People Before Profit blog

UN General Assembly President Statement on Global Economic Crisis

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 05:08:00 +0000

6-29-09, 12:52 pm

ADDRESS BY MIGUEL D’ESCOTO BROCKMANN, PRESIDENT OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY, UPON ADOPTION OF THE OUTCOME DOCUMENT OF THE UNITED NATIONS CONFERENCE ON THE WORLD FINANCIAL AND ECONOMIC CRISIS AND ITS IMPACT ON DEVELOPMENT

NEW YORK, 26 JUNE 2009

Excellencies, United Nations Colleagues, Representatives of Civil Society, Brothers and Sisters all,

We have come to the middle of the third day of this historic United Nations Conference on the World Financial and Economic Crisis and Its Impact on Development. I congratulate you all for successfully initiating the global conversation on the economic crisis that continues to unfold around us and for beginning an in-depth, unprecedented review of the international financial and economic architecture.

The world has had the opportunity to hear the voices of the G-192. All the Members of the General Assembly have had and continue to have the chance to express their points of view. Today our efforts have culminated in the adoption by consensus of an outcome document that represents the first step in a long process of putting the world on a new path towards SOLIDARITY, stability and sustainability.

The United Nations General Assembly, the G-192, has now been established as the central forum for the discussion of world financial and economic issues, and this in itself is a major achievement. In addition, the General Assembly has been asked to follow up on these issues through an ad hoc open-ended working group.

The issues to be followed up range from crisis mitigation – including global stimulus measures, special drawing rights (SDRs) and reserve currencies – to topics such as the restructuring of the financial and economic system and architecture, including reform of the international financial institutions and the role of the United Nations; external debt; international trade; investment; taxation; development assistance; South-South cooperation; new forms of financing; corruption and illicit financial flows; and regulation and monitoring.

At the same time, it has been recognized that the financial and economic crisis must not delay the necessary global response to climate change and environmental degradation through initiatives for building a 'green economy'.

The G-192 has proved itself capable of reaching consensus on the convening and modalities of this Conference and on a substantive outcome document that addresses issues of great importance to humanity. It has also been able to chart a course for carrying the process forward on the basis of the lines of action set out in the Conference outcome document.

We have had three days of very successful work and, now that the outcome document has been formally adopted, it is only fitting that we salute each other's efforts and, in particular, that we congratulate the two facilitators, Ambassador Frank Majoor of the Kingdom of the Netherlands and Ambassador Camilo Gonsalves of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. Of course, we also express our warmest thanks to the President's Commission of Experts, which was so ably coordinated by Professor Joseph Stiglitz.

We are happy but not content, or rather, not completely satisfied. Other crises loom on the horizon, such as the clean water, global warming, food, energy and humanitarian crises affecting millions of our brothers and sisters, especially children suffering from hunger and thirst.

We must all join forces to confront these crises. The proposals we have adopted today point in this direction. But much remains to be done.

We are heartened by the expressions of political will to shoulder our shared responsibility to cooperate, but we will not be content so long as these pressing issues remain unresolved.

My role as President of this General Assembly, which brings together representatives of all the world's peoples, is to invite you to look beyond today's economic concerns and to hold out hope for the common future of the Earth and of humanity.

We may well ask, what next? Not necessarily in terms of the economy, but in terms of humanity. Where are we headed? At this point it is unlikely that anyone, however wise, can answer this question with certainty. But even without having the answers, we can all seek and build together the consensus that will lead us towards a more hopeful future for us all and for Mother Earth.

This reminds me of the vision of the great French scientist, archaeologist and mystic Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. In China, where he carried out his research on “Homo pekinensis”, he had something like a vision.

Looking at the advances in technology, trade and communications that were shortening distances and laying the foundations for what he liked to call planetization, rather than globalization, Teilhard de Chardin was already saying, in the 1930s, that we were witnessing the emergence of a new era for the Earth and for humanity.

What was about to appear, de Chardin told us, was the noosphere, after the emergence in the evolutionary process of the anthroposphere, the biosphere, the hydrosphere, the atmosphere and the lithosphere. Now comes the new sphere, the sphere of synchronized minds and hearts: the noosphere. As we know, the Greek word noos refers to the union of the spirit, the intellect and the heart.

Where are we headed? I venture to believe and hope that we are all headed towards the slow but unstoppable emergence of the noosphere. Human beings and peoples will discover and accept each other as brothers and sisters, as a family and as a single species capable of love, solidarity, compassion, non-violence, justice, fraternity, peace and spirituality.

Is this a utopia? It is undoubtedly a utopia, but a necessary one. It guides us in our search. A utopia is, by definition, unattainable. But it is like the stars: they are unreachable, but what would the night sky be without stars? It would be nothing but darkness and we would be disoriented and lost. A utopia likewise lends direction and purpose to our lives and struggles.

The noosphere, then, is the next step for humanity. Allow me a small digression: if, in the time of the dinosaurs, which inhabited the Earth for more than 100 million years and disappeared some 65 million years ago, a hypothetical observer had wondered what the next evolutionary step would be, he probably would have thought: more of the same. In other words, even bigger and more voracious dinosaurs.

But that answer would have been wrong. That hypothetical observer never would have imagined that a small mammal no bigger than a rabbit, living in treetops, feeding on flowers and shoots and trembling at the possibility of being devoured by a dinosaur, would eventually become our ancestor.

From that creature, millions of years later, emerged something completely new, with qualities totally different from those of the dinosaurs, including a conscience, intelligence and love: the first human beings, from whom we who are gathered here are descended.

And so it was not more of the same. It was a break, a new step.

I firmly believe that today we are once again on the threshold of a new step in the evolutionary process: a step towards a human family that is united with itself, with nature and with Mother Earth.

I am tempted to echo the words: “I have a dream!”. It is, indeed, a dream. A glorious, beautiful, happy dream.

The main focus of this new step will be life in all its forms, humanity with all its peoples and ethnic groups, the Earth as a mother with all its vitality and an economy that creates the material conditions for making all this possible. We will need the material capital we have built up, but the focus will be on human and spiritual capital, whose most wholesome fruits are fraternity or brotherhood, cooperation, solidarity, love, economic and ecological justice, compassion and the capacity to coexist happily with all our differences, in the same shared home, the great and generous Mother Earth.

They say that Jesus, Buddha, Francis of Assisi, Rumi, Tolstoy, Gandhi, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King and many other great prophets and teachers of the past and present, of which every country and culture has an exemplar, were ahead of their time in taking this new step.

They are all our most formative teachers, our lodestars, who fan the flame of hope that assures us that we still have a future, a blessed future for all of us.

As our dear brother Joseph Stiglitz aptly put it: “The legacy of this economic and financial crisis will be a worldwide battle of ideas”.

I firmly believe that new ideas, new visions and new dreams will galvanize our spirits and our hearts. The old gods are dying out, and new ones are emerging with the vigor of newborn infants. My reflections are meant to bring energy and enthusiasm to this battle of ideas and visions.

If we humans are to take a qualitative leap forward, we must give up our quest to become the lords and masters of creation, forgetting that we are not owners but only caretakers, which, after all, is no small thing.

Only when we accept the fact that we are caretakers and not owners and that we will one day be held to account for our stewardship will the grandeur of our humanity shine forth.

Thank you.

Communist Party Statement on Honduras Crisis

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 02:22:00 +0000

Original source: Communist Party USA

The Communist Party USA (CPUSA) joins with the world in denouncing the coup d’etat this morning against the legally elected president of the Republic of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, by the Honduran military, in which, according to a statement by the president’s wife, Mr. Zelaya was threatened and beaten before being sent into exile in Costa Rica.

• The CPUSA denounces alarming reports of physical attacks by troops against the ambassadors of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua in Tegucigalpa, and calls for protection of all diplomatic personal; and, if the reports of the attacks are confirmed, punishment of all the responsible parties for this gross violation of Honduran and international law.

The CPUSA further:

• Demands that president Zelaya and other members of his government be returned to power immediately, and that the troops return to their barracks.

• Demands the immediate release of all labor, community and student leaders who have reportedly been rounded up by the army, and the restoration of freedom of the press.

• Recognizes that the Obama administration has repudiated the coup, and insists that President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton hold firm to this position, refusing diplomatic recognition and any military aid to Honduras until President Zelaya is restored to power.

• Calls upon unions and other people’s organizations in the United States to actively support our brothers and sisters in Honduras in resisting this brutal military coup d’etat.

Declaración del Partido Comunista sobre la crisis de Honduras

El Partido Comunista de los Estados Unidos (CPUSA) se une con el mundo entero en denunciar al golpe de estado militar que se llevó a cabo esta mañana en contra del presidente legitimo de la Republica de Honduras, Manuel Zelaya por militares hondureños, en que, según dice la Sra. de Zelaya, el presidente fue golpeado y amenazado físicamente, antes de ser exiliado a Costa Rica.

• El Partido Comunista de los Estados expresa su coraje e indignación por las versiones según las cuales tropas hondureñas agredieron a los embajadores de Cuba, Venezuela y Nicaragua en Tegucigalpa, e insiste que, al confirmarse tales reportes, los agresores sean castigados por esta grave infracción de las leyes internacionales y de la Republica de Honduras.

Además, el Partido Comunista de los Estados Unidos:

• Exige de que el presidente Zelaya y otros integrantes de su gobierno sean devuelto a poder en forma inmediatamente, y que todas las tropas regresen a sus cuarteles.

• Exige que todos los dirigentes laborales, comunales y estudiantiles que, según reportes, han sido detenidos por las fuerzas armadas sean puestos en libertad, y que la libertad de la prensa sea restaurada en forma inmediata.

• Reconoce que la administración del presidente estadounidense Barack Obama ha repudiado el golpe de estado, y exige que tanto Obama como la secretaria de asuntos exteriores Hillary Clinton se mantengan firmes en esta actitud, negando el reconocimiento diplomático y cualquier ayuda material hasta que se restaure al Presidente Zelaya a su puesto.

• Hace un llamado a los sindicatos y otras organizaciones populares en nuestro país, a que apoyen en forma activa a nuestras hermanas y hermanos en Honduras que ya están organizando una valiente resistencia en contra del golpe.

Latin America has to Guarantee the Defeat of the Coup in Honduras

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 02:19:00 +0000

6-29-09, 10:00 am

Original source:

Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolás Maduro Moros said Sunday, from Miraflores Presidential Palace, that Latin America must guarantee the defeat of the coup d'etat against the President of Honduras Manuel Zelaya and try those responsible.

'Latin America has to guarantee the defeat of this coup d'etat and also has to demand, without conditions, the reestablishment of President Manuel Zelaya and ensure justice is done to the fullest extent so that the rabid ultra-right gets a clear message, that they cannot take swipes at the democratic processes that the people are carrying forward,' Foreign Minister Maduro expressed.

Minister Maduro said that it is clear that those responsible for this military coup, 'those who have not shown their faces, but who will be discovered in the end, should be submitted to international justice for violating the democratic Charter and the constitutional rights of the Honduran people.'

'Sooner or later,' the Venezuelan foreign minister indicated, 'the people accompanied by the governments of Latin America and the Caribbean are going to defeat this coup, fomented by these fascists who kidnapped president Zelaya, and his principle collaborators and who continue to hold captive the [Honduran] foreign minister Patricia Rodas.'

The Venezuelan diplomat announced that today had been a day of intense consultation in order to convoke various international scenarios, where the situation could be analyzed, among those, a meeting of member countries of the Rio Group, 'we have direct contact with the foreign ministers from Central America and of the Bolivarian Alliance for Our Americas (ALBA), as well as diverse political and social actors in Honduras. We know that the people remain in the streets in a very valiant manner, resisting, confronting this coup d'etat that is a direct expression of the oligarchy and [private] media.'

