Climate Crisis: All The Bad News, From The Southern Ocean To The US To Food To Kiribati

After the news of drought in the US the climate crisis is continuing with all the bad news from around the world, from the Southern Ocean to food to Kiribati. At the same time, a climate crisis skeptic scientist now admits: he was wrong. The developments in the realm of science are pushing back capital from its climate crisis denial gamble as capital is taking toll from the entire Earth.

Scientists now know the way huge quantity of carbon is sucked and locked deep into the Southern Ocean. This knowledge puts them in “a much better situation” to identify impact of climate crisis. Citing a study by British and Australian scientists, news agencies report the latest finding. The Southern Ocean study has been published in the Nature Geoscience journal. (“Scientists unlock ocean CO2 secrets key to climate: study”, Reuters and “Scientists find CO2-sucking funnels in Southern Ocean”, AFP)

Oceans absorb carbon dioxide emissions – about a quarter of the CO2 on Earth – and the oceans thus curb the pace of climate crisis. However, scientists are now worried that global warming could disrupt this natural process by changing wind patterns and ocean currents. “Climate change will definitely interact with this process and modulate it”, Matear of Australia’s state-funded Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation told Reuters.

The Southern Ocean encircling Antarctica is the largest of ocean carbon sinks s its share of “consumption” is about 40% of mankind’s CO2 absorbed by the seas. Its “in take” is equivalent of 1.5 billion tones of CO2 a year, which is more than Japan’s annual GHG emissions. At a depth of about 1,000 meters carbon can be locked away for hundreds to thousands of years. But till the study, scientists were not sure the way CO2 gets there after dissolving into surface waters.

The scientists, according to the news agency reports, found that a combination of winds, currents and eddies – big whirlpool-like phenomena about 100 kilometers in diameter on average – work together to create carbon-sucking funnels that create conditions for carbon to be drawn down deep into the ocean to be locked in. A few of these funnels, at different locations and not uniformly distributed, are 1,000 km wide. In the Southern Ocean there are five such funnels. The wind is the main force that pool down surface water deep into the ocean while eddies counterbalance a different effect of strong winds that of releasing stored carbon by violent mixing of the sea. As part of a natural cycle these currents in areas also send back carbon to the atmosphere.

The findings put scientists to further vital questions. One of the scientists involved with the study put the questions: The finding “does seem to be good news, but the thing is what will be the impact of climate change on eddies? Will they stop, will they intensify? We have no idea.”

Assumptions being made, according to the agency reports, are as climate crisis is affecting the nature and changing ocean currents, intensifying winds or stark temperature spikes would effect the Southern Ocean eddies.

Then, the US-drought-news is annoying.

Scientists have made a dismal forecast, Beverly Law writes citing Nature Geoscience, for the coming century: The chronic drought conditions that hit the western US in the 2000-2004 period, the strongest in 800 years, will become normal conditions. As withering vegetation released CO2 into the atmosphere and was also unable to store carbon as it would if it were healthy the 2000-2004 drought period reduced carbon storage by an average of 51% across the western US, Canada, and Mexico. The vegetation in North America normally is able to absorb about 30% of the carbon emitted across the region.

Science Daily said: Areas in the US west, already dry, are to turn drier with more extreme periods causing damage to ecosystem to be followed by climate-induced mortality of forests. Areas of forest may turn into shrublands or grasslands. Extreme drought will adversely affect water availability and vegetation, and will make serious impact on carbon sequestration.

News on food follows the drought-report.

Increasing grain prices have again put the world’s poorest people at risk. The price jump could have long-term detrimental impact for years.

A severe drought, as a Reuters report said, in the US Midwest has cut projected grain yields dramatically. Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan are experiencing dry conditions while Europe has already gone through an excessive wet weather and India has seen a below average start to the monsoon. These have created worries over world crop yield. Wheat prices have jumped more than 50% and corn prices more than 45% since mid-June. Prices for soybeans also have increased almost 30% over the past two months and nearly 60% since the end of last year.

Citing Marc Sadler, head of agriculture risk management at the World Bank, the Reuters report said the situation is “more complicated” than in 2008. With increased planting in 2009, the increased rice and wheat prices fell sharply at that period.

The WB on July 30, 2012 said: The bank is monitoring the situation closely so it can help governments. “We cannot allow short-term food-price spikes to have damaging long-term consequences for the world’s most poor and vulnerable”, Jim Yong Kim, the bank president, said in a statement. He spoke of measures including school feeding programs, conditional cash transfers, and food-for-work programs. As medium- to long-term measures, Kim said: “[T]he world needs strong and stable policies and sustained investments in agriculture in poor countries.”

However, the WB officials stressed there is no indication of any major grain shortages resulting from the reduced harvests this year. The bank is keeping its hopes on lower prices for oil, fertilizer and shipping than in 2008, which, they hope, will ease the cost of importing food and planting next year’s crop.

The bank’s planned support will include policy advice, increased agriculture and agriculture-related investment, fast-track financing, risk management products and work with the UN and private voluntary groups.

But, the WB president probably has missed the power-play capital engaged in speculation is going to make in the food market, the plunder lumpen lackeys of world capital is going to make in the crisis ridden respective home markets, the hostile role private capital is going to play with food speculation, the wars and civil wars capital has instigated in countries is going to play in the scarcity-market. And, there is politics of private capital that shape state policies all the time. Moreover, private capital, its parts competing with each other, doesn’t allow stable policy and proper implementation of the policies. However, it sounds nice as there is a virtual admission: Intervention, school feeding and FFW programs, is needed; everything can’t be left away to private capital all the time.

News from a geographically tiny land is also annoying:

A number of ground water sources in Kiribati, the low-lying country of 32 coral atolls over 1.35 million square miles of the Pacific and struggling climate crisis and sea level rise, has got contaminated. Around 100,000 inhabitants of Kiribati are facing water shortage problem, which is creating poor hygiene and sanitation, and this in turn is increasing child mortality rate. Citing Catarina de Albuquerque, UN special rapporteur on the right to water and sanitation, AFP reported. (“Child deaths soar in Kiribati due to lack of water”, July 26, 2012)

The UN envoy noted that rising sea levels had contaminated some sources of ground water.

In a statement issued during a trip to the island-country, Catarina said: The child mortality rate in Kiribati is the highest in the Pacific. The international community, particularly the countries most responsible for climate change, has obligation to help Kiribati address its water issues.

Along with these news of annoyance there is news of confession:

Richard Muller, climate crisis skeptic physicist, writes in the New York Times: “Call me a converted skeptic... humans are almost entirely the cause.” He continued: “My total turnaround, in such a short time, is the result of careful and objective analysis by the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project... Our results show that the average temperature of the earth’s land has risen by two and a half degrees Fahrenheit over the past 250 years, including an increase of one and a half degrees over the most recent 50 years. Moreover, it appears likely that essentially all of this increase results from the human emission of greenhouse gases.” He writes: “These findings are stronger than those of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change […] that defines the scientific and diplomatic consensus on global warming.”

Muller co-founded the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project three years ago to debunk global warming findings. There was $150,000 grant from the arch-reactionary Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation for his work.

It’s now clear that money power is losing ground to scientific facts. The money capital spent over the last decades for denying climate crisis is enormous. The pool of scientists and lobbyist it engaged in the corridors of political power is unimaginable. The brain it engaged for designing propaganda material and mind-manipulating tools is beyond imagination. Resources to fight poverty, lack of safe water, diseases like AIDS, cancer, etc. often appeared peanut compared to resources and intellectual energy capital engaged to deny climate crisis. But, now, capital is losing ground to scientific facts. It’s failing to make science totally subservient. It shows limitations of capital’s destructive and conspiratorial power.

Questions like how, what, when, why, who, where to the incidents mentioned above will lead any inquisitive mind to the answer: Capitalism at the root of all these (mis)incidents and (mis)developments. For example, how has the Southern Ocean gone disturbed? What are the reasons that created the disturbance? When it began? Why the activities that have created the disturbance were initiated and who initiated? Similarly, the same questions can be put forth in cases of the US-drought, the precarious condition of the Kiribati people, the current world food market. And, the vital question should be raised: Is there any connection between the incidents spread over a wide area of the world, from the southern corner to the north? A careful, well-informed mind will find the answer: Capitalism.

