People Before Profit blog

Meaner than a Junkyard Empire

Sun, 31 Aug 2008 05:31:00 +0000

8-30-08, 1:35 pm

A jazz version of Rage Against the Machine, Minnesota-based Junkyard Empire blends jazz instrumentals, hip hop, and socially consciously lyrics to create a fresh sound. Composed of a group of talented musicians, artists, writers, and activists, this new Midwestern band has something to say.

During a telephone interview this week to discuss the release of their newest album, 'Rise of the Wretched,' band leader and keyboard/trombone player Christopher Cox hinted that the band's current incarnation wasn't always their plan. 'We started as an instrumental, you could say, acid jazz improv type of group, kind of avant-garde,' he recalled.

But they soon discovered that they all had a similar interest in hip hop, Cox said. They liked artists like Public Enemy, Mod Def, and a lot of local hip hop groups. 'We thought, man, it sure would be nice to get deeper into hip hop and merge it with jazz,' he said.

And, Cox added, the band also wanted to make sure protest music was a central part of what they did, 'more than anything speak truth to power.' Cox cited fellow Minnesota native Bob Dylan as an influence.

So the band began its search for the second Gil Scott Heron, as Cox described it, and ended up with the new lead vocalist, rapper Brihanu (aka Brian Lozenski). 'He just blew our minds,' Cox said about Brihanu's first audition. 'We were swinging. We realized then we had something going on, and the rest is history.' He not only raps well, he writes lyrics and melodies, Cox said of the talented front man.

The band also features guitarist Bryan Berry, a University of Minnesota engineering student who makes his own guitars. Dan Choma plays bass and creates the cover art for the band's albums. Drummer Graham O'Brien, whom Cox brags is the best in the Twin Cities, rounds out the group. Cox and Brihanu share writing duties.

'Rise of the Wretched' is set to be released as part of the band's involvement in next week's anti-Republican National Convention marches in Minneapolis. Groups will gather September 1st at the state capital at 11 am and join in a protest against the harmful policies of Bush, Cheney and the Republicans, Cox said. He added that the poor people's contingent of the march falls into the tradition of the old labor day rallies when separate brigades of unions would get together and march for a particular cause.

September 2nd, the band will be performing at the Black Dog Block Party in Lowertown St. Paul at around 3 pm and will be giving away copies of their new album, 'Rise of the Wretched.' They'll be on after bands like Boots Riley and the Coup, among others.

September 4th, Junkyard Empire will be at another anti-RNC march scheduled for 3:30 pm as part of an antiwar march to the Xcel Energy Center. Later that evening the band is headlining the Goodbye RNC Party at Trocaderos in downtown Minneapolis.

'As a band we like to participate in various political activities beyond the music,' Cox said. 'The absolutely inconceivable gap between the rich and poor in this country is something we always seem to come back to.'

'Poverty issues are almost always at the heart of anything you can talk about,' he pointed out. The band's new album, 'Rise of the Wretched,' speaks directly to this but also to the fact that the people can rise up and say, 'I'm done with that.'

On being compared to Rage Against the Machine, Cox chuckled and said that there may be something to that, but Junkyard Empire doesn't really just like to inspire riots and anger at their performances. 'We all love Rage Against the Machine,' Cox said. Rage is also playing at some of the anti-RNC activities next week.

'One thing that is different about us is that we spend a lot of blood, sweat, and tears writing music that doesn't just point out was is so messed up about the government and what is so messed up about American society, we try hard to get the message out in a positive way and we call for people to rise up not to just be angry,' Cox stated. 'Anger plays a role, but it has to be directed towards making the world a better place.'

Listen to and download some of Junkyard Empire's sounds at their MySpace page here.

--Reach Joel Wendland at

What John McCain Doesn't Get: Change is on the American Mind

Sun, 31 Aug 2008 03:00:00 +0000

8-30-08, 11:01 am

People are ready for a big change away from Bush-McCain politics, according to a new article from Yes! Magazine, titled 'Our Own Agenda: 10 Policies for a Better America,' which compiles the results of a number of polls and surveys on a host of issues.

From rejecting torture and aggressive militarism to raising the minimum wage and economic stimulus that involves direct government intervention to setting a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq and using greater diplomatic efforts in the Middle East to repairing the broken health care system with a government-sponsored system, large majorities of Americans want a new direction, says the article.

More than 6 in 10 Americans, for example, want a timetable for ending the war in Iraq that is one year long or less. While well over half say they want a single-payer government-run health care system, nearly two-thirds say we should have some type of government sponsored system that makes health care coverage more affordable.

About eight in ten Americans want mandatory caps on greenhouse gas emissions, while nine in ten want higher fuel economy cars.

On economic questions, more than seven in ten Americans think corporations do not pay a fair share of the tax burden, and a similar number views unions as positive for working families. About three in four want lower taxes for working families. About two-thirds support government intervention in the housing crisis.

About two-thirds of Americans support either allowing same-sex marriage or allowing gay and lesbian couples to form civil unions.

Most Americans favor restoring habeas corpus rights, reject torture as an intelligence and interrogation policy, favor strengthening civil liberties, and reject the imperial presidency that acts with checks and balances by Congress.

An overwhelming number of Americans regard the future as being less favorable for their children than the past, if things remain the same.

In each incident described here, Americans, by large majorities, agree with the basic positions and views of Barack Obama, and disagree with John McCain's plan to stay the current course adopted by the Bush-Cheney administration on each point.

What may be the most interesting thing about the data compiled in this article is not that the American electorate is 'moving left,' but that it sees change as positive and rejects the ideologically driven policies of John McCain and George W. Bush. Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) may have hit the nail on the head in his recent speech to the Democratic National Convention when he described it as not a right-left issue, but and 'up-down' issue. (See his speech here.)

The article has a neat feature that allows readers to check out some of the data simply by putting their cursor on a category. Sources are given and include polls by media organizations and the traditional polling groups.

--Reach Joel Wendland at

Gaza Resident: “I still cannot farm my own land”

Sun, 31 Aug 2008 02:57:00 +0000

8-30-08, 10:59 am

Original source: Palestinian Center for Human Rights

New Abasan village in South Eastern Gaza looks, and feels, almost haunted. Every third or fourth house is a mound of rubble, or else has been partially destroyed, and the village streets are dusty and devoid of life. Many local Palestinians have been driven out of New Abasan by relentless Israeli incursions into the village. The Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) have bulldozed huge tracts of land in and around New Abasan, and demolished dozens of local houses.

Beyond the village itself are hundred more donumms of rich agricultural farmland (a donumm is the equivalent of 1,000 square meters) lying near Gaza’s eastern border with Israel. Abu Jihad Shaheen is a local farmer who owns a farm about a kilometer outside New Abasan village, nearby the border. He used to live on his farm with his family, but after years of Israeli invasions of his land, was finally forced to leave when the IOF demolished his water well earlier this year. When he and his family left the farm the IOF destroyed their farmhouse.

Now Abu Jihad and his family live in New Abasan village. “My brother, Yousef, and I own our farm together,” he says, as we stand at the beginning of his land, gazing towards the border. “We own 86 donumms of land, but we can only farm the 20 donumms furthest from the border – it is too dangerous for us to work on the rest of our land.”

Twenty donumms of fresh parsley surround us, ripe for hand-picking - but beyond that stretch another 66 dunumms of dry, yellow dry earth leading right up to the border. We walk to the far end of the parsley fields. Now we are standing 450 meters from the border with Israel, and Abu Jihad will go no further. When he points out the ruin of his house just a couple of hundred meters ahead, there are tears in his eyes. “Yousef and I have lost more than $300,000 because we can’t farm our land any more” he says. “We had almond, olive and citrus trees, and we exported fruit and vegetables to the West Bank and Jordan, and to Israel. Now we will be lucky to make $300 from selling the parsley.”

The most striking thing about the expanse of farmland along the south eastern Gaza border is the almost total absence of people: apart from Abu Jihad, his brother, Yousef and a local farm-worker who’s come to help them pick the parsley, there is no-one to be seen. The Shaheen brothers, who now have to pipe water from a nearby house to their parsley fields, say dozens of local farming families have been driven from the area, leaving fields and farmhouses empty. Abu Jihad says the Tahdiya or “period of calm” that came into force on 19 June has made no difference to his access to his own land. “I still cannot farm my land” he says. His brother agrees. “They [the Israelis] still open fire every day” says Yousef. “They fire warning shots into the air, and we see drones and helicopters circling in the sky above us. We do not feel safe here on our land.”

At the beginning of the Second Intifada, in September 2000, a 150 meter buffer zone was established either side of the Gaza / Israel border. Over the last few years the IOF have unilaterally extended the buffer zone to more than 300 meters, whilst at the same time continuing to deliberately destroy thousands of donumms of Gazan farmland, including farmland way beyond the buffer zone. A 400 meter buffer zone around the border of the Gaza represents a net loss of at least 20 square kilometers of fertile farmland. But this year alone, 3,400 donumms of farmland inside Gaza have been bulldozed by IOF, the vast majority of it along the south eastern border, including farms that stood 2.5 kilometers from the border with Israel.

The deliberate destruction of civilian property is illegal under international human rights and humanitarian law, including the Fourth Geneva Convention [articles 33 and 53]. Although IOF has stopped bulldozing Gazan farmland since 19 June, many farmers living near the border remain frightened of returning to their own land.

