Agitating Argentine Oil

Argentine hydrocarbon-initiative is now agitating capital. It is more agitating to capital-interests as it energizes a trend – national control over national resources. To these interests, it’s “Chavez model”. It seems these interests are being haunted by a Chavez-spirit. A section of mainstream is making almost similar claim.

Capital disapproves people’s rights over people’s resources. Argentina’s move related to local oil company Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales (State Petroleum Reserves, YPF), controlled by Repsol, Spanish oil and gas company, is thus creating furor among all concerned with capital.

In mid-April, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, the Argentinean president, introduced a bill in congress that would give Argentina a 51% stake in YPF, the largest oil producer in the country. Cristina said the measure is aimed at recovering the nation’s sovereignty over its hydrocarbon resources, and it “is not a model of statism”. Governors of oil-producing provinces have already withdrawn about 15 oil leases, representing 18% of YPF’s crude production. They complained the company failed to keep its promises to develop them.

Declaring exploration and exploitation of hydrocarbons “national public interest” in order to “guarantee economic development with social equity” Cristina’s bill says building up the country’s supply is a priority. The bill proposes that out of the YPF controlling stake taken over, 51% will be held by the central government and the rest will be distributed to the oil-producing provinces. The government will not extend its hands to the 17.09% of YPF shares traded on stock exchanges. About the 25% stake held by the private Argentine Grupo Petersen is undecided.

Legislative process for recovering of sovereignty will be completed within weeks. There is widespread public support to the initiative: referring to opinion polls the Buenos Aires daily La Nación informed 80% support. A number of opposition lawmakers supported the move. The movement for the recovery of Argentina’s energy sovereignty is also in “complete agreement”. People celebrated the move.

But people and capital-interest don’t move hand-in-hand. The EU turned furious; the European block condemned Argentina’s move; the EU parliament called for Argentina-sanctions; and one conservative member of the European Parliament questioned whether Argentina should be allowed to remain in the G-20. The European Commission warned that nationalizing YPF would be bad for investment climate in Argentina, and said the EC backs Spain, Argentina’s largest foreign investor.

Opposition also came from the usual circle. Robert Zoellick, the World Bank president, and Alain Juppé, the French foreign minister, strongly criticized the Argentine initiative. “It is mistake and the wrong thing to do”, Zoellick said. Felipe Calderón, the Mexican president, said nationalization plan would only damage chances for investments in Argentina and hurt Repsol, in which Mexico’s state-run oil company Pemex holds a 10% stake.

Spain got confused with the US position. A State Department spokesperson explained remarks made earlier by Hillary Clinton, who said that she wanted to study the matter before commenting on it. “She spoke about the need for diverse markets, and certainly that’s one of our core beliefs: diverse energy markets,” the spokesperson said. José Manuel García-Margallo, the Spanish foreign minister, felt disappointed about the US position.

Regular expression is there. The Spanish establishment condemned the move. Soraya Saenz de Santamaria, the Spainish deputy prime minister, reaffirmed “keep looking for new measures” to put pressure on Argentina. The Spanish foreign minister said Spain would respond with “forceful measures”. But he refrained from elaborating. José Manuel Soria, the Spanish industry minister, assured “there will be more actions against Argentina”. In an interview with a conservative Spanish daily, Soria said Spain “will not be announcing the measures; it will just adopt them and keep moving.”

Spain has already decided to limit the import of Argentine biodiesel. A trade war, it seems, is being initiated by Madrid. Spanish newspapers report the EU could boycott Argentine soy and meat, two of Argentina’s biggest exports. Probably, the dream is to strangulate Buenos Aires and teach Cristina a lesson. Mosaddegh-memory is fresh in masters’ minds.

Rating agencies joined the move to warn Argentina. Standard and Poor’s, the famous rating agency with questionable past, downgraded Argentina’s economic and financial outlook to “negative”, after the YPF-initiative. Fitch warned Argentina of “diplomatic isolation” and shortages in foreign direct investment in key sectors – energy, utilities, and telecom.

As capital’s sentinel mainstream media was not silent. In an April 20 editorial The Washington Post observed “The [Argentine] president’s further lurch toward the left […]”, which it said “is bad news”. It echoed the conservative voice: remove Argentina from the G-20 and replace by Chile. (“Argentina’s president rejects stepping into the future”) It seems they are the lords of the world to do and undo everything.

There are more harsh and crude voices. Repsol Executive Chairman Antonio Brufau said the measure “will not go unpunished” and threatened to “take all legal actions within its reach.” Spanish officials predicted Argentina risks becoming “an international pariah”. In a responsible tone, Cristina reciprocated: “This president is not going to answer any threat, is not going to respond to any sharp remark. I am a head of state and not a hoodlum.”

It’s “resource nationalism”, the mainstream considers. The world business and investors smell risky situation. To a section in the mainstream, Cristina’s initiative is nothing but an attempt to cover up domestic problems.

However, the song of condemnation failed to echo in all the corners of the world. Voices of solidarity reverberated. Venezuela’s foreign ministry and the state oil company expressed support to Argentina’s move. The company expressed its willingness to help strengthen Argentina’s oil industry: “Venezuela puts all its technical, operational, legal and political experience of Petroleos de Venezuela at the disposition of the government of Argentina and its people to strengthen the state oil sector”. Evo Morales, Bolivia’s president, said: “It is an issue between Argentina and Spain.” Daniel Ortega, the Nicaraguan president, expressed solidarity: “President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner … is exercising the right of the State of Argentina to defend its patrimony.” He rejected the EU’s reaction, saying the EU has acted with “arrogance, bravado and thuggery against the decision of a sovereign people and government in Argentina.” “What we can advise the EU is that they should stop their bullying, stop the threats. Look for dialogue, negotiate with the Argentinean government and look for a way out where the legitimate rights of the people of Argentina are recognized,” Ortega said. Jose Mujica, the Uruguayan president, told he respected Argentina’s decision, saying “it falls within the framework of sovereignty, whether you like it or not.” Regarding the EU’s condemnation and threat, Mujica expressed “solidarity with Argentina, in good and bad times” and lashed out at the “arrogance of wealthy Europe.” Haroldo Lima, the head of Brazil’s National Petroleum Agency, hailed the move as “excellent news for Latin America.” He called the decision “historic” and said “it was not against Spain... It was not against anyone. It was in favor of Argentina.” Chilean officials reacted cautiously. Chile government was studying the effects on Chilean investments in Argentina, in particular in one of Repsol’s wells. However, the Chilean opposition Socialist Party, hailed the move as sovereign action saying that as an independent nation, Argentina “has the right to decide how to exploit its natural resources for the benefit of its citizens.”

Seemingly to increase pressure on Argentina, US Senator Richard Lugar, member of the Subcommittee on Latin America, asked questions on Argentina during a congressional hearing. A report from Hillary Clinton reviewed the Argentina-IMF relation and trade “barriers”, restrictions on remitting of benefits and dividends overseas, implemented by Argentina.

Argentina is having a difficult relation with the IMF. The US considers Argentina is obliged to submit its economic statistics to be validated by the IMF, and US will support the IMF. Citing a report La Nación informed the US is “most disappointed” as Argentina having suspended such annual submission since 2006.

Once again, the battle line has been drawn. Trenches are being dug. Two interests stand opposed to each other, and a trend turns stronger providing example to peoples and ruling elites in other countries.

Argentina has a version different from that of the Repsol, Spain, EU and Co. The country’s petroleum production fell 27% between 2001 and 2011 turning the country an importer of oil. Repsol was not producing enough oil to meet the country’s needs. This year Argentina estimates to import more than $10 billion worth of gas and LNG, almost equal to the country’s trade surplus last year although it is an oil-producing country, and it was self-sufficient for over two decades. This exposes the efficiency of Repsol, and also of private capital.

“We are the only country in Latin America, and […] in practically the entire world, that doesn’t manage its own natural resources,” Cristina mentioned as a burning fact. Argentina’s proven reserves have fallen by 50% since 2001, although YPF has not posted losses because it has spent so little on reinvestment. The company more than doubled its sales since 1999, making net profits of nearly 16.5 billion dollars since then, and distributing dividends of 13.2 billion dollars. Argentina had a deficit of $3 billion last year partly due to energy imports. The center of gravity of the EU’s position is clear.

The oil company, YPF, was privatized in two stages, in 1993 and 1999, under the former president Carlos Menem. Since then the state has held less than one percent of the shares of YPF.

Buenos Aires accuses Repsol of sucking YPF’s profits out of the country instead of investing in Argentina’s future. Repsol has used its profits to fund investments in Alaska, the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean Sea and North Africa. If this policy continues – draining fields dry, no exploration and practically no investment – “the country will end up having no viable future, not because of a lack of resources but because of business policies,” said Cristina.

Aníbal Fernández, an Argentine Senator, said the government “will pay the real price […] of YPF and not what Repsol’s chairman wants.” Repsol chairman has a bargain tag in his bag. Argentina and Spain are now setting a price on the transaction.

Cristina said the real problem was not about foreign companies or their profitability, but the lack of investment. She cited her government’s positive relationship with foreign automotive companies. Italy’s Fiat and the US’ General Motors receive soft loans from the Argentine state to boost local production and keep workers in jobs, Cristina said.

Argentina has minimized Spain’s retaliatory decision to reduce bio-diesel imports. Argentina “is in condition to absorb” that production. “We won’t question Spain’s sovereign decision, no matter which one it takes. They are going to pay their businessmen a more expensive bio-diesel and I don’t know how that will impact their economy”, Cristina said. “We’re not going to appeal to the World Trade Organization nor are we going to complaint about the decision to block Argentine exports. We don’t act that way. We are […] very respectful of other peoples’ sovereignty”, she said. The difference between Argentina and the EU, the organization that is failing to manage its own affairs but always is delivering sermons to the Third World countries on democracy, etc., on the principle of non-interference is clear.

All interests are not happy with Cristina’s initiatives. Argentina has already issued legal warnings to banks involved in the Malvinas Islands’ oil industry. In 2008, Cristina nationalized Anses, privately run pension funds with many Spaniards’ investment. She also nationalized Aerolíneas Argentina airline, owned by a Spanish firm now bankrupt. An alliance of organizations, American Task Force Argentina, is making effort to resolve Argentina’s $132bn debt default in 2001.

The country is having resources that allure capital from other lands. Edison Investment Research, a research firm, has claimed that the Falklands stood to benefit from a $176bn tax windfall as the result of oil and gas drilling. Of the four major prospects under way, the largest, Loligo, potentially holds more than 4.7bn barrels of oil. Argentina has recently found huge unconventional oil and natural gas reserves. A few months ago, YPF announced a large oil find known as the Vaca Muerta field that Repsol officials estimated could yield four billion barrels. BP now produces 74,000 barrels of oil daily in Argentina. Its natural gas production is more than its European operations combined.