Developments in the areas of climate crisis and science show capital has:

1. Disturbed and distorted every sphere and every corner of the world taking all living entity in the entire planet to the brink of extinction.
2. Tied all corners of the world with the bondage of crisis, one affecting, influencing, aggravating the others, and thus has created a complex web of crises.
3. Made adverse impact, which is the cause of all sorts of instability in areas ranging from ocean floor to food to politics. Even, capital can’t secure its class rule, which is gradually getting rejected by the peoples, losing acceptability, facing questions and mistrust, which in turn takes away all sorts of logic and rationale for the system.
4. No single technical, mechanical, isolated approach can save the planet from the threat of extinction the planet is facing.

Facts from broader life and facts related to capital’s character will gradually unfold before the eyes of peoples in all lands. People in all lands are learning from their experiences in daily life.

A Promise To Eradicate Poverty

“The new president of the World Bank is determined to eradicate global poverty […] in the same way that he masterminded an Aids drugs campaign for poor people […]”, said the intro of an exclusive interview the WB president Jim Yong Kim had with The Guardian. (“World Bank’s Jim Yong Kim: ‘I want to eradicate poverty’”, July 25, 2012)

Kim, the report says, is “passionately committed to ending absolute poverty […]” and wants to “eradicate poverty from the face of the Earth.” “I want to eradicate poverty”, he said. “I think that there’s a tremendous passion for that inside the World Bank.”

It’s only a few weeks the WB president is at the helm of the global lending agency. Questioning Kim’s “passionate commitment” to “eradicate poverty” and his trust on the bank that holds in its inside “tremendous passion” to eradicate poverty may sound indecent now.

Determination, passion, commitment are required to eradicate, even to fight if not eradicate, poverty. But poverty neither depends nor persists for lack of passion, etc. individual and organizational attributes. Obstacles standing between eradication and poverty are “something else”. Passion, etc., to eradicate poverty turns ineffective if these obstacles are kept intact and unmoved. Individual’s or an organization’s good intentions fundamentally play marginal role in the task of eradicating poverty.

Kim will broadly and fundamentally find almost the same intention, etc. if he goes through the lectures and addresses McNamara delivered, statements McNamara made and intention McNamara expressed as the WB president after McNamara gave up the job of waging war in Vietnam. In terms of pronouncements, expressed intentions, etc. the WB-McNamara was apparently different from the Vietnam War-McNamara. McNamara’s deliberations, as the WB president, told of a kind-hearted and considerate person who was always concerned with the poor, their plight, poverty, hunger, and similar problems that were hurting humanity. Anyone unaware of McNamara’s role in the Vietnam War, the principles and objectives the Bretton Woods institutions uphold, reasons behind poverty and intricacies – source, actors, etc. – in war against poverty found no reason to mistrust McNamara and his dream, or whatever those were.

But poverty, hunger, disease, illiteracy, etc. not only persisted stubbornly, these expanded their wings and pulled more human souls into their hungry stomachs over all these decades since McNamara’s intentions were expressed.

Based on the claims the WB used to make it can’t be said that the WB at that time was devoid of determination, etc. to eradicate poverty. Who should doubt those? No WB document, policy, pronounced principles, etc. apparently shows the lack of that passion, etc. Even, the WB in pre- and post-McNamara days broadly had the same pronounced passion.

It’s not only a McNamara- or the WB-case. In this world, many similar individuals and organizations, very good in publicly pronouncing their good wishes, very powerful and resourceful, with similar passion, etc. initiated and are initiating fights to eradicate poverty. Many of them, instead, turned millionaires by selling shares of organizations meant for the poor and the poor are dwelling in poverty.

Lyndon B Johnson said on a night in 1965: “All Americans must have the privileges of citizenship […] It requires a decent home, and the chance to find a job, and the opportunity to escape from the clutches from poverty.” (“Long steps on a long trail”) The American people, the peoples in other lands including Vietnam know the effective meaning of these pronouncements. Still they bear the scars of a brutal war that took toll from the American and the Vietnamese peoples. Now, many of the American people, homeless and jobless, living on food stamps and in a life devoid of dignity, know the real meaning of the pronouncement better. LBJ had very little to do. Capital took hold of everything, all aspects of life. It was a system constructed by capital that made every individual helpless in the face of powerful force of appropriation.

Forces that produce poverty deny considering passion, urge for dignity, etc, of these individuals and organizations uttering noble intentions. The problem with poverty lies not within good hearts of good individuals, not in an empty pot that can be filled with petty savings, not in recognizing the rights to credit, etc. but somewhere else.

Ignoring that “somewhere” but set “‘a clear, simple goal’ in the eradication of absolute poverty”, as Kim plans, will generate huge data providing rosy pictures of the pronounced passion for a short period of time. But dismal, may be shameful, facts will emerge in post-Kim period, or it may happen, even before the period begins.

The reason is not problem with fixing the “clear, simple goal” as Kim plans to materialize his determination. All pronounced warriors against poverty had and have “clear, simple goals.” Moreover, there were and are tools, tool kits, verifiable indicators, means of verifications, methodologies, strategies to subdue poverty and to measure progress in the war against poverty, there were programs for structural adjustment and re-adjustment. Never any of those appeared useless to bankers repeatedly pronouncing intentions to fight poverty. Rather, those, as was told, were very effective, flawless, brilliantly innovated, devised and designed, and effectively, forcefully and faithfully implemented. None can blame any of the implementers/executioners for negligence while implementing those. And, the world poor had also trust on those.

But, now poverty persists very arrogantly. It’s spreading in European and American middle class homes, it’s pulling in executives with business suite in bread lines in Greece, it’s denying entrance to educational institutions in advanced capitalist countries, it’s pressing down students with loans in a matured capitalist country. The story of the Afro-Asian-Latin American poor now sounds cliché to many.

The problem is with something else, not with pronouncements and expressions.

In the interview, the WB chief said: “The private sector has to grow, you have to have social protection mechanisms, you have to have a functioning health and education system. The scientific evidence strongly suggests that it has to be green – you have to do it in a way that is sustainable both for the environment and financially.”

That’s a problem area Kim is planning to step in. Private sector, experiences showed and are showing, denies providing social protection, denies providing health and education if labor doesn’t successfully stands for those or the sector doesn’t feels it necessary in its interest. Private sector, no doubt, has widened opportunities in the areas of health and education, and that was for the rich, not for the poor Kim is concerned with. Now, it’s the fact not only from Asian, African and Latin American countries. Now, this fact is available in the markets of European countries, in the US. For years and decades the facts are coming out.

“The private sector creates the vast majority of jobs in the world and social protection only goes so far,” Kim said.

But Kim can’t ignore the fact: Private sector has demolished hundreds of thousands of jobs and snatched away social protection over the last few years in countries. Consulting ILO documents helps one understand the fact.

The sector indulged in gambling, speculation with finance, financial tools, risks, etc. in association with corruption, while it abandoned job creation as gambling was fetching more profit. Actually, rise of monopoly finance capital was taking away the sector’s capacity to create and retain jobs. The sector forcefully engaged with waging a class war against people that took away social protection and has thrown away people into unemployment, homelessness, hunger, misery, poverty and suffering.

Private sector’s first choice is not the green, sustainable environment and finance. Private sector is hostile to sustainability. In the interest of its survival it can’t take sustainable approach. Private sector devastates environment until the devastation compels it to suspend its acts of devastation.

Kim is concerned with people’s right to a dignified life as he said in the interview, “[P]eople had a right to live a dignified life. The good news is that this place – the Bank – is just full of people like that.”

Private sector, to be specific, private capital is never concerned with people’s right to dignified life. History of capital delivers the fact. Capital’s character determines the limit. It gives up space to people only when it feels necessary for its survival, and the extent of space depends on pressure on capital. Nourishing private sector and expecting to nourish people’s dignified life are contradictory goals. One nullifies the other.

Kim is hopeful because of, as the Guardian report said, “his stint at the World Health Organisation (WHO), where he challenged the system to move faster in making Aids drugs available to people with HIV in the developing world […]”“Now, he says, he thinks he can do the same for poverty: ‘We think we can do something similar for poverty,’ he said.”

Combating poverty and dealing within WHO are not the same. Dealing Aids drugs within the WHO and challenging the system is obviously difficult. Eradicating poverty is far difficult. Politics is there in both the areas: poverty and Aids drugs. But the politics with poverty is far difficult and complex than the politics with pharmaceutical industries and its subservient political entities. These are well known facts to all world actors. Kim is also aware of these facts.

Actors in poverty business are more difficult to deal with as they deliver pious promises lined with sweet smiles, engage lobbying firms with notorious records, pocket a lot of money by selling of shares of organizations once floated in the name of eradicating poverty, manipulate research methodology, and they defend factors generating poverty. And, the business has deeper interest that will get hurt if the poor stands to fight poverty. So, the ideology they sell is individualism – individual enterprise, compete with each other. But, eradicating poverty is a collective task, a political task, cooperation among the poor not competition among them, which is to be carried out by the poor under their leadership. Individual interests can’t attain collective goal. Rather, the opposite happens: Individual initiative grabs collectives.