Abu Jihad takes us to meet another local farmer. Yunis Khalil Abu Latifa is 56, and owns fifty donumms of local land. We sit under the olive trees outside his house, and eat fresh, sweet figs from his garden. “I had ten dunumms of fruit trees just behind my house” he tells us, “but the Israelis bulldozed them. Our land is fertile, but we cannot farm here anymore.” Regarding the Tahdiya, Abu Latifa says he thinks it has made some difference. “My family feels more personally secure in this area now that they [the Israelis] are not shooting and invading [our area] every day” he says. “But I still can’t work on my land”

One week before the Tahdiya started, an IOF rocket struck Abu Latifa’s house. No-one was injured, but the family home was badly damaged. Abu Latifa is adamant no rockets had been fired by Palestinians. “We are all farmers here” he says, “and we just want to farm.” He suddenly gestures in the direction of the border. “I have forty dunumms of good land up there” he says. ‘It is just 800 meters away, and I could walk there in ten minutes. But if anyone goes onto their land [near the border] they will be shot, even now. I haven’t been able to farm those 40 donumms for more than four years.”

Book Review: Bracing for Armageddon

Sun, 31 Aug 2008 02:54:00 +0000

8-30-08, 10:55 am

Bracing for Armageddon: Why Civil Defense Never Worked by Dee Garrison Oxford University Press: New York: 2006.

Dee Garrison, professor of history emeritus at Rutgers University, has written, in this important book, a cautionary tale for the US government and people. Garrison demonstrates the continuing truth of George Santayana’s famous adage: those who learn nothing from history, as the Bush administration shows in its strong “stay the course” commitment to idiocy, are condemned to repeat it.

Let me say that I have known and respected Dee Garrison as a colleague and friend for over 35 years. Her work as a feminist and peace historian, a teacher and defender of academic and intellectual freedom, is a model for both scholars and teachers and concerned citizens.

Bracing for Armageddon is an insightful well documented history of the myth and business of “civil defense.” Civil defense gave us installment plan bomb shelters, highways to evacuate cities, Reagan’s “Star Wars” continental civil defense in outer space, and the present recycled Reagan policies of the Bush administration.

Garrison’s work is backed by extensive research in primary sources ranging from manuscript and document collections of government agencies, political leaders, and peace organizations, official reports and interviews with Helen Caldicott, Jackie Goldberg, Mark Lane and other peace activists over the decades.

While much of what Garrison unearths will not be a big surprise to peace activists (although the specifics may be), it will be to large sections of the general public.

First, Garrison shows that “civil defense” was always something of a confidence trick. At heart civil defense was a huge propaganda enterprise to convince the public that “deterrence” connected to expanding nuclear arsenals and military budgets would work to preserve peace. It was also a device to provide profits for the bomb shelter industry and the various companies and contractors connected to “civil defense.”

The conclusion which Garrison draws that should be most embarrassing for US government and corporate leaders is that “declassified records of Cabinet and National Security Council meetings reveal that, throughout this period [meaning the entire nuclear era] when both Democratic and Republican government leaders discussed civil defense issues, their most detailed analysis was of their own special shelters and escape procedures.”

Leaders of the US government were well aware that the nuclear war that they contended could either be won or deterred with bigger and better nuclear weapons would kill most of the people whose taxes were funding their activities. They were most interested though in maintaining support for the program, both because of the profits it produced for their backers, and also the increased possibility it provided them for survival.

As she tells the story, Garrison shows how the two edged concept of “threat” – threat from the “enemy,” threat to destroy the enemy while saving yourself – worked to create the civil defense industry.

Garrison begins with the first decade of the Cold War era. Here she shows that both Truman and Eisenhower were interested far less in “civil defense” than in fighting the Cold War in World War II terms. Most civil defense funding came from state and local governments, while the big federal bucks went to develop weapons systems. Women were used conspicuously in the civil defense programs, becoming in effect the “mothers” of the Military Industrial Complex, the homemakers defending the home and bomb shelter while men directed the weapons programs and the military, doing the “work” and acting as the “fathers” of the Military Industrial Complex. Propaganda, in the form of allaying public fears and gaining public support for the nuclear arms race and related Cold War policies, was the principle goal of civil defense, not any serious program of saving lives.

While both Republican and Democratic Party leaders supported these policies, opposition did develop from a variety of peace oriented groups like the War Resisters League and Dorothy Day’s Catholic Worker movement (in the face of FBI intimidation) along with scientists and progressive activists in many areas.

Attempts by government officials to repress scientific studies showing the absurdity of what they were doing began to backfire. When Lewis Strauss, Eisenhower’s chair of the Atomic Energy Commission, sought to block the presentation of a paper by Nobel Prize winning scientist Herman Muller on the dangers of nuclear fallout to a United Nations Conference in Geneva, he was on the receiving end of sharp criticism by scientists in the US and internationally.

Also, the government’s major annual propaganda pageant, Operation Alert, where large sections of the population was supposed to “take cover” for 15 minutes, while a nuclear attack was carried out. As Garrison shows, the propaganda films that emerged from these annual “alerts” portrayed nuclear war as a mild inconvenience for a nation of white, middle-class suburbanites who barely got their hair ruffled as they emerged from the attack and waited for instructions from “the calm and efficient men in the new underground White House.”

Garrison brilliantly weaves this history of idiocy in power together with the intelligent and creative resistance of men and women without power who knew much more about the effects of nuclear weapons on humans and the environment than those who were ordering their arrest for civil disobedience protests against the drills and tests, and actively seeking to deny when they could not repress exposés of both the dangers of nuclear radiation and the futility of civil defense.

The US had 1,200 nuclear weapons when Dwight Eisenhower became president and 30,000 when he left. It was only to get worse. John Kennedy had campaigned on a so-called “missile gap” and with the support of many Democrats a federally supported bomb shelter program, which Eisenhower had opposed.

In the early 1960s, this program was advanced at both the federal and state level, with New York governor Nelson Rockefeller becoming the most important policy implementer at the state level. The publication of Herman Kahn’s On Thermonuclear War in 1960, while it was reviled and often satirized by peace activists and many liberals for its thesis that one had to learn to live with prepare for, and even think positive thoughts about nuclear war (some of Kahn’s ideas were direct background for the film, Dr. Strangelove) was to become influential among a number policy planners, including Henry Kissinger and Paul Nitze, who would later break with each other over “détente” but not over “managed nuclear war.”

Here, Garrison makes an important contribution to our understanding of nuclear policy development. Many Americans have read about MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) which stressed the need to keep on developing nuclear weapons in larger quantity and more devastating quality in order to prevent the enemy from using them. But few have read about the alternative doctrine, Nuclear Utilization Target Selection (NUTS) which Kahn became a publicist for and Kissinger, Nitze, and many others came to supports. NUTS, unlike MAD, was based on the doctrine of “limited nuclear war” as both the most effective deterrent and survival policy. It anticipated programs like “Star Wars” and their successors and de-emphasized Civil Defense to “insure” both “victory” and “survival.” Pentagon “body count” estimates of the number of nuclear related deaths and “kill ratios” were based on NUTS rather than MAD theorizing. Robert McNamara as Secretary of Defense under Kennedy was to adopt the NUTS policy, ironically because of his revulsion to the “overkill” capacities represented by the weapons systems that his agency was producing.

Johnson and Nixon generally supported the NUTS strategy but the rise of the anti-war movement made any major program along these lines unlikely. Also, the positive aspects of Strategic Arms Limitations Treaties negotiated by Nixon and Carter made negotiation more viable then it had been in earlier cold war nuclear arms race periods.

In the mid 1970s, however, there were important little known developments whose significance was to be felt to this. In the brief Gerald Ford administration, Ford gave George H.W. Bush, then CIA director the mission to review CIA estimates of Soviet military capabilities and aspirations. Bush chose a group of policy planners and generals, “team B,” led by those associated with rabidly anti-Soviet policy positions. Led by Harvard historian Richard Pipes and including Paul Nitze and the then young Paul Wolfowitz, the group was, as Garrison notes, made up entirely of right-wing and far right-wing figures, even by Nixon administration standards.

Their predictable “analysis” was that the CIA had greatly underestimated the Soviet military threat and also the Soviet development of Civil Defense, which was evidence of the Soviet commitment to starting a nuclear war. Jimmy Carter’s election led a number of Plan B members, with the support of AFL-CIO president George Meany and the participation of the AFL-CIO’s global organizer of anti-Communist labor activities, Jay Lovestone, to form “The Committee on the Present Danger” (CPD) to publicize the Soviet “threat” and develop policies to counter it.

Even though there was a great deal of evidence, including material from Soviet defectors, which showed that the “Civil Defense Gap” the CPD was pushing was completely absurd, it continued to be pushed. In the Carter administration itself, battles raged between Cyrus Vance, the Secretary of State who sought to build on détente to expand negotiations and conflict resolution with the Soviet Union and Zbigniew Brezinski, the rabidly anti-Soviet National Security Advisor whose family had fled the Soviet occupation of Poland after WWII.

Under Carter, a new agency, the Federal Emergency Relief Agency (FEMA) was created to deal with national disasters, floods, earthquakes and nuclear war. FEMA carried forward to the highest level yet plans to evacuate government leaders in the event of nuclear war. In the Summer of 1980, as he was running for re-election against Reagan, Carter signed and publicized Presidential Directive-59, which in line with his Olympic Boycott and general cold war revival policy, embraced the NUTS doctrine, which Brezinski hailed as “moving us closer to a war-fighting doctrine.”

The directive, which brought the concept of “limited nuclear war” back with a vengeance, had one new wrinkle which was to become significant under Reagan and subsequently “the decapitation” of enemy leadership, targeting Soviet Communist Party national and regional headquarters and Soviet intelligence and communications centers for rapid destruction.