He stressed that a Venezuelan commission has been activated in Costa Rica supporting the president of Honduras Manuel Zelaya, 'we are in contact for the convocation of this Presidential Summit in Managua that is going to coincide with the summit of the System of Central American Integration (SICA).'

The Venezuelan foreign minister emphasized that the media is justifying the coup, 'today they [the media] awoke in silence so that no one would be informed [of the coup]. It was [the Venezuelan-based] Telesur, that broke the media dictatorship, the media dictators of the Honduran oligarchy and the continental oligarchy tried to impose silence.'

'We remain in contact with, we have spoken recently with a senator from Chile and with other parliamentarians who are observers in the poll [in Honduras], and they told us that people continue voting until late afternoon hours as a form of expression and of support for the democracy of president Zelaya,' he said. He pointed out that there is a large concentration in front of the Honduran presidential palace, 'the rumours are running that they are going to decree a state of siege, but the people of Honduras are disposed to confront all the measures that this rookie dictatorship aims to impose.'

(Translated for Venezuelanalysis.com by Kiraz Janicke)

Time to Step Out of Cold War Shadow

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 02:14:00 +0000

6-29-09, 9:58 am

Original source: Global Times (China)

The three-year Korean War, which started June 25, 1950, left serious casualties, deepened the Cold War that lasted four decades, and prolonged hostility between the East and the West.

Decades after the Cold War, Northeast Asia has seen booming economic growth. But economic prosperity in the region hasn’t dampened hostility on the Korean Peninsula.

While the Korean War has faded from many memories, a formal peace treaty has not yet been signed, meaning that officially the Korean Peninsula is still at war.

Ideological confrontation has been dispelled and replaced by economic survival in most of the former Cold War fronts. But the Korean Peninsula, the last remnant of the old Cold War days, remains a dangerous powder keg.

Late last month, after its second nuclear test escalated military tension, North Korea announced it would withdraw from the 1953 armistice that ended fighting in the war, to resist pressure from the US and the South. It was a good reminder of how fragile the region’s stability is.

The scene along the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), the 38th parallel buffer area separating the two Koreas, is chilling. It is dotted with landmines and tank traps, with huge armies positioned at either side, guns leveled at one another.

The tension highlights the lack of a collaborative security system in the region. The current military alliances between the US, Japan and South Korea no longer fit the situation.

To many security scholars, six-party talks and existing regional organizations are better positioned to form the basis for an East Asia security framework.

With the ghost of war still haunting the region, the six-party talks face the danger of being phased out if they fail to find a breakthrough.

The regional security system is also hindered by the complexity of the fast development of China, the growing military ambition of Japan, a more powerful Russia, a deeply involved US, and a South Korea that is stuck between seeking security and unification.

China, however, plays a crucial role in preventing the numerous confrontations from breaking out into regional conflict. It has played a very active role in regional economic cooperation, from which it has built considerable influence.

The possibility of a large-scale war is significantly reduced. As the security framework in Northeast Asia shifts, it seems hard to imagine that six decades from now the Korean Peninsula could still be locked in a delicate military balance.

Long-term regional stablity in the future will depend on struggles at the negotiation table, not the battlefield.

Commentary: Waking Up

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 02:05:00 +0000

We wake up in the morning to hear and watch the newest tragedy that has swept the world’s media attention. One morning it is the tragic crash of an airplane, the next some contested elections that turn violent as people revel. Soon, the media lens is directed to the death of a star, but after a few days, the media bites ease and as a few specialized commentators continue discussing previous events, cameras and microphones have gone somewhere else. Amidst this media frenzy, the future of the world is being orchestrated as attentive spectators watch in silence and (sometimes) disbelief.

Serious events and acts are taking place everyday which merit serious social debate, yet because of the fact that our societies are deeply fragmented, broken and clashing between each other, we are unable to grant ourselves the necessary pause, required for conciliation and unity. Because of this, we are easy to control as a mass of isolated individuals, which is held together by norms and regulations, bureaucracies, military, and police, and concepts such as the nation state, the church and the corporation. If we are to stay in this model of society, I fear we will live in perpetual war until we destroy ourselves by not paying attention to the fact that something is drastically wrong.

We are living in societies plagued with corruption at all levels, we are constantly expanding our militarized societies surveiled by police forces and colonizing armies, which are rapidly eroding our freedoms. In the meantime, the resources of the world are generating massive amounts of wealth for a small minority, as our natural heritage is being rapidly dilapidated. In exchange, the majority of the global population receives what we have come to identify as 'security,' when in effect, it could be clearly labeled as racketeering. As a collective, the mass of the population gets terrorized and soon succumbs to authoritarian rule.

In the Western world – the bastion of democracy – we console ourselves with the thought that we are free, we refer to ourselves as members of the free world and compare our free societies with tyrannies that govern in other parts of the planet. This we justify by the fact that our elected officials have reached the podium through an electoral system of some kind, thus in effect being representatives of our interests as citizens. It can be argued that this is a fair assumption, as long as we conduct our field research in a laboratory, but if we engage with members of the numerous sub-communities, which exist within the boundaries of delineated Nation States, we quickly realize that there is tremendous discontent and frustration brewing amongst the population. At the same time, there exists in our societies a sense of impotence and fear that if the boat is rocked, things will get worse.

As the world globalizes on different planes – intellectually, spiritually, socially, politically, economically and militarily, to name a few, we are faced with the realization of the global consequences of our actions, or our inactions. At this point, all we can do is practice the great and often forgotten virtues of just analysis, honest critique and self-amelioration, hoping to contribute something of value to the global village. Without these virtues, we fall into the trap of blaming others for our barbarous crimes. When starving kids in poorer nations are dying and have no access to food or water, we blame the country’s tribal lords and corrupt politicians, we forget to mention the exploitation and extortion carried out by our corporations with the aid of our governments and laws. When we go to war, we blame tyrannical leaders for forcing us to attack them – we unload bombs on civilian populations in the name of preemptive strikes and the defence of freedom. We forget to question whether we have become animals and have lost all sense of reason. When our free-market banking system collapses and our politicians tell us that institutions are too-big-to-fail and must be bailed out by the taxpayers, we are quick to accept their jittery explanations and swiftly approve their actions. We forget to wonder whether we are being conned. Finally, when a surveillance society rises from within our democratic-communities and our freedoms are radically eroded, engrossed in our own delusion of freedom, we forget to evaluate whether we are still living in democratic states, or have transcended into something different. It is this lack of questioning which has paralyzed us as a collective-mass, and keeps us extracted from the true decision making process – the one that defines our present global reality and is shaping the future we will leave for others to inherit.

Although I believe professor Chomsky is right in advocating that “prediction in human affairs is a very uncertain enterprise”, I think it is safe to predict, that tomorrow we will wake up in the morning and the media will be playing out the show of the day, perhaps it will report on North Korean bombs, street fights in Iran, the failing state of California, the Madoff financial scandal, or the bombings in Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan – amidst millions of other news, which will navigate through our systems of communication mobilizing us in one direction or another. It is also safe to predict, that unless there is a drastic change in the will and choice of the majority, at most tomorrow, we can expect isolated demonstrations making isolated requests; stop the war in Gaza, fight for gay rights, defend freedom of speech in Iran, or safe the Polar Bear. We are still far from defending a globally united cause for environmental sustainability and continuity, equality, freedom and justice for all, a fair system of distribution, and an end to oppression and war. If we can one day unite under that banner, all together at the same time and prolonging our request, popular uprisings in Iran, in Gaza, Iraq and Afghanistan, will inspire us all and we will unite under the same cause. If this happens, together we will break our chains from the elite that govern us, and bridge the abyss, which has separated us from each other. A brilliant man I know once told me, that despite what we are told, human beings are not too different from each other. I believe he is right, but we must wake up in order to understand this.

Book Review: The Voice of Hope

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 01:59:00 +0000

Aung San Suu Kyi: The Voice Of Hope – Conversations

by Alan Clements

New York, Seven Stories Press, 2008

U Tin U, the National League for Democracy (NLD) Deputy Leader, once said that “Burma is a prison within a prison.” His words highlight the tragic political, social and economic circumstances that Burma is faced with today, because of the military junta. Their calling card is a permanent stain on the failure of humanity.

The thoughts, movements and actions of more than 50 million civilians are under constant surveillance by a regime obsessed with maintaining control. Yet Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s thoughts, words and actions provide a beacon of hope that a people’s democracy living in peace will someday take shape in Burma.

Author Alan Clements travelled to Rangoon in December 1995 to meet secretly with Daw Suu Kyi and recorded a series of dialogues with the leader of the NLD. Clements’ involvement with Burma goes back 30 years. He is the first American to be ordained a Buddhist monk, and like all foreign journalists entering Burma, he has also encountered the wrath of the military junta by being deported.

Between his extensive knowledge of the domestic situation, and Daw Suu Kyi’s wisdom and elegance in answering every question put before her, readers will understand just how Buddhism is closely connected with politics in Burma, and why the concepts of faith and metta (loving kindness) are among the building blocks of any genuine democracy.

Each chapter is named after a sentence that typifies the beliefs, sacrifice and struggle that best summarize key points in Daw Suu Kyi’s existence. It also demonstrates the enormous love that she shares for every person who has risked their life to hear speeches delivered from her compound. She also speaks repeatedly of compassion towards members of the SPDC and declares that they too can show love for the people of Burma. This may surprise readers, but perfectly encompasses everything she stands for.

One cannot help but show admiration for any individual willing to risk their life to hear a political icon outline the real situation in Burma, and be prepared to listen to how and why civilians are suffering. In the process of unraveling Daw Suu Kyi’s deepest thoughts, Clements uncovers a defiant individual that will not be intimidated by weaponry in the hands of authority, while uncovering the keys to life; love for humanity, education and an open heart.

Daw Suu Kyi speaks modestly and candidly in describing her upbringing, the role of her parents in shaping her values, her frenetic daily routine while under house arrest, life abroad and eventual homecoming to Burma, and unrelenting commitment to nonviolence.

The appeal of the dialogue is that Daw Suu Kyi’s answers to some of Clements’ lengthy questions and points are presented plainly and with fervour as if addressing a crowd of tens of thousands of her supporters. There is no place for political spin within these pages, which enhances the readability.

One theme that resonates through the entire book is the tenacity of the people of Burma and their ability to adopt a sense of humor in spite of the horrific conditions that they face. It takes a special human being to constantly laugh throughout years of suffering. Clements has clearly done his background research to prompt thought provoking answers from Daw Suu Kyi and in doing so, delivers possibly the greatest insight into the world’s most famous female political icon. It is impossible to have conceived the danger facing Clements and Daw Suu Kyi, making the discussions and writing of this publication all the more plausible.

Throughout the course of the book, the reader becomes acutely aware of the volatile situation that Burma has faced in recent decades, a scenario sadly prevalent to this day. The facts itself relating to Burma’s political, social and economic demise are not new, but Clements aims to provide shock therapy and reveal to the world the extent and frequency of abuse. He succeeds in piercing the heart and soul deeply enough and warn us that if we do not regard Burma as our highest priority, then it is not just the people that face the harshest consequences of tyranny. As a society, we will all carry the burden of watching humans slowly die without directly intervening.

This is not only an incredible individual we are learning about more intricately. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is consistent that her work is only possible through the efforts of her fellow party members, which leads to Clements interviewing with individuals whose voices and actions that been vocal in their opposition to the military junta. He speaks candidly with U Gambira, leader of the All-Burma Monks Alliance and inspiration for the 2007 Saffron Revolution, and influential NLD individuals and scholars U Kyi Maung and U Tin U. Their insights, along with a chronology of the country’s recent and international contacts, give readers the tools to ensure that Burma is discussed at every regional and international meeting, and at dinner tables and bars. There is so much at stake now, not just with Aung San Suu Kyi’s trial but with the farcical elections due to be held in 2010.