And, good pronouncements make no ripple in the life of the world poor. There are instances of good pronouncements that hide brutal acts.

Humanity has not forgotten the pronouncement Harry S Truman made after dropping atom bomb, “greatest marvel”, as he said, of “the achievement of scientific brains in putting together infinitely complex pieces of knowledge” and “the greatest achievement of organized science in history”, on Hiroshima: “I shall give further consideration and make further recommendations to the Congress as to how atomic power can become a powerful and forceful influence towards the maintenance of world peace.” (“Statement on the atomic bomb, 1945”)

The world people know facts following the pronouncement: wastage of resources in the interest of war traders while the poor were combating hunger, flow of blood over lands while the poor were desperately searching safe water, distortion of all nature and life by capital to enlarge its profit while the poor were finding it near to impossible to have a simple shelter. Pronouncements and wishes are turned silent onlookers by capital as capital is the deciding factor, as capital shapes politics and institutions. Within years people will hear an expression of failure in determination, etc., and a renewed expression to fight poverty from the same pulpit by another noble heart. And, the cycle shall move on till poverty is eradicated by people free from the clutches of capital.

Claiming the commons that capital consumes

BY ANNEXING the inviolable commons capital unfurls its flag of democracy, which is dictatorship over all its hostiles. It’s the commons robbery by the lords of capital, and reiteration of capital’s ever-expansionary accumulating totalitarian character: appropriate everything — from alpha to omega, all labour and all the nature — and turn these into private property and commodity.
Country and democracy, although not property, are commons, and at times, country, all its resources, and democracy are virtually encroached by capitals. At times, it’s individual or individuals, members of a class or classes, at times, it’s their organisations and institutions, at times, multinational organisations — corporations, banks, regime for free market, programmes and projects — appropriate all and everything people own. Enclosure of democratic space turns a stepping stone for enclosure of other commons. Encroachment of the commons ultimately turns political, and at times, questions of national and people’s sovereignty and dignity emerge.
Usurpation of the commons — an act of dispossessing people — is being done by capital with desperate vigour as subjugating the Earth, from Africa to the Andes, from Albania to Australia, has almost been completed by capital. In societies, the pie for plunder is either comparatively smaller or competing sections of dominating capital find encroachment of the commons one of the easier ways to accumulate. This ‘accumulation by dispossession’, David Harvey tells us in his A Brief History of Neoliberalism, gains assets at very low or zero cost, allowing immediate profitability.
In a society, state of the commons tells the power equation in society as forces of production and social relations get reflected in the state of the commons. Encroachment of the commons in a society signifies orientation, type, level and state of domination in society. Relations between the commons and people are distorted in favour of dominating capital as dominating capital gets the mastery of the commons. Capital with its allegiance only to its interests has a free hand in occupying and ravaging the commons and its power is promulgated as it encroach the commons.
Encroached and stolen commons are turned into private property while private property is sanctified and protected, and thus encroachment echoes Proudhon’s pronouncement: La propriété, c'est le vol!, Property, it is robbery! (What is Property? Or, an Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government, 1840) Engels wrote while discussing Mark, an old German institution: ‘[E]ven the royal lands, were named, without distinction, almänningar, common land.’ (The Mark) And, ‘all the land that had at any time belonged to the noble lord was nothing but land stolen from the peasants.’ (ibid)
Neo-liberalism lends its muscles to the commons robbers and directly and openly stands against the commons as physical invasion of the commons by capital cheaply fills its crave. States provide greater independence to the commons encroachers by snatching away commoners’ democratic rights and by protecting the acts of encroachment.
In societies, usurpers of the commons are helped by a section of law enforcers and a section of jurists, by a section of media and a section of political leadership. In societies, legislation, administration and jurisdiction turn servile to the commons robbers, and long hand of law ‘fails’ to catch the commons thieves. The entire act turns out as ‘[t]he parliamentary form of robbery […] decrees of expropriation of the people.’ (Marx, Capital)
It’s a process, and in the process, quoting Engels as he wrote about the old-day German peasantry, ‘the lord always won and the peasant always lost. The spiritual lords helped themselves in a more simple way. They forged documents, by which the rights of the peasants were curtailed and their duties increased.’ (The Mark)
Facts about the old-day poor peasantry in Germany, enclosures in England, turning of community property into king’s property in India are facts of the past. Now, it’s the entire citizenry in
societies, whose rights, spaces, access, opportunities are enclosed by the commons robbers embellished with forgery, falsification, fake litigation, misinterpretation and confiscation of laws, execution of threat, coercion, rape, murder and politics, and the robbery is legitimised. These robbers don’t have to face inquiries and inquisitions. Rather, it turns out, as Marx wrote, ‘the law itself becomes now the instrument of the theft of the people’s land […]’ (op-cit)
Relation between the commons and private capital is antagonistic. Conflicting interests — of people and of the commons-occupying capitals — stand face to face. The contradiction is between encroachers and commoners.
In societies, confiscation of the commons turns out as the shortest road to wealth as the robbery is part of the whole system. Encroachment and privatisation of the commons, David Bollier writes in Silent Theft: the Private Plunder of Our Common Wealth, limit social investment and environmental protection, encourage short-term profits, and ‘threatens to sacrifice the environmental, political, cultural, and information commons that communities rely on for their long-term health and prosperity.’ Silent Theft cites laws related to copyrights of digital files that empower private capital and its ruling machine — state — with Orwellian power, and that encroach people’s rights over the commons.
Appropriating the commons, and turning these into private property of appropriators, frauds, thieves, is part of the brutal class war, direct and formal, indirect and informal, capital wages constantly. Virtually absolute arbitrary power — legislative, administrative and judicial — of the commons robbers takes away democratic space of people, disenfranchises people, and commoners dispossessed of rights are sent to the ghetto of sufferings, hardship, pauperization, destitution, debt-servitude. Thus the issue of the commons turns political, turns into an issue related to democracy. Through overwhelming and all encompassing act of appropriation commoners are led to forget almost absolutely the axiom that the commons belong to them.
By violation of the commons, a shared resource of people, capital violates the principles of equity, equality and equal rights, freedoms of assembly and association, freedom from discrimination and torture, freedom from cruel and unusual punishment, and denies the rights to food, clothing, health, housing, education, work, rest, creative work, information, culture, security and safety, participation, and to democracy.
Robbery of the commons strengthens and intensifies de-democratisation process as it mars citizens. Neo-liberal measures including selling out/privatising the commons undermine the intrinsic value of the commons and democracy. In societies, denying democratic rights facilitates robbery of the commons.
Not only the marketable commons, but social and cultural spaces, resources, institutions and traditions that help define people’s life are being usurped in countries. Democratic commonwealth, public lands, natural systems and resources including atmosphere, scientific and academic research carried on in public institutions and paid by taxpayers, the information and knowledge commons including indigenous, local, folk, traditional and scientific knowledge and wisdom, the global commons including climate, environment and gift economies are not safe from enclosure. The list of the commons systematically vandalised, trespassed, enclosed, confiscated, occupied, appropriated, privatised and traded is long, yet incomplete: water resources including oceans, seas, rivers, canals, water bodies, lakes, riverbanks, seashores, forest resources, wildlife, agriculture and fisheries including seed-lines, irrigation systems and agro-technology, fallows, heaths, moors, meadows, grazing lands, hunting grounds, deserts, glaciers, mountains, oil, minerals, non-renewable energy, non-traditional commons including urban commons (sidewalks, playgrounds, parks, urban green space, urban forestry, parking spaces), industrial areas, roads, bridges, air, wind, sunlight, rain water, sky, outer space, ecosystems, biodiversity, budgets, language, education, ideas, creativity, innovation, history, sports, games, folklore, fairy tales, song, New Commons including electro-magnetic spectrum, genetic data, and ‘frontier commons’, ‘the natural world that have historically been too large, too small, or too elusive for any market regime to capture and that have often been regarded as parts of a common human heritage’ but now being planned to market.
This reality leads Jonathan Rowe, fellow at the Tomales Bay Institute and a contributing editor of Washington Monthly, to question: ‘Who owns the genetic materials that pharmaceutical companies are taking and patenting from native cultures? Who owns the atmosphere that polluters use as a dump? Who owns the quiet that cell phones take from us on the subways, or the civic spaces that get branded with corporate names? (‘The Majesty of the Commons’, A review of David Bollier’s Silent Theft, Washington Monthly, April, 2002)
To demolish commoners’ power to claim enclosed commons, commoners are demobilised, deactivated, depoliticised; their organisations and determining section of leadership of these organisations are purchased and co-opted and the committed section of the leadership is made isolated; the vacuum in the areas of commoners’ politics and resistance thus created are stuffed with slogan mongering pseudo- , ultra- and philistine-fighters, and all out efforts are made to perpetuate ignorance, confusion and indiscipline.