As in other areas, Carter’s move to the right helped to insure Reagan’s victory by making Reagan’s right-wing foreign policy positions more credible.

Reagan sought a massive revival of “civil defense,” mass evacuation of cities, and ran into a solid wall of mass opposition, facing the largest mass peace demonstrations in US history. FEMA’s “crisis relocation” policies also became a disastrous failure and a joke. Reagan’s response to these disasters, which became major political liabilities for him, as Garrison notes, was “the soothing, illusionary fiction of Star Wars – the largest, most costly, and greatest civil defense fantasy ever conceived.”

Garrison concludes with an epilogue that brings us up today. After the September 11th attacks, the Bush administration not only began to expand Stars War-based programs but also launched new nuclear weapons building programs, and according to materials revealed in 2002, directed the Pentagon to develop “contingency” plans for the use of nuclear weapons against seven countries (the NUTS doctrine multiplied by 7).

Finally, the administration created the largest most expensive and potentially most dangerous Civil Defense agency in US History, the Department of Homeland Security. “Homeland Security,” Garrison contends, “differs from previous nuclear civil defense agencies in the increased and unparalleled power it awards to intelligence and police agencies.”

Garrison concludes that people’s struggles from the 1950s on helped to push back the most dangerous and destructive schemes which took the acronyms MAD and NUTs the dangers are greater in many ways. Her final words, “the peoples fight continues” should be a wake up call for all us, which is the purpose of this excellent and hugely valuable study.

Book Review: Racing the Enemy

Sun, 31 Aug 2008 02:42:00 +0000

8-30-08, 10:44 am

Racing the Enemy – Stalin, Truman, and the Surrender of Japan. By Tsuyoshi Hasegawa. Belknap Press, Harvard University, 2005. The end of the Second World War with Japan is a story of the clashes of three empires – the struggling Soviets, the decline of the Japanese, and the ascendancy of the American. The common media perception is that the use of the atomic bombs ended the war, and while that is part of the picture, it misses several other nuances that played critical roles in the ending of the war. Tsuyoshi Hasegawa in his work Racing the Enemy provides a history of the critical months of the summer of 1945 that demonstrates the culpability of all three empires leading to the use of these weapons of mass destruction. It also serves as a story of the empirical elites working towards their own advantage, regardless of outcomes for others.

It is the idea of the atomic bomb itself that creates an unusual image of immense destruction, as the US, Britain, and Germany had all used mass carpet bombings to try and force the opposition to quit the war. The overall result in all affected areas was a stiffening resolve against the perpetrators of the other side (a lesson not yet learned in Iraq and Afghanistan). Incendiary bombings had already obliterated several cities and hundreds of thousands of lives before the atomic bomb became operational (Dresden, Hamburg, Tokyo). According to Hasegawa, while the Japanese were impressed by the power of the bomb, its actual destructiveness and its threatening power were not the main reasons for ending the war.

Hasegawa’s picture of the summer of 1945 is one of manipulations and deceit involving all three parties, with very few of the motives being altruistic and humanitarian but rather mostly geopolitical. The triangulations of power involved the expected entry of the Soviet forces into the war with Japan, a concept that the Japanese remained out of tune with real Soviet intentions until the end. It also involved American concerns about Soviet power and the occupation of Japan’s northern island of Hokkaido, although there were only minimal concerns about the Soviet occupation of the Southern Kurils as was agreed to in principle at the Yalta conference.

The main American concerns for the war was the possible necessity of having to invade the mainland and the probable entry of the Soviets into the war that would add complications to both post war occupation and treaties, as well as geopolitical concerns for the future. Along with all this was the ongoing development of the atomic bomb.

Thus Hasegawa’s title stands clearly defined. He presents a story that clearly shows the three combatants trying to 'race' each other to a conclusion of the war that satisfied one or more of their own major concerns. As it was, none of the three escape criticism for actually extending the war, as the race involved purposeful roadblocks along the way as one side or the other tried to manipulate the situation in their favour – not surprising in a war, but not normally as well defined in history texts either.

The 'story' is finely told, and unlike many history texts provides a compelling narrative that includes much anecdotal material from diaries and war records on all three sides of the conflict. It remains an academic history, the story of the elite policy makers and how their decisions reflect more the future geopolitical needs of the respective countries/empires than concerns for any citizens in harms way.

Most critical to the discussion is Hasagawa’s presentation of the Potsdam ultimatum. First, the ultimatum was not delivered through diplomatic channels (i.e. using the neutrality of Sweden and Switzerland to deliver the message) and “was issued as propaganda through the Office of War information.” Truman’s citation of newspaper editorials does not serve as proof of the “prompt rejection” of the ultimatum by the Japanese rulers, or “that the reaction of the Japanese government was entirely different from what Radio Tokyo had reported” as the government was divided as how to approach the issue. Rather, the Japanese reception was to reserve comment on the ultimatum, “that the Japanese government suspended judgment on the Potsdam ultimatum.”

The ultimatum did not include any message about one of the over-riding concerns of the rulers of Japan that the Imperial house be preserved (a natural response of self preservation for all 'supreme' rulers). There is considerable discussion on this issue, with Hasagawa’s focus being that Truman needed and indeed wanted the Potsdam ultimatum to be rejected in order to use the atomic weapons: one cannot escape the conclusion that the United States rushed to drop the bomb without any attempt to explore the readiness of some Japanese policymakers to seek peace through the ultimatum. Why the rush? In Hasagawa’s interpretation the bomb represented a solution to three dilemmas faced by Truman: “unconditional surrender, the cost of Japan’s homeland invasion, and Soviet entry into the war.” The bomb itself did not solve any of these issues, but Truman’s temporary jubilance at its success was “because of the satisfaction that everything had gone as he had planned.”

Japan’s reaction was in a sense under whelming. Already subject to fierce fire bombings that had killed hundreds of thousands of civilians, the bomb “did not lead to their decision to accept the Potsdam terms…[but] further contributed to their desperate efforts to terminate the war through Moscow’s mediation…. Indeed, Soviet attack, not the Hiroshima bomb, convinced political leaders to end the war by accepting the Potsdam declaration.”

While the Potsdam ultimatum receives some of Hasagawa’s strongest critique, his conclusion finds all parties guilty for delaying the war even further than had been necessary. Truman “needed Japan’s refusal to justify the use of the atomic bomb…thus…he could not include the provision providing a constitutional monarchy” in the ultimatum. The Soviets continually misled the Japanese as to their intentions concerning the Neutrality Pact between the two, and “Ironically, both Stalin and Truman had vested interests in keeping unconditional surrender [no monarchy] for different reasons.” While the two atomic bombs alone “would most likely not have prompted the Japanese to surrender…the war most likely would have ended shortly after Soviet entry into the war – before November 1.”

Overall, while there were alternatives available to all three sides that could have allowed the war to terminate sooner without the use of the atomic bombs, political concerns, rather than military ones (or concerns about civilian deaths) carried the weight in the decisions. While the use of the atomic bomb can be seen as an atrocity, it is an atrocity that is not greater than the fire bombings on all sides, of the war crimes committed by the Japanese in China and Korea and other theatres of operation. While decisions by the Soviets and the Americans could have ended the war sooner without the catastrophe of using atomic weapons, Hasagawa lays the main blame on the Japanese policymakers who “must bear the responsibility for the war’s destructive end more than the American president and the Soviet dictator.”

While this is truly history now, not current events, its ramifications are obvious for our current world situation. The Japanese still have not resolved their war crimes issues with China. Japan’s 'defence' forces are among the world’s largest military forces, and even with a ‘peace’ constitution, Japan has enough plutonium – and the technology – available to make dozens of nuclear warheads and their delivery. The issue of the Kuril Islands still interferes with Russian-Japanese politics, even after the dissolution of the Soviet empire. The Americans in some respects still occupy Japan after sixty years, with Japan a nominal independent and democratic country.

In an even broader perspective, the narrative of war, this war or any other, as presented by historians at the political-strategic level clearly demonstrates how empires are about power and control of heartlands and hinterlands regardless of the wishes of the majority of citizens. Those same citizens unfortunately are subject to ongoing propaganda in the form of out and out rhetoric and uber-patriotism, combined with the more nuanced propaganda from the education systems and dominant media of their respective elites.

The current geopolitical struggles of the world over the oil and strategic importance of the Middle East and Central Asia continues this pattern. Our societies are now determined by our access to formerly cheap oil; the military relies on that oil for their dominance over other players; the elites wish to retain their hold on power, their hold on the resources of the world for their own benefit. The narrative continues, an ongoing history punctuated by dates of conflict that are truly a series of encounters for empires to control and dominate other people and their resources.

To bring this back from that philosophical tangent, Hasagawa’s interpretations should be a must read for anyone interested in how the final acts of the Second World War set the stage for our current geopolitical encounters. In reality, the American empire, the Russians, Chinese, and Indians are still Racing the Enemy in an ongoing battle for the world’s resources.

--Jim Miles is a Canadian educator and a regular contributor/columnist of opinion pieces and book reviews for The Palestine Chronicle. Miles’ work is also presented globally through other alternative websites and news publications.

Barack Obama Delivers Concrete Proposals for Change

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 01:14:00 +0000

Speaking before a crowd of close to 80,000 people at Denver's Invesco Field and accepting the nomination of the Democratic Party for president, Barack Obama criticized John McCain for supporting and seeking to continue the Bush administration's policies in what Democrats all week have been calling a third Bush term with 'more of the same.'

Obama praised McCain's military service, but pointed out that his nearly 30 year-long political record is a different story. 'John McCain has voted with George Bush 90 percent of the time,' he said. 'Senator McCain likes to talk about judgment, but really, what does it say about your judgment when you think George Bush was right more than ninety percent of the time?'