Aung San Suu Kyi: The Voice Of Hope reminds us all that the forgotten people of Burma are not just the dead who have been forced to onto their knees for so much of their lives, but the living voiceless. Alan Clements has presented us a manual for life that crudely tells the most powerful leaders on the planet to stop waiting for a miracle to occur. This book is the catapult that will launch individuals into taking immediate action. The message here is loud and clear; use your rights and privileges to help the long-suffering civilians of Burma gain their freedom. Without Aung San Suu Kyi’s presence, our world will be so empty.

--David Calleja is a regular contributor to Foreign Policy Journal and member of Burma Campaign Australia.

Is Clean Coal Possible?

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 01:49:00 +0000

6-29-09, 9:33 am

EarthTalk From the Editors of E/The Environmental Magazine

Dear EarthTalk: As I understand it, “clean” coal really isn’t—yet the Bush Administration gushed strongly for it. What is Obama’s take on it? -- John Zippert, Eutaw, AL

Barack Obama and George W. Bush differ in many ways, but both have embraced so-called “clean coal” for providing an ongoing supply of cheap and readily available energy for electricity generation.

The term “clean coal” is loosely defined as coal that is washed or processed to remove pollutants, so as to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), the leading greenhouse gas, when the coal is burned. Coal-burning plants emit 40 percent of U.S. CO2 pollution—half of our electricity comes from coal—so reducing the industry’s carbon footprint in any way possible would be a big win for the environment.

Luckily for clean coal advocates, the White House has been and continues to push for its development. George W. Bush’s support for clean coal dates back to his first term in office, when he stated that such technologies should be encouraged as a means of reducing dependence on foreign oil. And since taking office, the Obama administration has committed $3.4 billion in stimulus dollars to clean coal projects.

But green groups continue to question the wisdom of relying on coal at all. Coal wreaks environmental havoc, from the coal mines that pollute rivers and streams, to the premature deaths of coal miners from accidents and lung diseases, to the release of greenhouse gases, mercury and other toxins at power plants.

According to Greenpeace, burning coal emits 29 percent more CO2 than does burning oil or natural gas. And coal-fired power plants are the world’s largest sources of atmospheric mercury, a known neurotoxin that disperses quickly throughout the environment and into the food chain. Greenpeace says that clean coal technologies will not address this problem, and that there are “no commercially available technologies to prevent mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants.” Also, the group says, clean coal will do nothing to mitigate coal mining’s damage to wildlife habitat and drinking water sources.

“There is no such thing as ‘clean coal’ and there never will be,” Dan Becker of the Sierra Club told the Grist.org website. “It’s an oxymoron.” The Reality Coalition, a group of nonprofits that includes the Sierra Club, has been running TV ads seeking to debunk industry claims that coal can be clean. Green groups also worry that pushing clean coal will only delay the transition to a truly cleaner and greener energy infrastructure based on solar, wind and other emissions-free renewable energy sources.

In April of 2009, environmental lawyer Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. questioned the motivations of Obama and other politicians who back clean coal. “The coal industry and the carbon industry in general are the largest contributors to the political process,” Kennedy told ABC News. “You don’t have politicians representing the American public, but rather the people who finance their campaigns.”

Of course, Obama’s support for clean coal doesn’t negate the fact that he has proposed spending much more on further development of alternative energy sources. He has called for getting 10 percent of U.S. electricity from renewable sources by 2012 and 25 percent by 2025, and has committed upwards of $32 billion of stimulus dollars to the cause, according to an analysis by the nonprofit Environment America.

CONTACTS: Greenpeace, www.greenpeace.org; Reality Coalition, www.thisisreality.org.

SEND YOUR ENVIRONMENTAL QUESTIONS TO: EarthTalk, P.O. Box 5098, Westport, CT 06881; earthtalk@emagazine.com. Read past columns at: www.emagazine.com/earthtalk/archives.php. EarthTalk is now a book! Details and order information at: www.emagazine.com/earthtalkbook.

Honduran People Demand Return of President Manuel Zelaya

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 04:18:00 +0000

6-28-09, 12:01 pm

HAVANA, Cuba, June 28 (acn) The Honduran people have taken to the streets of the capital Tegucigalpa to demand the return of President Manuel Zelaya, who was kidnapped early on Sunday by military forces. Uncertainty prevails in the country as people fear for the life of the Honduran President, according to media reports.

The news about a coup attempt is common knowledge in the country, while the media in favor of the local oligarchy silence the details about the kidnapping of Zelaya, according to reports by PL news, which adds that the state TV channel was taken out of the air.

The Honduran people have mobilized and marched towards the Presidential Palace, while leaders of social organizations interviewed by TELESUR TV Channel affirmed that demonstrators are accusing the military that supported the coup attempt of being traitors, in what is described as a confrontation raising its tone.

Some military vehicles stationed around the Presidential Palace withdrew from their positions at times in the face protest actions by the people, who have thrown stones against the military supporting the coup.

The homes and offices of top Honduran government officials have been surrounded by the military, though Foreign Minister Patricia Rodas affirmed that the struggle for the rights of the people will not be reversed.

This incident has originated from the decision of oligarchic groups to boycott the development of Sunday’s opinion poll, which is the first step for a future call for a National Constituent Assembly to make reforms on the country’s Constitution aimed at defending the fundamental rights of the Honduran people.

Earlier today, Foreign Minister Patricia Rodas denounced the kidnapping of President Zelaya by the military, in statements to TELESUR TV Channel.

“Our offices and homes have been surrounded by the military, but as long as we have the right to speak we will denounce the actions aimed at thwarting the people’s referendum,” she said and went on to note “this is a crime against our democracy and we have affirmed that we will continue with our struggle despite the consequences, but our people will not kneel down before those who want to kill the hope we are building.”

This attack has been perpetrated by the same oligarchic groups that submitted the Honduran people to hunger and poverty for decades, said the Foreign Minster and she affirmed “the people will follow on the way to democracy with us or without us.”

Reports say that the Organization of American States (OAS) called an urgent meeting of its Permanent Council to analyze the crisis in Honduras and “to defend the country’s democratic stability.”

Honduran radio stations have been reporting, since very early hours on Sunday, that President Zelaya was detained and forcibly taken away by a grouped of hooded military after a shooting took place between the kidnappers and the President’s personal guards; the reports do not say if there were killed or injured people in the action, according to AP.

From the Cuban News Agency

Sebelius Reiterates Obama's Support for Public Option

Sun, 28 Jun 2009 04:45:00 +0000

6-27-09, 12:29 pm

Pressing hard on the urgency of needed health reform, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius released a set of new state-by-state reports this week documenting the nation's broken health system.

The new reports reveal that it doesn't matter which state or region, 'the health care crisis impacts all of America,' Sebelius told reporters on a conference call June 26. In her responses to questions, she reiterated President Obama's support for a public option as part of the needed reforms.

The reports, produced by HHS's Agency for Health Research and Quality, showed a dire picture of far too many people without coverage and far too many with insurance who have only inadequate access to care. 'Skyrocketing health care costs are hurting families, forcing businesses to cut or drop health benefits, and straining state budgets,' the reports point out. 'Millions are paying more for less.'

In a state like North Dakota, for example, 11 percent of the state's residents have no insurance, even though 70 percent of those people are from households with at least one full-time worker.

In South Carolina, the cost of the average family premium has risen by 92 percent since 2000 alone.

In Montana, a typical family plan premium costs more than $12,000, and just two private insurance companies dominate about 85 percent of the market.

Small businesses in Arizona constitute 73 percent of the state's businesses, but only 32 percent of them are able to provide health care benefits. Increasing costs have driven that number down by almost one-fifth since 2000, the HHS report showed.

In Texas, insurance companies are legally allowed to exclude or deny coverage to people they believe have 'preexisting conditions,' essentially ensuring that people who need coverage the most will struggle to get needed care. The HHS report labeled the overall quality of care in that state as 'weak.'

The high cost of care causes 13 percent of people in Indiana to go without needed medical attention, and the percent of state residents with employment-based coverage has declined from 71 percent to 66 percent since 2000.

This problem is worse in Kentucky where 17 percent of people report doing without care because of costs, and the number of residents with employment-based coverage has fallen to less than 6 in 10. The main issue, again, is that small businesses have dropped employee benefits in growing numbers since 2000 because of high costs.

Similar alarming numbers can be found in every state, the HHS found.

'These are more than just numbers and facts, more than just numbers on a page,' Secretary Sebelius remarked. 'They represent real people and families in states across the country who are struggling.'

Responding to reporters' questions about the inclusion of a public option in the health reform package, Sebelius restated President Obama's support for the public option as a competition mechanism that provides 'the best way to have cost containment.'

Referring to bills being drafted in both houses of Congress right now, Sebelius said, 'I think it's pretty clear with the bills coming forward that a public option is definitely part of the strategy.'

She said the proposed reforms in the bill will help small businesses provide employee benefits. It will give the uninsured and underinsured access to health care coverage, including a choice of a public plan.

The Reason the Cold War has been Renewed

Sun, 28 Jun 2009 04:42:00 +0000

6-27-09, 12:26 pm

Original source: The Guardian (Australia)

Over dinner the other night, we were discussing the way the world had changed in our lifetime, let alone our parents’ lifetime. When my parents were born, the British Empire bestrode the world like a colossus: it was a truism that the sun in fact never did set on it.

However, within a few years the Great War had begun, a war on a scale never seen before, a war to re-divide the world’s trade and colonies as more countries entered the imperialist stage of capitalist development.

Ironically, this bloody carve-up of colonial empires also signaled the beginning of the end for capitalism itself, as the carnage of the War provided the stimulus and the opportunity for the people (including the capitalist class) to overthrow the remnants of feudalism in much of Europe, and in one very large country, Russia, to go on and overthrow capitalism itself.

The process of change on a global scale continued, through the unprecedented economic crisis of the Great Depression, the rise of Fascism (aptly defined as “the last resort of capitalism in decline”) and the descent into war once again, this time with the intention not only of re-dividing the world but of also wiping out the workers’ state in Russia.

To people of my generation, the post WW2 world was one of constant Cold-War threats, nuclear tests, and extreme anti-communist propaganda. Except for the nuclear tests, it was much like today, actually.

However, despite the momentous nature of the changes that had taken place in the world and were still taking place, there was a supremely confident tendency to ignore them or at least to minimize them: at primary school, we were taught to sing the Recessional, solemnly intoning its jingoistic lines about the British Empire’s “dominion over palm and pine” as if it would endure for ever.

I vividly recall, a few years later, a woman from Barnado’s Homes addressing my high school assembly. She was slightly built, but drew herself up to attention to declare that “I am proud to be an Australian, but I am prouder still to be British!” At least a third of her audience at Sydney High would have been Jewish refugees from Europe (or the children of same), a fact of which she was apparently oblivious.

The greatest similarity between those days and today has to be the all-pervasive anti-communist propaganda. In those days it was part of the “Cold War”, but ever since the overthrow of socialism in Russia, the Cold War is supposedly a thing of the past, isn’t it?

No, it most definitely is not. A propaganda war conducted by every possible means, the Cold War never stopped, not for an instant. It merely shifted its emphasis to suit the political climate of the time.

Capitalism eased off its more outrageously provocative propaganda while the traitor Gorbachev was dismantling the USSR, but when the country did not break up into lots of little Balkan-style statelets, but instead stayed relatively cohesive, capitalism promptly revived the flood of Cold War propaganda.

It had always been a two-fold phenomenon, on the one hand directed at people outside the Soviet Union who might be inclined to emulate it or even be influenced by it, and on the other at people inside the Soviet Union with the intention of convincing them that Socialism is a terrible system.

