eco-system.
To make an analogy, let us think of the bull and the bear of the stock market. And let us think of the planet as a china shop (a shop full of delicate silverware and ceramic pots.) Now we let the bull and the bear loose in the china shop, what will they produce? A very large mess. A mess, that it now falls on us to do something about.
**************
Hi,
The revolutionary fervor of Revolution newspaper encourages me to submit this article I wrote on climate justice. Please let me know if you can consider it for publication.
Thanks,
S. Sinha
The Human Crisis
S. Sinha
On December 18 2009, the most significant and biggest United Nations Climate Change Conference COP15 (15th Conference of Parties) in Copenhagen, Denmark came to a close. The venue of the conference at Bella Center witnessed representatives from government, business and civil societies spanning 192 countries around the world. It was a continuation of the international efforts initiated at the "Earth Summit" in 1992 in Rio, which was attended by 172 countries and resulted in the first international agreement to limit emissions of greenhouse gases: the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). In 1997 the convention was expanded to include the Kyoto Protocol, which for the first time set binding targets for the greenhouse gas emissions of 37 industrialized countries by 2012. These targets amount to an average decrease of 5% against 1990 levels over the five-year period 2008-2012. The Protocol placed a heavier burden on developed nations under the principle of "common but differentiated responsibilities." For the years following 2012, the 13th annual conference of member countries (COP13) in Bali came out with the Bali Action Plan aimed towards a new agreement to be negotiated at the 15th annual conference COP15 in Copenhagen in 2009. Through COP1 held at Berlin in 1995 to COP 14 held at Ponzan in 2008, technical details were resolved; responsibilities for each country, penalties/sanctions for non-cooperating countries, and modes for further actions were worked out. The meetings were often marked by vehement political discussions triggered by the U.S. stand on climate change and its complete rejection of Kyoto protocol. The U.S. remained the single biggest hindrance in all climate talks, especially since President Bush came to power.
Given this brief background, COP15 was an effort to create common ground to further substantially cut greenhouse gas emissions, explore methods of changing the way the world uses fossil fuels and possibly moving away from them significantly in the coming future. Since the UN adopted its convention on climate change in Rio in 1992, global carbon emissions have risen by 30 percent, a disturbing trend that the UN wants to reverse. COP15 was held to address this dire situation by coming up with some effective and immediate action plans. The goal of the UN is that by 2050, CO2 emissions, the principal greenhouse gas (other greenhouse gases are water vapor, ozone, nitrous oxide, sulphur hexafluoride and methane) should be halved compared to their 1990 levels. It also wants the planet to be no more than two degrees centigrade warmer than it was before the Industrial Revolution (a period between the 18th and 19th century). COP15 was supposed to bring the member countries together into a binding agreement like Kyoto Protocol to achieve these goals.
UNFCCC recognizes that the developed countries are principally responsible for the current high levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, as a result of more than 150 years of industrial activity. It also notes that, "Carbon dioxide is responsible for over 60 per cent of the 'enhanced greenhouse effect' (warming of earth's surface and lower atmosphere). Humans are burning coal, oil, and natural gas at a rate that is much, much faster than the speed at which these fossil fuels were created. This is releasing the carbon stored in the fuels into the atmosphere and upsetting the carbon cycle, the millennia-old, precisely balanced system by which carbon is exchanged between the air, the oceans, and the land vegetation. Currently, atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide are rising by over 10 per cent every 20 years." UNFCCC is essentially saying that we will have to depart from the culture of burning fossil fuels sooner than later. It is not hard to see which country burns the most fossil fuel.
The consequences of a warmer planet can be seen and felt from the melting polar ice caps to the drying sub-Saharan Africa. In countries such as Kenya, as the desert expands, the chances of nomadic farmers finding water for their cattle shrink and hence their main source of sustenance is threatened. In a country where famine threatens up to 10 million lives, crop shortages have devastating effects. In countries like Kenya, Cameroon, Swaziland, Malawi, Benin etc. indigenous people are solely dependent on forests which are quickly disappearing. Famine, drought, scarcity of water and food, and dying livestock constantly threaten these countries. In other countries like Nigeria, Zambia, Uganda etc. many coastal cities will disappear by 2050. Famine can soon be a threat to India too, with its melting Himalayan glaciers and shifting monsoon patterns. As in Africa, the Indian subcontinent can soon have climate refugees with rising hurricanes in coastal areas and flash floods in the Himalayan regions that have already contributed to the migration of a significant percentage of the local population. Further from mainland, Island nations like Tuvalu, Maldives, New Caledonia, Soloman Islands, Samoa and others in the Pacific and Indian oceans will be virtually wiped out from the face of the earth before the turn of this century if the biggest polluters like the U.S. do not pledge to cut down their emissions by 40% from 1990 levels. 80% of Maldives has an elevation less than 3 feet above sea level and the island nation of Tuvalu has a maximum width of only 5km; the threat of extinction for these countries is more real than one can imagine. The same threats exist for the Phillippines, Fiji, islands of Hawaii, many other island nations in the Pacific Ocean and archipelagos north east of Australia. Even the U.S. faced the devastation from Katrina, and recent snowfall in Oklahoma and Dallas, which shows that no country is isolated from climate change. The environmental group Germanwatch issued a report ranking the countries hardest hit by extreme weather based on socioeconomic data. For 2008, Burma topped the list, followed by Yemen and Vietnam. The United States ranked fifth, higher than any other industrial nation.