Within a generation, the commons robbers turn elites, aristocrats and nobles donating to charities and orphanages, patronising arts, culture and education, mastering all acts of arts and culture including the fine art of propagating lies, practicing robbery and deception, sending records and memories of their ‘gallant’ acts of robbery to the chambers of amnesia and silence, and their
property gained through such ‘gallantry’ gets the unmistakable regal seal of ‘fruit of hard labour, innovation, courage, venture, entrepreneurship, calculated risk taking, sacrificing significant portion of life.’ By the grace of propaganda power and with the legitimating seal it owns by political clout the avaricious character of the commons robbers is ennobled with the ‘attributes’ of ‘benevolence and social service, love for humanity and kindness to the downtrodden.’ Multilateral masters and lenders, corporations and private banks appear guardians and preachers of ‘transparency, accountability and democracy’ while they keep their coins of corruption under their carpet. Hypocrisy and immorality stands as the moral standard of robbing the commons.
Section of theoreticians is there to uphold the commons robbers’ cause. So, ‘The Tragedy of the Commons’ (Science, 162, 1968) by Garrett Hardin, a biology professor and author of a biology textbook, turns into a sacred script to the mainstream intellectuals bent on denying commoners’ rights on the commons although the professor wrongly refers to an article on nuclear war to put his conclusion on false premise, stuff the article with incomplete ‘facts’ and inconsistent arguments: ‘Every new enclosure of the commons involves the infringement of somebody’s personal liberty.’ After expressing this ‘innovative’ analysis that confuses the commons and personal liberty the professor recites Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who shall watch the watchers themselves? but fails to watch the comedy his sham arguments present.
The professor once proposed, like the Nazis, ‘control of breeding’ of ‘genetically defective’ people (Biology: Its Principles and Implications, 1966).
However, forces and institutions standing against commoners embrace the professor’s article. Ian Angus observes: ‘Since publication of The Tragedy of the Commons in Science it has been anthologised in at least 111 books, making it one of the most-reprinted articles ever to appear in any scientific journal. […] Like most sacred texts, The Tragedy of the Commons is more often cited than read. As we will see, although its title sounds authoritative and scientific, it fell far short of science.’ (‘The Myth of the Tragedy of the Commons’)
Citing ‘The Management of Common Property Natural Resources: Some Conceptual and Operational Fallacies’, a World Bank Discussion Paper, Ian writes: ‘For 40 years [the article] has been […] “the dominant paradigm within which social scientists assess natural resource issues”. [The article] has been used time and again to justify stealing indigenous peoples’ lands, privatizing health care and other social services, giving corporations “tradable permits” to pollute the air and water, and much more.’ (ibid)
‘The tragedy thesis’, Jonathan Rowe writes, ‘is rote to first-year economics students. […] The theory has no relevance at all to commons that are without boundaries or limits, such as language, knowledge, and networks such as the Internet.’ (op-cit)
Quoting Iain Boal’s essay ‘Interview: Specters of Malthus: Scarcity, Poverty, Apocalypse’, Ian tells us more bitter facts: ‘What’s shocking is the fact that this piece of reactionary nonsense has been hailed as a brilliant analysis of the causes of human suffering and environmental destruction, and adopted as a basis for social policy by supposed experts ranging from economists and environmentalists to governments and United Nations agencies. Hardin’s fable was taken up by the gathering forces of neo-liberal reaction in the 1970s, and his essay became the “scientific” foundation of World Bank and IMF policies, viz. enclosure of commons and privatization of public property.... The message is clear: we must never treat the earth as a “common treasury”. We must be ruthless and greedy or else we will perish.” (op-cit)
But commoners don’t always accept tyranny of the commons robbers. Engels pointed out in The Mark: ‘Against these robberies by the landlords, the peasants, from the end of the fifteenth century, frequently rose in isolated insurrections…’ Naomi Klein in her talk, ‘Reclaiming the commons’, delivered at the Centre for Social Theory and Comparative History, UCLA in April 2001, finds: ‘[A] spirit of resistance is taking hold around the world. People are reclaiming bits of nature and of culture, and saying “this is going to be public space”.’ Jonathan tells us: ‘Enclosure is complete when we no longer are aware of it. The lingering memory of life outside the fences means there’s still hope of tearing them down.’ (op-cit)
The twenty-first century finds there are public responses to the commons robberies with rebellion and resistance. At moments, these carry and express unimaginable power, force and velocity. Now, the number of these resistances and rebellions is near to innumerable around the globe, almost worldwide — from Ukraine to the US, from Tunisia to the UK, from China to Canada, from Japan to India, from Belgium to Bahrain, a globalisation of protest and resistance, a complex chess board, an achievement in this phase of the planet’s history, unimaginable only a few years back.
In countries, los indignados, the indignant, and the Occupiers hold high the standard of commoners, also termed as 99% or We Are the 99%. They are occupying factories to schools to auction houses to company share holders meetings to city squares and parks. These are initiatives, movements, protests, resistances; these are claims to the commons, public spaces [a number of nouveau columnists in some poor societies perceive, as they ‘wisely’ express, public space in only physical terms], to democratic spaces.
There in the map of resistance appear names from the forests in India. There in Brazil, the Landless Workers’ Movement, in Chile and other countries, the student movements against privatization of education, in the US, Take Back the Land, in the UK, The Land is Ours raise. There artists with chalk draw protest line on footpath in Los Angeles.
To claim the commons, farmers and farm workers, human rights and environment activists fight oil giants, hungry fast-food chains, monstrous for-profit entities, radiation traders, waste and toxic business magnates, pharmaceutical demons facilitating deaths by corrupting drugs production and marketing, mischievous multilateral banks and donors, and they all provide justification to resistance.
It will be a meaningless and infantile exercise to expect and search immediate success of all these resistances and rebellions, confine inquiry
into immediate achievement of these initiatives as dynamics of history doesn’t engage in childish game. To learn, mechanical ‘mind’ should look at any singular or a number of slave rebellions or some other single rebellion. But all rebellions, singular or series, are part of history’s forward movement, which at those moments of history were not perceived by many. Instead, far reaching implications of today’s risings and resistances, significant in terms of claiming the commons, should be searched.
Other than country- , society- and city-wide activities for claiming the commons there are activities that include, as Naomi Klein tells, kicking ads out of classrooms, organising parties at busy intersections, planting organic vegetables on over-irrigated golf courses, reversing the privatisation of water supply, creating commons on the internet for swapping music instead of buying it from multinational record companies, liberating billboards, setting up independent media networks, destroying hectares of genetically modified soy beans in Monsanto test site, planting organic crops on land after occupying it and making efforts to turn the farm into a model of sustainable agriculture. ‘In short, activists aren’t waiting for the revolution, they are acting right now, where they live, where they study, where they work, where they farm.’ According to Jonathan, parents are rising up against the commercial invasion of their kids’ classrooms. The New Urbanism is advancing ways to reclaim the civic commons of street life and traditional Main Streets. (op-cit)
Earthcide, declining democratic space, dispossession and debt confront people across the world. ‘It’s time to stop granting private entities free access to and use of public resources. […I]t presents a large political challenge. […R]eckless privatization of public resources has resulted in demonstrable harm to taxpayers, consumers, and the environment.’ (David Bollier, ‘Why we need to protect our public resources from private encroachment’, Boston Review, Summer issue, 2002) The amount of money in coffers of the commons robbers is not a petty one. Citing an estimate referred by Bollier Jonathan writes: ‘the resources of nature – air, water, forests and the rest – are worth more than the GDP of the entire world. That’s not even counting the services of the many forms of social commons, from universities and libraries to languages and Main Streets.’ (op-cit)
For people in countries safe food, water and air are difficult to find, affordable healthcare and education are absent, decent shelter is somewhere in imagination, hours for sleep, rest and creative activities are being squeezed down, information highway is being obstructed by capital.
One of the ways for a stable and peaceful society is to restore the abused commons to its owners — commoners, people. James Harrington, the author of Oceana, said the worst possible situation is one in which the commoners have half a nation’s property, with crown and nobility holding the rest — a circumstance fraught with instability and violence. A much better situation (a stable republic) will exist once the commoners own most property, he suggested.
Along with studying the political power of the commons robbers forging coalition and organising movement of political parties, peasants, labour, women, consumers, students, rights and environment activists at local and national levels are the need. Alliance at international level is also possible. Society-wide protracted, consistent campaign and publicity is the immediate need. To resist confiscation of the commons by capital, to protect and share all the commons, spreading word — disseminate information among people — that expose encroachment and its perpetrators is one of the primary steps.
Resistance and rebellion shouldn’t get confined only into street marches, agitation, etc. Along with asserting rights to the commons and getting engaged politically there should be initiatives of commoners, not of donors, that organize consumers for safe food, safe water, democratic public education, health care, fair price shop, cooperative, media shunning big capital advertisement, proper waste management, compost preparation, safeguarding water bodies, etc.
Encountering the commons robbers, national and international, is a political fight. A cultural fight also. An informed, aware, organized and politically active people, the owners of the commons, can successfully claim the commons.

