Wake Up and Smell the System. By Frank Scott

Via: legalienate.

“The main cause of the destruction of the planet Earth is capitalism”
Evo Morales

“Not only is another world possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing”
Arundhati Roy

The president of Bolivia and the writer from India speak for the majority population of earth which has born the brunt of the worst aspects of western culture. They are sending a wake up call to humanity to solve our existential problems as a race, the only one existing despite the propaganda, ignorance and hatred dividing us into competing national and ethnic entities that confuse learned culture with biological difference and jeopardize our future in the process.

Capitalism is not responsible for every problem we face but it is responsible for most of them. When a financial crisis in Europe has nations near bankruptcy begging for help to save themselves from system collapse, finance capitalism is at the root of their problem. When mining disasters kill workers it is not the act of mining but industrial capitalism’s pursuit of profit at the cost of worker safety that is the problem. And when off shore oil facilities sacrifice workers and cause a spill which threatens massive ecological destruction it is not simply extracting petroleum but the pursuit of private profit that puts life second to financial gain that is the problem. When Morales speaks of the threat to planet Earth he means all of these things and more, and by confronting the menace he aims to help create another world materially that Roy speaks of poetically. That world is not only possible but necessary if humanity is to have a future, but that future will not be possible until we deal with the system of our past which weighs heavily on our present and threatens to deny our future as a human race.

One Holy Land United with Liberty and Justice for All. By Ahmed Amr

Via: Media Monitors Network.

Next September, on the 17th anniversary of the signing of the Oslo Agreement, the mass media mavens will dust off ancient news clips from last century’s White House signing ceremony and go through the ritual of bemoaning the lack of progress in resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. With Netanyahu and his extremist pro-settlement coalition at the helm, there is very little prospect that the interminable peace process will deliver the goods.

With seventeen years wasted on the illusive quest for a two-state compromise, a little historic math is in order. If you break down the evolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict into three broad time tranches, you’d want to start with the British occupation of Palestine in 1917 which allowed for the mass migration of European Zionist settlers to the Holy Land. That period ended in 1948 with the establishment of an exclusive Jewish State and the exile of nearly a million native Palestinians. If a Palestinian was born in Jaffa on the day the Turks surrendered Jerusalem to Sir Edmund Allenby, there is a good chance he mourned his 21st birthday in a refugee camp.

The period from 1948 to 1967 was characterized by the Arabization of the conflict with Egypt and Syria taking the lead in adopting the Palestinian cause as a national priority and broad support for the Palestinians across the Arab World. This interim period ended with the six-day war, the waning appeal of Pan-Arabism and the dismal failure of the Arab leaders to deliver on the mirage of a united Arab state stretching from the Atlantic coast of Morocco to the Arabian Gulf.

Pan-Arabism has been dead and buried for four decades and you can squeeze the few remaining true believers into a good size elevator. The only relic left of that period is the Arab League headquarters, an architecturally significant building in downtown Cairo that might someday be converted into a museum, a luxury boutique hotel or exclusive condos for the sheikhs of the Arabian Gulf. There is no arguing that the de-Arabization of the Israeli-Palestinian feud is now a fait accompli.

Another thing that distinguished this second period, which lasted for all of 19 years, was that it was the only time since the Crusades that Palestine was divided. Just to get a perspective; until the Berlin Wall was torn down, the Cold War divided Germany into East and West for a total of 45 years and Cyprus has been divided since 1974. Now consider this; since the Israeli invasion and occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, historic Palestine has been intact for 43 years, albeit under the iron fist of a Jewish supremacist state and the Israeli military.

PBS Oil Spill Deja Vu? By Peter Hart

Via: FAIR Blog.

When FAIR released a study of the PBS‘s NewsHour (then known as the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour) in 1989, one finding stood out:

The Exxon Valdez oil spill was the major environmental story of the period. MacNeil/Lehrer had seven segments on the spill; not one included an environmental representative. Several discussions were limited to Exxon officials and friendly officials: The March 30, 1989 program, for example, featured Exxon’s chairman and Alaska’s governor (“The chairman of the board of Exxon, I think, has been to heavy on his own company”).