For the UN, these desperate times called for drastic measures that it had hoped to put in place in Copenhagen. However developed, emerging and under-developed economies did not all agree on targets. The biggest polluter in the world, the U.S., contributes to 25% of the total emissions with only 5% of the world population. Despite this disproportionate statistic, the U.S. has offered to cut emissions by 17% from 2005 levels which translates to only 4% from 1990 levels, a target matched by Canada. Along similar lines, the EU offered 20% with Russia and Japan offering up to 25% of 2005 levels. The world's second biggest polluter, China, said it will reduce its "carbon intensity"—or the amount of CO2 emitted per unit of GDP—by between 40-45% compared to 2005 levels by 2020. Similar to China, India says it will reduce its carbon intensity, while Brazil offered a 20% cut from 2005 levels. This shift from 1990 levels to 2005 levels was initiated by the U.S. significantly lowering the bar. Also, the U.S. offer was the least despite being the biggest polluter; China being the second biggest polluter still offered much higher cuts. Then there was the issue of who is going to pay for it. China, India, South Africa and Brazil came together to demand that richer countries share their green technology or pay poorer nations to develop their own. Ecuador which is sitting on a rich gas reserve demanded a compensation to 'keep the oil in the soil'. Miguel Lovera, the chief negotiator for Paraguay who has played a key role in negotiations over the world's rainforests, pushed for a deal for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD). African, Latin American and small island nations had more stringent demands of capping the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees, over 40% cut in emissions from the U.S. from 1990 levels, and reparations for the damage done to their country, environment and people. They said they are suffering the consequences of a problem they did not create; and hence have a just demand for compensation from industrialized rich nations who created this problem for their own unbridled development. Scientific studies which are unanimous in their opinion show that the current goal of capping temperature increase to 2 degrees and the non-binding proposals by each country, will culminate to a 3-3.5 degree temperature rise in Africa, spelling disaster and wreaking havoc in the African continent which already has climate refugees. In the first week of the conference, the developing countries reacted furiously to leaked documents that showed that world leaders were to be asked the following week to sign an agreement that hands more power to rich countries and sidelines the UN's role in all future climate change negotiations. Lumumba Stanislaus Di-Aping, the Sudanese chair of the group of 132 developing countries known as G77, condemned the leaked document. These are only a few examples of disagreements among nations showing a clear rich-poor nation divide and global north and global south divide. As a result, the countries could not come to an agreement and the talks failed.
The failure to achieve a binding agreement among the nations of the world not only shows a deep crisis to save our planet and ourselves, but it also has very profound implications that need to be carefully considered and acted upon. The Copenhagen talks amply displayed the global feudal order existing in the modern world. The so-called 'world leaders' showed extreme apathy and callousness not only towards a dying planet, but also towards fellow human beings whose lives are deeply entangled with the health of our planet. The talks were a tug of war between more than a hundred nations on one side and a few rich ones on the other and the result was quite predictable. It's almost a consensus that the U.S. single-handedly sabotaged the climate conference by flatly refusing to make any significant contributions. It constantly tried to circumvent, shirk and deny the historical responsibility of putting maximum greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, accepting which translates to justice for several countries especially small island nations whose very survival is on the line if the emissions are not controlled in the near future. There was hope in the international community that President Obama might take a different stand and propose a meaningful cut in emissions, but he brazenly reiterated the stand of his administration and climate negotiation team. In fact, just before leaving the UN climate summit, Barack Obama said to his own small White House press corps, "We will not be legally bound by anything that took place here today." The "hope" was shattered. President Obama has proved himself to be a "brown sahib" of colonial India.