US Climb To Record Poverty Height

Record poverty and unprecedented rich cohabit in the US, the largest, but decaying empire in today’s world. “The ranks of America’s poor are on track to climb to levels unseen in nearly half a century, said an AP report.

Estimates suggest that about 47 million persons or 1 in 6 were poor in the US last year. The highest level on record was 22.4% in 1959, the year the government began calculating poverty, the report said. Citing analysts it said: the poorest poor, defined as those at 50% or less of the poverty level, will remain near its peak level of 6.7%. It is also apprehended that child poverty will increase from its 22% level in 2010.

“Poverty is spreading at record levels across many groups,” the AP report said, “from underemployed workers and suburban families to the poorest poor. More discouraged workers are giving up on the job market, leaving them vulnerable […]”

Poverty in the US suburbs, according to AP, is increasing. In areas “voters are […] living hand to mouth.”

The situation turns worse, “as unemployment aid begins to run out.” There is apprehension that “[m]illions could fall through the cracks as government aid from unemployment insurance, Medicaid, welfare and food stamps diminishes.”

The news agency surveyed more than a dozen economists, think tanks and academics. The surveyed economists and others included nonpartisans, liberals and conservatives. There was “a broad consensus: The official poverty rate will rise from 15.1 percent in 2010, climbing as high as 15.7 percent. Several predicted a more modest gain, but even a 0.1 percentage point increase would put poverty at the highest level since 1965.”

Debate and discussions are now not only concentrated on poverty rate. Fundamental questions are being raised. The AP report quoted Peter Edelman, director of the Georgetown Center on Poverty, Inequality and Public Policy:
“The issues aren’t just with public benefits. We have some deep problems in the economy.”

It has also been mentioned: “Even after strong economic growth in the 1990s, poverty never fell below a 1973 low of 11.1 percent. That low point came after President Lyndon Johnson’s war on poverty, launched in 1964, that created Medicaid, Medicare and other social welfare programs.”

Facts are repeatedly showing deeper problems in the mature capitalist economy. Perception of the people is also turning sharp. A Public Religion Research Institute/RNS Religion News survey from November 2011 found about 79% of Americans perceive the rich-poor gap has grown in the past two decades.

Based on separate AP interviews, supplemented with research on suburban poverty of the Brookings Institution and an analysis by the Congressional Research Service and of the Economic Policy Institute the predictions for 2011 were made.

Despite improvement in the unemployment rate from 9.6% in 2010 to 8.9% in 2011, the employment-population ratio remained largely unchanged.

Citing demographers the report said:

“Poverty will remain above the pre-recession level of 12.5 percent for many more years. Several predicted that peak poverty levels — 15 percent to 16 percent — will last at least until 2014, due to expiring unemployment benefits, a jobless rate persistently above 6 percent and weak wage growth. Suburban poverty, already at a record level of 11.8 percent, will increase again in 2011.”

The news agency cited Jose Gorrin, who left Cuba and arrived in Miami in 1980 and is now “surviving on the occasional odd job. His unemployment aid has run out, and he’s too young to draw Social Security.” “I already left Cuba. I don’t know where else I can go”, said Gorrin.

Capitalism provides functional and practical lessons with political-economy that were impossible for others to impart, and the more advanced the economy the more advanced will be the lesson.

Facts from life tell facts of capitalism, which are cruel-facts. Information is essential to know capitalism with its proper face and character.

Citing Richard Cohen, president of Southern Poverty Law Center President, Liz Goodwin, National Affairs Reporter, The Lookout, informed in early February, 2012 (“American kids denied food stamps in Alabama under immigration law”):

“Some U.S.-born children with parents who are illegal immigrants have been denied food stamps under Alabama’s new immigration law”.

Five persons informed the group “they were denied food stamps because they couldn’t prove they were legal residents, even though the food stamps are for their children, who are citizens.”

There are legal questions and law suits related to the issue. But the fact that comes out is: In capitalism, law is above hunger, above hungry children.

Liz’s report said:

“Illegal immigrants are prohibited from accessing most welfare benefits, including food stamps, non-emergency Medicaid and cash welfare programs.

“Last month, Kansas kicked more than 1,000 mixed-status families off its food stamp program when it joined three other states in adopting a stricter food stamp eligibility policy.”

So one finds Joseph Stiglitz telling:

“[T]he American dream is a myth. There is less equality of opportunity in the United States today than there is in Europe – or, indeed, in any advanced industrial country for which there are data.

“This is one of the reasons that America has the highest level of inequality of any of the advanced countries – and its gap with the rest has been widening. In the ‘recovery’ of 2009-2010, the top 1% of US income earners captured 93% of the income growth. Other inequality indicators – like wealth, health, and life expectancy – are as bad or even worse.” (“The Price of Inequality and the Myth of Opportunity”, Project Syndicate, June 6, 2012)

He cites “increasing poverty at the bottom.”

He mentions rent-seeking at the top: “[S]ome have obtained their wealth by exercising monopoly power; others are CEOs who have taken advantage of deficiencies in corporate governance to extract for themselves an excessive share of corporate earnings; and still others have used political connections to benefit from government munificence – either excessively high prices for what the government buys (drugs), or excessively low prices for what the government sells (mineral rights).”

The fact of exploiting the poor can’t be escaped now.

So, Stiglitz writes:

“[P]art of the wealth of those in finance comes from exploiting the poor, through predatory lending and abusive credit-card practices. Those at the top, in such cases, are enriched at the direct expense of those at the bottom.

“America has become a country not ‘with justice for all,’ but rather with favoritism for the rich and justice for those who can afford it – so evident in the foreclosure crisis, in which the big banks believed that they were too big not only to fail, but also to be held accountable.”

“America can no longer regard itself as the land of opportunity that it once was. But it does not have to be this way: it is not too late for the American dream to be restored”, said Stiglitz.

The data, the facts, the observations, all are from the mainstream. The facts are so stark that the mainstream now can’t deny the facts of capitalism. Thus they are providing learning material.

Bangladesh: Politics With Padma Bridge

Politics with the planned Padma Bridge is now live in Bangladesh. Equations in politics that the planned bridge has generated are complex, multi-dimensional, and bear deeper implications in more than one level.

Accusations and counter-accusations centering the $2.9-billion bridge issue involve many actors, visible and invisible. The accuser, the world famous, and to many, infamous, World Bank, has also turned jurist and executioner, and the judgment was delivered while the judgment process was going on, and execution was carried our before the judgment was delivered.

As press reports said the WB approached the Anti-Corruption Commission, the Bangladesh corruption watchdog, submitted documents/evidences of alleged corruption and the anti-corruption agency claimed that necessary process was initiated.

Then the next scene in the drama was staged. The WB took its decision before the ACC announced completion of its process. The WB, the lead and coordinating agency in the consortium funding the bridge project, announced cancellation of funding $1.2-billion it had pledged for the project on Jun 29. Thus, an accuser turned not only executioner, but both, jurist and executioner.

Bangladesh politics, fully loaded with competition in its own form as in all other countries, found an issue in its agenda. Bangladesh Awami League, the political party heading the government, initially tried to explain the issue and publicly expressed hope for pursuing the WB in reversing the cancellation decision. Bangladesh Nationalist Party, the main opposition party in parliament, assumed traces of corruption.

The usual political bout began. Now the Dhaka press is running stories on accusations and counter-accusations aimed at political competitors: AL and BNP.

The opposition party, BNP, has tactical advantage. It can easily point fingers to the AL. Section of the Bangladesh opposition political elites have suggested compromise with the WB.