It is hard perhaps for those of us who do not speak Russian to grasp the extent of the anti-Communist propaganda dished up by the mass media in post-Soviet Russia: its relentless in intensity and frequency, its retailing of every Cold War cliché no matter how tired and discredited they might be in the West, its combining with propaganda about the opportunities opened up by “free enterprise” as well as propaganda for religious evangelism and even racism in the name of “free speech”.

Today, especially in Russia, very few people pay any attention to Gorbachev. Three former Soviet Republics (Moldova, Belarus and Kazakhstan) have reverted to Soviet-type governments. All over the world, people are shifting to the left, pursuing a trend that has capitalism well and truly rattled.

It is this left-ward trend that is responsible for the upsurge in Cold War-style propaganda, as capitalism’s pundits try to hold back the tide, Canute-style, both in Russia and in the West. The Russian authorities are only too willing to provide ready-made anti-Communist programs to Western television services or to co-operate in the provision of material “from the archives” for foreign anti-Communist productions, which will also be shown in Russia.

In Australia, the principal outlet for this blatant propaganda is the “public interest” station, SBS, which has seen a surge recently in its anti-Soviet, anti-Stalin, anti-Communist programs.

However, for all its intensity, this new round of Cold War propaganda will avail imperialism very little. The world is changing, because people are demanding and working for change.

No matter how much the imperialists try to hold back the rising tide of social change, to hold back human progress, they will not succeed. For it is what the people want, and the people will not be denied forever.

It is Official Now: Swine flu is a Pandemic

Sun, 28 Jun 2009 04:28:00 +0000

6-27-09, 12:12 pm

Original source: People's Democracy (India)

Swine flu, or more technically influenza A (H1N1), is now officially a pandemic. Addressing the press on June 11, Dr Margaret Chan, the director general of World Health Organisation (WHO) said, “On the basis of available evidence, and these expert assessments of the evidence, the scientific criteria for an influenza pandemic have been met. I have therefore decided to raise the level of influenza pandemic alert from phase 5 to phase 6. The world is now at the start of the 2009 influenza pandemic.” She added that currently, it was of moderate severity but cautioned that it was early days yet and the virus can “change the rules of the game” at any time.

The virus has now spread to 74 countries, with evidence of community spread in Australia, the UK, Spain, Japan and Chile, among others.

The declaration of pandemic has little to do with the increase in severity of the disease. Thomas Frieden, director of the US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention clarified, 'The declaration of a pandemic does not suggest there is a change in the behaviour of the virus, just that it is spreading in more parts of the world.'

As we had noted in our earlier article, the criteria of going up to level 6, the final stage of declaring a pandemic has been fulfilled for some weeks. However, many experts held that WHO should qualify the severity level of the pandemic. WHO took some time to add the severity level to the pandemic level before making the formal declaration. Otherwise, WHO’s pandemic alert focuses on that it should be a) new b) infectious c) and have spread to two WHO regions at the community level. Even a relatively benign infection can qualify as a pandemic under this classification if the above criteria are met.

As it stands today, there is little cause for immediate panic. Out of 30,000 odd infected by swine flu, only about 145 (June 12 WHO figures) have died. This is comparable in severity to seasonal flu infections, whose annual death toll worldwide is 200,000 to 300,000. If this level of severity continues, then it is unlikely to be more than a mere blip in global health scenario. WHO's chief flu expert Keiji Fukuda in his June 9 briefing said that with more around the world becoming infected, immunity to the virus will build up. At that point, this A (H1N1) variant will be just another seasonal strain, joining three others—including a human A (H1N1) strain—that are currently circulating.

In fact by creating an artificial panic, many countries could divert resources away from their more urgent heath needs.

In India, while primary health centres and hospitals lack vital life saving medicines, under the pressure of headlines, Indian government stocked up on Oseltamivir earlier and may do so again. To compound this folly, the Indian government head disregarded the generic version of the Oseltamivir being manufactured by Cipla during the outbreak of bird flu and decided to buy the more expensive one from Roche under the “mistaken” belief that Roche really had a valid patent. Ultimately, the Indian Patent Office did not grant Roche a patent for Oseltamivir, paving the way for generic manufacturers such as Cipla to meet not only Indian requirements and also supply to other countries.

This is the fourth flu pandemic in the last 100 years. The first great outbreak was the Spanish flu in 1918, which killed an estimated 40 million. The second one was in 1957 and the one following in 1968. Though with swine flu, the severity of the infection is comparable to the more familiar seasonal flu, this flu virus, unlike the seasonal flu virus affects younger people more. About half the deaths are in the age group 30-50, unlike seasonal flu where the elderly population are more at risk.

Every time a new flu virus appears, it is the fear of a Spanish flu like virus that scares the world. While infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, typhoid, etc., remain as major killers in the developing world, the developed world has managed to control these diseases. The one killer, which stills kills large numbers in the developed world, is influenza. That is why the global media resonates so strongly on flu outbreaks, while remaining relatively immune to the death toll of other diseases.

The Director General, in her press briefing, also focussed on the preparedness of the world to meet the threat from swine flu. The science has worked very well – the gene sequence was done within weeks, the seed virus for vaccines prepared quickly and now the vaccines could be out in bulk by September. This would mean that we would be ready for the flu season in the northern hemisphere that starts around that time.

However, what Dr Chan did not say is that the world was preparing for a different flu than that has actually arrived.

After the bird flu and SARS that struck the world in 2003, the global preparations had been for a deadly bird flu variant (H5N1) originating from Southeast Asia. Instead, we have the swine flu (H1N1), relatively mild and coming out of North America. Nature, the premiere science journal quoted Eric Toner, a physician and preparedness analyst with the university of Pittsburgh Medical Center's Center for Biosecurity in Pennsylvania, 'Many nations built their plans around the idea that a pandemic strain would evolve in southeast Asia, that we would recognise it early, and that we would be able to contain it. None of that turned out to be true. …The idea that one could trap it at the early stages was certainly not successful.”

Interestingly, this description also gives away the underlying vision of global heath agencies – it is how to insulate the developed north from the diseases arising out of the third world. However, if the disease originates breaks out in their heartland, they are far less prepared. And the preparedness of the third world does not count, all that they are expected to do is not to export their diseases to the developed world.

How was the developed world planning to meet the flu pandemic? Based on earlier expectations, the main plans were for culling chickens and not how to deal with human infections. Also, vaccines and flu medicines are in short supply in the poorer countries. Even if they are available, most people cannot afford them. The situation is not improved by the indulgence that the poorer countries continue to show the drug MNC’s – most of them have granted Roche-Gilead the Oseltamivir patent, which India has not.

India has certainly the expertise to manufacture the flu vaccine but has shot itself in the foot by closing down its public sector vaccine manufacturing facilities, therefore severely curtailing its manufacturing capacity.

The fear now is that as countries stock up for medicines and vaccines, the poorer countries are going to be squeezed out of the market by the richer ones. With the virus now moving to the tropics and the southern hemisphere, the third world may suffer the consequences of global planning based largely on insulating the richer north from the poorer south. If the virus takes an ugly turn and comes back in a much more virulent form, it is the global south that will then pay the price of such lop-sided planning. Let us hope that this variant of the flu virus will not change its current behaviour and we will be better prepared for the next round of battle between the virus and us.

Three Questions for Socialists

Sat, 27 Jun 2009 01:55:00 +0000

What is the objective of the economic reforms advocated by the Obama administration? What measure of progress has there been, or can be expected, from the proposed reforms for the security and advancement of working peoples economic interests? How do the goals of socialists and communists differ from Obama, and how are they the same?

To answer the first question, Larry Summers speaks for the administration: 'Let me be absolutely clear at the outset about two aspects of President Obama’s approach about which he has been particularly consistent and firm since the crisis began while he was campaigning for president:

* The first is an unequivocal recognition that we only act when necessary to avert unacceptable – and in some cases dire – outcomes. Barack Obama ran for president to restore America’s role in the world, reform our health care system, achieve energy independence, and prepare our children for a 21st century economy... He did not run for president to manage banks, insurance companies, or car manufacturers. The actions we take are those of necessity, not choice.

* The second point on which the President has been unambiguous is that any intervention go with, rather than against, the grain of the market system. Our objective is not to supplant or replace markets. Rather, the objective is to save them from their own excesses and improve our market-based system going forward.' The most refreshing part of Summers' statement is the straightforward confession of conflict between goals, and necessity. The bias towards market solutions sits nakedly alongside the stark reality of serious market failures in critical sectors of the economic regime of the past 70 years: health care, financial services, auto, infrastructure, education, climate change preparation and energy. The difficult challenges before the American people all mandate a sharp turn from the status quo. And that turn simply cannot avoid a substantial expansion of long-term public intervention commensurate with the scale of market failures. Even without the stubborn and unrelenting resistance of finance capital, the insurance and pharma industries, the bondholders of the auto industry, the oil and power industries and other sundry so-called free market 'fundamentalists' these challenges would be daunting. But working people and progressive forces, including important forces aligned with the Obama administration MUST mobilize sufficient, indeed overwhelming, pressure to defeat the resistance, pass the reforms, enforce them, and – most important of all – insure that they redress the massive losses in income and security that have been suffered in the past 30 years. The right calls this creeping socialism. They are correct – that's exactly what the minimum necessary social democratic reforms are, and there is no point in concealing it. However, contrary to the alarmist hysterics of the ultra right, incremental steps in a socialist direction do NOT mean the end of capitalism. Far from it – universal not-for-profit health care, a green national energy and infrastructure policy, financial reform, very large investments in education and training will generate a new birth of capitalism in many areas of the economy. Innovation is vital to growth and human progress. Healthy, competitive markets play a critical role enabling science and technology to raise human productivity. In addition, with rising culture, human needs and wants – reflected in the DEMAND side of the economy – rise dramatically.

Soon almost all industry will be 'high-tech' industry, just as every science is now also part computer science. But insuring that the fruits of science and technology really meet human needs and advancement must be tested repeatedly in the furnace of actual economic demand. Markets are the only tools known for performing this task more or less spontaneously on a massive scale – and it is critical that they thrive. Markets are human institutions that will persist as long as there are commodities and a division of labor in society. They are not products of natural law. They can and must be managed to serve human ends. Relieved of the crushing burdens of private health care, able to draw on a more skilled and educated labor force, provided with customers who have rising incomes and needs, given access to stable credit markets – corporations and entrepreneurs will find a new boom in economic activity once the bankrupt vultures and dinosaurs of the last century are give a proper burial. There are some – thankfully a declining number – on the left who have long been infected with a caricature of socialism, and capitalism. They see capitalism as a fixed and unchanging system where efforts at reform are inherently futile – forward progress will inevitably be crushed, impoverishment is ultimately absolute, and only a 'revolutionary' transformation is capable of liberating working people from exploitation.

Likewise socialism is pictured in no less idealized terms with virtually no connection to day to day struggles other than an opportunity to 'expose' the 'fraud' of reforms. For most of the past century working people in advanced capitalist countries have been ill-served by these tendencies, and in fact largely ignored them with the result that many are seriously marginalized. Despite the romanticized affections some in the marginalized left express for revolutionary movements against colonial and neo-colonial domination in the developing world, these movements, even when compelled to resort to arms in the absence of even minimal democratic rights, have actually been in the lead shunning dogma and devising radical innovations in mixed economic development. These efforts have produced unprecedented growth rates and been the primary cause of the reduction in world poverty rates in the past half-century. The popular processes playing out now highlight the innovation with which masses of people in the US as well are relearning, renewing and updating the principles of socialist and social-democratic economics and politics. The aggressively anti-communist, anti-government, anti-regulation coalitions of Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Thatcher, Bush and Bush have brought the international economy into a deep crisis. Some see this crisis 'bottoming out' soon, but few, if any, see a path to actual recovery that markets alone, or even in the main, can find. While literally millions are giving 'socialism' a new look, and are dumping free market fundamentalism in the garbage bin of history, this does not mean they are turning to failed models of socialism – such as the Stalin and Mao periods. Thus many are instead quickly discarding many of the terms of the past centuries' debates on socialism and communism vs capitalism as futile – both the hysterical anti-communism of the 1950's, 1960's, 1970's and 1980's, as well as dogmatic and unscientific tendencies within the Left.