'I don’t know about you, but I’m not ready to take a 10 percent chance on change,” Obama added.

Obama rejected McCain's repeated claims that the economy is doing fine. He talked about the difficulties working families face with home foreclosures, growing unemployment, and lack of health care coverage. “We measure progress by how many people can find a job that pays the mortgage; whether you can put away a little extra money at the end of each month so that you can someday watch your child receive her diploma.'

'We measure progress in the 23 million new jobs that were created when Bill Clinton was president,' he continued, 'when the average American family saw its income go up $7,500 instead of down $2,000 like it has under George Bush.'

The highlight of the speech, however, was Obama's elaboration of concrete proposals for 'exactly what that change would mean.'

Responding directly to McCain campaign distortions of his tax proposals, Obama said, 'I will cut taxes – cut taxes – for 95 percent of all working families. Because in an economy like this, the last thing we should do is raise taxes on the middle-class.'

Obama pledged tax incentives to small business owners, while eliminating tax incentives to big corporations who move jobs out of the country, a promise John McCain has refused to make.

Turning to energy policy, Obama linked the energy issue to national security, the economy, and the environment.

First, Obama focused his sights on McCain's record on energy. 'Washington has been talking about our oil addiction for the last 30 years,' he said. 'And John McCain has been there for 26 of them. In that time, he’s said no to higher fuel-efficiency standards for cars, no to investments in renewable energy, no to renewable fuels.'

'Today, we import triple the amount of oil as the day that Senator McCain took office,' he emphasized.

Obama offered a diverse solution. 'I will tap our natural gas reserves, invest in clean coal technology, and find ways to safely harness nuclear power.' In contrast to McCain's opposition to more fuel efficient cars, Obama plans to provide incentives for US automakers to 're-tool, so that the fuel-efficient cars of the future are built right here in America.' In addition, Obama proposed incentives to car buyer to be able to afford new cars with higher gas mileage.

Most importantly, Obama called for an investment of '$150 billion over the next decade in affordable, renewable sources of energy – wind power and solar power and the next generation of biofuels; an investment that will lead to new industries and five million new jobs that pay well and can’t ever be outsourced.”

On health care, Obama pointed out that John McCain wants to impose a new health care tax on employee benefits. In contrast, he stated, his health care proposal would open the federal employee insurance program to working families who can't afford health insurance premiums on their own, and he would provide incentives to grow the employer-based benefits system.

Obama also rejected McCain's proposal to privatize Social Security.

Obama strongly addressed the issue of national security. “We are the party of Roosevelt,' he asserted. 'We are the party of Kennedy. So don’t tell me that Democrats won’t defend this country. Don’t tell me that Democrats won’t keep us safe.'

It is the Bush-McCain foreign policies that have undermined national security, he pointed out. “As Commander-in-Chief, I will never hesitate to defend this nation,' he went on, 'but I will only send our troops into harm’s way with a clear mission and a sacred commitment to give them the equipment they need in battle and the care and benefits they deserve when they come home.'

Obama pledged to bring the war in Iraq to an end responsibly, and to find the people who were actually responsible for the September 11th attacks. Addressing foreign policy questions like Iran, Russia, and more requires a new, intelligent approach, not just a lot of bluster from Washington.

'I will build new partnerships to defeat the threats of the 21st century: terrorism and nuclear proliferation; poverty and genocide; climate change and disease,' he concluded. 'And I will restore our moral standing so that America is once more the last, best hope for all who are called to the cause of freedom, who long for lives of peace, and who yearn for a better future.

Satirical News and the Build Up to the Third World War

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 01:04:00 +0000

8-29-08, 9:05 am

Perhaps a couple of decades from now we will all be praising the mainstream media for the wonderful work they have done reporting on our collective insanity. If we could all leave aside for a minute our nationalisms and ideologies, we could see through every page printed, every word aired, or every media image shown, that global confrontation is just around the corner. The media seems to be seeing what its readers, viewers and listeners are not able to grasp. A large scale war is now unavoidable, and we have all contributed to it through our obtuse obsession with ourselves and our ideals, and our lack of holistic understanding of human interaction. That said, it could be that news are no longer news, and are just part of the 21st century satirical entertainment culture. If that is the case, we can safely say that once the television is turned off, the war ends.

Week after week, escalation is the game being played by “our” governments. Every country flexing its muscle to see what it is able to obtain, as the cake of global resources is safely being distributed between those with access to the knife. The British fighting for the little bit of oil which they might be able to extract, if they push the boundaries of their empire past the legal 200 nautical miles from the shoreline of its colonized Ascension Island. The Americans pushing for their famous missile shield in the ex-soviet states, which for years now professor Chomsky has been labeling as a declaration of war. The Israelis focused on their territorial expansion on Palestinian land, through their now world-renowned settlements. The Russians with their personal conflict in Georgia, which the “international community” of hypocrites is unanimously condemning, with the same might as they unanimously support every aggression they personally wish to impart.

Literally every country in the world, no matter where we look, is bent on this culture of aggression. Nobody is able to trust anybody, because deep down we all know that we are selfish, and as soon as we can, we are going to do everything possible to get on top of the game. But the worse thing of all, is that we look at “our” countries as if they were people with a life of their own -- we talk about America as if it was a conquering woman, the pom-pom girl of world aggression, we look at Britain as the wise old fashioned conservative who thinks he knows everything, while Russia is the head of the Mafia and Israel the holder of the truth, the bearer of humanity’s suffering.

Farcical stereotypes have been continuously set up by very effective spin-doctors with enough resources to govern the world. Put a barking dog behind a herd of sheep and they are bound to go in the direction you plan for them to follow. That is what we have today – barking dogs disguised as politicians, and sheep seeing themselves as citizens with a right to vote. The problem is that in this equation there is no shepherd to guide anyone to greener pastures. This is status quo necessary for those in power to remain in power, building fraudulent imagery about the true state of the world.

It is this Status quo, which allows popular debate to remain framed in words like “hope” and “change” for Obama, as he sits in the foundations of corporate America, presenting his strategy for change, while demonstrators outside of Denver’s “freedom cage” are getting arrested. The same status quo, which constantly reminds us of McCain’s bravery as a POW, in a war which was unjustified and which killed many innocent Vietnamese civilians. The status quo, which allows for 90 Afghan civilians to be killed in one day by American troops, without a single minute of mourning by civilized Americans who claim to be helping them.

In Spain, there is a saying which says, “no lo cogería ni con pinzas,” which translated to English could mean something like “I wouldn't touch it with a barge pole”, and sadly that is the state of our political systems worldwide. The problem is that global populations seem either too naïve, too ignorant, too indifferent, or too powerless, to reject this social reality and confront it with serious intentions for change.

As our politicians keep fighting for power while rallying the national flag, millions of people are confronting each other without knowing each other. Yet, as the suffering keeps mounting with the ringing of war bells, none of those firmly behind their candidates are gaining much from these paramilitary adventures. Only the corporate interests of a very small global elite keep pushing ahead, as their lapdog politicians keep barking, and the herd of sheep keeps moving towards what Samuel P. Huntington coined as “the clash of civilizations.”

Mired in our own limited sphere of thought, dealing with our own personal problems, we are too disconnected from each other to ever get a grasp of the fact that no matter what our politicians tell us, Americans and Iraqis, French and Afghans, Iranians and Israelis, Russians and British and the rest of us, we are not all that different from each other. Yet, because most of us only know each other through the imagery of the television set, we allow our barking politicians to lead the way towards conflict.

Make no mistake about it, last century’s great depression ended with the build up to the Second World War, and the unacknowledged economic depression of today will give way to the official beginning of the Third World War. When that happens, the whole of humanity will be subjected to the kind of depression which can only be felt with the destruction of social existence. We must be thankful to the media for all those images of reality which they have been streaming endlessly through their networks, for only the accumulation of those images allows us to see where the world is heading. I wish the media was satirical, then I could turn off the television set knowing we are not heading towards global war. However as things stand, it might be in one year, it might take five or ten, but sooner or later imperial attitudes lead to major conflict.

--Pablo Ouziel is a sociologist and freelance writer.

Olympic Follies and Triumphs

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 01:00:00 +0000

8-29-08, 9:02 am

To run a full marathon experts suggest that the aspiring athlete requires at least six months of rigorous training, proper gear, a particular diet, regular check-ups, mental focus and preparation, and a variety of gadgets depending on one's budget. Ironically, the poorest countries in Africa have also produced some of the world's best marathon runners.

I never imagined running a full marathon myself. Only when my doctor advised me, following back surgery over a year ago, that I should not walk more than 20 minutes at a time did I decide to run one. And I have.

Human nature is strange. Our weaknesses can sometimes turn into a launch pad for our most triumphant moments. My running 'career', however, started in the Gaza Strip. As early as my elementary years in the Nuseirat refugee camp I was habitually chased, along with many school children, by Israeli troops. Running the distance meant dodging a bullet and reaching home alive. My greatest running moment was in high school, though, when I outran a military jeep. Along with my younger brother and a cousin, our goal was to reach a citrus orchard by the Gaza Valley before being run over. As bullets whizzed all around we made our final leap into a thicket. Bleeding from my face and arm after colliding with thorns and branches I looked triumphantly at the rest but said nothing. That day we won more than gold. We won life.