Argentina is the world’s main supplier of bio-diesel almost exclusively from soy oil, and the country produces bio-diesel “at a cheaper price than Spanish manufacturers”. Last year exports reached 1.7 million tons of which 700.000 tons, equivalent to 985 million dollars were exported to Spain. Around 120 British companies including HSBC, Unilever and GlaxoSmithKline are now operating in Argentina.

Initiatives, in many forms, within existing limitations including class equation and historical perspective, are there in Latin America. These are trying to assert sovereignty, claim fair share of resources. An emerging political stream is trying to change resource map in Latin America in favor of people. Political leadership’s acumen, its capacity to mobilize people, its management efficiency are vital questions related to managing resource. It’s a long, complicated struggle. Initiatives should not be brushed aside with rhetoric. At the same time, class composition behind initiatives should be taken into account. Bureaucracy, a bulky burden, is there. Instead of expecting a perfect set up one should find out the reality within which a leadership has to move. The leadership carries marks of history. Ignoring these factors will send one to frustration, and to adventurism.

The initiative is operating in a geopolitical reality, where Europe is struggling within, where EU’s options regarding Argentina are limited, where competition within a crisis-reality has put masters of the world in a difficult position, where masters are facing problem in their home-turf.

Argentina will be an experience useful to the countries and the movements struggling to recover people’s resources, assert sovereignty over public resources, and aspiring to challenge neo-liberalism in respective economy.

What’s America’s Biggest National Security Threat?

What’s the biggest threat to US national security? It’s neither Iran nor North Korea, neither China’s defense spending nor Russia’s missile system. Syria doesn’t have that capacity to appear the biggest. It’s the domestic issues related to economy that pose the biggest national security threat to US. Richard Haass, the president of the Council on Foreign Relations, has made the observation in early-April 2012.

In an interview with The Daily Ticker Haass said: “The most important national security question for the coming year is actually the domestic set of issues that involves the economy.” “What we do to improve our schools, our infrastructure, what we do to reduce the budget deficit…this is going to be critical in years and decades ahead”, said Haass. (“America’s Biggest National Security Threat: U.S. Debt”)

In an increasingly global economy, Haass said, these policy failures and intransigence by lawmakers to seriously and vigorously tackle the budget crisis indicate a weaker US. “The United States right now has put itself in a position of some vulnerability. We’re vulnerable to the inflows of dollars, we’re vulnerable on the energy front, and the challenge for the United States in the national security realm is to do things that reduce our vulnerability to the decisions and behaviors be it foreign governments or markets.”

Almost similar was another observation. A few years ago, the US Directorate of National Intelligence in its 2009 threat assessment cited the global economic downturn as “the primary security challenge facing the US.” (Time, Sept. 11, 2009)

Neither CFR nor Richard Haass should be taken casually. The think tank is a responsible part of establishment and Haass is not a mindless member of the section he belongs to. The DNI observation that Time referred to is not part of a time killing talk-shop. Rather their observations are articulated after thorough exercises. These are macro views with eyes on far-reaching implications.

Economy of a country, no doubt, determines issues related to the country, its internal and external relations, its world-position, state of life of its citizens, its capacity to dominate or the opposite, etc. With a problem ridden internal situation any country turns vulnerable. The Great Financial Crisis (GFC) has intensified and widened domestic problems in many countries including US. Increasing hunger, poverty and rich-poor gap, annoying number and ratio of homeless and hungry children, finance-problem pressed schools, and debt burdened students are now not new news from the Empire, the richest land in the world. Mainstream admits all these facts although it declines to look at the root of the problems.

In 2011, Matthew Hartmann wrote in a commentary: More Americans than ever were living in poverty. “I have legitimate concerns about the future of this country […]” (“As Government Flirts with Shutdown, American Dream Again Questioned, Personal Reflections on the Great Recession”, Sept. 27)

Citing a report by the Joint Report Committee Hartmann referred the poverty level that rose in 46 states as a result of the Great Recession. He turned astonished: “Not even the nation’s capital was able to escape the influence of the Great Recession and, in fact, has become one of the hardest hit locations in this country.” Hartmann quoted the report: “[…] Washington also had the third highest poverty rate in the country, 19.2 percent, and the largest rise in the share of children living in poverty, rising 7.7 percentage points to 30.4 percent.” Similar data reflecting dire living condition for many in US are now in abundance.

Narrating experience Hartmann said: “[M]y own family has struggled over the past couple years because of the state of the economy. My father works at a high-paying medical job and yet struggles because we lost many investments when the Great Recession began.” His parents were renting after they lost their home. “[W]e’re living in very hard times”, he wrote. “What got me writing today was the revelation that the government nearly shut down again as it’s been threatening to do for the past couple of months. If our own federal government can hardly keep its doors open then I personally see it as a sign that our nation is still in a very precarious situation.” Possibility of shutting down a number of government departments is also old news.

State of teachers, students and class rooms, and as a whole, of education is being discussed by the mainstream in the Empire. A dismal picture comes to light. A recently released report by a Council on Foreign Relations Task Force found the not-so-well public school system that “threatens the country’s ability to thrive in a global economy and maintain its leadership role”. “[E]ducational failure”, the report said, “puts the United States’ future economic prosperity, global position, and physical safety at risk.”

Closure of many schools is reported in the mainstream media. ABC News reported closure of nearly half of schools and firing of hundreds of teachers in a district that “sent shockwaves through the country, and experts say this could just be the beginning.” There was “a $50 million budget shortfall”. In Detroit, a plan was announced “to close 45 schools in the next five years”. (“Budget, Quality, Population Issues Lead Cities to Close Schools: Is Yours Next?”, March 17, 2010) Mismanagement, failure to keep up with changing dynamics, declining enrollment, demographic shifts, budget deficits and draconian budget cuts are cited as reasons behind decision/plans for closing of the schools.

Adducing physicists a news report said: “The United States is at risk of ceding its leadership in science”. Five physicists expressed their worries about US’ scientific future saying that governmental funding for science research is in crisis, and not enough US students graduate with degrees in science, technology, engineering and math. The physicists were participating in a panel discussion in Atlanta at the April 2012 meeting of the American Physics Society. Pushpa Bhat, a physicist at Illinois’ Fermi Accelerator National Laboratory (Fermilab), lamented the lack of cutting-edge physics facilities in US. She was speaking at a press conference preceding the panel. She said: While many of the world’s best instruments including Illinois’ Tevatron particle accelerator used to be housed in US that frontier has moved elsewhere. Tevatron has shut down. Nobel Prize winner Frank Wilczek of MIT said: US “attracts students from all over the world. […] But […] we make it difficult for them to stay. I think for science, it’s a tragedy.” He cited immigration laws and cultural attitudes toward foreigners that “could be more welcoming.” “[T]he physicists acknowledged that scientists will have to confront a hard reality: There is simply less money for research in the current economy. Jim Siegrist, director of the Office of High Energy Physics in DOE’s Office of Science, agreed. ‘We need to find a way to do more science with a fixed amount of money’, Siegrist said.” Wilczek said “society doesn’t adequately value and recognize the economic benefits of basic science.” (“Crisis for US Science Is Looming, Physicists Warn”, Apr. 6, 2012)

These facts related to education and science lead to questions fundamental in nature. Answers to those questions will lead further to question related to the nature of the political economy that owns unimaginable resource, that once operated for longer period within favorable conditions, that has accumulated hundreds of years of experience but that now fails to provide adequate funds for scientific research and education, organize efficient management, keep up with shifting dynamics, that produces a society failing to adequately value science, etc.

Naturally, questions haunt: reasons behind declining enrollment, budget deficits, budget cuts, etc. How and why does an advanced capitalist economy fail to find required budget to keep its schools open and retain its teachers while it does not fail to find trillions of dollars to invest in speculation and billions of dollars for waging wars in distant lands that produce pain and tears in home and deaths and devastation in invaded society, and that leaves behind bitter memories and sense of hatred only? Is it that now basic science and a number of schools are not needed for making profit? Is it that the economy doesn’t need those schools and teachers? Or, is it the economy’s failure?
Referring a recent report from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York Time and Washington Post said $36 billion in student debt belongs to Americans who are 60 or older. Some of them are still rassling with their student loans while others took on new loans as they resumed education later in life in hopes of effectively competing in labor market. Many are co-signatories for loans with their children or grandchildren to afford increasing tuition cost. More than 10% of these loans are delinquent. About 5% of the $85 billion delinquent student loans in the US is owed by borrowers in the age group 60 and over, and another 12% of the total is in the age group 50-59. The unemployment rate among America’s recent grads is high enough that compels them to live with parents.

It’s a difficult reality for the hard pressed section of a society. It’s also a part of the political economy of education that ultimately thrives on appropriating labor power of a society.

There is another fact. Laid off workers in the age group 55 and over, according to SmartMoney, are unemployed for an average of 53.6 weeks compared to just 39.4 weeks for those 54 and under. Older Americans are increasingly finding it necessary to keep working — because of the losses made by the GFC, and/or they still need to pay off credit cards, mortgages, student loans, and other debt. In 2001, just 13% of Americans in the age group 65 and over were employed. The percentage increased to 18% by last summer. Isn’t it the bitter reality of more work, generation of more surplus value, appropriation of more surplus value, and more hardship?

Width of the hardship can be gauged with a figure related to loss. “There are a hundred different ways of looking at the economy, and a million different statistics” wrote Rex Nutting. “But if you wanted to focus on just one number that explains why the economy can’t really recover, this is the one: $7.38 trillion. That’s the amount of wealth that’s been lost from the bursting of housing bubble, according to the Federal Reserve’s comprehensive Flow of Funds report. It’s how much homeowners lost when housing prices plunged 30% nationwide. The loss for these homeowners was much greater than 30%, however, because they were heavily leveraged.” (Rex Nutting, “How the Bubble Destroyed the Middle Class”, Market Watch, July 8, 2011)

After the burst, Rex wrote: “Most families don’t have any extra money to spend. […] The crazy thing is that our leaders aren’t even talking about this crisis. With the upper classes prospering and global markets booming, they don’t need the U.S. middle class any more. The market is up, profits are soaring, and the corporate jet is fueled and ready for takeoff.” His sarcastic comment actually unmasks the indifferent, cruel face of a political economy which bears the name capitalism: “And if the middle class can’t buy bread? Let them eat cake.”