The second question

When comparing the stated market-oriented goals of the Obama administration AND its plain admission of the necessity of large scale public interventions no doctrine or received wisdom is needed to reveal the gigantic contradiction of interests between classes in US politics. And the comparison clearly identifies the main tasks facing the working class, and the left of the United States: 1. Rapidly expand the power base of democratic upsurge needed to defeat right-wing, corporate efforts to block structural reform. 2. Consolidate the US progressive working class and social democratic forces behind the minimum program needed for recovering working class incomes, promoting peace, economic justice, security and stable growth. One only has to inspect the compromises being discussed in negotiations between Obama and various congressional forces on each major programmatic front to appreciate the absolutely vital importance of these tasks. The defeat of the mortgage reform bill sponsored by Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Illinois, – the only relief to homeowners so far proposed in Congress – demonstrated the power of the resistance. They would not even meet with Durbin, who concluded, 'They (financial sector lobbyists) own the place!' The subversion of any serious consideration of the single-payer solution to the health care crisis by insurance and pharmaceutical corporate forces, and their current contest – 'we can't afford it' – against ANY public option, re-affirms this threat, in the face of overwhelming working class support. The postponement of any cap and trade benefit to the environment for changing to renewable energy solutions for several years – another demonstration. The chorus of 'socialism! socialism!' denunciations of Obama's assumption of ownership in GM and Chrysler, and the somewhat pathetic performance of the UAW leadership in the Auto crisis – both profoundly threaten the possibility of setting a new and healthy foundation for a domestic manufacturing resurgence. The downgrading of the priority in passing the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) shows that the big business and right-wing hatred and fear of worker self organization has already pressured the administration and Congress to consider disarming itself. Yet the ability of workers to organize and take control of their own fate is most powerful reform weapon in changing the direction of our nation toward rising incomes and wealth for working people. The President's financial regulatory reform was greeted by lukewarm support on the left, but the spokesmen of finance capital have made no secret of their determination to kill it – accurately describing it as the biggest intrusion of federal regulation in financial capital markets in 70 years. It too faces an uncertain path in Congress. The financial crisis, the GM and Chrysler bankruptcies, health care, and energy policy all reveal the clear and sharpest points of contest in the class politics of this era. They are the test of whether the next five years will send us forward to enlightenment and progress, or failing victory, put us at risk of social chaos, and its result – strife that could make Iran's conflicts look pacific. In sum, these threats answer the second question: the Obama program is an opportunity for great progress. There have been some small but not insignificant victories – but the key tests of progress are still in doubt. Their fate rests in our hands. Lastly, in his Cairo speech, to the whole world, Barack Obama took the first, genuine steps backward from imperialist ideology, and the first genuine embrace of the principles of conflict resolution and non-violence in 100 years of our national history. It is impossible to underestimate the impact of this act for the peace of the world. Yet he, and we, have many enemies on this path. He is President. We are soldiers – or not – and only we can make the laying down of arms a reality.

The third question

Karl Marx answered this question in words that ring true through 160 years: In what relation do the Communists stand to the proletarians as a whole? The Communists do not form a separate party opposed to the other working-class parties. They have no interests separate and apart from those of the proletariat as a whole. They do not set up any sectarian principles of their own, by which to shape and mould the proletarian movement. The Communists are distinguished from the other working-class parties by this only: 1. In the national struggles of the proletarians of the different countries, they point out and bring to the front the common interests of the entire proletariat, independently of all nationality. 2. In the various stages of development which the struggle of the working class against the bourgeoisie has to pass through, they always and everywhere represent the interests of the movement as a whole. In short there is NO distinction between the interests of socialists and communists of every persuasion, and the progressive, internationalist social democratic demands that also reflect the majority sentiments and interests of working people, in this era, in this time, in these next few years in the United States of America. We must embrace the best of Barack Obama's vision as our own, and hold him in the light of necessity and bar the forces of darkness from him with the multitudes.

Illusion, Reality and Courage in Iran

Sat, 27 Jun 2009 01:53:00 +0000

Original source: Illusion, Reality & Courage in Iran

In the movie 'The Year of Living Dangerously' the little guy Billy Kwan, brilliantly played by Linda Lee, gives a news reporter Guy Hamilton, played by Mel Gibson, a talk about Indonesian puppets - the kind on sticks, which you can now sometime find in import shops in this country. The figures as shown are shadows from behind a screen. What you, see – thousands of protestors in the streets, police repression, official statements and the like – the guide explains, is the image; what is really going on behind the screen you cannot see. 'Look at the shadows, not at the puppet,' Kwan tells Hamilton.

At the time of this writing former Iranian President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, an opponent of officially-reelected President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is holed up in the religious center of Qum. Speculation is that he is contemplating his next move as members of his family including his daughter, Faezeh Hashemi are arrested held for several hours and then released. What's that all about? Who knows? It's one many mysteries inside mysteries made more illusory by the regime's near complete media ban instituted while the police and militia thugs beat and murder supporters of officially defeated opposition presidential candidate Mir Hussein Moussavi.

As much as what is being played out behind and in front of the screen is reminiscent of the screen in Jakarta in 1956, it also harkens to other recent times in Iran itself. In the summer of 1981, after the fall of the US-backed Shah, the new president Bani-Sadr, who had been elected with 75 percent of the vote, was driven from office as ultra-religious militia surrounded his office and shouted 'Death to the Second Shah.'

Bani-Sadr had accompanied revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini home from his Parisian exile in 1979 and was elected president in 1980.

Bani-Sadr today lives in exile in Paris where in an interview last week he told Reuters, 'This movement shows that the people want democracy and the regime isn't democratic, so the movement won't stop. It is going to continue in one way or another,' he said. 'The conscience of this people has condemned the regime. That's quite certain and anyone can see it.'

Bani-Sadr told Reuters the demonstrations that followed the June 12th disputed election have spread beyond a movement in support of Mousavi. 'It's at the level of the national conscience and in that sense, it resembles the movement at the time of the Shah.'

Asked about the response of President Barack Obama to the events in Iran, Bani-Sadr replied. 'It was a good reaction. It doesn't allow the regime to use outside intervention as a justification for repression,' he said, adding that former President George W. Bush's hostile rhetoric had ensured 'immobility' in Iran. 'It paralyzed Iranians. During the entire period of Mr. Bush, there was no movement in Iran. After him, there is another president, a new policy and there is movement in Iran.' Asked about the statements of French President Nicolas Sarkozy who had denounced the election as a fraud, he said, 'It would have been much better if he had remained silent because a people needs to be able to say 'I decide my own fate, it doesn't come from outside.' Iranians are very sensitive about this point.'

It's a point that one would think the people in Washington would have appreciated after decades of US interference in the oil-rich country's affairs. It's also common sense and pollsters say that most people in the US support the Obama's public reaction to the Iranian crisis. The other day CNN conducted an online poll – people at home in front of the telly in the middle of the day – and 70 percent of the respondents backed the White House stance.

But nothing has tempered the storm of protest directed at the President. Obama has said openly that what he wanted to avoid was making himself and the US the subject of the Iranian political struggle. Good thinking. What has happened, however, is that Iran has become the subject of political struggle in the US – or, rather a weapon in the hand of those sought to destroy the Obama Presidency.

Make no mistake about it that's what the right wing and leading people in the Republican Party are out to do.

Talk show demagogue and Republican leader Russ Limbaugh's wish that Obama crash was only the opening shot. Policy differences are one thing but what we have here is something else; these people are out to undermine Obama (Without a doubt some of the tactics have had a decidedly racist undertone). New York Times columnist Paul Krugman got is right Monday: 'The Republicans, with a few possible exceptions, have decided to do all they can to make the Obama administration a failure.'

For over two weeks, from every platform they could commander, leading spokespersons for the Republican Party have attacked the President for being what one of them said was being 'timid and passive' in response to the events in Iran.

Neoconservative Robert Kagan has written in the Washington Post that Obama's 'strategy toward Iran places him objectively on the side of the government's efforts to return to normalcy as quickly as possible, not in league with the opposition's efforts.' And rightwinger Charles Krauthammer has suggested the President is giving 'implicit support for this repressive, tyrannical regime'.

Often times, major media has played along making it appear as if the big, crucial question is what the President has said or not said. Although it has seen little reflection in most of the major media in this country, the events in Iran have had a reflection in the conflict in the broader Middle East, specifically as regards the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

'Ahmadinejad's victory will serve as further proof that diplomacy with Iran is not an option, from the point of view of Israel and its supporters in the US. Whether Obama will proceed with his positive rhetoric towards Iran remains to be seen,' wrote Ramzy Baroud in the Palestine Chronicle. 'Failure to do so, however, will further undermine his country's interests in the Middle East, and will prolong the atmosphere of animosity, espoused by a clique of neoconservative hardliners throughout the years of the Bush administration.'

'Why Iran's Ahmadinejad is preferred in Israel,' read a June 21 article in the Christian Science Monitor. Correspondent Joshua Mitnick wrote that 'even though Mr. Ahmadinejad has threatened the Jewish state with destruction, many officials and analysts here actually prefer the incumbent president because – short of the downfall of Iran's theocratic system of government – he'll be easier to isolate. Reformist leader Mr. Moussavi, by contrast, isn't expected to alter Iran's drive for nuclear power, but he would win international sympathy.'

'The incumbent president will be easier to isolate than reformist leader Mr. Moussavi, say some leading Israeli policymakers.' Mitnick reported that 'Mossad Chief Meir Dagan, Israel's top spy, told a group of Israeli lawmakers, 'If the reformist candidate Moussavi had won, Israel would have had a more serious problem, because it would need to explain to the world the danger of the Iranian threat.'

'If I were enfranchised in this election... I would vote for Ahmadinejad,' Middle East Forum president Daniel Pipes said earlier this month. 'I would prefer to have an enemy who's forthright and obvious, who wakes people up with his outlandish statements.'

'This line of thought is echoed by many in Israel, where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud party have historically had close ties with U.S. neo- conservatives,' observed Daniel Luban in an article for Inter Press Service titled, 'US-IRAN: Electoral Chaos Energises Neoconservative Hawks.'

However, there is not full agreement in leading Israeli political circles on this, wrote Mitnick. Israeli President Shimon Peres encouraged Iranian protestors and 'courageous' women who he said were trying to 'reclaim' their culture. He added that it's more important to have regime change in Iran than an end to the country's controversial nuclear program. 'You never know what will disappear in Iran first - their enriched uranium or their poor government,' said Peres. 'I hope their poor government will disappear first.'

There is a direct contention between the attitude in Tel Aviv to the crisis in Iran and US policy. Ever since President Obama's historic address at Cairo University, the rightwing leaders of the Israeli government have been trying to change the subject. Time and time again they have declared that rather than an agreement with the Palestinians the important question in the region is the Iranian nuclear enrichment process and have continued to threaten a military attack on Iran. Obviously, a change in government in Tehran would throw coldwater on any such intention – at least for a while.

This reality has not been lost on the Israeli government's backers in the US. According to the Israeli media, Senate majority leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) recently sent a letter to President Barack Obama on his tough policy against Israel in a public letter he sent last week disagreeing strong with the President's approach the Middle East. 'It is also vital [the Israeli-PA] process not take away from your commitment to deal with the ongoing threat from Iran,' Reid declared. 'I believe that resolving the problem of Iran's nuclear program will help facilitate the Arab-Israeli peace process.'