There are talks of favoring a particular firm, a universal capitalist reality. And, a few fingers point to the global lender.

But, all information is not placed before the public. And, strangely, Bangladesh progressive camp has not made strong demand to make the entire business transparent and a white paper to be prepared by an independent body. They had a better chance to reach public with the issue and unmasking motive and method the Bretton Woods institution follows as the bridge is very close to the heart of Bangladesh people. The global lender has given them a scope but that has yet been denied.

The party in government, AL, found tactical ground in another place: Political mobilization. Sheikh Hasina, the Bangladesh prime minister, made a call to patriotism and national honor as she dealt the issue in her speech delivered in the concluding day of the last session in the Bangladesh parliament. She cited the entire incident, her government’s efforts to dig and continue digging the alleged corruption. Then, she made observations and remarks, significant, in terms of the WB and honor of Bangladesh people. The Bangladesh prime minister outlined her government’s plan to finance the bridge construction with resources to be generated in home.

In a central leadership level meeting of AL, as Bangladesh media reported, Sheikh Hasina hinted role of Professor Muhammad Yunus, the micro credit proponent, behind the WB decision. However, the US ambassador in Dhaka issued a statement canceling the assumption related to the hinted role of Prof. Yunus.

Contributions to fund the construction project have been pledged by the Bangladesh parliament members and different sections of the society. These came out as a show of national honor in the face of high handedness. The Bangladesh government has drafted policy on opening bank accounts to raise fund for the purpose.

Sections of Bangladesh capital also expressed their willingness to finance the Padma (it should be Paddaa as Dacca, the Bangladesh capital, is now properly and correctly spelled Dhaka) bridge construction project.

In appearance the planned Padma Bridge over the river Padma, the lower part of the Ganges (Ganggaa) and one of the longest rivers in the world, has connected a lot of actors, within Bangladesh and outside of the country. It is another example of “development”, “aid”, credit, ties, dictation, politics in poor countries.

Role of external actors in Bangladesh is an old story. This land is experiencing masters’ hands since pre-liberation days. Wikileaks has made latest revelations of interesting characters, concerns, issues, factions, information gathering, brief but sharp descriptions of allegiance. Sometimes, roles of external actors are very stark, visible, crude, arrogant, humiliating. Protests and silence, both follow external actors’ role, suggestions, advices, demands. The common people also notice these silently and they mark who stands where and who is closer to whom. Their expression comes out in due time.

At least a partial reality of Bangladesh economy, politics and aspirations of sections of Bangladesh society are getting revealed by the incidents and initiatives centering the planned bridge. Sections of Bangladesh capital and sections of ruling elites also come to light with their aspiration, capacity, tact, limitations. Contradictions and compromises, now and in the coming days, are being and will be connected by the planned bridge.

Reports on alternate sources of financing from abroad, possibilities of involvement of firms from Malaysia and/or China have been carried by the Bangladesh media. Geopolitical considerations, very significant, surface.

Bangladesh, rich in resources and possibilities and poor in distribution, is the home of more than 150 million people and experienced insurgency in its south-eastern corner a few years back. Bangladesh sitting on the head of the Bay of Bengal, and the Bay on the shoulder of the Indian Ocean, is not far away from the Palk Strait, the Andaman Islands, the Ten Degree Channel, and the strategic straits: Malacca, Makassar, Mindoro, Lombok. The Indian Ocean now is a space for strategic maneuvering by a number of blue water navies. Bangladesh, adjacent to India and Burma/Myanmar and closer to Nepal, Bhutan, China, Sri Lanka, Thailand, now occasionally turns seat of international tactical moots, and is now moving from garments manufacturing to ship building. Its smaller ships are now being exported to a number of European buyers along with its garments to the European and North American markets. The country’s loss or profit in its state of jute trading with Iran following sanctions imposed on the oil producing country is a question, but not in the agenda of anti-imperialist politics. Sections of Bangladesh capital are connected in varying ways and levels to capitals in other countries while hydrocarbon resource is a major issue of competition and politics in Bangladesh. External relations the country maintains officially are a complex exercise. The country provides shelter to a group of Rohinga, who had to leave their homes in Burma a few years ago. Recently the issue surfaced once more, and the country has not accepted advices from a number of powerful external actors to provide shelter to the Burmese citizens. The country’s position on Kosovo is a question to a number of important international actors.

Bangladesh is home to a number of micro credit debtors, totaling to more than total populations of a number of countries. The issue turned a live political issue on the occasion of release of Tom Heinemann’s documentary on micro credit. Internal and external actors appeared and are still appearing repeatedly on the issue. Sometimes, these appear interference and the actors turn so desperate that they keep no façade to hide their reliable friend. The Bangladesh people politically disregarded and stood against imperialist plan during their valiant struggle for liberation, and, at times of awareness and struggle, the people stands against imperialism and its friends.

Ruling elites of this poor country have not yet succeeded to get out of the situation basically described as the general crisis of the Bangladesh bourgeoisie by Badruddin Umar, a leading Marxist theoretician in Bangladesh, in the famous Bangladesh weekly Holiday in July-September, 1977. A legislature acceptable to all factions of the ruling elites is yet to materialize.

Politicization, an imperative to rule and a very normal process to all classes according to respective capacity in all societies, is carried out earnestly but is opposed theoretically by all factions of the Bangladesh ruling elites and their theoreticians as the process is yet to bring coherence and equilibrium between the factions. Donor advices are there to train up political entities of the ruling factions so that a stable ruling system can come up and operate. But their methodology ignores elite character and ingredients formulating the character. Exercises with NGOs in Bangladesh are not always happy one for the donors. Rather, a few turned ridiculous while a few exposed subservient character. Political activities and mobilizations or efforts for these by a section of NGOs are now not a hidden agenda in Bangladesh.

In most of the times, schedule of general election brings assumptions of uncertainty in Bangladesh politics. Actors, visible and invisible, turn active in overt and covert ways.

These realities are there as the Padma bridge politics emerges.

The way the World Bank issue was discussed by Sheikh Hasina is quite unusual, sharp, unambiguous in the history of Bangladesh parliament. Never before in the history of the Bangladesh legislative assembly the global lender was discussed, dissected and criticized for so long time with such words. Her pronouncements sometimes made one imagine hearing voices from Latin America. She spoke of national honor and dignity, of the Glorious War of Liberation, and was critical of the World Bank method and its practices. The World Bank lending-“development” business has turned into a political issue in Bangladesh carrying geopolitical implication.

Now, more people in Bangladesh know the global lender, its role in Bangladesh, the way the bank deals with poor borrowers. No political literature has taken the issue to so many citizens as the incident has done. This is the way people learn from day-to-day political developments.

None is sure about the way payments would be made by the masters for the political incident, politics with the Paddaa Bridge. Appeasement? Political price? A new, more faithful lackey? Whatever happens there in the politics of Bangladesh ruling elites, people will learn and their lessons will accumulate furthering politicization of the society.

Lessons From Syria: External Armed Intervention Now Defined Civil War

Path for “legitimized”, direct, external military intervention in Syria is being paved. The covert external military intervention now being carried out in the strategically positioned country has been defined as civil war.

In a meaningful move the Red Cross has defined external intervention in Syria: “non-international armed conflict”, the effectually, technical term for civil war. Herve Ladsous, the UN’s peacekeeping chief, said in June: Syria is in a state of civil war.

But facts are revealing themselves. It has now come out that most of the dead in the village Tremseh were armed rebels although the interventionists initially decried it as a massacre of civilians. Now, debate is going on as whether heavy arms, artillery and tanks were used or not while a complete uncertain, volatile situation rages on.

The situation has been traced by Ali Haidar, the Syrian national reconciliation minister and head of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP): “Syria is on top of a volcano.” “The army is incapable of cleaning up the ground completely and ending the armed insurgency without a political solution to the crisis. The insurgents cannot do so either”, said Haidar. (Radwan Mortada, “Syria’s Ali Haidar: Both Sides Have Extremists”, MRzine, July 15, 2012, based on the translation by Al-Akhbar English on July 13, 2012)

The volcano top is a perfect landing ground for interventionist forces in Syria. The ground got and has been prepared long ago. Haidar said: “The situation is a continuation of a […] deep and comprehensive structural crisis on all levels of Syrian life. Its final form […] is a situation of continuous violence […] This […] crisis goes back many years. No one was able to solve the problems […and] the bearers of the foreign project were able to interfere in the path of the crisis. They took advantage of the exuberance and fervor of Syrian youth and their rightful demands to impose a violent image onto the political mobilization.”