When four Palestinian athletes marched with the Palestinian flag into the Olympic Games in Beijing it was a statement, a declaration of sorts, that Palestinians insist on their right to exist on equal footing with the rest of the world, to raise their flag without fear and wear their country's name spelled out the way it should be, not as a Palestinian Authority but as Palestine. The 1.5 million Palestinians living in besieged Gaza must have savoured that moment more than anyone else. One from amongst them, Nader Al-Masri, had a big smile on his face as he marched, nervously but proudly. Gaza lived a moment of freedom that day, one that even Israel couldn't take away.

But the Olympics are, of course, not a singular idea. Its meanings are convoluted and they vary. Some NBC commentators seemed more interested in igniting Cold War fever as they cheered for their athletes. It was a nationalistic circus, courtesy of the world's largest multinational corporations, catering to the sensibilities and prejudices of every nation, although they were all selling the same product in the end. While sports has long an avenue in which greater participation by women meant greater gender equality the fact that 'sex sells' appeared to be a more dominant mantra that women's rights. Olympic women role-models have already been featured in various Playboy editions. In many instances winning gold was no longer about national pride but access to contracts, endorsements, and millions of dollars of income.

Yet despite the political manipulation and corporate takeover of sports the human spirit continues to triumph. When Germany's Matthias Steiner claimed a gold medal following a stupendous effort he raised his medal and a photo of Susann, his wife, who died in a car accident last year. Susann's modest smile in the photo cannot be matched by the fake smiles of Nike's top models combined.

And as Georgia and Russia embarked on a bloody fight that is seen by many as marking the beginning of a new Cold War, the ravenous struggle underway between Russia and Nato over influence in Eurasia, nothing could stain the beautiful moment when Nino Salukvadze, of Georgia hugged and kissed Russian rival Natalia Paderina after the latter won silver and the former bronze in shooting.

Holding true to family tradition, I cheered for athletes representing the poorest countries. What victory represents for an athlete whose running gear was a last minute donation is difficult to imagine. Al-Masri is from Beit Hanoun, a small, half-destroyed town on the border with Israel. He trains among the constant sound of bullets and shells. After many appeals involving the Israeli media the runner was allowed to leave his Gaza prison temporarily. Thanks to the help of Chinese coaches Al-Masri received a bit of training before embarking on his first competition. He returns to Gaza without medals. His resilience, his insistence on hope under the most desperate of circumstances will not generate him much by way of money or contracts, but it will comfort his countrymen.

For Al-Masri, and all the athletes who participated in the Beijing Olympics as an embodiment of a noble idea, as ambassadors of hope, of equality and of dignity, they crossed the finishing line the moment they refused to kneel to adversity or surrender to despair. This is not rhetorical pandering and is something that can only be understood by those who have been told that they are not worthy enough, maybe because they are not of the right skin colour, nationality, gender, or come from the wrong part of the world.

Gaza cannot wait to greet returning Al-Masri, whose stories of the Great Wall and the grandeur and wonders of China are likely to be unequalled in a place used to the same old stories: of siege, Israeli incursions and violence. Al-Masri's town will certainly take a time away from grief, and rejoice the return of its champion. A Palestinian poet once wrote: 'Our celebrations will plant us firmly into the earth.' Beit Hanoun will live up to that promise.

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

The Erratic Blockade of Cuba

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 07:36:00 +0000

8-28-08, 3:38 pm

'For almost half a century, the United States has imposed a trade embargo against Cuba. And yet it sometimes seems barely visible,' says an article published Aug. 14, 2008, in the printed edition of the British weekly The Economist.

The article mentions the fact that U.S. commercial brands can be found everywhere on the island, and that, by taking advantage of an exemption introduced in 2000, U.S. farmers have become the greatest foreign suppliers of agricultural products, with annual sales of $600 million.

'No wonder that some Cubans wonder whether the 'blockade' which the government blames for nearly all of Cuba's problems might be some sort of trick,' the article says, quoting a Cuban student of medicine who asks himself if the blockade really exists.

Nevertheless, the article later clarifies that many of the foreign companies that trade with Cuba have recently been threateningly reminded that the blockade does exist. It cites cases of several companies whom the OFAC (Office of Foreign Assets Control) has fined severely through their subsidiaries in North America. It also recalls the prohibition to enter the United States imposed on executives of the Canadian firm Sherritt and their relatives, because the company deals with Cuba's nickel-mining industry.

The article also explains that the draconian Title 3 of the Helms-Burton Law (ironically named Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act) empowers Americans who owned property in Cuba before the revolution to sue any foreigners who now invest there. The application of Title 3 has been postponed many times by Washington because of its potential negative effects on relations with allied countries.

The blockade's coercion on those who do business in Cuba became more severe after Sept. 11, 2001, when Cuba was placed on the list of states that sponsor terrorism -- along with Iran, North Korea, Syria and Sudan -- without Washington ever presenting plausible evidence of such an accusation. Whatever they might think of the blockade, bankers around the world do not want to run afoul of antiterrorism laws, The Economist says.

The article recalls that, in 2004, the Swiss bank UBS paid a $100 million fine; in 2007, the Dutch bank ING -- which had opened an office in Cuba -- had to shut it down abruptly; and in 2008, the executives of the British company that has the exclusive rights of importation of Cuban cigars received a letter from Lloyds TSB, their longtime bank, suggesting that they take their business elsewhere.

Despite the blockade's restrictions, many international companies continue to operate in Cuba, says The Economist, which concludes by quoting the director of a European firm with large investments on the island: the best strategy is to 'try to stay under the radar and make damned sure you are here when the United States' government finally sees sense.'

It is true that Cuba acquired $600 million in food in the United States in 2007, by virtue of an exemption approved by Congress in 2000. The crack in the blockade opened as a result of the damage caused in Cuba by Hurricane Michelle in 1999.

But these operations contemplate payment in cash and other exigencies, including the impossibility of utilizing Cuban means of transportation or compensating the purchases with Cuban exports, so they don't represent a violation of the blockade.

The practice remained in effect more through pressure from U.S. farmers (pressures that Washington has been unable to resist), which Cuba accepts in a show of respect and friendship to the American people, rather than because of obvious economic convenience by virtue of the shorter distances in the transportation of products.

For almost half a century, Cuba's trade with other nations has been submitted to a system of pressures that force Cuba to sell its products cheaper and buy foreign products at higher prices. Cuba is asked to assume the risk run by its suppliers to suffer sanctions in their economic relations with the United States for violating the 'embargo.'

The blockade is something much more cruel, inhumane and genocidal. It includes the promotion of terrorist subversion and the threats of aggression that obligate Cuba to spend more money in defense; the prohibition of travel by U.S. citizens to the island; the curbs on travel and remittances from Cuban émigrés in the United States; the promotion of illegal emigration and 'brain theft.' All that is done in the framework of an overwhelming campaign of media slander and an unscrupulous crusade (not limited to the diplomatic circles) to try to isolate Cuba worldwide.

It is difficult to understand where the article's author could find one person in Cuba who could cast doubt on the omnipresence of the blockade in every minute of the daily life of an ordinary Cuban.

--Manuel E. Yepe Menéndez is a lawyer, economist and journalist. He is a professor at the Higher Institute of International Relations in Havana. He was Cuba's ambassador to Romania, general director of the Prensa Latina agency; vice president of the Cuban Institute of Radio and Television; founder and national director of the Technological Information System (TIPS) of the United Nations Program for Development in Cuba, and secretary of the Cuban Movement for the Peace and Sovereignty of the Peoples.

The Media Just Love, Love, Love John McCain

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 03:41:00 +0000

8-28-08, 11:43 am

The corporate media got caught this week carrying water for the McCain campaign. According to ABC News, media pundits, talk shows, and 'news' shows have given free coverage to McCain campaign videos that the campaign falsely billed as TV ads criticizing Barack Obama.

Those 'journalists' then played those videos on TV in an endless loop accompanied by banal discussions about their content. No serious fact-checking took place, ABC News reports, let alone an investigation into whether the McCain campaign was actually paying TV stations to play them as commercials.

According to ABC News, 'There's been evidence emerging that McCain's campaign isn't really running these ads anywhere.'

In other words, instead of scrutinizing and trying to determine the facts about McCain's claims, the corporate media have simply taken his campaign's word and provided free and generally uncritical coverage.

The corporate media have sunk to a new low. Some will call it a symptom of right-wing media bias against Obama; others will say this development is a result of laziness and shoddy journalism on the part of the corporate media. Perhaps both. And this favorable and free media coverage is the source of McCain's position polls, not the effectiveness of his campaign, the quality of his ideas, or his appeal to voters.

According to media watchdogs, three McCain videos fall into this category. One was a video that purported to show a former Clinton convention delegate now endorsing John McCain. While the whole corporate media were a-buzz about it, giving the McCain campaign a whole lot of free publicity and positive punditry, the video played only in a single market in Ohio.

A cheap knock-off of Hillary Clinton's '3 am' ad also got a lot of attention, with reporters failing to remind their readers and viewers that the Clinton campaign's second '3 am' was a sharp and accurate criticism of McCain's foreign policy.

Now a new video from the McCain campaign, titled 'Tiny,' is getting a lot of attention. Though the video misrepresents and makes false claims about Barack Obama's positions on Iran – and again it doesn't appear that the McCain campaign has actually paid to have the video air as a TV commercial – the corporate media is replaying the ad with customary McCain campaign talking points as part of their 'unbiased' discussion.

These irresponsible actions by the media undermine American voters' belief in what they see on TV, hear on the radio, or read in print. Indeed, they undermine the concept of a free press, let alone thoughtful and meaningful political discourse. As Eric Alterman notes in a recent blog post for The Nation, Obama and the Democrats are not just up against sleazy Republican tactics, they're up against the corporate media as well.