Debt creates new chain, new moral standard, new disciplining tact as hassles and humiliation crown debtors’ lives. The GFC brought debt- reality to many debtors. “Debt collectors are getting desperate and dirty. Harassing phone calls, abusive language and physical violence are becoming a bigger part of business as debt collectors struggle to round up money from people who don’t have it. […] Complaints of harassment by debt collectors surged 50% to 67,550 in 2009, according to the Federal Trade Commission. […] The No. 1 complaint is repeated calls, and it is not uncommon for collectors to bombard consumers with back-to-back calls for days, weeks, months and even years. When debt collectors finally get someone on the other end of the phone, they are more likely to use nastier language. Complaints of debt collectors using obscene or abusive language spiked 35% last year. A 55-year old New York woman […] said a collection agent called her home repeatedly, personally attacking her and her husband. When she refused to answer the phone, the collector called her estranged sister, an ex-boyfriend and her husband’s ex-wife’s mother. ‘This guy was out of his mind and he kept calling and calling, telling me “you better talk to me, you deadbeat,”’ she said. ‘He was very threatening and the whole thing was just really unsettling -- it made you wonder who was going to show up at your door.’ She had reason to worry, since complaints of debt collectors threatening – or actually using – violence more than doubled last year, to 2,517. Keary Floyd, an attorney […] in Atlanta said that while most of his debt collection cases involve excessive phone calls, one of his recent clients recorded a disturbing phone conversation where a debt collector threatened that he or someone else would come to the client’s house to get the money in any way that he could. […] Other aggressive tactics that are becoming more common are debt collectors calling before 8 a.m. or after 9 p.m., demanding more money than what is owed, revealing a consumer’s debt to a third party or threatening ‘dire consequences’ like prosecution, jail time, property seizure or job loss. (Blake Ellis, “Debt collectors sock it to consumers”, CNNMoney.com, July 9, 2010) A single question will haunt if all fundamental questions are bluntly kept aside: How does this debtor-indignity or creditor-power correspond to freedom and liberty which are a people’s driving spirit?

Since the onset of the GFC the number of city/county/municipality gone bankrupt or filing for bankruptcy is also not insignificant in the Empire. Finance, related politics and pulls of competing interests were at the root of these cases of bankruptcy/filing for bankruptcy. There are allegations of widespread corruption, bribery and fraud charges. The last few years came across a number of important names related to bankruptcy: Harrisburg, Pennsylvania’s capital city, Alabama’s Jefferson County – home of Birmingham, the state’s biggest city and economic powerhouse, Stockton, California. In 2008, Vallejo became the biggest California city to file for bankruptcy. The city later emerged from bankruptcy. There is Central Falls, Rhode Island also.

Jefferson County’s filing for bankruptcy is the biggest municipal bankruptcy in US history. Harrisburg was having a crushing debt, listed about $458 million in creditors and claims, legal actions by creditors, and a power struggle. Stockton is the largest US city to file for bankruptcy. The city had the second-highest foreclosure rate in US and one of the highest crime and unemployment rates.

The bankrupt-situation with cost cutting, higher taxes and pension reductions puts pressure on health and safety services to citizens. The poor suffer the most. The situation also increases concerns in the $3.7 trillion US municipal bond market. A seemingly strange cycle: market bankrupts and bankruptcy trembles market!

But hardship, debt and gloom in the life of many don’t dominate everyone everywhere. Profit pervades powerfully, and lets a few to enjoy all the moments.

In the third quarter of 2010, corporate profits rode to a record height: $1.67 trillion. It was a 28% rise from a year ago. Non-financial US companies, according Fed, held $1.93 trillion in cash and other liquid assets at the end of September. And 7.4% of companies’ total assets were cash – the highest share since 1959. These cash-burdened companies announced $150 billion in stock buybacks in 2010. (Zachary Roth, “Record corporate profits not producing jobs”, Dec 10, 2010) Along with news of super-high profits cases of criminal and civil fraud including crimes of tax evasion, insider trading, mortgage lending and payment collection, false statements and public corruption are coming to public view.

There are war ventures that cost billions. Two economists including a Nobel laureate have already made a calculation of cost of only one such venture. There are others, declared and undeclared ones.

A reality full with contradictory segments – sick science research and education and well-oiled war efforts, haunted debtor and overwhelming creditor, poverty and profit – impregnate society with contradictions, intensify contradictions that appear threat in the long run. Fault lines in the base of the society widen, that in turn weaken status quo, and a question raises its voice: cui bono?, for whose benefit is it? who is the gainer? The louder the question will be the more insecure will be the status quo.

Freedom Is Not Class-Neutral

Freedom in all lands is captive to class interests. It’s historically impossible for freedom – freedom of will and of action – to get free from the clutch of its class content as freedom is not class-neutral. Economic content of freedom, moored in class interests, makes it biased, distorts its imagined universal appearance – a concept materialized only in utopia – and creates the need to anchor the concept in the solid base of science instead of a superfluous sand beach of imagination.

Evaluating state of freedom without considering its historical perspective, and to be specific, without considering the dominating class interests in a society, its historical limitations, and its antagonism with contending classes, leads to nowhere but to a circle of confusion, to chattering, inactions or actions without aims or actions without identifying class leadership. The confusing analysis is embraced by dominating interests with a convulsive laughter.

No society was there in human history, where dominating interests had no freedom bridled and compelled to compromise by contending interests only. Dominated interests’ freedom was always curtailed, denied, ignored, and muzzled. State of dominated interests’ freedom has always depended on the state of the interests’ awareness, organization and struggle.

Thus, a polluter has all the freedom to pollute water bodies, ground water, air and soil, a foodster has all the freedom to put toxic substance in food marketed among the masses of people, an ideologue has all the freedom to propagate anti-people ideas, concepts, values, dreams and practices, an educator has all the freedom to instruct with counter-scientific ideas, a publicist has all the freedom to bring out whatever publication the gentle-person likes, an image builder has all the freedom to build up image hollow in essence, a bankster has all the freedom to flog inconsistent ideas, a profiteer has all the freedom to swim in a pool of profit, a section of politicians has all the freedom to deceive public and have a nice life without accountability, and they all have all the freedoms – economic, political, spiritual, etc. – to pool all the resources required to fulfill all their passion. So, there is their near-absolute freedom as absolute freedom is a void in nature and society, an imagination in a society unstable with antagonistic class interests. This process of near-absolute freedom of these interests denies freedom of the interests that stand opposed to them.

Dominated interests have no freedom or limited freedom or theoretically have all the freedom but essentially, practically and functionally have no capacity and mean to meaningfully engage with types of freedom – of expression, speech, etc., economic, political, etc. This reality quashes overwhelmingly propagated universal freedom. Dominated interests can have all their freedom of expression, etc. codified but may not own the time to rest and reflect that can allow the interests access required information, analyze those, identify impediments to freedoms and tasks to realize those. It’s not that always there will be a law banning freedom of expression. A reality bombarded with sort of ideas can keep dominated interests inactive in reflecting and formulating ideas upholding self-interests.

Dominated interests – the poor, the tormented, the working people, the under classes – have all the freedom to live in and live with poverty, ignorance, corruption and deceit for generations, have all the freedom to pass all their “blissful” days without information essential for analysis and survival, have all the freedom to sale their body organ – kidney – for a little cash to those wealthy buyers having all the freedom to fly into Bangladesh from some other country as Monir Moniruzzaman, assistant professor of anthropology at Michigan State University, found in his study “‘Living Cadavers’ in Bangladesh: Bioviolence in the Human Organ Bazaar” (Medical Anthropology Quarterly, vol. XXVI, issue 1). In a corner in this strange world, as Reuters reported on March 19, 2012, girls have all the freedom to sale their honor and consume steroids to have a lot of male consumers. Yes, the girls like the girls from erstwhile Soviet Union and eastern Europe are free to earn in a free market, in capitaldom, not in“serfdom”. It’s a freedom “bestowed” upon the daughters of destitution. In a place in this world, employers have “the power to deny prescribed birth control pills to any female employee unless she provides proof she’s not using it for […] birth control.” It’s the freedom of authority and employer and non-freedom of a section of female employees!

Freedom turns a confusing concept as interests interpret in respective ways. “The first is”, Franklin D. Roosevelt said in his message to the US Congress in January 6, 1941, “freedom of speech and expression […] The second is freedom […] to worship […] The third is freedom from want […] The fourth is freedom from fear […]”. Thomas Jefferson in his first inaugural address in 1801 mentioned “freedom of religion; freedom of the press, and freedom of persons under the protection of the habeas corpus, […]”. The Truman Doctrine mentioned “freedom of speech and religion, and freedom from political oppression.” “Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men” was a slogan of the Free Soil Party, antecedent of Abraham Lincoln’s Republican Party. To a section in society, cars are synonymous to freedom. To some, types of freedom are the physical freedom, the political freedom, and the mental and spiritual freedom. A section finds two types of freedom: negative and positive freedom. Another section identifies four types of freedom: “Freedom from” or “negative freedom”, “Freedom to” or “positive freedom”, “Autonomy”, and “Freedom from domination”. William D. Gairdner classified freedom as Internal Freedom, Self-Freedom, External Freedom (“freedom from...”, “negative freedom”) Political Freedom (“freedom to...”), Collective or "Higher" Freedom (“positive freedom” or “freedom for”) and Spiritual Freedom. (“Six Kinds of Freedom”, July 4, 2006) A classification finds three types of freedom: Freedom 1: freedom from external impediments (essentially a political concept), Freedom 2: freedom from internal impediments (usually part of discourse on issues of psychology, personal morality and religion), and Freedom 3: autonomy and democracy (interpreted in a political sense). Economic freedom is sometimes defined as: “Secure rights to property (legally acquired); Freedom to engage in voluntary transactions, inside and outside a nation's borders; Freedom from governmental control of the terms on which individuals transact; and Freedom from governmental expropriation of property (e.g., by confiscatory taxation or unanticipated inflation).” (Steve H. Hanke and Stephen J. K. Walters, “Economic Freedom, Prosperity, and Equality: A Survey”, The Cato Journal, vol. XVII, no. 2) A section in society perceives freedom as freedom of capital and its kin. Freedom of capital is the essential message Friedrich Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom and Milton Friedman’s Capitalism and Freedom carry. Assassinating or planning to assassinate statesmen and politicians including Lumumba, Nasser and Castro, as BBC reported on March 17, 2012 (“Licence to Kill: When governments choose to assassinate”), is exercised by a section of dominating interests including Anthony Eden, once a British prime minister, which is part of a political fight waged by the interests, and this political fight is part of the interests’ political freedom. The interests don’t expect and shall not allow exercising the same political freedom by its contending classes. Freedom of “corporate personhood”, of MNCs, and their power to manipulate, encroach and subjugate all public freedoms just wipe out all types of freedom of all, not only of the dominated section of society. A real world tells: Freedom, political, economic, etc. is not universal.