As the "leaders" of the world converged in Copenhagen, the civil societies, climate activists and hundreds of other dissidents were barred from entering the premises and their voices were shut out by police crackdown on the most peaceful, legitimate and humane demonstrations. Prominent active organizations banned from the conference were Greenpeace, Friends of Earth, Network to Protect Rainforests, League of Island Nations, African Wildlife Foundation etc., organizations that have waged the struggle to reverse climate change for decades. Several protesters were apprehended by Danish police merely on suspicion and were released long after the conference ended. Governments are supposed to represent the people, but in practice they act exactly opposite with hardly any exception. The rich nations stooped to horse-trading and "dinner-deals" in "green rooms" with several developing nations' leaders to give away as little as they could. A significant example is Ethiopia, which was persuaded by France to reduce their demand from 100 billion in reparations to a meager 1 billion. Australia did everything possible to persuade the island countries around it to cut back their demands. It is rumored that China cut a deal with the U.S. for emissions. The conference was marred with such incidents and the voices of the people largely remained unheard.
To register their presence just across the street from Bella Center, civil societies, climate activists and organizations held their own alternate people's climate summit called Klimaforum09. Thousands joined and its massive meetings (at times swelling to 100,000) were addressed by veteran climate activists like Vandana Shiva from India who said, "it is time for the U.S. to stop seeing itself as a donor and recognizing itself as a Polluter, a Polluter who must pay"; Koomi Naidu of Greenpeace; Nigerian Environmentalist Nnimmo Bassey of Friends of Earth who said, "the Global North Owes a Climate Debt to Africa" and has campaigned against Shell Oil's presence in the Niger Delta for nearly two decades; Sarah James, a longtime advocate for the Gwich'in people in Alaska (with the Indian-born photographer Subhankar Banerjee, who has spent years documenting life in the Arctic) said, "erosion, fires, depleting knowledge of land by people as well as animals has generated a tremendous crisis for survival." Kenyan Nobel Peace Laureate Wangari Maathai who started the Greenbelt Movement in Kenya mobilizing women to plant millions of trees was also present. Activists from the Pacific island of Hawaii (Kwai) see themselves as an illegal part of the U.S. and blamed the U.S. for bringing the island nations to the brink of survival. Rajendra K. Pauchauri, chair of IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, UN) commented that the offer for a cut for emissions is at least some progress from the Bush administration which had completely refused to recognize climate change. He also said that if people could give up eating meat just once a week, that would be a significant contribution (7-8%) to the reduction of greenhouse gases. A group of international climate justice activists are still on a prolonged hunger strike. Even before the conference began, protesters took to the streets in Belfast, Glasgow, Paris, Brussels, Berlin and London. The largest protest was in London, where the organizers of the "Stop Climate Chaos" protest estimated the crowd total to be 50,000. Participants in the march included Britain Climate and Energy Secretary Ed Miliband, actor Peter Capaldi and former BBC weather presenter Michael Fish.
Latin American, African and even Asian countries openly lambasted the U.S. stand and criticized it in strongest terms. Hugo Chavez from Venezuela summed it up by saying that if it were banks in need, President Obama would have very willingly shelled out trillions; but when the lives of people are on the line and countries are on the verge of extinction, it is of least concern to President Obama. Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa commented on President Obama: "He is now a Nobel Laureate—become what you are". Prime Minister Mohammad Nasheed of Maldives, one of the frontline countries in this conference, made an emphatic and impassioned appeal for climate change promising carbon neutrality for Maldives by 2050. Fifteen-year-old Maldives climate ambassador Mohamed Axam Maumoon in his message to the world said, "On the basis that you know what you are doing is wrong and you can see that the victim is begging for mercy...would you commit murder?" Bolivia's chief climate negotiator, Angelica Navarro said "Twenty percent of the population has actually emitted more than two-thirds of the emissions. And as a result, they have caused more than 90 percent of the increase in temperatures. We are not begging for aid; we want developed countries to comply with their obligation and pay their debt."
The appeals and cries for help went on and on. The Philippines were so vocal for climate change measures that the U.S. Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton had to pay a visit to the Philippines to pacify them (the U.S. invaded the Philippines in 1898 and established and supported an unpopular dummy government for years). After the conference, the Swedish minister openly lambasted the U.S. as the sole culprit for failed climate talks and a constant hurdle to humane and just climate solutions. The other Scandinavian country Norway also faces intense crisis for its indigenous people and their lands affected due to oil extraction.