--Reach Joel Wendland at

Iraq's Al-Maliki: A Thorn in the Side of the Bush-McCain War Policy

Thu, 28 Aug 2008 05:19:00 +0000

8-27-08, 1:21 pm

Just after the Bush administration prematurely announced a new occupation agreement with the Iraqi government, which included the movement of US troops out of some Iraqi cities, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki this week insisted again that any new agreement must include a timetable for withdrawal.

Al-Maliki told reporters that there was an agreement on 'full sovereignty' for his country and an 'agreement between the two sides that there will not be any foreign soldiers in Iraq after 2011.' According to press accounts, Al-Maliki wants no US soldiers, advisers, or special forces after that date.

The White House swiftly denied that such an agreement had been made, preferring to put forth its own position that an endless occupation was still in the cards. A White House spokesperson even hinted that Al-Maliki's comment may have scuttled the occupation agreement.

Al-Maliki, who has come under increased pressure from various political and sectarian factions in Iraq to break with the Bush administration on the issue of endless occupation, has stirred up enormous trouble for George W. Bush and Republican presidential hopeful John McCain recently.

In late July, McCain fumbled an answer to a reporter who asked about Al-Maliki's endorsement of Barack Obama's timetable plan. “I think it’s a pretty good timetable,” McCain told CNN. He later denied making the statement. No major media outlets have seriously scrutinized McCain's various and confused statements on the Bush administration's Iraq war policy, which range from staunch support to assertions favoring a 100-year long occupation to the confused one just described here.

Al-Maliki, in an interview with a German magazine last month, essentially endorsed Barack Obama's proposal to bring US troops home within 16 months of his inauguration. Al-Maliki was forced to back off that statement after a phone call from the White House, news reports stated, but other Iraqi government spokespersons, subsequent to that event, essentially reiterated the demand to end the occupation quickly.

Like a large majority Americans (close to 70 percent), the overwhelming majority of Iraqis want the military occupation of their country to end. The vast majority want a timetable for withdrawal that is one year or less, according to recent media and academic public opinion polls. Most Iraqis blame the continued US military presence for political and security instability in their country.

So far, 4,148 US troops have been killed in Iraq, more than 30,000 officially listed as wounded. By most estimates, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have died as a result of the invasion. Government estimates show that $10 billion is currently being spent per month by the US to finance the war.

No WMD or ties between the Iraqi government and Al Qaeda, the Bush administration's justification for the invasion and subsequent five-year-plus long occupation, have ever been found.

US Working Families under Republicans: Working Harder, Sinking Faster

Thu, 28 Aug 2008 04:18:00 +0000

8-27-08, 12:16 pm

According to the latest Census Bureau data released just this week, since the last economic recession in 2001, 4.4 million more people have been added to the poverty rolls. More than one and a half million of them have been children.

After six years of supposed economic recovery after the 2001 recession, 12.5 percent of Americans remain in poverty, with 18 percent of children living below the federal poverty level.

Between 2006 and 2007 alone, according to the just released data, poverty grew by over 800,000 people, including one-half million children, from a rate of 12.3 percent to 12.5 percent. That is more than one full percentage point higher than in 2000.

While there was some good news in the Census Bureau's new report, i.e., a slight rise in median incomes, analysis from the non-partisan Economic Policy Institute (EPI) says, 'Given the weakening job market last year, the median income of working-age households (those headed by someone less than 65) rose insignificantly in 2007, and was $2,010 below its 2000 level. '

In other words, middle-income working families are worse off then before the Bush administration came to power and many millions slipped into poverty since. And because the new Census Bureau data does not reflect the impact of the loss of almost a half a million jobs so far in 2008, economic data in the future can be expected to reflect a sharp turn for the worse.

According to Jared Bernstein, who heads EPI, 'The Census figures show that the economic cycle that began in 2000 and ended late last year was one of the weakest on record for working families, despite strong overall economic growth during the same period.'

Economic recession and increased poverty come even as worker productivity grew by 2.5 percent per year in the 2000s, over 2.0 percent during the 1990s. In other words, workers are working harder and realizing less in return overall.

Bernstein pointed to the loss of union rights in the workplace as the main reason workers have been unable to realize a greater income or benefit return on their hard work. 'As long as most workers lack the bargaining power to claim their share of the growth they have helped to generate,' he wrote, 'that potential will not be realized.'

The labor movement, led by the AFL-CIO and Change to Win labor federations, says that enacting fair labor legislation like the Employee Free Choice Act and the reinvigoration of worker protections in the workplace as the first steps to improving the standard of living of all working families.

In its response to the implications of the new Census Bureau data, the Coalition on Human Needs called for a change in tax policies that favor the wealthy and for direct aid to lower-income families to provide immediate relief.

Deborah Weinstein, the executive director of CHN, said in a press statement, Aug. 26th, 'Helping the poor and near poor through the new economic downturn is essential to rebuilding our economy. Congress should immediately enact an economic recovery package that includes food and heating aid. Tax legislation should include an expansion of the Child Tax Credit so that it is available to more poor families.'

The US Census Bureau report came just a day before new media reports indicating the World Bank revised its own estimates of global poverty. According to the BBC, Aug. 27th, '[The World Bank] has revised its previous estimate and now says that 1.4 billion people live in poverty, based on a new poverty line of $1.25 per day.'

The lesson learned is that the right-wing tax, trade, and other economic policies that disproportionately favor huge corporations and the very wealthy implemented under the Bush-Cheney administration have had an enormous negative impact on working families.

And while John McCain offers the same economic policies as the Bush administration, perhaps because he self-admittedly doesn't 'understand economics,' Barack Obama has pledged to provide direct tax relief to working families, investment in new job growth, and a new economic stimulus package.

Hillary Clinton: 'the reasons I support Barack Obama'

Thu, 28 Aug 2008 01:58:00 +0000

8-27-08, 9:58 am

His speech didn't make prime time TV from the Democratic National Convention, but his story and the promise of how his story could be changed did.

Robin Golden is a UAW member who is losing his job as an inspector at Lear Corp., an auto supplier based in Michigan. Lear is shipping its operations overseas, taking advantage of free trade agreements and Bush administration subsidies to corporations who want to move elsewhere.

A resident of the Grand Rapids, Michigan area, Golden told an afternoon session of the Democratic convention Tuesday, Aug. 26th, that his health care expires in just a few weeks and that he has been diagnosed with diabetes.

'It's time for a change,' Golden told the convention. 'My wife and I work hard, clip coupons and make sacrifices. We need a president who represents the working-class family and not big oil.'

That's why Robin Golden is supporting Barack Obama. Golden's story is much like the nearly 500,000 other workers in America who have lost their jobs this year, or the 47 million who lack health care coverage, or the millions whose homes are threatened to be foreclosed on.

These are the people, Hillary Clinton told an enraptured, packed audience at the DNC in Denver, Colorado, that she has spent her career fighting for, and these are the reasons she is supporting Barack Obama.

In an eloquent and enthusiastically received speech that emphasized the unity of her party behind Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton said, 'none of us can afford to sit on the sidelines. This is a fight for the future, and it's a fight we must win together.'

Clinton rejected the idea of four more years of Bush under John McCain. 'I haven't spent the past 35 years in the trenches, advocating for children, campaigning for universal health care, helping parents balance work and family, and fighting for women's rights here at home and around the world,' she stated, 'to see another Republican in the White House squander our promise of a country that really fulfills the hopes of our people. No way, no how, no McCain.'

'Barack Obama is my candidate, and he must be our president,' she stated.

'I ran for president,' Clinton continued, 'to renew the promise of America, to rebuild the middle class and sustain the American dream, to provide opportunity to those who are willing to work hard for it and have that work rewarded, so they could save for college, a home, and retirement, afford gas and groceries, and have a little left over each month.

'To promote a clean energy economy that will create millions of green-collar jobs, to create a health care system that is universal, high-quality, and affordable, so that every single parent knows their children will be taken care of.

'We want to create a world-class education system and make college affordable again, to fight for an America that is defined by deep and meaningful equality, from civil rights to labor rights, from women's rights to gay rights, from ending discrimination to promoting unionization, to providing help for the most important job there is, caring for our families, and to help every child live up to his or her God-given potential, to make America once again a nation of immigrants and of laws, to restore fiscal sanity to Washington, and make our government an institution of the public good, not of private plunder.

'To restore America's standing in the world, to end the war in Iraq, bring our troops home with honor, care for our veterans, and give them the services they have earned.

'We will work for an America again that will join with our allies in confronting our shared challenges, from poverty and genocide to terrorism and global warming.

'Most of all, I ran to stand up for all those who have been invisible to their government for eight long years,' Clinton stated.

'Those are the reasons I ran for president, and those are the reasons I support Barack Obama for president,' she emphasized.

So while Golden's speech was likely only heard by a handful of convention delegates and political junkies glued to C-SPAN, the demand for change and for providing the solutions to the injustices that caused his plight resounded across the country as Clinton called for unity behind Barack Obama.

Watch Sen. Hillary Clinton's speech here:

Moscow and Washington’s Grand Game

Thu, 28 Aug 2008 01:53:00 +0000

8-27-08, 9:53 am

Original source: l'Humanite

The conflict in Georgia is a new phase in the test of strength which the Russians and the Americans have been waging in the region for over 15 years. The United States and its successive presidents consider Central Asia and the Caucasus to be highly strategic places and have made a considerable effort to establish a presence in all the former Soviet republics. This naturally worries the Kremlin, whose concern is to prevent the dismantling of the Russian Federation, following that of the USSR. In a certain way, this conjures up the specter of the “grand game” played in the 19th century by the Tsarist and British empires for the control of these regions, which are rich in natural resources and are traversed by important trade routes.