Like the little guy said, there are a lot of forces at work here, both on the screen, behind it and in the shadows. Someday, we will have a better picture of what is going on. In the meantime, there can be little question who deserves the admiration and support of progressive movements and people worldwide. They are the women, students, workers, shopkeepers and others waving green banners with such courage. Somewhere down the line their democratic aspirations will be realized.

--BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board member Carl Bloice is a writer in San Francisco, a member of the National Coordinating Committee of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism and formerly worked for a healthcare union.

Beyond Politics: People for Sale in Hungry World

Sat, 27 Jun 2009 01:47:00 +0000

6-26-09, 9:31 am

One might be tempted to dismiss the recent findings of the US State Department on human trafficking as largely political. But do not be too hasty.

Criticism of the State Department's report on trafficked persons, issued on 16 June, should be rife. The language describing US allies' efforts to combat the problem seems undeserved, especially when one examines the nearly 320- page report and observes the minuscule efforts of these governments. Also, it was hardly surprising to find that Cuba, North Korea, Iran and Syria – Washington's foremost foes – languish in the report's Tier 3 category, i.e. countries where the problem is most grave and least combated. Offenders in Tier 3 are subject to US sanctions, while governments of countries in Tier 1 are perceived as vigilant in fighting human trafficking.

One could also question the US government's own moral legitimacy; classifying the world into watch lists, congratulating some and reprimanding and sanctioning others, while the US itself has thus far (and for nine consecutive reports starting 2000) been immune to self-criticism.

Undoubtedly, the political hubris and self-righteous underpinnings of the report are disturbing, but that hardly represents an end to the argument. The fact remains that the report's rating of over 170 countries is thorough and largely consistent with facts as observed, reported by the media and examined in other comprehensive reports on the same issue. Indeed, the UN's own Global Report on Trafficking in Persons, launched by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in February 2009, affirms much of the State Departments' findings regarding patterns of abuse reported around the world, most notably in Africa, the Middle East and the Asia-Pacific region.

The report examined governmental responses to the exploitation of people, including children, for the purposes of forced labor, sex and stolen organs. At least 12.3 million adults and children are used to sustain the thriving business of modern-day slavery, though the real number is probably much higher given that human traffickers have little interest in divulging exact data.

The global financial crisis has fueled the demand for cheap labor, making the exploitation of the most vulnerable people part and parcel of the economic recovery plans of many companies, and even countries. Under these circumstances, there should be little doubt that the UN's once promising campaign to eradicate much of the world's hunger by 2015 is already a pipedream.

One of the testimonies cited in the State Department's report was that of Mohamed Selim Khan, who 'woke up in a strange house and felt an excruciating pain in his abdomen. Unsure of where he was, Khan asked a man wearing a surgical mask what had happened. 'We have taken your kidney,' the stranger said. 'If you tell anyone, we'll kill you.''

Khan's experience epitomizes the nightmare of millions of people around the world, as they struggle to provide for hungry families. Their plight is no secret. It can be seen on the streets of many cities around the world, from Europe to Asia and Central America to the Gulf, where worn out, haggard looking men in dirty uniforms are working long hours for little pay, trapped between pressing needs at home and the merciless demands of their 'recruitment agencies.'

But cheap or forced labor is not the only form of human trafficking. According to the UN's Global Report on Trafficking in Persons, based on data collected in 155 countries, 'the most common form of human trafficking [79 per cent] is sexual exploitation.'

IRIN News, affiliated with the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, reported on 18 June that 'women from the former Soviet Union and China are still being trafficked across the border with Egypt into Israel for forced prostitution by organized criminal groups.' Israel has been identified as a 'prime destination for trafficking by both the State Department and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime.' One Israeli gang alone, according to the report, has trafficked over 2,000 women into Israel and Cyprus in the last six years.

One has to wonder the wisdom of international conferences and global efforts aimed at cracking down on Gazans smuggling food and medicine across the same Egyptian border to survive the Israeli siege when almost no efforts have been dedicated to ending the stark exploitation and abuse of thousands of women enriching Israel's sex industry.

Dare I say that while human trafficking is itself an apolitical issue, recognizing and combating, or failing to combat, the problem is very much political. Think of the banking crisis, which fuelled a global recession, and the way astronomical amounts of money have been dedicated to solving it, trillions of dollars in global bailouts ultimately rewarding those who caused the crisis in the first place. Compare these efforts to the pathetic attempts at halting the disgraceful commercialization of humans, their organs, their sexuality, their very humanity.

The problem is now compounded. UN food officials declared on 19 June that hunger around the world has passed the unprecedented threshold of one billion, that is one in six people. The alarming increase of 100 million hungry children, women and men from last year's estimates is blamed on the economic recession. While international institutions are efficient at recognizing such problems, proposed solutions often lack sincerity, or any sense of urgency.

'A hungry world is a dangerous world,' said Josette Sheeran of the World Food Program. 'Without food, people have only three options: they riot, they emigrate or they die.' They also become products in markets ready to exploit those whose very survival is at stake.

When Julia, from the Balkans, was eight years old, she was taken along with her sisters to a neighboring country, where she was sold to beg. She was beaten every time she failed to return with her fixed quota of money. Once she became a teenager she was forced into prostitution. After escaping she was placed in a government orphanage from which she also escaped, returning to the streets. According to the State Department report, eventually 'Julia was arrested on narcotics charges.'

Can this injustice be any more obvious?

--Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an author and editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His work has been published in many newspapers, journals and anthologies around the world. His latest book is, 'The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle' (Pluto Press, London), and his forthcoming book is, “My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza’s Untold Story” (Pluto Press, London).

Japan: Communists Protest Call for Using SDF to Inspect North Korean Cargo Ships

Sat, 27 Jun 2009 01:42:00 +0000

6-26-09, 9:26 am

Original source: Akahata (Japan)

Following UN Security Council Resolution 1874 condemning North Korea's nuclear test, a project team of the ruling parties is calling for a special measures law to allow the Maritime Self-Defense Force to inspect cargo on North Korean ships on the high seas.

Former director general of the Defense Agency (now Defense Ministry) Nakatani Gen stated this at the project team's first meeting on June 18, calling for approval of the SDF's logistic support for US forces during maritime inspections of North Korean cargo ships.

Commenting on this move, Japanese Communist Party Chair Shii Kazuo stated, 'The need now is for the Japan Coast Guard to securely inspect cargo in ports. Using the Maritime SDF to inspect North Korean cargo on the high seas will amount to responding to North Korean military provocations. 'The JCP opposes any SDF participation in the international joint efforts on the high seas because it will only help increase military tensions in the region, in particular between North Korea and Japan,' he added.

Concerning UNSC Resolution 1874, the JCP chair stated, 'It is very important that the United Nations adopted a unanimous resolution urging North Korea to abandon all of its nuclear weapons programs, once and for all. This was indeed a reasoned response.'

'North Korea is called upon to accept this resolution, stop military provocations, abandon its nuclear weapons and nuclear weapons development programs, and rejoin the Six-Party Talks without conditions,' Shii said.

As regards Japan's response, Shii stated, 'It is legally possible under the current laws for the Coast Guard to carry out cargo inspections at ports and on the high seas. Inspections by the Coast Guard are the most effective and non-belligerent way.'

After a Coastal Guard officer explained that the JCG has sufficient inspection capability at the ruling coalition's PT meeting, some from the ruling coalition advocated that now that foreign countries use warships in cargo inspection activities, Japan is also recommended to use Maritime SDF vessels.

The PT will reach consensus on the essential points of the new bill.

The issue of cargo inspections has been referred to in the JCG Law and the Special Measures Law to deal with 'situations in Areas Surrounding Japan.' However, the government does not regard the nuclear text explosion by North Korea as 'situations in areas surrounding Japan' matter that gravely affects Japan's security.

This is why the government regards it as necessary to enact a new bill that will allow the SDF to take part in cargo inspections of North Korean ships.

House Votes to Publicize Names of Infamous School of the Americas Graduates

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 09:12:00 +0000

U.S. House of Representatives Votes 224:190 to Force the School of the Americas/ WHINSEC to Release the Names of Graduates and Instructors.

Washington, DC – the U.S. House of Representatives voted today to force the School of the Americas (renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation - WHINSEC) to release the names, ranks, country of origin, courses and dates attended of students and instructors at the institute.

The amendment was offered by Representative Jim McGovern (D-MA), Representative Joe Sestak (D-PA), Representative Sanford Bishop (D-GA) and Representative John Lewis (D-GA) and won by a margin of 224:190.

For the past few years, despite the SOA/ WHINSEC PR machine proclaiming an open and transparent school, the SOA/ WHINSEC has been unwilling to provide information about the students and instructors. The Pentagon secrecy took effect after research revealed that the SOA/ WHINSEC continues to train known human rights abusers, and that instructors have been involved in numerous crimes. Freedom of Information Act requests since FY 2005 have all been denied, proof of SOA/ WHINSEC's unwillingness to submit to oversight from the public whose tax-payer dollars help fund the school.

Access to information regarding SOA/ WHINSEC graduates of previous years has been a valuable asset to human rights organizations who have been able to identify Latin American military officers and police that have committed human rights abuses or engaged in criminal activity in their home countries after attending the school as instructors or students.

SOA Watch supports the release of this important information at all U.S. military training facilities in the spirit of openness, transparency, and the public's 'right to know.' We see gaining access to the names of SOA/ WHINSEC graduates and instructors as a crucial step towards closing the SOA/ WHINSEC for good.

School of the Americas Background Information:

The School of the Americas (SOA) is a U.S.-military training school for Latin American soldiers, located in Fort Benning, Georgia. Renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), the school has produced death squad leaders and human rights abusers since 1946.

Dubbed the “School of Assassins,” the SOA/WHINSEC is a school that is synonymous with torture and military repression around the world. Graduates of the school have a long history of participating in and orchestrating killings, rapes and the suppression of popular movements for social change.

Among those targeted by SOA graduates are educators, union organizers, religious workers, student leaders, and others who work for the rights of the poor. Hundreds of thousands of Latin Americans have been tortured, assassinated, raped, “disappeared,” massacred, or forced into refuge by those trained at the School of the Americas (SOA/ WHINSEC).

The People vs. the Insurance Monopoly: Fixing the Health System in 2009

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 04:16:00 +0000

Health reform activists descended on Washington by the thousands June 25th as Congress continued to craft health reform legislation. On one side of the struggle stand President Obama, labor and health advocates and the vast majority of the American people, pushing hard for meaningful reforms that include a public option. Powerful insurance companies and their right-wing allies in Congress stand on the other.

A victory on this issue could level another major blow to the power of the ultra right who have chosen to defend the dangerous monopoly stranglehold insurance companies have over the health care system.

Solid majority

The next weeks and months will be extremely important for the broad coalition comprised of labor and community organizations behind the drive for a major reform. And a large majority of Americans support President Obama's plan for health care reform, according to recent polling data. Celinda Lake, of the polling firm Lake Research Group, explained, "Sixty-two percent of voters support the President in enacting a major overhaul of the health system, with 38 percent strongly supporting a major overhaul."

"Every age group, every income group, every demographic group strongly supports the President enacting a major overhaul of the US health care system," Lake said.

When the President's more specific principles are discussed, the support grows stronger, Lake reported. At the same time large majorities rejected the health insurance industry's push for a private market-only bill, a plan currently being pushed for by congressional Republicans.

Only 15 percent of voters supported a private-only plan, Lake added, while "73 percent said, 'I'd like a choice of private or public plan." A number of other national polls found similar results.

President Obama: Control costs with a public plan

At a White House press conference, June 23rd, President Obama reminded reporters about the urgency of passing health reform. The President further reiterated his support for including a public option in the final health care reform package. "I think is a important tool to discipline insurance companies," he said.

Responding to questions from a reporter who sounded as though he was parroting insurance company talking points rather than doing journalism, President Obama wondered why insurance companies are so afraid of the public option.