It was nearly 25 years ago that Bill McKibben founded 350.org to educate and mobilize people to put pressure on governments to address the issue of climate change. The number 350 represents the amount of safe CO2 in the atmosphere in terms of parts per million (ppm). We are already at 387. If the emissions continue to increase at this rate, we will be at 770 by the turn of the century and the earth will be virtually unlivable. The cooler [and industrialized] global north will obviously be the last to be affected. This shows that the industrialized nations were aware of their wrongdoings and its possible impacts for a long time and still took no action and continued to splurge energy and resources thereby putting more CO2 in the atmosphere. However, the indigenous people of the extreme north (Alaska and Arctic region) put forth their extreme conditions where melting of glaciers has ruined their lives and source of food. The nations suffering the most today (African and island nations) are not the ones that put such dangerous levels of CO2 in the atmosphere. These nations are therefore perfectly justified in demanding climate reparations from industrialized nations. The EU and other rich countries more or less agree to this concept, but are willing to offer monetary aid and transfer of green technologies only if the U.S. took the lead. As expected, not only did the U.S. not take the lead of any kind, but it also bullied other countries to agree to its terms in which each country (basically the U.S. itself) will conveniently decide upon its own emission cuts [suiting them] and will contribute to a 100 billion dollar fund generated from public and private sources by 2020. It also refused to commit or put anything on the table unless its irrational demand was accepted. The overall offer from rich countries was only 10 billion.
It's a human crisis. It's a struggle to survive, a struggle to save populations from going under, a struggle between global north and global south, a struggle to save the planet and prevent countries from going extinct. Bolivian president Evo Morales directly blamed this crisis on capitalism and demanded an end to capitalism which according to him is reckless industrialization and pursuit of a "better life." He advocated living well rather than living "better," which by its very definition and connotation is at the expense of others. The fight for climate justice is a fight for social justice, it's a fight of poor against rich, it's a fight for equitable distribution of wealth and resources, it's a fight for a permanent end to the exploitation of people and resources, it's a fight to work for the welfare of the people and not industries and adopt green lifestyles irreversibly. Unfortunately, the onus to take the lead in this fight is on the most powerful nation in the world, which happens to be the single biggest contributor to emissions. Such world domination by a single nation, i.e. the U.S., has been unprecedented in history and so the task for the rest of the world to force the U.S. to change its ways becomes extremely daunting. It's a unipolar world now, where the sole superpower is extremely aggressive, hawkish and a threat to humanity.
The unipolar moment dawned with the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989. With the Soviet deterrent gone, the U.S. suddenly acceded to being the only imperialist superpower in the world. Although some might naively think that moment to be the end of the cold war and end of NATO, which was primarily formed to counter USSR during the cold war, nothing of that sort happened. On the contrary, NATO expanded quickly to eastern Europe dishonoring its pledges to Gorbachev for non-expansion. As it is not hard to guess, the key player in this expansion was the U.S. and it extended his hegemony rapidly. With the collusion of the EU, the U.S. can now intervene in other countries' affairs without fear of any repercussions. In the current unipolar world order, the U.S. is not likely to face situations like the Cuban "missile crisis" that occurred during the Kennedy presidency. As early as ten years ago, the U.S. considered "green" to be the new "red" scare. Jeff Luers, an environmental activist, was arrested in Oregon, U.S. ten years ago on charges of arson in which he and his fellow activist set fire to three trucks without hurting anybody to draw attention to climate change. He was sentenced to twenty-two years in high security prison. The sentence was later cut down to ten years by an appeals court and Jeff Luers was recently released. This shows extreme apathy within the U.S. government and its institutions for the environment and climate change. This is important in the context of climate change. This attitude and apathy gave a free pass to neo-cons operating in the U.S. and its allies (basically rich countries) to expand their operations unhindered into other countries, plunder and exploit resources and people, and thereby bring the world closer to destruction while reaping enormous profits and obscene lifestyles for themselves. The exploitation of resources, people especially in the global south is horrifying. Most delicate eco-systems such as the Amazonian basin, Niger delta, rainforests, and fishing waters have been polluted and destroyed by the corporations of the rich countries in their unbridled extraction of oil and other natural resources. The way for such massive atrocities was paved by wars and proxy wars on fraudulent reasons like security where popular governments were overthrown and proxy governments, hugely unpopular but favorable to the US, were established. It was a suitable condition for "businesses" to grow and expand thereby destroying earth and its indigenous people. Oil companies provide the most chilling and horrendous examples in African and Latin American continents. It is no surprise that Africa with much of its eco-system destroyed bears one of the severest brunt of climate change with no adequate rain, drought, flood, disease and dying livestock.