However, initiatives are being taken to salvage the situation. Building the Syrian State (BSS), one of the Syrian opposition organizations based in Syria, in a statement from Damascus on July 12, 2012 has invited “all political forces, civil groups, youth groups, and public figures at home and abroad who are working on radically changing the system of government by the adoption of all peaceful means” to a conference on ‘Saving the Syrian Homeland’ in Damascus on July 28, 2012. (“Announcing the ‘Saving the Syrian Homeland’ Conference”, MRzine, July 13, 2012, the original statement in Arabic at . More information available at: ; ; )

Referring to the situation as “threatening the social fabric and national sovereignty […]” the statement called on all “to rescue the Syrian homeland, from the […] possibilities of collapse.”

On the tasks of the conference the statement said: “This conference will have to work out clear, specific programs and road maps addressing […] the risks and challenges facing the […] country;” the safe way to transfer of power “governed by the will of the Syrian people alone, through to a transition phase, satisfactory to all the Syrians, involving all parties […]”

As background to the situation it said: “[T]he authority neglected the social fabric and national sovereignty and placed them in the field of conflict” and the situation is “either the authority or anarchy”.

It said: “The authority is the primary party responsible […] Even if we were to accept the claims of a foreign conspiracy, it has failed utterly to address this alleged conspiracy and proved not to be capable of crisis management or leadership of the country. It became unable to protect the citizens and […] unable at all to promote national reconciliation […A number] of the opposition parties have consented to […] the option of ‘the authority or anarchy’. Chaos has been chosen with the assistance of regional and international countries who are not concerned with the interests of the Syrian people […]”

The statement said Syrians are now facing two catastrophic options: “Assad or We’ll Burn the Country”, “the slogan promoted by the authority”, and “Burn the Country Until Assad Falls”, “the slogan adopted by some opposition parties”.

The statement acknowledged the situation in Syria: “civil strife, the threat of civil war”, displacement of hundreds of thousands of Syrians, the needs of about two million Syrians for food, meals, drinking water, the escalation of “armed conflict that has become the master of the situation, where it kills about 150 Syrians a day”, escalating terrorism and sabotage threatening the security and stability of the country, living conditions pushing dozens of families every day below the poverty line, “[t]he economic situation that is about to collapse”, the migration of human resources, private capital, most of the middle class, and the brain drain.

It observed the “continued detention of thousands of protesters, political activists, and peaceful civilians”, […] the disappearance of a large number of them […].”

Citing the internationalization of the Syrian crisis the statement said “several international parties” are “in control over the situation more so than any Syrian party, including the authority.” The reality “threatens an enduring Syrian crisis, subject to and at the mercy of international disputes and consensus.”

It cited imposing of decisions by international actors. “All of these references coexist with each other but do not answer to each other”: the Arab League, the Ministerial Committee emanating from it, the UN, Kofi Annan designated by the Security Council, the contact group set up at the Geneva meeting.

Referring to international competition the statement quoted Kofi Annan: “Syria is the biggest loser in the devastating competition between Russia and Western countries”. It said a number of states that claim to support Kofi Annan’s mission and the decision of the Security Council operate “in violation of it, especially at the level of support for resorting to arms.”

The statement tells:

“[W]e have decided […] to become a loud voice […]”

A tone of sadness sets in in the statement:

“Silence cannot be tolerated from anyone under the circumstances […]; there is no room for silence or confusion.”

A tone of urgency follows:

“Time is running out and options are narrowing.
[…W]e have two choices only: either simply remain silent and accept the status of the victim helpless in the face of ultra-violence by all parties, while they take the country to chaos, destruction, and civil war […]; or rise now and take the lead in moving the country into a just, democratic system able to protect the homeland and its people […]”

It’s a desperate call as the statement said:

“We still have a chance; perhaps it is the last chance to save our homeland Syria. This chance is the mission of Mr. Kofi Annan, which cannot be successful unless we strive for its success. Mr. Annan is not the savior. He needs organizations, political and civil groups within the country, to take shape in these very difficult circumstances and to collaborate in the resurrection of […] the future Syria.”

The contradictory reality comes out: time is fleeting away, silence is intolerable, the chance seems going to be fugitive, organization is needed. There is urgency, and there is void. There is realization, and there is incapacity.

The statement sounds a penance, a confession from the dock of history. It’s a fact that autocratic rule has not allowed opportunity to expand organization that can resist external interference.

But historical responsibility can’t be shed off by simply blaming autocratic rule, and by simply expecting that autocratic rule would allow expand people’s organizations, and by simply telling that organizations could not be built as that benevolence was not shown by autocratic rule.

A possibility may dwell somewhere: the BSS or some other organization/leadership made a lot of efforts in the past. But all those efforts were not taken seriously by other social forces. If the possibility turns out as a fact, not a possibility, then, the fact tells a state of the society.

It’s almost impossible to draw analogies between two countries. Despite the fact of the near-impossible task of analogizing analogies are searched to build up models, to learn from experience, to chart unknown path.

Syria and some other country, O or X, are not the same; neither in terms of history nor in terms of economy and society. The ruling classes in the two countries are far, far different. The other social classes are also broadly different. There are middle classes in both the countries. But the two middle classes in the two countries are different in terms of history, economic activities, socioeconomic and political connections. Historical limitations are there. But limitations are different.

Similarities are there between the two countries. The similarities also carry elements of dissimilarities. The poor in the two counties are broadly the same poor: deprived in all aspects of life. The rich and the privileged in the two countries are broadly the same: have a lot, indulge in luxury and corruption, absolutely indifferent to interests of respective country. Exploitation of the poor by the rich is the same: ruthless.

Political process in the two countries is different. External relations – trade, aid, military ties, strategic interests, etc. – of the two countries are different.

External interference is there in both the countries. But the background, the strategic location, the external players, the quislings are different.

There is opposition to the external interference in both the countries. But the class character of the oppositions, their preparedness, maneuvers and actions are different.

There, in terms of at least one aspect, is a similarity between the two oppositions in the two countries despite the differences.

Quislings are there.

No external interference is possible without quislings. Quislings can’t operate without favorable objective condition. No external interference is possible without unaware, misinformed and disorganized or unorganized masses, without a crowd.

The timing for external interference in Syria was not decided all of a sudden. The condition for external interference was not created overnight. Fabrics were torn slowly covering a long period of time. Mistrust was sown repeatedly. Autocracy unknowingly became party to the job. Accomplices of the quislings slept in the quarter of autocracy and worked silently for long time.

Quislings are created bit by bit. Their accomplices are organized bit by bit. It’s a brick by brick work; it’s meticulous and well orchestrated work. Hollowness is created all around, in different spheres and at different levels. Possible alternate leadership is deactivated, is kept deactivated, is kept busy with some other irrelevant agenda, is kept refrained from carrying out immediate, essential political and organizational work, is kept isolated from prospective constituency, and is kept away from essential theoretical work.

Spade work for the incidents now getting exposed in Syria was initiated long ago within Syria and outside of Syria, within the camp of Assad and outside the camp. Probably, some other country with strategic importance and with a huge market, O or X, is passing through the spade work phase of coming crude interference. Probably, strategic moments of the last chance of the country, O or X, is passing away swiftly.

Some other country with strategic importance, O or X, can learn, if it likes, from Syria.

Whatever is there in whatever the country, in a civil war or civil war like situation, it’s people, the working poor, the toiling masses, pay. They pay with their lives, with their peace, with their prospective democratic struggle. They go hungry, they go starved. Blood of their children drench soil only to be forgotten by history if not the people arise in revolt, if not they define their destiny with their own organization and leadership. And, a failure brings in servitude and distorted life without peace, without prosperity, without happiness.

Weather Of Wrath And Climate Crisis Deniers

It’s not that the weather is out of its joint. It’s behaving in its normal pattern. In a period of crisis, apparently erratic pattern is the normal. This crisis-normal pattern signifies the crisis. Usual-normal or expected-normal weather pattern would have nullified the climate crisis claim. But the “wise” climate crisis deniers can claim that the weather is wishing the globe in an erratic, abnormal way, which is just occasional.

There are rare moments in the world history, when major world players simultaneously, in the same week, in the same day, experienced bad weather. The recent weeks and days have found them having similar weather-experience in the US, UK and Russia.

In Krasnodar, southern Russia, a recent heavy flooding caused by torrential rains has brought a death toll of more than 100. Many residents climbed trees and roofs. This type of flood is unusual in memorable history in the region.