And the summary of a segment from last night’s broadcast of the NewsHour (4/29/10):

Costs Climb as BP Struggles to Contain Oil Spill
The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is threatening sensitive coastline and commercial fisheries, following last week’s explosion at an offshore oil rig. Jeffrey Brown talks to a BP spokeswoman about the implications of the spill for the company and for offshore drilling.

Let’s hope the company wasn’t too hard on itself.

There are No Borders in the Workers’ Struggle! By Cristina Gutierrez

Via: PSL web.org.

Imperialism’s crimes force workers to immigrate

The following is adapted from a speech given at the April 23 public meeting of the SF-Bay Area branch of the PSL.

Brothers and sisters, comrades and friends,

Immigration for survival has been going on from the beginning of time. Even birds migrate to other areas where they will be able to survive. Human beings have been looking for a place where their basic needs will be met since the time when there were no countries, no borders.

As they began to settle in the places that provided them with food and shelter, the process of exploitation also began to develop through slavery, feudalism and capitalism and imperialism. This was initially made possible by the oppression of women, which was key for the development of capitalism. It was through the oppression of women that the laws of inheritance and private ownership of land, cattle and other goods were able to succeed.

Today, immigration continues to be a survival skill. The similarity of our first humans’ migration and ours today is that we both were looking for a better life. The differences are because of imperialism, a stage of capitalism. As we humans began to settle, the formation of countries and borders as the result of the development of private property ownership of the land, factories and multinationals turned immigration into a savage and criminal struggle to survive.

In the 1970s and 1980s, the reasons for immigration to the United States and other countries were due mostly because of political persecution from the military dictatorships and the wars and violence financed by the United States. In the 1990s, the predominant causes were economic and social—the demographic increase, poverty, unemployment, discrimination, the worsening of incomes and the lack of land to cultivate.

All of these are the results of monopoly capitalism, which also makes sure that the humanity and solidarity among the working class is ripped from the heart of the workers, in its place putting a feeling of competition with each other. It has made us believe that we don’t need anybody, that we are on our own and that if we push hard enough, we will make it and one day we will be rich. Every worker is our enemy; the bosses and the rich are our friends because one day we will be rich and powerful like them. It makes us believe that we should be waiting for “somebody” out there to save us and that “somebody” is not our fellow workers, but the rich and the politicians.

The immigrant workers have been made to believe that they have come to live the American dream in the richest and best country in the world. The transnational corporations try to make us forget that it is the exploitation of our countries’ natural resources—including our labor force—that has made this country so rich and ours so poor.

Greece in Front of the Abyss. By Yannis Almpanis

Via: CADTM.

The financial situation in Greece is getting worse everyday. For the time being, it is impossible for the country to borrow from the financial markets. The rate of interest for the Greek 10 years bonds is 10,55% (18,50% for the 2 years bonds). In reality nobody wants to lend Greece.

The government tries to speed up the process of the EU-IMF aid. If they don’t get the money until May 18, the state will be obliged to suspend payments. Nevertheless, the terms imposed by Germany and IMF for the loan will cause a real social disaster. Our European “partners” demand: 15% reduction in salaries both in private and public sector, increase of the age limit before retirement to 67 years, decrease of the pensions, thousands (maybe hundreds of thousands) of job cuts in the public sector, abolition of collective labour agreements between trade unions and employers, abolition of any legal restriction in job-cuts in the private sector, cuts in public expenditure (it is already announced that next year the pupils in every class will go from 25 to more than 30). As you understand this is the worst possible IMF plan.

But it is highly possible that the situation will finally get out of control even with this catastrophic plan. Many people compare the situation with that of Argentina. First of all, there is a wave of money withdrawal of the banks. Rich and middle class people are afraid that the Germans will kick Greece out of the euro-zone. They are trying to save their Euros by transferring them to Cyprus or by making real-estate investments in London (some just keep the at home…). In addition to that, as the time goes by, it seems impossible that Greece will be able to pay its debt event with the IMF aid. It is said that among the five next GNP, the one should be used to pay the public debt.

In conclusion, Greece is in front of the abyss.