Now-a-days, indicators on freedom are abounding: “Freedom in the World” of the Freedom House, “Democracy Index” of The Economist, “Index of Economic Freedom” of The Wall Street Journal and The Heritage Foundation, indices of Reporters Sans Frontiers and the Canadian Frasier Institute, the Polity data series, claimed to be indirectly of the CIA. Each of these uses varying measures and weight: It’s probably not surprising that The Heritage Foundation and WSJ emphasize on investment and financial freedom in their index. (Lockerz, “A New Use for Freedom Indicators?”, Democracy & Society, Sep 27, 2011) Indicators measuring capitalism and political freedom assess degree of capitalism; economic, trade, investment, business, and financial freedom; private investment; competition in domestic banking; competitive markets; lack of interest rate regulation; legally protected private ownership of the means of production; legal enforcement of contracts; price controls; collective bargaining at central level; etc.

Labor shackled to wage, poor mortgaged to misery, common people fettered to destitution, masses sold to servitude are denied entry in freedom. This makes freedom an unspecified, confused concept. Without specifying class character and content of freedom a mere mention of freedom turns into a pretension and prattle only as “something” like universal freedom conceals class freedom and dominant autocracy in all its forms – ideological, political, economic. Exercise of freedom by the masses is completely different from the terms of freedom determined by dominating interests that ignore the fundamental question of class freedom and freedom of humanity.

A flaw will command an analysis of the state of freedom in a society if the analysis completely concentrates on freedom-space granted by dominant interests to the dominated. It is the dominated interests’ awareness, organization, maturity and struggle that ensure its freedom. Yearning for freedom of dominated interests and simultaneously looking up for freedom-space grants by dominant interests is a foolish, childish, impractical and ineffective aspiration carrying no weight and meaning in political, economic, social and cultural life.

Our Bangladesh is a bright example. The glorious days of language movement in 1952, of 1969 mass upsurge, the December-days of 1990 are only a few of many examples as ordinary Baangaalees compelled hostile forces to bow down, and the common persons enjoyed freedom to the level they could achieve through their organization and struggle. They had not waited for amplitude of those dominating interests. A despised field marshal and a despised general, Ayub and Yahya, knew it best. Our glorious days of 1971, the period We the People of Bangladesh organized and waged our Great War of Liberation is an undeniable example of achieving freedom. Noble and crimson bright those days were. People’s pain, supreme sacrifice and valor glorified all the freedom-minutes of that long period.

During those valiant periods the dominated section waging struggle and war did not beg freedom, did not appeal to any autocrat, to any donor, did not seek advice from any foreign diplomat, did not hand over the task of defining agenda for freedom to donor driven NGOs, did not mortgage consciences to any group of persons posing wise and claiming civil society. During those days of the glorious war under classes even challenged property relation to some extent in some parts of the country. During those days red with people’s blood the masses repudiated retrogressive, sectarian ideas, politics and politicians, and embraced broader, advanced vision.

Only pointing fingers of accusation to this political party or to that party for infringement of freedom-space will carry no practical message if freedom related elementary information are not disseminated among the masses, if people are kept unaware, if imitating and showmanship replaces spade work for organizing people, if the entire task is handed over to non-political appearing political NGOs implementing donor agenda, if soul-searching is replaced by tailing NGOs.

A brief comparison will help assess the state of yearning for freedom of speech, expression, etc.: extent of propaganda by MNCs, and the total number of circulated copies and the number of publications of the political entities standing for freedom of expression, etc.; number of round table, etc. of “non”-political and political entities. Doesn’t MNC-propaganda infringe people’s freedom of expression, etc.? Aren’t issues concerning ecology and climate related to issues concerning freedom and people? Isn’t dignity part of freedom? And, hasn’t that been demolished by a section of employees of some other country? Similar questions shall confirm nothing but inertia in a significant section of society that tasks itself with the duty of sentinel of freedom.

With this reality isn’t it better to have a soul-search before blaming this or that political party, before denouncing this or that part of state machine? This sincere exercise shall carry a message: at spes non fracta, but hope is not yet crushed.

News From Syria And France

News on Syria is being disseminated in a charged style. A news tilted as part of disinformation signifies preparation for deeper and more forceful involvement by external actors in the Middle Eastern country. At the same time, Turkey’s plan for a buffer zone inside Syria, the war game in the region, and incidents in France, far away from Syria, are no less annoying. Are not these preludes to a gathering storm in the Middle East?

ABC News said on March 19, 2012: An “anti-terror squad” from the Russian Marines and two Russian ships have arrived in Syria. ABC and a section of media headlined the news in their preferred manner – Russian troops in Syria.

ABC cited Russian news reports and Al Arabiya, and Al Arabiya referred to an Israel-based open-source military intelligence website. However, ABC pointed out that Russia’s Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov denied the reports.

On the other hand, citing Russian officials The New York Times reported with a restrained tone: The “Russian officials denied an ABC News report that one of their warships had docked in the Syrian port of Tartus with a squad of Russian antiterror marines; the report fed speculation that Russia was actively helping Mr. Assad by supplying military experts. A spokesman for the Defense Ministry was quoted by the Interfax news service as saying he was perplexed by the report, which he said might have referred to […] a Russian tanker that had docked in Tartus 10 days earlier. He said security guards were aboard the [tanker] because it supplies fuel to Russian ships participating in international anti-piracy patrols in the Gulf of Aden.”

Associated Press also reported the same. It said the tanker is carrying a civilian crew and a team of servicemen protecting it.

A comparison of the three news-reports, of ABC, and of NYT and AP, expose a style of a section of media to fan up tension by presenting news in tilted and confusing manner.

Reuters reported: Syria’s arms imports surged nearly 6-fold between 2007 and 2011.

However, El Pais noted that “despite the increase, total arms imports in Syria were not much greater than those to Jordan – a country of 6 million people compared to Syria’s population of 20 million.”

Obviously, size of population does not always provide rational for quantity of arms import and production. Despite the fact – a larger Syrian population compared to Jordan – the information provided by El Pais presents a yardstick for comparison in presenting news. A country’s situation due to external intervention is a major logic regarding quantity of arms being imported/produced.

The tilted Russian antiterror marines and surge in arms import news accompany news on a planned move by Turkey.

Turkey is planning to establish a buffer zone inside Syria. It’s a dangerously significant plan to cripple and dismember a country. The materialization of the plan would involve Turkish troops into Syria. The move if implemented carries possibility of escalation of conflict between armies of the two countries. The Turkish government’s call to its nationals to leave Syria reflects a step to initiate the move.

A major development happened in Moscow. Russia and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) have called for a daily two-hour humanitarian ceasefire in Syria without delay – “a daily humanitarian pause” that would allow convoys to provide medical care and evacuation for the wounded. The ICRC head Kellenberger’s Moscow travel to discuss a Syria-ceasefire clearly shows the need to consider Moscow’s geostrategic position in Syria.

Russia’s geostrategic position regarding Syria is the outcome of its present internal and external world position and Libya-experience. Russia’s choice is to abide by existing contracts to deliver weapons to Syria, and as Russian Deputy Defence Minister Anatoly Antonov said, Russia finds “no reason […] to reconsider it.” The Russian minister dismissed allegations that Russia has sent special forces officers to assist Syrian government forces: “There are no (Russian) special forces with rifles and grenade launchers running around”, he said. “The Syrian people should determine who will lead their country and so the opinion of some of our foreign partners will hardly foster a solution”, Mikhail Bogdanov, Russian deputy foreign minister told a news conference.

But, ultimately, the external players will not allow the Syrian people to determine their path in their own peaceful manner. The world masters’ external intervention is perfectly accomplishing a number of tasks of crisis-ridden world masters.

“Internal Look,” the two-week war game was not assuring for peace. Rather it scares all peace-loving people. Consequences of any confrontation or war in the Middle East will be dire for all.

The killings in France are annoying also. In France, a number of paratroopers not during combat duty were killed a few days ago. The incidents were followed by killing of four persons including three children aged 3, 6, and 8.

The act of killing cannot be considered part of political fight. An environment of hatred and fear distorts and hinders political fight, and strengthens forces of reaction. Targeting children cannot be considered part of political fight. Rather, it weakens the moral standing of political fight.

With further escalation of external financed and armed intervention in Syria, the first victim will be people’s democratic struggle in the region, in Syria, in Turkey, Israel, Jordan and Lebanon. Imperialist intervention and war effort under guise of democratic movement will push back democratic movement. A further escalation of killing spree in France will charge an environment with hatred, suspicion, will push back urgent questions related to working people’s suffering due to financial crisis.

Capital Doesn’t Spare The Disabled

Capital doesn’t even spare disabled labor from its appropriation “adventure”. The business goes on in all lands, from the metropolis to the poor periphery in the world system.

In the UK, Guardian reports: “Some long-term sick and disabled people face being forced to work unpaid for an unlimited amount of time or have their benefits cut under plans being drawn up by the Department for Work and Pensions.” (Feb. 16, 2012) Experts fear this could further harm the sick and disabled persons. The policy could mean that those diagnosed with terminal cancer but have more than six months to live; accident and stroke victims; and those with mental health issues could be compelled to undertake work experience for charities, public bodies and retailers. There will be provision for sanction in case of failure by the disabled “beneficiaries” as “Ministers feel sanctions are an incentive for people to comply with their responsibility.” Already 8,440 disabled persons have faced sanctions during the period Sept. 2010-Aug. 2011 “for offences like missing interview with advisers ‘without good cause’”.

A simple truth is told by the news: A civilized face on a barbaric heart, and that heart is owned by capital. The question of morality or immorality doesn’t arise as capital manufactures its morality or immorality, and it doesn’t matter whether those are acceptable to humanity or not. Appropriation is the standard of its morality.

Observations have been made by responsible British citizens on the issue. One among those is: “The idea that disabled people should work but receive no financial recognition for contributing is perhaps a level of abuse in and of itself.” (Neil Coyle, director, Disability Rights UK, ibid.)

Spare-not-even-the-disabled attitude is not a new phenomenon. Philip Davies, Conservative backbench MP suggested last year disabled persons should work for less than the national minimum wage. It’s a reflection of attitude, and a reflection of a situation: dead thirst for profit – at any cost, and from any one.

Without appropriating labor-power capital can’t survive, and it takes all opportunities in this “venture”, a thievery or robbery. In the UK, Guardian reports, “[u]npaid jobseekers have been forced to clean private homes and offices for more than a month at a time under government employment schemes […]”A government contractor compelled jobseekers to work as unpaid cleaners in houses, flats, offices and council premises under the scheme. One of the biggest providers of the scheme compelled jobseekers to work unpaid in its own offices. Employers were using unpaid schemes to fill seasonal vacancies. At the same time, there is “mounting evidence that the controversial policy is reducing the overall availability of paid work by replacing temporary jobs and overtime for other staff.” (Feb. 24 and 29, 2012)

Is it – unpaid labor for unlimited amount of time of the disabled, unpaid labor of jobseekers – a civilized way to maximize profit? It’s not only the case of jobseekers. Capital doesn’t spare children. The issue of child labor is the burning fact in all most all lands.