It is the glaring work of neo-cons that has brought the world and the human race to a near disaster. It's the neo-cons that control policies in the U.S. and accordingly the U.S. wages wars to gain access to new markets and resources and thereby contributing to destroying our planet. According to Karl Marx, given the material conditions and the plight of the people, especially workers, where survival becomes a daily struggle should have culminated in a world-wide spontaneous revolution. But that did not happen. The workers of the rich countries extracted some benefits from the capitalist class and thereby contributed to the fragmentation of what could have been a plausible world-wide movement. Other than the contribution of the labor movements, the benefits were obtained largely due to the destruction of competitive industries in other countries like Japan and Germany during World War II. The workers in the poorer and less privileged countries continued to suffer and re-distribute wealth to capitalist class and workers of the rich countries who became beneficiaries of the imperialist system. However, these benefits don't last forever. The current economic recession in most industrialized countries especially the U.S., triggered by the financial sector in their reckless pursuit of profits did not hit the "banking and business elites" but rather the common people. The government quickly stepped in to bail out the rich capitalist and financial class leaving the workers and common people in a lurch with a significant number of them losing their jobs and homes. Wringing benefits from the capitalist class is not a permanent solution for the perpetual welfare of the working class as when the inherently unstable (as Minsky noted in the early '60s) bubble of capitalism bursts as it did now and many times earlier, the working class will be the first to suffer the consequences. The rising unemployment especially in the automobile sector in the U.S. amply demonstrates this. The workers of the auto sector enjoyed decent and comfortable lives in the last century mostly due to protectionism from competition from other countries. This allowed the owners to make bad and risky decisions solely for profit thereby ruining the industry. In the long run the people who suffer are the workers and not the owners and the business and financial class. It is in this retrospective that it becomes crucially important to see beyond immediate benefits. The future of most people in the world is intricately linked through common welfare. It is not possible to sustain perpetually at the expense of other people. It is this stark fact that people world over especially people of rich countries must realize to unite in solidarity to reverse the most ugly profit making juggernaut of the capitalist class. Marx described such a phenomenon as "internationalism" in terms of unity of labor movement around the world where national boundaries are blurred for common and universal good. The current crisis calls for such unity of action and that is the only means to achieve universal and sustained welfare of people and planet.
The solidarity of nations displayed at Copenhagen is the only strong silver lining to this failed conference. This is quite unprecedented on the stage of world affairs and with right efforts can have profound implications. The failed climate conference has once again thrown a rare and tremendous opportunity for people world over to unite and fight for climate justice, which is actually fighting for social and economic justice. It translates to demanding structural changes in the way the economies are run; and making a clear and definite break from the market and capitalistic economy which is essentially exploitative. It is burying the concept of "business as usual" and the "free market" myth which is simply a tool for the rich nations to intrude into other countries to access and exploit their resources. The "free market" historically has never really existed. One need not be an intellectual to comprehend this when one's daily life is a witness to inhumane and degrading living conditions, worsening day by day and hope for a secure future getting slimmer. The ruling class the world over, whether elected by people or not, by far have given in to the neo-cons and have very rarely represented or fulfilled the aspirations of people. The so-called "world leaders" have again proved this to be true at COP15 where the modern feudal lords prevailed and destroyed the conference.
The progressive left forces in the world remain the only hope for humanity, but they continue to be terribly divided. It is of extreme urgency that they join together with all other progressive and active forces of climate justice and form a world-wide alliance. A lack of unity in purpose among progressive forces has given a stupendous advantage to the neo-cons who were united and clear in their objectives of turning the workforce into serfdom and exploiting the planet for reaping enormous and relentless profits for themselves. The neo-cons instituted a pseudo-democracy with token and farce elections which are meaningless and offer no real choices to people. It's a momentous point in the history of mankind, for people to join hands and fight together. It is also a great responsibility for people of rich countries, especially the U.S. to pressurize their governments to address climate change and hence social justice; justice for one and all, justice for the citizens of the world. A real democracy, communism and socialism will all converge to a single point if the will of the people and their welfare world-over becomes the primary focus in the socio-political process. That is the only way of achieving climate justice and a means to survive. BRIC nations (Brazil, Russia, India and China) together with G77 need to put economic pressure on the U.S. and the EU to change their ways. Transferring of green technologies has limited relevance; it's the political will propelled by the people that needs to come into action to stop this catastrophe.