*On May 5, there will be a general strike in Greece. It would be a good idea for the European movements to make of this day a day of solidarity to the Greek people and international resistance to the IMF-EU neoliberal policies.*

P.S. When I started to write this note at 11:00 the rate of interest it was 10,58. Now it is 11:25 and the rate is 10,85%…

Yannis Almpanis (member of the Network for Political and Social Rights)

The Future of Palestine. By John J. Mearsheimer

Via: Al Jazeera.

The following is an excerpt from the The Hisham Sharabi Memorial Lecture delivered by Professor John Mearsheimer at the Palestine Center in Washington D.C. on April 29, 2010.

The Future of Palestine: Righteous Jews vs. the New Afrikaners

…There is going to be a Greater Israel between the Jordan and the Mediterranean.  In fact, I would argue that it already exists.  But who will live there and what kind of political system will it have?

It is not going to be a democratic bi-national state, at least in the near future. An overwhelming majority of Israel’s Jews have no interest in living in a state that would be dominated by the Palestinians.  And that includes young Israeli Jews, many of whom hold clearly racist views toward the Palestinians in their midst.  Furthermore, few of Israel’s supporters in the United States are interested in this outcome, at least at this point in time.  Most Palestinians, of course, would accept a democratic bi-national state without hesitation if it could be achieved quickly.  But that is not going to happen, although as I will argue shortly, it is likely to come to pass down the road.

Then there is ethnic cleansing, which would certainly mean that Greater Israel would have a Jewish majority.  But that murderous strategy seems unlikely, because it would do enormous damage to Israel’s moral fabric, its relationship with Jews in the Diaspora, and to its international standing.  Israel and its supporters would be treated harshly by history, and it would poison relations with Israel’s neighbors for years to come.  No genuine friend of Israel could support this policy, which would clearly be a crime against humanity.  It also seems unlikely, because most of the 5.5 million Palestinians living between the Jordan and the Mediterranean would put up fierce resistance if Israel tried to expel them from their homes.

Rising and Declining Economic Powers: The Sino-US Conflict Deepens. By Prof James Petras

Via: The James Petras Website.

Introduction

Will the intensified conflicts between the US and China inevitably lead to a global conflagration?  If recent past history is any indication the answer is a resounding yes.  The most destructive wars of the 20th century were the result of confrontations between established (EIP) and rising (RIP) imperial powers.  The practices and policies of the former serve as guides to the latter.

England’s colonial exploitation of India, its markets, treasury, raw materials and labor served as a model for Germany’s war and attempted conquest of Russia[1].  The enmity between Churchill and Hitler had as much to do with their common imperial visions, as it did their conflicting views of politics.  Likewise, European and US colonial plunder of Southeast Asia and China’s coastal cities served as a model for Japan’s drive to colonize and exploit Manchuria, Korea and mainland China.

In each instant the conflict between early established, but stagnant, imperial powers and late developing dynamic empires led to world wars in which only the intervention of another rising imperial power, the United States (as well as the unanticipated military prowess of the Soviet Union), secured the defeat of the RIP.  The US emerged from the war as the dominant imperial power, displacing the established European imperial powers, subordinating the RIP of Germany and Japan and confronting the Sino-Soviet bloc[2].  With the demise of the USSR and the conversion of China into a dynamic capitalist country, the stage was set for a new confrontation between an established imperial power (EIP) the US and its European allies and China, the newly emerging world power.

The US empire covers the world with nearly 800 military bases[3], multi-lateral (NATO) and bi-lateral military alliances, a dominant position in the self-styled international financial institutions (World Bank, International Monetary Fund) and with multi-national banks, investment houses and industries in Asia, Latin America, Europe and elsewhere.

China did not challenge or borrow the US model of military driven empire building.  Even less does it look at the previous Japanese or German approach to challenging established empires.  Its dynamic growth is driven by economic competitiveness, market relations guided by a developmental state and a willingness to borrow, learn, innovate and expand internally and overseas displacing US market supremacy in regions and countries in Latin America, the Middle East and Asia, as well as inside the US and the European Union[4].

Coverups in Afghanistan. By Fouad Pervez

Via: Foreign Policy in Focus.