Even, the beggars, the persons playing musical instruments on street corners, the child pushing crippled mother or father sitting in hand made cart in a Third World anarchic city, the blind begging for hours are not spared. All of them are to work for long, undefined period of time, for simply having a few bucks for day-to-day living, and this goes on and on in countries and countries. Even, labor power is appropriated from these near-demolished souls.

It’s an old, much old hard fact although there are learned persons, scholars in essence, trying to ignore this bitter fact of capital. Citing Daily Telegraph, January 17, 1860 Marx quoted county magistrate Broughton Charlton: “Children of nine or ten years are dragged from their squalid beds at two, three, or four o’clock in the morning and compelled to work for a bare subsistence until ten, eleven, or twelve at night, their limbs wearing away, their frames dwindling, their faces whitening, and their humanity absolutely sinking into a stone-like torpor, utterly horrible to contemplate ….” He quoted the Children’s Employment Commission First Report (1863): “William Wood, 9 years old, was 7 years and 10 months when he began to work. He ‘ran moulds’ […] He came every day in the week at 6 a.m. and left off about 9 p.m. […] J. Murray, 12 years of age, says: “[…] I come at 6. Sometimes I come at 4. I worked all night last night, till 6 o’clock in the morning. I have not been in bed since the night before last. There were eight or nine other boys working last night. […] Fernyhough, a boy of ten: ‘I have not always an hour (for dinner). I have only half an hour sometimes […].’”

Has this reality changed? This has persisted. This has been expanded, this has been spread to neo-colonies named “offshoring”, this has been spread from blue collar employees to white collar ones, this has been modified with so-called flexible work hours, this has been spread with the concept of work at home.

And, “some more” have been added: The issue has been taken away from the table, the issue is being presented in a distorted way – definitions have been changed so that there is confusion. Now, ostaads or pundits in the service of capital don’t call a spade a spade. They innovate tricky terms that hide stark truth. The question of rights is wiped away from people’s “mind”. Casting away all shrouds, state is taking the role of appropriator. So called civil society, a group of persons trusted by status quo, is defining agenda – political, social, economic, class. So, labor power can be robbed for indefinite period of time, so, labor power can be appropriated without any payment, so, as a Guardian reader made comment, the “enslavement of the sick and disabled” goes on.

Slave owners had to provide food, etc. to slaves, factory owners are to pay for necessary labor. But here, unshackled rule of appropriations goes on. For long, it is going on in Third and Fourth World countries. In many of these countries, lumpens have usurped labor leadership, the bribed First World labor leadership defines perimeters of trade union activities and employs persons for that purpose. Now, it is going on in the First World also. Is it a decline in class awareness? Is it power of cooption? Whatever the answer is, the fact of unbridled appropriation confirms the old antagonism, the antagonism between appropriator and appropriated.

Deny Global Warming, Intimidate A Scientist, And Pocket Some Money

Denying the fact of global warming is “not” a sin. Intimidating a scientist providing facts on global warming is “not” an offence. These are in the interest of a bigger interest: an economy warming up and periling the world, and in eternal wish of perpetuating status quo. A section of the world masters clutch this pattern of praxis.

Michael E. Mann, a scientist at Penn State University , experienced this “sweet” fact. His research confirmed the fact of global warming. The results of his study were published in Nature in 1998. His finding showed a recent unprecedented alarming global temperature increase, and the increase in temperature is linked to human induced activities, to cars, factories, etc. Many other later studies have confirmed the finding. But the scientist was persecuted by conservative forces for telling the truth.

The data Mann got appeared the shape of a hockey stick as these were put as a graph, and the name, Hockey stick graph , and a confusion were brought to the Earth. His finding was used prominently by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Hockey stick graph angered global warming deniers, and Mann was made “a target of right-wing denial campaigners.” A section of scientists tied to status quo and a section of politicians of the same feather vigorously opposed it and created confusion. The opposition ultimately appeared in true color – status quo politics. Conservatives and capital joined hands in denying the fact.

While seeds of confusion were being sown Mann had to bear “the full brunt of attacks by climate change deniers, including death threats and accusations of misappropriating funds,” as The Guardian said. (“Death threats, intimidation and abuse: climate change scientist Michael E. Mann counts the cost of honesty”, March 3, 2012 ) “Among the tactics used against Mann were the theft and publication, in 2009, of emails he had exchanged with climate scientist Professor Phil Jones of East Anglia University . Selected, distorted versions of these emails were then published […] in order to undermine UN climate talks due to begin in Copenhagen a few weeks later”. Using those emails to kill off the climate negotiation was “a crime against humanity, a crime against the planet,” Mann said. (ibid.)

A number of policy foundations threw a barrage of intimidation to Mann. These “were set up by privately-funded groups that included Koch Industries and Scaife Foundations and bore names such as the Cato Institute, Americans for Prosperity and the Heartland Institute. These groups bombarded Mann with freedom of information requests […]” He was served with a subpoena by a Republican congressman to provide access to his correspondence. The aim was to intimidate the scientist. He was “attacked by Ken Cuccinelli, the Republican attorney general of Virginia who has campaigned to have the scientist stripped of academic credentials. Several committees of inquiry have investigated Mann's work. All have exonerated him. Thousands of emails have been sent to Mann, many deeply unpleasant. ‘You and your colleagues… ought to be shot, quartered and fed to the pigs along with your whole damn families', said one. ‘I was hopin [sic] I would see the news and you commited [sic] suicide', ran another.” “‘On one occasion, I had to call the FBI after I was sent an envelope with a powder in it', Mann adds. ‘It turned out to be cornmeal but again the aim was intimidation. I ended up with police security tape all over my office doors and windows. That is the life of a climate scientist today in the US .'” (ibid.)

Mann's book The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars is coming out in April. “The book details the ‘disingenuous and cynical' methods used by those who have tried to disprove his findings.” (ibid.)

Intimidating Mann is not an isolated act. This type of activities has connection to bigger money. But, ultimately this comes to public view. Intimidators and global warming deniers are exposed. One such story is Chicago-based Heartland Institute's.

The institute's documents related to its donors, spending and anti-science strategy were leaked recently. The institute is one of the leading deniers in the US that strains to create confusion in the public “mind” by saying that “climate change is a controversial, unproven theory.”

The leaked documents prove that the oil-rich Koch brothers donated $200,000 to HI in 2011and before. The Koch brothers' involvement makes HI a shill for oil companies. The brothers have backed climate-denier Newt Gingrich's presidential campaign.

One of the documents reveal HI's plans to spend $100,000 to build an anti-climate change curriculum for schools that “shows that the topic of climate change is controversial and uncertain — two key points that are effective at dissuading teachers from teaching science.”

Recently, David Suzuki writes, someone sent documents from the HI's board of directors' Jan. 17 meeting to persons and organizations including DeSmogBlog, a website devoted to exposing the climate change denial. “The documents confirm much of what we already knew about Heartland […]” Suzuki says: HI doesn't publicly reveal its funding source and expenditure. “These documents indicate that Heartland has offered U.S. weatherman blogger and climate change denier Anthony Watts close to $90,000 for a new project. They also reveal that Heartland funds other prominent deniers, including ‘Craig Idso ($11,600 per month), Fred Singer ($5,000 per month, plus expenses), Robert Carter ($1,667 per month), and a number of other individuals' […] And even though it has received funding from wealthy individuals and corporations in the fossil fuel and tobacco industries, including the Koch brothers and RJR Tobacco, it gets most of its money from a single anonymous donor”: $4.6 million in 2008. “The papers also confirm that the institute's primary mission is to discredit the established science of human-caused climate change.” (“It's time that climate-change deniers were exposed”, Feb. 21, 2012 )

Citing leaked documents Josh Israel and Brad Johnson expose 19 major corporations backing the HI. The documents reveal “the think tank's plans to teach students that climate change is a hoax […]” ( ThinkProgress Green ) The institute, however, “ deemed at least one of the documents fake and some tampered with.” The think tank's 2010-2011 “corporate backers included Altria Client Services Inc. : $90,000, Amgen , USA : $25,000, Anheuser-Busch Companies Inc. : $5,000, AT&T : $100,000, BB&T : $16,105, Comcast Corporation : $35,000, General Motors Foundation : $30,000, GlaxoSmithKline : $50,000, Microsoft Corporation : $59,908, Nucor Corporation : $502,000, PepsiCo, Inc. : $5,000, Pfizer : $130,000, Reynolds American Inc. : $110,000, Time Warner Cable : $20,000.” (Jaeah Lee, “Which Major Corporations Are Backing a Climate-Denier Think Tank?”, Mother Jones , Feb. 18, 2012 ) Other companies included Diageo: $10,000, Eli Lilly & Company: $25,000, KCI: $115,000, LKQ Corporation: $24,500, XL Group: $35,000. Combined contributions of the companies exceeded $1.3 million for an array of projects. The AP independently verified their contents. ( ThinkProgress Green ) HI also collects money from Philip Morris parent company Altria and the tobacco giant Reynolds American. (Cory Doctorow, “Leaked climate-change denial lobby docs came from water scientist”, Feb. 21)

However, a number of companies have issued statements about their contributions, but none have committed to ending their support for the HI. A Diageo spokesperson said: “Diageo provided a small contribution (nearly two years ago) […] related to an excise tax issue. We vigorously oppose climate skepticism and our actions are proof of this. We will be reviewing any further association with this organization.” A GlaxoSmithKline spokesperson said: “GSK absolutely does not endorse or support the [HI]'s views on the environment and climate change. We have in the past provided a small amount of funding to support the Institute's healthcare newsletter and a meeting.” While disavowing climate denial, Microsoft has indicated no intention to stop its in-kind tax-deductible contributions to the think tank. General Motors defended the HI as “careful and considerate.” Forecast The Facts has established a petition to GM asking them to stop funding climate denial. ( ThinkProgress Green ) It's only part of a story. There are also other parts of the denial story.

Money business with the global warming issue is quite old. In 2010, after analyzing publicly available campaign finance records the Climate Action Network (CAN) stated that “a number of European companies are supporting climate legislation blockers in the U.S. by funding the campaigns of republican candidates to the U.S. Senate.” The CAN finding was that a number of big European industrial companies including Arcelor Mittal, GDF Suez, BP, BASF, Bayer and Lafarge already spent a total of 171.000 Euro on candidates. “They are funding almost exclusively Senate candidates who have been outspoken in their opposition to comprehensive climate policy in the U.S. , and candidates who actively deny the scientific consensus that climate change is happening and is caused by people. These companies are simultaneously lobbying against aggressive emissions reductions in Europe – and are arguing that such reductions should not be pursued until the United States takes action”, it said.