Muddy water flowed through streets and homes in the town of Krimsk. At some places in the town, the flood water rose to rooftops. Boats plied through the town streets. One report said of seven meters of water in a town. In Novorossiisk, a major Black Sea port, the severe weather compelled to suspend loading of oil on to tankers.

Recent flood brought by torrential rain has created havoc in many parts of the UK. The flood has brought death. The Yealm burst its banks. Homes are flooded. A number of homes had 1-2 meters water inside. The country has been alerted with more than 200 flood warnings by its environment agency. Now, there are flooded homes, road closures and badly disrupted public transport system. Farmers have been advised to move livestock from low-lying fields and ensure that animals had access to food and shelter.

Parts of the US, from the western Rockies to the Midwest and eastern part, experienced heat wave, sweltering temperatures and monstrous thunderstorms in recent weeks. There is loss of life. Temperatures reached record level in more than 4,500 locations including Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, and Pennsylvania. Lansing hit 103°, the hottest day in Michigan’s capital city since record keeping began in 1863. The O’Hare International Airport also experienced 103° on July 6, 2012.

The country has already experienced Colorado wildfires and hurricane within the last few weeks. Storms knocked out power in Michigan, West Virginia, Maryland, and other areas. Millions passed days without electricity.

These weather-incidents are creating questions among people about the statements climate crisis deniers and “scientists” in their pay roll forcefully and shrewdly propagate.

Jane Lubchenco, head of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), on July 6 told a university forum in Canberra that the experience of recent extreme weather has convinced many Americans previously unconvinced or unconcerned with the impact of man-made climate change.

“People’s perceptions in the United States at least are in many cases beginning to change as they experience something first-hand that they at least think is directly attributable to climate change,” Jane said. Climate change used to be a “nebulous concept”, removed from everyday life, she said. As an example of people’s attention to the science behind the storms she cited “skyrocketing” demand for NOAA’s data from individuals and groups across the US.

It seems climate crisis deniers and their reliable “scientists” are loosing ground in the area of public trust in a country significant in climate crisis negotiations.

Despite the fact the deniers may argue for a short while. But they will be denied of soundness of their arguments as they confront, if they like to, the fact of frequency of extreme weather in a short span of recent time. The “wise” deniers argue: Conclusion on climate can’t be reached on the basis of one or two erratic events. But they miss the aspects of frequency, intensity and time span, and historical records.

Climate crisis deniers, however, don’t restrain. To assert claims of denying the climate crisis deniers have powerful organs.

The Wall Street Journal climate denial episode is now well known to many. The famous WSJ published an opinion piece signed by 16 “scientists” with flawed and misleading arguments about climate science with the following headline: “No Need to Panic About Global Warming”. The “scientists” tried to argue that “there’s no compelling scientific argument for drastic action to ‘decarbonize’ the world’s economy”.

But the WSJ “upholding” the principle of democracy and fairness refused to publish a scientifically accurate essay by 255 members of the United States National Academy of Sciences on the realities of climate crisis. The NAS is the preeminent independent scientific organizations in the US and members of the Academy are among the most respected in the world in their respective areas of knowledge and work. However, Science, one of the most important journals on scientific issues in the US, later published the NAS members’ essay.

But, the episode of denying freedom of expression exposed the deniers’ position. They even tried to deny, actually suppress, scientific fact. It is an old practice by the forces of status quo and decay since science started its journey for the welfare of humanity.

The climate crisis deniers’ also get exposed as “stories”, actually scandals involving innocent-looking “scientists”, of funding to climate denial “endeavors” come to light. It’s actually funding denial-“science” game, which is quite old. The funds come from powerful interests signifying the extent of interest in denying the climate crisis.

On May 30, 2012, the Union of Concerned Scientists released a report that found 28 “leading” US companies that publicly express concern about climate change but provide support to think tanks and groups engaged with the work of denying the climate crisis issue.

Obviously, these donors provide support to the denial-“science” behind public eye, a non-transparent practice but usual for capital. This fact exposes corporate hypocrisy, lie, and practice: pronounce what consumers like to listen and do what you consider as your interest.

Half, 14, of the UCS examined companies misrepresented climate crisis in their public communications. Many more contributed to the spread of misinformation about the climate crisis in ways that included political contributions, trade group memberships, and think tank funding. These companies, the report found, utilized their financial resources to oppose climate policy. Lobbying expenditures for energy sector companies increased by 92% from 2007 to 2009, the period climate change bills were actively debated in the US congress.

According to the report, the worst offenders were ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, DTE energy, General Electric Company, and Caterpillar Inc. Peabody Energy Corporation was ranked the most obstructionist of these companies. The company spent more than $33m to lobby its interest. Caterpillar spent more than $16m on lobbying. Valero Energy Corporation donated more than $4 million to the Yes on Prop 23, a campaign that sought to undermine California’s climate change law, but voters rejected it.

There is bigger money behind climate crisis-denial “science”. According to the Green Peace, the billionaire US oilmen David Koch and his brother Charles have funneled $61.48 million to climate-denial misinformation and disinformation groups working to obstruct policies and regulations aimed at stopping global warming. The Koch brothers funneled another $4.38 million into the climate crisis denial venture.

Americans for Prosperity ($5.7 million since 1997), the Heritage Foundation ($2.7 million), the Cato Institute ($1.2 million), and the Manhattan Institute ($1.2 million) were the top recipients of Koch money.

All of these are prestigious institutes in the realm of knowledge. Their observations carry more weight of credibility than many governments in poor countries. Their advocacy influences life of millions of poor around the world although millions of poor don’t know names of these organizations and are not aware of these institutes’ connections, power and influence.

The Koch brothers have billions of dollars from their ownership and control of Koch Industries, an oil corporation that is the second largest privately-held company in the US.
Kansas-based Koch Industries is a conglomerate dominated by petroleum and chemical interests with approximately $100 billion in annual sales and having operations in about 60 countries. The Koch brothers’ money is funneled through one of three “charitable” foundations they have set up: the Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation; the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation; and the David H. Koch Charitable Foundation. David Koch, one of the owners of this power, once claimed that “global warming could be good for the planet”. It’s not possible for the farmers and fishers, the people, facing uncertain future caused by rising temperature and sea level to perceive David’s perception of “good”.

While two persons deal with billions of dollars the rest millions count cents and a meal a day. A bad catch of fish, a bad yield of crop in a season demolishes survival opportunity of many. To a poor child of school going age, who helps his father in fishing or farming, education and sports are not the issue. The issue is a favorable weather for fishing, crop not damaged by insects, a better earning, a better food, a sleep not disturbed by an angry sea. The two worlds, of the rich and of the poor, are completely opposite.

But the deniers don’t refrain. The Green Peace reports Koch Industries: Still Fueling Climate Denial, 2011 and Koch Industries: Secretly Funding the Climate Denial Machine tell about the deniers, their misdoings in the area of climate crisis. In March 2010, Koch Industries: Secretly Funding the Climate Denial Machine, another Greenpeace report, told of an “initiative”. Their funding is so big, activities are so wide and involvement/meddling are so deep that the information in these reports may appear a small fragment to a reader concerned with the climate crisis.

The Center for American Progress Action Fund has a similar report: The Koch Brothers: What You Need to Know about the Financiers of the Radical Right. The Center for Public Integrity has another report: Koch’s Web of Influence. Audio recordings from inside the Koch’s 2011 secret strategy meeting available at BradBlog with additional reporting by Mother Jones present more facts.

This profit entity owned by the Koch brothers, two of the top 10 richest people in the US, is an ally of ExxonMobil, the American Petroleum Institute and other donors that support organizations and individuals – a section of scientists, media men, politicians – opposing energy and climate policy that take into account the issue of climate crisis. Their propagandists also come from poor countries, from countries being affected by the rising seas.

From 2005 to 2008, ExxonMobil spent US$8.9 million, while the Koch Industries controlled foundations contributed $24.9 million in funding to organizations of the climate crisis denial “science”.

But facts can’t be suppressed.

The Koch brothers funded a research that concluded the planet is warming. The Charles G. Koch Foundation provided $150,000 to the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature study in 2011, which was embraced by the denial machine until it redundantly re-confirmed that there in the world temperature is increasingly. Neither of the brothers explained the way the BEST study they funded contradicts their denial of climate crisis. Greenpeace activists asked David Koch the question. But there was no explanation.

This climate crisis denial, the “game” of money, does not only expose a section of capital’s role in climate crisis. It does also tell the old truth experienced by science and knowledge over ages: Suppress fact in the interest of status quo even if that act of suppression hurts the common people. Thus interest of status quo stands against the interest of the common people and against science, and there resurfaces the old contradiction between capital and science.