"If private insurers say that the marketplace provides the best quality health care, if they tell us that they're offering a good deal, then why is it that the government – which they say can't run anything – suddenly is going to drive them out of business?," the President asked. "That's not logical."

Competition and choices about which kind of insurance consumers can purchase is the key reason for including a public option, the President has repeatedly explained. Competition with a public plan will enforce better regulations on the private market and will keep costs under control.

According to the Organizing for America Web site, the off-shoot of President Obama's campaign, the President favors three basic principles for healthcare reform: health reform should reduce costs, it should guarantee choice of plan and doctor, including the choice of a public insurance option, and it should ensure quality care for all.

The broken system

An estimated 50 million with health care coverage last year and about 80 million people who go without insurance at some point during the year. Some 14,000 people are losing coverage during this current recession each day, likely exacerbating an Urban Institute study that revealed that 22,000 Americans lost their lives in 2006 alone because of the lack of health care coverage. For these reasons universal care is a key goal of the President's plan.

Lack of coverage isn't the only problem, however. People with coverage are struggling to keep up with the costs. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius released state-by-state reports last month that showed growing costs have hammered working families. In 2006, a typical person with employment-based insurance paid more than $1,500 per year in out-of-pocket expenses, excluding premiums, a rise of almost $300 just since 2001.

When premiums were included in calculations of personal health care expenses, the typical person's payments grew by almost $1,000 since 2001 to $3,744 in 2006. Simply put, insurance premiums are adding the most to the cost of care for average working families.

"Skyrocketing health care costs are hurting families, forcing businesses to cut or drop health benefits, and straining state budgets," the reports pointed out. "Millions are paying more for less."

"These are more than just numbers and facts, more than just numbers on a page," Secretary Sebelius told reporters on a White House-sponsored teleconference call June 26. "They represent real people and families in states across the country who are struggling."

Responding to reporters' questions about the inclusion of a public option in the health reform package, Sebelius restated President Obama's support for the public option as a competition mechanism that provides "the best way to have cost containment."

Referring to bills being drafted in both houses of Congress right now, Sebelius said, "I think it's pretty clear with the bills coming forward that a public option is definitely part of the strategy."

The alarming HHS reports coincided with the similarly disturbing findings of a survey of more than 26,000 people conducted this year by the AFL-CIO. According to the AFL-CIO report, approximately one-third of respondents, most of whom have some form of coverage, say they forgo basic medical care because of high costs. More than four in 10 people with insurance told the union that they can't afford the care they need. And eight 10 said their premiums increased this past year. More than six in 10 people who did not have employment-based coverage or Medicare and sought coverage in the private insurance market reported they could not find care at an affordable price.

Right now, insurance company bureaucrats most often determine the quality and type of care people receive based on a cost-benefit analysis designed to ensure high profits for the insurance company. Many insurance companies, in order to ensure high profits, will refuse coverage to people who they deem to have "preexisting conditions." Such decisions are unfair and exclude people who need medical care the most. Medical decisions should be left up to patients and their doctors. They should be determined by need not profit margins.

Progress in Congress

Two draft health reform proposals produced by Senate and House committees recently include a public option for people and families who can't afford or are dissatisfied with the private insurance market. Early analysis of the Senate concept, which was drafted in the Senate Health Committee chaired by Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Massachusetts, showed it would provide a choice of private or public health coverage, an employer mandate and a guarantee against insurance companies refusing coverage for preexisting conditions.

A bill written in the House Health Committee that could come out as this week would reportedly also creates a national health "exchange" that would also include the choice between private and public insurance plans.

Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Connecticut, who is spearheading the effort in the Senate Health committee, told health care activists on a labor-sponsored teleconference call June 18th that the issue has the utmost urgency.

"Every day we delay, every day we slow down, every day we don't work a little harder, just remember those numbers," Sen. Dodd stated. "Fourteen thousand people every day and families are put in harm's way, put a great risk as a result of this notion that somehow we have to delay this further."

Dodd expressed his support for a strong public health care choice. "The primary reason is I don't know how you drive down costs if you don't have it," he explained. He added that he thinks bipartisanship is an important part of the legislative process, but argued that key portions of the reform package should not be sacrificed for it. The process will likely extend into the fall, Dodd concluded, and he pleaded for a strong commitment from the people and from labor to continue to push hard for passage.

Labor and its allies

Labor welcomed the key provisions in the Senate Health committee draft of the reform bill. AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said, "The strong draft of the Americans Health Choices Act that the Committee made public ... demonstrates their commitment to comprehensive reform and the kind of leadership and energy the country needs to finally win quality, affordable health care for all."

Sweeney proceeded to reject insurance lobbyist's opposition to the public option. "Passing health care reform that includes a quality public health insurance option is crucial to America's workers because it will provide a competitive impetus for companies to reduce overhead expenses and lower costs," he said. "Their true agenda is to hold onto their record profits and bonuses by preventing Americans from being able to choose between private insurance and a quality public health insurance option."

National health care reform advocates are closely following the progress of health reform in the legislative process. Health Care for America Now (HCAN), a national coalition of more than 1,000 groups, including labor unions, small business groups and community organizations in 44 states, supports a reform package similar to President Obama's.

Margarida Jorge, the national field director for HCAN, said that the legislative process is moving swiftly and that her organization is working with key legislators to ensure the final outcome will contain the basic principles her organization and its coalition partners support. There are four, she says. "The first being that we think everybody should have a guarantee of quality, affordable coverage." Second, costs should be tied to income, she said.

Third, "we think people should have the choice of keeping the insurance plan that they have or getting their insurance from a different private plan or the choice of getting their insurance from a public health insurance plan," Jorge added.

Finally, health reform should also address inequality issues (by race, gender, nationality and region) that currently plague the broken health system, she concluded.

Community health centers

Community health centers also have a huge role to play in the reform struggle, especially in injecting equity into the system for women, said Planned Parenthood Action Fund President Cecile Richards. Health reform should include adequate funding for these clinics. An estimated 17 million people use community clinics as a source of care.

Planned Parenthood, for example, operates some 850 such clinics across the country. They provide essential primary and preventive care such as cancer screenings, breast exams, STD testing and contraception to millions of women each year.

“Planned Parenthood affiliate health centers are part of an essential network of community providers that serve as a critical entry point into the health care system for millions of women. For many of these women the only doctor or nurse they see is one they visit at a health center like Planned Parenthood. Often times, women come into a center for information and end up seeking preventive care that could potentially save their lives,” said Richards in a recent statement.

Women, people of color, rural communities and low-income families rely on community centers most. They pay higher out-of-pocket expenses and have a higher tendency to put off care because of costs. Serious investments that help expand access to and the quality of community health centers would help close this gap in access to care. While President Obama's economic recovery act provided more than $2.5 billion for community health centers, that funding expires at the end of 2010.

Doctors support reform

Doctors have become an important ally for the President and reform advocates in the current struggle. A new survey released last week revealed that people trust doctors the most on this issue. And a well-crafted public option, especially, will help doctors meet their goals for and responsibility to their patients, said Dr. Vivek Murthy, president of Doctors for America, an organization that supports including a public option in comprehensive health reform and claims the backing of more than 13,000 doctors.

"As physicians we're seeing everyday examples of how the private insurance industry is failing our patients," Dr. Murthy said. "We know that a robust, well-crafted public plan, a plan that basically gives more of our patients the access that they need, that provides them with choice over their insurer, that rewards physicians for delivering the kind of care that they want, and also provides quality and promotes prevention and wellness."

Doctors will not sit on the sidelines in this debate, added Dr. Alice Chen, executive director of Doctors for America. "We are ready to be partners in this reform process," she noted. "Our patients need this reform, and that includes access and allows us to deliver quality care to all Americans."

Doctors have countered well-publicized opposition to the President's plan by the American Medical Association (AMA) by noting that other national associations of doctors support universal health care reform, including the American Medical Student Association (AMSA). Former AMSA organizer Dr. Flavio Casoy told us on a recent episode of the Political Affairs podcast that the broken health care system keeps him awake at night. "Physicians in training really see the front lines of the collapsing health care system," said Casoy.

"Most of us work in academic medical centers, county hospitals, community clinics, free clinics where the people who are not able to access care or the people who may have insurance but not the insurance that covers all they need often turn to when they need care," Casoy explained. While these institutions strive to provide quality, they are often overloaded with patients who lack coverage or have inadequate coverage that limits effective medical care. While many patients have conditions that are normally easy to resolve with proper care, the lack of coverage delays access, stalls prevention and wellness and turns simple medical care into expensive and complicated, even deadly, problems.

"When I go to bed at night, I see the dozens of faces of people who died, who got sick, who didn't get better because of our broken health care system," Casoy reported.

The American Academy of Family Practitioners, the American Academy of Pediatricians, the National Physician's Alliance, the Committee of Interns and Residents and the Doctors Council of SEIU Healthcare, and the Student National Medical Association also support a public health insurance option.

It makes economic sense

Economists also favor health reform, identifying it as key to economic revival. A recent statement signed by more than 330 prominent economists argued that health reform is needed now to turn the recession around and to eliminate the long-term drag on the economy caused by rising health care costs and insurance premiums.

According to Phillip Cryan, an economist at UC Berkeley, reform would free up money for investments in economically innovative things and promote financial stability for business owners. If a reform bill passed that included an employer mandate and a public option, Cryan explained, both job growth and long-term economic health could be expected. Two big reasons are these: Employers, especially small business owners, will reap enormous savings, allowing them to reinvest in their businesses and other innovative economic activity. Reduced health costs will free up investment flows across the whole economy, allowing for new growth now hampered by a bloated health care system.

If a reform package includes a public option, Cryan concluded, "There should be very large efficiency gains for the economy as a whole, freeing up resources for productive, job-creating economic activity."

Small business

Potential savings for business owners has added a new and powerful voice to the debate, added HCAN's Margarida Jorge. "It's important to businesses of all sizes, but in particular small businesses because small businesses are just really being crushed by the cost of health care," she said. "They really get a raw deal."

"The number one threat facing business in this country, facing small business and facing family budgets is the high cost of health care," said Jorge. "Small business people are incredibly important spokespeople on health care."

For these reasons, a new group of small business owners, the Main Street Alliance, has endorsed the main principles of the Obama health reform plan. According its website, this new coalition with affiliates in 15 states so far has endorsed a reform package that will reduce health care costs for small business owners, provide universal affordable access, including a public insurance option and create shared financial commitment on the part of business, the government and workers to pay the cost of coverage. The alliance also participated in the June 25th rally and lobby day actions sponsored by HCAN and its coalition partners.

Unity against health care monopolies

Despite popular support, a moral imperative and economic and fiscal necessity, insurance companies oppose the public option concept. The public option is only controversial because insurance companies and other powerful interests are standing in the way of progress, said Richard Kirsch, national campaign manager for HCAN on a teleconference with reporters last week. "The question of why this controversial comes down to not what's going on outside the beltway but what's going on inside the beltway."

Opposition to reform comes down to protecting insurance company profits or right-wing ideology regardless of the facts or the realities of people's lives.

On the question of the unity of the movement for meaningful reform, Jorge said, unity among those who support reform isn't the real problem. The real problem comes form the powerful corporations who oppose reform.

Jorge says that she sees broad consensus across the whole public in support of the President's plan. "I don't view [unity] as such a huge issue; the public is essentially unified." Jorge added that she believes the fight for universal health care reform won't end when a bill is signed this year by President Obama.

HCAN and its coalition partners brought upwards of 10,000 people to Washington, D.C. June 25th, for a massive health care reform rally and lobby day action. Afterward, hundreds of activists visited with more than 300 members of Congress that day to advocate for these core reform principles. Town hall meetings and local congressional visits are also in the works. HCAN events are scheduled for this month and August as well.