These frictions have become all the more intense lately since Vladimir Putin and the other Russian rulers have demonstrated their determination to resurrect Russian power as the country’s intensely nationalistic capitalist system gathers strength.

The Georgian conflict illustrates this increasing antagonism and probably also a certain realignment of the balance of power between the two empires. It is all the more dangerous for both regional and world peace as the two players have utilized nationalist and secessionist aspirations to realize their goals. The main victims in the clash of empires are consequently the peoples inhabiting the country, whether they be Georgians, Ossetians or Abkhazians.

The American push to establish a presence along the whole southern flank of the Russian Federation has two geo-strategic goals: on the one hand, “containing” Chinese and Russian power; and on the other, controlling a highly oil-rich region. Specialists believe that the Caspian Sea reserves form some of the biggest oil reserves on the planet.

From the very beginning of the century, Washington has managed to set up a whole network of military bases in several Central Asian countries like Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. It has developed a privileged relationship with a whole series of local potentates who, like the Uzbek Islam Karimov, often have little to do with the human rights precepts. The United States has stridently put forward elsewhere these precepts to justify its interventions, or simply to classify a country as an ally, a trustworthy partner, a potential partner or a rogue state. A similar effort has been made in the Caucasus to complete the set-up, if necessary by widening the NATO perimeter.

On the question of control of oil resources, which evidently has become even more sensitive today with skyrocketing prices and the conviction that a shortage of this raw material looms in the medium term, Georgia plays a decisive role. Anchoring the country in the “Western bloc” is indeed a means of guaranteeing the transit of Caspian Sea crude oil and natural gas directly to Western markets. (See our map).

Up until 2005, much of this oil and natural gas transited Russia in pipelines to the Black Sea port of Novorossisk. Since that date, the construction of the Baku-Tbilissi-Cerhan (BTC) pipeline, which ends directly on the Mediterranean Sea, and the construction of the South Caucasus [natural gas] pipeline (SCP) have made it possible to avoid Russia. This consequently reinforces the strategic significance that Georgia has acquired in a concept of international relations that dates from another century.

Translated by Gene Zbikowski.

The AIDS Under-Count

Thu, 28 Aug 2008 01:48:00 +0000

8-27-08, 9:50 am

Recently it’s been revealed that the federal government has been under-estimating the number of American citizens infected with the AIDS virus. To me the cryptic part about that was several months ago major media pundits led a rush to laugh and discredit the Reverend Dr. Jeremiah Wright because of his accusations of government responsibility in the very creation of the virus (among other government plots he invoked) for the purpose of wiping out Black people, during a press conference back on 4/28. Back then Senator Barack Obama (IL) dismissed the remarks as “ridiculous propositions.”

Since the story broke about the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) under-counting (I say under-count because underestimate makes it sound accidental) new HIV cases by 40 percent, there has been no similar reply from Obama. Can the same organization (US government) that essentially made public false information on the amount of people that have the virus, be the same organization that manufactured the virus? Hmmm? According to the Associated Press: “The country had roughly 56,300 new HIV infections in 2006 – about a 40 percent increase from the 40,000 annual estimate used for the past dozen years. The new figure is due to a better blood test and new statistical methods, and not a worsening of the epidemic, officials said But it likely will refocus US attention from the effect of AIDS overseas to what the disease is doing to this country, said public health researchers and officials.” Though it seems odd that the US has failed to give remotely accurate numbers on it’s own citizens as opposed to citizens of foreign countries, others see optimism in the report mainly because of the anticipated funding.

'This is the biggest news for public health and HIV/AIDS that we've had in a while,' said Julie Scofield, executive director of the National Alliance of State and Territorial AIDS Directors. Experts in the field, advocates and a former surgeon general called for more aggressive testing and other prevention efforts, noting that spending on preventing HIV has been flat for seven years.” What is not being discussed is what direction the disease has taken during the uncharted period. And how does any powerful agency accomplish a miscount? Didn’t these people attend school? It seems nothing under George W. Bush works right, the CDC is a branch of the Department of Health and Human Services. Their job is to (don’t laugh) prevent disease and “control” diseases, environmental health and education.

The underestimate is also mystifying when you consider that the average age of their 15,000 employees is 46 and almost 40 percent, are said to have Masters Degrees, 25 percent have a Ph.D, 10 percent have medical degrees, and an ethnically diverse workforce. The CDC Web site claims that a new technology is responsible for the higher estimate and this has to do with blood tests in 22 states that can now distinguish cases that developed more recently. Though the numbers have dropped with heterosexuals and intervenious drug users, the estimate oddly-enough has risen with gays and Blacks; the two original HIV targets.

--Chris Stevenson is a columnist for the Buffalo Challenger, contact him at

Russia Recognizes South Ossetian Independence

Thu, 28 Aug 2008 01:44:00 +0000

8-27-08, 9:47 am

Moscow, Aug 26 (Prensa Latina) Russian President Dmitri Medvedev defended the legality of the recognition of sovereignty of the South Ossetia and Abkhazia autonomous Caucasian regions, now rejected by Georgia.

Medvedev highlighted the link between the Russian government's decision to recognize South Ossetia and Abkhazia with international rights and recalled that the Serbian province of Kosovo declared its independence unilaterally in February, and western countries considered it a special case.

He said every recognition case like the singular situation of Kosovo, South Ossetia or Abjasia, is special.

Medvedev stated he did not fear a new Cold War with the western countries, but declared that he wants to avoid it.

Russian Foreign Minister Serguei Lavrov warned that Russia does not fear imposing sanctions on Georgia after his country's recognition of the independence of the separatist regions.

Lavrov also denounced the member countries of the North Atlantic Treaty Organizations (NATO) for starting new arms shipments to Georgia.

Georgian troops attacked South Ossetia on August 7, resulting in almost 2,100 dead people.

Georgian President Mijail Saakashvili was mistakenly informed that NATO would defend Georgia, Lavrov said.

Lavrov denounced hypocrisy and cynicism of those who are fostering the behavior of the current Georgian government.

From Prensa Latina

McCain Campaign Fabricates 'Citizens for McCain'

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 05:26:00 +0000

8-26-08, 1:28 pm

John McCain got caught trying to pull another fast one this week. It has become habitual: getting CBS to cover up his misunderstanding of Bush's Iraq policy, getting an assist from Joe Lieberman after a similar flub on Iraq, substituting answering questions about why he doesn't know how many homes he owns with POW chatter, distorting or hiding the truth about his health care tax, pretending he's been for clean alternative energy all along, and fabricating a multitude of different positions on the Iraq.

But the latest McCain campaign screw-up is more interesting because of how it reveals who's behind the campaign to split Democrats between Clinton supporters and the rest of the party – a campaign that, although it is pure invention and tiny, the corporate media has been all too willing to help promote.

The McCain campaign invented a group called 'Citizens for McCain' in Florida. The goal was to sign up as many Democrats and Independents as possible to support McCain with the ultimate goal of fabricating and highlighting supposed differences between Hillary Clinton supporters and the rest of the Democratic Party.

Unfortunately, according to local investigations of the the group by political operatives, only 58 people signed up, which by itself suggests the group's insignificance in a state of several million voters. But more interesting was the fact that almost 20 percent of the people who signed on are registered as Republicans in Florida.

The McCain campaign's efforts to invent divisions among Democrats and their supporters drew a sharp rebuke from Hillary Clinton Monday, Aug. 25th, when she told the New York State delegation to the Democratic National Convention in Denver that unity will be the major theme of her speech scheduled for the evening of Tuesday, Aug. 26th.

Referring to specific McCain ads that try to promote divisiveness, Clinton remarked in her customary fighting tone, 'I understand that the McCain campaign is running ads trying to divide us, and let me state what I think about their tactics and these ads,' she said. 'I'm Hillary Clinton and I do not approve of that message.'

McCain Distorts Tax and Health Care Issues

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 01:58:00 +0000

8-26-08, 9:57 am

A recent TV ad by the McCain campaign titled 'Debra' appears to be suggesting that not only is John McCain a 'maverick,' but that he is also more like Hillary Clinton than George W. Bush. After Clinton narrowly failed to win the necessary votes in the Democratic primaries to clinch the nomination, the McCain campaign has begun direct appeals to her supporters in order to peel them away from supporting Barack Obama.

But Clinton backers are slapping back. Calling the ad a distortion of what Hillary Clinton is all about and a 'cheap political stunt,' Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), a Clinton endorser, said, “This ad does not reflect the sentiment of the thousands of former Clinton supporters from my Congressional District who have embraced Barack Obama’s message of uniting Americans and getting the country back on track.'

In a statement to the press this week responding directly to the ad, Wasserman Schultz further asserted that the ad demonstrates how much alike McCain is to the Bush administration, including the habit of using sleazy tactics conjured up by Karl Rove, who now advises McCain.

Wasserman Schultz also noted that the McCain ad's claims about taxes are simply false. 'Hillary Clinton supporters are embracing Barack Obama and Joe Biden because they know they will bring a tax code that gives real relief to working families, a serious plan to tackle the energy crisis and help you cope with rising prices, and an end to the kind of political game too often on display at McCain headquarters.'

Hillary Clinton, herself, reaffirmed her commitment this weekend to seeing the Obama-Biden ticket win this November in a message to supporters after the announcement that Biden had been chosen to run with Obama. Clinton has also repeatedly described a McCain presidency as a disaster for the country.