The conflict in Afghanistan, which will enter its 10th year this fall, shows no signs of abating. The United States has expended substantial blood and treasure to try and stabilize the country. However, recent events suggest that U.S. efforts are problematic in themselves and that the chaos will only worsen. There are critical problems with accountability, transparency, and public scrutiny, all of which not only make it harder for the United States and NATO to shift away from unproductive policies. These also create serious domestic political issues in Afghanistan.

The recent news about the women killed in a botched raid on February 12 is emblematic of all the current woes in Afghanistan. The military finally admitted that U.S. Special Operations Forces were responsible for the deaths of three women, two of whom were pregnant, in a nighttime raid. They already admitted the same raid resulted in the deaths of two men, a policeman, and a prosecutor. More troubling is the accusation that the troops dug the bullets out of the women’s bodies to cover up the evidence. General McChrystal, the U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, is now ordering an investigation of the raid.

This incident is a prime example of the current problems in the Afghanistan strategy. First, McChrystal launched an investigation only after the story of the alleged cover-up gained widespread media coverage. Officials from the U.S.-led NATO command have denied the tampering charge, though Afghan officials pointed out that NATO officials were perplexed by the evidence precisely because of the tampering. Afghan officials were unable to perform an autopsy on the bodies and were denied access to the bodies at the scene. There were also several bullets missing from the scene. Given the oddities surrounding the case in the first place, the Pentagon should have launched an investigation much earlier.

The initial Pentagon report claimed the men were insurgents, and that the women were found already dead, bound and gagged, possibly from an honor killing. Thus, it was filled with inaccuracies, if not outright lies. More than a dozen survivors, witnesses, and local investigators strongly disputed the Pentagon’s initial claims, too, but there was no investigation until the story finally got wider media coverage in the past week.

Volvo Equipment: Israel’s Weapons to Destroy al-Walaja Homes. By Adri Nieuwhof

Via: The Electronic Intifada.

Palestinians in al-Walaja demonstrate against Israel's wall.

On 16 April, approximately 100 Palestinian villagers and internationals walked towards the construction site of Israel’s wall in the occupied West Bank village of al-Walaja, four kilometers northwest of Bethlehem. When the protesters were leaving the village, four Israeli army jeeps and one police vehicle entered and surrounded a Palestinian home. At least 40 persons, including women and children, were trapped for two hours.

Meanwhile, Israeli forces raided several other homes, detaining three young men for allegedly throwing stones at Israeli forces. During the raids al-Walaja was closed off, and soldiers prevented the media from entering the area.

Six days later, Israeli bulldozers were working full speed deeper inside the village’s lands, leaving destruction in their wake. Ma’an news agency reported that border guards and soldiers had imposed a curfew early in the morning. A cameraman was denied entry to the village by the army, according to representatives of the village’s Popular Committee.

The following day approximately 200 villagers, together with a few internationals, came together for yet another demonstration. They walked from the mosque, which has an Israeli-imposed demolition order against it, to the lands which were bulldozed the previous day. Standing on the bulldozed lands, representatives of the village held speeches calling for more demonstrations. Youths used boulders to block the road used by the Israeli bulldozer operators.

A day later, approximately 50 Palestinians and internationals managed to stop the work of the bulldozers for several hours. The Israeli soldiers had to violently drag the villagers away one by one.

Canada’s Speaker Rebukes Government for Withholding Afghan Detainee Documents. By Keith Jones

Via: WSWS.

The Speaker of Canada’s House of Commons ruled Tuesday that Stephen Harper’s minority Conservative government has violated parliament’s core constitutional rights by refusing to obey a Common’s order to hand over all documents pertaining to the fate of Afghans captured by the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF).

For months the government has balked at turning over the documents claiming that to do so would “compromise Canada’s security, national defence and international relations.”

Its real concern is that the documents provide incontrovertible proof that the government and CAF knew full well that the alleged Taliban insurgents whom the CAF has transferred to the Afghan secret police have been tortured and abused, if not “disappeared.”

Under the Geneva Conventions, it is a war crime to transfer prisoners to any persons, group, or agency that there is valid reason to believe will abuse them and moreover, in the event that such a transfer takes place those who turned the detainees over are obligated to free them from harm.