Indicating the climate change deniers Bryan Walsh writes: “[T]hey refuse even to believe that a problem exists — despite an overwhelming scientific consensus that says it does. One of America 's major political parties has, in effect, adopted denial as policy.” (“Who's Bankrolling the Climate-Change Deniers?”, Time , Oct. 4, 2011 )

Citing sociologists Riley Dunlap of Oklahoma State University and Aaron McCright of Michigan State University Bryan writes: “[C]limate denialism exists in part because there has been a long-term, well-financed effort on the part of conservative groups and corporations to distort global-warming science. That's the conclusion of a chapter the two researchers recently wrote for The Oxford Handbook of Climate Change and Society . ‘Contrarian scientists, fossil-fuel corporations, conservative think tanks and various front groups have assaulted mainstream climate science and scientists for over two decades,' Dunlap and McCright write. ‘The blows have been struck by a well-funded, highly complex and relatively coordinated denial machine.'” (ibid.)

“Fossil-fuel companies like Exxon and Peabody Energy — which obviously have a business interest in slowing any attempt to reduce carbon emissions — have combined with traditionally conservative corporate groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and conservative foundations like the Koch brothers' Americans for Prosperity, to raise doubts about the basic validity of what is, essentially, a settled scientific truth. That message gets amplified by conservative think tanks — like the Cato Institute and the American Enterprise Institute — and then picked up by conservative media outlets […] and cable TV.

“For both Big Oil and Big Smoke, that playbook is lethally simple: don't straight-up refute the science, just raise skepticism and insist that the findings are ‘unsettled' and that ‘more research' is necessary. Repeat that again and again regardless of the latest research, and you help block the formation of the solid majority needed to create any real political change. (ibid.)

Climate crisis denial is well organized. Claims have been made that lobbyists including the Western Fuels Association funded efforts to undermine the scientific basis of climate crisis explanation. In 1998, the American Petroleum Institute organized discussions between oil companies, trade associations and conservative think tanks. The API provided fund for research critical of the Hockey stick graph. In June 2002, the Canadian Society of Petroleum Geologists published a paper arguing against the IPCC findings and the Kyoto Protocol.

Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway's Merchants of Doubt (2010) cites collusion between private corporations, conservative think tanks and conservative scientists to create confusion so that scientific consensus on current burning issues are not questioned as the burning issues have been blazed by the present economic world order.

Since long, climate crisis issue has turned into a political issue. A section of capital is fully in politics with the issue. Sections of conservatives deny the fact of climate crisis while the rest of the human society is concerned with the facts. Contradictory activities and interests have made it also a class issue. Interests opposed to people, especially the poor are well aware of it. All their activities, in economy, politics, diplomacy, propaganda, in bargaining conclaves, in education, in scientific pursuits, reflect this. All their efforts are to keep people unaware, uninformed, misinformed, demobilized. It's not only labor's, entire people's interests also stand opposed to the status quo interests in the global warmsphere.

However, there is effort and hope as “Mann insists he will not give up. ‘I have a six-year-old daughter and she reminds me what we are fighting for.' […C]limate change deniers and their oil and coal industry backers have overstepped the mark and goaded scientists to take action. He points to a recent letter, signed by 250 members of the US National Academy of Science, including 11 Nobel laureates, and published in Science . The letter warns about the dangers of the current attacks on climate scientists and calls ‘for an end to McCarthy-like threats of criminal prosecution against our colleagues based on innuendo and guilt by association, the harassment of scientists by politicians seeking distractions to avoid taking action, and the outright lies being spread about them.' ‘Words like those give me hope', says Mann.” ( The Guardian , op. cit.) The more people get mobilized the more there will be hope.

Fidel And 540 minutes :Fight, Don’t Let Pessimism Win, It’s Our Duty

“We have to fight. We can’t let pessimism win. It’s our duty”, Fidel Castro said.

This call to duty comes from the person who, long ago, in a court of trial quoted Martí: “A true man does not seek the path where advantage lies, but rather, the path where duty lies […]” (Fidel Castro, “History will absolve me”) Of this person, Tad Szulc observes: “Cuban and world history would have evolved differently had this single individual been less determined […]” (Fidel: A Critical Portrait) And, of the same person, Raul Castro told: “The most important feature of Fidel’s character is that he will not accept defeat.” (Herbert Matthews, Castro: A Political Biography)

So, today, Fidel describes the current world period as “harsh and difficult, with everyone asking each other what to do […]”. In terms of the enemy, the aspect that concerns him most is that “they believe that they are in control, they try to impose things, but they are not in control. Nobody really knows what is happening.” Elucidating the point Fidel cited the situation related to Iran. “The principal truth is the danger of war”, he said. Fidel warned: “[T]he most dangerous aspect is that enemy forces are less and less in control of the terrible forces and processes which they have unleashed. This is the situation of the United States and Europe in Afghanistan and Iraq, where they can neither stay nor go.” (Arleen Rodríguez and Rosa Míriam Elizalde, “Nine Hours of Dialogue with the Leader of the Revolution”, Feb. 14, 2012)

Fidel reiterated the need to keep people informed, (emphasis, here and henceforth, added) another news agency report said.

Fidel Castro was having a discussion in Havana. A Reuters news said: Fidel had a nine-hour discussion with intellectuals.

The meeting, “Encounter of Intellectuals for Peace and Environmental Conservation”, was participated by more than hundred laureates in literature, history and social and natural sciences, eminent thinkers from 21 countries and Cuba including Cervantes Prize (the most prestigious literary award in the Spanish-speaking world) 2005 winner prominent Mexican writer, translator and diplomat Sergio Pitol, and Nobel Peace Prize (1980) laureate Argentine sculptor, architect and pacifist Adolfo Pérez Esquivel. They were attending the 21st International Book Fair of Havana. The discussions covered issues including the state of the world, possible extinction of humanity, exhaustion of the planet’s natural resources, perversions of media transnationals, military and mind control devices, and the 85-year-old comandante’s health. An intimate Fidel gave full attention to all the speakers during these 540 minutes with two brief recesses. (Arleen and Rosa, op. cit.)

“He is the same Fidel as always”, said Ignacio Ramonet, author of Cien horas con Fidel (One Hundred Hours with Fidel), Spanish journalist, writer and former editor-in-chief of Le Monde diplomatique. The revolutionary’s inexhaustible curiosity was there. As the participants were expressing ideas, Fidel’s thoughts were live with expression; there was his habitual gesture – touching face with index finger or reflectively stroking his beard. (Arleen and Rosa, op. cit.)

Daniel Chavarría, the Uruguayan-Cuban revolutionary, writer, and winner of the National Literature Prize, mentioned Fidel’s capacity for being ahead of events, of being a type of “historical prophesier”, a “tactical pessimist and strategic optimist”. Chavarría wanted Fidel “to say whether, in a world at the point of going to the winds and with […] enormous problem […] he should be alarmed or stay calm. Fidel unhesitatingly replied, ‘In order to remain calm you have to think about the problem and fight against it.’ One of the best ways of helping the act of ‘thinking about the problem’ is to provide peoples with as much information as possible.” (ibid.)

Stella Calloni, Argentine journalist and writer, cited the frightening silence of media and part of the left in the face of colonial wars unleashed one after another since 2001 and those threatening to follow the script in Syria and Iran. She called for greater coordination on the Defense of Humanity network. “If we cannot stop these wars, they will come down on us later […] Silence on the part of intellectuals, never again”, she said. Frei Betto, author of the book Fidel and Religion, urged to generate projects, not only outrage, because it is not enough to address global injustice. (ibid.)

Award-winning Argentine journalist, novelist and politician Miguel Bonasso raised a burning issue: The latest British colonial aggression in the Malvinas. Fidel observed: “They have no choice but to negotiate and leave. What they have done is totally brazen: they even dispatched a destroyer and a helicopter with the Prince as a pilot. The Americans definitely won’t be very happy about that. The situation is not one of war, but pressure has to put on them.” “Pinochet’s no longer here; he was the one who helped the British in their last war on Argentina. They are desperate, and that’s the way in which they reacted when Uruguay recently vetoed the entry of a British ship flying the Malvinas flag. They have no business there, the only option left open to them is to leave”, Fidel said. (ibid.)

The dialogue turned amazing as Brazilian Marilia Guimaraes informed that architect Oscar Niemeyer, a friend of Fidel, is now 104 years of age. “His mind is extremely lucid and he often asks after ‘the 85-year-old boy.’” An amused Fidel asked “Why don’t we make a genetic study of him?” He wanted to know from German Harri Grünberg the way Germany plans to replace nuclear energy. Santiago Alba Rico, “Arab by adoption and a homeless European who, like many others, moves about defending Cuba”, was asked questions on the post-revolt situation in Tunisia – Rico’s present place of residence – its economy, agriculture, and its wine and date production. This led Frei Betto to comment: “Many people here, like Santiago Alba have experienced what an oral test in a Jesuit school means. It’s hard. That’s where Fidel comes from.” (ibid.)

Famous author of juvenile and youth literature Carlos Frabetti referred to advertising: “Advertising tries to convince us that happiness is possessing more than others, when happiness is having more with others.” Children are the most vulnerable to advertising, he said. Frabetti congratulated Cuba for not being subjected to this aggression while Europeans can receive up to 1,000 advertising impacts every day. He said children living under constant consumer stimulus turn frustrated and react aggressively. Fidel expressed his aversion to advertising, which the Cuban Revolution has never utilized, not even as a means of testifying to its positive actions. (ibid.)

Everything that Cuba has done for other peoples was without any desire for competitiveness, publicity or propaganda, Fidel said. He affirmed: The spirit of solidarity is part of the foundations of the Revolution that triumphed in January of 1959. In those years, Cuba had 6,000 doctors. Many of them left for the US when the economic and political blockade was imposed. However, at the same time, some of the professionals who joined the revolutionary process were also prepared to go to Algeria to help that country. “Thus Cuba’s internationalist tradition began”, Fidel noted. He recalled that “the initial aid for Angola was transported in the old Britannia aircraft that we had. We did it without seeking any limelight.” Experience was added to these principles, intertwined with what Fidel called “an honorable politics, not exempt from errors, but honorable.” He added, “The ideas which we defend are based on experience, they are not simply imaginings. We have experienced them.” (ibid.)