How McCain distorts the tax issue

The McCain ad is deceptive about McCain's proposed tax policies, recently noted. John McCain has called for an historic new tax on working families. His proposals include a new health care tax on workers' health benefits that totals, by some estimates, $3.6 trillion. This new health care tax would essentially redistribute taxpayer money to insurance companies, ostensibly to provide health care coverage. McCain's proposal, however, would make it more difficult for working families to find and purchase health insurance, analysts say.

The only significant changes that would happen under the McCain plan are that American working families would pay a new tax and employers would have a financial incentive to eliminate employee health care benefits.

By contrast, Obama calls for tax relief for working families averaging about $1,000 for households earning less than $227,000.

In addition, he proposes bringing the Iraq war to a close and using the $10 billion spent there per month to fund a three-pronged health care plan that would encourage the growth of the employee benefit system, provide more assistance for lower income families without job benefits to access health care programs like S-CHIP and Medicaid, and increase availability of the federal health insurance program (currently available to John McCain and all of Congress) to middle income families without job benefits.

While the Obama plan doesn't provide universal access to affordable coverage immediately, according to the Economic Policy Institute, it does far surpass McCain's health care tax plan in efficiency and increased coverage. In ten years, EPI estimates, the Obama plan as currently outlined would cut in half the number of people who lack health care coverage, which currently totals 48 million people and is expected to rise to 63 million, if the status quo persists, within a few years.

Universal health care advocates have pledged to continue to press for health care policies that will provide a faster road to universal coverage, including 'Medicare-for-all' proposals that have already been introduced in Congress.

--Reach Joel Wendland at

Tips on Installing Solar Power Panels

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 01:53:00 +0000

8-26-08, 9:55 am

EarthTalk From the Editors of E/The Environmental Magazine

Dear EarthTalk: I am considering solar panels for my roof to provide heat for my hot water and possibly to do more than that. Are there some kinds of solar panels that are better than others? How do I find a knowledgeable installer? -- Elise, Watertown, MA

What type of solar energy capture system you put on your home depends on your needs. If you want to go full tilt and generate usable electricity from your home’s rooftop – and even possibly contribute power back to the larger grid – tried and true photovoltaic arrays might be just the ticket. A typical installation involves the panels, which are constructed of many individual silicon-based photovoltaic cells and their support structures, along with an inverter, electrical conduit piping and AC/DC disconnect switches.

These systems can cost tens of thousands of dollars to install, and as such may not pencil out for those looking for the cheapest power solution. But the upside is that homeowners with photovoltaic panels on their rooftops can rest assured that as long as the sun shines, they will have power to spare without generating emissions of carbon dioxide and other noxious pollutants.

Qualified solar installers can usually advise clients on which specific types of systems will work best given the specific location of a home. U.S. homeowners can find qualified photovoltaic installers via the website FindSolar.com. And the North American Board of Certified Energy Practitioners (NABCEP) provides a free searchable database of its US and Canadian members specializing in home solar set-ups.

For less demanding applications, such as for heating water for your home or swimming pool, a much simpler (and less expensive) solar thermal system might be all you need. A basic hot water system usually consists of a solar collector – basically a small metal box with a glass or plastic cover and a black copper or aluminum absorber plate inside – tied into the building’s plumbing and electrical works. According to the industry tracker website Solarbuzz, such solar collectors are usually mounted on rooftops.

Professional installers can get your home up and running with a solar thermal system for less than $4,000 in most cases. While the savings in your electric bill may be small, homeowners in it for the long haul will definitely save over time, all the while enjoying the fact that you have lowered your family’s carbon footprint significantly.

Homeowners looking to find out more about residential solar systems should be sure to check out the RealGoods Solar Living Sourcebook, a 600+ page renewable energy “bible” now in its 30th edition. The book features the latest nuts-and-bolts information on how to harvest renewable energy in a variety of ways depending on need. And RealGoods also sells much if not all of the equipment needed.

Another reason to consider going solar in one fashion or another is tax incentives. According to the Database of State Incentives for Renewables and Efficiency (DSIRE), 17 states now offer homeowners some kind of tax rebate or incentive for the purchase and/or installation of solar power equipment of any kind. You can see what if any your state offers by logging onto the dsireusa.org website, where the searchable database is available in its entirety for free.

CONTACTS: Solarbuzz, www.solarbuzz.com; FindSolar.com, www.findsolar.com; NABCEP, www.nabcep.org; RealGoods, www.realgoods.com; DSIRE, www.dsireusa.org.

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

Cracks in the Neoliberal “Consensus”: The Meaning of the Nepali Revolution

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 01:50:00 +0000

8-26-08, 9:52 am

For some time I have been following developments in Nepal just as I have followed developments in Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and other countries experiencing dramatic political shifts in Latin America. Like countless other leftists, I am trying to orient myself to the realities of the 21st Century, to find out where we are, to understand the meaning of the changes underway in these and other parts of the globe. Sometimes I feel like the more I find out, the less I really know. But I’d like to think that I have at least something of a grip on South American politics, and have some understanding of the amazing cultures of that continent, having spent some time there. Nepal, on the other hand, couldn’t be further removed from both my political and cultural frames of reference. I feel like I understand the incredible complexity of its history and current situation even less.

And yet I can’t let this moment pass without at least commenting on the astonishing changes taking place in that mountainous country. News from Kathmandu is riveting.

Incredible as it is, a week has already passed since Pushpa Kamal Dahal (or “Prachanda”), the chairman of the Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist, was elected as the first prime minister of the new republic by the Constituent Assembly, garnering 80 percent of the vote. This has surprised some analysts, just as the elections for the Constituent Assembly brought its own surprise last April when the CPN-M got 38.10 percent of the vote – a popular vote, no less.

What all this means for the future of Nepal, no one can tell. Cautiously, however, I think we must conclude that these developments represent a major crack in the neoliberal consensus that has dominated world politics since the end of the Cold War. Flying in the faces of Fukuyamists everywhere, what greater sign could there be that history is not, in fact, over; that the battle of ideologies will continue for a long time to come? It is undeniably significant when, nearly two decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union, a communist-led movement is defining the politics of a country, even if that country is as small as Nepal.

Of course I have reservations about the Nepali Maoists (hence much of the hesitating tenor of this little commentary). There are disturbing allegations about the party circulating around. The United Nations Mission in Nepal, for instance, alleged that during the lead up to the elections in April, they were intimidating officials. The European Union maintains that they used child soldiers in their “people’s war” against the theocratic monarchy. And Hugo Chávez has recently stated that “guerrilla warfare is over,” calling into question the very propriety of using violence to advance “progressive” goals. (Though to put things in perspective, it should be noted that of the 12,800 people who were killed in the conflict since 1996, 8,200 – or the vast majority – were killed by the autocratic monarchial government, with significant aid from the US.)

But let’s put aside the character of the CPN-M for a moment. It is not the most amazing, and promising, aspect of Nepal’s current situation. The people are what’s most important. Whatever we think about the tactics of the CPN-M, nothing changes the fact that the people of Nepal have taken a sharp left turn, shirking the so-called wisdom of Washington and the forces of global capital. Let’s do a little math. In the April elections for the Constituent Assembly, 38.10 percent of the delegates voted into office were from the ranks of the CPN-M, as stated earlier. 17.97 percent came from the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist), the second largest communist party in the country. These alone constitute over 56 percent of the seats. When you add up the seats that went to other communist parties (there are six others represented), the percentage is 61.55! Overwhelmingly, the Assembly is dominated by communists, and when you consider that a social democratic party, the Nepali Congress, received the second greatest number of seats (19.13 percent), a picture of left-center hegemony in Nepali politics emerges. Only a small number of seats went to right-wing and monarchist parties. The people of Nepal, clearly, want a brighter future than either feudalism or neoliberal capitalism can offer.

What I find truly promising about the development of this left-center movement in Nepal is that it is not controlled by a single political party, or a single ideological tendency. Certainly, the CPN-M seems to be at the top for the moment, but it is nothing like what happened in Russia, for instance, where the Bolshevik Party emerged as the only political entity with any real power (this happened in many countries, actually, leading to the grave mistake known as the single-party state). As Joe Sims said in the third edition of his “Ten Worst and Best Ideas of Marxism” series in the Political Affairs Editor’s Blog, “The existence of two or more working-class parties in a number of countries – in some cases – for several decades raises basic questions as to whether single structures in the long run are desirable or achievable.” I suspect that the concentration of power in single political organizations has been largely responsible for the bureaucratic and authoritarian deformations that prevented the establishment of true worker’s states following socialist revolutions in the 20th century. Without the checks and balances offered by a genuinely pluralistic left (or left-center) hegemony – a bona fide people’s power – what is to prevent such deformations from occurring? In Nepal, if one party gets out of line (like the CPN-M’s militia committing acts of violence), the other parties can pressure them to correct their behavior. And if one party falls out of favor, it doesn’t necessarily take the whole left with it. In the USSR, when the CPSU fell out of power, there was no organized left alternative to counter the onslaught of capitalist restoration in the form of economic “shock therapy.” The CPSU was the left, pure and simple.

We should all regard Nepal as significant for a number of reasons. One is that the consolidation of people’s power in that country, should it happen, would offer a great deal of hope to neighboring India, a nation of over one billion people and thriving communist movements, especially in the states of Kerala, West Bengal and Tripura. Strategically, I think, this is quite important. Moreover, along with the Bolivarian revolutions underway in Latin America, though with vastly different circumstances, it represents – as I said earlier – a crack in the capitalist world order that defenders of the status quo should find both troubling and shocking. Hopefully it will have rippling effects, inspiring all of us in the world communist movement and increasing the possibility of real people’s power worldwide. I remain guardedly skeptical, as usual, but I am holding my breath.