We at Political Affairs encourage all of our listeners, readers and supporters to be as deeply involved as possible in the struggle to pass health reform this year that includes a public plan.

Light at the End of the Unemployment Line? (June 25th)

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 02:41:00 +0000

Some good news, if it could be called that, came out in the business media this week. First, the Commerce Department revised downward its estimate of the GDP growth for the first quarter of this year from negative 5.7 percent to negative 5.5 percent. The economy didn't collapse as badly in the first three months of this year as first thought.

Second, an industry-wide index of manufacturing activity grew at a faster rate than expected. According to media reports, the manufacturing index grew to 42.8 in the month of May, exceeding April's reading of 40.1. Still, experts point out that a reading below 50 indicates contraction of the manufacturing sector. The index bottomed out at 23.1 in December 2008. A second survey of manufacturers also revealed a higher than expected growth in new orders in the month of May.

These glimmers of economic hope were overshadowed, however, by this week's new jobless numbers. According to Department of Labor statistics released today, June 25th, initial jobless claims for unemployment benefits for the week ending June 20th increased over the previous week by 15,000 to 627,000. This means that 627,000 newly laid-off people filed for unemployment benefits during that week. This week's numbers put the moving four-week average up by about 500, the DOL reported.

By comparison, in November 2007, the month prior to the official beginning of the recession, the weekly average of new jobless claims stood at just over 325,000.

The DOL also reported that 6.73 million people received unemployment benefits during the week ending June 13th, an increase of 29,000 over the previous week. Over the previous month, that number had grown slightly.

According to the DOL figures released June 5, the unemployment rate jumped five-tenths of a point to 9.4 percent in the month of May, slightly higher than economists predicted. The bright spot, if it could be called such, was that the loss of 345,000 jobs in that month is only about half the average monthly decline over the previous six months.

The number of unemployed workers jumped by 787,000 to 14.5 million in the month of May, a rise of 7 million since the beginning of the recession in December 2007.

Accurately sensing a growing anxiety among Americans that an economic turnaround hasn't been swift enough, the Obama administration this month made a strong push to announce the speed up of economic stimulus projects. On the heels of the news that the US economy shed another 345,000 jobs in May, adding to the nearly 6 million jobs lost since the beginning of the recession in December 2007, President Obama said that the next phase of the economic stimulus package will create 600,000 jobs in the next couple of months.

The worsening jobs picture prompted the AFL-CIO to launch a new Web site, Unemployment Lifeline, designed to help unemployed workers find the resources they need to survive in the recession. The site provides information on local aid for unemployment compensation benefits, child care, medical care, utility assistance and more. It also links workers to political action on such issues as passing the Employee Free Choice Act, universal health care reform and more.

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney called for sweeping action in a press statement. 'We also must make broad-based economic changes to have sustained economic growth and an economy that works for everyone,' he stated. 'We must deal with our country’s unsustainable trade deficit. We must reform our financial regulatory system to provide more transparency and government oversight and regulation. And we must pass the Employee Free Choice Act so workers can win the freedom to form unions and bargain collectively with their employers for fair wages, security and benefits.'

The continuing bad jobs news has some calling for a second stimulus package, including a second expansion of unemployment benefits and anti-poverty measures, new funds for public works projects, investments in the conversion of shuttered auto plants to green economy productions (solar panels, wind turbines, etc.), and more relief for state and local budget shortfalls.

Is the Global Recession Over?

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 01:55:00 +0000

6-25-09, 9:39 am

Original source: People's Democracy

Finance ministers of the G8, meeting at Lecce in Italy during the latter part of week ending June 14, were cautiously optimistic. The final communiqué noted that in the aftermath of efforts at financial stabilization and fiscal stimulation “there are signs of stabilization in our economies, including a recovery of stock markets, a decline in interest rate spreads, (and) improved business and consumer confidence.” But, the ministers cautioned “the situation remains uncertain and significant risks remain to economic and financial stability.”

There were two elements of the communiqué that pointed to a compromise between the differing perceptions of the US and UK, on the one hand, and Germany and France, on the other, regarding the principal problems and tasks at hand. The first of these elements was the reference to the persistence of “significant risks” which was not there in the original draft of the communiqué, and was ostensibly inserted by those countries (UK and US) who feel that it is not yet time to decide that the recovery is here and the stimulus provided thus far has been adequate. Moreover, the mention of “encouraging figures in the manufacturing sector” that figured in the draft was dropped, since it went against the evidence that industrial production in the eurozone area had fallen by 21 per cent in April, relative to the corresponding month of the previous year.

LEADING POWERS DIFFER ON EMPHASIS

The second element of the communiqué of interest is that it pushes for going beyond thinking of recovery and formulating national level “exit strategies” “for unwinding the extraordinary policy measures taken to respond to the crisis.” The reference here is to the huge budget deficits and high levels of public debt that many countries, especially the US, have accumulated in the wake of the bail-outs and the stimulus packages they have put in place. Though the US and UK have played down this aspect of the discussions, there is clearly a difference in emphasis among the leading powers on where the world economy stands and what is the immediate priority in terms of action.

The difference hinges, quite clearly, on the extent to which different sections believe that the worst is over. The reason for uncertainty regarding a potential recovery is that the figures are yet to point to a definitive revival. As of May 2009, nearly two years since the financial crisis broke and a year-and-a-half after the onset of the global recession, the economic scenario remains uncertain, if not bleak. The rate of unemployment in the US, which stood at less than five percent in the first quarter of 2008, had risen to 8.1 percent in the first quarter of 2009 and is estimated to have touched 9.4 percent in May 2009 – its highest rate for the last 26 years. This possibly explains US pessimism. It is true that the unemployment rate in the European Union had also risen from 6.8 to 8.1 percent between the first quarters of 2008 and 2009. But the higher base level may be making the problem appear less alarming to ruling governments there than in the US, influencing their perceptions.

Output growth too gives no cause for optimism. Quarter-on-quarter growth rates of US GDP (as measured relative to the corresponding quarter of the previous year) had declined sharply in the last quarter of 2008 and first quarter of 2009 across the G7. This decline was even sharper in the UK and the EU, than the US). The crisis had clearly not gone away by the beginning of April, despite signs of recovery in the stock market. The disconcerting element is that this situation prevails despite huge infusion of funds by G7 governments. According to one estimate, the US Federal Reserve had by April 2009 offered about $12.7 trillion in guarantees and commitments to the US financial sector, and spent a little over $4 trillion in combating the crisis. As a result the federal deficit has risen to more than 12 per cent of GDP, frightening fiscal conservatives who predict the onset of stagflation. The big thrust seems to be over and the recovery is still not in sight. What it has possibly done, and even that is not certain, is prevent the recession from turning into a depression.

OPTIMISM BASED ON STILL TENUOUS EVIDENCE

Despite this evidence relating to the period till the last full quarter for which numbers are available, speculation that the downturn has bottomed out and the developed world is on the verge of recovery proliferates. This optimism is based on still tenuous evidence, including evidence that the rate of decline of economies is slowing. The most important of these is that the monthly decline in employment in the US is down sharply. In May 2009 nonfarm payroll employment fell by 345,000, which is around half the average monthly decline over the previous six months and well below the close to 750,000 fall in January this year. Associated with this fall in monthly employment declines is a fall in new unemployment claims. Economist Robert Gordon of Northwestern University in the US, a respected analyst of growth and productivity trends in the US, has found that past recessions came to an end four to six weeks after new unemployment claims peaked, which they have now done. So he conjectures that the business cycle will find its trough in May or June (Financial Times, June 3, 2009). While these developments are reassuring, we should view them in the light of the fact that the unemployment rate is at record levels and new unemployment claims are still above the figures they touched in the worst months of the last recession.

A second cause for optimism is that US producers may be reaching the phase of their inventory cycle where an increase in production is inevitable. By April, wholesale inventories had fallen for the eighth month running as firms cut back production to clear the excess inventories generated by falling demand. Having made those adjustments, it is argued, firms are now in a position where they would have to step up production, especially if demand begins to stabilize. In other words, the argument is that since things are so bad, they can only get better. But the figures do not support even this position. Thus, after seven months of decline, inventories in April fell 1.4 percent relative to the year before and 6.4 percent relative to the corresponding month of the previous year. That was because sales fell by 0.4 percent in April, led by automobiles and parts. Sales of durable goods too were down 1.9 percent during the month and 23.4 percent over the year.

The third potential cause for comfort is the sign that relative to previous months the decline in production is slowing. The available evidence shows that the decline in GDP relative to the immediately preceding quarter, which was rising till the first quarter of 2009, seems to have bottomed out in the US and to a lesser extent in the EU. What is more, this trend seems to be reflected even in the month-on-month annual growth rates of industrial production, with the rate of decline in April 2009 relative to the corresponding month of the previous year showing signs of reversing its hitherto continuous increase in the US, UK and EU.

While this third factor may be adequate reason for optimism for some, there are two reasons why we should not read too much into this data. To start with, even if the downturn is touching bottom in terms of the stabilization of the rate of decline, the decline could persist and the economy could “bounce along the bottom” as some analysts reportedly speculate. That is, there is no “statistical” reason why a stable rate of decline should automatically lead to lower rates of decline and positive rates of growth in the coming months or quarters.

Further, it is unclear whether there would be adequate alternative stimuli to sustain the recovery when the effects of the already implemented fiscal stimulus wane. Governments could hold back on providing any fresh stimulus because of arguments of the kind espoused by conservative economists, representatives of the financial sector and even some European governments, which emphasize the dangers of inflation. If that happens, recovery would depend on the return of the consumer to the market.

But here too the prognosis is not all too happy. Fears generated by the recession and rising unemployment and the increased desire to save to make up for the decline in the values of accumulated housing and financial assets is encouraging savings even in the US. According to a recent estimated of the Federal Reserve, the net worth of US households had fallen 2.5 percent or by $1,300 billion in just the first three months of 2009. This comes on top of the 18 percent fall in the previous year which was the worst since the Fed began estimating household wealth in 1946. The net result is that household savings rates in the US are rising and consumer spending was falling in March and April this year.

In the event many still remain skeptical. The Financial Times quotes Martin Feldstein as saying that “it is possible but unlikely” that the recession is over. “I think it is a more likely scenario that we are seeing the favorable effects of the fiscal stimulus,” he reportedly said. “That, for a while, will offset the general diminished trend we have seen over the past two quarters, but it is a one-shot thing.” Put otherwise, there could be more bad news ahead.

Venezuela and US Move to Normalize Relations

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 01:46:00 +0000

6-25-09, 9:30 am

Venezuela and the United States agree to improve bilateral relations Ambassadors to Return to their Posts The Minister of People’s Power for Foreign Affairs, Nicolas Maduro Moros, confirmed Wednesday that in the coming days, Venezuelan and US ambassadors, Bernardo Alvarez and Patrick Duddy, will return to their respective diplomatic posts.

'The Assistant Secretary for the Western Hemisphere, Thomas Shannon, told us, as was published by some media, that the Obama administration wants to have more fluid communication and to improve relations. Our position on this issue is very clear, and we are ready to move forward,' said Maduro.

The diplomatic crisis between the United States and Venezuela deepened starting on September 11, 2008, when President Chavez decided to expel US Ambassador Patrick Duddy out of solidarity with President Evo Morales, who had done the same in Bolivia following violent attacks by separatist elements who attempted to thwart the last constitutional referendum in the Latin American nation.

For this reason, the President also ordered the immediate return of Venezuela’s Ambassador to the United States, Bernardo Alvarez, to Caracas. Ever since Barack Obama assumed the presidency of the United States, both heads of states have expressed their desire to resolve their differences and restore relations. --Ministry of People's Power for Foreign Affairs, Translation by the Press Unit of the Embassy of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela to the United States, June 24, 2009.