Honor and dignity are fundamental and uncompromising issues to Fidel. Even his class enemies fail to deny it while they refer to Fidel and Cuba. The revolutionary, whose struggle transgresses centuries, initiating in the twentieth century and continuing in the twenty-first century, stands for honesty, honor and dignity since the initial days of his revolutionary activities, since the days of his dream to “revolutionize [Cuba] from top to bottom” (Fidel, My Early Years, “Letters from prison, 1953-55”, April 15, 1954)

Fidel praised the Telesur network […] “for working very seriously and professionally […]” “I like Telesur very much”, he said. On ways to confront lies by the enemy’s powerful media, he said he no longer bothered these lies. “The problem is not in the lies they say, but that we cannot prevent them. What we are looking at today is how we ourselves state the truth.” The key, according to Fidel, is to inform. He praised Telesur’s approach and its lack of advertisements that bombard media users almost everywhere in the world. (Arleen and Rosa, op. cit.)

“[T]oday, information within the media system operates like merchandise”, affirmed Ignacio Ramonet, Spanish writer and journalist. “[T]here are many free daily newspapers today […] How is it that a system which is always so concerned about benefit, is making the circulation of information free of charge? Because these days, the information trade does not consist of selling information to people, but in selling people advertising [….I]nformation is a strategic raw material [….M]edia power […] can only be conceived of as the twin of financial power [.…T]his media-financial link is more powerful than political power […P]olitical leaders have less power than before and the media is taking advantage of this weakening and the absence of authority to attack on behalf of objectives set by the financial power”, he added. (ibid.)

Fidel observed the abuse of technology that intrudes people’s privacy. “All aspects of their personal lives are explored and this surveillance is being carried out by those who consider themselves champions of individual rights.” He joked about certain people still believing in code and commented that the Yankee secret in wars has always been to know these codes. He went on to talk about devices already at the advanced research stage which can transmit electricity through appliances of barely one atom in height, from drone aircraft, and of the possibility of making soldiers subconsciously react to electronic orders more rapidly than by traditional means. The persons inventing them, he noted, “are going beyond insanity”. (ibid.)

Argentine writer Vicente Battista, Salvadorian playwright Lina Cerritos and the Culture ministers of Angola, Ecuador and Jamaica referred to cultural resistance, standing up to domination, environmental conservation, and the importance of discussing ideas. (ibid.)

Bonasso recalled with emotion a February day of 2006, when Fidel wrote the following dedication on the first page of a book which he was given: “With great hope in youth and that the world will continue to exist”. He narrated another incident on one night in Havana’s Palace of the Revolution, just after the earthquake in northern Pakistan in October 2005. The decision to send a Cuban medical team to the aid of the victims was taken on that night. Bonasso recalled that Fidel said, “The winter and the cold are coming now and thousands upon thousands of people have lost their homes in the mountains. What will happen to these people, to the women and children?” The Argentine writer added, “You are the only statesman I have known to have the capacity of thinking sensitively and whom I have seen deeply moved by […] people.” (ibid.)

In an exchange with Francisco Sesto, Venezuelan minister for the reconstruction of Caracas, Fidel inquired about housing and other social projects being implemented by the Bolivarian government and exposed “the propaganda and publicity apparatus being fired at Chávez.” (ibid.)

“I came to listen to you, to learn from you”, the Comandante en Jefe insisted. Argentine political scientist Atilio Borón recalled the absurd divisions within the left. “These are old habits which will gradually [get] eliminated”, observed Fidel. He termed the audience as “Infinite”. Probably he was meaning “the capability of the men and women accompanying him to multiply their non-acceptance of the current world order and to establish projects and models which can save humanity from its self-destruction.”(ibid.)

Fidel recommended that contributions to the encounter should be compiled into a book in order to disseminate the ideas expressed. The intellectuals present could revise their words, edit them and add what they might have forgotten in the heat of the dialogue. “Given that we are very pressed, there’s no need for haste”, he said. (ibid.)

Fidel’s all moves make news. His admirers and enemies keep eyes on him, on all news on him. The discussion with the intellectuals is significant as it brings notice to the deteriorating world situation, as imperialism is making one after another onslaught, as imperialism is turning captive to its crisis that makes it desperate. The days are much dangerous and uncertain then the Empire’s Iraq invasion days. “No other era in the history of humankind has experienced the current dangers humanity faces.” (Fidel Castro, “Marching toward the abyss”, Reflections, Jan.4, 2012) On the one hand, a section in peoples’ camp with their inert, ignorant brain is joining imperialists’ covert and overt invasions in the name of democracy, and on the other, capital is cementing ties with one of its old allies, retrogressive forces, while the inert brains join the alliance. Fidel, Guerrillero del tiempo, Guerrilla of Time, in this situation, calls to practice “honorable politics” that should be upheld and practiced at all costs, that a significant section in people’s camp in a number of poor countries has abandoned, and that moneyed elites dominating societies can’t practice.

Bankers Fiddle While Athens Burns

Athens was in flames. But, stock markets felt relieved. The Greek bank-friendly elites denied to recognize people’s plight and “honorably” embraced humiliating conditions to honor debt.

People in Greece are in anger and anguish. Within 10 hours, about half a hundred buildings were set ablaze in the Greek capital, an act of desperation that germinates as public space is encroached by banks, as democracy in a society is dictated and distorted by global finance capital, and people lose breathing space. Broader section of people was protesting peacefully and violent scenes raged the capital while the Greek parliament was passing a bank-dictated austerity plan to make banks happy. The fact got exposed: bankers pushing for austerity, market welcoming austerity, people standing against austerity, and, bankers standing against people. And, austerity is, in actual sense, pressing down labor, robbing labor.

As the Greek parliament passed the austerity measures demanded by its lenders stock markets rallied. In Athens, shares in Greek banks leaped by 10%. The FTSE 100 went high, Germany’s Dax climbed, in New York, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose up, the French Cac was up, the Italian MIB bought a higher position, and the euro took upward journey before taking a shallow dip. In the secondary bond markets, 10-year securities issued by Italy, Belgium, Portugal and Spain felt strong. In London, Lloyds Banking Group led the upward jump. The creditors felt assured that their debtor, Greece, is an obedient honorable soul that stands by promise. The Greek government will express their irreversible written assurance within days to avoid bankruptcy. A high moral standing in creditor-debtor relationship where creditor has all the rights to rob and dictate debtor!

The EU welcomed the Athenian parliamentary practice as EC Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs Olli Rehn called the vote a show of Greece’s determination to address its finances. And, he condemned the violence. However, the disciplined Greek MPs’ yeah votes were not enough to make bank bosses fully happy. It failed to ensure delivery of second rescue package to Greece. A banker, according to Bloomberg TV, reminded Greece to maintain its credibility with its international partners. It was an exercise with democracy: financiers telling people’s representatives what to table and how to vote!

But that democratic practice was not enough. Athens have to initiate “Additional measures” – more cuts worth 325m euro. Germany has warned: The vote is not enough to guarantee that Greece receives its bailout money. The Bundestag, the German parliament, will take the final decision on Greece. A report on Greece from the Troika – the IMF, EU, ECB – must reach the Bundestag before it decides whether to approve the bailout fund. Moreover, the euro group finance ministers will observe Greece’s compliance with the terms, and there should be conclusive understanding with private creditors over debt restructuring. Legislature of a country supervises legislative doings and wrong doings of another country! It is financiers’ global capital-sovereign practice.

To rationalize passing of the austerity bill, the Greek prime minister Papademos warned that banks would collapse and schools and hospitals would be left without funds unless the bill passed. He straightened fact partially while a partial fact was ignored. Without the austerity measures finance capital would feel uneasy. But Greek schools and hospitals, as main stream media report regularly, are passing through problems for long.

Financial problems, in usual manner, crept into Greek politics. With appointment of unelected ministers under the premiership of unelected Papademos, a banker turned academic turned politician, in the reshuffled cabinet the Athenian bankruptcy-bail out comedy has generated a neo-democratic model in Greece. Parliament members standing against the austerity bill have been expelled. Earlier, before tabling the bill, MPs were warned of not to oppose the austerity bill. The next crisis, as conservative New Democracy party head Samaras told parliament, is likely to come with the coming election within months. He likes to renegotiate the agreements with the troika following the elections. His signing of the pledge to bankers is uncertain although he voted for the bill. Vassilis Korkidis, the head of the National Confederation of Greek Commerce, said in a statement: The country’s political system is failing.

Along with democracy-drama in Greece two interviews carried by German press revealed interesting observations by powerful actors on the world stage. George Soros in an interview has criticized German chancellor Merkel for “leading Europe in the wrong direction”. He warned of another great depression unless funds are not pumped now instead of cutting spending. He was frank. Profit margins will be under pressure, he said. Soros admitted: Markets do not correct their own excesses. He told point blank: Germany was among the first countries to break the euro-zone rules. The Germans were not exactly innocent. Everybody broke the Stability Pact rules. Germany has mishandled the rescue operation by providing the bailout at penal interest rates, which then led to an increase in the indebtedness of Greece. It is only a policy failure on the part of Europe and particularly of Germany, because Germany is in charge. That is why today Greece is beyond rescue. Soros added: People like German finance minister Schäuble don’t seem to understand that the heavily indebted countries are now at a severe disadvantage, because they have basically become heavily indebted in a foreign currency, the euro. Soros tried to identify the root: The euro crisis is a direct continuation or consequence of the 2008 crash. This crisis isn’t over yet and we will have to spend more state money in order to stop the skidding. Otherwise we will repeat the mistakes that plunged America into the Great Depression in 1929. Angela Merkel simply doesn’t understand that. He told in a simple voice: I am concerned about my own interests. Nevertheless, I think that I perhaps understand the financial system better than some of the people who are in charge. In the interview conducted by Georg Mascolo, Gregor Peter Schmitz and Martin Hesse Soros expressed his ambitious intention: I am trying to change [Angela Merkel’s] mind.

More talks are there. Guido Westerwelle, the German foreign minister, in an interview said: Germany occasionally shows a tendency to boast. He was concerned with the attitude. Westerwelle wants a European Germany. He said: We should not believe that we will always be the strong man of Europe. Westerwelle expressed his dissatisfaction with the political impasse in Greece in recent weeks. The German minister told: Greece’s future is in the hands of the Greeks. However he advised the Greeks: [The Greeks] have to demonstrate that they are serious. It isn’t enough to adopt reform programs. Instead, [those] have to be implemented without delay – not at some point in the future, but now. In the interview conducted by Konstantin von Hammerstein and Ralf Neukirch the German minister reminded Greece in a stern voice: There will be no more advance payments. Only actions count now.

Greece, its elites, has to discipline itself, in the manner bank capital likes. But, there is another voice, the voice of the people. Graffiti on Athens walls said: “No IMF-no new [austerity] measures”, “No more IMF! Stop the intervention in Greek sovereignty. If you don’t give democracy a chance, you should expect US!”, “Bosses are killers of the people”. This voice will complicate finance capital’s democratic politics in Greece.