Speaker Peter Milliken’s lengthy, long-awaited decision cited numerous authorities and precedents in upholding parliament’s absolute and unfettered right to receive from the government any document it deems necessary to perform its function of scrutinizing the actions of the government and holding the government to account. (Under Canada’s British-derived parliamentary system the government is “responsible” to parliament and can govern only if it commands the “confidence,” i.e. majority support, of the elected MPs.)

The Speaker rejected without equivocation the government’s claim that parliament is impinging on the rights of the executive by demanding uncensored copies of all documents relevant to the Afghan detainee issue. Rather it is the Conservative government that has laid claim to new powers by refusing to hand over the documents and by justifying this refusal with an interpretation of parliament’s relation to the government that “subjugates the legislature to the executive.”

Creating a New South African Identity. By William Gumede

Via: Pambazuka News.

Building an inclusive South African-ness rests on recognising diversity as part of a broader commitment to a collective identity, argues William Gumede. Debates around ‘African-ness’ are misguided, Gumede maintains, and the country’s true identity should be built on equality, the distribution of opportunities and an inclusive approach to nation-building.

The raging debate over what makes one South African, which currently focuses on whether a person is African enough, is simply the wrong debate.

Can we ever cobble together a common South African-ness?

To start with, diverse developing countries such as South Africa with such a politically divided past obviously cannot find a solution in a nationalism based on a shared culture, language or ethnicity. Neither can it rest on common citizenship or living in a shared space alone – often assumed in Western models of nationhood.

South Africa’s bitter history of more than 350 years of colonialism and apartheid – with its accompanied ethnic divisions, conflict and state-sponsored economic inequalities – makes the challenge of cobbling together a new South African-ness, from our divided past, so much harder, yet so much more urgent.

We must start from the premise that there cannot be one single definition of who is a South African. The obvious, basic building block is identifying oneself as South African.

The ethnic, language and regional diversity bequeathed by both colonialism and apartheid must mean that modern South African-ness cannot be but a ‘layered’, plural and inclusive one.

Former president Nelson Mandela’s 1962 statement in the dock during his political trial for inciting resistance against the apartheid government neatly put it that South African-ness cannot be defined in relation to a majority community. At the same time there cannot be one sole defining culture that indicates South African-ness.

The fact that we are so ethnically, culturally and linguistically diverse should then be a central plank of a unique South African identity. South Africa’s democracy is based on a compromise between diverse political groups and acceptance of our differences. The fact that South Africa has a multiple identity should be the basis of its shared South African-ness. South Africa is a melting pot of people with their roots in Africa, the East and also the West.

A State of Terror: The Death of Human Rights in the Philippines. By Priscillia Lefebvre

Via: Socialist Project.

“We continue to work because of hope for freedom, and trust in the capacity of the people to unite and change the system of oppression” — Congressman Neri Colmenares of BAYAN-MUNA.

The Philippines is second only to Colombia for being the most dangerous place in the world for union activists. From January 2001 to October 2009, there have been 1,118 extrajudicial killings, 204 enforced disappearances, 1,026 people tortured, 1,946 illegal arrests, and 255 political prisoners jailed under trumped up charges.1 In 2006, at the height of the killings, a total of 220 murders took place – an average of twice a week. Every other day grassroots organizations were receiving word that yet another comrade had been brutally murdered; these were people they knew, with whom they worked and struggled. It was at this time that the Filipino activist community, including the families of victims and parliamentarian allies, began to scream out against the blatant disregard for human and labour rights at the hands of their government and initiated an ongoing call for international solidarity. This call prompted investigations by the United Nations both in 2006 and 2007. The results of which indicated that the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) are often directly, if not in some way, implicated in these deaths and other human rights violations.

MANILA - A parade of mock coffins draped in flags of different people's organizations.

The peak of the killings in 2006 also marked the end of Phase 1 of Oplan Bantay Laya (OBL), a national counter-insurgency campaign that has been compared to legislated state terrorism by the government of current president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo (GMA). President Macapagal-Arroyo, as Commander-in-Chief of the AFP, is not only well aware of but directs the actions taken by her military. The 2010 election year marks the end of Phase 2 of the OBL, which also represents a deadline for GMA and her administration to reach their military targets, a large part of which allegedly includes “dismantling the political structure of the communist terrorist group.” Sadly, killings are once again on the rise in light of the upcoming May 2010 presidential elections.