Booming Crisis And Bullish Profit

Capital is pocketing bullish profit in a period of booming crisis! Among others, a number of auto makers announce this fact of capitalist economy. Financiers are also no exception. The system’s tale of crises is evident in the Global Risk 2012 report. Davos-deliberations also divulge the crisis-reality. Bankers’ political wrangling in countries, advanced or backward, is another manifestation of the unstable situation. These are obviously only parts of the whole story full of contradictions.

Ford, the famous US carmaker, reports a billow in profits in 2011. Jubilant Ford reports a net income of $20.2bn for last year, up from $6.5bn in 2010. In the last three months of the year, profits leapt to $13.6bn from only $190m in the previous year.

General Motors’ sales increased 7.6% in 2011. It was more than 9 million vehicles. With this achievement GM reclaims its position as the world’s biggest vehicle maker. But, Volkswagen contradicted. Volkswagen claimed the position. In 2011, Volkswagen sales ran to 8.1 million vehicles.

Hyundai Motors, South Korea’s biggest carmaker, attained a 38% rise in profits for the fourth quarter. Its net income rose to $1.8bn in the three months to December. For the whole of 2011, Hyundai’s net profit climbed 35%.

Natural disasters with its blind force came as obstacles to sales to some vehicle makers while others gained from the calamities. China was a nice market for them. Ford, GM and Hyundai made record sales for 2011 in China. Overcapacity was the biggest problem in Europe. Ford claimed: A number of countries shield own vehicle makers. (BBC, Analysis, Jan. 27, 2012) Competition is there. The market there doesn’t appear free. It’s a regular precarious tale of profit-makers.

There is another tale. It’s the tale of ordinary persons, the wretched, the people.

Unemployment figures are almost universal now, and ground for optimism is difficult to find out. Mainstream doesn’t feel shy in admitting hard unemployment-reality. In the poor, under-developed part of the globe, unemployment-reality has virtually turned into a tolerable-reality to commoners. The issue fuels angers of only those having aspiration for changing status quo. Elites don’t consider the fact threatening their existence. Unemployment in all advanced capitalist economies is much talked now-a-days.

In Spain, unemployment number very recently crossed 5 million. In the last quarter of 2011, 350,000 persons lost jobs there. The rate now stands at 22.8%. The scenario will darken more. Still, the stubborn Spanish government is moving forward with spending cuts. Basic services including health care, education and social services are being axed. Almost 1.5m Spanish households have no wage earner as well as about 3.5 million persons seek charity over the past four-and-a-half years. The country with capitalist economy is not a single case. The only new fact is the latest figure on unemployment. From one corner of the world to the other, unemployment dominates labor market.

Jon Henley traveled through Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece to hear the human stories. (“Portuguese are ‘working more for less money’”, The Guardian, Oct. 14, 2011) Following are a few of the voices Henley heard:

In Portugal, Claudia Barros tells: “Individuals filing for bankruptcy or having no money to purchase food are becoming more and more common in Portugal. […P]eople struggle to get a degree and then end up working 35 hours a week for €600 (£525) in supermarkets [….] I make €760 a month, work in the public sector, and am not happy about this at all. There are those who make €5,000 a month and will not be affected by this tax. Is it fair? [P]ublic transport fares were increased in January, and again by 15% in September, with another 15% increase expected to happen next January. Electricity was also increased last month, and the tax on food went from 19% to 23%.” Sergio Abreau says: “One point of the [austerity] agenda means no Christmas and summer bonuses for public sector workers who earn more than €1,000 a month in 2012, which means a cut from 14 to 12 pay cheques per year. I’m a communication designer […] I’m almost 29 […] My generation is simply postponing its future. The result will be that in 10-15 years there will be a sudden decrease of the population. The younger generation will have gone abroad and the country will be left with old people.” Tiago Mota Saraiva, a Portuguese architect, narrates: “[W]ages have started to decrease, public investment in the productive fabric almost stopped and a huge process of emigration of the most qualified workers started [.…P]eople that have a job are working more for less money. Another is a feeling of distrust on politicians and politics […] This year, Portugal will be paying €7bn interest rates to banks and sovereign debt speculators […] That amount is the same that Portugal will pay for all public officials. It’s unaffordable. […I]nterventions by the IMF are always meant to save speculators’ investments.” From Spain, Alex Watkins, a British journalist working for the Costa Blanca News, describes: “[E]xpat families handing over their keys to the bank and simply going home – mostly because available work for them has dried up […] A generation of young Spaniards dropped out of school to take jobs in construction during the property boom before the bottom fell out of the market, and they have now been left unemployed and unqualified. Then there’s the regional government school building programmes which have been delayed for years, leaving pupils in overcrowded Portacabins which leak in the rain. One near me was built on reclaimed land in a ravine and actually moves when the rain is heavy.” (ibid.)

A few headlines from the newspaper also resound the same reality: “The hunger line starts here”, “Europe’s debt crisis: Tweets from the breadline”, “Portugal’s market has died. Banks aren’t lending. Everything is blocked”, “Portugal’s debt crisis: ‘Younger people can’t live within their means”. (ibid.)

The same newspaper carried a few comments from readers: “I have already seen shops closing in the town [….A]s a pensioner on fixed income, it is becoming more challenging to cope with ever rising prices of necessities.” “Why are the ‘middle’ classes going to have to foot the bill and pay for everything while the rich won’t even notice the difference? The rich need to pay more tax and stop being protected by their friends in government. They avoid everything with their offshore accounts and rub it in our faces when they drive around […]” “Wake up Portugal! Do not look up to or aspire to be like these people! These people will step over you in the street if they ever got out of their cars.” (ibid.)

These tales of profit and poverty produce relevant questions: Are the vehicle makers’ surging sales and profit, and unemployment in countries contradictory facts standing opposed to each other? Or, are they related, mutually dependent? Have not markets, car market and labor market, free in appearance but shackled by capital’s choice, determined these? Were not the markets free and democratic for capital? Had not everyone, from pauper to prince, right and opportunity to enter the markets, either to buy a car or to sale labor? Or, were there some other facts under the apparent appearance? Do these questions help expose the free market-reality?

Facts of enormous profit may astonish common citizens. But powerful profit holders don’t get bewildered with the trend as they know the old golden formula for profit: appropriate. It is not only the industrial workers who are appropriated. The act of appropriation goes at social level. Profit only comes from variable capital, that part of capital expended on labor power. In these monopolists’ days, they are making monopoly superprofits. Scores of the “game” come to light: billions of dollars as profit.

As millions of persons pass unemployed days, as violence of poverty dominates billions of persons, the game turns cutthroat. ILO reports, etc. expose a significant part of the reality.

The unemployed join reserve army of labor, and capital’s bargaining power strengthens as the unemployed put downward pressure on wage level. This reality exposes, on the one hand, capital’s bargaining power, and on the other hand, capital’s incapacity to employ labor. Stymieing capital cannot reconcile the two. It is the system’s inefficiency that leads to wastage and misery creating logic to change it. Capital creates an opportunity to threaten labor with a huge reserve army of labor while the power of reserve army of labor touches realm of politics; acceptability of capital’s political power is questioned; with dented confidence capital’s political power feels threatened. Capital is incapable to resolve this problem other than using violent force of dominance, and at times, making concessions.

The present period of crises, financial, economic, environmental, political, are depicting a disconsolate picture of the dominating system. “The general picture among G-20 economies is one of slowing growth, swooning financial markets, and declining consumer and business confidence. [A]dvanced economies’ policy options are being hemmed in by economic and political circumstances. Fiscal policy is constrained by crushing debt burdens and monetary policy is reaching its limits, with further unconventional monetary easing likely to yield a low ratio of reward to risk. Advanced economy central banks have already expanded their balance sheets massively in ways that carry many economic and political risks. The world economy is entering a difficult and dangerous phase, where there are no easy or costless policy solutions but policy paralysis also carries enormous risks of unraveling the feeble recovery.” (Commentary based on the September 2011 update of the Brookings Institution-Financial Times Tracking Indices for the Global Economic Recovery interactive map, Sept. 19, 2011)

A micro case makes a twist in this blue reality. A November, 2011 news story said: More than $5,000 was spent to save a dog. The costs include initial visit to vet: $125, X-rays: $285, sonogram: $420, surgery: $1,182.

How much a poor consumes? What about an entire poor family? An AP news story from Henderson, Nevada, US, on March 3, 2011 presents a particle of the poor’s reality, almost universal:

“Tera Burbank pulls a frayed robe tighter across her body as she leans into the refrigerator, her eyes canvassing the modest offerings for something to pack in her daughter’s lunch box. Burbank stuffs carrot sticks, peanut butter and apple sauce into a backpack and cajoles her son and youngest daughter out the front door and down the street toward the nearby elementary school. The meager lunch box offerings are just one of many painful struggles that the mother of three encounters every day while living under the weight of long-term unemployment and threats of foreclosure, hunger and loss. Burbank and her husband, John Clark, epitomize the dreadful economic situation these days in Nevada, where a mighty construction boom has given way to a historic recession and a record 14.9 percent unemployment in Las Vegas.”

It’s one of many similar stories from a rich, advanced capitalist country. The poor’s-reality in Asia, Africa and Latin America is much difficult to accept for any human being. Those are beyond tolerance, below acceptance.

But property and profit have their own logic. They mould world as they feel and need. Cats and dogs own plenty of property in this world shaped with the power of capital’s logic. Each of these pets also own interesting, pathetic, dramatic, etc. story.

ABC News, Daily Telegraph and other media outlets reported in 2011: Maria Assunta, an Italian property tycoon, left $13 million fortune to Tommaso, her beloved 4-year-old kitty, before she died in a day in 2011. It was an act ab imo pectore, from the bottom of the heart. The fortunate feline’s fortune includes cash, properties in Rome, Milan and Calabria. Tommaso stands third on the list of wealthy pets, behind Kalu the chimp owning $80 million transferred by his life-loving owner, and dog Gunther IV, a German shepherd. Gunther IV inherited $372 million from his father Gunther III. The senior Gunther was the beloved companion of an eccentric German countess. Leona Helmsley, a real estate magnate, left $12 million to Trouble, Leona’s little dog. Leona’s descendents contested and Trouble’s pot was reduced to $2 million.

There are “doya”, dog yoga, classes in a corner on this fabulous earth. The doya aims to help dogs find their “inner” peace and maintain a close relationship with dog lovers. Reuters reported this news with a lovely photograph from Hong Kong on August 20, 2011.

Within this cranky reality profit continues its journey to its doomed destination as it fails to resolve its contradictions embedded in it. The contradictions manifest in its disunity, acts of violence and treachery, in its act of imposition of unilateral design – profit at all costs, even in time of crisis – on a diverse nature and society.